Buddy's Day

It seems like Buddy, just like any other guy, wasn't really satisfied with his life. Ondaatje describes Bolden's daily routines:

"It was a financial tragedy that sleep sobered Bolden up completely, that his mind on waking was clear as an empty road and he began to casually drink again although never hard now for he played in the evenings. He slept from 4 till 8. His day had begun at 7 when he walked the kids a mile to school buying them breakfast along the way at the fruit stands. A half hour's walk and another 30 minutes for them to sit on the embankment and eat the huge meal of fruit." (177)

First of all, Bolden worked as a barber after left his kids at school until his nap at four. His life seems to be very decent, but his "financial tragedy" of spending his money on alcohol implies his wanting to forget reality. Even his everlasting 4-hour nap shows signs of dissatisfaction of the world. And once he does finally wake up, he goes out in the evening to let out all his emotions by playing his cornet. Obviously, he doesn't seem to like his job as a barber much because it's not even mentioned in this passage about his daily routine. Yes, it feels like as if Bolden is some kind of an emo that hates his job, but no. As we keep reading, it can be noticed that the second half of this paragraph is dedicated to his lovely kids. Clearly, Bolden values his kids with great importance. I don't know about other people, but in my personal opinion, waking up every day before seven just to spend about two hours walking a mile and buying food for someone else is not a very easy task. But, "his day had begun at 7" tells us that Bolden thought of his morning with his children as something positive, something that sparked up his will to keep up and survive throughout the day. Of course, Bolden's current anxiety slowly keeps on building up throughout the novel which probably is the reason he eventually leads to his insanity, but for now, he still has at least a bit of hope, not to live, but to survive.

Reading Through Bolden

After reading Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje, I've decided to do a close reading. Here's a quote taken from the book, in which Bolden, the main character, meets up again with Nora, his wife he had left for two years:

"They lay there without words. Moving all over her chest and arms and armpits and stomach as if placing mines on her with his mouth and then leaned up and looked at her body glistening with his own spit. Together closing up her skirt, slipping the buttons back into their holes so she was dressed again. Not going further because it was friendship that had to be guarded, that they both wanted. The diamond had to love the earth it passed along the way, every speck and angle of the other’s history, for the diamond had been the earth too.” (118)

Sentence one: "They" (more than one person), including Buddy, have some kind of an ineffable emotion going on inside them.

Sentence two: Through the actions he does and the way that he appreciates every part of her body implies that he likes her (or at least he's about to have a sexual relationship). But because Buddy leaned up and stares at what's happening ("looked at her body glistening with his own spit"), I can infer that he's rethinking his actions.

Sentence three: Buddy stops what he's doing. I can infer that he is at least thinking about his actions and has a sense of why he shouldn't do what he was about to do. His stopping also implies that Buddy now either has more respect or his interest in Nora (or woman in general) has decreased.

Sentence four: Buddy has to keep his friendship with Nora the way it is either because of some kind of a past experience or because of some kind of a constraint. "...that they both wanted" implies that Nora understands Buddy's situation and feelings. I can infer that Buddy realizes that it's not worth risking his relationship with Nora.

Sentence five: Even though Bolden has now changed a lot compared to his previous years, he realizes that he was still a part of Nora, who has not changed much. He bases his actions on the past and decides that he has to respect his wife.

Somewhat Different

I started the Gospel of Luke. It seems to be quite different in the beginning compared to the gospel of Mark. The story starts out with John, the Baptizer, being born by an old couple, with the help of God. Unlike the Gospel according to Mark, it explains the birth of Jesus. Then, I noticed how similar the birth of Jesus was to that of John. They were both born through the power of God, and they both taught the righteous way to heaven.

Besides that, both gospels seem to be similar, just that the gospel of Luke tells us more stories of Jesus' miracles. One of them involved a centurion's young servant being cured from a far distance for believing that it will, in fact, happen. Jesus said:

"I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." (Gospel of Luke 7:9) and the servant's sickness went away.

So yeah, cool.

Rich = Bad or Good?

