It’s something akin to living ‘others' truths’ versus living ‘your own truth’!

'An Interesting Process of Discovery' 

Practices of insightful, focused, intense and attentive reading have a lot of benefits galore for the avid reader! They not only help create personal and cultural insights for the curious eye, but also help gain for oneself amazing facets of imagination and invention beyond the utmost bounds of one’s ‘blinkered’ and ‘tinkered’ domains of knowledge!

James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man speaks to a similar story of the growth and development of its protagonist Stephen Dedalus in like fashion!

Each of the five sections beautifully portrays a portrait of how the artist in Dedalus evolves over a period of time, by walking ahead, in leaps and bounds, on the road towards knowledge and experience!

It’s something akin to living ‘others' truths’ versus living ‘your own truth’ by thinking and reasoning it out for oneself, outside the box, or something to the likes of thinking beyond the bounds of society’s truth, or a family’s truth, or a parent’s truth, or a friend’s truth, or a sibling's truth, or a religion’s truth, etc!

Once Dedalus (we should bring to our mind here, the fact that, Joyce himself once admitted that, he saw Dedalus in himself!) is able to reason out thus, and think ‘his own truths,’ all for himself, he is able to shape a reality of his own freewill outside the dogmatic axioms that have ‘constructed’ versions of realities for him thus far! Hence it is, that he sets out to create a theory of aesthetics that will manoeuvre life and living for him from thence on!

What a beautiful way of steering one’s life forward, ain’t it? And this he does, with such gusto, in his company of books and literature!

And through each stage of his crisis, his mental development, that moves on from innocence to experience, reveals to the reader, an interesting process of discovery that is at the heart of one’s reading!

Hence, thinking literature, reading literature, breathing literature, and feeling literature real helps in enhancing one’s own experience, enabling him/her to shape their own realities outside the dogmatized axioms, and to create theories of aesthetics that will help propel one’s life to realms thus far unfathomed and hitherto unknown to the rest of the world!

Like a gardener who is devoted to her garden, keeps thinking about it all of the time, and makes all her ‘spare’ time as ‘care’ time, tending to her garden, in the interests of her garden, a good reader too likewise, attends to his reading, much akin to the likes of gardening! With such dedicated attention, committed devotion, enriching the garden with all possible nourishment and cherishment all along! In fact, reading, like gardening, is then, a continuous process!

It is here that Med’s delightful takes on reading assumes such interesting significance for us all!

His tips, in this regard, are worthy of a hugey high fiveyyy!

Here goes from what Med has said -

If your learning requires that you do a great deal of reading, here are some tips to help you absorb what you have read:

1. Relate what you read to your own experiences. Slower, more accurate learning is often faster than a speedy effort. You would be wise to think of specific examples that will relate to your studies as you read, rather than just rush to complete each chapter.

2. Take a break when you feel the need for one. This often gives the information time to sink in.

3. Provide yourself with periods of relaxation after attempting some very ‘heavy’ learning. The more complete your relaxation the better, since upsets may cause you to fail to retain your new-found knowledge.

4. Stop studying when you get tired. Learning slows down when fatigue steps in.

5. Use every possible aid to help you absorb information. If possible, turn off the phone. If you are working at a desk, see that it is neither too low or too high so that your body must assume an uncomfortable position. 

Don’t use a chair that is too soft, because learning is something we usually consider a chore, and we may begin to doze off if the chair is too comfortable. Have a good reading light properly placed over your shoulder or over the desk and focused right on the paper. Remember, too, that a temperature of 68 – 70 degrees with humidity at 50 per cent is best for you to stay alert.

6. Your pencil or pen can also be a very valuable study aid. As you read, underline what you think important. Underlining offers you two major rewards. First, you are compelled to stay mentally alert so that you are more apt to find the important. Second, underlining helps you review. The underlined high spots are quickly spotted and digested.

You can acquire the knowledge of any expert for the simple price of a book!

Don’t Ever Stop Learning!

In this lovely excerpt, Med Serif exhorts us to take full control of our lives by having the eagerness and the desire to learn something new all the way, all through our days!

