A Pilgrim's Journal

So I happened to stumble across the book Holy Sex!: A Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving while browsing the library recently (honest! I wasn't explicitly looking for it.). So I figured, why not? Might as well give it a read.

Now, if you read the news these days, you might be raising your eyebrows at the idea of getting sex advice from Catholics, but in my view, ideas are ideas, regardless of where they come from. It is best to test all the ideas, to make sure they are good; but you might find good ideas in the strangest of places, and bad ideas in the most trusted of mouths.

So I've been slowly reading through the book... and instead of trying to summarize what I've read so far, I'll just quote a few sections from chapter 2, which compares Holy Sex (a term stressed in this book) vs. Eroticism.

	In Love and Responsibility, Karol Wojtyla argued that
	shame, in the healthiest sense of the word, is a virtue that
	protects us from being used.  Just as fear causes us to run from
	physical harm, and guilt causes us to run from moral harm, shame
	-- in the healthiest sense of the word -- is a feeling given
	to us by God that protects us from offences against our dignity
	as human persons.  Shame is the feeling that lets us know when
	other people are trying to use us as things rather than love
	us as people.  In this sense, shame is actually a positive,
	protective emotion."
		- page 20

This quote is in the context of explaining that Holy Sex takes away shame, while eroticism adds it. Both are pleasurable, but when the focus is on actually loving the other person in a giving way, instead of giving just enough to get what you need for yourself, shame is removed, and you stop using your parter, and rather give. The author points out that only after sin did Adam and Eve feel "ashamed," and he argues that it was only then that they realized that "besides loving and respecting each other... they could use each other as well."

I also like to think of it as being clothed in righteousness. When Adam and Eve were created, they were clothed in righteousness, but after they sinned, they were naked, spiritually, and tried to make up for that by covering their flesh.

I like to contrast the story in Genesis with the message of Jesus to the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:

"You say, I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing. But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see." - Revelation 3:17-18 NIV

Anyway, on to the next quote, which gets better.

	As ... in our discussion of shame, eroticism is primarily
	concerned with what it can get out of the other person without
	having to give too much in return. [...] Wives, in particular,
	complain to me all the time about otherwise loving men who pout
	and become angry if their wives ask to take the night off from
	love-making.  And husbands complain to me about wives who never
	want to be intimate until their wives are trying to "soften them
	up" to get something else out of them.	Both are examples of
	how we treat sex as a right and our lover as a vending machine
	designed for our gratification rather than a person deserving of
	love and respect.  ... when this happens, sex ceases to really
	be about love and becomes a means to an end..."
		- page 22

Compare this with 1 Corinthians 7:

	The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and
	likewise the wife to her husband.  The wife's body does not
	belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way,
	the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his
	wife.  Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and
	for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then
	come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of
	your lack of self-control.  I say this as a concession, not as
	a command.  I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has
	his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.
		1 Corinthians 7:3-7 (NIV)

So while the wife does have a right to her husband's body, and the husband to his wife's body, it is not loving to demand it selfishly. Rather, it is better to work hard to make sure your partner's rights are fulfilled, before your own.

And one more quote, on total intimacy:

	Even in marriage, couples can hold back from each other.
	For instance, I'm often shocked by couples who think that praying
	together is "too intimate."  What do they think sex is?  Unless
	they learn to share their souls, such a couple will never be able
	to experience Holy Sex, because Holy Sex is a kind of prayer.
	If you don't challenge yourselves to share your souls outside
	the bedroom, you won't be able to share your souls in
	the bedroom, and your lovemaking will suffer because less than
	all of you will be showing up for the experience.
		- page 25

I hope the author doesn't mind these block quotes, but I found them insightful enough that I wanted to share.

May God bless your godly intimate relationships with fullness and joy.

Did I help because the Bible told me to, or because I really wanted to?

This is a quote from the book The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs (2007). The book chronicles the life of Jacobs in his attempt, and exploration, of living according to the Bible as literally as possible. For a year. The results are amusing and thought-provoking.

Don't read this book for answers. This is more like a diary filled with questions and internal puzzlings, and while it is very honest (which I enjoyed greatly), there are not a lot of solid answers in the book. If you take some of the text too seriously, you could make some serious mistakes, in my opinion.

