Good working day

... although it was actually a local holiday. Funny?

Woke up slowly, without and alarm clock, did some streching, had breakfast, switched on the computer and started working at home. I went out for lunch (I was lazy and wanted to save a bit of time), back I had a tea and then I resumed. I finally stopped around 7pm, prepared a nice dinner, had it, wrote for a while, washed up the dishes (I hardly ever do that during the week lately; well, I hardly ever cook), and here I am, 10:30pm, the remaining of the evening is just leisure! -the same amount of leisure I get in a normal working day. Huge difference: today I'm feeling good, don't have the usual contradiction, on the one hand craving to go to bed, on the other rather doing something nice before the day is over (e.g. writing).

I've remembered those days I was a convinced nadaist... if I could at least work somewhat less. Probably I won't be able to do many more things, I would be still frustrated I don't have enough time, but I would feel better, not so tired all around. (In the weekends, when I have all the time in the day at my disposal, I also feel frustrated, but I get some of the stuff done and it's alright.)


Last Saturday I was complaining to a friend precisely about the long working hours. He warned me to be careful, my ideas being irresponsible (he's possibly right on that); he told me about many people no as lucky as me by far. He put the example of the inmigrants. I said he could have chosen something worse: children in South East Asia working 16 hours a day in a garbage dump.

You can always find somebody doing much worse. One uses that argument and immediatelly stops complaining. What else to do? Not much. Doing anything to improve the situation for those doing so bad? No, that would be too difficult, unrealistic. Doing anything to improve your own situation? Well, no, you just said it, you've stopped complaining. The conversation is over.


It would be ok, if it was actually over, if the fact that lots of people are doing worse really convinced me deeply inside. It doesn't. If it was the case, I would probably had understood what's the meaning of life, I would be happy forever; what else, if there's no reason to complain? Sudden enlightenment.

There's rational arguments (no reason to complain) and there's all the rest in your mind (and the complains amongst it). There's people telling you what to do, criticising you, there's your stomach and your needs, and there's employers, and finally there's good working days, not very often, only sometimes.

Maybe the guy had a point after all

I'm slowly very slowly reading the short book on history of philosophy I was taking about. And although I havent reached Kant yet (already in the XVIIth century, a hundred years and fifty pages to go), I've figured maybe the guy had a point after all.

Let's see, in this little book there's the ancient Greek, the theistic of the Middle Ages, and lots of modern thinkers: Hobbes, Decartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz where I am today. All of them were asking themselves metaphysical questions, were trying to rationalize the real essence of the nature and the world and god if they were believers. And they were giving complete new systems of knowledge, rational explanations backed by hard work of studying and developing. But then, even if it is difficult to criticise any aspect of their sound and so-well-based theories, and there has been long debates about some of their arguments, the truth is that their explanations about the world and everything are pretty different.

Maybe the guy had a point and there's no way to give a rationalistic answer to such questions. At least, for sure there's no way to agree with the answers.

However the questions remain; maybe they just make no sense, and it's better to answer them with myths or parables, or fables or even short stories. If you don't like them you will have to make your own. (Will you reach anywhere if you make up the stories on your own? Well, it's one of the few ways to get there, only try not to go too fast.)

As for others' stories, don't take them too literally, don't make a fuss about every single word in them. Either you understand it or not. You probably will, if they tell you something you already know.

(By the way, maybe I am going too fast; I haven't finished reading the book yet.)

Books nobody has read

There's one of those in a lot of languages: Cervantes' "Don Quijote" in Spanish, Joyce's "Ulyses" in English, Proust's "A la recherche..." in French; in their countries, everybody would claim they are the best books ever written in their long literary traditions, but if you ask who has actually read them, I'd bet there are very few people.

"Don Quijote" is not very difficult, it's quite amusing, clever and funny, but it is long very long, gigantic. So long it is not mandatory at school. Besides it's in movies, at TV, even cartoons, some of the chapters are well-known. Who feels in need of reading it?

"Ulyses" is very hard to read, it's written in a kind of own English with a mixture of French, German and Dutch. Not mandatory at school, how could it be, since it is so demanding and arduous. However, lots of British people have the book at home.

"A la recherche..." is probably marvellous and well written, but somehow pedantic, arrogant and pompous. Also very long, but 100 pages are enough to bore you to death. Who has read it in France, I don't know.


Similarly, there's philosophers hardly anybody has read. Kant has been such an influential thinker in the modern West, after him nobody dares to discuss about metaphisics anymore (that is, from a phylosophical point of view). Wittgenstein wrote his Tractatus, which nobody understands, and nowadays it is mentioned even in a recent movie, a thriller.

Maybe common people like me, more or less educated, are simply not able to grasp such a complex stuff. It would be as if somebody with no technical background wanted to understand let's say how a nuclear bomb is build. And the bomb has changed the world also, the way people think.

Another possibility is that some good ideas overwhelm us, the arguments backing them being so sound and clever, and we can only repeat them and repeat them again. And I guess it's ok. I feel so lost I'm reading a book on history of philosophy these days, as if I was going to find somebody telling me Kant was not right. As if I was going to find somebody say "El Quijote" is not such a good book.

How (not) to take a decision

For example you decide to quit smoking. In my case it was because my throat was hurting every morning when I woke up. I had made up my mind, I had no doubt it was the thing to do, but still, I was not so worried about my throat every minute of the day, and suddenly there were exceptions, there were good reasons to forget the resolution and light the cigarette. The problem was not the big decision about quiting, which was obviously right, but the small decisions which had to be faced one after the other, all the time.

Sometimes it is opposite, when you decide you are going start up something difficult which is going to take a long time, and you are quite sure you want to do it. For example, when I decided I would write a novel. I was not sure about the script, nor about myself as a writer, nor about the point of it. It was not easy to think I was getting anywhere, but it was really easy to sit down every day and write. (It was hard to sit down for many hours, anyhow it was a much simpler problem than figuring out if it was worth it.)

So, there is that inner thing which apparently knows always what to do, although it is not always right. It was wrong about the smoking, and it was only when I convinced it, whatever it inner thing is or could be, that I did quite. It was nice about the writing, had good intentions, but I still don't know whether it is right or wrong or just wishful.

That's how (not) to take a decision: you listen to it.


Sorry I write so little lately... I should be listening. I think I am. I'll ask.