The Three Questions | Leo Tolstoy #ShortStory

As part of our year long readalong of War and Peace (it's not too late to join!), Nick has selected a number of Tolstoy's short stories and essays to make our 361 chapter book stretch to 366 days.

At the end of Volume 1, we have the first such extension read. Perfectly timed, too, I have to say Nick!

In the final pages of this section, Prince Andrey is pondering the nature of life and death after being wounded at the battle of Austerlitz. He says,

How good it would be to know where to seek for help in this life, and what to expect after it beyond the grave! How happy and calm I should be if I could now say: ‘Lord, have mercy on me!’... But to whom should I say that? Either to a Power indefinable, incomprehensible, which I not only cannot address but which I cannot even express in words—the Great All or Nothing-” said he to himself, “or to that God who has been sewn into this amulet by Mary! There is nothing certain, nothing at all except the unimportance of everything I understand, and the greatness of something incomprehensible but all-important.                         Louise and Aylmer Maude translation

The Three Questions from What Men Live By, and Other Tales by Leo Tolstoy is a short parable about a king who also wants to know what is right, who to turn to for help and which way to go.

Because it is relatively short, I've included the complete story below as translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude.

It once occurred to a certain king that if he always knew the right time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what was the most important thing to do, he would never fail in anything he might undertake. 

And this thought having occurred to him, he had it proclaimed throughout his kingdom that he would give a great reward to anyone who would teach him what was the right time for every action, and who were the most necessary people, and how he might know what was the most important thing to do. 

And learned men came to the king, but they all answered his questions differently.
In reply to the first question, some said that to know the right time for every action, one must draw up in advance a table of days, months, and years, and must live strictly according to it. Only thus, said they, could everything be done at its proper time. Others declared that it was impossible to decide beforehand the right time for every action, but that, not letting oneself be absorbed in idle pastimes, one should always attend to all that was going on, and then do what was most needful. Others, again, said that however attentive the king might be to what was going on, it was impossible for one man to decide correctly the right time for every action, but that he should have a council of wise men who would help him to fix the proper time for everything 

But then again others said there were some things which could not wait to be laid before a council, but about which one had at once to decide whether to undertake them or not. But in order to decide that, one must know beforehand what was going to happen. It is only magicians who know that; and, therefore, in order to know the right time for every action, one must consult magicians. 

Equally various were the answers to the second question. Some said the people the king most needed were his councilors; others, the priests; others, the doctors; while some said the warriors were the most necessary. 

To the third question, as to what was the most important occupation, some replied that the most important thing in the world was science. Others said it was skill in warfare; and others, again, that it was religious worship.

All the answers being different, the king agreed with none of them, and gave the reward to none. But still wishing to find the right answers to his questions, he decided to consult a hermit, widely renowned for his wisdom. 

The hermit lived in a wood which he never quitted, and he received none but common folk. So the king put on simple clothes and, before reaching the hermit’s cell, dismounted from his horse. Leaving his bodyguard behind, he went on alone. 

When the king approached, the hermit was digging the ground in front of his hut. Seeing the king, he greeted him and went on digging. The hermit was frail and weak, and each time he stuck his spade into the ground and turned a little earth, he breathed heavily.
The king went up to him and said: “I have come to you, wise hermit, to ask you to answer three questions: How can I learn to do the right thing at the right time? Who are the people I most need, and to whom should I, therefore, pay more attention than to the rest? And, what affairs are the most important and need my first attention?” 

The hermit listened to the king, but answered nothing. He just spat on his hand and recommenced digging. 

Vincent Van Gogh |Bauern Bei der Arbeit | 1890

“You are tired,” said the king, “let me take the spade and work awhile for you.”
“Thanks!” said the hermit, and, giving the spade to the king, he sat down on the ground.
When he had dug two beds, the king stopped and repeated his questions. The hermit again gave no answer, but rose, stretched out his hand for the spade, and said:
“Now rest awhile – and let me work a bit.”

But the king did not give him the spade, and continued to dig. One hour passed, and another. The sun began to sink behind the trees, and the king at last stuck the spade into the ground, and said: “I came to you, wise man, for an answer to my questions. If you can give me none, tell me so, and I will return home.” 

“Here comes someone running,” said the hermit. “Let us see who it is.” 

