Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Friday, March 13, 2009

The economic Naturalist by Robert H. Frank


I really was looking forward to reading this book. I just finished Social Atom and I had great expectations about the title and its premise. Even though I am trying to take each book individually, so I can enjoy the merits away from comparison. The truth is, this book didn't impress me. Perhaps I am not its target, maybe I wasn't in the mood.

The author is a economics teacher and in his class he gives an assignment to use a principle or principles, discussed in the course to pose and answer an interesting question about some pattern of events or behavior that the students have observed.

But asides for a couple of revealing questions, the rest lack interest for me. Or I lack interest for them, which seems more accurate.

The book offers explanations based on cost benefit principle, (you should take an action if and only if the extra benefit from taking it is greater than the extra cost) and other economic theories. But coming from The Social Atom, it felt like all theories based on a rational interpretation of the human mind (which is the main approach used by modern economics to develop their theories) are flawed.

It was a quick read though and like it or not it tough me a good lesson; not everything is going to be equally enjoyable. But find joy equally in all things.



Friday, March 6, 2009

The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You


The premise is simple enough: We should think of people as if they were atoms or molecules following fairly simple rules and try to learn the patterns to which those rules lead.

Our actions as individuals feed into the social world around us and help create a reality that then acts back on us.

The most important lesson of modern physics is that it is often not the properties of the parts that matter most, but their organization, their pattern and form.
This is one of those thoughts that affects and confirms many of the thoughts you've had in your life. Why do you do better work in a specific environment? why some people bring the best of you? the book answers that this is due to patterns and organization. And based on my experience in the world, I agree with him.

First you have to understand the character of the social atom, then learn what happens when
many such atoms interact.

Patterns reveal regularities that show how the seemingly complicated actually isn't so. The natural laws behind those patterns often then lead to the possibility of prediction.

Human beings are made of atoms and molecules. We are part of nature. In nature follows patterns that flow out natural laws, shouldn't we?
But humans are the most complex things that we know about in the universe.
Human science has to deal not only with individuals of near infinite complexity, but with many such individuals, all different from each other.
And to make things even more interesting; because free will gives us the ability to do unprecedented things, this alone is enough to rule out any predictions on the future of human history.

The cornerstone of received economic theory is the idea that human agents behave rationally.
But (1) sometimes we cannot be rational, (2) even when we can be rational, most of us, as a rule, aren't, and (3) is ok not be rational because we have other ways to make decisions.

the mind isn't an all purpose computer, its a specialized device for specific tasks.
the brain is a product of millions of years of evolution and bears, in its structure and function, the traces of all that history.

the adaptive atom.
Humans are not rational calculators but crafty gamblers.
we are adapter opportunist. the secret of our intelligence is our ability to follow simple steps and to adjust and learn.

the imitating atom.
the influence of imitation leads to regular patterns.
the social settings alters the perception of the world.
yet, imitation doesn't generate any new information, it only amplifies the consequences that a little bit of information can have, whether is real or not.
when people are free to do as they please they often imitate each other.

the cooperative atom.
our genes have their own interests, principally to reproduce copies of themselves in coming generations.

Eight hundred life spans can bridge more than 50,000 years. But of these 800 people, 650 spent their lives in caves or worse. Only the last 70 had any truly effective means of communicating with one another, only the last 6 ever saw a printed word, only the last 4 could measure time with any precision, only the last 2 used an electric motor, and the vast majority of the items that make up our material world were developed within the life span of the 800th person.

Our ancestors throughout virtually all of human history lived in small, isolated groups using the logic of reciprocal altruism.

teh way we are as individuals depends not so much on how our behavior helps us, as individuals, but on how it influences the collective behavior of the groups we are part of.
History is a long struggle between groups of greater or less cooperative skills, with the most skilled tending to win.

the internet in a nonequlibrium system because never settles into an unchanging state. the theory of nonequilibrium states that finding lawlike patterns in complex nonequilibrium systems genrally means taking a step back from the details, and focusing on the big picture.

prediction is the engine of science, we design the present, and observe the future so as to compare our theories with empirical reality.

the factor behind our dominace of this planet is our ability to cooperate and coordinate to do what none of us could ever acieve alone.

most important is our ability to manage interactions that support social cohesion and build the complex webs of relations that make our groups far more than the sum of their parts.

we live in a rich social world, and it is the richness that results of the combination of people and their ideas, the actions and reactions that matters most.

