Thursday, November 02, 2006

Lin Yutang, Paulo Coelho, and other `brilliant nuts' I greatly admire: the uncensored version

I was thinking of quoting some important lines from `The Importance of Living' by Lin Yutang - brilliant book, particularly from the first chapter - The Awakening. Lin Yutang mentions how the past and the present meet in a book, when the writer echos thoughts of past writers, and they communicate beyond the time-space continuum, and form a connection with the reader who begins to form his own thoughts and ideas about what he reads. I had mentioned in a previous post about how I began to form a book trail - from Yutang to Coelo, to Henry Miller, and so on never-endingly. Coelo has a beloved and highly optimistic attitude towards life, however I am beginning to find his ideas rather lofty, and too clouded in rainbows and butterflies for them to be truly graspable by an existentialist such as myself.
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Osho for me is the wild fanatic, one with whom I can connect to more - he is both the most human of men, and most divine of gods I have ever come across. Now he lived completely, giving himself wholly to every moment. Taking a leaf from Osho's thoughts: Live your own life, read but do not be consumed, think but do not crystallise your ideas, be like the river, forever flowing, but do not think of reaching the ocean so soon. And so here is my lucid declaration to all believers:
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I hereby denounce `the follower'. Like me, do you not wish to blaze your own path, a unique one, for only then I have lived at all?! I hereby denounce the follower, for all he can do is to tom-tom others' ideas, and never ever dare to make them his own, never tear them apart and customise them for his own benefit. Don't be afraid to be blasphemous, sacriligeous, and delight in other such wild phenomena. For you are human, accept your nature, and live!

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