farnoosh

That's pretty normal, I think. What's more, it's a good thing. . or it usually has been for me; those are the times when there's peace, and you have time. I went looking for a quote of Whitman's, a poem actually, something about leaving books behind, and going out and living the open road and traveling; I couldn't find it, but speaking of Goodreads, I came by a couple interesting ones.

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.”
― Walt Whitman

“Peace is always beautiful.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
― Walt Whitman

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quo...8.Walt_Whitman


I think what I'm saying is it sounds like you're at peace

I recognize the feeling you're describing - for me, that's actually one of the nicest times of life. . of course it's a step along the journey, but it also seems close to when Rumi says "there, the world is to full to talk about."

Also, there is a very interesting thought Schopenhauer came up with. Very shocking when I first read it! I didn't want to think about it as possibly being true because, I had always been brought up to believe in the virtues of reading - and those are all still there; but I've gradually come to understand it's true. It's from the essay "On Thinking for Yourself" - a similar idea is definitely expressed in Whitman's poem, the one I can't find. Anyway - it definitely reaffirms my belief in the idea of selectivity - there are some works which contain a thousand worlds of beauty, and to find those and read them will still take a lifetime, so why would I spend time on anything less? This way of looking at it would just seem to say that you just need to find more interesting books - again in the words of Rumi, "let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love."

I found a poem by Whitman - not the one I was thinking of, but similar,

http://www.bartleby.com/142/82.html
(from here)


“When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another’s thoughts. So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk.”
(the Schopenhauer quote)

Or Socrates:
'The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.'

Just some thoughts - like I say, it's a feeling I recognize, and I realize today it's actually a very nice thing - or at least, I remember it as such.

Or another way,

“You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness.”
― Terence McKenna

Enjoy :-)
I hope you grandmother recovers nicely.

Oh you should go back to Les Misarbles. I'm reading a volume each year. I can't read the whole 1400 pages in one year. There are five volumes, each one is almost a novel in itself. I read the first last year and will start the second in another month or so. Jean Valjean comes in mid way through that first volume. I remember the beginning as rather philosophical, but that changes soon. It really gets better. Perhaps your problem is reading off a Kindle. I have trouble with long works off a Kindle. I need to be able to go back to things and it's very hard off a Kindle.

Originally Posted by Virgil

Oh you should go back to Les Misarbles. I'm reading a volume each year. I can't read the whole 1400 pages in one year. There are five volumes, each one is almost a novel in itself. I read the first last year and will start the second in another month or so. Jean Valjean comes in mid way through that first volume. I remember the beginning as rather philosophical, but that changes soon. It really gets better. Perhaps your problem is reading off a Kindle. I have trouble with long works off a Kindle. I need to be able to go back to things and it's very hard off a Kindle.

Yeah I guess you're right. Les Miserables is not the type of book that you can read off a Kindle.
P.S I seriously did not know there were 5 volumes!! As it is all stored in one PDF file... wow!! I've got some serious reading to do