That said, you probably shouldn't read this blog for answers either, since this is just as much a diary filled with questions and puzzlings, although maybe not quite as honest as the book.

Anyway, enough with the disclaimers.

The above line comes near the end of the book, where Jacobs is remembering an earlier question from his next door neighbour Nancy, when she was asking for a favour. She wanted to be sure that he was helping her because he really wanted to, and not just because it was part of his year-long project to live according to the Bible.

This line is probably the hardest hitting line in the book, for me. It's a hard question, because, when in the right state of mind, it is easy to get caught up doing things for God, and enjoying the process thoroughly. In that state of mind, you want to do good, but for God.

But from the human point of view, there is something different about having someone do something for you because they really want to. It is a totally different dynamic than someone just doing you a favour because they are in a good mood, or rich, or feeling pious that day. It is personal. It feels more like being in love than being a charity case.

There's a warm comforting feeling when someone does something for you just because they have a burning in their heart for you. It sort of takes you off guard. It makes you feel like you're not alone.

Is it possible to treat more than one or two people this way? It takes commitment and energy and some intimacy, I think.

What do you see in a person when you truly want to do something for them and not just for other external reasons? I think it is a personal value you place on the person. Someone that you don't fear at all. Someone that you don't mind getting close to. Someone that you want to hang out with. Someone that you want to talk with. Someone that you want to trust, and that you would not betray.

Does this happen with someone you meet for the first time? I don't think so. We fear strangers. We guard ourselves. We wonder what they are up to if they ask too many questions. We don't want to have our personal space invaded. We don't want to catch their cold, or whatever other bugs they might have. We don't want to spend our whole day with them, since we have things to do, people to see, and places to be. And we don't reveal our deep secrets to someone we just met.

How can we truly love with guarded attitudes like this? This is why I wonder if we can really love more than just a few people this way. This seems beyond what one person can manage to sustain.

Think of the closest person you know. Can you treat a homeless person with the same energy? I wonder. Is it possible? I know I can't do it now. Yet I know how badly I need to feel that warmth of real love, and if I feel it, then I know the homeless are also bitten with the cruel teeth of loneliness. It's probably why they are so happy when services like Out of the Cold open again for the winter. The warmth of love that the volunteers are able to share with the guests is so fleeting, so small, so short. Serving a meal, or playing a game, or smiling. But it seems like it is one of the warmest places that the homeless have in their lives.

Loneliness is a hard, cold monster to deal with, and the battles usually happen at our most solitary moments. At times like that, people would give almost anything to get a bit of warmth. Second hand warmth is ok. It's better than nothing. But there's a purer warmth that really comforts. And it's the kind that comes from an honest, pure desire. Because they really want to.

In the end, Nancy died of heart failure and asthma, caused by her closest friend that was with her every day: her dog. It's a sad story, and perhaps motivation to love our neighbour as ourselves.

Reading Lawrence Martin's book Harperland: The Politics of Control has been fascinating, and not quite for the reasons that I originally thought.

It reads like a laundry list of the failures of Stephen Harper, and that much I kind of expected. The new perspective that comes across, though, is that when you're running a one-man operation, personal flaws start to actually matter. In such a situation, the flaws of the operation are reflections of the flaws of the leader. If control were not so central, perhaps the group could better compensate for its members' flaws.

The opposition (all parties) so often look like lambs to the slaughter, when trying to stand up to the lies, money, and focus of the Harper machine. The tactics that are used just roll over the opposition in surprisingly effective ways, and the opposition assume that the other side will play by the rules, when that clearly doesn't happen.

Canadians as a whole somehow don't see it, and end up getting manipulated.

Yet in all the carnage, I see hope and Providence. Perhaps a disciplined evil is required to purify and refine a principled good.

Not all of the Conservative's actions are evil. But since when are lies considered righteous? Why treat over 50% of the country as mortal enemies that must be destroyed? We Canadians need to start looking at the facts and work a little harder to find the truth, instead of just letting ourselves get carried away with the emotional propaganda that the Conservatives want us to see.

I think that perhaps our current apathy is due to the lack of any inspired alternative options. I understand that. It is fuelling my apathy too. But I'm sick of the lies. I'm sick of the wedge politics. I'm sick of the morally relative answers in Question Period that make the lowest common denominator look like the best we can ever hope for.