So let’s call upon Med, to do the talking from here on!

Remember that old notion, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” Well, it’s just not so.

No matter what your age, you can continue to increase your store of knowledge. This is an extremely important ability today because learning does go hand-in-hand with success.

Take a New Look

The first step is to rid yourself of the idea that once you have finished formal schooling, whether at high school or college, your learning is ended except for improving your immediate job skills.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Educators tell us that one of the most desirable times to learn is the period between twenty and forty. But you needn’t stop at the forty mark. If you have the desire to learn and if your learning skills have been kept in reasonably good working order, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to learn well beyond the age of forty.

There are three simple guideposts to learning, according to Med!

1. You must want to learn.

2. You must set goals for yourself.

3. You must use every possible technique of learning.

You Had the Desire to Learn

Remember when you were a youngster. You knew the batting average of every member of your favourite cricket team and those of every other leading star.

It was quite easy for you to remember these names and numbers because you wanted to. This is the important secret for learning. By pinpointing your reasons for wanting to master whatever knowledge you need, you’ve given yourself the desire to forge ahead.

Treasure House at Your Fingertips

Books can be real treasure houses of knowledge for you in your efforts to gain knowledge. Currently, many hardcover and paperback editions are available to the learner.

You might as well say that these are your 'personal consultants.'

How true he proves! ain't he?

For a few dollars, or in some cases dimes, you can put the knowledge of the experts at your fingertips. None but the very largest business organizations can afford to hire all the consultants they need. You can acquire the knowledge of any expert for the simple price of a book.

to be contd...

'Wouldn’t it be wonderful to read all those books and publications as soon as they arrive?'

Successful people says Med, are the ones who have learned how to make time ‘work’ for them!

Med, or Med Serif is, as we all know, the author of How to Manage Yourself!

While reading through each line and each page of glorious snippets on time management from Med, I’m so reminded of those immortal lines we all have gotten on our minds from Shakespeare’s Macbeth!

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.

Yet another connect would be from Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which brings out the character of Prufrock, who ‘stills’ time, or seeks to arrest the progress of time by never choosing to do anything! Although he seems to grow old, he cannot yet make up his mind! He does not have the necessary courage to act, or to do anything, anywhere, anytime in his life! Rather, he remains a mere passive observer than being a steward or an agent to his own life! Therein lies the overwhelming question of Prufrock: 

Do I dare Disturb the universe?  In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

How true these mighty lines mean today, decades after they’ve been published!

Just let’s sit back and well, let’s look back on how many times we’ve remained such ‘passive observers’ to what’s happening to our very own lives, subtly entangled in a virtual reality, blissfully unaware of what we’ve really got to do with our precious lives, what with our technological gadgets in hand, whiling away our ‘times and tides’ on all these trifles, that are absolutely inconsequential, inessential and immaterial to our lives in any way, whatsoever! 

In this process of hip, hop, jump and skipping reality, we don’t seem to realize the truth that ‘the one thing that’s really needed’ seems to have taken a huge backseat in our lives! Like Prufrock, we’ve become mere passive observers, than being stewards or agents to our own precious lives!

In this respect, let me share with y’all a wonderful mail that I’d received from one of my students this last week! He had just mailed me to tell me that he has quit a couple of social networking sites, because he felt that he was wasting more than five hours a day on mere trifles that did not mean a thing to the advancement of his goals and achievements! And he listed out a whole number of reasons for his robust resolve, that were so convincing and so in tune with the techno-bakhta (techno-buff) scenario of today's!

In fact, on a similar vein, I remember reading a book that promotes a digital detox, where the writer beautifully brings out this exact awareness! To him, social networking sites like, for instance, facebook or an instagram, pander elegantly to cater to our pleasure, only by making us feel an ‘inherent lack’ deep within us, which, say the zuckerbergs, could be remedied, redressed or addressed only by accessing their ‘therapeutic’ networking sites! However what they fail to tell us is the candid truth that, these social networking sites, that make us consume ‘random pieces of content’ to their own advertisement-driven will and wish, churned out by the minute, and by the hour each passing day, 24 x 7 of our lives, take quite a great toll on one’s mental health!

