Monthly Archives: January 2012

Religious blog? Not yet!

Posted on by
Reply

Obviously fake angel

I have forgotten what anime I took this picture from, but it was not nearly as pious as it looks. And neither am I, unfortunately.

I have noticed with some unease that the Chaos Node, despite its name, tends to contain more and more religious / spiritual / metaphysical entries. If you put the ruler on this, as we say in Norwegian (a phrase meaning “extrapolate”) , it won’t be long before this is an all-out religious / spiritual blog. While that is not a bad thing in itself, it is far from an accurate representation of my life. The whole autobiography aspect that has run through the Chaos Node since its early days in 1998, is now in danger. But more importantly, there is a direct threat of hypocrisy. Because I am not actually that religious and spiritual. Although it seems to be seeping into me, it is nothing like completely taking over my life. I think. Yet.

I am still playing computer games almost daily. Mostly The Sims 3, and a little City of Heroes.  These days I am also reading a (would-be) SF novel. It is admittedly a Mormon SF novel, but I am definitely not a Mormon (although I suppose I vaguely aspire to an actual latter-day saint, if these are the latter days – anyway, I am not there, and I don’t think most of them are either, except in the most generic meaning). Remind me to review it if I finish it (which I intend to do). Mormons in space! Less absurd than absurd theater. Probably. I haven’t finished it yet.

I even watch some anime. I should review them. That would show you. They are not of the pantsu (underwear) type, but that could be because there are no good anime of that type recently, I suppose. It certainly need not be about me. Did you know there was a half-season animated series about underwear a couple years ago? It followed a bunch of girls and their underwear as they established an underwear club at school. I actually started watching it, but it really wasn’t that interesting. Or I may be growing old. Who knows. Probably not, I did not think a lot about underwear when I was young either. Well, I did occasionally think about my own, but that was pretty much it.

Anime are my main source of pictures, though. Sometimes a series is not all that amazing, but it has pictures that illustrate things I tend to say. Also, people will google for anime pictures and come to the Chaos Node.  Serves them right! ^_^

I used to write about economics on a fairly regular basis, you know. But you (the collective you) didn’t listen to my warnings. Actually, I guess the Collective You didn’t even know that I existed, but there were other voices as well, and the Collective You didn’t listen to them either. And so things went to Niflheim in a nutshell, as it keeps doing to this day. I guess I could write more about it, but I have no hope that it would make a difference. In fact, very few things would make a difference in macroeconomics anymore, short of a big war, an asteroid collision, or a decent number of legions of angels, things on that scale.

And without things on that scale, the World of Spirit is actually the most interesting thing in my life right now. Not the most pleasurable, really, although the absence of spirituality would be unspeakably horrifying. But it’s not exactly fun… well, not all of the time. But is is grand. It is epic. It is for all purposes unlimited in so many directions. It is awesome. So even though I should keep my mouth shut and listen and learn, it tends to boil over. Because it is interesting AND important and useful for everyone.

But I’ll try to keep it from taking over the blog.  At the very least I am bound by honor and decency to not pretend I am some sort of actual practicing saint.

 

Instead of prayer, what?

Posted on by
Reply

A hanging bridge through golden clouds

A bridge to the eternal burning heart of compassion. Not good enough for everyone?

On the Internet, there is a meme that shows up from time to time among my left-wing friends. It depicts a small child praying, and the text is something like: “Prayer – a way to feel good without actually doing anything.”

That is a pretty strange judgment about stepping up in front of the blazing, unbearably bright flame of Love and saying: “Here I am, send me.”

It is true that in its most crude form, prayer can be a bit like voting for a socialist government: You ask someone else to make everything alright, preferably without too much expense for yourself, hoping that you and your loved ones will benefit from someone else’s sacrifice.

But hopefully it doesn’t end there. Perhaps it did for you, but then you may not be typical. Or if you are, that may be a very sad thing indeed. If you read about prayer from people who are really into it, or the teachings of the saints, you will find that prayer evolves into something very different. It becomes a fire that slowly eats away at our selfishness in all its forms: Greed, pride, envy, anger, antipathy, laziness, excessive appetites of all kinds … all the stuff that keeps us from actually loving our “neighbors” in this world.

Devotion and virtue are not two paths – they are two feet walking the same path.

