World in my eyes
There is something enigmatic about bookstores and libraries. Surrounded by all the books in the world, one feels overwhelmed and either invigorated that he can read or crushed by his obvious ignorance.
I am not sure how many books the average Joe and Jane read in their lives, but whatever the number is, it can’t even near the titles even a small bookstore carries. Some actually stack a beautiful home library based colour patterns and writing styles, never opening any of them…
Checkboxes are a major part in many lives. People might not realise it directly, but almost everything they do is driven by the desire to check a box and move on to the next one. Checkboxes in the sense of rights of passage, that is.
At what age one learns to read, choosing the right schools, getting a steady and well-paid job, marrying, first child, second child, planning for life after work… These sort of things are all checkboxes, which once ticked, turn out to be nothing more than a step up in the ladder.
Last night, I became a witness to a very trivial moment between a man and his spoon. Nothing really out of the ordinary, just something that one sees every day, but not in this particular situation and sequence of events – an operator and an object working together to produce a necessary outcome.
It is raining, but the other day it wasn’t. I was walking towards the subway stop when the sunlight broke the clouds and lit up everything around.
As I stood on the edge of the stairs, the elevator next to me started moving a middle-aged man appeared coming out of the underpass. Immediately, his face was touched by the sun rays and I saw his eyes squint and then completely shut. Face up, he stood still with his head lifted up savouring the light.
When I started with my writing eloquence challenge, I put a goal of a minimum 300-word text every working day. So far I have missed writing once or twice and on a couple of days, I felt extra wordy and two texts came out under my fingers.
I guess I never fully understood how difficult it is to write every day in a consistent manner. It is not due to a lack of ideas, just the opposite. It is the structuring of my rumblings and putting them into something resembling a coherent chain of thought.