The Ecstatic Eruditions of Great Minds

Today I'm writing from the Union Artisan Coffee cafe at Da Men Mall.  I have a long weekend ahead for I'm taking leave on Monday. It's already the end of July and we are already easing into the second half of the year. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to write about something deep and serious today or just ramble on about nothing.

I'm going to pursue the latter for one can also learn a lot about oneself by observing the stream-of-consciousness flow of words that come out of one's mind. In a way, this is what this blog is for--it is a writing tool for me to explore my own thoughts and let them find their resolution.

Last week I wrote about the process of dreaming, which in a way makes our sleep 'productive'. And now I'm just daydreaming with my laptop on the Saturday afternoon at a neighbourhood cafe, feeling grateful that I am using time the way to choose to, at a place of my liking, doing something which is both relaxing and enlightening. Perhaps that is the closest definition of happiness, as least from my perspective, that I can find.

I am engulfed by a feeling of gratitude: gratitude for being able to enjoy and learn from great writers and artists of the past and of our time. Over the past 2 years, two composers that I admire passed away: the Greek composer Vangelis last year and Ruichi Sakamoto earlier this year. Vangelis is of course the composer of many famous movie soundtracks, notably Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner, while Sakamoto was also famous for this themes for movies like The Last Emperor and Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, both of which he also had an acting role himself. To be able to tap on my phone and have their beautiful masterpieces immediately fill my earphones is one of the greatest joys and marvels of modern living.

Recently Milan Kundera also passed away. He, of course is famous for the novel, 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', which I had read--oh my God-30 years ago! I read most of his books and he introduced me to a whole range of authors, which, hitherto I had thought was too difficult for me. It opened my eyes to the wider canon of European literature, which ever since I had attempted to savour and learn from.

Again, it's that feeling of gratitude that we live at an age where all these priceless works of arts are available to each and everyone of us so cheaply. If life is meant to be enjoyed, then I am doing it at a breathless rate and feeling astounded that such beauty and wisdom, are so ever often ignored and unappreciated by the masses. 

But to each his own! Some find enjoyment in travelling the world, taking selfies at breathtaking sights and sceneries and dunking into all sorts of exotic gastronomical delights. There is no right or wrong way to enjoy life.  I guess I am easily contented and we all wallow in our blissful ignorance in some way.

I am reminded of these verses by Longfellow, which I had read as a child, and thanks to the marvel of internet, I could 'recall' at an instance:

Let others traverse sea and land,

And toil through various climes,

I turn the world round with my hand

Reading these poets’ rhymes.

From them I learn whatever lies

Beneath each changing zone,

And see, when looking with their eyes,

Better than with mine own.

In a way, I'm trying to savour life in its most efficient way, scouring the storehouse of wisdom and beauty of the human experience expressed in art, music and literature. Yes, I am this lazy armchair hedonist of the mind, and nothing more. Let me vegetate and rot in the ecstatic eruditions of great minds that had lived and some living still on this earth of ours. Let us live and let live.