The simple reason why facebook makes people sad, is when, at that very moment, when they realize, after surfing through its hundreds of posts, that they’ve wasted their productive time in such unproductive trifles. This in fact, makes them sadder and badder each passing day!

Social comparisons of the lived realities of their facebook friends, also led to heartburns, especially when their friends take pride in posting/sharing vacation clicks, dine-outs, selfies and snaps of group picnics et al on their walls! These comparisons led to added depression and failing mental health, experts opine!

In that respect, full plaudits and kudos to this resolute kid of ours, who’s taken a single step, a sure step and a convincing step towards securing his dynamic future in such a noble way, away from unproductive trifles, that have thus far had a debilitating sway over his mental health in the long run!

I for my part, gave him a host of activities that could make him keep tuned to a beautiful reality far far far away from this sickening, maddening, addictive virtual reality!

In this regard, Med Serif’s book, How to Manage Yourself, although written almost four decades back, prove such an invaluable fall-back option for today’s techno-driven society that so innocuously whiles away such precious time on mindless trifles!

It is here, that Med seeks to highlight the fact that, highly ‘successful people’, have proved time and again that others can also learn how to make the most out of each working day!

When you achieve this peak, of amazingly managing on your time, you need no longer fear those Friday or Saturday afternoons with a pile of work left undone, he adds! Time has now become your servant. No longer are you a time-killer!

Med then proceeds to give out his invaluable inspirational nuggets on how to acquire more time, or ‘more hours to our day’!

He says –

You can acquire more time. Yes – time, like any commodity, can be bought!

Here are some helpful hints from Med for us all –

1. Get up fifteen minutes earlier to avoid the morning rush and also streamline the procedure for getting out of your home. You can do this by keeping your personal items grouped together, ready for use. It’s also a help to decide the night before what to wear and to have your clothes laid out. You will arrive at work feeling much more relaxed when you eliminate morning fumbling.

2. Increase you reading and writing skills. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to read all those books and publications as soon as they arrive? You can learn to increase your reading speed too, this way, he opines!

3. Develop the habit of making good notes. Store your ideas, facts, figures, and bits of information. Keep reference files and tickler files to guide you in your everyday activities. The good note-taker finds that she can drop even the biggest problems and come back later to pick up the threads without wasting time trying to remember facts!

'The spiritual growth of the intellect is really exalting!'

This morning at 04.49 sharp, I had a lovely message waiting for me, from a lovely, vibrant reading soul!

I was so thrilled and elated beyond measure to read through the message!

It reads thus – (just excerpts for y'all!)

The Myriad Joys of Reading!

Every morning when I wake up, I pray. But nowadays a little differently, I started reading books immediately after my prayer… I have never felt so happy ever before in my life! I feel elevated, calm, rejuvenated, happy… As if I have just planted a thousand trees in my garden. I could better relate Indian writers like Sri Sri and Muktibodh with Hoggart, Althusser, and Stuart Hall. My mind dances between spirituality of the mind and the soul. I have become much clearer than ever before!

The spiritual growth of the intellect is really exalting. I can never describe in words my everyday experience. It’s been a real enlightening journey into books and reading, that makes me feel blissful and blessed.

Indeed, this is exactly what reading does to our body, our mind and our soul! Ain’t it?

Well, bibliophiles down the ages have given us raving quotes on the impact of reading on our psyche! There have been books by the dozen that speak about the power of books in all their grandeur!

Me thought of giving y’all some nuggets from two lovable unputdownable reads, that so beautifully bring out the power innate within a good book!

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is the first amazing testament to this credo!

This dystopian novel envisions a futuristic American society in which books are outlawed! Hence, squadrons of firemen have been employed to do away with them, by burning them, if and when they are found in the possession of anyone, anywhere, anytime! Moreover, anyone caught with a book also suffered the ignominy of being immediately arrested and put on trial!

