record my learnings from books

I learned that Harry Potter is fantastic and I love him beyond all reason. (and by “him” I of course mean everyone in the books and everything about them. ... except Lucian. He’s a dick).

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

I love this quote. Rather than a meaning to life, life itself is the meaning. agh, don’t get me started.
I’ll be writing more from this book. You just wait.

A Short History of Myth (Myths) is perhaps one of the best books I’ve ever read. I just finished for the second time (a first for me) and once again it hits me like …like… something… hitty… :/
I love a good call-to-arms. Armstrong finishes with a righteous callout asking writers and artists to start making new myths for our people. And that’s exactly what I want to do.
I HIGHLY recommend this book. If once you’ve started you feel like you can’t finish… just read the last chapter. It’s just awesome.
BRING BACK THE APPLICATION OF MYTH!

...hmmm that doesn’t sound as cool out loud as it does in my head…

In the last chapter of E.H. Gombrich’s “A Little History of the World” other than explaining corrections that the author has learnt since it’s original German 1935 release (!!) he says that perhaps we are somewhere near a Golden Age, but no one really wants to admit it.
And I think I’m going to agree with him. What does our Western world have? Health, money, freedom. I mean, sure, we’re far from a cultural / social Golden Age, but what many of our forefathers (and mothers) have fought for is that physical prosperity. So many pieces have been played with the single motive of one day adding to a (Western) world where we don’t have to worry about our houses being bombed, or our land invaded and the nirvana of waking up in the morning and decided for ourselves what we want to do with our lives.
We have that. Right now.
After my head worked through this, the wonderous “how do I deserve this” guilt kicked in. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering if / how it’s fair that I can throw money away on something like the Wii (no matter how awesome that may be Buy a Nintendo Wii) but there’s people starving. That isn’t fair.
But how rude is to deny what previous generations have fought so hard for? If I wait for the whole world to hit their stride at the exact same time I very much doubt I will ever allow myself to be happy. -so it was around about now I sat down and was pleased as punch for my corner of the globe.
And with that enthusiasm promptly realised it is now my (our) responsibility to one: make the most of our time and enjoy the fruits of our Golden Age (if it even is one) and two: fight our hardest to share our blessings with anyone else who isn’t as fortunate. It’s not just a “nice” thing to do… it’s the “right” thing to do; our responsibility as those that are fortunate.

This “guilt of a golden age” idea I’ve found really interesting and I’m going to be slotting it firmly into my writing. Very exciting. I seem to like writing about guilt. odd.

-and now you can all defriend me cos you can see how very convoluted and wanky my blog is going to be. tha end.

Alright. I’m posting this to both my 43 things and my LJ in an attempt to be more net-involved (ie online friends) to actually use 43 things and LJ for once and to record my wanky thinkings.
So really this isn’t so much a diary of me but i diary of my head (it’ll get messy) and … i might even start posting chapters of my book (on LJ anyway). Who knows.
Here’s to the crap that is me trying to be netsociable! WOOT!