My Readings: The Conquest of Happiness By Bertrand Russell

A simple, easy to read book it was, with a profound journey through the depth of our life. The modern man faces a lot of disappointment and struggles with himself first then with the outside world which makes him continuously. This book helps you look around and spot what you were doing wrong everyday. It makes you re-evaluate your actions and see the true reasons why you do what you do.

To me this final section of the last chapter "The Happy Man" sums a lot up.

"All unhappiness depends upon some kind of disintegration or lack of integration; there is disintegration within the self through lack of co-ordination between the conscious and the unconscious mind; there is lack of integration between the self and society, where the two are not knit together by the force of objective interests and affections. The happy man is the man who does

not suffer from either of these failures of unity, whose personality is neither divided against itself nor pitted against the world. Such a man feels himself a citizen of the universe, enjoying freely the spectacle that it offers and the joys that it affords, untroubled by the thought of death because he feels himself not really separate from those who will come after him. It is in such profound instinctive union with the stream of life that the greatest joy is to be found."

There are so many parts I wanna share, I dunno where to start but something I liked so much and it reminded me of my blog on Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolf

"If you see a child drowning and save it as the result of a direct impulse to bring help, you will emerge none the worse morally. If, on the other hand, you say to yourself, "It is the part of virtue to succour the helpless, and I wish to be a virtuous man, therefore I must save this child", you will be an even worse man afterwards than you were before."

This paragraph reminds of what I hated most about Mrs. Dalloway as I called her the good atheist. Doing actions just to be called God, while deep inside I don't care whether the boy drowned or the whole of the humanity.

Russell discussed Selfishness too. 

"The traditional moralist, for example, will say that love should be unselfish. In a certain sense he is right, that is to say, it should not be selfish beyond a point, but it should undoubtedly be of such a nature that one's own happiness is bound up in its success. If a man were to invite a lady to marry him on the ground that he ardently desired her happiness and at the same time considered that she would afford him ideal opportunities of self-abnegation, I think it may be doubted whether she would be altogether pleased. Undoubtedly we should desire the happiness of those whom we love, but not as an alternative to our own. In fact the whole antithesis between self and the rest of the world, which is implied in the doctrine of self-denial, disappears as soon as we have any genuine interest in persons or things outside ourselves. "

He discussed too the virtue of boredom and the importance to let children have time and space doing nothing to cultivate skills and talents and interest in the world around them. He doesn't recommend filling up all the time of a child with activities or devices as we do nowadays. It's good for everyone to deal with something of a boredom in life. To have the time to look around and have interest in various subjects is an advice he gives to get away from self-centric problems and be happy.

"We are less bored than our ancestors were, but we are more afraid of boredom"

"A child develops best when, like a young plant, he is left undisturbed in the same soil. Too much travel, too much variety of impressions, are not good for the young, and cause them as they grow up to become incapable of enduring fruitful monotony."

"For all these reasons a generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow processes of nature, of men in whom every vital impulse slowly withers, as though they were cut flowers in a vase."

One of the parts that really intrigued me , as I always had questions related to it, is the parent-child relationship and where do sacrifice fit in such a relation.

His argument agreed with my instincts that giving birth to a child does not put on him a burden to satisfy you or make you happy. Any sacrifice you make for him/her is your choice and no burden on him. He discussed how this can be a source of happiness to both and where balance is needed.

There is much more to the book. I hope everyone reads it.

This is what jWoman has to say for today. 

The dark space

I know I am growing old. And for sometime now, I have been aware that I am coming to the age, where it is normal to lose those people that you once thought will be there forever. As I grow old, they grow older and I have to be prepared.

Can anyone be prepared to lose a parent, an aunt or an uncle or a close older relative who have always been there in your life?

Whatever are the distances, they are there. You had it as a fact of life, that you have them. Days and month and maybe years pass without saying a word but you know they are there. And suddenly, the dark space inside becomes bigger as it engulfs another one of the family. And you are waiting for, who is next.

One day, you will wait no more, because you will be next.

Today I lost one. I lost my uncle Benjamin. And it scares me again. He is not there anymore. I am becoming more alone in this world. Even if, I didn't see him everyday, I knew he was there.

Can I prepare myself for such loss? No, I can't. Isolating myself from family, won't make it more bearable. Memories of them are engraved in my brain and can't be erased. It won't make the pain any less.

What scares me more is thinking that I am waiting for the next.
I wish I have shown him more love and care. I wish I said, I love you, uncle or I miss you.