The king turned round and saw a bearded man come running out of the wood. The man held his hands pressed against his stomach, and blood was flowing from under them. When he reached the king, he fell fainting on the ground, moaning feebly. The king and the hermit unfastened the man’s clothing. There was a large wound in his stomach. The king washed it as best he could, and bandaged it with his handkerchief and with a towel the hermit had. But the blood would not stop flowing, and the king again and again removed the bandage soaked with warm blood, and washed and re-bandaged the wound. When at last the blood ceased flowing, the man revived and asked for something to drink. The king brought fresh water and gave it to him. Meanwhile the sun had set, and it had become cool. So the king, with the hermit’s help, carried the wounded man into the hut and laid him on the bed. Lying on the bed, the man closed his eyes and was quiet; but the king was so tired from his walk and from the work he had done that he crouched down on the threshold, and also fell asleep – so soundly that he slept all through the short summer night.

When he awoke in the morning, it was long before he could remember where he was, or who was the strange bearded man lying on the bed and gazing intently at him with shining eyes. 

“Forgive me!” said the bearded man in a weak voice, when he saw that the king was awake and was looking at him.
“I do not know you, and have nothing to forgive you for,” said the king. 

“You do not know me, but I know you. I am that enemy of yours who swore to revenge himself on you, because you executed his brother and seized his property. I knew you had gone alone to see the hermit, and I resolved to kill you on your way back. But the day passed and you did not return. So I came out from my ambush to find you, and came upon your bodyguard, and they recognised me, and wounded me. I escaped from them, but should have bled to death had you not dressed my wound. I wished to kill you, and you have saved my life. Now, if I live, and if you wish it, I will serve you as your most faithful slave, and will bid my sons do the same. Forgive me!” 

The king was very glad to have made peace with his enemy so easily, and to have gained him for a friend, and he not only forgave him, but said he would send his servants and his own physician to attend him, and promised to restore his property. 

Having taken leave of the wounded man, the king went out into the porch and looked around for the hermit. Before going away he wished once more to beg an answer to the questions he had put. The hermit was outside, on his knees, sowing seeds in the beds that had been dug the day before.  

Bill Strain | "I've been sitting here all day, feeling like I need to apologize to someone." | 2010

The king approached him and said, “For the last time, I pray you to answer my questions, wise man.”

“You have already been answered!” said the hermit, still crouching on his thin legs, and looking up at the king, who stood before him.
“How answered? What do you mean?” asked the king. 

“Do you not see?” replied the hermit. “If you had not pitied my weakness yesterday, and had not dug these beds for me, but had gone your way, that man would have attacked you, and you would have repented of not having stayed with me. So the most important time was when you were digging the beds; and I was the most important man; and to do me good was your most important business. Afterwards, when that man ran to us, the most important time was when you were attending to him, for if you had not bound up his wounds he would have died without having made peace with you. So he was the most important man, and what you did for him was your most important business. Remember then: there is only one time that is important – now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary person is the one with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with anyone else: and the most important affair is to do that person good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life.”

Prince Andrey certainly needs some lessons in living in the now, as well as appreciating those around him and dealing with what is in front of him, instead of fantasising about future possibilities for heroics for himself.

I understand that Tolstoy came at this story from a religious perspective, but the whole 'live in the now' message is such a Zen Buddhist one, that I wonder if he was also influenced by Eastern philosophies?

Naturally this led me to dig a little deeper.

The short answer is that Tolstoy was interested in philosophical questions from a young age. He delved into the works of Schopenhauer as well as Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and Taoist texts.

The long answer begins with a 19 yr old Tolstoy, hospitalised at Kazan (apparently for venereal disease) where he met a Buddhist monk who had been attacked and robbed. The story goes that Tolstoy was impressed by the monks principle of non-violence.

A growing dissatisfaction with the Russian Orthodox Church led him to formulate his own faith that focused on peace, harmony and unity. By the end of his life, he was a vegetarian, living an ascetic life. He believed that Christian churches were corrupting and falsifying the word of Christ. He was drawn to the teachings of Jesus, particularly the sermon on the mount, rather than any idea of a divinity or miracles.

Later in life, when he was trying to find answers to his many questions about life and it's meaning and purpose, he looked to science, but found that it asked even more questions. The scientific way of working on the finite, didn't bring Tolstoy any closer to his search for the infinite. Neither did the ancient philosophers.

In 1879, he published A Confession, where he attempted to study how the people in his social sphere managed this vexing question of existential angst.

I found that for people of my circle there were four ways out of the terrible position in which we are all placed. The first was that of ignorance. It consists in not knowing, not understanding, that life is an evil and an absurdity. From [people of this sort] I had nothing to learn — one cannot cease to know what one does know. 

