The summer always brings a great opportunity to spend time with books. To expand my experience about life and my own self. And, also rethink my thinking process, as if a kind of introspection through another eye. This summer has proved much fruitful in this regard. I got a chance to read two books, which have been popular on their own merits. But, more significant is why this popularity and why this charm is associated with these books. I will love to share my thoughts about both my readings and would love to see if a soul gets inspired to read these amazing pieces.
My first read “Love in the time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez would go first on my list because I felt that this fiction writing was spell-binding. It is a book that keeps the reader glued in its expression and description of human passion. The idea of unrequited love is being expressed in such a manner that it keeps one’s self very much, to question oneself again and again. It describes the human experience of feeling love through psychoanalysis, where one questions the strangeness of human passion, where it keeps on getting cold and hot for no recognizable reason. At points, someone feels like: The passion which was once shared has lost in every bit of its degree, but, suddenly it retrieves and becomes even deeper. And, sometimes a passion felt so deep later appears so mundane that even loss seems to be a blessing. The most appealing thing to me was the analogy that which writer draws between love and cholera, how both are alike. Both bring a person closer to death and both seem more intense near death (in old age). Old age makes one recalibrate his/her experience about what he/she has felt in his/her entire life. What was the true feeling of love? Who was the person to add the true color to that feeling?
The quote which I liked most was: “Courage did not come from the need to survive, or from a brute indifference inherited from someone else, but from a driving need for love which no obstacle in this world or the next world will break.” The idea that love makes a person courageous is so natural, resounding, and experienceable. It is a book that makes one question attachment and needs as unnecessary to hinder one’s desire to be loved and fulfilled (what Moslowe’s theory of need hierarchy states). But, beyond all, the book shall be read for the experience about the life and transition in life and one’s evaluation of one’s own self and understanding of the meanings of love as Cholera which spreads slowly and poisons one’s existence to the very core.
“The desire to be loved gets more intense in the days of cholera”
The second read of this summer was: “The Subtle Art of not giving a Fuck”, by Mark Manson, which was a life-changing and thought-provoking “read”. If I would be allowed to give a gist of the book, I would certainly say that: “the book triggers thoughts to reevaluate one’s idea about purpose, meaningfulness, values, and happiness”. Much of the suffering imposed by oneself is being caused because of one’s own values and meanings of life. The book provides an insight into a human experience where people do absurd things because of their senseless values. And people who come out of extreme pain and crises because they dare to change their values. The idea of “not giving a fuck” can sometimes be harmful as well as beneficial. It only depends on a person’s preference and the values which he/she gives to his/her circumstances. The book provides a key to happiness, and a reason to relieve stressful circumstances. For me, the book was very valuable as it made me reevaluate my thinking process, made me reevaluate my values, beliefs, etc. Completely on ethical grounds, beyond my personal prejudices. It really added a bigger picture, to my personal evaluation of significant philosophical questions like meaningfulness and happiness in life.
