Short stories Meetup

"I look at this life and see the arrogance and the idleness of the strong, the ignorance and bestiality of the weak, the horrible poverty everywhere, overcrowding, drunkenness, hypocrisy, falsehood. . . .  Meanwhile in all the houses, all the streets, there is peace; out of fifty thousand people who live in our town there is not one to kick against it all. Think of the people who go to the market for food: during the day they eat; at night they sleep, talk nonsense, marry, grow old, piously follow their dead to the cemetery; one never sees or hears those who suffer, and all the horror of life goes on somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is quiet, peaceful, and against it all there is only the silent protest of statistics; so many go mad, so many gallons are drunk, so many children die of starvation. . . .  And such a state of things is obviously what we want; apparently a happy man only feels so because the unhappy bear their burden in silence, but for which happiness would be impossible. It is a general hypnosis. Every happy man should have some one with a little hammer at his door to knock and remind him that there are unhappy people, and that, however happy he may be, life will sooner or later show its claws, and some misfortune will befall him ­­ illness, poverty, loss, and then no one will see or hear him, just as he now neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer, and the happy go on living, just a little fluttered with the petty cares of every day, like an aspen ­tree in the wind ­­ and everything is all right"--Chekhov, "Gooseberries"

I've had to go without my anti-depressants for a week or two until I meet my shrink next week and we settle the paperwork.  Oddly, in the short term I'm feeling a bit happier! (The same thing happened the last time I had a significant interruption.) And I've been thinking of lots of things to write about here...

Last Friday I finished Robinson Crusoe and borrowed David K. Wyatt's Thailand:  A Short History from the Northern District library, which I'm reading for the History Meetup. Thailand's history is very complex:  the nation-state emerged gradually over centuries!  The 19th century is the period that interests me most, when it was stuck between the Chinese, British, French, Dutch and Spanish empires. (This was before the Americans seized the Philippines and replaced the Spanish in the region.) The Thais have a long history of surviving difficult neighbours--imagine having the Khmer Rouge on your border!

Last night was the first event of the Short Stories Meetup I just joined.  We met upstairs at Panera's Bakery and discussed three Chekhov stories: "In Exile," "The Black Monk" and "Rothschild's Fiddle." (I also said a bit about the same author's "Gooseberries.") We'll be doing more Chekhov next month, but I have about a million ideas about what we can do in the future...

Chekhov's big concern, it seems to me, is the human soul. ("In Exile" reminded me of my difficult school years...) One difficult thing about my meds gap is that it sometimes causes me to read slowly.  "In Exile" and "The Black Monk" I read online because I couldn't find them in the library, and both stories took me hours.  Part of the problem was from reading them online:  it's easier to focus on my reading when I have the words on paper.  I was afraid I wouldn't finish in time, but I managed to read "Rothschild's Fiddle" on the last day.  In that case, I found it in a collection of Moira's with an introduction by Civil War historian Shelby Foote, of all people.

Also yesterday, I visited my friend Bev for the first time in ages.  I brought Julia along, and she was a hit!

I lost the sheet on which I had the dues-paying History Meetup members write their name, so I guess I'll have to have an honour system instead.

Last night, I got home from the Meetup, went to bed at 9:30 or so, and slept around the clock.  I often go to sleep at 7:00 or so, but I usually wake up after a few hours and it's a long time before I get back to sleep. (No doubt going without the meds had something to do with it.) I hope I can continue this way--being awake past midnight is a sin!