The second way out is epicureanism. It consists, while knowing the hopelessness of life, in making use meanwhile of the advantages one has, disregarding the dragon and the mice, and licking the honey in the best way, especially if there is much of it within reach… That is the way in which the majority of people of our circle make life possible for themselves. Their circumstances furnish them with more of welfare than of hardship, and their moral dullness makes it possible for them to forget that the advantage of their position is accidental … and that the accident that has today made me a Solomon may tomorrow make me a Solomon’s slave. The dullness of these people’s imagination enables them to forget the things that gave Buddha no peace — the inevitability of sickness, old age, and death, which today or tomorrow will destroy all these pleasures. 

The third escape is that of strength and energy. It consists in destroying life, when one has understood that it is an evil and an absurdity. A few exceptionally strong and consistent people act so. Having understood the stupidity of the joke that has been played on them, and having understood that it is better to be dead than to be alive, and that it is best of all not to exist, they act accordingly and promptly end this stupid joke, since there are means: a rope round one’s neck, water, a knife to stick into one’s heart, or the trains on the railways; and the number of those of our circle who act in this way becomes greater and greater, and for the most part they act so at the best time of their life, when the strength of their mind is in full bloom and few habits degrading to the mind have as yet been acquired… 

The fourth way out is that of weakness. It consists in seeing the truth of the situation and yet clinging to life, knowing in advance that nothing can come of it. People of this kind know that death is better than life, but not having the strength to act rationally — to end the deception quickly and kill themselves — they seem to wait for something. This is the escape of weakness, for if I know what is best and it is within my power, why not yield to what is best? … The fourth way was to live like Solomon and Schopenhauer — knowing that life is a stupid joke played upon us, and still to go on living, washing oneself, dressing, dining, talking, and even writing books. This was to me repulsive and tormenting, but I remained in that position.

It's curious to see that, just like Herman Melville in the US and Charles Darwin in the UK, Tolstoy was wracked by the same existential doubt and insecurity. In their modern world, teeming with scientific discoveries, these highly educated men struggled to find a way to live a meaningful, purposeful life, that didn't involve the strict (and often hypocritical) doctrines of their childhood religions or a belief in a supreme being.

Rational knowledge presented by the learned and wise, denies the meaning of life, but the enormous masses of men, the whole of mankind receive that meaning in irrational knowledge. And that irrational knowledge is faith, that very thing which I could not but reject. It is God, One in Three; the creation in six days; the devils and angels, and all the rest that I cannot accept as long as I retain my reason. 

My position was terrible. I knew I could find nothing along the path of reasonable knowledge except a denial of life; and there — in faith — was nothing but a denial of reason, which was yet more impossible for me than a denial of life.... 

And I understood that, however irrational and distorted might be the replies given by faith, they have this advantage, that they introduce into every answer a relation between the finite and the infinite, without which there can be no solution. 

So that besides rational knowledge, which had seemed to me the only knowledge, I was inevitably brought to acknowledge that all live humanity has another irrational knowledge — faith which makes it possible to live. Faith still remained to me as irrational as it was before, but I could not but admit that it alone gives mankind a reply to the questions of life, and that consequently it makes life possible.

Tolstoy found his way through the quagmire by differentiating between faith and religion. His faith incorporated man-made philosophies from all around the world.
So, yes, the Buddhist ideas intermingled in this parable are there deliberately and by choice.

There is also a children's picture book by Jon J. Muth (most well-known for his picture book Zen Shorts) based on this tale. He uses a young boy, various animals and the weather to explore the three questions and their answers. He clearly arrives at

• The only important time is now. 
• The most important one is always the one you are with. 
• The most important thing is to do good for the one standing at your side.

I can highly recommend Muth's picture books if you are looking for a way to discuss these big ideas with young children.

Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope by Mark Manson

Last year I read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck out of curiosity. Everyone seemed to be talking about the book and it was one of our bestsellers at work but I was convinced that it was just another self-help book...with swear words.

I was right; and I was wrong.

It does have loads of swear words and it is a kind of self-help book, but it turned out to be more than that. It was actually useful and practical advice on how to become a fully functioning adult. It was a personal journal by one man that also gave the reader permission to reflect on their own personal journey in a constructive way. It was mostly done by looking through the lens of Buddhism.

Then along comes book 2 - Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope

It is and isn't about hope.

Mostly it's about how to become the best adult you can be. How to give up our childish and adolescent thinking and move towards maturity, virtue and humanity. 