I wish I could listen to some calm reasoning from the Conservatives without the constant verbal jab tacked onto the end of every answer, or weaved into the fabric of every message. I don't want to be treated like a citizen specimen to be probed and manipulated into doing the government's will, but rather like an adult that can handle reasoning beyond the kindergarten level.

I can't be too angry at Harper though. In some ways I feel sorry for him, and in other ways, I can see that I have very similar flaws. Thankfully, I'm not Prime Minister, where my flaws would be exposed for all to see. The book is very enlightening when read with a wider view, including oneself and all humanity. But I sometimes wonder if Harper looks into the mirror at night and wonders what he has become. Does he ever read his old articles and shudder at the path he's taken? (It is a sobering exercise, available to anyone who has bothered to write their opinion down on paper, or on a blog.) Does he remember old arguments he used in Question Period and have a vague unease that they could be used against him now? Surely that can't feel good. That can't feel very inspiring. What an unbearable weight that must be, to have this all out in public, and still try to act like the principled leader.

Or does he think the tactics are all acceptable if the end result is ok?

Until we pull up our socks as a nation, it probably is the best we can hope for. We are reaping the reward of our own apathy, and that reward is Stephen Harper.

I find that while some of the ideology of Stephen Harper matches my own, his tactics reek to high heaven. It is his tactics and secrecy and underhanded methods that make me so concerned. I can actually see some of the logic behind Conservative actions, after having read this book, but the effort required to find that logic is monstrous, and the process distasteful. It feels as if my dog swallowed a precious ring, and I'm trying to find it by going through the excrement.

Lawrence Martin has handled this subject with calm balance. I think that it would be possible to have a Conservative supporter read the book and come out supporting Harper, while a Liberal reads the same book and comes out stressed over the state of our country. This is good in one sense: a reporter should pursue the facts, not vent a spleen. But I wonder if most readers will put the mental effort into this book and think long-term about the actions they see.

Take the controversy that caused the first proroguing of Parliament in late 2008. Harper attempted in the first budget after the election to remove taxpayer support for political parties. This was a reversal of the reforms that the Chretien Liberals did in 2003 that outlawed large political funding contributions from big companies and unions, and replaced it with taxpayer funding of $2 per vote for each party.

Looking at it from the Conservative perspective, I'd imagine the 2003 change would have been a blow to their fundraising system. It would be going against their ideology that supports the free market and big business. Back when the Conservative parties had less support, it would have also distributed a smaller share of the money to them. So from that perspective, turning the tables on the Liberals, at the soonest available opportunity, would make some kind of sense.

Looking at it from the Liberal perspective, it was a strategic move that potentially hurt the Conservatives. But more than that, it put limits on what kind of influence big business had over the government. It also gave some support to the smaller parties, like the Green Party and NDP, who do have some measure of voter support, even though they might not have enough to get seats or win majorities. With a multi-party system, we avoid some of the polarizing splits seen in the United States, where so much politics looks like a choice between only two options.

Taking the long view, and knowing that money talks in political circles and even in political results, who do you want to have in the financial driver's seat of Canadian politics? Should the Green Party have to struggle to get donations from the average Joe concerned about the environment, while the Conservatives get cheques from every major industry that wants a tax break? It's pretty obvious where the financial slant would be there. If you are a CEO, your answer might be different than if you are a single parent living beside power lines.

The book does not go into much detail on this issue or others, which I believe Canadians need to be thinking about in rigorous detail. Instead, the book focuses on the tactics and the panic and the paranoia. This is fine, since this is what the Conservatives bring to Ottawa, and needs to be discussed. But it also means that some of the background work and some of the long-term thinking is left to the reader. It means that any pre-conceived beliefs about government policy won't be very strongly challenged in a book that focuses primarily on government maneuvering.

This falls right into the hands of Stephen Harper. The longer that Canadians ignore the big picture, and ignore the long-term, the easier it will be for Harper to defend his icky behaviour by saying it's no worse than what the Liberals did. Sometimes the behaviour is better; often it is worse. But if the focus is always on who is less slimey, are we really looking ahead, as a captain watches the seas as he pilots his ship? Or are we shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic?

