Digging for Meaning

This is a Charles Bukowski poem called "All the way". Essentially, his thesis is that you must go 'all the way' whatever the cost may be. And I felt, what a fucking loser is this wierdo. I mean, I have read his 'Post office' and it is a kickass piece of literature. But what I realise now is that an incomplete and naive philosophy of self-absorbed nihilism possibly informed his work. Problem 1: All the way with what? We see a lot of this kind of inspirational bullshit being shared by people these days - exhorting people to do what they want to do. But the problem is no one these days knows what he/she wants to do. These videos and poems only add to consumerist angst whose only beneficiary is the capitalist power centers and not the social organism called human.(" Must do something, don't know what.. running with expensive shoes seems to be working for some as per commercials, let me try that." ) Purposeless souls are angstily drifting from...

every day, an hour before sleep is due ego deserts me. and i am left lying on the bed curled up with unsure thumbs and fingers twiddling with the cellphone. the day after, ego wakes up with cocky erasure of memory of ever having felt needy. ego! you beast! you deserter! stay true or let alone. what good is an undulating pride. what good is an undulating faith.

my tavel to gokarna 2 weekends back, was fraught with long distances, delays and switch overs. the travel was made amusing thanks to jean paul sartre. well, amusing isn't the right word. hmm, can't put what i felt in a word. may be a para would help.. :P His book 'intimacy' is very truely a very up-close study of us. us humans. our relationships. our emotions. by the time i read the third story, i actually was feeling a weird sensation... a mixture of hints of suffocation, paranoia and languid stillness. the kind of feeling one has when after having slept 14 hours continuously and being awake half wishing to be in dream, staring at the ceiling, one becomes so comfortable in the sheets that the idea of slightest movement is repelled by body itself. you can't will to lift your arms. the body in its languor decidedly becomes heavy. sartre's words become the sheet on which we are lying. it knows us well. very well. in the little confines of the self, the sheet gets ...

Since a few days, i had imposed a self-censor. I wouldn't use the adjectives 'beautiful' and 'kickass' (to be forever on a quest for beauty is not normal. i must taste some normality too once in a while); and i would try not to be introspective all the time. (trying not to be so 'full of myself' all the time, there's the whole world out there that needn't be reflected onto me..) but how else could I describe Jeanette Winterson's 'written on the body' but delectably 'beautiful' and what else can one do but reflect when confronted with such poetic mirror to our hearts. its one of those literary pieces which you want to hold unto yourself like your lover, for its beauty and for its truthfulness. I read half the book the day I bought it. and then tried to resume it the next day on local train. Now local trains are a many things, but definitely not a temple to beauty and truth. And this book deserves nothing less. It deserves to be re...

i am done with Paulo Coelho. whats the point of reading something that doesn't question you, makes you think or provokes you? My thoughts and rationale is a bit similar to what paulo advocates through his writing. its creepy to find out that your thoughts are not yours alone, they are not as original as you thought them to be. that, perhaps unconsciously i might have absorbed these thought streams from the milieu. the whole thing in effect questions my own thoughts a lil more piquantly, cuz the simplicity and calmness of these philosophies that he tries to provoke makes them look a little less credible and almost moonie'ish . that is perhaps one reason why i never read more than 2 books by one author. (well i read 3 of Salman Rushdie's but then again his books weren't just fantastic education, but brilliant entertainment to me as well. :D ) a book educates me, questions me and holds me in its grip for some while, when everything around me, i gaze through the book's ...