///READS HESSE ONCE///

Ready to exercise my brain.

As a child, I spent a lot of time with books. My parents would take turns reading me and Ethan books at bedtime, and I always adored observing, aurally, the disparate ways in which each would recite stories -- varied inflections, different speeds, but both with an inevitable calm. I recall being on my brother's bunkbed one day when I taught myself how to read. It was a rhyming book about pickles, and I was so excited. After that, I would read constantly. My mom would call us for dinner, and my face would be buried deep in a Boxcar Children's book telling her, "Just let me finish this!" She would take me to the library every week to rent new books, new worlds for me to get lost in. Fiction was my favorite, and poetry, I always wanted to be a kid poet. I also enjoyed reading about animals, dinosaurs, and deep sea creatures. In first grade, I stole Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea from our bookcase at home to read during silent time, and any word I didn't know I would write on a sticky note to look up later. Hemingway became a good friend of mine. He taught me that you don't have to write with much complexity to tell a powerful story, he wrote simply yet I could still envision his descriptions so clearly. Many recesses were spent in the library reading Roald Dahl books and, if not the library, outside playing tetherball or monkeybars or conducting singing competitions with my friends where I'd sing Mariah Carey's Hero and fucking kill it. Other games I enjoyed included Mensa brain games and math flashcards, Pictionary and Scrabble. From a young age, I was always naturally drawn to writing, mathematics, and visual arts.

Fast forward to 2017:

Hardly anyone reads an actual book these days. They're either reading succinct articles and posts on the web or listening to audiobooks. I still believe (and perhaps I am a rare case here) that real life books are immensely important. To flip through actual leaves, to scan actual printed letters, all while not being distracted by ad pop-ups or social media slash email notifications, is a miracle and a blessing. Reading actual books allows and promotes focus, something of a rare trait these days what with 10 second videos and things that disappear after 24 hours. You can keep a book forever, put it down to pick up later, go back to it, write in it, and witness it age beautifully in parallel with you.

Admittedly, I haven't successfully finished a real book in a couple of years. Probably the last was a Murakami one I'd borrowed (then consequently stolen) from my brother. It was dark, and the amount it made me think and wonder afterward was almost uncomfortable. Therein lies the beauty of reading a book: whether you like it or not, a book will make you think, imaginatively, critically, and continuously. Those new thought pathways don't go away, your mind remains expanded, and you come at the world with new eyes after every book. Though I haven't read many books as of late, for some reason my shopping for them has never ceased. I think the number of books in my library that I haven't read now surpasses the ones I have read, which is something to look forward to. And my Amazon book wishlist is made up of some 560something books, all of which I eventually plan on owning like, for example, if I win the lottery or some angel of a human being decides to fulfill my biggest material dream.

Last week I read an online article about the importance of morning routines. I jotted some ideas for mine that I want to eventually build up to and make a daily healthy habit of, such as: wake up earlier, 10 minutes of silence and breathing (meditation), smile and give thanks, apple cider vinegar water and supplements, quick workout or yoga, green smoothie or tea + breakfast, read or draw for 20 minutes, daily to-do list, check phone notifications outside in the sun, chores, then on with my day. Ok, so I realize I would need to take baby steps here and just add one per week, but eventually this would be my ideal morning routine to get my days started with a peaceful state of mind, ready to absorb and create all that good shit.

I picked up a book today. Yes, to read (as per one of my morning routine ideas). But 20 minutes turned into a few hours. I only read the preface, but it took so long because I kept stopping to re-read and ponder the concepts presented to me. It'd been a long time since I'd been made to think like that. To think in length about complex ideas, about bigger things than what's going on on Instagram. And it made me feel full, in a good way; mentally satisfied. Like the gears in my brain had finally gotten greased after years of sad atrophy. I felt like myself again.

It's crazy how a preface revised in the eighties about a book written in 1943 so accurately describes what the world has actually become and gives sound advice needed today in 2017:

"... the self-destructive course of modern civilization ..."

(Greed VS human welfare; greed VS nature; us influenced by unreal society standards VS our true selves)

"... Knecht succeeds in analyzing the dangers of an excessive aestheticism and acts to avert the catastrophe of intellectual irresponsibility."

(Use of social media)

"Hesse's novels fictionalize the admonitions of an outsider urging us to question accepted values, to rebel against the system, to challenge conventional "reality" in the light of higher ideals."

(Society, politics, media, the external world in general that's fast becoming one full of clones)

"... critics of the system and prophets of the ideal."

(Trump, Duterte, the unseen powers that be, power to the people)

"I hear music and see men of the past and future. I see wise men and poets and scholars and artists harmoniously building the hundred-gated cathedral of Mind."

(anti-clone society: take back individuality, encourage diversity)

"... he had been living a lie and denying the authentic impulses of his own being."

(Me, in a fucking nutshell, the past three years, getting lost in others and, consequently, losing my Self)

"... men must seek a new morality that, transcending the conventional dichotomy of good and evil, will embrace all extremes of life in one unified vision. ... The child ... is born into a state of unity with all being. It is only when the child is taught about good and evil that he advances to a second level of individuation characterized by despair and alienation ... A few men ... manage to attain a third level of awareness where they are once again capable of accepting all being."

(Things should not be viewed as just bad or good, there are so many grey areas, and what is more important is the idea of balance. Balance means that all contrast is essential, that you do not and cannot receive one part without the other, every single idea, person, place, thing, shape, mood, all of it! has a complementary idea, person, place, thing, shape, mood that balances it. It's not about good and evil, but about equilibrium, harmony.)

"... the futility of any spiritual realm divorced wholly from contemporary social reality ... even the most perfect spiritual institution, in the eyes of history, is a relative organism. In order to survive it must adapt itself to the social exigencies of the times."

(The benefits of yoga and meditation are nullified if one is unaware of what's going on in the world around them and does not apply and share their spiritual learnings with said world. Again, balance is key, diversity is paramount -- get to know both sides of the coin, as well as the edge.)

"... thoughtful commitment over self-indulgent solipsism, responsible action over mindless revolt."

(educational, mind-expanding posts VS serial posting of selfies; peaceful protest VS aggressive rioting)

"revolt need not be irrational and violent ... it is more effective when it is rational and ironic."

(let's define ironic here: happening in the opposite way to what is expected -- perhaps ATTN: Trump protestors?)

"... our computerized society has become so bureaucratically impersonal that it is no longer guided sufficiently by forces that are in the highest sense humane; our research and scholarship have attained dizzying heights of achievement without retaining a compensating sense of ethical responsibility."

(They know everything. Thank God for Edward Snowden and Julian Assange)

Enough for today. But can I just say, goddamn am I grateful to be back. I needed this return.

When you reunite with your old friends.