Chemical imbalance

Paulo Coelho. I had heard of him several years ago. About two years ago my eldest sister became a fan. She bought most of his books. I then gave in to my curiosity and read one of his books, The Alchemist. I did not understand it at all, so I put him out of my mind.

Lately, for want of something light to read, I read the same sister's collection. I had read three more of his books, The Winner Stands Alone, Eleven Minutes and Veronica Decides to Die.

I had been uneasy this last two weeks because I thought I ought to agree or at least understand his thesis. Today, while mulling about this, it occurred to me, I have been happier reading Albert Camus's Exile and the Kingdom. I had been reading it in between two Coelho’s.

Camus's short stories and Coelho's books actually are similar, the search for meaning, love, passion, freedom, redemption. What made me happier about reading Camus though is the absence of the overt mention of love, the romantic kind and the conscious or unconscious or subconscious but none the less blatant search for it.

But I've decided to like Coelho only on the basis of what he said about clothes and clothing. In Eleven Minutes he said (I am paraphrasing here) "the rich wear clothes like they are rich, and the millionaires dress like they are poor. And in The Winner Stands Alone, he said "the world has now a new order, high fashion is now outdated because the new and young billionaires in the Silicon Valley wear ratty jeans and t-shirts"...

Out of the blue

I’ve been in a funk.

I have been a member of Facebook since early last year. But since I am not really a very sociable person and the few people I know were not on FB, I sort of abandoned that pursuit. Then sometime this year I found out that friends and acquaintances are already members of that social networking. So I started adding friends one at a time, deliberating for a very long time if it is good to add this person and that former classmate.

Then the paranoid thing I did on FB.

I opened two new gmail accounts. I added one to my sister’s account. I made the other a friend of the first account. It made that second account two friendships away from me. This second account is used to check if from that separation my profile and my wall postings are visible to the general public. The wall postings are. Then I realized why do I care if my wall postings are accessible? I am blogging aren’t I? They are more a window into my mind and heart than these wall posts, so I sort of forgot about those accounts.

Then an unexpected thing happened, somebody requested to be added to my list of friends. I did not know that person but he’s a friend of an acquaintance so I accepted his request. It was also around this time that I remembered those new gmail accounts and lo and behold when I checked the second one, two requests for friendship. The slide into the funk began then because I actually know those persons who requested to be added to that made up persona while there was only ever one request for friendship to the real me and that from somebody I did not know.

This certainly made my cynicism rose to the surface. It was partly my fault of course because I also did not put my real name on that profile (or I change my real name after it received no requests for friendship) but it has at least more personality because of the wall posts but nary a request from really literally dozens of people I know in that social networking. It was I who made all the requests. While this made-up name with a beautiful photo and zero posts received requests from friends. So what’s the draw? Aside from the beautiful photograph attached to the made-up name there was nothing on that account, therefore to my book boring. Maybe those girls think that he’s lonely with only one friend ever on his list? Or maybe girls on the prowl for boyfriends and husbands are hoping to make this beautiful male one of their prospects?

I was actually repentant for a time, not using my real name on my real account, until I recalled all the one-sided friendships I’ve made all these years. You know the kind—a friend in need is a friend indeed or whatever that cliché says. And it was never I who was in need, rarely ever. And so I said to hell with friendship.

Ironically, it was the unknown person who requested to be added to my list of friends who took me out of the doldrums. Rather it was a post on his wall, directed to who knows whom but it made me laugh out loud. It made me realized there are people who have greater relationship problems than I ever had and that sentimental and romantic outpourings if not constructed with correct grammar become ridiculous.

Do we have to...?

My mother is reading again. After so very long she's picked up a book again. The last time I saw her read was when I was a teenager. Now I could already have a teenager of my own or been a teenager twice over.

The first books she's read is The Great Gatsby. And what did she do the moment she finished reading the book was discuss it and I have completely forgotten the details of the book so I was in panic but then I did not have to because all she wanted was to be listened to. Although her discussion bored the hell out of me first then annoyed me later, I am still thankful that she's reading again.

Wretched daughter that I am what bored me was her discussion about love. Nothing to get my hackles rising but make the idea or concept of erotic or romantic love an excuse or the reason for everything evil or good in the world. Or having that kind of love the only reason why human beings are alive and life as it is is worth living for. What a lot of crap!

But still whatever make her read again and whatever make her believe in her intellectual abilities again. If I have to read all the romantic nonsense in the world I'd do it just so I could keep my mother reading again.