Notes of a Reader

It's another one of those days when I just shouldn't get on FaceBook. I know better. Shockingly, I'm drawn to the damn thing like an insect to a fluorescent light. BIDZZZZ. Yup. Heart fried.

So I'm reading this book. I have raced through it and I still can't even tell you if I like it. Mostly because I don't really get along with the author - which may only make sense to those of you who read all the time. Or maybe just to me. I enjoy his discoveries, how he describes his revelations, though some I myself had years ago and find mundane, but I cannot stand who he portrays himself to be... an odd place to be when you've read over 300 pages of someone's work, giggled at times, been stumped at times, and tagged every few pages with a quote you must write about... but it's really about his experience. Not him, which is a new contradiction I'm not entirely sure I'm fond of.

My personal uneasiness aside, there were many many parts of the book I'd like to share -- if not mostly to reflect on when I have time. So the following are all quotes from "The Geography of Bliss" by Eric Weiner, some of which are his words, and some are the words of those he met on his journey.

• "'We're here because we're here; if you want an explanation I've usually found it a soothing one.'" (36)
• "When the last tree is cut, when the last river is emptied, When the last fish is caught, Only then will man realize that he can not eat money." (37) 
• "... I have achieved happiness because I don't have unrealistic expectations." (63)
• "... there is nothing greater than compassion. If you have dome something good, then in the moment you should feel satisfaction." (63)
• "You need to think about death for five minutes every day. It will cure you, sanitize you.... It is this thing, this fear of death, this fear of dying before we have accomplished what we want or seen our children grow. This is what is troubling you... Rich people in the west, they have not touched dead bodies, fresh wounds, rotten things. This is a problem. This is the human condition. We have to be ready for the moment we cease to exist." (65)
• "We try to eliminate the need for compromise... Why shouldn't everyone enjoy their own personal comfort level, be it in a car or in a bed? ... What [do] we lose in such conveniences. If we no longer must compromise on the easy stuff, like mattresses, then what about the truly important issues? Compromise is a skill, and like all skills it atrophies from lack of use." (87)
• "Our families are our greatest source of love and support. They are also the ones who, statistically, are mostly likely to kill us... They are our salvation and our ruin." (111)
• "So the greatest source of happiness is other people - and what does money do? It isolates us from other people It enables us to build walls, literal and figurative, around ourselves. We move from a teeming college dorm to an apartment to a house and, if we're really wealthy, to an estate. We think we're moving up, but really we're walling ourselves off." (114)
• "... all is maya, illusion. Things are not as they seem... Our highs, our accomplishments, are not real. But neither are out setbacks, our mushkala. They are not real either." (139)
• "Necessity may be the mother of invention, but interdependence is the mother of affections. WE humans need one another, so we cooperate - for purely selfish reasons at first. At some point though, the needing fades and all that remains is the cooperation. We help other people because we can, or because it makes us feel good, not because we're counting on some future payback. There is a word for this: love." (143)
• "The line between the actor and the act blurs and, in some cases, disappears entirely. There is no dancer. There is only dancing. Flow is not the same as happiness. In fact, when we interrupt flow to take stock of our happiness, we lose both." (172)
• "Neuroscientists believe they have located the part of the brain linked to altruism. To their surprise, it turns out to be a more primitive part of the brain than initially suspected - the same part associated with our cravings for food and sex. That suggests that we are hardwired for altruism and not just faking it." (202)
• "'One always begins to forget a place as soon as it's left behind.'" (217) - Charles Dickens
• "Lesson number one [from Moldova]: 'Not my problem' is not a philosophy. It's a mental illness. Right up there with pessimism. Other people's problems are our problems. ... 'The quality of a society is more important than your place in that society.' In other words, better to be a small fish in a clean pond than a big fish in a polluted lake.'" (218)
• "I've spent most of my life trying to think myself to happiness, and my failure to achieve that goal only proves, in my mind, that I am to a good enough thinking. It never occurred to me that the source of my unhappiness is not flawed thinking but thinking itself."
• "... if nothing you do matters, then life suddenly feels a lot less heavy. It's just one big game. And as any 10 yr old will tell you, the best games are the ones where everyone gets to play." (241)
• "They want meaningful lives, and those are not always the same as happy lives." (237)
• "And that... is the problem with hedonic floaters like... many of us Americans and our perpetual pursuit of happiness. We may be fairly happy now, but there's always tomorrow and the prospect of a happier place, a happier life. So all options are left on the table. We never fully commit. That is, I think, a dangerous thing. We can't love a place, or a person, if we always have one foot out the door."(318)
• "There is one simple question, he said, the answer to which identifies your true home. That question is: 'Where do you want to die?'" (320)

I find it strange that within minutes of finishing the book, the quotes that I found so important while reading, I now find mundane... normally not the case with a good book. Hmm -- I really don't like this author. I shall reflect on the few that still stick to me. I even skipped several as I went along typing them here ... hmm... 

Too much thinking. I'm going to blast my face in the A/C and watch an episode of something remarkably stupid and meaningless - like Glee.