This time the lens is philosophy. 

Manson distils the essence of Plato, Newton, Einstein, Kant, Nietzsche and Freud into easy to read, modern day language with contemporary examples. Anyone who has ever tried to read these guys in the original, knows that unless you have the time, energy, interest or motivation, that they present as being pretty dense, of-their-time, academic writing not easily accessible to the lay person.

Manson takes all that academic research and thought and not only tweaks it for a young, modern audience, but also makes it relevant to our present day lives. He talks about the Thinking Brain and Feeling Brain, our sense of control and purpose, our beliefs and values and happiness. But like the first book, it is mostly about becoming an adult. And not just any adult, but the best adult you can be.

He covers off childish thinking and adolescent thinking and shows up what adult thinking actually looks. 

I think these books are great. Despite the swearing. Perhaps I'm getting used to Manson's style but I didn't notice as many F-bombs in this book as the first.

Adulting seems to be a real thing at the moment and books like these remind us that becoming an adult is a lifelong journey, with specific cultural signposts to mark the way. Manson also tells us that humankind has been literally pondering this issue ever since time began. It is not a new thing. It mostly boils down to the way we think and feel and choose to act that defines us as adults. And it's never too late to start.

I noted lots of passages throughout the book on my Goodreads page - so I've transferred them here to have them all in one spot.

Don't be put off by the title. If you have a Gen Z, young adult or millennial or two in your life, then these two books would be perfect gifts for them...and for you too.

Photo by Joshua Newton on Unsplash

• Because, in the infinite expanse of space/time, the universe does not care whether you mother's hip replacement goes well, or your kids attend college, or your boss thinks you made a bitching spreadsheet. It doesn't care if the Democrats or the Republicans win the presidential election. You care. You care, & you desperately convince yourself that because you care, it all must have some great cosmic meaning behind it.
• The opposite of happiness is not anger or sadness. If you're angry or sad, that means you still give a f*ck about something.
• The opposite of happiness is hopelessness, an endless grey horizon of resignation and indifference.
• Hopelessness is the root of anxiety, mental illness and depression. It is the source of all misery & the cause of all addiction. 
• Hope narratives are what give our lives a sense of purpose. 
• An irrational sense of hopelessness is spreading across the rich, developed world. It's a paradox of progress: the better things get, the more anxious and desperate we all seem to feel.
• To build and maintain hope, we need three things: a sense of control, a belief in the value of something and a community. 
• The overindulgence of emotion leads to a crisis of hope, but so does the repression of emotion. 
• You don't get to control your feelings, Thinking Brain. Self-control is an illusion....
  But here's what you do have, Thinking Brain. You may not have self-control, but you do have meaning control. This is your superpower....You get to decipher them however you see fit....it's the meaning that we ascribe our feelings that can often alter how the Feeling Brain reacts to them.
  And this is how you produce hope. 
• People are liars, all of us. We lie constantly & habitually. We lie about important things and trifling things. And we usually don't lie out of malice - rather, we lie to others because we're in such a habit of lying to ourselves. 
• When we stop valuing something, it ceases to be fun or interesting to us. Therefore, there is no sense of loss, no sense of missing out when we stop doing it. On the contrary, we look back and wonder how we spent so much time caring about such a silly, trivial thing....These pangs of regret or embarrassment are good: they signify growth. 
• We all possess some degree of narcissism...
  We all overestimate our skills and intentions and underestimate the skills and intentions of others...
  We all tend to believe that we are honest and ethical than we actually are...
• The only thing that can ever truly destroy a dream is to have it come true.
• Each religion is a faith-based attempt to explain reality in such a way that it gives people a steady stream of hope...
  Every religion runs into the sticky problem of evidence. 
• The scientific revolution eroded the dominance of spiritual religions and made way for the dominance of ideological religions. 
• Hope for nothing. Hope for what already is - because hope is ultimately empty...
  Hope for this. Hope for the opportunity and oppression present in every single moment. Hope for the suffering that comes with freedom. For the pain that comes from happiness. For the wisdom that comes from ignorance. For the power that comes from surrender.
  And then act despite it.
• This is our challenge...to act without hope. To not hope for better. To BE better. In this moment and the next. And the next. And the next.
  Everything is fucked. And hope is both the cause and the effect of the fuckedness.
• In the same way that the adolescent realises that there's more to the world than the child's pleasure or pain, the adult realises that there's more to the world than the adolescent's constant bargaining for validation, approval and satisfaction. Becoming an adult is therefore developing the ability to what is right for the simple reason that it is right. 
• The difference between a child, an adolescent and an adult is not how old they are or what they do, but WHY they do something. 
• Essentially what good parenting boils down to...is helping them to understand that life is far more complicated than their own impulses or desires...children who are abused and children who are coddled often end up with the same issues when they become adults: they remain stuck in their childhood value system.
• The pursuit of happiness is not only self-defeating but also impossible...by pursuing happiness, you paradoxically make it less attainable.
• While pain is inevitable, suffering is always a choice.
  That there is always a separation between what we experience and how we interpret that experience.
• The pursuit of happiness is, then, an avoidance of growth, an avoidance of maturity, an avoidance of virtue. 
• The quality of our lives is determined by the quality of our character, and the quality of our character is determined by our relationship to our pain. 
• The only true form of freedom, the only ethical form of freedom...is not the privilege of choosing everything you want in your life, but rather, choosing what you will give up in your life...
  Diversions come and go. Pleasure never lasts. Variety loses its meaning.
• Don't hope for better. Just BE better.
  Be something better. Be more compassionate, more resilient, more humble, more disciplined....be a better human.

