There is something missing, it’s just about knowing what that is…

There is something missing. Every once in a while a wake up being a little sad and unsatisfied and I think that, although I am accomplishing many things in my life, there is some missing piece. And I can’t figure it out what that is.
I am good at many things but I am bad at one in particular, finishing what I start, getting to the end of things, and I hate it.
For example, I have always been a big-time reader and lately I am having a hard time even finishing a book. I could list at least 5 that I have bought, started and then forgot on my shelf getting dusty. What is it all this about? Do I need to challenge myself? Do I need to give myself a time line to finish things? It might actually be a good idea, and I have just been inspired by a movie I watched.
Well, to start, I am back to Bikram Yoga, oh if I missed it. If I remember well, I took classes for almost three months last year and it gave me such a happiness every time I went. And starting again after all this time is kinda hard, my body is trying to figure the whole practice again from the beginning, but I like it, again. Let’s see if this time I can keep it up for longer.
Today is the last day of January and as we all know January is the month of people’s resolutions for the year, and I am thinking what is my resolution? I don’t need to quit smoking or drinking as I don’t do either, I might want to commit to exercising, but I do it already (it’s just a matter of being constant and finally loose those few pounds that have been bothering me). So what do I have left? How about finishing things? I truly need some motivation or I will be surrounded by books, projects, ideas…unfinished.

I am going to start by making a list:

- finish reading “Intervista col potere” Oriana Fallaci
- printing all the picture that I have been thinking to print for months now and finish my photo album
- working hard on my company (Yeah that is something I still didn’t get to write about). This shouldn’t be hard as this is finally something I absolutely love doing, the job…I hope…of my life!
- being a good wife.. )
- take my RE test, damn I just don’t have time for that. Oh well I will have to find it (good luck to me)

Maybe I could keep writing but I better keep this list short or I will get scared and give up )

There is one thing that I am being very good at though, my friends. I am nourishing my friendships and making sure the people I love know that in a constant way. Because we should never take anybody for granted. And I hope my friends feel this effort.

Going to read few pages of my Fallaci book.. committed!

In Pursuit of Elegance…

So…about three weeks ago I went on one of my missions to the bookstore, as I wanted some mental stimulation…
After an hour walking around the shelves, this book, “In Pursuit of Elegance” caught my attention. In the first place it probably reminded me about the movie “In Pursuit of Happiness” which I found to be a great one, so I bought it and started reading it right away. Well, I soon realized that behind such a light title, there was a fascinating analysis of elegance from the consumer’s point of view. To give you a general idea of what the author, Matthew May, states..

“Elegance cuts through the noise, captures our attention, and engages us. The point of elegance is to achieve the maximum impact with the minimum input. It’s a thoughtful, artful subtractive process focused on doing more and better with less… The best ideas always have something missing”.

And, among many passages, I found the following particularly interesting:

“Doing something is deemed better than doing nothing. But that’s not always true. I spent some time with National Geographic adventure journalist Boyd Matson. He taught me how to stand still when the hippos charge. If you act, and run, you’re dead. Stand still, do nothing, they stop charging. But that is fiendishly difficult because it’s so unnatural and counter intuitive. But that’s what happens in business”.

And after reading this I was reminded of the many times when, after getting to the US, I had to deal with people refusing to just do nothing and be happy about it. In NY almost nobody is able to be lazy (in a positive way..) and simply enjoy that precious time that we sometimes have, to do NOTHING!
I know time is $$ but the question is, is it really worth it to lose the ability to take advantage of what I would call “Empty time”?

I’d love to hear others’ opinions about this.. I look forward to reading your comments!

And if you want to know more about the book:

http://inpursuitofelegance.com/

V.

On Being light and liquid

Interruption, incoherence, surprise are the ordinary conditions of our life. They have even become real needs for many people, whose minds are no longer fed..by anything but sudden changes and constantly renewed stimuli…We can no longer bear anything that lasts. We no longer know how to make boredom bear fruit..

So the whole question comes down to this: can the human mind master what the human mind has made?

Paul Valery (From Zygmunt Bauman Liquid Modernity)

“Liquid Modernity” is one of the most interesting and enlightening books I have ever read. I read it for the first time as it was part of my Sociology exam in 2005 and I read it again and again.. “Liquid Modernity” is the term Bauman uses to describe the present condition of the world as compared and contrasted with the “solid” modernity that came before it. According to the author, individuals in today’s world find themselves facing a series of challenges never before encountered.

The transaction from “solid” to “liquid” modernity has created a new and unprecedented setting for individual life pursuits; human long-term life plans don’t matter as much as before, so individuals have to find other ways to organize their lives.
People find themselves facing an unending series of short-term projects and episodes that don’t add up to the kind of sequence to which concepts like “career” and “progress” could be meaningfully applied.

Such fragmented lives require individuals to be flexible and adaptable, to be constantly ready and willing to change tactics at short notice, to abandon commitments and loyalties without regret and to pursue opportunities according to their current availability. In liquid modernity the individual must act, plan actions and calculate the likely gains and losses of acting under conditions of endemic uncertainty…

Simply fascinating..

Faves spots….

The place where I can spend hours is the bookstore, where I am inebriated by history, psychology, philosophy and and everything other book that inspires me from the bookshelves. I have always thought I have some kind of fetish for books in general. The bright colors of the covers catch my attention, as well as the smell of the paper especially the recycled one, that somehow reminds me of the library where I used to study when I was a teenager…
I can easily spend two hours and hundreds of $ in a bookstore and even if it will probably take me years to read all the books that look at me from my shelves, I am happy to have a new one to start every time I want to get lost in someone else’s thoughts, stories, lives….