Book Review: South of the Boarder, West of the Sun

Murakami’s another book south of the border west of the sun, is a must read for all men and women who build their life and think love and marriage are the easiest thing ever. Like Paulo Coelho said there is no such thing as happy love. If you are dreaming or fantasizing you would be happy in love, could not be more wrong. A true lovein my opinion is, passionate and consumes you in its heat and blaze. I am not judging, if you have the happy love, don’t take my word. Everyone has their own way of loving.

I don’t know where or when but long time ago the term ”making love” was a replacement word to lessen the Violent word to have sex or fuck. Anyhow am not talking about sex or love. I keep drifting in and out. The book is mainly about the mid life crisis especially in men. I mean Murakami only can write from male perspective. Am not there yet, but it never hurts to prepare yourself.

It tells story of Hajime his life from age of 12 to present 37. A happily married guy, with a beautiful wife, two girls, a successful business owner, but he was willing to drain it in toilet for another woman. Mid life crisis I used to take it for granted or laugh about it with sitcoms I see in TV. It is no laughing matter. It can burn you and people you care about together. You might think it is just about you, but trust me it’s not.

The plot and the writing is just superb. How he wrote the book just makes you feel experienced already from Hajime. As a wise Ethiopian quote says a wise man learns from mistakes of others, only a fool learns after it happened to him.

I don’t want to take that chance. This is one of the reasons am obsessed with books. I learn a lot before it happens to me. I don’t want to burn myself and people I love in my stupid hormonal imbalance.

Hope you will read this book and prepare for the trouble which might come. Here are some Quotes from the book.

“here she is, all mine, trying her best to give me all she can. How could I ever hurt her? But I didn’t understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Once thing goes wrong, then the whole house of cards collapses. And there’s no way you can extricate yourself. Until someone comes along to drag you out.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

Conversation with Thyself

Let’s face it the longest conversation we had is with ourselves, I know if it got longer you might be labeled as insane and might be placed in asylum.

But it’s true, after encounter with anyone even how brief it’s, we play the tape in our head in the vacuum of silence. Sometimes it is referred as awkward moment. It is always eluded me what I could have said better than my actual answer that slipped out of my mouth or impressed how did I managed to say something better than I ever dreamed.

One of this people who never failed to impress me is Mark my best friend. It might be the most sarcastic or stupidest or the wisest saying comes from him. Don’t get me wrong am always entertained by that. Not all people though, they might storm out of the room offended.

What are you even thinking about in this instant of, jumping from the previous paragraph to this? You see we can’t help ourselves. Our mind is impulsive and cannot help itself to exercise its self.  Our mind never fails to judge, measure and decide how it sees and fits best. The funny thing is there is regret that you would have done things differently.

Take any scenario of your life and it occurs to you somehow sooner or later you think you had a better idea, action or word which would have made the whole scenario different.

This is left open for your thought, from the simplest how my blog could have been written better to any complex and abstract idea your mind keep drifting to.

The best thing is our mind never fails to exercise and create fantasies, dreams, scenarios, solutions, etc. . . Exercise it boldly, and helps you go crazier or genius and what so ever you desire. We are nothing of brain. All is bound to come and end with our head.

Book Review: Life of Pi II Survival

Life of Pi Cover

My adventure with pi continues. We are in open sea with a bunch of animals plus a Tiger obviously, I can’t hide that and the hate I had for hyenas just increased 10 times after Lion King. Remember what they tried to do little Simba? Anyhow, the book goes on with imaginative narrating and feeling the sea, smelling the salt water, rocking with the wave, most of the fear and other emotions rocketing sky high and plunging to the depths of darkest moments of ones life.
Animals most of the time leave by their instinct and mightily. We humans had forgotten the instinct part and mainly focused on rationality and law, sometimes tradition decisively affect our survival. Wrong sorry all these crap goes out of armored door, when it comes to survival only your will to live mainly depends on Instinct.
All the little tricks and comments you heard and sure you won’t ever remember it after that person left or throwing the book to a corner will just come kicking doors to help you survive. I guess as humans greatest achievement is adaptation and survival. Making the best out of a situation can be summarized as human behavior or characteristic.
Without a fang of a Tiger, without the jaw of Hyena, without swiftness of a cheetah, or body mass of Elephant the only weapon we got is our daring and observations abilities are keys of our survival.
It is so hard to swallow some of the scenes, I mean literally. If you read any of my blog I always say the writers main task is to invoke emotion. Yann Martel did me a really big one. He made me throw up in my mouth. I suggest by any chance if you read the book to skip the part almost at the end, Pi trying to eat the feces of the Tiger. Please jump it or dare to read and suffer the consequences.
Hope you will get the book and read it its, magical, educational and most of all helps you how far we humans go to preserve our life.

