I'm trying to get out of the habit of writing and thought-charting during certain conditions. I'm trying to avoid it while I'm under immense clouds of negativity and frustration, or at times when I'm trying to solve big predicaments, or whenever I've taken ill or have been afflicted by some sort of pain; but lately it has been getting harder and harder to find those gaps within my free time when I'm not cursed by any or all of such things. Generally, I've been trying to limit my assertion of vibes involving complaint (admittedly, I'm still doing a poor job of it). Thus, the lack of input into this blog has been a sign that things haven't been going as well as I want them to.
Still nonetheless, it's time for a due assessment. Today is the last day of the year of this particular age number I have right now. Tomorrow is my birthday. I'm noting that it has been a cycle where it's ending with a few personal deprivations. Some brought on by my own volition, which I'm trying to ride out for a better outcome in the end; others are quite unwelcome and affecting me negatively.
I did manage to find some reprieve with some levity yesterday. By some weird impulse, I chose to collect a fiction book that captured my attention with its rather strange and lengthy title. It's a Swedish novel, and like many other titles of books that seem to come from that country, it didn't conveniently have a more concise title in English: perhaps due to some quirk of directly translating from Swedish, or maybe due to some cultural need on the part of their publishers for using long-winded bluntness and accuracy. The book is called The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. It's about an elderly gentleman who, on his hundredth birthday, becomes cantankerous and impulsive enough as to escape from his seniors' care home and his own birthday party and gets led into a pretty strange and madcap adventure. There are also some flashbacks along the storyline about his involvement in a Forrest Gump-like series of events that influenced history throughout his personal life leading to his centennial. This book was a real serendipitous find. I couldn't help to notice that it seemed like a sign for me to make it a point to take a radical break from mediocrity for my own birthday, and to be a lot more spontaneous, impulsive, and daring, and to not let some prescribed age number stop me from doing so.
The repeated message in the book is: "Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be." It's the kind of book that I would recommend for everyone read just before whatever birthday they are celebrating, as a reminder to make the time count. Who knows, maybe by doing so you'll discover the elements in you that would change this world's history.
