The Essays book I aka Les Essais Livre I by Michel de Montaigne, author of Essays on Friendship, my note on this is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/02/on-friendship-by-michel-de-montaigne.html along with other reviews - 10 out of 10

 

The Essays  book I aka Les Essais Livre I by Michel de Montaigne, author of Essays on Friendship, my note on this is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/02/on-friendship-by-michel-de-montaigne.html along with other reviews

 

10 out of 10

 

 

Let us try to start off with an attempt to be humorous – this is so spectacular that it is very difficult to read, I mean I am trying the audiobook version – by the way, seeing that this is centuries old, and thus the copyright has expired also some hundreds of years back, you can listen to it for free, or find it on this site https://www.gutenberg.org/

 

It is more difficult to listen to someone reading the book for you, it is nay impossible if we are talking about Ulysses or Beckett https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/08/molloy-by-samuel-beckett.html and Michel de Montaigne has so much packed in, that the average brain would have trouble assimilating, at least mine has

On the other hand, there is a lot that makes sense, seems so reasonable, as in well, I might have thought of that, or I did read this before, and it has crossed my mind, most often the thinker is so decent, he even takes a relaxed attitude towards cannibals, if I have got that right, I may just sell you poppycock here, unintentionally though

 

Some of the essays have been through my ears this morning, as I was doing my fifteen kilometers run – is it not impressive, I just inserted this here, to show off, if I cannot put here exquisite, awe-inspiring lines that would catapult me to offers for writing a Pulitzer Prize winner, at least let us brag about some brawn, and I am sixty!

Therefore, it was difficult, though there is that thing called the ‘runner’s high’, developed though millennia of evolution, nature has provided humans with a system to keep them active, you see a predator, and you need to get away fast – we are talking prehistory, right? – so the body has to face the challenge

 

Well, the brain would get a dose of stimulants, the perfect cocktail of dopamine, serotonin, adrenalin (or the latter is for the heart), some of these would be present, but I forgot the rest, the point of it is that this stimulates, offers a sensation of getting to what might be called Flow https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-this-is.html a classic of positive psychology

Indeed, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, co-founder of positive psychology, along with Martin Seligman, has studied what brings humans into The Zone, to a Peak Experience, and contrary to what some expected, that lethargy would be so pleasant, participants would express felicity when sitting on the couch, it was a surprising result

 

We are in (near?) ecstasy when we are challenged, tested, granted, one paramount rule is that challenges meet skills, or else you must be on the line between boredom and burnout, not too easy as to be uninteresting, nor too heavy as to make you suffer and lose joy, time is relative, that is another condition of flow

If you have an overwhelming experience, in that it is too much, time will dilate, it will feel as in the Einstein quote “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.” The pain of the hot stove, but when it is splendid, time is short

 

I will refer to Positivity https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/05/positivity-by-barbara-fredrickson-life.html another essential book in psychology, the author, marvelous Barbara Fredrickson, looked at what is positivity, what are the elements, how do we get there, and evidently, you need to read the book to get to the essence

Nonetheless, there are ten components which are sine qua non, awe, interest, joy, inspiration, pride, amusement, hope, serenity, gratitude and love, albeit I have some qualms, in that at least two of them look to me as contradicting some principles from other, sage thinking, in particular, that of the stoics, the ascetic luminaries

 

That is we need to be happy with what we have, hence what is the need for hope, and if modesty is the key word, how about pride https://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/peace-of-mind-by-seneca-10-out-of-10.html it is just a mind game, for there is a need to apply moderation, or what was called the Golden Mean

I am thinking now of a real-life example, with fucked up office here – my daughter made me buy a camera, worth near 3,000 Dolars, with the incentive that they would give 300 back, after waiting for one month, so that they are sure we keep the goods, and not return them, only now we are caught in a clash with them

 

Well, it is about finished, because they just do not want to give the 300, because they claim that the registration did not take place in time – which even by that standard is gruesome, in my mind, for they say wait one month, but not more than five, and then this was not like big, on the site, it was just wait a month

And then the huge cost, 3000 dollars, why not say now, we are seven months out or so, that alright, you are valuable customers, we get the point, she may have registered on the site, these have problems, they have had those with that The Interview movie, when Kim of North Korea got upset, and then they hacked their game

But no, they just refuse to pay, and I need to remember ‘Happiness Activity No 6: Developing Strategies for Coping-practicing ways to endure or surmount hardship or trauma’ from the book The How of Happiness

 

 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.”