Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata, Nobel Prize Winner and author of The Sound of The Mountain, included on the 100 Greatest Books of All Time list, my note on this is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-sound-of-mountain-by-yasunari.html along with thousands of other reviews - 7 out of 10

 

Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata, Nobel Prize Winner and author of The Sound of The Mountain, included on the 100 Greatest Books of All Time list, my note on this is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-sound-of-mountain-by-yasunari.html along with thousands of other reviews

 

7 out of 10

 

Beauty and Sadness is on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, the work of a Nobel Prize Winner – though it is said it is not his best, that could be The Sound of The Mountain, after all, the latter made it into the Top 100 of All Time – ergo one should be in awe, inspired by it, that is if he or she has those positivity ingredients

 

Positivity https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/05/positivity-by-barbara-fredrickson-life.html is a classic of psychology – albeit classics change with time, what was a fundamental read once is now dejected, sometimes anathema, or just forgotten, an article in The Economist explains about the Mona Lisa, now the best known painting…

Perhaps even the most popular work of art, but it was once just some exhibit, not noticed in particular, until the saga of the theft caught the imagination, it was followed by the newspapers, it was enticing and voila, now we celebrate the enigmatic tableaux as the nec plus ultra, crème de la crème of artistic valor

 

Back to Positivity, and unless I do the ’weave’, just like that Orange Idiot that is favorite to win the biggest of all games https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/09/games-people-play-by-eric-berne.html next week, then to Beauty and Sadness – alas, I did not get it, I probably lack the needed skills and I was thing earlier, maybe character to really enjoy it, it takes some strengths, resilience is one, and that is in short supply lately

The components of Positivity are awe – there was none of that here, but it is not Yasunari Kawabata, it is just the under signed, it might be age, or just the litmus test I am using, also a question of Flow, Thin Slicing, having too high expectations, if one has read Proust https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/04/le-temps-retrouve-by-marcel-proust.html then there is little, if anything, to bring the same supreme joy, Nirvana

 

The other elements of Positivity, identified by the ultimate expert on the topic, Barbara Fredrickson, would be interest, amusement, inspiration, pride, joy, serenity, hope, love, gratitude, and if I could try a silly joke – and why not, the advantage of not having anybody read your text is that you could put in it anything you want, and today I was considering the evidence that there is not a soul engaged with these lines – I have an ending that is the same for all the notes, in which I mention a proposal, offer a link to something incredible I do http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – and yet, there was no response to appeals, offers to partner, request for advice, and so on, and yes, maybe a few did go through this and had no reaction, but is that not the equivalent of having no impact, as if no human has gone through that, we give each likes, but it is the rule from Influence

 

Influence is another classic of psychology, written by Robert Cialdini, and used in sales, marketing, and more, because it shows what influences people, and one of the six principles is Reciprocity https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/10/influence-science-and-practice-graphic.html somebody gives me a like, and I return the favor

It can have calamitous effects, in one instance, the case is exposed in the book, members of a sect committed a mass suicide in Guyana, and one reason was that the defective leader had made them some favors, and then to reciprocate, they listened to him when he said now you have to kill yourselves, it was not just that…

 

It was also the Principle of Respect for Authority, and the Principle of Social Conformity at work, we tend to look at the others and follow the example, especially in situations, places that are unfamiliar, Guyana, in south America fits the description perfectly and there are special uses from reading Influence, in an emergency

If there is an accident, we have to consider the Social Conformity rule, because strangers will tend to avoid getting involved, looking at each other for guidance, and doing nothing, but the solution is to say ‘you, with the green jumper, call 911, and you with the blue shirt, come and help with this victim’ and then we get support

 

Yes, this is not about Beauty and Sadness, but then there was no Flow there for me, and that is classic number three, still psychology https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-this-is.html which gives you what it takes to get into The Zone, and it is you are in control, nothing else matters, you have clear goals, constant and instant feedback, time is expanding and/or dilating and also it is…

Autotelic (Sadness is not really…sadly), time really was flowing too slowly, feedback was not positive, because most importantly, if one has to be between boredom and burnout, on the challenging line, in this case, it was alternatively boring and then a burnout, because I could not follow, I also gave the example of stations

 

Just like with a good station, with fabulous music, or a glorious play, podcast, if you lose the frequency, then it does not matter is it is Shakespeare https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/09/henry-v-by-william-shakespeare.html and if we think Malcolm Gladwell, Blink – the Power of Thinking Without Thinking and Thin slicing, then we see all this in less than a minute, just like those art experts called to assess the a ledged ancient statues (which were new in the book) or the tasters, we do not know if it is Coke or Pepsi in a glass, unless we had been told, but those professionals will tell you in a few seconds if they use vanilla flavor, or the real thing from South America or the Pacific – was it Tahiti, it does not matter – the same with a book, a few pages is all it takes

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”