Harper has succeeded in both confusing debate and stifling the flow of information. It is like choking your opponent in a wrestling match while he's trying to figure out why his shoelaces are untied. As long as your opponent is distracted, he will soon lose. And both the opposition and all of Canada are similarly distracted. One corruption after another floats across our headlines, and either we don't care, or are too busy, or something more shiny comes along and we forget the importance of the issue. And Stephen Harper is only too happy to provide Canada with that shiny new thing if he can. And when he can't, he'll gladly use any tool at his disposal to delay, obfuscate, and obscure until we forget. Remember prorogation.

Lawrence Martin has a list of "audacities" at the end of his book, that runs about 55 items long, of the things Harper has done to win during his 4 years in office. Most of these items are not pretty. If you appreciate that Canada is a polite society, that we respect our neighbour, that we respect due process and rule of law, and open government and access to information with checks and balances, these items will be an affront to you.

If you get a chance to read this book, take it. If you only have time to read the last 100 pages or so, do it. Stephen Harper does not deserve your vote until he starts to respect Canada more than his own party.

I'm reading through the book Miracles by C.S. Lewis, which I found by happy accident at the library. I only have about 5 more days to go, but thankfully it is a relatively quick read, considering the heavy material.

I encountered chapter 6, where he takes a break from his arguments for Reason and Nature being separate and unsymmetrical to explain some misgivings that may have arisen while reading so far. In the middle of this chapter are two ideas that seemed profound to me.

I'm taking the liberty of quoting this section for others to ponder as well. It is unfair to both C.S. Lewis and to you the reader to drop you into the middle of the book like this, but the topic is isolated enough that it should make sense even without reading the first 5 chapters beforehand.

	... To some people the great trouble about any agument for the
	Supernatural is simply the fact that argument should be needed
	at all.  If so stupendous a thing exists, ought it not to be
	obvious as the sun in the sky?	Is it not intolerable, and indeed
	incredible, that knowledge of the most basic of all Facts should
	be accessible only by wire-drawn reasonings for which the vast
	majority of men have neither leisure nor capacity?  I have great
	sympathy with this point of view.  But we must notice two things.
 
	When you are looking at a garden from a room upstairs it is
	obvious (once you think about it) that you are looking through
	a window.  But if it is the garden that interests you, you
	may look at it for a long time without thinking of the window.
	When you are reading a book it is obvious (once you attend to
	it) that you are using your eyes: but unless your eyes begin to
	hurt you, or the book is a text book on optics, you may read
	all evening without once thinking of eyes.  When we talk we
	are obviously using language and grammar: and when we try to
	talk a foreign language we may be painfully aware of the fact.
	But when we are talking English we don't notice it.  When you
	shout from the top of the stairs, "I'm coming in half a moment,"
	you are not usually conscious that you have made the singular
	am agree with the singular I.  There is indeed a
	story told about a Redskin who, having learned several other
	languages, was asked to write a grammar of the language used
	by his own tribe.  He replied, after some thought, that it had
	no grammar.  The grammar he had used all his life had escaped
	his notice all his life.  He knew it (in one sense) so well that
	(in another sense) he did not know it existed.
 
