Kingdoms raised 

Kingdoms crumbled.

Kings reigned

Kings befallen.

Things mortal, they never last. 

Power you held dearly in your bloody hands

Gold and silver and riches

You paid for with your life

What good are they

When the sun is overcome by darkness

And all things under the heavens 

Turn to dust?

"The brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over we realize this: that the human race has been roughly handled, but that it has advanced." 

On grief

Quite a good analogy

Anna Quindlen

"In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself. More powerfully and persuasively than from the "shalt nots" of the Ten Commandments, I learned the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. A Wrinkle in Time described that evil, that wrong, existing in a different dimension from our own. But I felt that I, too, existed much of the time in a different dimension from everyone else I knew. There was waking, and there was sleeping. And then there were books, a kind of parallel universe in which anything might happen and frequently did, a universe in which I might be a newcomer but was never really a stranger. My real, true world. My perfect island."

I feel the same way sometimes- that reading brings you into a parallel universe and let you live through a many different lives, experiences, emotions, etc. A Book sometimes intrigues you, creeps you out, makes you cry, makes you smile, inspires you, piques your curiosity...it's no wonder that we sometimes seek solace in books.  I love that sense of serenity on a quiet afternoon, sitting with a book, and a cup of hot tea, and it is double the bliss when it is gloomy, rainy day. I don't know why but I always feel that rainy days complement books perfectly. 

This is where I leave you,

This is when I leave you.

You left me with nowhere to go,

And the only road,

Is the one where you will not be.

Your mind was made,

Yet I had waited

Like a fool chasing after rainbows

Under the grey winter skies.

Now I understand,

Your beginning was my end,

The unseen path

I blindly tread

To another world where you will not be. 

How do you measure time?

Sometimes hours become days

And days become hours.

I count each second 

Tick tock time runs away.

Proust and the squid - Maryanne wolf

I was attracted to the title of the book when I bought it. Proust is on my reading list and I was curious what a famous french author and squid had to do with one another. Alas, I'm not sure if I wanna finish this book although the subject matter is interesting. It talks about the invention of language and how the brain was re-wired to acquire reading skills. It's not a book that one can speed read through and I wonder if it's worth spending time on. 

Socrates decried the use of written language and deemed oral culture to be superior to than of a written one. It is also posited in the book that the Greek efficient alphabet system allows its learners to gain linguistic capability at an earlier age and also allows them to create novel thoughts. The reasoning behind this is that a simplified alphabet system taxes the brain less (wolf suggested that oral languages such as that of the Sumeritans/Egyptians require memory and other meta-cognitive strategies for literacy), this explains the outburst of philosophical, theatrical and scientific undertakings during the Classical Greek period. 

21 oct - 25 oct