Where do you get time to read fiction?

So did a friend of mine remark at noticing a novel on the coffee table during a recent visit to our home. To which I said that one should always read, and choose books from diverse subjects so as to fuel our imagination as well as learn something new. Of course, we do read a lot of non-fiction in order to satisfy our daily life in general, and work life in particular. Reading fiction takes your imagination for a ride. You can visit far off places, meet people from different walks of life as well as different societies, feel the emotions, be it pain or joy, of the characters in the books.

This got me thinking about why we read and especially why we should read a good mix of fiction as well as non-fiction. Of course, almost everyone reads news, opinions and views on the current events in magazines and newspapers. We read technical literature pertaining to our work. We should also cultivate a habit of regularly reading fiction in order to get into the minds of others. Reading fiction sparks one's imagination, It tickles the right side of the brain. Of course, any exercise to our gray matter is a good thing in itself. Fiction provides an escape from our day-to-day life and its problems. One of the reasons Bollywood movies always follow the formula of injecting a lot of pain and suffering into the movies is to provide a means for the suffering masses to see someone else suffering more than them. Thus the audience will go back home glad that they are a lot better off than the characters in the movie. Thank god, the characters on the silver screen and their problems are fictional. Well, that is my theory, anyway.

Fiction lets you discover things that you might not have thought of, it lets you visit places that you did not even dream of visiting, it lets you get into the minds of the President of a corporation or an army general or a serial killer or .. You get the point. Where would you get a glimpse of the mind of a corporate mogul? Fiction is entertaining. It evokes all kinds of emotions in you. It lets your imagination run wild. I hated seeing movies that are based on famous novels. I used to imagine the characters to look a certain way, to speak in a certain manner, etc. and most of the times, the movies did not stand up to my imagination. That's why I don't see such movies anymore. I want to cherish the pictures I have painted of my favorite characters and I am not going to let a Hollywood director steal it from me.

We used to read fairy tales and imagine the characters and the places the tales were set in. Everyone had their own imaginary wonderland. It gave us an opportunity to exercise our brain and picturize the things that were described to us using words. Today, with the advent of video technology and animation, kids sit and watch their favorite fairy tales even before they get a chance to read (or have someone read to them) them. Of course, the directors do a fantastic job of representing the tales, but we are still taking away the opportunity for a child to imagine things on her own. TV numbs your mind because it thinks for you. You just sit and watch for things to unfold (most of the time).

Most important of all is that reading lets you escape. You escape from everything around you. You are in a special world all by yourself, with your characters. Of course, this is assuming that you read by yourself. This gives you time for yourself. Fiction reading can be relaxing as well as rejuvenating. I have made a plan to read at least one fiction book and a book on a subject that is unknown to me, every month. This will help me relax (fiction) and expand my horizon (new subject). Let's see how well I can implement this plan. Of course, there will always be things to be taken care of, but it is up to us to make time for the finer things in life.

Why are we so?

Last weekend was beautiful, sunny and cool with not a cloud in sight. So, we decided to go for a drive through all the port cities west of Seattle. The first city we visited was Port Gamble. It is a cute little port city with a nice small downtown and its own house-converted-family-owned restaurants and shops. We were strolling through the main street of the city and one of the houses had a garage sale. Garage sale suckers that we are, we stopped by to check the loot. The main reason we went in was that the sign said everything was $1 each. That was enough motivation for us to peek in. To my surprise I saw an old SLR with a few lenses lying around on a table. I quickly snatched them all up, and to my amazement, I had found myself a Minolta SR-T101 with a 58mm prime and a 200mm prime. Along with them was a 2X and a 3X teleconverter. Boy, was I lucky. I think the lady hosting the sale must have been real unhappy with her husband, and was getting rid of everything of his, and I bagged the whole kit for $2! I was not even thinking of bargaining (who wants to bargain in a dollar store?), and she just said, 'give me $2 for all of it'. I wasn't in a mood to argue with her.

I came home grinning ear to ear, and got out my lens cleaning kits, a dozen ear buds, rubbing alcohol and some tissues, and got to work. I painstakingly cleaned each element of the camera. I rubbed out all the gunk on the body with alcohol, and I cleaned each external element of the lenses with lens cleaning tissue, and brought the camera back to almost mint condition. The whole procedure took me over an hour.

Now, it was calibration time! I took out my good old Canon Elan with its 28-105mm zoom lens and attached it to a tripod. Adjusted the focal length to 58mm and focused it onto a brightly lit object. Then, I mounted the "new" Minolta onto another tripod and focused it on the same scene and started the calibration process at different f-stops.

