The Written Word

A single book can change our lives, our dreams, our aspirations.  It can show us things in our imagination that we’d never been capable of seeing.  When we read a book, we are seduced by a world where intangible things have the power to mold who we are and what we believe in.  No single book has the power to change who we are permanently, but they all have the ability to re-shape our ideas and conceptions throughout the course of our lives.  The only requirement is that our minds be open enough to allow their words to cast these spells on us, spells that may only be temporary as we grow older.     

The miracle of reading is that the author takes us on a roller-coaster of thoughts that span the entire realm of the cosmos.  Great chapters are similar to moving speeches: their soliloquies take us on journeys to places we've never been; and, being without any of the interruptions of shared communication, for once allow us to escape from our heads and let the possession of another’s evolve the matrices of our minds.  While the conceptions in our heads may not be identical to the author’s, each individual conception of the same story or idea is like a never-ending cycle of creation.  Each of these conceptions are like little stars on a big black night, glowing with delight among the darkness of despair and ignorance.  They may appear to be the same from a distance, but from up close they are subtly different in ways that define the type of star they are.  Our reason for interpreting a piece of literature (and all art, for that matter) the way we do is largely dependent on the environment we were raised in.  It can also be due to pre-conceptions about what we already know or believe.  Therefore, every star in the universe of a book's pages can be likened to being born out of the interstellar dust that is generated by the minds reading it.   

Reading requires patience, concentration, and a genuine interest in the subject being read about.  When we are spoon-fed what to read, whether by our parents or our teachers, then the words spill off the page, drained by tears of boredom.  We should never be told what to read; we should be allowed to choose for our own pleasure, or else the words won’t stick in our minds and our opinion of literature will be tarnished.  The greatest minds the world has ever produced were minds that explored the written word with ceaseless abandon. 

The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann

In the Alps of Bavaria there is a place of wonder and wisdom. Its remoteness welcomes those that are ill, both from treatable diseases and psychological malaises brought about from living in industrial civilization. Hans Canstorp is a member of this latter group, and he visits the mountains initially to see his cousin, but finds so much peace and comfort in their solitude that time slows down and swallows him inside their location. 

The Magic Mountain is a meditation on time, elevation, genius, sociology, biology, and metaphysics at the beginning of the 20th century, just before the thunderbolt of World War 1 went crashing down across Europe. It’s the coming-of-age story about a young man caught between the ideologies of two talented debaters: Settembrini, a poster child of the Enlightenment, and Naptha, a fascist Jesuit. Like the lost corridors and unpredictable weather patterns of the chaotic mountains, their discussions dish up a storm of contradictions that rattle our minds with the ambiguity of confusion. But somewhere lingering inside the ongoing war between love and reason, a magical philosophy breaths clarity into the minds of those patient enough to persevere through the novel’s length. The mountains know this philosophy, and it is the destiny of our protagonist to find it. 

Although we must go through long stretches of disinterest and inactivity, we are served several golden nuggets of literature scattered in between them. “Research” is what I believe to be one of the greatest chapters ever written- a meditation on the parallels between biology and the cosmos. “Walpurgis Night” is as seductively memorable as “The City of God” is intellectually stimulating. “Snow” is the most famous of them, an atmospheric skiing adventure that blurs the distinction between fantasy and reality. Finally, the book ends with “The Thunderbolt”, an invasion of the senses from the Underworld. 

Fans of plotless literature and challenging structures should enjoy this. If you’re looking for a light read filled with bare-chested warriors, flaming dragons, and cheap romance, then stop what you’re doing and run. 

God Wants You to Evolve

Eons ago, we were nothing but stardust in space.  All our atoms were dispersed among celestial objects that drifted through the universe without any sense of direction or form.  When God created the Earth, He made the conditions right for these stellar remnants to arrange themselves into the building blocks of life.  We were given electricity to move our bodies and consciousness to think for ourselves.  Thenceforth, every modification of His became a stage in His desire for all creations to become greater beings.  It didn’t end with fishes; it didn’t end with birds.  Nor did it end with the dinosaurs, the roaring lion, or the crafty human.  We are only but a link in the chain of His design, the result of a systematic blueprint that changes under the laws of nature and the blemishes of destruction.  By the limits of the natural laws He creates, a wild platter of disorder re-arranges the puzzle that keeps us together.    God wants you to evolve.  He wants you to glorify His image in a being greater than you already are.  He wants you to adjust to your environment and adapt with the shifting sands of eternity.  Nothing is ever preserved in time.  We are like pieces of clay that are constantly being remolded and improved upon from the generations that stood before us. 

Hark, ye bells of the future!  Look to the glory of God, and that is beauty.  All creation is beauty, whether it be in the heavens or upon the Earth.  Look to the sky, that fabled interior of God's mind, and that same malleable expanse can be found in the mind of your own, bursting with the same powers of creation that He cast you with.  The same stories drawn in the heavens can be imitated in the heavens of your own.  You were given this power, and you must do what you can to govern it well.  Make beautiful things and waste not in excess, for the path of excess only leads to the tower of wisdom when you are able to balance the order and the chaos within you. 

When looking at a creation of your own, does it not seem to you that your appreciation of its beauty is an admiration for the wildness that accentuates the symmetry of design?  And doesn't this symmetry, this order, make the untamed details of it all the more pleasing?  Look at an icy mountain, like that of Denali in Alaska, or think about the most beautiful woman you ever laid eyes on.  A single stain on the face of these symmetries can render them unworthy of your praise.  Likewise, the asymmetry of a ship, or the uneven tiles on a marble floor, can spoil even the most well-maintained objects.  Beauty doesn't care how hard you tried to create an excess of something.  Beauty is the perfect balance between order and chaos.