Bibliophilic Bouts

I was at the barber just now and I had to wait a short while for my turn. As always, waiting is never an issue as it means that I am pleasantly rewarded with some reading time. 

How often do we complain that we do not have the time to indulge in our hobbies. Well, if reading happens to be your pastime of choice, then you're in luck. You can squeeze it into the interstices of your life--all those tiny amount of time in between major events or tasks which make up your day.

Reading to me is like eating. Every sentence is a morsel of food, which you savour with your mind. And you'd relish it exactly like a tantalising piece of delicacy dropped into your salivating mouth. Only that the nourishment from the former is, I would argue, exceeds anything that is consumed orally.

I do not only read everywhere, I've also acquired the habit of annotating the pages of my book with a pencil. And I'm not doing it because I have to mark up facts for some research project, just that reading and annotating is my way of fully concentrating and enjoying every word and sentence that the author has carefully and painstakingly assembled for my edification. 

I know, it's a peculiar sight these days to find anyone reading in public, what more with a 2B pencil in hand, dissecting blocks of text on a piece of printed page. And to extend the food analogy further: my pencil is like an eating utensil--not unlike a pair of chopsticks--picking out and shoving bite-sized chunks of savoury delights into my mind.

An annotated page immediately becomes mine: it is the conquered terrain, which I the reader-traveller had ploughed through, with some effort. Experiences movingly carved with the scalpel of my pencil.  The marginalia becomes the journal of my reading life. Thoughts, events and silent chuckles captured in black scrawls, marking the width and breadth of my bibliophilic realm, 

I read for the sheer pleasure of consuming text; the nourishments of its contents is an additional bonus which my mind is rewarded with. And over time, I realised that my sensitivity to words and their multi-various meanings becomes greatly enhanced.  My mental tastebuds have acquired aptitudes in ever-expanding dimensions, opening vistas of delights hitherto unknown.

Ah, I'm waxing lyrical again about the ecstatic joys of reading, especially the form that involves the dead-tree variety--this gluttony of books, which I succumb, unashamedly to; this hill of hedonism which I willingly die on. I do not claim any intellectual or moral superiority--it is simply an indulgence, pure and simple.

So do not attempt to save me from this addiction which had and is consuming my life. This junkie seeks no pity nor sympathy. I read, therefore I am. And occasionally I write too, in blog articles like these here. But these are just the sober interludes between my blissful bouts of bibliophilia.

Seeds Across Space and Time

New Year's Eve is a good time to review the year that has just gone by and to peer ahead a little to see what's in store. I timed my year-end in such a way that I was able to finish reading my last book of 2017--Zaid Ibrahim's Assalamualaikum, which was recently banned by the government. I've had the book in my possession for a while but had no inclination to read it until I was reminded of it by the government's inexplicable move to ban it.

I have a huge array of books lined up for the coming year. The difficulty is always in deciding what to read. For 2017, surprisingly, my most enjoyable read was a collection of stories by Joseph Conrad "The Eastern Stories", which includes his short stories set in the Malay archipelago like Youth: A Narrative, The Lagoon, Karain: A Memory, The End of the Tether, Because of the Dollars and The Secret Sharer. And what great tales these are!

I actually bought this paperback volume back in 2001 at a bookshop in Nouvena, Singapore and have not gotten to reading it, as I found Conrad's prose a bit too ornate and convoluted for my liking. But I suppose our tastes change as we age, what was tedious about Conrad's writing then now seems so satisfyingly rich in atmosphere, memorable characterization and heart-wrenching emotion.

I have many books which I've bought but have not felt the inclination to read them yet, but I know their time will come. Books are like seeds that lie dormant, each one will have its time to sprout and grow in my mind, when the conditions are right. And as you grow older, you have a better sense of timing--what is the right thing to do at each moment in time. Every book will eventually have its day.

There was once a time during my youth when I had lots of time and not enough books to read. Now, I live in an age of information overload--there's simply too much content and way too little time to consume them. So I have to prioritize things wisely. Books are nourishment that one feeds to the mind, they provide maximum boost to the soul when ingested at the right time.

The anthology of stories by Joseph Conrad had to wait exactly 16 years before I was ready to appreciate the beauty of its writing. Books are durable supplies which we carry along with us through the journey of life, providing us the right nourishment at different way-stations along the path. And what wonderful nourishments do they provide!

One thing that has been constant all my life is my love for books. Thinking back, I've been an avid reader ever since I was a child and this habit did not let up even when I started working. 20 years ago, when I was working in Singapore, I spent many happy nights reading in my small HDB room in Bishan; I had spent long flights to US, engrossed in the collected works of Vivekananda and the autobiography of Isaac Asimov; I remember cold nights in Californian motels poring over books on the Mutiny on the Bounty and fond memories of myself sitting at a park in Geneva, reading The Horizontal Instrument by Christopher Wilkins; Yes, I was reading Sukarno's biography on one of my many happy train rides to Bandung; And that magical year 1995, spending hours reading Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi at the Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong, while waiting for my flight back to KL.