Its been an incredible learning journey reading thos book. And again, as it happened with other books before this one, I read it just when its impact is the strongest because of my recent involvement with social networks.

There is a lot to take away from the book, but a couple of thoughts are the ones I would like to remember;

Each atom and molecule have a specific composition, but the environment in which they "are",plays a significant role in their eventual "state of being".

and also, the notion that we are not rational beings, but we are adapting, imitating and cooparating beings. And that realy affects the way we must look at ourselves and our interactions. We must examine our decisions making process as it affects work, relationships and parenthood.

The beauty of any book is that you can apply what you took from its pages into real life and give it a purpose.

You can't ask for anything more than that. You can't wish for anything less.

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud


I have to admit that I underestimated this book. It wasn't anything about the author or the title or the topic. I just thought that I understood comics fine. I have been reading comics since I could read and I felt comfortably confident that I understood comics.

Thank god, I was wrong.

I think that this is one of the most fascinating books that I've ever read. It captivated me from page one, taking me chapter after chapter, through the worlds of symbols, writing, philosophy,
literature, layouts, concepts, ideas and imagination.

I think that the ideas explaining the mechanism of comics are relevant for advertising, design, internet or any creative project that deals with images and and words.

First I had never spent any time thinking about a definition of comic.
But
the book through the definition touches on a very important subject: Form and content.

The artform of the comic is the medium. The content is up to the artist.
For a creative, there are so many important concepts explored and explained in the book that I felt like I was reading Advertising 101; introduction to the basics of creative thinking.

The definition of comic:
Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.

I belong to a generation (born in 65 in Madrid, Spain) that assigns a subtle negativity to comics. That's why when the book makes the case for Aztec manuscripts being the first comics, part of me resisted the concept. Obviously McCloud is right and those early signs of self-expressions are comics. I guess that Tintin, Asterix and Donald were comics too. Even though I never really assigned them the word comic... they were cartoons. Or at least that's what my mother called them.

The vocabulary of comics.
Icons. Any image used to represent a person, place, thing or idea.

Cartoon is a form of amplification through simplification.
This is the very heart of thousands of the ideas we see in advertising everyday. We tend to magnified the qualities of a product or an emotion through the simplification of the details, we are, not eliminating details, we are FOCUSING on specific details.

At this point of the book I was like a kid seeing all the candy coming out of the piñata.
I can't believe that through the process of understanding comics, such an important concept of the idea process could be explained so clearly.
By stripping down an image of its essential meaning an artist can amplify that meaning.

I think that I could have worked 13 more years in advertising and I never would've heard such a good definition of the goal of ideation.

The power of comics is It's ability to focus our attention on the idea.

We humans are a selfcentered race. We see ourselves in everything (cars, cans, electric outlets) and we assign identities and emotions where none exist. And we make the world over in our image.
When we see a realistic drawing of a face, we see the face of another. When we enter the world of the cartoon you see yourself.

I don't know why this revelation is so significant to me. I guess I am excited about discovering new concepts and new ways of interpreting comics and its implications. This is the feeling I get often reading this book; to define the ideas and concepts that I use as a creative everyday in such an easy and smart way. Wow. I'm having so much fun going along, page after page, discovering what comics truly are, so complex, yet so simple.

Sometimes, our identification of the messenger keeps us from fully receiving the message. The closer we get to the cartoon, the easier it is to receive the full concept.

All the things we experience in life can be separated into two realms, the realm of the concept and the realm of the senses.

Our identities belong to the conceptual world. they are merely ideas. And everything else, belongs to the sensual world, the world outside of us.

Writing and drawing are seen as two different disciplines.
Pictures are received information. We need no formal education to get the message.
Writing is perceived information. It takes time and specialized knowledge to decode the abstract symbols of language.
when pictures are more abstracted from reality, they are more like words. When words are
more direct, they require lower levels of perception and are received faster, like pictures.

All of us perceive the world as a whole through the experience of our senses. Yet, our senses can only reveal a world that is fragmented and incomplete. The phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole is called CLOSURE.

