The Old Man and The Sea review

Long heard of this famous book, I just finished it few hours ago. It makes me want to head to the sea right now and fish like the old man did. It is my first book from Hemingway and he didn't disappoint me. The words seem carefully chosen for the narration, simple but powerful and makes you want to read them out loud. I think it would make an awesome audiobook. Reading the story out with a deep voice and with the power of the story, of the narration, might even makes you think you are Morgan Freeman. For anyone new to Hemingway, there is an extract from the movie "Midnight in Pairs" which can show how his way of writing is. It captures the essence of his writing beautifully. 

What I like the most in the book is how he wrote about the giant marlin. I really didn't expect the fight between the old man and the marlin to be long. It is not a physical fight but rather mental. Both endured the agony for two days and two nights before one prevailed as the winner. To the old man, the marlin was both his enemy and his friend. The fish appeared almost as if his own reflection in a mirror, his alter ego.

I also like the way he describes the sea, and the following is the quote I like the most from the book.

But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought.

I always thought the sea is woman too.

So in the end, it is an underdog story and I think everyone loves underdog. This book would make you believe in the strength within yourself to stand against the odds, like David defeated the goliath and the heroic old man against the elements. I am looking forward for another book from Hemingway.

Consulting a psychologist

Sometimes great listener needs to be listened. I am not sure whether how good a listener am I, but I was really troubled for a period of time. I was having trouble finding someone to talk about my problems to. I thought all those troublesome thoughts would sink in after some time, and I should be fine very soon as I thought time is a good healer. But it turned out to be the opposite. The emotional pain wasn't washed away, but accumulating.  

As I was keeping my problems to myself, I had cocooned myself away from everyone. I was loosing touch with people and worried about others' judgement on me so much that I was almost fearful to meet people. And worries became depression and depression induced more worries, forming a blackhole sucking me into the abyss. All these were accumulating and accumulating, more and more. Until a point that consulting a psychologist became the obvious way to go.

I still remember vividly my very first session with my psychologist. Before that, all I knew about psychologist was from movies and I had never met a psychologist. Silly me but I was expecting a leather couch, lacquered furniture and an old guy with a note pad to write nonsense on. Facing the unclear and knowing the fact that I had to face a stranger one on one for an hour was just so terrifying for me.When I was heading towards the doctor's room, I sensed an unfamiliar fear as I had paced into an uncharted territory.

To my surprise, it was nothing like I thought. It was a simple room, a desk with two chairs at the opposite sides and that was all. There was nothing but a desktop on the desk. It really seems like the clinic was on budget cut. But who can blame them for not having a leather couch. It is a clinic for students, so most of the treatments are given free. My doctor was an old guy and at least I got that right.

I don't remember how the conversation was and how it started and but the first session turned out quite alright. He was really kind and friendly, it really did me good to be able to pour out whatever was inside my head and my heart to someone. Admitting that you are sick mentally and emotionally and go for help is to put down your ego. The first session I threw away my manly ego and cried like a baby. Of course I can't see myself crying but I am sure it was ugly. My eyes were swelling like a goldfish in the end and I was so reluctant to walk out of the room to face the public again in this state, that I asked for permission to stay for awhile to let the emotion to cool down. It really was embarrassing.

I went back for the second time, the third time, and so on. But the more I went back, I got less and less satisfaction from talking to him, and the more I felt that he was just doing his job and he had no reason to care about whatever I told him. Plus, most of the time during the session, I felt the obligation to carry the conversation. The pressure was just too much for me because already, I don't usually talk much. Often I ran out of things to say and there came the awkward silence. It came more and more often, an unspeakable horror just made me want to run away immediately.

If I had something to talk about, often there was not enough time. Every session was around 45 mins. Almost every single time, when I thought of something, it was already the end of the session and the next patient was already waiting outside. Chit-chatting is supposed to be spontaneous, but talking to my doctor was so forced and unnatural. Whatever I said doesn't mean that my doctor was a terrible doctor. In fact, he was really kind like I said before. Just that it is strange to carry out a conversation in such manner. It is almost like being told : you have 45 mins to talk aaaaaand start now!

Now that I am better, I stop seeing him. Above all, it was quite an experience. I mean, how often people would seek for a psychologist and the answer is not often at all. It is a way to consider against depression but I don't think it is for everybody. Some go for writing to get rid of stress, some go for karaoke, and Buddha went for meditation under a Bodhi tree. For me, I found my own way. I swim, bike and run.

Renew my to-do list

I guess it is time to renew my to-do list. I do realize I had accomplished plenty of stuffs from my previous list. And at the same time some of the things in previous list are not in my interest anymore. So this list contains stuffs from the previous one which have not been accomplished, and also plenty other new stuffs. Some of them may sound implausible, but that is not the point of making this list. It is supposed to be what I want to do. Once the idea pops out, just write it down into the list, regardless the rational thinking and the way to get it done. So I spent a few hours and wrote down these 25 ideas.

