Re-watched good will hunting. The overthinker perhaps find it hard to love because you anticipate so much of the what ifs, all the worst case scenarios that would happen, letting logic win, when love is perhaps meant to defy all logic. Sometimes I wonder if it’s harder to let someone love us than to love someone. Because we are well aware of all the parts that may be unloveable, that others may not accept us warts and all. And so, we run away from love, run away from possibilities because it would be too much to bear when our prophesy is realized.

In other words- jhumpa lahiri

Have always loved her work, which mostly revolve around Indian migrants. The mix of reality and fiction is what makes her characters come alive. This book however, is a memoir of sorts about her love affair with the Italian language. Her frustration that she would always be seen as an “outsider” no matter how fluently she speaks the language by virtue of her appearance. It also speaks of her struggles with being an “Italian” writer after having made a name for herself as an American writer. Read somewhere that picking up a language after the age of 10 means that it would be next to impossible for us to speak like a native. I wonder why sometimes we are attracted to a particular language. Is it the way the words sound, look, their structure, vocab, etc ? Lahiri was so enamoured with the language that she uprooted herself and moved to Italy, feeling depressed when she went back to America for a holiday because she was no longer surrounded by the sound of the language.
I enjoyed the little stories she included in the book- her first attempts at writing in Italian. She also spoke of how she was enthralled by the poetry of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (so that’s where Kafka snitched the title) when she first read it in Latin. Metamorphoses is considered an epic and borrows the Greek mythological characters like the Apollo. Lahiri recounts the story of how Apollo pursued Daphne and Daphne wanting to deflect his advances, morphed into a laurel tree in a forest where she had longed to be. In a sense, Daphne was free but not entirely so. Apollo on the other hand could touch Daphne but not own her. I think it’s kinda bittersweet.

On a side note, I’ve not been sleeping much ever since the return from the Philippines. Bad case of insomnia, not sure why. Have tried barring myself from the phone from 10pm onwards but doesn’t seem like it’s doing my sleep any good.

I wish and pray for an uninterrupted sleep. That’s all I want.

Would you spend the days with me
In the half light of dawn
In the half light of the setting sun?
We would go the dusty roads
Catch the wind in our sails.
We may tumble and fall
You say,
But my dear,
The roads are a-calling.
Let the western wind jostle our soul
Let the tides toss us to shore
Throw caution to the wind
We are running into the storm.

The hardest part is often having to pretend that everything is fine and that you do not care. Sometimes we care too much, looking for clues just to confirm our greatest fears because, just because. Jealousy... in the past, I chose to be upset but now, I guess I’ll have to let things slide. Some things, they are beyond your grasp, and it’s better to let go. I think maybe some things and some people are not meant to be owned and perhaps, we are better off just knowing that that thing/person could make someone else happier.

You were only passing through.
Fleeting,
A wisp of gentle air.
My heart skipped a beat or two
When I heard your breath
But I remember now,
You were only passing through.

You were only passing through.
Swiftly,
You sent your heart away.
But for a second or two
I thought you belonged to me,
But I remember now,
You were only passing through.

You were only passing through,
Fading,
Like the last rays of the dusty sun
I long for an eternity or maybe two
But the night falls
And I remember now,
You belong to yesterday,
No longer a part of my tomorrows.

Living to tell the tale -gabriel marquez garcia

The memoir started with Garcia’s mother asking him to go with her to their hometown to sell their old house. Garcia’s life just seemed so unreal and dramatic that it felt more like fiction at times. I am also amazed at how he could possibly remember conversations and events which happened decades ago.  One finds riots, ghosts, assassinations, love, family, friends, poverty, deaths, passion, and so much more in his life story.
His father was bent on sending him to law school, which he obediently obliged for 2 years before deciding that there’s no way he could live being any other thing except a writer.  If he had not had the courage to rebel against his father, I guess we wouldn’t have 100 years of solitude and love in the time of cholera.
Garcia was an avid reader who was fortunate enough to meet other voracious readers who introduced him to the classics like Sophocles and the likes, which helped shaped his writing. I remember he was deeply impressed by kafka’s Metamorphoses, and thought the opening line of the story was the greatest thing ever written .
I guess I wasn’t quite as taken as he was. Went to borrow Kafka’s metamorphosis and I’m not exactly sure what’s so fascinating about a guy waking up to find himself having morphed into a cockroach. I guess the idea is startling and beyond imagination but the prose, I’m not so sure. The read was to be fair, intriguing enough to keep the reader entertained and the writing was moving enough that I felt the sorrow of Gregor and the frustration and impatience of his family at the end of the story. But was it something that blew me away? Not really.
Anyway I digress.
I love garcia’s Memoir and was moved by his passion for writing so much so that he was willing to go hungry for it. How many people in our time and especially in a place like Singapore, would be willing to make that kind of sacrifice?
The society has shaped our values of what’s important. We care too much about others’ opInions and the price tag they put on things. What is it that really matters to us?

The naked tourist -lawrence Osborne

I actually can’t quite recall if I finished reading The Naked Tourist before leaving for the Philippines. I think I did but after more than a month, I’ve forgotten what it was exactly about. All I remember was the author traveling to far flung places like Papua New Guinea and visiting some fierce and almost extinct tribes in Indonesia. And then going to Bangkok for some colon cleansing procedure and visiting a sex change clinic, etc. I think the gist of the book was about understanding what it meant to be a tourist vs a traveler. What’s really the difference between the two?
Is one better than the other?