Humans being what we are, this is not a fast lane. Depending on how much time we spend in prayer, and how willing we are to agree to the necessary sacrifices, years and decades can sometimes pass. But normally after a while it should become obvious to people that you are no longer the selfish pig you used to be.

So what do you do instead? Think about it. In the time that could have been spent in prayer, what is so important that you can be proud of not praying?

I think you may be confusing prayer with magic. Magic seeks to impose our will on the universe. Prayer seeks to commune with God or Heaven. That’s a pretty big difference, unless we actually think we know better than God. Well, sometimes we really do think so, because we are desperate and we doubt that God really understands how we feel. But in general, in what we may call “higher” forms of prayer, there is a huge difference.

I don’t see mocking people who try to become good, and who are aware they aren’t there yet, being a better use of your time. But each of us shall make account for himself. Actually, nothing worries me more than that, and few things except that. Still, for the good of the many, we must say all the words that should be spoken, before they are lost forever.

Otaku and salvation

Posted on by
Reply

"Who would address an otaku as an otaku?"

In Japan, “otaku” has become a harsh insult, and not entirely without reason.

I have frequently mentioned the “otaku”, a Japanese name for people who are obsessed with pop culture like comics, cartoons and computer games. There are a lot of people in Japan who are interested in these things, and the word is used in English and other European languages about people with such an interest in Japanese (and sometimes Korean) popular culture. But in Japanese it is a very negative word, and used about those who are so obsessed that they cannot act quite like normal people in society.

Many of my long-standing online friends are otaku in the English sense of the word, but not many of them – perhaps not any, anymore – are really obsessed. I have mentioned the extreme cases called hikikomori, young people who lock themselves in their room watching anime all day. This is the stereotype of the otaku taken to the logical extreme.

Given yesterday’s self-reflection on time spent on a computer game, it might seem that otaku are particularly far from salvation. After all, Heaven is a multi-dimensional “place”, starting for real with the 5th dimension (spirituality); but the otaku lives mostly in two dimensions: the surface of comic books, TV sets or computer monitors. And he spends most of his time in the soft, imaginary, daydream-like lower worlds, to the point where it becomes painful for him even to live in the ordinary human world of space and time, much less the unyielding and timeless higher worlds.

And yet, I believe the otaku has a particular trait that could serve him well if he ever awakens to the Truth: He has the ability to move his mind to a world different from the physical world.

Let me explain. Our animal friends live in a world that is not only real but concrete, in the sense that it can be seen and smelled and touched; a world of the senses. Small children also live in this world. But they grow up and begin to live in the fourth dimension of time, which animals don’t except for a few in short glimpses. You probably don’t understand how significant this is. It is simply too  obvious for most people to see.

The fourth dimension, time, is all in your head. You cannot see that which was or that which is to be, only what is at the moment. (Or the moment light starts its travel from it, which in the case of some stars is many years ago. The principle still holds.) For instance, I will never again see the house I lived in last year at this time. It has been completely destroyed and a new house built in its place. I will never be able to touch the rough, painted walls again, smell the particular smell of old harsh fat in the old stairway, or even see it. I can see photos of it, but not the real thing. It does not exist anymore. And yet I know that it is real in the past. Likewise what will be in the future is as real as that I can see and touch now. This unfailing belief in the reality of things that aren’t there to our senses is unique to humans, and even takes some years to assemble.

The fifth dimension is likewise “in our head”, and there is no way for us to show it to the doubtful or let them touch it or smell it or hear it. And yet like time it is quite real to those who have added the first dimension beyond time. The mind is able to go where the body can not. We know this because all of us do this routinely in the fourth dimension of time. But our travel there is to some degree personal. Sometimes old friends will laugh at something that happened long ago and they fail to explain it to a newer friend: “You have to have been there to get it” they will say. It is the same with the fifth dimension and beyond.

The otaku has proven his ability to reach out with his mind and move it to a different world, although in this case a smaller, softer, simpler world. Almost all of us do this from time to time in the form of daydreams (although autists don’t daydream, I have been told) but the otaku is not just popping into an imaginary world: He is able to stay there for a long time, and become thoroughly familiar with it. An otaku can often remember obscure details of a comic book world even after many years. So there is this ability to move beyond the concrete.