To me, part of the pleasure of travel is the opportunity to read. When you sit down at a cafe or a park at some foreign location, you get to slowly absorb the local rhythms of life. Travel is not simply shuttling from one tourist distraction to another. Travel, at least to me, is diving deep into the soul of a place. No better way to do that than sitting at a public place, with a good book and simply watch the world go by, as your attention dips in and out of your book, in between sips of freshly brewed coffee.

There's no greater joy in life to me than reading. Perhaps that's why I'm a reasonably happy person--because I have an endless supply of books to read! As I close the last chapter of 2017, I am opening another delicious new book: 2018. I welcome the new year with the anticipation of an eager reader, ready to dive into another new tome of adventure filled with thought-provoking ideas and wonderful leaps of imagination. Life is great simply because there are books and because there are readers and writers who partake in the ecstatic joy of the written word.

As I look back at all the books that I've read throughout my life, at various locations that I've been to, at various points in my life, I marvel at the many works that have enthralled me and influenced my thinking--seeds that I've gathered across space and time, seeds that have germinated in my mind and made me, for better or worse, the person I am today.

Let's now turn the page and dive into our new book: 2018!

The Fuels of Happiness

Today is Chinese New Year's eve and as always it is a time for rest and reflection for me. Most people will be away for an entire week and it is a great time to catch up on work. A certain peace descends on the city after everyone has finally made their way back to their hometowns.

It is a time I relish. It feels like I have the city all to myself. I was at the mamak cafe just now, enjoying a cup of coffee and the last chapter or Orhan Pamuk's The New Life.

Why, one might ask, indulge in such a melancholic read on the eve of Chinese New Year when every household is so boisterously happy and the expansive night skies are punctuated with bursts of celebratory fireworks?

Books make me happy, even a sad one. Every book, no matter its subject or genre, makes you a better person. To finish a book, having digested and integrated every thought and idea of the author into one's system is a great feeling. It is happiness of the most sublime kind.

Reading and writing to me are sacred activities on par with prayer and meditation. These are activities of the heart and mind and one finds tremendous happiness when these inner faculties of ours are engaged in lively interplay.

The pleasure of a writer, like that of a dancer, is expression. Allowing the vibrations of the soul to seek their outward potency. The reader on the other hand, derives his pleasure from absorption and integration of ideas and emotions into his inner being. It is deeply spiritual. And spirituality is but a form of yearning that is inherent and primeval in every individual, finding outward expression in the multitude of organized religions that we see in the world today.

Let me stay clear of the subject of religion for now as I have written a lot about it in the past and still have many unexpressed thoughts on it that I might want to articulate at a latter occasion.

And let's go back to the happy occasion of Chinese New Year. The ethos of the Chinese is growth and expansion. Gloom is anathema to the spirit of Chinese New Year. To move forward with a healthy sense of confidence and optimism is how one should lead one's life. Attaining prosperity and material success in this world is the happiness one seeks as a Chinese.

Such is the positive mindset of the Chinese that drives them towards such great heights of achievements. It is on occasions like these that I reconnect with my ethnic virtues and harness its motivational power. The outer motivation is the sunshine that makes the plant rise skywards. And my spiritual quests are like the invisible reach of its roots that seek nourishment deep within the ground. Both are fuels for the happiness of the plant.

A Gymnasium in Paradise

I had always imagined paradise as a kind of library. - Jorge Luis Borges

The most enduring image that has lingered in my mind from the movie Minority Report (starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg) was the final scene where the pre-cogs were seen in a some kind of rustic cottage, surrounded by piles of books, blissfully reading. I thought to myself then, heaven must look like that--filled with wonderful books and all everyone does is read all day, and all night.

Reading is one of the greatest pleasures of life, and among the cheapest too. People like to complain that books are expensive. No they are not. The price of a paperback book is probably about the amount you'll spend on a typical outing with friends at Starbucks. And how many books does an average person read a year?

You'll be considered quite an avid reader if you manage to read a book a month. If the average paperback costs RM50.00, that amounts to only about RM600.00 a year spent on books. I'm sure your smartphone (which you'll probably change every year) costs more than that.

And don't forget, you can also read for free at the local library. Not to mention all the free e-books that you can also download to your favorite reading device. No other equivalent pleasure in life comes that cheap.

Why don't people read more then? In Malaysia, if you ask someone what he or she is reading now, you'll probably get a blank stare. Ask them what TV series they are watching now or which nightspot do they hangout these days, they'll probably light up immediately.

