Alain is the kind of writer that articulates the human condition so well that I often
feel sheepish reading his observations since they seem to be straight from the
part of my brain that must remain undercover if I hope to maintain the guise of
normalcy.
My soul brother Gabriel and I often express this desire to hide our true
natures by clicking our fingers frantically. We find this hilarious.
Back
to Alain, I've read two of his books, The Consolations of Philosophy and The
Art of Travel. Both are amazing books that I often revisit for clever things to
say to others (yes, I claim them to be my ideas so boo!) and I've reread The
Consolations a few times in the hope that the ideas will seep into my being and
leave me wiser. It hasn't worked, I only seem to retain useless trivia and the
names of all the cast members of Cheers. I've never watched Cheers.
Anyway,
Alain's Wikipedia page is really interesting too (click here). As a zealot of
The Lord of The Internet I now judge people by their Wikipedia page and his is
quite a prize. Here's a clue: mad money! But the thing on his page that predictably alarmed
me most was the fact that he wrote his first book at 23. No man, Alain. No.
Anyway, jealous down, I really feel like his books should be essential reading
for all humans. Huge call and probably not well thought out but I'm sticking to
it.
Take a look at these gems:
“Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.”
“There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.”
& this too
“Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.”
I've blogged about Mr. De Botton before (click here) but it was his tweets (click here) that impelled me to do this post, on Twitter (and in life) I come across as a semi-literate Japanophile while he manages to spit inspiration daily. He has a very weird head though, that's my consolation.
P.S. More unrelated photos. But, c'mon, the sky was pregnant with clouds.
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