A person who is strongly bound to the senses and the moment will have a hard time ascending to the fifth dimension. He will think “I am this body” and believe that where his body isn’t, he cannot be either. In a sense, such a person is on the side of humanity that is closest to animals. Dogs have many good qualities, but they are strongly bound to their bodies. Likewise a human can be a very good person but strongly bound to the body. This makes it hard to explore the spiritual world. In so far as such a person is religious, it will often be in a dogmatic and theoretical way.

The otaku is able to move between worlds, but unfortunately the “gravity” is stronger the closer you come to the bottom. It is hard to get back up when one is weakened from years of living in a dream. It requires grace, which is luckily still available, and it requires spiritual training or discipline, which is unfortunately difficult for a weak person. Such a soul needs to be gentle but persistent with himself. He may not be able to immerse himself in meditation for long, but he can still do it regularly, a little each day, and it will get easier with time. If he attends a religious service, he will almost certainly begin to daydream of his colorful anime world after some minutes. But as long as he does not do this driven by spite but just by weakness, he can gradually recollect himself and begin to rise toward the Light.

While I am not, and have never been, an otaku in the Japanese sense, I have enough in common with them to understand and sympathize with their plight. It is not easy to be weak, and it is easy to duck down in the lower worlds where one can be strong. For the deeper you go into lower worlds, the more godlike your powers. Conversely, the higher you rise, the weaker you become, and if you rise very high you will feel like a maggot. (Although you will gradually become stronger if you spend time in higher worlds.) But for those who have lived long in lower worlds, it requires strength and patience to live even in the ordinary world. Luckily this is all available, and it need not stop there. Little by little we will be changed into that which we focus intently on. And just as we once focused almost exclusively on worlds created by humans, we can focus more and more on the worlds that have the power to create us anew. In religion these worlds are collectively called “Heaven”, but there are several – one could even say many – of them.

But of these things there are many others who are better qualified to speak than I. For I am like a tourist in a marvelous country, craning my neck at sights that are beyond me. I am still so weak after all these years that it is easier for me to sink down than to rise up, left to myself.

323 hours in Skyrim? WTH?

Posted on by
Reply

“Let’s go. Shouldn’t keep the gods waiting for us” says the prisoner as the wagon stops at the site of execution. I have only one God, but perhaps I shouldn’t have kept Him waiting for 323 hours while I played Skyrim…

Actually, I am not quite sure about those 323 hours. The Steam statistic says so, but it also says “last played today”, while last I tried to play was Saturday, I believe. I gave up after about an hour, so that fits since I think it said 322 when I started. Back then it also said “last played today”, although the last time I played was actually on Christmas Eve a bit. But even then I remember that it was over 300 hours, and that bothered me.

I played a lot of Skyrim during my vacation (instead of writing, although the game also inspired me to write on a new story.) But well over 300 hours is a lot of time to spend in a lower world like this.

As I have said before, it is not like I forget the Light (or God) as soon as I dive into such a lower world. But the distance does increase, and the truth is that I have done things in Skyrim that I would never do in the physical world, things I am ashamed of when I look back at them. Actually more than ashamed, but I don’t want to give your imagination wings with jet engines either…

And after reading the beginning of St Teresa’s autobiography, I have been asking myself: “What would have been the outcome if I had spent those hours in a higher world instead of a lower? What would the effect have been on my life if I had spent 323 hours in prayer over that span of time?

Actually, calculating in my head I find it almost impossible that I can have spent quite that much time there. That would be close to 10 hours a day for the first month, when I did most of the playing. Even on vacation that is not realistic, not with my wrists. Or is it? Could it really be true?

Lower worlds (worlds that we create, as opposed to higher worlds which create us) are not necessarily and by definition hells. Some of them are, and I guess they all would be if we were trapped in them. Certainly that was my reaction years ago when I played Daggerfall for hundreds of hours, and a fellow player pondered the possibility that we might go to Daggerfall when we died. Even then, the thought disturbed me greatly. Later I have read at least one Christian philosopher who thinks that could actually happen. Well, Philip Sherrard did not mention Daggerfall, of course, but he held that the soul when leaving the material body would bring along its world, the world that was internalized in its mind. Certainly I did dream many times about being in Daggerfall, and the dreams were usually creepy. Possibly all of them, I am not quite sure.

