Is it just the books?

Life is a struggle. Money is a struggle. 

"We want to enjoy life without this stress of money but it’s impossible.  This cycle is never ending."

The only thing that brings me sanity anymore is my books. I often imagine myself as Belle from Beauty and the Beast. I wish some beast would lock me up in a castle lined with stained glass windows.

I want to live in a library full of escapes, full of books, full of different worlds that I can escape to. 
Books have this thing about them.

In A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze Guattari, it is stated that "A book has neither object nor subject;

it is made of variously formed matters..."

He compares a book to a rhizome, but a book can be anything. For me though, a book is safety, a book is sanity, a book is pleasure, a book is joy.

I've read my whole life. I think it started when I was younger; my grandmother used to read to me. She grew old and sick, but she never minded reading to me. Eventually I grew old enough to read to her, which I like to believe she enjoyed.

                       I want to read to my kids; I want them to get out of reading what I do.

                I want everyone to read more. But that's not happening.

                                         But in a way it is. The KINDLE and the NOOK         

                                         seem to be encouraging people to read more.

But is that enough? Are people reading as a fad, or are people really learning to love reading, to love books? Are they escaping to alternate worlds, or are they reading Fifty Shades of Garbage Grey. But it really is garbage. And somehow it's a bestseller. It makes me think that I'll never be a successful writer. I will not sink to the level of crappy writing just to make it. I'd rather write beautiful stories and poetry that never gets published.

Till then, you can find me in someone else's castle, someone else's story, someone else's happily
                                                                                                                                          ever
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http://almostdone13.blogspot.com/

Sailing and Driving

Driving can be so relaxing, so liberating. I like to drive. I really like to drive by myself. It’s a time to think, to reflect, to be myself.

In fact, the beach and driving have quite a bit in common for me. The beach is also very relaxing. I imagine that driving a boat would be wonderful. The freedom of driving, the peaceful gestures of the ocean, all together would make for a wonderful experience.

As I pulled into my driveway, I laughed as I realized how upsetting driving a car could be, especially when people hit your stopped car. Driving a boat would be better, the ocean had less idiot drivers around.

But imagine being the driver of the Titanic; what an upsetting drive that would have been…

I stuck my key into the front door, turned it left, and back up again. The aroma of my mom’s chicken filled my nose and I smiled. I liked being home, sometimes.

“Hey sweetie, dinner is almost done,” she yelled from the kitchen. I loved my mom, no matter how much I acted like I didn’t need her.

Sometimes I resented her for not having the money to support me through college—

“There is no use being alive if one must work. The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life’s meaning - that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose path I seek myself - is not earned by work.” ~Nadja, Breton

I often struggle with the need to be free of responsibility. So many of my peers seem to be free of responsibility, at least to the degree that I feel. What’s the point of responsibility. I guess there are two possibilities.

1. I could be over-working myself for nothing.

2. One day, all of my work will pay off. All of this stress I put on myself is going to be worth it. I’ll already know the value of a dollar. I’ll already have my work ethic. I’ll get a job over someone who got to goof off throughout high school and college.

Hopefully option two will become reality and I’ll get to retire and buy a boat and just hope my fate doesn’t lead me to the titanic.

http://theunfamiliarr.blogspot.com/