In comics the audience is a willing collaborator, and closure is the agent of change, time and motion. The space between the panels, the gutter plays host to the magic and mystery that are the very heart of the comics. The human imagination is the silent accomplice to the comic artist.

This concept of our imagination being an accomplice is the central piece on which good advertising is based.

By creating a sequence with two or more images we are endowing them with an overriding identity, and forcing the viewer to consider them as a whole.

The transitions between panels then becomes the invisible art of comics storytelling.

Traditional western art and literature don't wander much. They are goal oriented, but in the east, there is a rich tradition of cyclical and labyrinthine works of art, where they emphasize being there over getting there. In japan, comics are works of intervals. Elements omitted are as much part of the art as those included. (just like the silence in music)

The art of comics is as subtractive an art as it is additive.
Another key principle in creative advertising. How much is needed to understand an idea? how much is needed to engage the consumer? Understanding this balance is essential to developing good executions.

Its when our senses are not needed when all our senses are engaged.

This following paragraph is also one of the most important principles of creative advertising, the relationship with the consumer:

Several times on every page the reader is released, like a trapeze artist into the open air of imagination, then caught by the out stretched arms of the ever present next panel. Caught quickly so as not to left the reader fall into confusion or boredom. But is it possible that closure can be managed in some cases that the reader might learn to fly?

I believe that it's the responsibility of advertising to "teach" consumers to "fly, to use their imagination so often that they can feel comfortable when exposed to creative ideas, enabling the creative team to simplify more, to broaden the gutter.

Comics are a silent dance between the seen and the unseen, the visible and the invisible.

The way words and picture can combine.

Word specific.
Words illustrate but don't add to a largely complete text.
Picture specific.
Words do little more than add a soundtrack to a visually told sequence.
Duo-specific.
Both words and pictures send the same message.
Additive.
Where words amplify or elaborate on an image or vice versa.
Parallel.
Where words and pictures follow very different curses without intersecting.
Montage.
Where words are integral part of the picture.
Interdependent.
Where words and pictures go hand in hand to convey an idea that neither could convey alone.

The more is said with words the more the pictures can be freed to go exploring and viceversa.

The last one, Interdependent is the type of combination desired by smart print advertising.
I think I'll be using this often
with creative teams to illustrate creativity in print.

The creation of any work, in any medium always follows a certain path.
  1. Idea/purpose. The content
  2. form. A book? a chair? a comic? a drawing?
  3. idiom. the school of art. the style, the genre.
  4. structure. How to compose the work.
  5. craft. the skills to getting it done.
  6. surface. production values, finishing.
The idea is at the core of the apple.

If one focuses on form, one becomes an explorer. His goal is to discover all that the art form is capable of. Creators who take this path are often pioneers and revolutionaries, artist who want to shake things up, change the way people think, question the fundamental laws that govern their chosen art.

On the other hand, if one chooses Ideas, then the art becomes a tool, and the power fo the art, rely on the power of the idea within.

why am I doing this?
The question every artist must ask himself at one point or another. And I'll say every creative before working on any project. The question will give you purpose, and the purpose will focus you on the task.

A medium is a bridge between minds.

The idea we see in our mind will never be seen in their entirety by anyone else.
The mastery of one's medium is the degree to which the artist's idea survive the journey. (bridge)

The message found in the last pages of the book is to continue to explore. And it is through exploration that I opened the first page of this book. And few times I've ever been happier of such a small action, given me back such a big return; the discovery of a whole new world. The better understanding of concepts that I use everyday as a creative and the knowledge to communicate this concepts with people I work with in the daily basis.

I didn't mention yet the amazing use of the comic format used by McCloud to communicate all these concepts, which being as complex as they are, never felt difficult to understand.

This book open many, many doors of opportunities for me and I'm thankful for that.

A note to myself: please read this book again soon.


Monday, March 2, 2009

Annie Leibovitz at Work


Another great book about the creative process and how ideas come to find a place in the world. Another great chance to learn from one of the best photographers of our generation. Annie Leibovitz has lived an interesting life; she has been the photographer of celebrities and Queens, of war and Rock and Roll. But the insights that I enjoyed the most in the book were the ones when she spoke about her process, what made her chose a subject, the concept, portraits vs groups, etc.

