What I like to read and why

Ever since I was a child, I was fascinated by reading. It appeared as a magic to me, being able to get words out of the paper without other people. I remember that I memorized a book of short poems by Josef Lada, where pictures on one page corresponded with text on the other side. So I was faking the reading at the age of three by pointing my finger at the verses and saying them out loud, not knowing the symbols. I think first thing I was actually reading were comics “Čtyřlístek”, and this is the kind of literature I still enjoy the most.

Well, not really. The true is, I have met the more serious stuff quite soon, and reading became my obsession in the primary and secondary school. And until now it still is one of my most favorite activities, especially in my solitude and contemplative times. I used to read anything, anywhere and anytime, really, any printed or non-printed text was sufficient. Lately, maybe in my last years in high school, I realized how different qualities of content or form are available. Above all, after two years of attempts I finally could understand texts written in other language, namely in English, and I found out how different and yet the same this foreign attitude towards words and speech is. I guess this is one of the worlds I am exploring right now, and hope that I will never feel I have explored it enough.

I can divide my reading in several categories. People who know me also know, that humorous and entertaining literature of all kinds have its steady place in my daily schedule. In this area I prefer something I call second-thoughts humor, as the opposite of jokes without background. I admire the skills of writers like Dave Barry, who can keep in mind several wits and serve them gradually through the whole column, yet finishing with something from the beginning of the article, familiar to the reader already. I always enjoy observing him breaking the cliché of regular rigid sentence-building and making fun of common predictive structures.

This is also why I respect Terry Pratchett so much. First I thought he was just a well-known author of easily understandable fantasy books for teenagers, but I had to change my mind. Sure, some people can read Pratchett’s books without even realizing there is some other level in them, but once I at least partly understood how he uses the wit in order to raise some deep questions, I had to admit that he really is a philosopher. As I mentioned the questions, I probably ought to say that he does not humiliate his readers by giving the easy answers right away. As to say, the moral of the story is in the story. I am not implying that he is some philosopher with new system of beliefs and disbeliefs, I think that he merely presents alternative attitude towards life, imagination and understanding people, helps us to discover what we already know about life. And, of course, his books are much wittier than anything you might see on TV.

So much for humor, at least for now. When I started to read literature of the 19th and early 20th century, I was very impressed by its directness and potential. Authors like Dostojevskij, Hemingway, Wilde, Dickens, Sartre, Kafka and others really opened me the gate of other literature, so different from novels written before. Impact of stories is multiplied by excellent usage of the language and immediate feeling of presence allows us, the readers, to become part of the story (or, more important, they offer us the option to make the experience part of ourselves). Also books form people like Exupery, Fulghum, Hesse, Bulgakov, Lewis, Orwell or Heller are still inviting me further into fantastic world of literature. And I know that there is much more, still waiting for me to dive into. I hope I will have time for reading at least what my favorite people recommend me to read.

Recently, I am studying some philosophical articles, essays about different subjects or even scientific studies about people and their attitude towards communication and their lives in nowadays society. I read some theological texts, long and short, Christian, agnostics and often even ignorant; I was often surprised how much can be written and how much effort we can put in understanding that, how thin the line is between realizing something precious for our lives and just letting it pass by, thus missing our opportunity that might not come again… And beside these, I read way too much quotes, encyclopedic articles etc. You could say I am trying to analyze humor, or understand it better.

I think here is what I like most about books – it allows people to share experiences, opens new possibilities and actually brings real people together, since it influences our “real life” as well. Through books we are able to explore ourselves, train our imagination and empathy, and learn how to handle other points of view. It is almost as good as a dialog with close person.

And surprisingly, that might be the exact reason why books are such a great things. They are alive. There is someone, who spent his or her time writing the book, and I think that is what counts. When I asked myself the question how I would differentiate what is worthy of my time reading it and what is not, I came up with this answer: Whatever stems from deep of the authors mind and heart. Whatever they spent their time writing for others in order to tell something they wanted to tell. Whatever was written to share some amazement or realization, where author does not just write to show off or gain credit, but really wants to give something special.
I want to be ready and listen to that.

World at the beginning of the 21st century

(Essay)

The epoch we’re living in is very important and special. And I don’t want to imply that 21st century is somehow more important than the previous, regarding, for example, the population growth or the boom of new inventions. I just want to say that 21st century is very special for us, because it is our epoch, the time period in which we are (most likely) going to spend the rest of our life. And therefore we want and need to think it is special. People are often even ready to believe that the life is going to change completely, thanks to the achievements of science or just simply because of the unstoppable progress of civilizations.