Lower worlds are softer, more malleable, but also more ephemeral, less solid or substantial. Time flies there, and developments that would take a long time in real life can take place quickly. This is very noticeable in games and one of their major appeals. You use a bow for a short time and your skill goes up. You cast a spell a few times and you becomes a better spellcaster. It takes little effort to change yourself and improve your skills and abilities and to become stronger. This is, I believe, why such games have so strong a claim on me. I wish I could improve rapidly, so I get drawn into an imaginary world where that can happen. This is not unlike a man who wishes he could have a girlfriend to make love to, and is drawn into fantasies and literature that fulfill his wish but not actually in the real world.

The wish itself is not bad. I would say it is actually good, in a certain sense. But spending hundreds of hours in a fantasy world will only improve fantasy skills. Well, and mouse control and such, I guess, but I really don’t think it is the best possible use of time. Perhaps some “downtime” cannot be avoided when I am no better than this, but Skyrim is probably not where I should spend my next 323 hours of free time.

Perhaps I should try spending a couple hundred hours in higher worlds, if I am allowed such hundreds of hours. Our life on Earth is itself an uncertain thing, after all. St Teresa recommends that everyone set aside two hours a day to be alone with God, without doing anything else. Even if you cannot pray, she says, and as such cannot be together with God, you can still give God time to be together with you.

The less saintly of us might want some other form of higher world, like the worlds of music and art, philosophy or natural science. All these are worlds that are higher in the sense that they shape our world, but is less or not at all shaped by it. The value of pi has been pretty much the same since the ancient geeks of ancient Greece started exploring it. We know more decimals, but we know nothing more of its true nature than they. So this is an example of a higher world that is intermediate between us and the Point of Creation.

Right now I am kind of fired up about the whole “spending time alone with God” – in theory, that is. Teresa is really good at making it seem like an awesome idea. She also has a couple saints she recommends spending time with, foremost of them St Joseph, whom I once called “patron saint of boyfriends who don’t get any”. Not that I am anyone’s boyfriend now, contrary to what some may have thought. Anyway, I am sure St Joseph has many other virtues as well.

Actually, in a manner of speaking I spend time with St Teresa on the bus five days a week, so that’s something. But while I am in a certain sense alone with God /the Light most of the day and night each day, I am not actively, attentively, exclusively, dedicatedly spending two hours a day focused on God. Much less 300 hours a month…

The great chain of worlds has its own gravity of sorts – it is easy to move downward, but hard to move upward. Or at least that is so until one leaves the “gravity well” of lower things and is pulled into orbit of Heaven. Or so I am told. Unlike St Teresa, I am still kind of moving like a yo-yo up and down through the worlds fairly close to my birth world, I think. There is far further to go upward. And downward, but that way lies madness. Or as the ancient cartographers would write: “Here be dragons.”

 

Resuming fanfiction

Posted on by
Reply

Ghosts being swept away by light

My favorite moment in The Rebirth of Buddha is where the TSI members open arrive at the hospital and open the door, and a great wave of light floods in before them and sweeps away the unhappy ghosts that haunt the place. Who wouldn’t want to be like that?

Lately I have been rereading Ryuho Okawa’s The Laws of Eternity. It is kind of refreshing to read, as it is quite objective, and makes no mention of Mr Okawa as God or Buddha, as he has become known among his followers of late. I find this worship of a living person very disconcerting, and more so since he seems to encourage it. But in this early book, there is no such disturbance, and this makes the book quite pleasant to return to.

In continuation of this, I came to remember my unfinished attempt at JulNoWriMo last year. Working full through the summer may have been one reason why I didn’t write 50 000 words that month, as I had originally planned. There were probably other reasons as well, I have forgotten. Oh wait – I moved that month, much to my surprise. That would explain it. Anyway, I dug out the manuscript now and read it through, and quite naturally began to add to it.

The story, so far only having the codename TSI July, is about an American member of the TSI (the equivalent of Happy Science in the world of the movie The Rebirth of Buddha). As usual for my TSI fanfic, I have taken the liberty of fleshing out with real-life Happy Science content. Master Sorano is an author of hundreds of books like his counterpart in this world. I should not take this too far, though.

Actually the movie gives the impression that TSI is a bit more secretive than Happy Science: The main character has not heard about them, which would probably be rare in today’s Japan. Also the Buddha Reborn, Sorano Tayou, looks like a halfblood Japanese / European. Sorano is actually an Italian name, so it may be more than the looks. And the name of the organization is TSI even in the Japanese movie, meaning that it is canon that the organization has an English name. One of the few named members is an Australian. There is a meeting depicted in the movie with somewhere in the range a thousand or a few thousand members, I think; at any rate far less than the huge crowds that regularly attend lectures by Mr Okawa in his homeland.