	All these instances show that the fact which is in one respect the
	most obvious and primary fact, and through which alone you have
	access to all the other facts, may be precisely the one that is
	most easily forgotten -- forgotten not because it is so remote or
	abstruse but because it is so near and so obvious.  And that is
	exactly how the Supernatural has been forgotten.  The Naturalists
	have been engaged in thinking about Nature.  They have not
	attended to the fact that they were thinking.  The moment
	one attends to this it is obvious that one's own thinking cannot
	be merely a natural event, and that therefore something other than
	Nature exists.	The Supernatural is not remote and abstruse: it is
	a matter of daily and hourly experience, as intimate as breathing.
	Denial of it depends on a certain absent-mindedness.  But this
	absent-mindedness is in no way surprising.  You do not need --
	indeed you do not wish -- to be always thinking about windows
	when you are looking at gardens or always thinking about eyes
	when you are reading.  In the same way the proper procedure for
	all limited and particular inquiries is to ignore the fact of your
	own thinking, and concentrate on the object.  It is only when you
	stand back from particular inquiries and try to form a complete
	philosophy that you must take it into account.	For a complete
	philosophy must get in all the facts.  In it you turn away
	from specialised or truncated thought to total thought: and one
	of the facts total thought must think about is Thinking itself.
	There is thus a tendency in the study of Nature to make us forget
	the most obvious fact of all.  And since the sixteenth century,
	when Science was born, the minds of men have been incresingly
	turned outward, to know Nature and to master her.  They have
	been increasingly engaged on those specialised inquiries for
	which truncated thought is the correct method.	It is therefore
	not in the least astonishing that they should have forgotten the
	evidence for the Supernatural.	The deeply ingrained habit of
	truncated thought -- what we call the 'scientific' habit of mind
	-- was indeed certain to lead to Naturalism, unless this tendency
	were continually corrected from some other source.  But no other
	source was at hand, for during the same period men of science
	were coming to be metaphysically and theologically uneducated.
 
	That brings me to the second consideration.  The state of affairs
	in which ordinary people can discover the Supernatural only
	by abstruse reasoning is recent and, by historical standards,
	abnormal.  All over the world, until quite modern times,
	the direct insight of the mystics and the reasonings of the
	philosophers percolated to the mass of the people by authority
	and tradition; they could be received by those who who were
	no great reasoners themselves in the concrete form of myth and
	ritual and the whole pattern of life.  In the conditions produced
	by a century or so of Naturalism, plain men are being forced to
	bear burdens which plain men were never expected to bear before.
	We must get the truth for ourselves or go without it.  There may
	be two explanations for this.  It might be that humanity, in
	rebelling against tradition and authority, has made a ghastly
	mistake; a mistake which will not be the less fatal because the
	corruptions of those in authority rendered it very excusable.
	On the other hand, it may be that the Power which rules our
	species is at this moment carrying out a daring experiment.
	Could it be intended that the whole mass of the people should now
	move forward and occupy for themselves those heights which were
	once reserved only for the sages?  Is the distinction between
	wise and simple to disappear because all are now expected
	to become wise?  If so, our present blunderings would be but
	growing pains.	But let us make no mistake about our necessities.
	If we are content to go back and become humble plain men obeying
	a tradition, well.  If we are ready to climb and struggle on
	till we become sages ourselves, better still.  But the man who
	will neither obey wisdom in others nor adventure for her/himself
	is fatal.  A society where the simple many obey the few seers can
	live: a society where all were seers could live even more fully.
	But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are
	no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness,
	ugliness, and in the end extinction.  On or back we must go;
	to stay here is death.
 
	- C.S. Lewis, Miracles, chapter 6, page 63 and onward

I had the pleasure of completing the BBC series The Pickwick Papers tonight. It is, of course, based on the book by Charles Dickens, and contains 12 episodes about 30 minutes each.

I am still quite behind in my reading of the classics and have not read Pickwick yet, so I figured watching a DVD would give me a good bird's eye view.

The first 6 or 7 episodes were ok, but felt like an aimless rambling through the countryside, with Mr. Pickwick running into more and more troubles. At points, I was truly worried for Mr. Pickwick's well-being, since he didn't seem swift enough to protect himself from those who would take advantage of him.

But the last quarter of the series is where it really picks up. The apparent bumbling takes on new meaning as just the backdrop of normal life for a man who takes an interesting turn. His stubbornness yet kindhearted character are revealed in a stronger contrast than anyone expects, and a purpose to the man's life is shown, which was hidden in plain sight all along.

It also shows that even though the need may be huge, and the desire to help may be there, the resources to produce massive change may not be. But that is no excuse to stop giving. It merely constrains one's giving to those you have immediate access to.

It's a story of fun, foolishness, friendship, forgiveness, and family. If you have the time, grab it at your local library.

Speaking of Leo Tolstoy, I found a copy of the story How Much Land Does A Man Need? online. I remember this story from my school days. It was in my grade 10 literature book, and the story made such an impression on me that the ending has stuck in my mind to this day.

Thanks to Project Gutenberg this story, with some others, is available for free online. You can read the story here.

Enjoy!