No more memories to create with you, just memories to remember and a dark space inside of me.

Pray for us, my dear uncle.

That's what jWoman has to say today.

Autism

Autism is a phenomenon that has always fascinated me. I researched it a lot especially after watching Carly flietcherman video by chance. Then there was the movie "Temple Grandin" and watching videos on YouTube About Temple and her lectures and talks.

Only 15% of them has jobs, business are missing what autistic people can bring into their businesses.

People with autism tend to have a detail focus, that is they see and observe many details in our world, which many neurotypicals tend to miss. They have an eye for detail.

We, neurotypicals tend to see what we they expect to see, what they know from context or experience. But people with autism see things as they are. They have an original perspective not stained by context.

Temple Grandin, "If it had been left to neurotypicals, we would all be sitting down in caves gossiping round the camp-fire. We would have never gone and invented the wheel."

SAP has that by 2020, 1% of their working force will be in the autistic spectrum.

Watch this inteseting talk about people with autism at work.

Go and find more about autism and its wide spectrum.

This is what jWoman has to say for today.

Untitled blog

I am a christian and I am an Egyptian, I was born an orthodox christian egyptian female. These are the tags attached to me since birth. That was just the start.

I grew up in an eastern society, I never took that into consideration. I was a naive introvert. But after thirty years my mum confessed that she lived her life scared to death, that I d fall in love with one of my Muslim friends. And whenever she saw one getting too close, she would panic. I never saw that. I don't know why I never fell for one of them, but that was what happened. In fact, the only truth is I never thought about it.

Lost your track, made a bad choice, grew up out of your current relationship status, or any other reason why you can't go on in your marriage is entirely a personal matter, in my opinion. In our society and in our world it is not. It is a matter that concerns the state, the law, the church, the family and everyone around and at the very end of the list comes you.

Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a saying. Some sympathises but see you to blame since you went into it in the first place. Why did you ever marry such a guy? And I don't have to answer. I don't have to give reasons why I did that, or even why I can't go on?

Everyone is curious to know the juicy details. Did he cheat on you? Did you catch him in bed with another woman? Is he a sexual pervert? What happened, just tell us. You have to give us details, reasons.

Write all the details down, maybe we will think you are worth a divorce, maybe not.

What is religious about that? Is it religious to take out your marital secrets just to get a divorce and you might need to add some spices or even make up stories just to convince the holy jury.

My life suddenly is exposed and under the mercy of other human beings.

Why can't I live like a civilized human being, why not? Is it because I did the mistake of getting married in an orthodox church??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They ban any civilian marriage between two Christians and the church treat them as outcasts and more!

So what's the solution, how can we spare ourselves, stay civilized and keep our sanity in this society where no one respects the other's rights or privacy.

I can't be part of that, I won't do that.

AND I don't need a man to look good

jwoman has nothing more to say
:(

My Readings: Mrs Dalloway

Mrs Dalloway and the good atheist.

“Oddly enough, she was one of the most thoroughgoing sceptics he had ever met, and possibly (this was a theory he used to make up to account for her, so transparent in some ways, so inscrutable in others), possibly she said to herself, As we are a doomed race, chained to a sinking ship (her favourite reading as a girl was Huxley and Tyndall, and they were fond of these nautical metaphors), as the whole thing is a bad joke, let us, at any rate, do “our part; mitigate the sufferings of our fellow-prisoners (Huxley again); decorate the dungeon with flowers and air-cushions; be as decent as we possibly can. Those ruffians, the Gods, shan't have it all their own way,—her notion being that the Gods, who never lost a chance of hurting, thwarting and spoiling human lives were seriously put out if, all the same, you behaved like a lady. That phase came directly after Sylvia's death—that horrible affair. To see your own sister killed by a falling tree (all Justin Parry's fault—all his carelessness) before your very eyes, a girl too on the verge of life, the most gifted of them, Clarissa always said, was enough to turn one bitter. Later she wasn't so positive perhaps; she thought there were no Gods; no one was to blame; and so she evolved this atheist's religion of doing good for the sake of goodness.”

I didn't like Clarissa at all, she represented all that I detested. (I remember this sentence from The Great Gatsby.)  She is a pretentious old woman. She has been pretending all her life. All her choices were made according to the image she wanted to project, not what she really wanted. Something not real and not genuine were my only feelings towards her. 