The most compelling story for me was the one about Yoko Ono and John Lennon. Perhaps because she took a famous picture of them just a few hours before he was shot. But I was moved by the actual picture and the comment made by John (that the picture "capture" their relationship)
.

we all start from zero.
One concept that keeps appearing in these books is the "you learn as you work" idea. Like all these exceptional people didn't know what they were doing at the beginning. And I think that this is a very empowering idea to keep in mind and communicate to our kids. You are not born knowing. You can ask questions. You are only limited by your imagination.

In sports photography, if you see the picture through the viewfinder, you are too late. You need to rely on intuition and timing.
How interesting to think that when you are trying the hardest to capture something, it is because of that that you might miss it. Its ironic and full of important lessons. Sometimes things happen too fast. Sometimes you need to trust your instincts, and sometimes you need to focus on not missing the action as opposed to catch the action.

A photograph is just a tiny slice of a subject. A piece of them at that moment.
I think that most of the time I thought of photographs as a slice of a moment that would remind me of the entire experience later on. I had never thought of the object itself and whether or not the picture would capture the person's whole identity.

"smile for the camera"
I've never asked someone to smile.
She feels like people don't like to be forced to smile for the camera, and she dislikes it too. It feels forced and and to ask for a smile is to ask people to do something false. So many time sin my life I've been asked to smile in pictures. And I have always felt weird about it. Not because I don;t like smiling, which I like, but because I feel like people are not satisfied with having memories of people not smiling.
If you are not smiling, you are not happy, seems to be the assumption. But I agree with Leibovitz here. "Smile for the camera" is from now on erased from my photography lingo.

There is no mystery involve.
things happen all the time that are unexpected, uncontrolled, unexplainable, even magical.The work prepares you for that moment.

Her advice.
Discover what is like to be intimate with a subject.
Take pictures of something that has meaning for you.
Ideas start with doing your homework.
Something is going to happen or its not going to happen. Its not going to sudenly turn into something else.
Photography is just an illustration of whats going on.
once the picture happens, it often a surprise.

This is another book that has landed on my hands at the right moment. Now that I am researching and learning about the creative process and idea innovation, and that I am trying to make photography a more serious hobby.

I enjoyed the lessons shared by Annie Leibovitz with greater appreciation for her thoughts and insights, making the experience even more rewarding.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King


I enjoyed reading this book. Even though my experience of King has been limited to the movie adaptation of his books, one audio tape and his writing on entertainment weekly, I feel like I've known him for a long time.
He is a great storyteller and speaking about writing doesn't change his easiness and connectivity.
The book tough me a big deal about writing and the craft. But it also helped me understand talent, hardwork, process and storytelling.
Stephen King writes for the average men,
the middle class, he says. And that makes his thoughts on writing direct and heartfelt. But in the process of exploring his mind and his life, he made me think about the value of writing. Putting pen to the paper and just getting it done. Because it is the only way, he says, that one can learn to write, to let out the talent and the only way it can be sharpened.

writers never ask each other where we get our ideas. We know we don't know.
I'm smiling while I write this because as a creative, I know the process to get there and I know what inspires the idea, but I have no clue as to the where they come from.

writers don't understand what they do, why it works when is good and why it doesn't when it's bad.
This is a common confession made by writers, creatives, screenwriters and any body whose job is to create for a living. The magic happens unexpectedly, but you need to be prepare to identify it the moment it happens.

The equipment comes with the original package.
All people have at least some talent, and those talents can be sharpened. I believe, or I need to believe that this is true. It makes me think about two recent reads, the one about 10,000 hours of practice from M.Gladwell and this one, and how I became a better soccer player by sharpening some talent that I had given to me. And how, without really knowing it, or planning it, I played more soccer during 3 years than any other kid in my circle, and that made me really stand out within that period of time, ahead of many other players.

Good ideas come from nowhere. Two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new.
I believe this to be a great definition of creativity and the creative job. To know this is to pay attention to the world around us and recognize the patterns.
The better we look we more connections we find, the bigger the possibilities of creating something new.

