23 Mar 2012

The Grey - "My First Name is John"

A few weeks ago, I saw "The Grey". I thought it would be your ordinary thriller about wolves vs men, but it gave me much more. "The Grey" is a stirring movie about men facing death.

Spoiler Alert

The most memorable scene, for me, was when Diaz, the troublemaker, finally gives up and refuses to go on because he is tired. His ankles hurt but he is also mentally tired and needs to rest. Hendrick, speaking for the audience, urges him to fight on but Diaz has given up and merely wants to sit down on a log and rest. He is physically and mentally tired. He just wants to sit and enjoy the beautiful scene across the half-frozen lake. Ottoway, the leader, is quiet. He respects Diaz's decision and makes no effort to change his mind, for each man must face his own death on his own terms. They shake hands and exchange first names, laughing, with all the bad blood between them forgotten, laughing as brothers in this precious moment before certain death. As Ottoway and Hendrick soldier on, Diaz rests, lost in the beauty of the present moment and the scene across the lake as the wolves close in.

Ottoway and Hendricks don't give up, but Hendricks is unlucky. Did he ever imagine, getting on that plane that a few days later he would slip into a frozen lake and drown? Nature has a dark sense of humor.  And, finally, it is Ottoway who defines Mankind's defiance  with his stirring final moment and verse:

"Once more into the fray.
Into the last good fight I'll ever know.
Live and die on this day.
Live and die on this day."

 

19 Mar 2012

The Student as Boxer

I have been sharing my Kindle highlights over at http://readingnotes.tumblr.com for a while now. Please have a look.

The latest one, at the time of writing, is this:

The student as boxer, not fencer.
The fencer’s weapon is picked up and put down again.
The boxer’s is part of him. All he has to do is clench his fist.

- Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

Please feel free to connect with me over at GoodReads.

 

1 Jan 2012

2011 Bests

2011 was a good year. I turned 29, made some great friends, learnt new things, lost more illusions, changed my eating habits and embarked on a fitness program.

Along the way, these are the things that made me feel happy, enlightened and human:

  • George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. This was the the first fantasy book that I've tackled in more than a decade. I sped through it in a little over a month. It was so good that although I don't watch TV, I followed up with HBO's Game of Thrones, which was based off the first book.
  • A Fraction of the Whole by Stevie Toltz. The blackest, smartest, craziest contemporary novel I've read in a long time. It was huge but I didn't want it to end. Toltz is a genius!
  • Why we get Fat by Gary Taubes. This slim volume by a science researcher opened my eyes to the thing that is killing us. I'm not fat but because diabetes runs in my family I found it relevant. Thanks to it I have significantly changed my eating habits.
  • The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Gallwey. Big-daddy of all self-development books. I've written about it here.
  • Convict Conditioning and Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder. The former book outlines a practical bodyweight program. The latter book was a jolt of inspiration and, reading it, I felt compelled to stand up and give Mr Arnold a impassioned salute. He applies time, focus and effort to his own body and builds it like an artist would, hammering away at a sculpture. Much respect to him.
  • I saw Warrior, a brilliant, warm movie about family set against the backdop of an MMA tournament. Move over Rocky.

I ended 2011 with an injured knee  but these are just minor aberrations in an upwards trajectory.

2012, you are mine.

7 Dec 2011

The Inner Game of Tennis

If you're interested in self-development and the mechanics of how to learn or how to teach, have a look at The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey, a compact read at 122 pages.

The author uses tennis as an example, but the principles that he teaches can be used in nearly any domain. Because the learner is asked to abstract himself as Self 1 and Self 2, we develop a dialogue between the two selves: Self 1, who wants to teach but only gets in the way of Self 2, and Self 2, who is a natural learner. Gallwey also comments on his own thought processes as recounts anecdotes about his lessons, and this provides the perspective required to learn how to teach others. But teaching oneself it turns out is not so different from teaching others.

This is the most important self-development book I've read, and this is not the last time I will be reading it. Written in the 1970s, The Inner Game of Tennis is a renowned classic that reportedly sparked the business/executive coaching industry. While that industry has devolved into myriad gurus, this book remains fresh for its pragmatism and its avoidance of dogma.

23 Jul 2011

Lawrence, the Iconoclast

"You tell me I am wrong.
Who are you, who is anybody to tell me I am wrong?
I am not wrong." 