So I consider writing in a twist where Master Sorano starts his movement in Japan, but for some reason is rejected or in danger there and the movement goes abroad for the next phase, expanding in English-speaking countries (thus becoming known as the Taiyou Sorano Institute, TSI, which is its name in the movie). Sorano then returns to Japan in time for the great confrontation seen in the movie. That would neatly explain some of the loose threads in the movie. Of course, this is all fanfiction from my side. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and I enjoy immersing myself in the happy world of the imaginary TSI members.

The story itself is told from the perspective of an American boy whose father becomes unemployed and is lost in drink, the parents are divorced, his mother shacks up with some guy for a while but eventually they are thrown out and end up on welfare in a trailer park in a dangerous neighborhood by the time he is 18. At the climax of his misery, he has an encounter with a TSI member and his life takes a sharp turn for the better. Happiness ensues.

I like it when my characters are happy, but it makes for poor literature, I have been told. I personally think some authors go overboard in torturing their characters, though. Anyway, since this is fanfiction, I can’t sell it anyway, so I don’t need to worry overmuch about the literature critics.

It is probably safest for all involved if I confine my exegesis of Happy Science to imaginary worlds, anyway. Happy imaginary worlds.

 

From output to input

Posted on by
Reply

Male sim reading book in a dimly lit room

Even my sim is reading.

I have a stack of entries of a religious / spiritual nature lying on my draft list. I think they can stay there, at least for the time being. And the time being is always all we have, so no promises.

After I joined Goodreads (a social network for book lovers, I guess) I have shifted to input mode, it feels. Although I have also been writing reviews (and that takes a lot of time, surprisingly) I have also been reading more than before. I used to read on the commute, but these days I am even reading at home! Imagine that. Actually the reading I do at home is rereading, either before or after reviewing a book. But the effect is the same. I am reading instead of writing.

But it is not just a matter of time, as “I spend so much time reading, I don’t have time to write.” That is not literally true. I had enough time to write if I really wanted to.  But I am kind of stuck in this input mode. It does not feel natural to suddenly shift to writing.

That is strange, because usually the easiest way for me to start writing was to read a short passage of a spiritual book of high level but below actual Holy Scripture. I would then automatically begin to expand the message as it came alive inside me, and easily have a full entry based on a paragraph or two. After all, their light is more concentrated than mine, as I have mentioned before.

But now that does not feel right, right now. Perhaps it is just that I am stuck in input mode. Or perhaps it is a dawning realization that I am not worthy. I mean, I already know that. I try to not pass myself off as a spiritual teacher, but rather a kind of tourist reporting the sights and sounds of this exciting world of the higher reality. But even so, I am kind of feeling the weight of my inferiority when I compare myself to a true saint like St Teresa or John of the Cross. They really are that high, high above me.

Of course, I already feel pretty remote from most of mankind for the opposite reason, if only in the matter of theoretical understanding. I have seen so much, and yet done so little. And so I feel the need for input more than for output, right now. Usually this doesn’t last, though. Perhaps it should, but usually it doesn’t.

High above me

Posted on by
Reply

She’s so high, high above me…

As I mentioned yesterday, I have finished reading Fire Within and legally acquired Life, St Teresa’s autobiography of a sorts. I just barely begun it today.

In seemingly unrelated news, I went to get a much needed haircut. While sitting there, I heard a song that I could not catch the lyrics of, but somehow felt I really wanted to find out. It turned out to be the somewhat misleadingly named “She’s so high” – it actually has nothing to do with drugs. It is obviously about some guy who is befriended by a woman who is superior to him in every measure humans in this world can think of. A song could hardly be less relevant to me, who would not now want to be joined to a human if I could, nor could if I wanted to. I’ve been playing the song like 20 times now. OK, make that 30.

But somehow I can’t believe
That anything should happen
I know where I belong
And nothing’s gonna happen

‘Cause she’s so high
High above me, she’s so lovely
She’s so high, like Cleopatra, Joan of Arc or Aphrodite
She’s so high, high above me…

It amuses me no end. I know it wasn’t meant that way. But why should the Devil have all the good music?