Written way way back in 1953, the book is a brilliant yet shocking critique of a dystopian world in which ‘independent thinking’ and ‘enlightened questioning’ are considered taboo and anathema to society’s ‘interests’! Also, because books and the ideas contained within them enable a person to exercise independent, sane and rational judgments, they were conveniently considered ‘detrimental’ to the interests of the State and its agenda!

But to Bradbury, books are the most sacred of objects, as they are transmitters of stories! Hence, by burning books, the ruling dispensation in this dystopian American society, has curtailed the freedom of expression and thereby stifled the human spirit itself!

Interestingly, one of the firemen, by name Guy Montag, finds out the fact for himself that story telling has the wonderful power of binding people into a community of their own!

So he discreetly sets out on a secretive mission of collecting and preserving books, despite knowing full well that books are outlawed in his society, and that his profession especially, forbade him to do so!

One particular screenshot of a scene from this dystopian read would real suffice to tell us about the inherent dangers of censorship, and thought control, where people caught having or reading books are immediately imprisoned, no questions asked!

Guy Montag while journeying in the subway one particular afternoon, finds it really difficult to remember the episode of Sermon on the Mount, as books were forbidden in the land. The train car is lit up all over with a foot-tapping advertisement for a particular brand of a toothpaste! Guy Montag finds out, to his shock that the passengers on board are busy singing along to the tune of the commercial and tapping away happily to the rhythms of its beat!

Montag loses his cool and shouts at them, asking them to “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” much to the shock and surprise of all of them journeying in the crowded train car. Some in the crowd even feel that he has gone insane when he shouts at them! Such is the manner, such is the way in which an ‘enlightened individual’ is stifled in a ‘herd-mentality’ society, Bradbury quips!

No spoilers for y’all! Do grab a copy for yourself from any of the e-marts! You will sure cherish reading through it, I bet!

Now Guy Montag realizes full well his onerous duty! Having become quite disenchanted with his work of burning books and destroying knowledge, he finally decides to put down his papers! So he resigns his job and commit himself full-time to guarding and preserving the precious knowledge that is splashed across the delightful pages of the hallowed books, thus doing his noble part towards the safeguarding of the literature, the culture, and the community bonding of his society!

In this regard, it would be so apt to do an interesting connect with Emerson’s much popular text titled, “American Scholar” which was originally an address delivered at Harvard University.

“The American Scholar” moots the idea of “Man Thinking.”

Emerson prioritizes the idea of “Man Thinking” because he quite feels that, today’s ideas and ideals of an education have moved far away from this ennobling idea!

Students just do their ablest might and mettle at rote learning, learning 'by-heart,' lesson summaries, formulas and concepts, without applying their mind and thought to what they really do! Assumes all the more importance as Emerson was addressing a University gathering, at Harvard!

To Emerson, all human beings have the innate power within them to achieve the highest state of intellect because Nature and the world’s writings are available to all. To Emerson, then, one’s vital education comes from three main Sources: Nature, Books, and Action.

The scholar's education, then, according to Emerson, consists of three majorly influences –

1. Nature as the most important influence on the mind

2. The Past manifest in Books

3. Action and its relation to experience

Once a scholar is thus educated, Emerson strongly feels that, this enlightened scholar has the noble duty of sustaining his education, and making his education move forward, by disseminating it for the larger interests of his/her community.

Proper education, thus acquired through the three cardinal sources of Nature, Books, and Action—must flow from each person like an electrical charge, sending currents to every individual!

So much for the power of books in ennobling our minds, enlightening our hearts and enchanting our souls!

This, in a nutshell, is the exact super-power and sway of books over us all! Now if you could please re-read the message from this passionate, vibrant reading soul, you would understand the intense joy there is to reading!

And yesss! Why wait? Join a host of such passionate, vibrant reading souls, in kindling the 'thinking being' within you! 

Carpe diem! Pull up a lovely book rightaway! Start reading through it! Become a ‘Human Thinking’ straightaway!

images: amazondotcom & blogger's

Stop rightaway on Habits that Drain Away your Energy!

Invaluable nuggets from How to Manage Yourself by Med Serif

Self-management, according to Med Serif, demands more than just a carefully planned schedule.