- from Pomegranate, by D. H. Lawrence

14 Jul 2011

Man and Beast in Equus

Niccolo Machiavelli believed that Man, being half beast and half man, should make the best use of both natures, prudently switching between the two. Thus, Prudence should serve as a decision switch between the two natures. Today, neuroscience uses a triune model of the human brain, the neo-cortex layered over a mammalian brain which in turn sits atop the lizard brain. The lizard brain is responsible for survival, adaptation - pure animal instinct. The mammalian brain takes care of motor skills, memory and emotions - things we associate with humans. It is a rough analogy, but could the lizard brain be the beast within us?

The premise of Equus is quite strange: Martin Dysart, a psychiatrist begins to treat a stable boy who has blinded 6 horses with a metal spike. By all accounts, this boy loved horses. Then what happened? As we learn the truth, the psychiatrist, played by Richard Burton, begins to question himself and his role in society.

Spoilers alert

This is what happened. The boy, who loves horses, grows up in a strict household under the influence of his religious mother. He does not like riding per se, but when he does ride he feels a connection with the horse, a connection that turns into empathy. The boy synthesizes religious symbols (Equus) with his feelings and begins to identify with the horse. He becomes one with the horse. He is the human part, and the horse is the beast part but they are one. His mystical connection with the horse goes into extremes; he feels the pain of horses tamed and ridden by men, he feels the "chinkle chankle" in his mouth, and he flagellates himself with a crop in the secrecy of his bedroom. Naturally, he wants to move this mystical identification to the physical level. He rides horses secret at night, naked, primaly screaming "Equus!!".

“Afterward he says, they always embrace. The animal digs his sweaty brow into his cheek, and they stand in the dark for an hour, like a sated couple.”

So why does he blind the 6 horses? Enter a girl. He's not interested, the only thing on his mind is Equus. He is cajoled into a date, and afterwards, there is a half hearted attempt (on his part) at sex at the stable. He fails to perform, telling the psychiatrist afterwards that he could not feel her. When he touched her, he felt Equus, the mane, the sweaty horse-skin he embraces after his mystical rides. He's unable to perform the male sexual function. Above all, his failure has been witnessed by Equus. As he apologises aloud to Equus, he realizes the power the beast has over him. And then he rebels, "No more!". He takes up a sling blade and stabs the horses in the eyes.

And what happens to the psychiatrist? At first, he thinks the boy is a regular nutcase. But as the facts of the case begin to unfold, he begins to understand what has happened. Looking at the boy's experience from the outside, he begins to envy him. The boy is connecting with his animal nature, he is living in the moment, he is going to the extremes by combining the physical with the mystical. Him, a 17 year old stable boy! And here he is, Martin Dysart, in his study, trying to help children, living an anti-septic, intellectual life with no hint of the beast. He has no children, his relationship with his wife is stagnant and he is good at nothing but carving into minds, trying to repair them. But what is he really doing? Is he trying to make these children normal by smothering the beastly part of them? He is trying to make them normal, but is normal good? Is he killing the beast in the process of carving their minds?

So on one hand, Dysart envies the boy for connecting with the beast, and on the other hand the boy has connected far too deeply with the beast. The boy knows he is in trouble, he must return to civilization. Dysart, on the other hand, wants to step out of his study never to return again. He wants to move to an island in Greece, where the Gods once lived, to somehow connect with his beast. Richard Burton gives us a tour de force performance. One of his monologues, especially, is the finest I've seen in cinema.

So what is it better to be? The beast or the man? That is not the question. Why should it one or the other? Man and Beast are locked in battle inside us. Sometimes the beast is good to us, saving us from dangerous situations, but often it puts us at odds with society, creating dangerous situations. Many times, the man conquers the beast, but at the cost of subduing all that is good about the beast. Sometimes, the beast conquers man.

The real question is when to be man and when to be a beast.

14 May 2011

Manifesto: Know Thyself

Sun Tzu said:

"Know the enemy and know yourself: in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle."

The OODA Loop teaches us to Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. What is self-improvement then but an application of the OODA Loop to the self? We observe our self to see what needs improvement and then we act to improve. Observe, Act. Observe, Act. Our actions result in improvements to our observational abilities, orientation, decision-making capabilities and even to our power to act.

But as Sun Tzu said, it is not enough to know the self; one must also study the "other". We must study everyone and everything. This blog is a place to prepare for a hundred battles.

Studying the Way(s).