Touch a new breed of ScyFy

I had started  watching  a new serious created by the Master of Sci Fi television series creator Tim Kring, the one who brought to us the Heroes, strange world, and crossing Jordan. Touch has one of the best spices of Sci Fi, a more evolved super humans. The Genius  of being a more evolved human being.

Touch is an American supernatural thriller television series, written and created by Tim Kring

The show stars about a boy who is mute but sees a world in a different way. In this case numbers, you might confuse it with geeky or superstitious numerology but The show is more than that, it connects you in different way, in level of emotion that the most of us share. The serious may be summarized in one word CONNECTION.

The word might seem narrow and too straight forward. In a world of 7 Billion and change plus all the numbers of animals, plants, elements, stars, galaxies and what so ever, the connections and entanglement is beyond most of us ever can grasp.

I guess Keifer Sutherland is well known in taking risky ventures and changing the world we know. 24 was never thought to be this successful and would change the TV business. Before 24 TV serious were small in budget and lack deep  thought. All that changed after that.

I believe this show is a gold mine for the producers, the studio and who ever involved in this. I believe we all crave for the connection. We feel it but fail to understand. This serious I believe shades some light in the matter.

We all know we are connected in a way, biology tells us its food chain, chemistry and physics tells us we are made of the same element, religion tells us we all are made by god so and so. Most of us feel these are just abstract ideas hard to grasp or fully unexplained.

I believe Touch tries to show how we all are connected. With some smart writing and deep understanding it might help us open up somehow. We all have to open up more for more understanding about us, environment and how we affect each other.

It is all about touching your fellow around you and be touched in a deeper level. That will help us evolve to  better, move forward and survive.

My only worry about touch is, it’s beyond its time as most Sci Fi TV serious. I am afraid it might get cancelled. Hoping for better, may be this time people will understand it now. Hope it won’t have the fate of Star trek and become an obsession after decades or so.

When is a perfect time to quit a Job?

I never ever quitted a job in my life. Why so many reasons but it boils down to two points.

1. Am a coward/ that’s a harsh word but I don’t have the stomach for it.

2. Am to comfortable in situations I find myself. Like Bob Marley song everything going to be alright is my soundtrack.

I say this time things are changed. Work places are like migration or evacuation most of the time or you can say they are like bonds of chain. As the most popular saying a chain is strong as its weakest point or a herd moves as fast as its slowest member.

So why would in the world I put myself in such a crowd to drag myself to slower pace, where the world is a fast paced clock worked machine that crushes everything that’s misses a step.

So as my man Paulo Coelho said “If you’re brave enough to say good bye, life will reward you with a new hello” so maybe I should say that and take control of my destiny.

Let me tell you one thing there is no perfect time, may be you can say when you got a better offer or a better working environment. All are great perks but they come with their own consequences and adjustments.

There is one thing exciting leaving your job anyhow, that’s like sailing into unchartered waters. The adventure of discovering yourself and with the excitement of unknown.

To come to the mentality of people when it comes to quitting is always related to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
So most of the time the executive managers forget where their workers or subordinates fall, Without knowing that its nearly impossible to create ample communication and working environment.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs Pyramid

Book Review: Life Of Pi part 1

Just started reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel. If this book was a music it would be my blogs theme, I had only finished the first part and can’t wait to read the rest, even thinking to hide in a copy room and finish up, even like we don’t have one. The book can be said it’s All about another perspective. It’s shattering the popular ideas that you have about certain things. I promised not to have spoilers in my blog; it’s a blog that’s promoting reading not giving mashed version of baby food. You will love this book you will see how life would be if we can have this kind of perspective at least once in a year, I believe world peace would have been so easy to achieve, not a mere wish everyone is saying but knows deep down it’s not gone happen.

My jokes are not funny not in a long run anyways, but I know a good joke when I see one. The book is humorist of all I know. Especially about the three guys, when they meet namely. The Imam(Muslim), The Priest (Catholic) and The Pandit (Hindu). The other is when you are an outsider of the four The Atheist, Muslim, Catholic, Hindu perspective of their religion and what their opinion and belief share more than they thought. In lowest form at least what they seek is somehow can be generalized as Humanist.

The book also tells about compassion. If you just take 5 minutes of your time to see the perspective of the other religion in the most comically way ever read. In a way letting the characters say it in not so offending way, at least not for the average Muslim or Christian or Hindu but I guess even ok for the most extremist. At least he will have something to call the other guy instead of pulling hair, turning red or blowing up things I know sorry can’t help myself. Am a disaster of telling jokes but none of us will help our self when reading this book jokes pop out your head laughing out loud in the taxi and what so and not.

