It's called The Fifty Book Challenge; the idea is to read 50 books in a year. I didn't even know about it until today, but somehow this is the number of books I'm going to attempt to read in just under six months. Not a magical number I picked at random, or that I picked up from other blogs (Neal Pollack, David Harris) although that is how I learned of the so-called challenge (the origins of which I have no clue), but the number of books currently sitting on my shelf awaiting my attention. Many of these books have been lent to me, many I've picked up from trips to bookstores, many I've been wanting to read for a long time. There's a good mix of fiction and non-fiction, and although most fiction is Sci-Fi, I've got a decent list of literature on there as well. So why they six-month deadline? Since I'll be traveling with one backpack and a carry on, I doubt I'll be hauling a bookshelf around with me.
I've started with the books that have been lent to me, but most of these are non-fiction so I start them, then move on to something new before finishing them. Fiction is a quicker read, and sometimes more fun... it's more of an escape, at any rate. Even if the ideas are thought-provoking, it's unnecessary to pause and think about the themes until the plot has been resolved. In reading fiction, I want to know the story, I am a member of the world the author creates. Reading a fiction in a day or two always has the same results: exhilaration at the plot, tension as the climax approaches and a sense of loss and disappointment as I finish the last page. The characters become real creatures in my mind while I read (and for some time after), but when the story ends, I am forced to come back to the reality of my own life, realising that it is not so exciting or fantastical. I am currently working on no less than five non-fiction books, three of which I own (hence the reason I've set them aside for the moment...). I hope to write more about these books, but for now I'm just compiling a book list with both read and have-yet-to-read. Even if I don't write about the non-fiction I'm reading, the ideas contained in the books will inspire ideas I'm sure to post at some point.
Helen came and brought the sunny warmth of spring. Travelling from mild Vancouver where spring was in the air, this was not unwelcome. In Toronto, three weeks later, the temperatures were only a bit cooler, but the snow was incredible! Returning alone to Edmonton, I saw that the snow had all melted, the streets were all dry, but Helen was gone back to Australia. As if to confirm our theory, a couple days after my return, the snow began to fall. It fell and it fell. Fluffy white sticky snow, mild temperatures... I enjoyed every beautiful second of it. Then the wind picked up, cooling things off a little too much. The house shook, the snow formed drifts off the rooftops, the trees swayed and scratched the windows.
This is nothing new. We've been experiencing this kind of temporary spring, or second winter, for years now. And does anyone really expect the harshness of winter to remove itself gracefully from our presence, especially so early in the year? Besides, the pristine white coating masks all the dead ugliness that we'd have to endure for weeks on end if we were to sit around and wait for spring. I say, go ahead! Snow as much as possible. I'm enjoying it from the comfort of my heated heated house, sipping on hot tea, wrapped in a warm blanket. If only I had a fire place the picture would be perfect.
Yes, I've been writing. More than ever before, in fact. But has anybody read any of it? Hardly. I write in a notebook, with a pen (Gasp!), because my computer's been out of commission that long (actually, longer!). I've been trying to get this website working during the small windows of time at work when I can do such things, with the limited resources available to me there. In fact, the only things I *can* do from work are web-browser based or email-based. My computer has *shudder* Windows NT (as I write the word "shudder" my body tenses, my breathing becomes tighter... I really do shudder; it's not just a word on the screen), the ssh ports are closed, telnet and ftp don't even work! If I'm going to do something on company time (and isn't my whole life company time in their eyes?), they're going to know about it. But what about lunch breaks? What about coffee breaks? What about working when one feels the drive to work and slacking when one feels the need to slack? These things don't matter to the corporate entity. These things are for individuals, not for the worker drones who are meant to produce some market-worthy product. All the meaning in "team" or "reward" are seen only as payments to be made in order to produce a higher yield at the end of the day. Each day. Everyday is tracked, tallied, a score is kept and if you've done your part to increase overall worth of the company, you've done a good job. If you've been a drain on the system, the corporation re-evaluates itself, re-evaluates your worth and either makes a change in the process (the prescription by which all things within that company are done... follow protocol and everything will be smooth), or changes you: follow the rules, adhere to the guidelines. No, you can't do things your own way, at your own pace, on your own schedule. This is the environment in which I spend every. single. day. I feel trapped by my insignificant role in everything I touch, caged in by the rules and regulations, the appearances and mockery to the human spirit. I feel that I am surmounting some great struggle and each day, when I write or scheme or plan or dream, I have somehow cheated the system into helping me, an individual, instead of the corporation's own selfish end. But I wonder, as well, if this whole situation is something I need in order to write. I have long wondered if contentment didn't produce complacency, if I needed to be fundamentally dissatisfied in some way so as to draw on that emotion for inspiration. If this is the case, will my writing suffer when I feel satisfied? Or will it become more structured, forced, more thought-out, more complete? Will it be a good thing or a bad thing? I cannot answer these questions by mere speculation. I must experience these circumstances I imagine for myself, I must discover myself in the process.
Aaaah, the freedom of my keyboard: I type much faster than I write, and each word becomes a spewing of semi-formed thoughts, leading me places I'm not sure I want to go. Garbage, spewing out of my fingertips, onto the screen and away, somewhere that they will be read, or perhaps only for myself, my own selfish end. I am embarrassed to be writing this way, and I am liberated by the pure onslaught of thought and feeling becoming words before me.