(
When you are young) Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure

I was disgusted with myself for not seeing the outcome in advanced.
I relate to this feeling. I really eat myself up when I make a mistake, overall when is a mistake I could have avoided. I always try to see all the possibilities and I tortured myself for not seeing obvious things. Knowing that S.King feels the same way made understand him better.

When talking about a teacher he had, he says: ...
she didn't want to be your inspiration. And it made me think: if you don't want to inspire people as a teacher, what is your purpose?

writing advice #1 when you write a story, you're telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. Write with the door close, rewrite with the door open.

writing advice #2 the writer's original perception of the characters may be as erroneous as the reader's.

Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.

Inside the writer's toolbox.
vocabulary. don't change it. don't dress it up.
grammar. unless you are certain of doing well, follow the rules. (avoid passive tense, adverbs are not your friend)
the elements of style.

writing advice #3 read a lot and write a lot. there is no shortcut.

we also read to measure ourselves against the good and the great, to get a sense of all that can be done.
I've always felt that watching soccer, reading, watching movies and commercials allowed me to "get a sense" of what can be done. I think I am constantly using them as references with other people precisely because they represent possibilities. An open door that until that isntant remained hidden to me.

writing advice #4 your job is to make sure your muse knows where you're going to be every day from nine 'til noon.

an insight? when readers hear strong echoes of his, hers own life and beliefs, he will become invested in the story.

write what you like and blend in your own personal knowledge of life, friendship, relationships, sex and work.

writing lesson #5
in my view stories consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story from A to B and finally to Z.

Description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader and
dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech.
the plot is nowhere. mainly because our lives are plotless. and second because plotting and spontaneity of creation are not compatible.
Stories make themselves, and the job of the writer is to give them a place to grow.
the situation comes first , the characters come next, once they are fixed in my mind, I start to narrate.
Description begins with the visualization of what is you want the reader to experience. Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's.
Description usually consist of a few well chosen details that will stand for everything else.

writing lesson #6 Practice never makes you perfect. say what you see and get on with your story.

writing lesson #7 the key to writing good dialogue is honesty.

building characters comes down to two things: paying attention to how real people behave and then telling the truth about what you see.

in real life everybody is the main character.

good fiction starts with story and progresses to theme.

kill your darlings. let go of your favorite parts, characters, etc...

writing is magic, as much the water of life is as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. This advise is especially significant today for me. There are so many things that one can do just with the power of his own mind and will. So much that can be created. As he says: the water is free, drink! start something, get it done. Repeat.


This book has come at a very relevant time for me, as a writer and as a creative. What King shares are the craft and the pains of writing, of creating, of the commitments we have with our talents, the characters we create and the people we create for. Writing plays a double purpose; one for us, as creators to use our imagination as a release valve. But the second purpose is to give to others the magic of our creation.

I'll look for unrelated ideas that will become a story... with dimensional characters, no adverbs, a good pace and strong descriptions of what I see, and all these will turn into a great a theme that many people will read and enjoy.

I'll drink the water.


Sunday, February 15, 2009

Las tribulaciones del estudiante Torless by Robert Musil

week six.
I was excited about reading my first Robert Musil. I've had this book
for two years shelved waiting for the right moment to read it.
As part of this exercise, the book didn't live up to the expectations. I really enjoyed Musil's prose and his style is in the same universe of Kundera, but its far away from Kundera's brilliance.
These are some of the parts that made me stop and think.

violenta nostalgia.
I had never considered nostalgia being associated to any other feeling. Musil is paying attention to detail as we saw in a previous book about writing.

Preparar el alma, en espera de algo, y ese algo es del todo incierto. todo es asi, un eterno esperar, de lo cual solo sabemos que hay que esperarlo.
And isn't this the whole point of creating expectations; that we await for something with no guarantee that it will ever happen, and the wait in itself becomes the life we live, a sequence of moments with uncertain rewards.

caracter insuperablemente incomprensible.
las cosas accesibles a la inteligencia, y sin embrago no puedes aprehenderlas con las palabras o el pensamiento. Una linea que como el horizonte, retrocedia a medida que se le acerca.

hate against each other.
Interesting choice of words when talking about teens falling in love. The first passion teens feel is not love for each other, but hate against each other. Because the feelings are not understood at this age, to be two is actually nothing else but loneliness times two.
This first passion is short and leaves a bitter taste. The encounter was fortuitous, and after the breakup, the passions don't know each other, and only notice the distance between them, never what brought them together.

dureza.
in mankind the toughness is our character, in the consciousnesses that we are human, and the responsibility that carries to know that we are part of this world. if a men losses this conscience, losses himself, and when he losses that which made him unique, losses its virtue.

manzana.
when we see an apple, we see vibrations on our eyes of light, and when we reach out to get it, our muscles and nerves move our hand to touch the apple. But between the hand and the apple there is much more, an immortal soul that once sinned.