4/20 Books of Summer Winter

From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting by Judith Brett

From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage by Judith Brett was a surprise bestseller at work in the week leading up to the recent NSW state elections. I'll be curious to see if it has the same surge during the weeks leading up to our Federal elections in May.

Brett has written a fascinating and informative book about the history of voting in Australia. It's a bit dry in places, but the slimness of the book made it a quick, easy read. 

I loved all the facts and stats that Brett listed in the her introduction. Which I will include below because I want to have them to hand. The rest of the book basically expanded on and explored in detail, the points below.

Voting is compulsory in 19 of the world's 166 electoral democracies and only 9 strictly enforce it.

People from our sister democracies are often astonished that Austraians are compelled to turn up to vote: it seems an affront to freedom. We in reply are appalled at their low turnouts and the election of leaders and governments by a minority of voters.

In Australia registration has been compulsory since 1911. Turnout in Australian elections is always above 90 percent of registered voters, and in the high eighties of those eligible to enrol.

Australians wanted their governments to have the support of the majority of electors, they preferred their elections to be orderly and they were happy for them to be run by government officials.

The US and Australia were both settled by people from the British isles, who brought with them political traditions and ideas of their home country, but they were settled in different centuries. 

Where the US favours liberty and rights over democracy and majorities, we favour democracy and majorities over liberty and rights.

The early settlers to America left Britain when parliament was still struggling to wrest control of government from the monarch and when individuals were persecuted for their religious beliefs. America's informing spirit is the seventeenth century English philosopher John Locke.

By the time the Australian colonies were establishing their political institutions, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British parliament had well and truly defeated the autocratic monarchs...the foundational thinker...for Australians...was the philosopher and political reformer Jeremy Bentham. 

He argued that rights are created by law; that without government and law there are no rights. 

The federal government did not tax income until 1915, when it needed to raise money to fight the Great War. By then settler Australians' view of government as a major source of benefit rather than a circumscriber of freedom was entrenched.

Preferential voting is as distinctively Australian as compulsory voting. Both ensure that the governments we elect have the support of the majority of voters.

I knew most of this stuff in a very general sort of way. What was useful was having it all in one place and written in such a readable, quotable style.

But the one fact that really got me thinking and wondering was the name of our foundational thinker - Jeremy Bentham - who?

I've heard of John Locke, America's political 'informing spirit'. Why haven't I heard about the guy who inspired our political system before? 

What did he believe? Who was he? Why did he matter to Australia?

Brett covers off a lot of this in her book, but I wanted more.
So I googled.

Jeremy Bentham was born 15 February 1748 in London to a wealthy Tory family. He was considered to be a child prodigy - reading as a toddler, learnt Latin at three and played the violin at seven.

According to wikipedia he was,

sent by his father to The Queen's College, Oxford, where he completed his bachelor's degree in 1763 and his master's degree in 1766. He trained as a lawyer and, though he never practised, was called to the bar in 1769. He became deeply frustrated with the complexity of the English legal code, which he termed the "Demon of Chicane".

He wrote a Short Review of the Declaration that was published with John Lind's rebuttal to the American Declaration of Independence. He was a firm critic of the revolutionary idea of 'natural rights' independent of law, calling them "nonsense on stilts". He claimed that it described how things ought to be rather than how things actually were; about wishes and beliefs rather than facts and reality.