I've noticed something: I seem to be questioning myself about something every time I read a story from The Bible. I just finished reading the gospel of Mark. It's sort of a short story about Jesus's adult life and when he resurrected. It was fun to read but I started wondering in my thoughts when Jesus said:

"Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." (Mark 10:21)

This means that we have to sell whatever we have and give to the poor to be good people. I guess it makes sense since it makes others happy and that's a good thing. So, I guess I agree. But, Jesus said something else right afterward:

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Mark 10:25)

This is telling us that it's harder to go to heaven the richer we are, therefore we have to give our wealth to others to be good people. After I thought for a while, this didn't really make much sense. You're supposedly doing something good when you are giving your wealth to others. But, the people that receive the wealth obviously become richer. And, the richer you are, the harder it would be to go to heaven. So, wouldn't you actually be doing something bad when you give your wealth to someone else since you're technically blocking his chances to be a good person and making it harder for him/her to go to heaven? I don't know. Maybe I thought too much about something fairly simple.

Anyways, just like the usual, I end up with more questions than answers. Maybe I'm just trying to think too much and complicating my life. Whatever, I'm done with the gospel. This one was actually pretty interesting for me since it talked about Jesus and the miracles he did. I hope I get to read more from The Bible later on, hopefully without so many questions in my head.

Bread of the Great

Compared to other stories that I have read in the Bible, I think I'm actually enjoying Mark's gospel. It's not that the gospel is very exciting and fun, but I just find it interesting. I'm not exactly sure why, though. Maybe it's because the story talks about Jesus and his doings.

Anyways, I read a few more chapters of the gospel, and it was pretty much about more of Jesus's incredible miracles. He stopped a storm, walked on water, and even revive a little girl from the dead. I, of course, wasn't surprised since it's Jesus I'm talking about here. But, what did catch my attention was the part when Jesus asks this question:

"'How many loaves have ye?' And they said, Seven." (Mark 8:5)

It's just a bit odd. If Jesus has the power to satisfy the hunger of a bunch of people with any amount of food (just like he did in chapter six with five loaves of bread), then why does he need to know how many loaves of bread there are? Why does he bother asking if he can somehow divide the bread with his divine powers to fill up the bellies of any population? I mean, he still would have fed everyone even if he had one loaf of bread, instead of seven. Maybe he did that on purpose to somehow teach others something he wanted to, but I'm not quite sure. But whatever, I was just wondering.

So, I guess I should keep on reading the gospel since I'm only halfway through. As I said before, the gospel is not that exciting but sort of interesting to read. I hope it keeps on like this.

Starting to Question the Great

I recently started reading a few of the first chapters of the gospel of Mark. It's obviously very different compared to the Tao Te Ching since it's an actual story (although Jesus teaches other people throughout the story like the Tao). The gospel begins with Jesus already grown up and narrates the story of him. In the gospel, he, of course, does all these different kinds of miracles and does things that are supposedly impossible. I wasn't really surprised about anything since it was a bit obvious that Jesus had the power to make miracles happen. But, this sentence made me realize something:

"And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" (mark 4:41)

Why does Jesus have so much power? Well, I mean because he's Jesus, but isn't it a bit unfair? Isn't Jesus supposed to treat everyone equally? Then, why does he have the right to have these divine powers that others do not? These questions just suddenly popped up in my mind while I was reading.

Oh well, I only read the first part of the gospels, so I would obviously have many questions. I guess I should keep on reading and maybe these questions might be answered.

A Balanced World

Finally, this is the end of Tao. The rest of the book wasn't that different compared to the beginning. It just had a bit of confusing riddles, but that's pretty much it.

The most important word for this book, I'd say, is balance. The Tao says that everything should be kept in balance. I do agree with this. Too much "bad" would lead the Earth into a world of evil. But, an excess of "good" will eventually lead our world with no good because there always has to be a "bad" to notice the existence of "good".

So, everything has to have an opposite to be kept in balance. And, we are not only talking about the Earth but the whole universe. Everything relies on some sort of balance. Let's look at Saturn for example. The planet, Saturn, is well known for its famous floating ring around it. The ring actually consists of many little rocks and pebbles orbiting around the planet. The reason why Saturn moves the way it does and the reason why the rocks orbit around it is because of the attraction between the rocks and the planet due to gravity. If they are not next to each other the way they are, Saturn would move differently and the small rocks would be scattered all around space. So, I think this represents a sort of balance.



Anyways, I thought the book was interesting. It was very fun to read in the beginning and later it got a bit boring. But overall, I enjoyed reading it.