Review: The Falls by Ian Rankin

Posted by lemiffe in Literature on Jan 5th, 2010 | 0 comments

I recently finished reading “The Falls” by Ian Rankin. I would consider it to be an interesting crime novel. It includes particularly interesting elements of history into the book, and is very well written.

The plot is concise, and I found no immediately-evident holes. There was an excellent use of Scottish history, and quite an extensive vocabulary, including Scottish phrases and words.

One thing I thought was a bit bothersome was the fact that from 3/4 of the book, till about 30 pages before the end, the pace seemed to slow down a lot. Everything seemed to stagnate, and the characters didn’t seem quite well to know what they were doing, or seemed to be getting nowhere. Considering this is a crime novel, a large book, and written by a respectable author, I find it amusing to see this kind of problem. However, it was just a small one in the whole picture.

I would rate the book 3.5/5 in a general scale.

The Difference Between Living and Living Right

Posted by lemiffe in Life, Society, Technology on Jan 5th, 2010 | 0 comments

When you die you won’t dream of gold, electronics and new clothes. When you die you won’t dream of reaching that new position in your company, you won’t dream of becoming the best guitarist in the world, you won’t dream of finding treasure, becoming a famous banker or being the president. When you die, what will make you pull your hair out, what will turn it grey? What will be the cause of your stress, what will keep you sleepless? The thoughts of injustice? The thoughts of a lost child?

Well, who ever said the world is good? You can’t bring back those who are gone. You can’t live on memories, you can’t live on dreams. When you’re dead none of that matters.

What does it feel like to live right?

Does it feel like having extra time and stopping by for an ice-cream without feeling the rush of getting back to work? Does it feel like spending Christmas with your family and having a nice roast turkey for dinner? Does it feel like lying down on a distant beach, turning off your blackberry, and watching the children play while enjoying a tequila sunrise?

Well, it certainly doesn’t feel right to feel bad about being stuck in traffic, with the pressure of arriving at work on time every single day. It certainly doesn’t feel right to feel peer pressure while awaiting a promotion that might be given to someone else, someone less capable. It certainly doesn’t feel right to feel the world depends on you, and if you do a single wrong move, if you say something you shouldn’t in front of a TV camera, or do something stupid, the world would crumble down on you. It certainly doesn’t feel right.

First of all we must acknowledge that even though life does not have a sole aim, and we don’t know entirely why we are here, we are already here, and we’ve got to do the best we can with our time.

My second point is that we are here to help. This was something my best friend, my girlfriend, told me. We are not here because we MUST be. Even though a company’s success may lie upon us, we should not be the sole factor in that success in the first place, and if it fails it was meant to fail. A business can’t rely on one person, just as a nation can’t rely on one man.

Decision Stress

We are not to be held accountable by other people’s decisions. If someone takes a decision involving you, and it fails, we are not to blame. If the blame falls upon you for someone else’s actions, take action if it can be proven, if it can’t then don’t stress about it. After all it’s only a job, a car, another person, an animal, a house, an important document, a material object, etc.

Death and Work Stress

If your cat dies, sure, you probably should be sad for a couple of days, sure you should feel the stress of losing a loved one. But if you still feel that stress years later, something is wrong. If you get thrown out of work, sure, you should probably feel a bit bad about losing your job. Maybe for a day, maybe for a week, and that’s where it should stop. Once I read something similar to this: Pain is inevitable, suffering is unnecessary. After all, we can feel a blow to our head, it causes us pain, but to suffer over it for years would be stupid. That’s life.

And talking about material things, the reason I write this post is that a cartoon inspired me a few days ago with some ideas concerning technology and its link to stress.

Technology Stress

Imagine you are a pirate in the 16th or 17th century, you live on a boat, you are barely in contact with technology apart from the one that forms part of your ship. You suddenly find a place in the ocean that takes you up in a whirlwind towards the sky. You land in this mystical world in the clouds, a place where civilisation seems to have advanced at much greater strides than it did in the lower world.

So you and your men get down from the ship, meet some people, and are invited to have tea in one of their houses. Then you find out about Dials. They are devices like seashells that perform different actions. There are many types of dials. Ball dials release a puff of air that forms into a cloud. Breath dials are capable of storing air, functioning as propellers for vehicles. Flame dials absorb and release fire. Flash dials absorb and release light. Flavour dials can absorb and release smells. Lamp dials release light, usually used in households. Tone dials record and play sound.

Imagine people live in this way, using devices to communicate, devices to see, devices to fight, devices to move, devices to smell, devices to feel connected. And you as newcomer are astonished at the marvellous powers of these dials.

The problem is education

But you also become aware that these dials can be used for good as well as evil. And you also become aware of how addicted the people from this nation have become to these devices. They need them to move, to talk, to see at night. What would they do without them? What would we do without them? It clicked instantly, we are these people, we are people who have evolved, to a point in which newer generations have lost understanding of the value of knowledge and curiosity, and have become dependant on technology for everything.