Bentham believed that rights were created by laws, and that all laws and rights require government. If and individuals rights cannot be interfered with, it then implies that rights must also be enforceable.

He argues that the concept of the individual pursuing his or her own happiness cannot be necessarily declared "right", because often these individual pursuits can lead to greater pain and less pleasure for a society as a whole. Therefore, the legislation of a society is vital to maintain the maximum pleasure and the minimum degree of pain for the greatest number of people. (wikipedia)

The trick of course, for all governments, is to legislate "good laws".

Bentham was very concerned about the idea of "sinister interest" or how the vested interests of the powerful conspire against the wider public interest.

He was a firm atheist and an advocate of secular positivism, which has been described on wikipedia as,

information derived from sensory experience, interpreted through reason and logic, forms the exclusive source of all certain knowledge. Positivism also holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected, as are metaphysics and theology because metaphysical and theological claims cannot be verified by sense experience.

His most famous idea though was the "greatest-happiness principle". Where one must always act to produce the 'greatest aggregate happiness among all sentient beings, within reason' (wikipedia). The philosophy of Utilitarianism evaluates actions based on their consequences and whether or not these actions cause pleasure or pain. The moral status of these actions is classified by the "happiness factor" of 12 pains and 14 pleasures.

Bentham's political position included arguments in favour of individual and economic freedom, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the abolition of slavery and of physical punishment (including that against children), the recognition of animal rights, the right to divorce, the promotion of free trade and usury and the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

Bentham died on the 6th June 1832 in London. He left his body to science for dissection and preservation as an auto-icon (a word that Bentham coined to describe the process of dead body being "preserved, clothed, and displayed as though still living, as a memorial to the deceased"). (OED)

Who knew?

Just Saying

This quote popped up on my facebook feed during the week. The problems of NOW have been swirling around in my brain ever since.

We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infintesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. 

We have no present. 

Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. 

We are therefore out of touch with reality. 

We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.

― Alan W. Watts (Become What You Are, 1955)

I love the idea of NOW and being present in the moment. I've even managed to do so on many occasions. But I get confused about how reflection and planning fit into this idea of NOW.

The only place we can physically be is HERE & NOW, but we have minds. And those minds can wander off all over the place.

I feel that we should use those minds - to reflect on past mistakes, successes and problems to help us manage the stuff that pops up NOW. Those fickle minds can also help us plan for and imagine a future so that we can set up stuff NOW that might be useful later on. In another NOW.

Being HERE & NOW is peaceful, but is it practical?

We cannot relive our memories or inhabit the future, but can we not experience happiness NOW by remembering some of those sweet times past and dreaming about the ones to come?

If NOW is all we have, what's the point of having a memory and an imagination?

#justsaying

The Hobbit and Philosophy edited by Gregory Bassham & Eric Bronson

The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way is part of the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series.

Many, many years ago I discovered the Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff, which is when I realised that it was possible to explain ancient philosophy through the lens of popular literature and culture. It was fun, enlightening and thought-provoking.

Therefore, I was very open, to exploring The Hobbit in the same vain.

There was a lot to ponder as the various authors expounded on the issues of wisdom, the nature of Tao, enlightenment, suffering, mercy, glory, pride, materialism & greed, war, beauty, play, magic, pity, interpretation, luck, consolation, courage, risk-taking and the idea of homecoming.

Some of the essays were drier than others, but most of them were engaging and insightful looks at the various moral lessons embedded within The Hobbit.

We go from Plato's allegory of the cave which taught us (& Bilbo) to be adventurous, get out of your comfort zone, admit your limitations and be open to new ideas and higher truths. All the way through to the Romantics and the loss of innocence with its inherent melancholy and nostalgia.

Many of the authors found that events in The Hobbit foreshadowed those to come in the LOTR (which I will refrain from mentioning here to avoid any spoilers).

I had an ah-ha moment about why I love Beorn so much - he is, in fact, the essence of the Buddhist 'empty-mind' or 'the mind without mind' theory. He is true to his nature and lives in harmony with all living things. He doesn't judge others, and like Gandalf, he is an example of the great philosophising walker.

Bilbo is considered from all angles - his journey is seen as a one in a long line of historic religious transformation through great walks. He never forgets who he is or where he is from. He begins the journey in quite a provincial frame of mind, but finishes as a cosmopolitan man of the world. He has shared suffering and he has learnt that you don't need to be in complete agreement with those you are friends with. You get used to each other, you accept & tolerate and eventually appreciate & respect your differences.

