Newsletter #1: SURPRISE! On Finding The "Right" Things (or Serendipity)
Hi Reader, Happy Christmas Eve-Eve!
Firstly, thank you for subscribing. It means a lot. Really.
I wanted to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the early members of the community. So, as a token of gift, the first newsletter is here, a day early in your inbox. Happy reading!
This week's newsletter is all about me sharing the right poem, the right book, which are not really 'right' or 'special' and definitely not the 'best', but they met me at juuusttt the 'right' time, you know? Serendipity, to be all fancy.
Poetry
If there is just one poem that I could read in my lifetime, it would be Stages by Herman Hesse:
"As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.
Since life may summon us at every age
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.
In all beginnings dwells a magic force
For guarding us and helping us to live.
Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.
The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.
If we accept a home of our own making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.
We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slaves of permanence.
Even the hour of our death may send
Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
And life may summon us to newer races.
So be it, heart: bid farewell without end."
I know this poem doesn't meet the highest of the poetic standards, but it met me at the right time of my life. And since then, at every difficult 'stage' in my life, I have turned to this poem for comfort, for courage, for affirmation. At this point, its words have stuck like cement in my memory (and my heart). In a way, it tells me that all is fleeting, change is constant, uncomfortable may be good, and all those clichés, which are, duh, so obvious but also, um, completely unacceptable?!
Book
This week, I want to talk about Looking For Alaska:
Again, this isn't John Green's best work and doesn't mean fiction's high standards either. But like the poem, this book met me at the right time in my life.
Miles Halter is the unreliable narrator of this story (But, the story revolves around our heroine, Alaska). He remembers the last words of famous people – that is his ‘thing’. And unlike Francois Rabelais, whose last words are 'I go to seek a Great Perhaps', he does not want to wait till the end of his life to see his Great Perhaps. That is when he goes to Culver Creek Boarding School, where our story takes place. I was a fan of the narrative when the big story-turn (to save you from spoilers) happens in the middle (by the separation of the story in Before and After) because, usually, these big turns are safely taken either at the end of the novel or right up front at the beginning.
Looking for Alaska has also been criticized for only being made for a teen mind – when everything is big, everyone wants to seem smart & worldly, all decisions are impulsive & irrational. It can come off as many years far behind to someone older. But that is what literature is supposed to do: make you feel like a teenager again, make you nostalgic for all of your dumb decisions, make you remember all of the things that seemed big then (and maybe they were big, you know?).
You can read more about what I thought of the book here - but beware of spoilers.
There is an interview with John Green at the end of this book that is as good as the book itself. You can find it here. I definitely recommend reading it extra slowwww-ly. The questions are pertaining to the book, but the answers are about life:
"Frankly, I kind of want you to be haunted by the unansweredness of the question, because I think being haunted by such things is a valuable part of being a person. We have to live with ambiguity, and that’s a lot of what I was thinking about when I wrote the book. Sometimes, there are questions that NEED answering [spolier erased]but that never get answered.
I wrote the book because I wanted to explore whether it is possible to reconcile yourself to that ambiguity, to live with it and not let your anger and sadness over the lack of resolution take over your life. Is it possible to live a hopeful life in a world riddled with ambiguity? How can we go on in a world where suffering is distributed so unequally and so capriciously?"
This interview inspired me to write two of my essays: On Uncertainty and On Life's Big Questions.
If you are not keen on reading the book, you can watch a web-series based on the book here. You'd be a doing a crime according to me, but if that is what you enjoy more, you do you, boo.
Some Good Things
Speaking of John Green, Crash Course is a YouTube channel run jointly by John, and his brother, Hank Green. It has short snippets of lessons available for every possible topic imaginable - from World History to Data Literacy. And the best part? All of it is made with the intent to keep learning fun, accessible, and enjoyable. I accidentally stumbled onto this repository of sweet knowledge to study for a history exam in college, but I stayed to simply quench my curiosities. They also have apps available on iOS and Android.
Learning often reminds me about how so much of it is unlearning and this comic says it way better than I ever can. Complement it with this thread on Twitter about 40 of our everyday cognitive illusions.
Lastly, once again, endlessly and emphatically, thank you.
This newsletter means so much to me and I hope so ardently that I can keep curating them for you to enjoy. From the very bottom of my heart, thank you.
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I want to know
You're free to dwell on these questions alone or talk about it with loved ones or share a 1-2 para response with me by replying to this email.
Is there any particular poem, book, article, picture, song, anything else that met you at the right time? Or any art-piece that you simply associate with comfort for no reason (please share it with all of us too)? Do you every feel a stupid, undeniable, incurable FOMO like me that some pieces of art may just pass you by without leaving an impact because they didn't meet you at the right time to strike all the chords (don't say that's just me)?
See you next week,
Rochi
Read more on my website: https://rochizalani.com/
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