My father would walk so many miles every day to get to the train station, then he’d travel 40 or 50 minutes to get to the city to be able to go to school. Now everyone wants everything to go faster, better, safer. Everything must be more comfortable. But with these commodities prices have gone up, so people use credit to buy them, and then money seems to become irrelevant, so people spend non-existent money on technology that seems to last less every time, and buy new items when they get broken.

This made me aware of how many things we have on earth, and how instead of us owning them, they have started to own us instead.

This is the world we live in, a world in which we have so much to do, so much to use, so much technology. We have become so used to technology that we have stopped appreciating it as something that helps us, and we have started taking it for granted, as something we need. This is partially the reason why the new generations have stopped wanting to know how things work, like cars, radios, computers, and they take their existence for granted… expecting them to work, and if they don’t, they will take them back for warranty, and if it has expired then they will buy new ones.

So what does this have to do with stress?

Everything and nothing. Technology doesn’t need to be a stress-factor. The reason why it causes stress in some of us, and none in others is how we use it.

• Your blackberry doesn’t have to be on 24/7.
• You don’t HAVE to check your email before leaving the house, on your mobile just after you left, right after getting off the car, arriving at your desk, constantly throughout the day till lunch time, etc.
• You don’t have to see your daily commute in your car as a mere stressful travel session.
• You don’t have to see going to use the toilet as a waste of time.
• You don’t have to watch TV a certain amount of hours at night to get your mind off what you did in the day.
• You don’t have to be up to date on all the news at every single moment when the news only brings information about destruction, problems, death, murder, etc.

All of these factors are important. I figured it out myself a few months ago when I started taking a break on Sundays from using the computer. The first 2 Sundays were pleasant, in which I took a stroll around town and felt amazing. The 3rd Sunday I started to feel like it was a chore, to stop using the computer, and I felt the urge to get back to it.

Then I stopped viewing it as a necessity, to release the need to use the computer. I started viewing it as something that could be done, but wasn’t needed to be done. So whenever I had free time I didn’t rush to the computer, I could choose. And when I did use it, I did not feel the pressure of needing things to be done. You advance at your own pace, you can do a bit of email, but if it’s killing you then do something else.

Don’t feel like everyone is on top of you. You do what you can, you help people with what you can, you optimise time, but you keep things at your own rhythm. Most importantly you should remember that you are helping people just as you are helping yourself, there is no need, everything is not on top of you, you are merely someone that can help ease things a bit for someone else and for yourself.

So when you are feeling really bad, like the world has turned against you, think about how many people are in situations that are worse by far. Think about the people that can’t hear, talk or see. Think about those that lost their limbs while fighting for their country. Think about those that are lying comatose, without a chance of life. Think about your children, and their children, will they appreciate the value of a computer?

Will they appreciate the value of a lightbulb? Or is it too late? Can we still teach them the value? Can we still teach ourselves?

Then think about technology, think about the following items, think about what they represent to you, how you use them, not how they use you. Ease your pain.

Remember who built them, remember how much they cost, remember why you use them, remember to maintain them, have you checked the oil in your car? Have you bothered in calling the plumber? Leaving things till too late often creates more damage, and more cost. Don’t spend too much on credit, try not to use it at all. Don’t stress about needing too many things, you only need water, food, and a home after all.

Metallica once said: Nothing else matters.

Weekly Highlights (03/01/2010)

Posted by lemiffe in Photography, Sightseeing, Weekly Highlights on Jan 4th, 2010 | 0 comments

This week I took a trip to Inverness, so I have a few photos to share with you. There was snow, and there was more snow, and there was a few snow storms, there was a lack of stores open, there were no buses circulating, there was a nuthead, and another nuthead, but on the good side of things there was an excellent restaurant (next to Ness River on the East side), there was lots to photograph, and there was good fun. Enjoy!

This photo was taken from a bridge next to Ness Walk, just north from Ness Islands. I didn’t have a chance to go to Ness Islands, the snow was difficult to walk through, but the view from the bridge was good enough.

A snowman just outside a random B&B near Bught Park. I thought it was quite ingenious the way it was designed, don’t you think? I love the broomstick!

Oh, the cemetery next to Glenurquhart Road. Massive, bloody massive! Beautiful view, specially with all the snow. Sometimes everything looked like the scenery of the “Snow Operation” in the game “Project Reality“. Gosh, saying that almost makes me sounds like a geek.

New Blog Design!

Posted by lemiffe in lemiffe on Jan 4th, 2010 | 0 comments

I Just finished giving my Blog a new look, which will probably suffer a few more changes in the upcoming weeks. Give it a look, and don’t forget to tell me what you think.

Thanks to Carrington for such a great theme. If you experience issues in other browsers, or platforms, please give me a shout. I’ll be happy to look it up for you because as you may notice while browsing through categories, AJAX loading has been enabled and may, or may not, work on different browsers.

I also added a few new sections (pages) to the site. Browse around!

Happy New Year!

Posted by lemiffe in Life on Jan 1st, 2010 | 0 comments