Bilbo is found to be morally and spiritually healthy thanks to his love of natural beauty and his ability to be playful. The reason we feel such an emotional connection to him, is thanks to Tolkien's ability to make us half-believe that Bilbo really exists. And we all feel Bilbo's growing pains - the hard lessons he learns along the way and the price he (and we) all pay for growing up.

We cannot be both 'there' and 'back' at the same time.

Although I am not one of those 'reluctant adults' who rail against 'adulting' (when did that become a word?) I still succumb to the nostalgia that invades the end of The Hobbit.
We're meant to. Things have changed. We can never go back to the same place we left.
Yes, we can feel some regret, some nostalgia, some loss of innocence of simple pleasures, but we move on, knowing that we are stronger and braver than we were before. That we can do things and know stuff that we couldn't do or know before.

Being an adult is great!

However, I can feel myself about to veer off onto a non-Hobbit related rant...!

The Hobbit and Philosophy was a fun easy read that complemented my reread of The Hobbit perfectly. If you're looking for some extra insight into real life as well as Middle Earth then this is the book for you.

#HLOTRreadalong2017

River of Ink #1 Genesis by Helen Dennis

For work, I really should read more junior fiction and YA books, but I don't always make time for them. At nearly 50 yrs of age, I am not the target audience for these books and I find reading grown-up books so much more satisfying and relevant.

But when I do make the time (i.e. for Dewey's 24 hr readathon) to read some JF and YA titles I am always pleasantly surprised.

Yes, they're quick and easy to digest and they usually focus on teen issues, but the stories, the characters and the writing can be tremendous.

In the case of River of Ink: Genesis by Helen Dennis we have a fast-paced story with lots of diversity (deaf brother, OCD mum, dead dad and a missing boy who has no memories), okay so maybe a little bit too much diversity, but somehow it kind of works and doesn't feel too obvious.

There's a whole lot of stuff do with alchemy and the elixir of immortality and an ouroboros which is interesting. The mystery elements are suspenseful enough to keep you turning the pages quickly to find out what happens next.

There are interesting black and white photographs between the chapters that provide some clues and information for the curious. And there are lots of great descriptions of London as they move around the city. Dennis blends a fascinating mix of history, philosophy and futuristic ideas.

The adult reader is required to take a few leaps of faith to accept the direction the story ends up taking. A leap of faith that the adult characters in the story make a little too quickly and too easily to this adult readers mind.

An Ouroboros

I will finish with the Seneca quote which Dennis prefaces her story because it spoke to me. Our youngest booklet is unable to comprehend how Mr Books and I managed to have a happy childhood without a mobile phone. He is genuinely puzzled to know how on earth we arranged to meet our friends or go anywhere without a mobile phone!

The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject...And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them...Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced. (Natural Questions)

Book 2 - Zenith - is due out in Australia in June.
Recommended for mature 11+ readers

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Being Mortal was one of my best reads for 2015.

When I spotted Atul Gawande's quote on the front cover of When Breath Becomes Air, I was, therefore, instantly attracted.

I'm not sure why I'm so compelled to read about death and dying right now, although, perhaps like Paul Kalanithi, it would be truer to say, that death, dying and the meaning of the life have been lifelong fascinations for me, not just a once off flirtation.

Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. But now I knew it acutely.

When Breath Becomes Air is a beautiful written, intelligent and very human discussion on the meaning of one person's life and the internal struggle that ensues when that person realises that their time on earth is suddenly very limited.

Kalanithi covers religion, faith and callings. He wonders what it means to have the ability to do good and what our legacy ought to be. He questions meaning and purpose and values. His personal search connects us to greater universal themes.

Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.

Kalanithi was a reader. He devoured books and ideas from a young age.
The Death of Ivan Illyich, Andrew Marvell, Dickens, Twain, Austen, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Last of the Mohicans - all these shared books and authors somehow made me feel closer to Paul, that somehow we had created a relationship of 'human knowledge' that reached beyond the grave. By sharing these ideas and words, I could help to keep a small part of Paul alive. The ideas and books that fired him up and inspired him, have had a similar effect on me. Maybe one day, when I am gone, the people who read my words and share my book loves will also carry a little bit of me onwards - 'it is never complete'.

When Breath Becomes Air is poignant and sad, yet also uplifting.  It is one man's deeply felt and contemplative search for meaning and understanding.

Highly recommended.

A Tale For the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

A Tale For the Time being is the book that has kicked off my Booker shortlist campaign for this year. And it nearly stopped me in my tracks.