And actually, that seems to be true. At the first glance (and maybe few others) at least, it truly appears that our world and our contemporary way of living has few in common with the lives of our ancestors. Think of the differences for a moment… Technologies enabling us to communicate overseas within seconds, public transportation bringing the whole world to us, massive colossus of information available just few clicks away, more free time than we ever had and even more way how to spend it – that sounds like whole new planet, if you compare it to the world where most of the people hardly knew what is the name of their landlord, they heard of some king of their but never really needed to know anything about him, because all they had to do is to survive, work and survive, and probably have some fun, which, compared to our leisure time, seems tediously dull.

Without too broad generalizing we might say that we consider the 21st century to be the peak of civilization. That, of course, depends on the gauges we are using, and if we want count in the respectable ancient civilizations, it’s not that easy to judge this, but I think on some level it is assumable. If nothing else, the various possibilities of communications all around the planet is irrefutable – and it really has direct impact on our daily lives. The last two centuries progressively prepared the way for nowadays media culture: ever since the penny-press broke the barrier of easily approachable daily portion of text for broad-spectrum audience and later the radio learned people to passively receive stream of information, ever since the TV nailed the whole families to their couches regularly, media seem to change the society completely.

Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan saw this as the crucial cause of change (not only) in out times. His famous quote “The medium is the message“ emphasizes the fact that what is transported by the medium (book, telephone, web etc.) is not that important for learning about certain civilization as the medium itself. Supporting this claim by historical evidence and research, he continued by studying recent media and even forecast the future by saying that "the new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village." Well, given that this was written in 1962, he definitely had some insight. Especially we who are living in advanced countries have no doubt that World Wide Web, mobile phones or e-mails considerably affect our daily lives.

The opportunities are many times greater as regards getting specific knowledge or piece of information. Without special training, any student can find out what is the capital of Assyria (among other far more interesting things) just using his internet browser and full-text search engine, without even leaving his home or opening a book. Academic research hasn’t even discovered all the new possibilities new technologies opened to it. And we are not talking about commercial use of these. Advertisement has entered into a solid agreement with all kinds of media, making them cheaper, although intoxicating them with noise. Free market profits from this information-freedom and inexhaustible variety of choices.

And yet… Does more choices mean better choice? Do these technology achievements really change that much in our lives? Or maybe the question is: should they?

Sometimes I wonder how easy it would be in more simple way. Work and rest, to put it bluntly. Just like in the old times, right? We wouldn’t know, what happened in China, or what is the stock market value of “PIXR”, there would be not many ways to get in touch with our relatives living their lives in different town, but it would be so much easier to stay tuned, to stay in focus, to keep our minds clear. That is especially hard now, being literally attacked by messages of all kinds.

All the possibilities can cloud up what is important in our lives and lives of people who are close to us. Cold technology can replace a lot of our interaction with others, but is that to be considered the good thing? We are, after all, physical beings, and using our feet and hands is not an inappropriate action. Saving time by working faster and more efficient for spending more time by trying to fill our desires here and there? Sometimes it feels like detaching ourselves from the life, becoming truly virtual, meaning not computer-based, but merely not that real. I am sure that the essence of human life did not change. We are still people. We just don’t often realize what that means any more. That’s what makes me sad – the alleged welfare and variety of choices finally lead to skepticism and relativism.

That many options everywhere – it makes it harder to see where we are, what we are, what do we need and how do we want to spend our life. Although that hasn’t changed much within last centuries, has it? The tools and appearances are hugely different, but it is still only cover which makes it harder to see what’s underneath. It is still people who are going to live in this new century. In some ways we have it easier, in other ways harder. It’s called life.

"There are no passengers on spaceship Earth. We are all crew."
Marshal McLuhan

Linux is Not Windows - great article

This is probably the best article comparing operating systems Linux and Windows: linux.oneandoneis2.org/... . Unlike those people, who will try to pesuade you that Linx is the only way to use computer how it was intended, this text shows you how differently particular tasks in both systems are done. And by several really nice parables you come to understand, that there are really more ways how to use the comp and that what suits you might not suit others. Like vim, for example, tho most sofisticated and crazy text editor I know:),Well, I gotta say I was sure to get Linux and start to use it. Now I might be reluctant about that a bit. But I'm getting it anyway, since you can carry it around on USB flash disk. About these "portable aplications" you can read in my next spot.

Read more at linux.oneandoneis2.org/...