There are too many ways to waste your valuable energy. You can waste a substantial amount of time by acquiring poor habits of concentration, of planning, or even of thinking.

You can waste your time because you’ve let bad eating and sleeping habits drain away your energy. The failure to use properly the tools at hand such as the telephone or your desk will also cause you to waste time.

There’s an answer for stopping these energy leaks, he says.

Med adds on -

Your own mind is the most important asset you have in achieving self-organisation. Make your mind your important ally by trying to concentrate on improving three groups or areas of your mental activities:

1. Improve your ability to concentrate. One tip here: Keep distractions to a minimum.

2. Continually increase your knowledge so you can more readily analyse ideas and problems and make right decisions.

3. Your memory is a muscle. Exercise it so you are able to retain and recall information when it is needed.

Study and hold fast to the desire to improve. Make resolutions to overcome bad habits, and see that you keep these resolutions.

On the physical aids required to managing oneself, Med has some interesting snippets for us!

An efficient office desk is an important physical aid for you. It can save time and steps and speed the flow of your work, he says.

Pull out any drawer in your desk. Is it really organized, or do you have to shuffle through an assortment of cards, papers, envelopes, and paperclips?

Here are three rules for efficient office and desk organization - 

1. Locate the most used furniture and equipment as close as possible.

2. Make the office as attractive as possible, but do not let it distract you.

3. Your desk should have only immediately usable work and necessary supplies.

This helps you accomplish your work in far fewer hours and in a more accurate and efficient manner. It will assure you that you are making the fullest use of your God-given talents. When you achieve this pinnacle, success will have more than monetary value. You will have achieved satisfaction for a job well done, he quips!

To be contd…

Images: developgoodhabitsdotcom, snacknationdotcom

How to Manage Yourself!

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. – Carl Jung

And this book titled, How to Manage Yourself  by Med Serif, proves skyhigh on this Jungian dictum to a tee! Yesss! This is one amazing inspirational read, that has a transformative effect on your entire value system. A precious gift I had received years back (or should I say, a decade back) from my mentor and friend, on my birthday, this book has had such a powerful sway over me and my value system, in any many ways!

Well, How to Manage Yourself has a variegated ensemble of ideas on every cherished topic that connects to managing oneself with gusto! 

That said, Med has divided this, his inspirational book into three parts!

The first part is titled, ‘Managing Oneself,’

The second part is titled, ‘Working with Others,’ and

The third part is titled, ‘Your Personal Life’

And I guess, Med Serif shouldn’t be judged sexist by today’s standards, when he says, way way back, decades ago, in the very opening chapter to this endearing book, titled, ‘The MAN in MANagement’!

Well, but for this little erratum, the book scores amazingly well on a host of topics that prove invaluable to our present crisis of managing ourselves, something that has become all the more violable, thanks to an array of technological nay techno-tyrannical masters that are vying with one another to make us abject slaves to their masterful maneouvres and tantrums on us!

The very first part to this inspirational read helps the reader get through, with much ease, across a range of interesting topics that connect with our utmost everyday necessities towards managing ourselves better and more efficiently at that!

Right from giving us those highly indispensable snippets on managing our time effectively, to making us take a resolve to the likes of ‘Don’t ever stop learning’, or giving us those lovely ideas to read faster and read better, or taking the tension out of our job, or giving us ideas on remembering faces and names, or great steps on how to profit by listening, or proven tips to making the right decisions, or giving us insights into the art of troubleshooting, Med has something on everything for the observant eye on a delightful platter.

The next two sections are of a different ball game altogether! They deal with proven steps towards working with others, and on managing one’s personal life!

Me thought of sharing with y’all, a few inspirational nuggets from these pages, which find such impactful relevance today, although this book was published almost four decades back!

'Life can sometimes step free from the chaos of contingency and become story!'

“To create a story, a readable and sensible narrative from what are often the unlikeliest preserved traces, to trust in the details, to work with them, using them as prompts and points of access, was, for me, to make a second discovery” - Sven Birkerts

Indeed, memoir is, to Sven Birkerts, the ‘genre of our times’!

