On being a stoic and friendship

   

                                                                 

                                  

I have been reading books I believed to bring me better knowledge about living well and being wise for a long time now. I am not sure where the compulsion came from. I did not copy anyone here, it was my own idea. Maybe it was because books were good friends from a very early age? Being not all that confident (thanks God for that) I wanted to be guided by somebody cleverer than myself? People around were not well suited to do that. So, I went to books for my answers. And it stayed that way even if I met many clever people in my travels and some gave me better ideas than my own. Books are still the best source of wisdom for me.

I read Kierkegaard and Fromm… The choice was coincidental as in Poland books were a hot commodity and were sold out fast most of the time one could not buy what one wanted.  No Booktopia at those times. After Kierkegaard I became to worry about life, it was on a depressing side. So when, much later, I discovered stoics, I thought that this is something for me.  It stayed that way. I read some stoic books from time to time to learn from them how to live. The stoic philosophy and books got me through the hard hospital times and they are still of great value in the recovery times. One of my friends got me to practice being a stoic in a structured way and after initial resistance to include readings of The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday into my rather sloppy morning routine, I am actually doing it. Recently the same friend suggested and it was a strong suggestion, I must say, that I enroll on a Stoic Week that was just about to start. I do not respond well to strong suggestions, but I respect my friend’s judgement so I thought, yes, I will give it a go. I have enrolled and I am very glad I did. Firstly, the questionnaire results showed that all that reading gave good results and I scored 445 points out of 539 which makes me a fair dink-um stoic. Hmm… Have I cheated? This would not be a stoic way at all. I also turned out to be classified as satisfied with life. Hmm… again.

OK, so this makes me feel good about myself if not a little surprised and pondering about the value of such tests. But what is more important and what I realised reading the material, that is supplied by the organisers of the program, is what my major learning area will be this week. The stoics identify wisdom, justice, self-control and courage as the most important virtues one should work on to acquire. The area with the biggest need to work on for me is self-control. Will I manage to spend my time better, go for walks, exercise, read in longer stretches of time, listen less to Polish politics, play fewer computer games, eat well and not much? I think that I may at least improve a bit.

                                                     

                               

What surprised me a little and made me feel lighter was some depreciation of friendship and family life. Not that they are not important but they are not critical for feeling happy. According to stoics, that is. This should have been clear to me before as the stoic teaching is that we should not worry about things we do not have influence on. Like being pretty or healthy. It is obvious to me now that the friends and family are important and valuable but this is not always I can influence such relationships to what I would like it to be. And I still can be happy even if the best friend becomes a considerable source of grief.

I think I have done my today’s middle of the day meditation prescribed by the Stoic Week by writing this post. Now, that I have done my physical exercises I will continue to work on my virtues and inner strength. Wow, if I continue like that I will soon walk on water.

                             

A lighter post for a change

Some of my blogging friends noticed that my posts recently are on a heavy side. I have been aware of the fact that I am overly preoccupied with issues of a serious nature and that this has impact on subjects of my blogging. At the same time writing is some sort of therapy for me and the way to clarify for myself bothering me issues. I also know that I skirt around the real things which are serious challenges around my health. I have cancer and go through the regular treatments that are not much fun. There is also a lot of unknown ahead of me. One could say; isn’t it so for anybody? Yes, but the remnants of a mathematician in me come to think about probabilities and those are not in my favour. So, I worry and try to find answers how to live well with the situation I am in. This spills to my blog in some ways.

It is not a light start to what was going to be a light post, but my intentions are to write about Ladies in Black, the Australian film which is lovely, funny, intelligent and finishes with a number of happy ends. Just what the doctor ordered and I really enjoyed.

                                     

For my current mood it was a panacea of the first sort and I give it my personal, very subjective 10 out of 10.

The film is about Australia in 1959 when reffos (post war refugees from Europe) were finding their way to embrace the new life and becoming millionaires. The conviction that Australia is the land of opportunities, great weather, freedom and the place where if one wants to, one becomes a millionaire without much of a problem. I must say that I feel the same about the possibilities in this country, especially at the time of the action of the film. And especially concerning reffos from Hungary who came here after the horror of times of 1956. With their abilities, fresh outlook, knowledge of European ways and often good education they were bound to be successful and very rich as a result. I believe that statistics would confirm that. I often thought that my clever father and talented mother would have made me a millionaires’ daughter if they came of Australia after the war. Coming in 1979 I was not that clever or lucky, but I still have lived a good life here (at least in some aspects).

One of my favourite scenes of the film is the exchange between two Hungarian men who admire the weather and one of them raises his hands towards the sky praising the weather and the water views from the balcony of his house exclaiming: isn’t it wonderful! The other asks: Are you happy then? And the answer is somewhat hesitant: I would not be that trivial.