- participate in UTMB and finish
- finish Ironman Kona
- climb Everest and reach the summit
- own an Enfield and able to repair it
- learn ballet
- earn my first million US dollar before 30 years old
- crossing the Sahara
- do a wingsuit base jumping
- learn how to fly an airplane
- learn Arabic
- visit the Vostok station
- visit the wreckage of Titanic in a submarine
- around the world on bicycle
- take part in a F1 team
- write a book and publish it
- interview Stephen Hawking
- do a Paris-Roubaix
- cycle up Mont Ventoux and visit the monument of Tom Simpson
- cycling in Amsterdam with John Green
- challenge Kobe Bryant on 1v1
- challenge Michael Phelps 100m freestyle
- have a tea with Liang Wen Dao
- work as Alaska king crab fisherman for a season
- sail around the world
- travel horseback in Mongolia

Atlas Shrugged review

Wow! I finally finish the giant! It took me more than two months, but I finish! The reason I say so is that this book is huge. Word count is estimated to be at least 500 000. The appearance of the book doesn't seem that imposing but it is certainly compact as hell.

The first emotion that came through my mind after finishing the book is a sense of victor. As if running through the finish line of marathon, even though I didn't finish with a good timing and tired and all but satisfying. 

If you need a quick summary of the book, the name of the book gives you very much the whole idea. Atlas, a Titan in Greek mythology, choosing the losing side during the war between the Titans and the Olympians and thus condemned to carry the burden of the sky on his shoulder forever. So how if Atlas doesn't want to obey anymore? How if he rebels against the punishment and runs away? Will the sky fall? This book gives us the answer : yes, the sky will fall hard, fall hard upon everyone of us. 

Of course the title is just a metaphor. The story takes place in United States. The setting doesn't feel like any period of human history. After some research, 'timeless' is perfect to describe it. "The pattern of industrial organisation appears to be that of the late 1800s; the mood seems to be close to that of the depression era 1930s; both the social customs and the level of technolgy remind one of the 1950s." to quote Wikipedia.

Like what Ayn Rand herself had said, this is THE masterpiece of hers. Reading this after the Fountainhead, I can't help myslef but to compare this book to Fountainhead. Personally I prefer Atlas Shrugged. First of all, both of them focus on Objectivism. Even though Objectivism appeared more than half a decade ago, it is still a very new idea to many people and to me too. In Atlas Shrugged, the idea of Objectivism is more well explained, thus makes more sense to me. I would say to those would like to try out on her books, Fountainhead could be skipped and start off with Atlas Shrugged straight away.

Ayn Rand is really good in writing speeches. It is very true when you read her books. Let's take this book as example. There is a 70 pages speech from John Galt explaining Objectivism but only a few pages of action scenes. I don't remember I have read a speech of 70 pages long before in my life. It is said in the book that the speech took John Galt 3 hours to convey. Long speeches is really common in her book. It is also true in the Fountainhead where Howard Roark gave his epic speech near the ending of the book to defend his point of view.

What I enjoy the most in this book is the suspense of all the missing people, mostly people who have great impact on the economy like tycoons and industrialists, they all went missing one by one and leaving absolutely no trace and their properties and assets were destroyed all together. So Dagny the heroin of this book had to search for clues and search for them. She also found this power generator, or at least I should say she found the ruin of it. It is supposed to be the greatest invention of all time that can generate power with unprecedented efficiency. Since it was destroyed too, so she wanted to reassemble it and at the same time find the inventor.

The most intriguing thing is not the missing people though. It is the question : Who is John Galt? He doesn't appear in person until the last third of the book. But his name appears here and there throughout the book, and rumours about him from many people. The phrase "Who is John Galt!" even became an expression that means many things but a question.

If I can choose to be one of the characters of the book, it would certainly be Ragnar Danneskjold. He is a brilliant student majoring in philosophy and becomes a pirate later on. To quote himself, Ragnar says in the book that he is like the Robin Hood, but Robin Hood steals from the rich and gives to the poor, he does the opposite. Don't get me wrong when I say I admire a guy who steals from the poor and gives to the rich. Everything needs a context and it makes more sense when he said so in the book. I can't say I agree with his philosophy but how cool is that to be a philosophic pirate.

In the end, I would say I enjoy this book, but it really feels too long and too elaborate to me. Perhaps all the elaborations are needed to make the story a whole, since the story is about an entire society and not just focus on a single character. One thing is for sure : this book is not to be taken lightly. It is a serious book and demands a certain level of insight to be able to understand the motive behind. So I don't think it is a book for everybody.