I'm reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. To be precise I began reading it the day after it first came out . In that time I have started and finished a couple of books and yet, with this one, I read a couple of pages every day or every other day. At times there is an urge to just go through the book in one sitting. But I force myself to go through it slowly- savoring it as it were. Don't get me wrong. I am not a 'fanboy' (girl?). In fact I have never even owned an Apple product! Nor am I one of those die-hard technophiles. But there is just something about the way this man lived that captures my imagination and quite frankly impresses me. And so the book sits there by my bedside promising to reveal another anecdote each time I choose to and I quite like the thought of that promise.
****************************************************
These words are at once the most uplifting and the most heartbreaking that I have read :
"Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute – the foundation of the human condition – and should be better. We invent fictions in order to live somehow the many lives we would like to lead when we barely have one at our disposal...
Literature is a false representation of life that nevertheless helps us to understand life better, to orient ourselves in the labyrinth where we are born, pass by, and die. It compensates for the reverses and frustrations real life inflicts on us, and because of it we can decipher, at least partially, the hieroglyphic that existence tends to be for the great majority of human beings, principally those of us who generate more doubts than certainties and confess our perplexity before subjects like transcendence, individual and collective destiny, the soul, the sense or senselessness of history, the to and fro of rational knowledge."
Those are lines from Mario Vargas Llosa's Nobel lecture . Uplifting because it's true and heartbreaking also because it's true.
****************************************************
Visual inspiration for the moment are these photographs by a friend who is experimenting with analogue photography. Here are a few examples to whet the appetite:
****************************************************
These words are at once the most uplifting and the most heartbreaking that I have read :
"Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute – the foundation of the human condition – and should be better. We invent fictions in order to live somehow the many lives we would like to lead when we barely have one at our disposal...
Literature is a false representation of life that nevertheless helps us to understand life better, to orient ourselves in the labyrinth where we are born, pass by, and die. It compensates for the reverses and frustrations real life inflicts on us, and because of it we can decipher, at least partially, the hieroglyphic that existence tends to be for the great majority of human beings, principally those of us who generate more doubts than certainties and confess our perplexity before subjects like transcendence, individual and collective destiny, the soul, the sense or senselessness of history, the to and fro of rational knowledge."
Those are lines from Mario Vargas Llosa's Nobel lecture . Uplifting because it's true and heartbreaking also because it's true.
****************************************************
Visual inspiration for the moment are these photographs by a friend who is experimenting with analogue photography. Here are a few examples to whet the appetite:
 | ||||
| Photo by Nishi Chauhan |
 | |
| Photo by Nishi Chauhan |
Thanks! That's really sweet of you :) And, umm, is someone taking an off from work today? *curious*
ReplyDeleteI was all smiles reading your lines about the biography till i read the lines that followed. Literature and life, beautifully written. They make me think about all these books that are in the house and what each one has to convey. Keep updating this space, as and when you can.
Hehehe. I was at work but no work.
ReplyDeleteI just about burst into tears when I read those words about literature and life. I found it heartbreaking the way he's articulated the limitations /limits of human life. I guess I don't like to think of those limitations.