During a chapter in the book, Torless questions mathematics and the utility of some of its formulas and concepts. His teacher explains that he needs more time, to be more mature to really understand mathematics... and until then, just believe.
It made me think about the difference between faith and belief.
To belief is to consider something uncertain as probable. To have faith is to accept the uncertainty of something probable.

Overall I found
interesting some of the thoughts but what the book made me realized is that yuo can have a very good technique that makes you enjoy the reading, but the story needs to be engaging too.
I didn't like the story, didn't sympathized with the characters and I didn't understand their motivations.
At the end, I think that this is one of the best written books I read, but one of the weakest stories too.

Another good lesson to be treasured.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me by Ben Karlin

week five
Ben Karlin used to work at the Onion, The Colbert Report, and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. And I can say without any type of shame that I would like to have his resume. He knows funny stuff and this book is a great concept: Let's ask other funny, interesting people about being in love and the lessons learned from being dumped.


I enjoyed reading it for the most part, and just like with the previous book, this book and I met, it seems, at just the perfect time.

I found a few things specially appealing, but perhaps not as funny as I had expected. But I am willing to admit that perhaps it is me who is not funny and the book is hilarious. Which it is very much a possibility.

bombs stop dropping on us
The concept is: through dumping, comes wisdom. I personally think that learning from mistakes, or learning from defeats, is an over rated idea. I think that most times, we don't know what hit us. And most times, even if we have a clue, we don't spend enough time rationalizing the causes. We spend more
time, with the support of our friends and family, emotionalizing and justifying. Which is all right. We need the heart more than we use the brain, I guess.

you get a lot more done during peacetime
These last 2 years have been so demanding that I feel like I finally have time to get things done. The good things. The ones that make your soul grow and put a smile on your mirror in the mornings.

stephen colbert is crazy and creative
I'm constantly surprised by him. Even when I least expected, he does something unconventional. I think his essay is one of the best, and perhaps the most creative.
I laughed out loud. In the subway, from Brooklyn to Manhattan... surrounded by people wearing headphones.

In movies relationships end with a jump cut
damian kulash has a good point. Most relationships linger and fade, most start great, but most need a jump cut, and some a dissolve. In most cases we all need some transiction with music by marc isham.

there is a song for every dumping.
I thought that Adam schelisnger had a very clever essay and made me think, actually there is a song for every moment of my life good and bad... maybe that's why musicians get all the girls.

if they is one thing that I am absolutely certain about in my life is this:

Novelty becomes drudgery.

Sooner or later, at one point, everything you wanted so desperately, that emotion of new and fresh and unique... it changes.
Now, I am not advocating it, or defending it. I am just saying that it is probably the only thing I know for sure, besides my mother's love and mine for my kids and family.

so there.

I liked the book, but I didn't love the book. Lincoln is a tough act to follow, but comedy was a good choice.

My main take away is that when men talk about relationships, specially about those where we get dumped, we all sound whiny and silly.
It seems that we learn the lesson way past the due time, and then is back paddling.
We are clueless about the opposite sex, but we make it our life's priority.
This book, even under the comedy tag, made me think about important concepts, and one more time, I'm happy I got something of value out of it.
I really hope I'm not that old when I learn my lessons.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

week four.
Books come to you (or you to them) in the precise moment they are supposed to come.
Lincoln is a respected and admired historical figure.
A person and a president whose ideas defined a time and a nation. I can't think of a more relevant read at this time, in 2009 in America, than the life of Abraham Lincoln.

I just finished the last of 599 pages. And by reaching the end, I met a new start.

