If a book's worth reading, it's worth buying... TWICE

I like to think I am clever, at least of average intelligence. I can hold my own in a conversation, and recently answered 6 questions in the sports round of a quiz. Six in the sports round, all the while I was pretending that they mattered. 

Anyway, I just purchased the biography of Truman Capote by Gerald Clarke. It has a picture of Philip Seymour Hoffman on the front, and as you can see says he starred in the film at the top. I started reading it, as I love a good biography. It all felt familiar, like London, I felt like I had read it before. 127 pages in I realised I have read it before. In fact, the copy I purchased from the second hand bookshop is in fact the copy I sold them back about 8 months ago in a ruthless purge of books, from my overflowing bookshelves. I sold it to them for £1.00 and purchased it back for £3.75 plus a large coffee and an average cake. Great, I am exactly £10 down on life.

I know it was my copy, because when I reached page 127, I found this post it note reminder, in a very familiar handwriting, to a former colleague. Fairly confident, I am £10 down and in big trouble because if it was inside the book I donated, I did not call him, no question.

Anyway, the book is brilliant, the film is captivating, and the book is worth buying TWICE.

This quote from page 127, is my favourite... Newton describing Capote

"You aren't a human being; not a mere human being, I mean," he later added. " I've been sure of that all along. You only have all the conceivable charm of a human being, but in fact you are a supernatural helper in patent leather pumps."

Anyway, I am going to say that Capote may well have done something very similar to buying the same copy of the same book twice. Have you ever done something a little mindless that has perhaps made you chuckle. Share in
the comments below, if you're brave enough, we could all do with a chuckle!

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The Islanders

Because I am a nerd, and because my closest friends home educate... I found myself at Fitzwilliam's museum recently on a day out in Cambridge. We had a very important date with a Chelsea bun so we decided to concentrate our visit on their special display called The Islanders. It did not disappoint. 

The display concentrated on the historical relationship between three Island communities, Cyprus, Crete and *Sardinia, from 4000 years ago until present day. The curation was exquisite and for most of the exhibit you felt like you were exploring a mystical ship. We explored the way they swapped materials, long before there were trade roustes. The role of women, the tools, pots and inventions that marked the development of this community across the Millennia. 

There was one black mug with red highlights which was in exquisite condition. It was created further away from the birth of Christ than we are today. It had not seen much life and must have sat in the cupboard without incident for millennia. It gave me a new level of respect for the way I treat my crockery which will not be around 4000 years from now. 

The exhibit concluded with the picture of the bowl that was created in 700 BC and was entitled, the story of the elders. One of my favourite authors is Frederick Buechner and my favourite quote of his, apart from all my other favourites, is this ‘I tell you my story, not because it is mine, heavens no. I tell you my story, because if I tell it anywhere near well enough, you will see, it is also yours.’ It came to mind, as I studied this artefact, because I have sat in circles like those people from 700bc, I have harnessed the power of a shared story and it has created space for those who were present to become better humans. This silent pottery reminded me that we were storytelling animals, that their story was also mine. That my friends and I who shared that exhibit had spent the entire day up to that point sharing stories, that were ours, that were all of ours. 

*In the interest of full disclosure before this day, I hadn’t even realised Sardinia was an island. Ho-Hum, every day is a school day.

Scarcity

A few weeks ago I wrote about the abundance of abundance in every season and how much it reminds me of M and m's. I feel a little disingenuous about it now that it is in the blogosphere. Scarcity is sometimes a reality. You only have to be a little bit thirsty on the last mile of a long walk to recognise the scarcity of water will not be nullified by the abundance of countryside flowers.

Sometimes, there is a little bit of month left at the end of the money, and that creates very real pressure. I read a study recently that looked at the IQ points of sugar cane farmers in India. Because of the nature of the industry, these farmers find themselves rich after the harvest and poor before it. Their IQs dropped by an average of 13 points in the weeks before the harvest. The stress poverty placed on their cognitive reasoning had a negative impact on their ability to think clearly. 

Scarcity has an impact on cognition. Poor people aren’t poor because they make poor choices. Often they make poor choices because they are poor and do not have the bandwidth to devote themselves to non-essential thought processes that might lead them out of poverty. Scarcity reduces your options. Sometimes, so drastically that you can consider nothing else but the most immediate concerns. 

Going back to my short-lived analogy of the last mile of the walk. There are a few options at that point! Become skilled in cow milking and kidnap a passing heifer, or suck it up and carry it on to the nearest pub. The point is that it overwhelms your brain and there is nothing else you can think of except your growing thirst. Each step is no longer marked by the beauty of your surroundings but rather a rhythmic repetition in your head that says ‘I am thirsty, I am thirsty, I am thirsty.’

I have no answer to this beyond, bearing one another’s burdens. The pressure we can relieve from each other when we just take a moment to sit alongside or invite to share an experience can relieve the impact of scarcity. It can create a moment of clarity simply with your presence. 

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2013/08/29/poor-concentration-poverty-reduces-brainpower-needed-navigating-other-areas-life