Greetings from a reader of the classics (Part 1)

Hello guys. i recently started reading the classics again. and it was a pleasant experience, revisiting the reasons why i adored the classics while growing up. reading iliad for example brought me back to the kind of poignant heroism of achilles. truth be told, i find it hard to watch Troy again. it’s one of those unrepeatables, all because of the PAIN that the viewer must face too in processing the choices that the heroes faced. hector was the ideal but was doomed to stand up for an ill-decision not of his own making. achilles craved for glory but could only gain it through a tragic death and in it, find his humanity. if you go further down the line of the great writings of the greeks, you’ll discover the tragedies and commentaries that answer what makes civilization? now jump a bit to another hemisphere and you find the russians tolstoy and dostoevsky who were decidedly un-western. read further and you discover what tolstoy has in common with augustine and rousseau! they all wrote confessions! augustine wrote his The Confessions while rousseau wrote his Confession and tolstoy wrote A Confession. as to the content… most insteresting is rousseau’s because he is TOTALLY RIDICULOUS. how’s that for an enlightenment thinker! enlightenment in his context is an absolute misnomer. now you will not be surprised why the french revolution was the way it was.
–The Fool

Libraries as marks of civilization

i’ve always been fascinated about libraries. a library is not just a boring repository of printed material. instead, i’ve always seen it as a mark of civilization. it describes what kind of civilization a culture has or what sort of potential a society has. whenever i watch asian films, i get instantly captivated by the “books” kept in the libraries. the circular library in Hero for example, is so wonderful. books in the form of bamboo scrolls. in beijing, i actually saw sun tzu’s art of war carved in one such bamboo scroll. very interesting. in dae jang geum, the medical library had shelves of books on oriental medicine, complete with the illustrations of ginseng and even an octopus.  the massive library in ancient egypt, which is lost to history, makes us imagine what sort of things were kept as a foundation for the next generations.  in the west…the trinity library built by queen elizabeth the first, is overwhelming to say the least. it’s as if you’re swimming in an ocean of books.  in the playful vein, what about the library in lemony snicket’s a series of unfortunate events? haha… very amusing. who can forget the futuristic library in star wars??!! whoa… that’s something.  even the world of super hi-tech can’t live without a library! whatever form a library has, it necessarily sheds light on the salient characteristics that are crucial in forwarding culture. there’s a simple rule of thumb that is useful. a small decrepit library of a large population denotes a lack of vision and a lack of importance given to learning. a large library on the other hand (think about the 14 floor national library of singapore), denotes the recognition that the cultivation of the person through learning is integral in the building of a culture, society or nation.

one time, i was in the restroom of a five star hotel. some ladies were chatting. one lady had the problem of not knowing how to spend her 1 million.  her friend advised her to spend it on a diamond. i almost blurted out…. BUILD A LIBRARY! but in the end, building a library THAT WILL MATTER FOR THE AGES TO COME, does not depend on who has the most resources. rather, it’ll depend on who carries great visions & dreams and who bears a big heart for the future generations.

–The Fool