Elaborating on the obstacles to the artistic realizations of the memoir, Sven adds to point out the fallacies of the ‘and then… and then…’ catchphrase, because it is just not about ‘telling something’ at all!

To Sven, then, there are such amazing hidden patterns to memory, which, when they are elegantly unearthed and understood, when one is on the watch out for ‘patterns and connections’, would somehow go a long way out in explaining something about himself – his life – to himself! He adds to say that these memories presented themselves ‘discontinuously,’ as found ‘bits of evidence,’ as they arrived, and they were trying to “tell” him something!

Thus possessed by the “stuff” of his own life, he says, he set out —at first hesitantly, later with grim resolution—to write about those years of formation!

He adds,

There is in fact no faster way to smother the core meaning of a life, its elusive threads and connections, than with the heavy blanket of narrated event. Even the juiciest scandals and revelations topple before the drone of, “And then … and then …” because, to Sven, there is not one ‘then’ but any many ‘thens’ galore, which creates for him and his memoir, the very sensation of the lived experience in all its grandeur!

To Sven, then, a ‘Memoir’ begins not with ‘event’ (for once, let’s forget the Derridean take on ‘event’ here, please!) but with the ‘intuition of meaning’ - with the mysterious fact that life can sometimes step free from the chaos of contingency and become story.

How beautifully he’s worded it!

Silber, I mean, Joan Silber has a similar sprightly take on the subject: ‘Fiction imagines for us a stopping point from which life can be seen as intelligible’, he says, in his The Art of Time in Fiction.

That then, indeed, would be a delightful stopping point or a pitstop of sorts! Ain’t it?

Indeed, me thinks it would do well to invite Chinua Achebe into our deliberations on this ’vantage stopping point’: Achebe once gave out his own reasons for writing down his story! He says, “The first is that you have an overpowering urge to tell a story. The second is you have the information for a unique story waiting to come out and third, you consider the whole project worth the considerable trouble!”

For more on an Achebean analysis, you may wish to read Silber’s The Art of Time in Fiction where he cites from Achebe, Arundhati Roy amongst others, to put forth the amazing ways in which ‘time’ unfolds in fiction!

And that’s exactly what Sven does, in his The Art of Time in Memoir! He illustrates, with specific literary illustrations, how time unfolds in memoirs!

Sven, when he looks back at the ‘and thens’ to his past life, from when now he’s in his late forties, he could notice for himself, how his past – all the events and all the feelings of his younger years, - had overnight, without any effort on his part whatsoever, arranged themselves into a coherent, well-ordered perspective!

And it was at this point in his life, somewhere into his late forties, that he finds out for himself how his memories and feelings started coming to him so loud and so clear! All the causes and all the effects to his pasts, had now, fallen into some ‘new alignment’ of sorts, where ‘recollection’ seemed to merge beautifully into the ‘ongoing business of living’, the present!

Hence, the ‘Present, Past’ equation seemed to Sven, the bestest default of all! In fact, the ‘Present, Past’ concoction is to Sven, the very sine qua non of a memoir! with the past deepening and giving authority to the present, and the present (just by virtue of being invoked) creating the necessary depth of field for the persuasive idea of the past.

‘He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort; he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets everything for the best.’

- Cardinal Newman on a ‘Gentleman’

'My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious reading, than a university'

Lewis Hyde’s The Gift has indeed acted a real trigger to some delightful contemplation into his edition of Thoreau’s essays, which formed a passing reference on our previous post!

Well, this post seeks to throw added light on some of the salient snippets from Thoreau’s essays, culled out from this amazing Lewis Hyde Edition! Interestingly, this edition also contains his all-time popular essay on ‘Civil Disobedience’ as well! And as always, without a doubt, each of the essays is for sure a delectable treat in itself!

As we all know, the naturalist Thoreau was quite in high renown for his simple living and high thinking!

I guess, Thoreau musta really been one of those rare-o-rare few who knew for certain, the meaning of the Heideggerian ‘dwelling’ in all its grandeur!

On this post, herein below, I’m so prompted and tempted beyond measure to give y’all just two precious, and profound snippets from Thoreau’s works!

