Category: books

Tonight I finished reading this book. I had some expectations. I though it was going to be similar to other book I read about forests. But this one goes deeper. It is history of human culture, in this case North America Indian Natives, and the bonding with Mother Earth, with Skywoman. The dark past, trying to remove their identity, the struggle to recover that connection to your roots and to Mother Earth.

I really understood the real Thanksgiving. I always thought it just was a new way to sell more. But the reality, it is our appreciation to the gifts we receive by Nature: air, water, food, shelter, etc. Everything. It is a recognition of equals. It is a dependency. Nature is not it. We are the same entity, we are alive. We need to look after ourselves. And we need to show gratitude. And gratitude is more and more a very important word. I started to understand it with meditation, and I realize that is more important that I initially thought.

And this is a further example of how much disconnected we are from Mother Nature. I have read in other books of psycology about depression that the disconnection we find in our current society is partly our lost link with our natural surroundings.

We can learn so much from Nature if we make the effort. I liked a lot the example of the Three Sisters: corn, bean and squash. How these different plants work together.

And the constant fight against Windigo, the greed, our dark side.

There is hope to get better. But we need a big wake up call to do really something. I doubt the current cut-throat capitalism, religions will really help.

At least, keep the covenant of reciprocity that is at our reach. But I wonder, I am really doing something about it?

I finished Asimov’s Foundation yesterday and I really enjoyed it. I had zero expectations, I knew it was something about sci-fi but that’s all. I have heard from Asimov before but never had the change or interest to read anything from him as sci-fi wasn’t one of my favourite topics in the last years. But I am glad I did. To be honest, I didnt have the feeling that it was sci-fi. It seemed to me that all the issues plotted in the book (that was written in the 40s) belonged our current time. It is a small book and hook you quickly. I am planning to read the rest of the books and see how it goes.

Another thing it impressed me was the amount of books (nearly 500) he wrote in his life based in the intro and wikipedia. He was really focus in his craft!

A very good friend recommend me this book. And I actually needed to read something about it. Being alone is normal for me. It is one of the reasons I can do all I want at the end of the day. But still, I am a human being and you need some interaction. The last months have been tough because work, lockdown and my lack of communication skills. But mainly work.

This book has been a reminder from others books I have read from Rafael Santandreu that really changed a lot of thing about me. It was really helpful. It got me to my next stage in life.

But again, sometimes you have to remember why you believe in what you believe. Being alone, being solitary in general is seen as something bad/negative by society directly or indirectly (family, friends, books, movies, music, etc) And then we add our own judgement.

I need to recognize my main reason to be alone is the fear of rejection. Mainly with girls.

But in the last years I learned to love myself as I am, to be happy as I am, to be comfortable as I am, to be content with my life, to be content to be alone.

I have read in many places that if you are not happy with yourself, how you can be happy with somebody else? I truly believe in that.

And once those concepts took hold me, I felt better and even managed to find a girlfriend and live together! Difficult to believe some time ago, but happened. And it happened because I was comfortable being alone, I was enjoying my life. Again, I am not the most sociable person, and I used to punish me for that. But I accepted that is nothing wrong with that, you remove a lot of negative from you. Then you walk lighter.

And this book’s focus in being alone and relationships. And for me it is very clear that I prefer to be alone that in bad company. But I need to make the effort to open up, not being afraid.

So it is a question of balance, extremes are rarely good.

And this is the book all about: find the pleasure being alone, love yourself and whatever comes, it comes.

This week finished a book from David Attenborough. It is impressive how much the population of the planet has increased since he was born (1937) until 2020. Based on the book is from 2.3 billion people to 7.8 billion. And how much the wildnerness has decreased in the same period (from 66% to 35%). Keeping mind we had two WW in XX century…

The first two parts are quite pessimistic with all the damage we have caused. But then he offers option for the present to save the future.

The main focus is recovering wildnerness in the world. We need to move to a more sustainable economy (it is not going to be pretty for the super rich and powerful countries) where growth can’t be the only measure (NZ has done something about it). We need to use less (the richest person is the one who has less needs said my grandmother), reproduce less (hello religions!!!). We need to use clean energy. This is a hard topic. Batteries and solar panels need to be more efficient, cleaner to fabricate and recycle. Most of the components have to be mined…. But yeah, the sun energy is a big deal. How much we can get from deserts?