Very European, funny and very silly in fact. Also, this is how I was and perhaps still am. One must have some complicated Dostoevsky's feelings to be considered a sophisticated person. Pure happiness is for simpletons. Hmm…

Ladies in black are ladies who work in a prestigious department store for well to do Australians. The head of the fashion department is a reffo, a very stylish one with Parisian experience and exquisite taste in cloth.  She takes under her wing a young and very clever girl who took the job in the department store during the holidays after her HSC. She passed the exams with flying colours and will have a great future ahead of her. Very different to her mother as a new era is only  just starting for women in Australia. Germain Greer will soon start to provoke and change girls’ psyche. Our heroine wants to be a poet, or and actress, or… a novelist. She reads Anna Karenina and she wants to go to uni. Her father says that no daughter of his would go uni and we are observing the change in his thinking under the influence of salami and wine that he is introduced to and comes to the conclusion – I can get used to it. We all know that he will change his mind and that his clever daughter will go to uni after all. With his blessing too. In the meantime, she will be introduced to European society with Hungarians in majority, learn to dress well, drink champagne and deal with being kissed on the hand. I never liked this type of greeting, especially in Polish winter when one had to take off one’s glove in very cold weather to let a man, who she was saying hello to, clumsily kiss the frozen, shaking hand. Now I think that those times had a lot of charm even (or especially) this continental kiss on the hand. And Sydney of 1959 seems very attractive in the charming old fashion way.

                                                  

Lovely film that will be forgotten soon as it is just charming fluff.

My eclectic reading

                                   

This time I am reading Art as Therapy by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong. I mean, I really read few other books at the same time like Dunbar - the Hogarth version of King Lear, a Polish book about a spirited Polish painter Stryjenska and others as well. Just listing some of them made me aware that such eclectic reading may cause a great confusion in my thinking. It most likely does but my attention span shortened somehow and this has influenced my ability to complete a book in a single stream. My chaotic reading has its pluses, I would like to say. Like coming across Glenn Murcutt and getting sidetracked to look at architecture from a new perspective. My preferences have been mostly for European architecture with Gothic as my favourite church style. I know that most of the people would not share my liking of old churches. I am not sure where it came from, but I get mushy and nostalgic when I think of old European towns their market places, town-halls, palaces and churches. Always churches. I remember when I discovered the Pelplin Basilica. My husband and I were traveling from Warsaw to Gdansk by car. Looking through my tourist guide I found out that we were going to pass one of the national treasures in Pelplin. As it was time for lunch I did not have much problems to convince my husband to make a little detour to see the place and have something to eat in this small town. The church was closed but there was a possibility to open it on requests of tourists. I made such a request and the huge doors of the cathedral opened for us. Somebody turned the lights so we could see the interior. It was magnificent, the paintings, the sculptures and most of all the vaulted ceiling from the XIII century.

                             

I was spell bound. My companion did not quite share my artistic euphoria so we did not spend all that much time there, but some years later I went to spend few days in the place and had an opportunity to see the church at more than one occasion and many more beautiful things there.  Like shrine Madonnas or one of the original Gutenberg's bibles.

  

I can feel the next post taking a shape in my head already. But this will be one of my next posts and this was only a “small” introduction to write about that beauty has many names and many representations. Thinking about all those treasures that the history and various artists have left for us to admire one may think that the young countries do not have that much to offer. So, Australians travel to foreign countries to find more beauty there than we can see around us. Often, we even do not notice this unassuming beauty that Australia offers in abundance. And here I read about Art as Therapy covering subjects of: Methodology, Love, Nature, Money and Politics and discover artists I never heard of and find out much more about those I thought I knew well but really did not. At one point to my surprise come across a picture of War Memorial in Canberra. The caption says – One is moved by the sacrifice, but unsure quite in whose name it took place. On the next page there is a picture of Glenn Murcutt House in South Australia. Here the caption says: An Australia to love – and, if it comes to it, die for. The picture of this country house shows the corrugated iron, big cylindrical water tanks, and the shed and the garage doors. All the elements beautifully belong to one another and the whole composition is magnificent in an unassuming way. So clever, so aesthetically pleasing and so Australian. Suddenly I saw something different to a Gothic cathedral but making me feel quite similar as when entering a monumental church and in owe thinking wow…. I wish I could see the house in reality. Maybe one day?

P.S. My list of books “in reading” has grown again;  I just got To Kill the Mocking Bird from the library.  

Why do we read?

There are different reasons for different people and even the same people read for various reasons at specific periods of their lives. I have realized that lately I read heavier type of books, and started to ask myself the question why do I read at all and what is my need for reading based on those days. Some suggestions which convinced me are to be found in one of the Alain de Botton’s books in the chapter about reading. Maybe the answer is “Because books are so good at helping us to become aware of certain things we feel”? Do the books provide us with answers? De Botton does not think so. He says “our own wisdom begins where that of the author leaves it off…” or “Reading is on the threshold of the spiritual life; it introduces us to it: it does not constitute it.”
                                                        
So, let’s say that I read in this period of my life to uncover some of my feelings that may have been dormant or I have been blind to. I am not sure if I am progressing as my emotional life is still full of confusion. Things are messy while I like them nice and neat, well structured. Looks that I will not be able to have it my way, no matter how hard I try. Control over my life is also doubtful. Perhaps it always has been that way but I was not forced to see it so clearly as I am now, that I need to submit to medical treatments playing havoc with my well-being. So, I am looking for new answers to my perennial question: “How to live, prime minister?” Will books help? They should to some extent, at least I can use them to amuse myself while waiting till some difficult times pass. The only problem that reading purely for amusement does not work for me. At least not now. I thought, I try though. Since I am in still in a catch-up mode to cover the years of break in reading fiction, I thought that it is time to read some of Ian McEwan. People rave about him. I got two of his books from the local library, not exactly my pick, simply what was there.