Most people consider reading boring. It takes a lot of effort to focus page after page of words. Reading is hard work. Reading is passe. Why not surf the web? Isn't it a much more efficient way of absorbing information in today's fast paced world?

Yes and no. I don't disagree that the internet is a great source of information and knowledge. One can probably find out more up-to-date information about a certain subject much more quickly from the web. I'm a great fan of Wikipedia and Youtube. One can learn whatever one desires to learn these days. All knowledge is available on one's fingertips, if only one is willing to invest the time to absorb them.

No, surfing the Net does not provide one important benefit one gets from reading printed dead-tree pages: the practice of concentration. Reading a book from cover to cover, tracing the authors thread of thought one word at a time, watching his ideas and concepts take shape sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph is like a kind of meditation, with words acting almost like prayer beads.

It is the hard work of slowly scanning line after line of monotonous text, lumbering along page by page at snail's pace that provides the necessary exercise that our mental faculties need. The book is the mind's exercise machine. One reads to sharpen one's mind. Reading keeps the brain sizzling with healthy electro-chemical activity, forging fresh connections among neurons, stimulating neuro-transmission across synapses.

Reading keeps one mentally fit. And I can imagine Borges, who passed away in 1986, blissfully working out at the gymnasium of the mind in Paradise.

My Mobile University

Living in KL means a lot of time spent in my car. Fortunately I have a consolation: audiobooks. For the past few years, I think I've listened to more books than I have read.

Not only have I "read" many of the latest non-fiction--Malcom Gladwell's Blink and Outliers, and Tim Wu's The Master Switch among others--through the audio medium, I've also sat through many lectures in subjects as diverse a the philosophy of religion, Russian literature, history of classical music, the human body and movie appreciation. My car has become my mobile university; driving is no longer a chore, it is something I even look forward too these days.

I also listen to a lot of poetry--Yeats, Shelley, Dylan Thomas, Edgar Alan Poe. I even sleep with my iPod: my favourit bedtime listening are philosophical talks on religion by Alan Watts. I've been using my first generation iPod for maybe 7 years now and it is the best investment in gadgets I've ever made.

What joy it is to be able to carry a whole library of wisdom right in your breast pocket. Listening is so easy--you just plug in your earphones and lo and behold, the author talks in your head.

Whenever I need a bit of break, in between heavy sessions of academic lectures, I'll dive into my portable collection of classical music--Chopin, Mozart and a bit of Baroque music will usually put me into a very relaxed and blissful state. Ah, instant knowledge, instant relaxation!

I used to buy audio cassettes and have a huge collection of audiobooks in cassettes. But nowadays, I get my audio content from Audible, commiting myself to more than RM500 of audiobooks every year as a Gold subscriber. I have more than a hundred books in my audio wishlist, and the list is still growing.

Unlike many of my IT friends, I'm not exactly an Apple aficionado; It concerns me not if the latest iPhone is thinner, lighter, comes with bigger screen and supports LTE. The iPod is all I care about. With the iPod and Audible, the world's knowledge--the pleasures of life--is always an 'earshot' away.

Thoughts from My Sanctuary

I have an apartment where I keep my books. It sits on the 9th floor, overlooking the swimming pool below and further off in the distance, the spacious tree-lined grounds of a university campus.

It's not a bad place to live but I've never spent a single night here. Only my books live here, occupying shelves that reach the ceiling. When I first furnished the place, I made sure that the living room walls were completely lined with bookshelves. There are still lots of empty spaces to accomodate more books and I am in no hurry to fill them up. I am aware of the fact that I'll never be able to read all the books I own within my lifetime.

I use my apartment as a home office, a library and a private lounge: a place where I can think, work and meditate in the company of my beloved books. I try to keep the place free of distractions -- television for instance. I don't watch TV here.

The furnitures are kept to bare necessities--a sofa and a round dining table. The only item of luxury that I have is a digital piano, where I will ocassionally attempt to coax my rusty fingers to rattle off a few Chopin waltzes. Playing the piano--even badly--makes me immensely happy. It is something that connects me to my childhood. And it is from my childhood that my dreams continue to nourish...

This is my sanctuary. A place where I relax at the end of a hard day's work, and take stock of my life: Where am I going next?

In the company of my books, sometimes I am tempted to think, this is all I'll ever need. I don't need to go anywhere else. I'll just sit here everyday and read to my heart's content. What more could a person want in life?

Invariably, my eyes would chance on the title of some of the books on my shelf: Batavia, Bung Karno, Witnesses to Sumatra, Java Pageant, Indonesian Destinies...and suddenly my heart would ache with a certain longing...