For Nature itself, recover the oceans with policies to avoid over fishing and let recover the wildnerness. The book give the example of Cabo Pulmo and Palau as examples and the benefits of doing so. Better fishing, more sources of income. Win-Win.

Reduce the farmland footprint and let the forests recover their strength (with all the fauna included). This focus in meat consumption. I dont believe becoming vegan is the solution but eating meat every day is not needed. Our grand parents didnt eat meat everyday, that was a luxury. And not long ago, you had to pay the Church for eating meat (“la bula”) So I strongly believe in eating more green (but not manufactured stuff….). I dont see the point of cutting more trees to grow soy for producing meat-life products instead of raising cows. It seems 60% of farmland is dedicated to only beef, crazy. This is quite connected to the global populations too. Imagine if India were a beef-eating country….

Improve agriculture with regenerative farming. I believe in this, although I feel quite naive and romantic about this subject. It is a dream to have your terrain with several types of fruit trees producing good products every year, depending on the season, having your vegetables growing among them, and bees!. And not using any pesticide. Dream. I am pretty sure the yield wouldnt be very constant but this is built for balance. You have several crops… In a world with less people and not based in extreme-capitalism (surplus surplus!!!!) it would work (I hope)

The book says we are reaching our population peak but I dont believe, because religions dont want that, nationalism dont want that. But this is one of the last shift and I guess more difficult one. Changing/adapting ourselves.

If we allow it, life finds a way, like in they city near Chernobyl. It has been recovered by the forests!

At the end of the day, it is always the same solution. Balance. The virtue is in the middle (it seems Aristotle said that).

I wanted to read this book for some time. It became a hit in its time and there was a movie. But to be honest I wasn’t sure what was about. So finally managed to get a copy and read it. I was surprise that it was a comic novel but really enjoyed.

I read it quite fast, it was engaging and when you finished, you wanted more.

But it clearly made me think. How was Iran before, during and after the revolution. What a curse can be the oil. How shit we are the western nations. How shit we are human beings. How the author had to go through so many different stages in life to find herself, find the connection, find your belonging.

And, as many times tell myself, how lucky like I am, although some times struggle with it.

There is a point in the book, when the Irak-Kuwait war in the 90s triggered a panic in Europe, like it was the end of the world (like with covid lately) and Marjane parents laugh at it because the war was so far from Europe and they have already went through several years of war.

I wrote an entry based on a blog from Seth Godin some months ago. I was curious about the guy and I subscribed to his blog and bought one of his books. I finished last night and it as good things.

You can take it as directed to marketing people but you can use it for nearly everything. At the end of the day, it is not talent. It is practice and attitude. This is a concept I have read in different ways from several books like flow, midset, etc. And with practice, at the end, the result takes care by itself. You focus in the practice. You have your goal, you know why you are doing it. You can’t guarantee the result, dont worry about it. Just put yourself in the hook. You can’t please everybody, know for whom you are doing it. Trust yourself, you dont need external validation (MBA, CCIE, etc)

If you take this from the bright side, it is great, you can achieve most things in life with dedication. You dont have to born with the skill, wait for the muse, have the holy inspiration. You can be the tortoise and still win a race. And, it is a stop to the excuse of “I am not smart”, “I am not beautiful”, etc. So, turn up, start moving, do the job, dont overthink it, dont wait for the inspiration. Simply, repeat. There are things we can control, and others not.

In part of the book, I wondered, how all this fit with the concept “work-hard”, “work long hours”, “work-life balance”. Sometimes got the feeling that all this denies to have “a life”. It is great to enjoy your job, it is so important for social, financial and psychological reasons. But does it have to be ALL?

Learning and education is not the same. Learning is voluntary, it can be ugly as it requires some tension and discomfort. If you get something done without effort, you dont enjoy it. Here personally, as per “flow”, it has a manageable difficulty, something that makes you grow. Drop by drop you fill the bucket. I dont need everything now.

Something that I liked a lot: “Play to play, not to win.”

Scarcity and creativity: Actually everything is out there and there is plenty, it is up to grabs. Determination (your practice) is what you need. This plays with the concept of “The fear of falling behind”. It is something the current society makes a believe: extreme capitalism, social media, etc.

it is a good book, you can take positive things from it.

I fancied something light to read. Oh, how enjoyed those memories when I wished to be an archaeologist like Indy. It was like watching the movie again. I didnt care I knew every twist. It brought me some smiles. Pity I devoured it so fast. Will get to the last one at some point.