It's not that I didn't enjoy it.
I did.

That is, I really enjoyed the middle section when I finally got going on it last weekend.

The first 10 chapters or so, I had been reading at night, before bed when I was tired and I was struggling to engage with it completely. I wanted to like it; I felt that I probably would like it; I just needed a good run at it. Nao's teenage voice started off a little annoying and Ruth, the author as narrator seemed a little too convenient.

But last weekend was the trick.

I found myself engaging with the characters and I let myself get carried away by the story.

I loved the references to Japanese culture that I knew next to nothing about. I adored all the fascinating ideas & philosophising about the nature of time. Oliver's scientific explorations were equally intriguing (I learnt about gyres, the Great Western Garbage Patch & quantum physics!) There was also Zen Buddhism, Proust, manga and cyber-bullying. What more could you want in a book?

The switching of POV between each chapter developed a nice rhythm as the book went along as well. One chapter was Nao's diary written in Japan a decade before while the alternate chapters belonged to Ruth, a Japanese/Canadian author who discovered the diary and other artefacts washed up on the shores of her Canadian island home.

This gave Ozeki lots of room to play with ideas about authorship, the nature of writing, reading and the power of words.

We were going along swimmingly - until last night!

I can only describe the last (small) section of the book as some kind of writers flight of fancy. Quantum physics merged with dreams, mythology and computer science in a way I found rather unsatisfactory. Perhaps it was an attempt at magic realism? Or simply an authors attempt to tie up all the loose ends?

Since writing the above I have visited The Guardians 2013 Booker Hustings link to this book.

I'll finish with a quote that I thought many of you in blogger land would appreciate as much as I did,

"This agitation was familiar, 
a paradoxical feeling that built up inside when she was spending too much time online, 
as though some force was at once goading her and holding her back. 
How to describe it? 
A temporal stuttering, an urgent lassitude, 
a feeling of simultaneous rushing and lagging behind."

Philosophy in the Garden by Damon Young

I first stumbled upon Philosophy in the Garden at the Sydney Writers Festival when Damon Young was part of the panel discussing the merits of Jane Austen.

His book undertakes to highlight "eleven great authors, and the ideas they discovered in parks, yards and pots."

Naturally, one of these great authors is Jane Austen.

Young begins by telling us that JA "looked to her cottage garden for the comforts of perfection." And that her last three books (Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion) were written at a small twelve-sided walnut table near the front door of Chawton Cottage. Any time she needed a break from writing, to clear her head or to escape the confines of domestic life, Jane would walk out into the garden to be refreshed.

In fact, Young argues, Jane needed the garden to write. The family move to Bath basically stopped JA from writing for a decade. The shock of the move plus the lack of garden made her lose her voice.

As I've been rereading Mansfield Park, I've been on the look out for garden references to see how they stack up to this idea of the garden as consolation and comfort.

Early on at a dinner with the Grants and Crawford's, Fanny seeks peace and quiet at the window. She is joined by Edmund

"where all that was solemn and soothing, and lovely, appeared in the brilliancy of an unclouded night, and the contrast of the deep shade of the woods. Fanny spoke her feelings. 'Here's harmony!' said she, 'Here's repose! Here's what may leave all painting and all music behind, and what poetry only can attempt to describe. Here's what may tranquilize every care, and lift the heart to rapture! When I look out on such a night as this, I feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world; and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by contemplating such a scene."

After Crawford proposes to Fanny, her uncle advises her to

"go out, the air will do you good; go out for an hour on the gravel, you will have the shrubbery to yourself, and will be better for the air and the exercise."

The visit to Sotherton and the walk around the grounds revealed all the main characters and their key personality traits. Mother Nature brought out their true natures!

Fanny's preference for strolling in the shrubbery to seek solace and comfort also flies in the face of Mrs Norris' need for speed and control. She berates Fanny for going out for a "private walk" without telling her, as she would have asked her to "go as far as my house with some orders for Nanny...which I have since, to my very great inconvenience, been obliged to go and carry myself....It would have made no difference to you, I suppose, whether you had walked in the shrubbery, or gone to my house."

I'm also reminded of how often JA used the great outdoors for some of the major scenes in her earlier work. Elizabeth's muddy walk to visit the ill Jane, the walks around the Collins' place where Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, her visit to Pemeberly with her aunt and uncle, the angry scene with Catherine de Burgh....

Marianne's meeting of Willoughby on a rainy hillside....

I'm sure you can all think of plenty more!