Anyway, I take the company of St Teresa over Cleopatra any day. St Teresa is really awesome! And in this book, she really tries to show herself as a human of flesh and blood, not some saint in the sky with diamonds. It is pretty clear however that the vague sins of her youth are such as most people would consider utterly harmless. That doesn’t say much, of course; most of us are unspeakably coarse.

And that’s what I mean when I say she’s so high, high above me. Like somewhere in the eight dimension or something, I imagine. Anyway, I feel I could not catch up to her in a million years. (This is quite likely true as well.) Why do I even bother? I am honestly not sure.  But it does bother me, like a long forgotten memory triggered by a faint smell, wordless, images too fleeting to catch but a sense of recognition.

Good reads indeed

Posted on by
Reply

"Religion is simple"

“Religion is simple.” That is one of the hardest parts about it.

I have been reading Fire Within at a slow pace, usually only on the bus to work in the morning, although sometimes at other times a little. Finished it now. Probably won’t read it again immediately, but if I live a while, I definitely want to read it again.

Fr Thomas Dubay makes a convincing case that infused prayer leading to union with God and heroic virtue is not only possible, but the natural destination of any Christian. He proves with many references that the life and teaching of the two Carmelites, St Teresa and St John of the Cross, were in full accordance with the Bible and the fundamental doctrine of the Church. (As one would expect with them being canonized, I guess. The point was more that this was what Christians are really called to.)

At this point the reader will probably want to know the details, and the “recipe” as it were, to see if it is possible for them. Fr Dubay has written several books on this topic so that may be one way to go. But he stresses that this is not in the least a matter of technique. It is a matter of loving God. Different people will have different experiences (and some may not have much experiences at all), as God deals with each soul according to His will and its needs. Apart from some basics, there really isn’t anything one can do except pray, shut up when God shows up, and spend the rest of one’s time resisting temptations as best one can, do good and above all be obedient. Obedience is better than sacrifice, even the sacrifice of time spent in prayer.

Well, that’s what I took away from it. It seems quite far apart from my mundane life, but it does make some temptations easier some of the time, so that’s something. Now downloaded (free gift) The Life of St Teresa of Jesus by St Teresa. I wonder how far I get into that. I gave up on her Interior Castle once I got noticeable ahead of my own life. It felt kind of like peeping on her love life, in a manner of speaking, so intimate was she with the Lord. I suspect the same may happen again.

More bookishness

Posted on by
Reply

Writing short reviews of my books takes a surprising amount of time. In part this is because I write, erase it all, and start over.  It seems I have another of my fads, this time a book fad. It gets to the point that I read while playing The Sims 3, and after a while I realize that I may as well stop playing.

The worst to review are the Happy Science books. Some of these have been really useful to me, but on the other hand there is the risk that people who read them may run off and worship Ryuho Okawa as God and Buddha. This seems to happen fairly frequently with people who have found his books helpful.

Goodreads

Posted on by
1

Boy standing on a stack of books, looking over a wall.

Books – that is exactly how they work. Picture evidently stolen from demotivation.us, although I have no idea where they got it from in the first place. 

I am a little preoccupied right now, as an old friend reminded me that there exists a web service called Goodreads. It lets you list the books you own or have read, and rate them. If you rate 20 of them, it will recommend more. Actually Amazon.com does this already for me, and is very good at it, so I am not sure there is anything for me to win by this. And I don’t expect to have more than the occasional stray book in common with people I know, so even though a couple of them are on Goodreads, that is not helpful either.

What I really wold like was the books equivalent of OKCupid. On that site (which is mostly for dating, these days) you answer questions and the robots come up with people who match you to some degree. If Goodreads could come up with people who had even a remotely similar taste in books (like 2 out of 10 books in common, if any such person is alive on Earth), that would be extremely interesting.

So right now I do this kind of manually. I start with my most recent books and work backward, at least in the beginning. And after I write my review of the book, I look at the reviews of the people who have the same book. If they say something interesting, or if they have more than one book in common with me, that would interest me. But I have found no such people yet. Although there are a few who have many Happy Science books, but that is probably because they are Happy Scientists.

In any case, remembering my recent books and trying to say something meaningful about them is interesting, but also time consuming. It competes directly with my blog time.

Feel free to visit my Goodreads page! (Or http://www.goodreads.com/itlandm )

Or make your own and send me. Although I probably won’t like your books, and you probably won’t like mine. Humans are individuals, and so am I. ^_^ It is good we are not just bricks in the wall!