I can't even start to measure the ways in which this book has moved my me in heart and mind. I look at this
country's history with understanding eyes. I appreciate better the heartbreaking tragedy of civil war. I admire the precious principles of the constitution. I value more the freedoms we enjoy and the absolutism we fear. I respect, perhaps truly for the first time, the sacrifices made by so many so I can live like so few. And I admire, value and respect Lincoln, his time, his politics and his vision and the incredible significance of his life.

The book also helped me understand better our current world, our problems and our battles. Our disillusion and our fears. But mainly it helped me regain faith in the fellow man.

Personally
I do not know sacrifice of the type that was demanded of Americans in those difficult years. We live privileged times today and sadly we take for granted values that were foreign to us just 150 years ago; freedom, equality, wealth and prosperity.
But perhaps the most important lesson I have learned reading this wonderful book is that there are values we must find true, principles we must guard and that patience and understanding must be exercised even more when problems seem more unsolvable.

This fascinating book "starts" in 1962, when the author challenged by J.F.Kennedy "not to grade a President unless one has examined all information available to him when he made his decisions" decide to write a biography from the point of view of what Lincoln knew at his time.

As opposed to other books, where while reading I would find a thought or a concept that would trigger a realization or a meditation, like a participant or player. With this book I've felt more like being part of an audience. Admiring, enjoying and savoring the play as it unfolds. But in need of time to really absorb the full meaning of the whole.

so I will capture what moved, surprised or inspired me about Lincoln, which in itself, its a lot.

When describing Lincoln the author suggests that chance, or accident, played a determining role shaping his (lincoln) life. Lincoln said when referring to the emancipation "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."

Some of his most lovable traits were compassion, tolerance and willingness to overlook mistakes. he also had a very pragmatic approach to problems. If a solution was fated not to work another could be tried.

He had a quality "a man of achievement" a quality which Shakespeare possessed so enormously... Negative Capability, that os when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irriable reaching after fact and reason.

Lincoln had an insatiable desire to educate himself, and enjoyed Aesop's fables, which became ingrained in his mind "a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand"

An amazing fact about Lincoln's life is that during his lifetime he lost his mother, his little brother, his father, a girlfriend and three sons. I thought that many of us would feel a lot of deep and justified sadness. But for some reason, the book doesn't explore the sorrow he must have suffered.

I really enjoyed his speeches and writings. It seems to me that his mind composed thoughts like composing images to be understood by every man, disregarding his background or education. He really had an inherent ability to relate to others.

- let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. let reverence for the laws be breathed by every american mother, to the lisping babe, the parttles on her lap, let it be taught in the schools, in seminaries and in colleges, let it be written in primmers, spelling books and in almanacs, let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls and enforced in courts of justice. In short, let it become the political religion of the nation. -


Friday, January 23, 2009

all about love; new visions by bell hooks


week three.
I'm so lucky. I learn valuable lessons every time I read. And in this case, I learned one of the most important ones on the pages in this book.

a (genuine) definition of love
M. Scott Peck defines love as the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth. Love is as love does. Love is an act of will, both and intention and an action. Will implies choice. We do not have to love. We chose to love.
explaining love as the will to nurture someone else's spiritual growth really made me think.The times when I really felt "in love" i remember thinking more about the other and bout myself. really caring for her well being than my own. Hooks continues; to truly love we must learn to mix ingredients - care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment and trust.
This is why love is hard work. A good, daily, careful, beautiful work, but a work that must be done with care and affection. With respect and recognition, and with commitment and trust. I see it clearly now. More than ever, perhaps because as Hooks does, I believe in definitions. They help us understand and guide us in our journey.

A poem
As a woman and a lover, however, I am moved by the sight of my beloved. Where he is, I want to be. What he suffers, I want to share. Who he is, I want to be.
Santa Teresa de Avila
To feel so much love, is to care so much about the other, you want to be them. Occupy the same space in the universe, as one. That's a soul mate, a communion with another.

My doctrine
to fill the gap between the values I claim to hold and my willingness to do the work of connecting thought and action.

I found that for being a book about love, the lessons shared by Ms. Hooks had a melancholic tone of pessimism. But I did get a definition of love that appeals to my intellectual side, and I'm thankful for that. I only hope I love with
care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment and trust often.

Followers