The quote I pasted above touched me so much. She lost faith in God, but she kept her virtue, he good making. She made up her own atheist's religion. Part of this, I think, is to fulfill the image she wants to reflect. She wants to do what is righteous and good, so that she is known as the good Lady Clarissa. Does she really believe this is good or does it only for the illusion of good. I think, she is all into the illusion, and deep in her restless soul she believes not.

What is LIGHT?

Today I woke up and found myself thinking of the word LIGHT. I felt fascinated by it. We use it often, it multiple different ways. In religion , light always refers to God, immortality, the other life, the good.

"I am the light of the world."   John 8:12

In nature and physics, light is an electromagnetic radiation, a wave and a particle. It has a duality nature. Light is why we see. Without light, our eyes will be useless. To be seen, our surfaces, our bodies need to reflect light. Sarcastically enough, shadows wont be there either, without light. In literature, sometimes light is clarity. It signifies knowledge, wisdom, an enlightened person. 

Then comes light as an adjective, or a word that precedes another to signify an easier, smaller, less version, like light-weight, light-beer, light-lunch.  Light can mean nice, causing happiness or a comic. A light film, is mostly a nice superficial film that make you happy but adds nothing to you, or so goes the stereotype.

Then, I started thinking, what is light to me? Light is what keeps complete darkness out of my life. It is hope, the good inside me. It is the feeling of pure joy, where your body seem weightless and you can be anywhere without really being there. Light gives me peace.

This is what jWoman has to say for today.

.....................

I want to cry and scream till I have no voice and run out of tears. Can I really run out of tears? Can I lose my voice? And what next will the pent up emotions vanish? Will the pain go away?

I want to bang my head against a wall, maybe the pain of my fractured skull will hide the pain in my heart.

Can I one day do it?
Will I one day take it away?
It will end the pain in my chest, it will end the meaningless chain of days.

I will one day, gather my courage, and accelerate my life to its closure.

jWoman is meaningless, purposeless, worthless.

.....................................................................................................

After a few days, I am re-reading my own words and it scares me. I am afraid of myself, how deep I can go? Nighttime is the worst.

I have my pain, but I still have a life to live. The fight is not over, but I am still alive with all my potentials, my weaknesses and my strengths, my pure beauty.

I have to keep away from nighttime fits, I have to use my loneliness, my boredom, my nights more fruitfully.

I am struggling to keep my faith in humanity, in myself, in GOD. I do that with a smile, and a deep breathe.

jWoman is back

Why?

Why did you knock,

Why did you insist on coming in, 

            When you didn't intend to stay?

Why did you ask me to trust you,

           when you couldn't keep a promise?

Why break my heart,

        Why?

           Why?

You just don't answer or is silence your answer.

Suicidal Thoughts

I want to kill myself.

Yes, I do.

The vaccum, I live in, is wearing my nerves. It is eating me alive. It is so much pain for me to endure. My tolerance is wearing thinner and thinner.

And I am losing my appetite for life.

Will death be better? What do I believe in, concerning death.

‘First of all, it’s important that suicide be difficult,’ Robert said. ‘And then continuing to live isn’t only continuing to breathe. No one ever succeeds in settling down in complete apathy. You like certain things, you hate others, you become indignant, you admire – all of which implies that you recognize the values of life.’ 
From The Mandarins - Simone De Beauvoire

I am settling down in complete apathy. I go on living, just 'cause I have to, because I was built that way.

This was suicidal jWoman, on a day not far away.

My Reading: The Great Gatsy

I have just finished reading Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It is a smooth going reading that entertained me for a sometime.

I finished it with two thoughts from Gatsby. My fear of loneliness, of dying alone, was triggered again by sad ending of Gatsby. No one was there for him, I am not concerned about the incredulous, meaningless way he died in, but that he was alone, no one there to bury him or say a prayer. No one to visit his grave. Does a dead person care about who visit him anyway? What does death really mean? Where are we after death. I know all the answers different religions have to give but I still haven't found an answer.

The second thought is wasting one's life in illusions. He wasted his life in the illusion of love. He worked hard to get all that money, in all ways but it felt he never really lived a single day. He enjoyed nothing. He lived all his life waiting till the moment of his death. He was just starting to look around, thinking that now I can start enjoying.

“At two o’clock Gatsby put on his bathing-suit and left word with the butler that if any one phoned word was to be brought to him at the pool. He stopped at the garage for a pneumatic mattress that had amused his guests during the summer, and the chauffeur helped him pump it up. "

..........................