I stumbled across a chapter of Leo Tolstoy's book Youth entitled "Dreams." I enjoyed it so much, I'm copying it here, with a few added paragraph breaks to make reading easier.

"To-day I will make my confession and purge myself of every sin," I thought to myself. "Nor will I ever commit another one." At this point I recalled all the peccadilloes which most troubled my conscience. "I will go to church regularly every Sunday, as well as read the Gospel at the close of every hour throughout the day. What is more, I will set aside, out of the cheque which I shall receive each month after I have gone to the University, two-anda-half roubles" (a tenth of my monthly allowance) "for people who are poor but not exactly beggars, yet without letting any one know anything about it. Yes, I will begin to look out for people like that--orphans or old women--at once, yet never tell a soul what I am doing for them.

"Also, I will have a room here of my very own (St. Jerome`s, probably), and look after it myself, and keep it perfectly clean. I will never let any one do anything for me, for every one is just a human being like myself. Likewise I will walk every day, not drive, to the University. Even if some one gives me a drozhki [Russian carriage or wagon.] I will sell it, and devote the money to the poor. Everything I will do exactly and always" (what that "always" meant I could not possibly have said, but at least I had a vivid consciousness of its connoting some kind of prudent, moral, and irreproachable life).

"I will get up all my lectures thoroughly, and go over all the subjects beforehand, so that at the end of my first course I may come out top and write a thesis. During my second course also I will get up everything beforehand, so that I may soon be transferred to the third course, and at eighteen come out top in the examinations, and receive two gold medals, and go on to be Master of Arts, and Doctor, and the first scholar in Europe. Yes, in all Europe I mean to be the first scholar.--Well, what next?" I asked myself at this point. Suddenly it struck me that dreams of this sort were a form of pride--a sin which I should have to confess to the priest that very evening, so I returned to the original thread of my meditations.

"When getting up my lectures I will go to the Vorobievi Gori, [Sparrow Hills--a public park near Moscow.] and choose some spot under a tree, and read my lectures over there. Sometimes I will take with me something to eat--cheese or a pie from Pedotti`s, or something of the kind. After that I will sleep a little, and then read some good book or other, or else draw pictures or play on some instrument (certainly I must learn to play the flute). Perhaps SHE too will be walking on the Vorobievi Gori, and will approach me one day and say, `Who are you?` and I shall look at her, oh, so sadly, and say that I am the son of a priest, and that I am happy only when I am there alone, quite alone. Then she will give me her hand, and say something to me, and sit down beside me. So every day we shall go to the same spot, and be friends together, and I shall kiss her. But no! That would not be right! On the contrary, from this day forward I never mean to look at a woman again. Never, never again do I mean to walk with a girl, nor even to go near one if I can help it. Yet, of course, in three years` time, when I have come of age, I shall marry.

"Also, I mean to take as much exercise as ever I can, and to do gymnastics every day, so that, when I have turned twenty-five, I shall be stronger even than Rappo. On my first day`s training I mean to hold out half a pood [The Pood = 40 Russian pounds.] at arm`s length for five minutes, and the next day twenty-one pounds, and the third day twenty-two pounds, and so on, until at last I can hold out four poods in each hand, and be stronger even than a porter. Then, if ever any one should try to insult me or should begin to speak disrespectfully of HER, I shall take him so, by the front of his coat, and lift him up an arshin [The arshin = 2 feet 3 inches.] or two with one hand, and just hold him there, so that he may feel my strength and cease from his conduct. Yet that too would not be right. No, no, it would not matter; I should not hurt him, merely show him that I--"

Let no one blame me because the dreams of my youth were as foolish as those of my childhood and boyhood. I am sure that, even if it be my fate to live to extreme old age and to continue my story with the years, I, an old man of seventy, shall be found dreaming dreams just as impossible and childish as those I am dreaming now. I shall be dreaming of some lovely Maria who loves me, the toothless old man, as she might love a Mazeppa; of some imbecile son who, through some extraordinary chance, has suddenly become a minister of state; of my suddenly receiving a windfall of a million of roubles.

