A business life is one of constant meetings, introductions, ideas, proposals, and decisions that bring one into contact with all sorts of people. Since I am living more of the business life these days than I would care to know, I am all too familiar with this stream of activities. I am also behind in a number of pursuits, both in and out of work, that are the result of this business life, and for this I am annoyed. But all I have is a stack of business cards to show for that 2 months, a very small consolation for the efforts.
Somehow I started to read Proust. The blame goes to Alain de Botton , a writer whose witticisms deconstruct modern thinking and make intellectualism seem but a trifle and a whim. He wrote a book in 1997 called "How Proust Can Change Your Life" which distills the enigmatic French novelist into a self-help dispenser of pithy ideas. How clever I found Mr. de Botton to be when I dipped my toe into the vagaries of Proust; I picked up volume one of "In Search of Lost Time" and instantly fell into the deep end. What author dares to run sentences onward into the stratosphere that sometimes seemingly mellows behind the stars of a bright night, but never so much as an introspective person that wretches for the meaning of a simple thought, sometimes stumbling, but always emerging strongly as that same night in starry sky, almost an homage back to Van Gogh, whose rich paintings greatly represented the mood of a generation - and generations often afford a few mis-steps in l...
Comments