The Spike by George Orwell is the second essay in his Collection of Essays, which is in 917th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site, where his Nineteen Eighty Four is 6th, Animal Farm is 54th and An Homage to Catalonia is high – you can check the position, which is nevertheless changing due to the whims of the algorithm, well, not whims, but you see what I mean, Insha’Allah – you find notes on these magnum opera and more than five thousand other novels and films from the same site and The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list on my blogs, which I am promoting because it has become a habit, more than anything else https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

The Spike by George Orwell is the second essay in his Collection of Essays, which is in 917th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site, where his Nineteen Eighty Four is 6th, Animal Farm is 54th and An Homage to Catalonia is high – you can check the position, which is nevertheless changing due to the whims of the algorithm, well, not whims, but you see what I mean, Insha’Allah – you find notes on these magnum opera and more than five thousand other novels and films from the same site and The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list on my blogs, which I am promoting because it has become a habit, more than anything else https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

9 out of 10

 

The introduction to The Essays of George Orwell is long, but more than informative, one would be puzzled by the assumption that the best known, and so highly acclaimed Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four might be forgotten in the future, and what our descendants will read will be these thoughts of one of the best…essayists

 

Flow https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi.html came to mind when reading The Spike, because Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has an example of a tramp in his classic positive psychology book

 

The point was that this poor, homeless man was still happy, even better, in Flow, which something like Being in The Zone, Nirvana, Catharsis, despite the fact that he had…well, nothing, in material terms but then there are the Hindus

However, a study published some years ago has established a limit of maybe seventy thousand dollars for wellbeing – we will not go into detail, for I am already off the subject, somewhat, albeit we discuss tramps, poverty and that is what The Spike is about – and The Economist has published an article which contradicts that

 

The Spike is the colloquial name for a workhouse, and George Orwell spend the night in one, apparently, though the introduction presents the issue of whether or not the author did kill an elephant – a note on that piece will be here in a few days…

Did Orwell see A Hanging – which is for tomorrow actually – or was this just imagination, after all, we do not assume H.G. Wells https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/war-of-worlds-by-h-g-wells.html did not meet Martians

 

Despite what we read in Flow, the homeless are not happy, this is not the recipe for bliss, jubilation, indeed, the psychology classic does not even argue that, that happy tramp was an exception, we can reach the zenith regardless of material things

‘Where there is a will, there is a way’ I think that was one of the main points in another psychology classic, Man’s Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl, a brilliant man, who had been through the Nazi concentration camps

 

He refused the way out https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/mans-search-for-meaning-by-victor-frankl.html he was given a pass, but without his family he would not take it, he saw what happened in the extermination camps

The men who have to use The Spike are dirty, there is only this small, limited amount of water they can all use, so Orwell decides to stay without the wash for the day, given that it is ‘first to arrive, first served’ in the morning

 

Everything else is desolate, one conclusion would be to be grateful for what we have – well, we know this from Seneca, millennia ago – especially when we find how bad things are for other humans, then and now, think about The Ukraine, Gaza…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html – 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 benefits 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…’

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