Enough of this the main achievement in my opinion is writers are like Gods!! They create a world out of thin air. They produce characters not out of earth but ink. They weave story and relation to each other and the reader. It’s so cool to play God and be limitless in a way elevating people to higher self.
The next part would be better than this. . . mine too I Mean .

Book Review: Norwegian Wood

Finishing Murakami’s book always I mean always makes you want to write. He knows how to weave a story. My recent conquest is the Norwegian Wood. I always believed a good story or book comes from a great story. A story that never happens to ordinary people. When I see movies and think that doesn’t happen ever? And then go saying that’s why it’s made a movie or else it would be just ordinary story.

Norwegian wood follows a story of 19-20 years old Toru Watanabe in a midst of 2 -3 years college student uprising in the 60s, of self and love discovery.

In this book he made an ordinary story unputdownable story with mysticism, symbolism and Haruki to be a strange book, that you say a novel is only can be written with talent and honesty. I believe he just poured his soul and heart in this book. You can see here only about him as he is not pretending what life would be as a fictional gate away. That’s why many people reading the book feel as biography as though he says many factors are fictional and spice. I believe reality is always more than witnessed also goes deeper in imagination.

I am a huge fan of Japanese in every bizarre way their culture clashes with mine, but funny it never did. From the way of samurai to modern robotic and anime Japan. I believe Murakami’s novels are like a silk feels against your skin in a hot summer day.

The most beautiful thing in this book is the honesty. The honesty here is not a granted one, like air. It is from a society much like Ethiopia, tradition ruling over every aspect of individualistic and what and what not suppose to be. It tells stories of ordinary people their fear, loss, happiness, appetite of all coping with life or even victory.  

Armin Van Buuren: State of TranCe

Let me start from a dark place. My boss officially hates me. You might already got the feeling from my last blog. Any who – he is still trying to make my life harder than it is. So yesterday he asked me to submit 9 month work progress plan in a day and half. I almost gave up went straight to a bar to meet my friends wanting to get drunk and say UGHHHHHHHHHHH I didn’t just had dinner and went to sleep.

Woke up at 6 the darkest grey cloud pushed down on me from the window. UGHHHHHHHHHhh again. What can you do? The only thing I can do. Go to work my tail between my leg. Again UGHHHHHHH then I remembered I have A Van Buuren New Album State of Trance 2012. I will give it a try may be it will take my brain out of this dump mood. Just thinking I will read my Murakami Norwegian Wood on this Yucky day.

The First track starts as a radio announcement and tells you with this all the trance sounds you linger saying, Close your eyes, goes on about the new world a world of pounding beats, pure melody and euphoria. A universe everything changes stop out of existence ohhhhhhh and the beat just welcomes you in the state of Trance.

The 25 tracks including the intro, are elements of trance world taking you higher and lower. Elements of a new universe made of Trance Sounds and colors. I swear!! was not high of anything except the music. The tracks arrangement is like enjoying a large layer sweet cake of Deeper and Deeper Trance that I enjoyed slice by slice.

The day just transformed in every way possible. I did the report, sent it to my boss’s boss to review it. I did a good job a really good one. I feel like I was meditating and all I did was make my mind free of the bullshit and concentrate on the work at hand.

So the tag line for this great album is——–Enjoy your desk as much as a dance floor.
Thank You Armin Van Buuren

Lowest of 5 Bosses

I have worked for so many people for the last almost 12 years. I have been almost disappointed by all of them except two I had worked for the last year and change. I will write about them in appropriate time. For now I will write about the worst. As blogging is more about what strikes you in a mood and sadly I am in this.

5. FaceBoss- this is a boss who just gives you the face, to intimidate you or to keep his secret of his incompetency to you and the world.

4. FavourBoss- this one always makes you feel he is doing you a favor or asks you a favor. Come on you are here to work, not scratch my back so I can. No favors I already have my salary and goals

3.NoBoss- the answer is no No NO nO in every way, why? Nothing what is wrong? NO it’s not life and death decisions. You have to be rational in your work not emotional.

2.IKnowBoss- you don’t know anything, I know everything. Your idea can never be good no matter what. If it is not from my head it is worthless shit. No arguing with those.

1.ClownBoss-only thing they are good at is being laughed upon. But they are psychotic and only people laugh at their back. Leadership is only for the center of attraction and feeling better in other people’s hard work or in their failure.

You do not lead by hitting people over the head — that’s assault, not leadership

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

What Blogging Has Taught Me

Reblogged from Outside Air:

I was kind of cynical about starting a blog back in the day but I’m glad I did–here’s why:

• Blogging makes me see my life differently. Ever since I started blogging, I’ve seen my life as a story that I’m telling other people. Because I want to tell a good story I’m always on the lookout for the funny, the silly, the beautiful, the meaningful–the moments that help me connect with others and share my story in a way that interest them.

Read more… 553 more words