While the first snippet on walking is from The Essays of Henry D Thoreau edited by Lewis Hyde, the second snippet on reading is from Thoreau’s Walden.

Firstly, from his endearing take on Walking!

Thoreau on Walking -

I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society.

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,—who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going à la Sainte Terre,” to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander.

They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean.

Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering.

He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade!

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps.

We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return,—prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again,—if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.

Secondly, for his enlightening take on Reading!

Thoreau speaks -

My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious reading, than a university; and though I was beyond the range of the ordinary circulating library, I had more than ever come within the influence of those books which circulate round the world, whose sentences were first written on bark, and are now merely copied from time to time on to linen paper.

For those memorable high-octane holidays!

This post is exclusively for those of y’all who feel you have the verve and the resolve, the zeal and the motivation, the drive and the ebullience, the enthusiasm and the determination within you to make a ‘better you’!

And this post is also, partly a response to those lovely mails I’ve been receiving from y’all over the past two weeks, on how to make your holidays a high-octane one, with added zeal and gusto to your days, your hours, your minutes and your seconds!

So here we go! Rightaway!

Well, holidays are those special, extended periods of leisure and recreation, meant to give you that extra space of your own, that precious extra time for yourself, that extra room of your own, all for yourself, by yourself, and exclusively for yourself!

Yesss! your holidays are meant to be your precious private time all for yourself, your personal time that’s been given to you on a platter, not to fritter it away on silly and absurd trifles, not to while them away on unending gossip, not to sit on your hands and stay put in your bed, not to idle away your time on endless chats and meaningless rants! not to entertain people on your list with some cheap, frivolous memes and forwards that any tom could easily do!

Borrowing some real life-sustaining phrases from the famed naturalist Thoreau, it would be so apt to say, with Thoreau, that, holidays are meant for personal reflections! Holidays are time for personal, independent reflections, voyages of spiritual discovery, and self-reliance!

And I quote Thoreau himself! He says -

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

Awww! How much he’s tried drinking life to the lees, in all its myriad grandeur!

Indeed, as Thoreau rightly points out, the more time you spend on yourself, the more you tend to work on increasing your self-worth and your self-esteem!

Just seven golden rules for y’all my dear student-learners, from your teacher, which I surely hope would immensely benefit you during these holidays and at other times as well!

Firstly, do a massive de-clutter on your personal space. Let go with boldness, on the unwanted clutters that bug you much and bog you much-o-much!

Thoreau advocates it! Cal Newport supports it! J Krishnamurti vouches to it! Carl Jung reinforces it! Socrates, Pythagoras and Plato emphasise it!

Indeed, if it’s gotta be your personal space, make sure you guard it with much care and caution!

Never allow intruders of any sort, into this sacred space!

Every Tom, Dick and Harry would try making a beeline to intrude into your precious little space, your little sacred space, that you’ve set apart exclusively for yourself! Beware of them all!

We humans are social beings! We humans are gregarious beings! There’s not an iota of doubt to that! But what’s a social being without celebrating the sacred, personal being in you? It’s as good as being totally lost in the madding crowd's ignoble strife! Ain’t it?

There’s no use whatsoever, in boasting of a thousand friends on facebook, or a hundred friends on whatsapp, or being part of a dozen groups, receiving a thousand likes on instagram, and eat the bread of sorrow, without taking time off to ‘knowing’ yourself, without taking time off to understanding your real worth, without taking time off to celebrating your own merit, without taking time off to respecting your sacred, personal space!

It’s something to the likes of, (to requote that powerful Arnoldian line,) being “a beautiful but ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain!”

‘Wings in vain!’ Shocking, ain’t it?

Yesss! Wings are meant to fly! To soar high! To reach the unreachable! To attain the unattainable! Not to render them vain, idle, valueless or useless!

So yesss! Do a declutter on your personal space, as often as you possibly can!

If you’re on social networking sites that, you possibly feel, drain you of your precious time, make you beat your 'wings in vain,' you'd do well to shut them off from your precious life, for at least a significantly brief period of time!