“If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about … like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.”

And the book was concluded by

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… . And one fine morning..........

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Excerpt From: F. Scott Fitzgerald. “The Great Gatsby.”

This is what jWoman has to say.

It's not OK, because I am not OK.

I can't keep the act anymore. I am not Ok. I am not fine. It is not Ok, because I am not. I can't keep the act anymore. Pretending has worn me out, and all masks , I have worn, has faded and fell off showing my true face; of not being Ok.

I am suspended between heaven and earth. I am nowhere to be reached, no where to be found.

Why do I go on, I just don't know?

Why do I wake up in the morning? I have no idea.

So many a morning lately, I would open my eyes and just stare at at the ceiling. I'd go through my mind, looking in every dark, forgotten corner of my mind for a reason to go on and found none. I wake up every morning and go to work. I eat, drink, sleep. I talk and answer. I chat and smile. But I feel nothing. I feel void.

I do all that with inertia.

But from the physics lesson about inertia, I still remember that inertia is not a driving force. It has a limit, an end. One day, I will not move from bed anymore. One day, I will not utter another word.

I am living, going on, proceeding but I am not OK. I am keeping the pretense but not for long. I don't feel anything. Nothing really touches me.

I know that some hurts of my mine are still bleeding. I know I have hurt myself even before anyone else attempted to do me the favor. I know a lot about it all and I am conscious of all that. It's not part of my unconsciousness. No. I am conscious and I perceive and comprehend all.
This is utter HELL.

I wish I was neurotic, or any kind of psycho that has no idea this was all going on in his mind. But I am not. I am aware of all that is going on and I have a hyper analytical brain that will bring me to my end soon.

I am on the verge of breaking down. I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

This is how jWoman feels today.

My Movie: The theory of Everything

It's not just a movie. It's a piece of something so profound, so genuine , so beautiful but painful.

It's not just the brilliance of a man or his defiance of all limitations, it's the story of the universe. It's so pure, like a walk in an untouched wood, or forest, where human distortions never reached.  The beauty of a human mind, heart and soul. His pain was so beautiful and his smile was so painful. He is a pure human figure, purified by the pain and left out of all the .

It's not just a love story, it's a life concert. He is an embodiment of the celebration of life. And to me he is a living proof of the existence of God. 

He is the painful beauty. I can't explain how beauty can bring pain but I perceived it and so it does, at least to me.

How can we get such strength, do we need so much pain to get out the best in us?? Can we just get it out on purpose? Do we all have such strength and beauty? Or has all the devilish details of our lives took away from us this capability, this beauty.

Thanks Stephen Hawkin

That's jWoman's words for tonight.

My Reading: Atlas shrugged

I have just finished this book. I have been reading it for so long. I have started it months ago, I can't recall how many indeed. Now, I can say really, 'thanks Ayn Rand'. This book was a real eye opener. It gave shape and meaning to some odd thoughts and ideas I used to have. It put into words what I have been fighting to make sense of. However, on the other hand, it increased my anger towards the society that I live in and the hereditary ideas and concepts of self destruction disguised as virtue, as self sacrifice.

I might not be that radical and I don't agree with every bit of her objectivism. However, selfishness and its misuse in our society is where I found Ayn Rands words and thoughts really enlightening. 

I still really respect the our cultural heroes, whether they are the soldiers who fight for the sake of their countries and people who really work in charity and people like Mother Teresa. But I look at them differently. To me, it is not selflessness that motivates them, or the need to nullify their existence. No, they were selfish in there own way. They did that with love, satisfaction and peace. They loved their lives so much and enjoyed it to the fullest in their own way.

I can accommodate our differences. Our variations is what made life possible and what keeps life going. Joy, love, happiness, satisfaction are relative issues and I can't measure how happy someone else is according to my measures not even my loved one or very close family member. But as long as I am doing what I am doing with love, passion, peace and eagerness then I am doing it selfishly. I am doing it for myself before any other end. My benefit from this work will be more than to any other beneficial.

And I do believe in God and Christ but there is something about the religion of today that I question and most often it repels me. I am repelled by the rituals that z

Those I can't ever accommodate or understand are the looter, as called in the novel. The parasites of our society who lives on my consent to feed them from my work while they deserve nothing. 