Apparently and coincidentally the book is a remake of Hamlet even if not a part of the Hogarth project. McEwan was not invited to it and some think that it was a mistake in Hogarth Press judgement. So, he wrote his version without any invitation and published it before Gillian Flynn’s rendition of Hamlet will be finished. Did he win the race? This we will find out. The book did not resonate with me on a deeper level, but I admire the masterful story telling. At the same time, it was a good example of a mostly good book that did not do a job for me. Looks that I do not read books for their story line only. I think that the readers pleaser were the descriptions of the embryo imbibing the alcohol drunk by his mother and making in depth wine connoisseurs’ comments. Cute, I would say, and the writer perhaps could not take my complement as pleasing. Looks that I needed  to have my jibe as I only reluctantly give the author credit for the book. There is a bad taste in my mouth it left. I have ticked off Ian McEwan and do not have to return to his writing, unless persuaded.  

                                              

The children Act and Nutshell. After few pages of The Children Act, I realized that this is not going to be a book to read for fun. Well written, yes. Interesting, yes. Only I knew the film with Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci and I remembered it well, so I put it aside and started the next one. I must say that it was a novel idea to make an embryo a hero and the narrator of the book. One has to smile and shake one’s head at the concept. I responded to some of the humour, but a bit reluctantly. The style of writing is impressive, but style only never impressed me. I need some essence, meaning.

Fascination with Mountains

It has been a long time since I wrote a new post. The delays are due to lower spirit caused by not the best stretch in the health department of mine. It is time for allergies to flair up and that added to my general health maintenance issues.

I wonder why I started my post in the way I did. Do I think my readers need an excuse from me? Has my old friend - guilt (I am working on getting rid of it) kicked in again? Is it that I have not come up with an interesting subject to write about and am asking for understanding? All the above? Looks like it.

Some time ago I concluded that my blog will be a series of essays or as my very European soul prefers to call it - feuilletons. “Feuilleton” seems to me more like literary type of writing while an “essay”  indicates something like a school assignment.

So, the subject of my feuilleton today will be – Fascination with Mountains. 

There are two things that brought the subject of mountains to my attention. One of them is the a series of posts by one of my favourite bloggers Hans the Hiker. He impresses me with his determination to put dreams into plans and then into action. From what I can observe he succeeds big way. His most recent writing relates to his Mont Blanc walk. New posts are still being added but the first ones were enough for me to get into the mood of the hike and want for more. I recommend his  site.

I do not think I am particularly pessimistic thinking that such trips and views are beyond me now. Actually, many years ago when I spent time in Polish Tatra I had some altitude problems and was advised to avoid high mountains in the future. But mountain views are stunning; on Hans’ blog and in my recollection from student days. As I lived in the middle of rather circularly shaped Poland, summer trips were usually planed with change of scenery in mind. That meant either the mountains on the south of Poland or north at the Baltic shore. The two of my closest student friends and I went few times to Polish Tatra staying near Zakopane, the most fashionable place in the Polish mountain region. This was a great time for bonding and building trust one thought will last for life. And this is one of my most  profound disillusions and the saddest experiences of the recent. I know it is time to let it go, so I salute to the old friendship. 

                                 

Back to Zakopane and our holidays. We walked a lot in beautiful valleys with refuges feeding us local specialties. Reading Hans’ blog I came to a conclusion that Polish Tatras are a small brother of Alps but they beat even Italy as far as feeding tourists is concerned. Now and in communistic times, I can remember.

This looks like enough calories to prepare for a long hike

The cheese is very special and you can buy it only in Polish Tatras. 

Being young girls, we laughed a lot (maybe all the time?), we talked a lot and we read a lot as well. Magic times…

This is Giewont. Can you identify a laying man? His head and torso?

The memory of my holidays in the mountains was triggered by watching rather silly old Polish series – In Stilettos on Giewont. Giewont is one of the most recognizable Polish mountain sites; it is often named a Sleeping Soldier. The TV series is really silly and I gave up watching it after a short while but it brought the memories that are very important for me. There is a very special climate around the place, very distinctive culture, even language is different and very melodious, architecture    and way of dressing.  Maybe a lot of that is the show for the tourists those days, but even if it is only a show it is a very good one. Back to Hans’ posts, I can not stop myself to put a little add for Polish Tatra and its resorts. They are wonderful walks there. Not of the magnitude or beauty of Alps, but there is enough beauty to be found on less strenuous walks that for many will be demanding anyhow.

How about that for a view? Valley of Five Lakes.

Or this one? This valley was our favourite walk.

With some luck I will get myself such a scarf to feel warm in Australia and dream of Polish Tatra.