I am sure that there exists no human being, no human age, to whom or to which that gracious, consolatory power of dreaming is totally a stranger. Yet, save for the one general feature of magic and impossibility, the dreams of each human being, of each age of man, have their own distinguishing characteristics. At the period upon which I look as having marked the close of my boyhood and the beginning of my youth, four leading sentiments formed the basis of my dreams. The first of those sentiments was love for HER--for an imaginary woman whom I always pictured the same in my dreams, and whom I somehow expected to meet some day and somewhere. This she of mine had a little of Sonetchka in her, a little of Masha as Masha could look when she stood washing linen over the clothes-tub, and a little of a certain woman with pearls round her fair white neck whom I had once seen long, long ago at a theatre, in a box below our own.

My second sentiment was a craving for love. I wanted every one to know me and to love me. I wanted to be able to utter my name--Nicola Irtenieff--and at once to see every one thunderstruck at it, and come crowding round me and thanking me for something or another, I hardly knew what.

My third sentiment was the expectation of some extraordinary, glorious happiness that was impending--some happiness so strong and assured as to verge upon ecstasy. Indeed, so firmly persuaded was I that very, very soon some unexpected chance would suddenly make me the richest and most famous man in the world that I lived in constant, tremulous expectation of this magic good fortune befalling me. I was always thinking to myself that "IT is beginning," and that I should go on thereafter to attain everything that a man could wish for. Consequently, I was for ever hurrying from place to place, in the belief that "IT" must be "beginning" just where I happened not to be.

Lastly, my fourth and principal sentiment of all was abhorrence of myself, mingled with regret--yet a regret so blended with the certain expectation of happiness to which I have referred that it had in it nothing of sorrow. It seemed to me that it would be so easy and natural for me to tear myself away from my past and to remake it--to forget all that had been, and to begin my life, with all its relations, anew--that the past never troubled me, never clung to me at all. I even found a certain pleasure in detesting the past, and in seeing it in a darker light than the true one. This note of regret and of a curious longing for perfection were the chief mental impressions which I gathered from that new stage of my growth--impressions which imparted new principles to my view of myself, of men, and of God`s world. O good and consoling voice, which in later days, in sorrowful days when my soul yielded silently to the sway of life`s falseness and depravity, so often raised a sudden, bold protest against all iniquity, as well as mercilessly exposed the past, commanded, nay, compelled, me to love only the pure vista of the present, and promised me all that was fair and happy in the future! O good and consoling voice! Surely the day will never come when you are silent?

I find it interesting that when we are young, and even when we are old, the idea of making resolutions and promises, to ourselves and to others, appears to be the sure way forward to making proper changes to our lives. It is tempting for one person, trying to help another, to encourage them to make a commitment of some kind, and once the commitment is made, the job appears to be complete.

Yet I find that the promise is but the easiest step, and often the most false. Promising something does not make it happen. It merely binds you now to the duty of the future. If the duty is not being performed now, a promise won't help.

Perhaps this is something everyone must learn on their own, and part of the reason for life. It seems that there are few things that one truly understands without doing it and living it. I'm sure God knows that about us. I believe He understands our weaknesses better than we do. The faint glimmer of the truth of my own is staggering.

Perhaps this is why the Bible refers to the tongue as a restless evil, and why Jesus tells us not to swear oaths. We can barely control ourselves, let alone swearing by heaven or earth, things we truly have no control over. No sense adding burdens of promises to our own backs when we cannot even carry the burdens we already have.

So, thanks to a Slashdot thread and Wikipedia, I stumbled across the story of Nellie Bly and her book Ten Days in a Mad-House, which I put on my "to read" list. I finally got around to reading it.

Wow.

I laughed. I cried. I laughed again. I shook my head at how we humans operate. How we judge without even realizing it.

I read in shock at the conditions.

I marvelled at the manners of people in those days, at the work ethic, and at Nellie Bly's determination to finish her mission and her sense of humour in the most downtrodden of situations.

I was moved by the compassion. I was dumbfounded at the lack of it. I understood the fear. I applauded the courage. I cringed at the food. I got angry at the cruelty.

And when I thought it couldn't get worse, the next chapter would blow my mind.

In short, this is a book that needs to be read, and needs to be read today. Not because the exact conditions of the asylums are the same as today, but because the conditions of the heart are the same today.

Seventeen chapters. It will take a while to get through, but it's worth it.