Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness by Willard Spiegelman. One the simplest book I ever read but yet very important and beautifully written book with full of great quotes (Spiegelman is a professor of English). Irony is all seven pleasures are hedonic but unlike the ubiquitous hedonism embraced by current society, these pleasures re-define who we are and who we become for good. The best part it doesn't cost much, surpasses all cultural barricades and with universality it unites humanity. Isn't this economic recession a best time to embrace these pleasures?
1. Reading - here. I share Spielgelman's aversion for "speed" reading. Speed reading is an oxymoron. Being a sucker of good prose, I cannot read without relishing and absorbing the words.
"If you want the deep experience of a book, if you want to internalise it, to mix an author's ideas with your own and make it a more personal experience, you have to read it slowly." - John Miedema, author of Slow Reading.
"If you want the deep experience of a book, if you want to internalise it, to mix an author's ideas with your own and make it a more personal experience, you have to read it slowly." - John Miedema, author of Slow Reading.
3. Looking - I am not into paintings. I admire them but I have never been totally enthralled or lost myself in a painting. Nature is my painting. Why look at paintings when nature has offers us an unlimited feast for the eyes? Biophilia!!
"Mere use of one's eyes in Venice is happiness enough."
4. Dancing - I am a wallflower but have understood the importance of dancing long time ago. Dancing liberates mind and body but the issue is I am scared (check out Ben's hilarious post), well someday...
"Dance is the loftiest, the most moving. the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself." - The Dance of Life, Havelock Ellis.
"Mere use of one's eyes in Venice is happiness enough."
4. Dancing - I am a wallflower but have understood the importance of dancing long time ago. Dancing liberates mind and body but the issue is I am scared (check out Ben's hilarious post), well someday...
"Dance is the loftiest, the most moving. the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself." - The Dance of Life, Havelock Ellis.
5. Listening - Music (& odor) are our innate synaesthesia - keys for our nostalgia. Oliver Sack's Musicophilia is brilliant book to understand neural implications of music.
Music grants entry to what Wordsworth called "thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
Music grants entry to what Wordsworth called "thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
6. Swimming - I cannot swim. I know, I know, it sucks. Well, I can manage in a pool and have felt "buoyant". I envy Spiegelman and Max.
"Just as one's body has a natural tendency towards the surface and one has to make an exertion to get to the bottom - so it is with thinking."- Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Ecstasy. There was a total engagement in the act of swimming, in each stroke, and at the same time the mind could float free, become spellbound, in a state like a trance."- Oliver Sacks
"Just as one's body has a natural tendency towards the surface and one has to make an exertion to get to the bottom - so it is with thinking."- Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Ecstasy. There was a total engagement in the act of swimming, in each stroke, and at the same time the mind could float free, become spellbound, in a state like a trance."- Oliver Sacks
7. Writing - Well, I have been trying (to type). It's immensely helps in self reflection.
Forster's 1926 rhetorical question - "How can I know what I think until I see what I say".
"You become writer by writing. It is a yoga." - R.K Narayan
"I was working on the proof of one my poems all morning and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."- Oscar Wilde
The best lesson from Spiegelman in his own words is "Practice makes it better, if not perfect." (a modest Gladwellian)Forster's 1926 rhetorical question - "How can I know what I think until I see what I say".
"You become writer by writing. It is a yoga." - R.K Narayan
"I was working on the proof of one my poems all morning and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."- Oscar Wilde
Eating, playing frisbee, running and whatever Max does, he immerses himself completely into the act. With immense concentration, he thoroughly enjoys and lives that moment. I usually just stand there feeling like a train wreck, admiring him with envy.
"Happiness is to be absorbed into something complete and great." - Willa Cather's epitaph.
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