The last part of the long was prolonged too much for my taste. I was persistent to finish it but at time it got too boring. It could have been shortened without losing much. Some criticizes the book as being unreal or the characters. I don't think I care whether or not. Maybe at time she exgeratted in drawing the looters as bad looking and too evil. I think in reality it isn't that clear or consistent. The important to me is the essence of their existence, whether the parasites or the mind-owner.

It was a great book. I enjoyed it.

Echos

The night is long, too long
I hear your voice, I almost feel you near.
I stretch out to you but you're not there
And all I feel is coldness.
The air in the room freezes and my heart too slow to go on
My life burdened with unbearable pain, and I can't go on.

"You're my life. I can't hurt you"
But you did.

I still hear your voice in my ears, the echo of your words still in the room
But yet when I reach out for you in the darkness, coldness is all I feel.

Questions kill me, suffocate me in this freezing room.
Words said ...............and words yet................... not said eat my heart away.
And the echos are all that is left of you

The space you.............. once filled is vacuum now.
I can't breath the pain out,.............. I can't go on
I am drowning in my bed
I am freezing to death, echos of words you said are deafening my ears.

Echos of you are killing me mercilessly

A letter to an unfriend

The saying goes
                     "A friend, in need, is a friend indeed."

But you my friend failed to be a friend, since you left me when I needed you. I was weak. I was lonely. I needed a friend to lean on. I needed a friend to talk to, a friend who will listen without judging, without using my words against me, without blaming.

I don't need to walk the path of life, the same way you do. I don't have to use your methodology and logic. I have a mind of my own, you once praised. But suddenly when it didn't confirm to your thinking, you just escaped. You hide from me.

But you have once accepted me as friend. You have once accepted our differences as assets to our friendship.

Now, I am disappointed. I am sad, heart-broken. I thought you'll stand by me when I needed you. I thought you'll support my decisions just because they were mine. I thought you'll support them, just because I wanted them so much.

Today, I am starting over. I am starting a new page of my life. I once hoped, you'll be there to tell you all my new stories. I hoped I will share with you my life-story as I once did. But the truth is you are no more part of my life. You've gone with the old page. I am really sorry you had to leave with it. But it was your choice, so I have no regrets but I am sad.

I still wonder, how you are doing. I still care for you, care about the little issues, you once told me about and I don't know how you solved them. I still care about my friend. I care about the little and big details. I still think of you from time to time but with pain in my heart. I am sad you left without any goodbyes. I am sad you had to leave.

And now I am writing to you to tell you, you're no more my friend, you are an unfriend.

Good luck my friend.


This is what jwoman feels today

An inside battle for survival

She paced the room up and down continuously for minutes that seemed like days to her. Her breathing was hearable but yet couldn't drown the sounds in her head.

She went into the kitchen, standing in front of  the opened refrigerator door she noisily crunched at a cucumber. She set on the water boiler, brewed some relaxing herbs. All this noise and activities didn't stop the loops of thoughts running infinitely in her head.

Thinking of the past is of no use. It carries nothing but regret. The future is unknown and worry is all you get of contemplating it constantly. But how can she live her present with this aching pain in her heart. She feels void, deprived of life.

She stood before the bookshelves. Her eyes scanning the books, looking for a title that would grasp her attention. Opening a novel she have read before, her eyes run after the letters and words but no sense was made of them. Choosing another book, a book of poems this time, she read a poem out loud. But it was a sad poem about heart-ache.

She couldn't go on reading.

A strong woman she knew she is, but now she is trying out her real strength, the strength to stand up again and keep going. She's learnt the hard way, the worth of her independence. She learnt her strength and weakness. She befriended her loneliness. She can't let this change. The unsettling feelings has to settle. The unrestfulness has to know a rest, a home, a shore. She knew she can do it. She just needs patience. She needs to eliminate all distractions and focus on building her present. The past is behind and the future is yet to come but the present is here.

A smile can hide a tear, a deep breath can help you collect yourself and push it out of the pit. No one can help you. It lies deep inside, waiting to be explored, the untrodden territories of yourself, of your mind and soul. Connect and communicate with your innerself and grab your strength from there.

Yes, she can, She tried hard to stop the whirlwind of thoughts. Regulating her breath and standing up with a raised head and opened arms as if to embrace her innerself. She wanted it so much. She wanted peace.

It will come to her, she knows.

Peace will engulf her.

She accepted her present, accepted her limits and strengths.

Now she can sleep, so she closed the lights and headed back to bed. Whether she will sleep or not, she had to try it to know.


This is jwoman's thoughts for the day