This is when it struck me that I had not cleaned my $1000+ electronic camera (and accessories) for over 2 years, and I had just spent more than an hour cleaning a $2 camera! What is it that made me clean this Minolta so pain-stakingly, while ignoring my old faithful? At this point I didn't even know if this camera was in good condition. Of course, the shutter cocked and fired well. The lenses had working aperture. Apart from this, I didn't know if the camera leaked light. I didn't know if the shutter had a hole in it. I didn't know if the meter worked right. I didn't know if the shutter was calibrated. So, what was it that made me take such good care of this new entity?

Maybe it is the glamour that new things bring. Maybe it was because I always dreamed of owning a fully manual SLR, and here I was holding this heavy metallic manual camera built like a tank. Or, maybe it was the value of the camera. Even though this is an inexpensive camera, it has great value for me. I paid $2 for something which someone else may be paying more than $200. It is the value it brings for the money I have paid. Or, maybe it is the feel of the mechanical marvel. Being a mechanical engineer, everything that is made up of complex mechanisms always excites me. It was joy to my ears to hear the heavy metallic click of the shutter. Maybe, it was because I now had a new toy to play with.

We will never know. That is the way some things are. You just have to leave them that way and go with the flow.

Maybe, this weekend, I will clean my Canon.

Child psychology

Call me stupid or call me naive, I have rarely read a book on child rearing or child psychology.

I have been watching our daughter's growth with a lot of interest, making notes, wondering why she does things one way or the other, wondering why she does not do certain things, etc. I was trying to teach her to kick a ball at an age she could not even stand on one leg. At that time, I was wondering how I could get her to kick instead of wondering how to get her to balance on one foot (even for a second). Later on, when she started balancing on one foot, I realized the pattern and how kids grow. Maybe, if I had read a book on child development, it could have spared me the trouble. The same with fear. I always thought that if I don't teach her 'fear', then she will not know what fear is. I later learnt that it is one of the instincts that human beings develop as they grow. Upto a point, I could keep her bold about anything, but one day she did develop fear for one thing or the other. There are two ways to raise a child: the textbook way, figuring out everything that is going to happen and having a plan for shaping the growth, or taking life as it comes and enjoying it and shaping things based on your instinct and values. I have a feeling the latter is better in a lot of ways.

Or, maybe I will go pick a book on child psychology/rearing and read it tonight, and channel my energy on more important things than learning things the hard way...

Mt. Rainier's tease

Everyday, when I drive to work on lake Sammamish parkway, I see Mt. Rainier, at least the glaciers. OK, not everyday, but most of the days when the weather is good, and the air is clear. Its majestic glaciers are an awe inspiring and breathtaking sight.

The mountain is about 2-2.5 hrs drive from our house. So, whenever we plan on visiting it, we look for it while driving on lake Sammamish parkway, and if we can see it clearly, we go ahead with our plans. Everytime, we did that, we ended up hitting clouds when we arrive at Paradise or Sunrise. That got me thinking. Is it our luck or some kind of phenomenon in action. I noticed that even if the sky is clear with no clouds in sight, and we can see the Rainier glaciers from miles away, once we get close to the mountain, we hit low lying clouds around the mountain obscuring our view from the closer vista points. Dang. This got me to do some research in basic geography and precipitation, and here is what I found.

The process of formation of clouds on and around mountains is known as orographic lifting. This is the process of cloud formation due to the topological changes, and the movement of air. Air gets lifted due to the topological changes and as it rises, it drops in temperature which spurs condensation, thus forming clouds. Simple, huh. Now that I understand this, I have a special interest in the clouds around Rainier. The next time I visit Rainier, I will be looking forward to clouds rather than their absence.

Stop and smell the roses....

As we grow up, many simple things cease to amaze us. The daily grind takes away the amazement that we once had as kids. Our daughter reminds us, almost everyday, of all the wonderful things around us.

Both e and my wife love the outdoors, and the Puget sound area offers a lot of it. Ever since we moved to the North West region, we have been trying to get our daughter into hiking and nature appreciation. We go out on hikes almost every weekend, which is made easy by the abundance of trails within a half hour drive from our house. While hiking, as with everything in life, we take a macro-perspective of things. We get excited by the mountains around us, we get excited by the huge evergreens lining our corridor. Our daughter was getting excited by the slugs on the ground, the small insects on the leaves, the moss on the bark or the twigs lying around. Maybe, it is because of her perspective (literally, since she is a small person), or maybe it is her curiosity about everything around her. Everything is new for her, and she wants to explore them all. We should make an effort to maintain the curiosity into our old ages.

Another interesting observation I made was that we, grownups, are aiming at the end, be it a lake or waterfall at the end of the trail, the summit of a mountain, or a magnificent vista point. Kids, especially 3 year olds, do not care as long as they are having a good time. Yes, we do talk about the "it is the journey, not the end goal" philosophy, we should reinforce it in all aspects of our life.

It is time to take my daughter out for a walk and smell the roses.

Ciao.