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Yesterday, boring evening at Ch.'s, as per usual, only somewhat improved by chocolate fondue. Half the talk revolved around horse-related stuff, the rest around health/sickness issues, what with Ch.'s physiotherapy training. Desperately mind-numbing.


Yesterday morning the alarm woke me from a sexual dream, where (perhaps only because it didn't have a chance to progress very far) strangely I don't have any recollection of my gender. I'm not sure why or how I became aware of this, but it puzzled me when I woke up, and has intrigued me ever since. Gender identity, after all, isn't something you can not be aware of as an adult, whether you chose to accept, alter or deny it, least of all in a distinctly sexual context... I enjoyed the feeling of... freedom(?) that came with it.


Today, having decided to sleep in for once, the phone jerked me out of a rather intense dream, from which after blearily chatting with my sister for five minutes I don't remember anything at all, though I desperately wanted to...

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Tired & lazy, all day.


I'm not a technophobe by any means, but I hate, and I'm almost tempted to search the thesaurus for an even stronger expression of dislike, mobile phones. As far as I'm personally concerned I resent the expectation of constant availability that comes with owning one, and more generally speaking they're a constant source of unasked-for TMI and annoyance. I'm aware that as a lj user complaining about other people's lack of shame sense of privacy is at the very least somewhat hypocritical, but then again I'm not forcing anyone to read about my embarrassing neuroses and/or boring life. Sadly noisy phone users don't come with a back button or a close browser window option.

When I'm in a bookstore, I don't want to hear about your grocery shopping or the childbirth of your friend, thankyouverymuch. And that's not touching upon all the conversations I've been trying (and failing) not to overhear at work.

[ / rant ]


So. Anime. I never got the manga/anime thing, despite its increasing popularity, but chalked it up either to age or to having been brought up with a wholly different system of aesthetics... Now I've been catching 'X' on and off on VIVA recently, and as it turns out anime is apparently yet another acquired taste, because today I kept thinking that some of the images were in fact rather striking... :: sigh ::, I think.



50bookchallenge:

#16: Arthur Schnitzler, Lieutenant Gustl

#17: Thomas Mann, Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull

#18: Thomas Mann, Tagebücher 1953 - 1955

Strange, in several respects, to be reading the 1918 - 1921 volume now...

#19: Thomas Mann, Der Erwählte

I was a little wary of this one because of the religious subject matter, but thoroughly enjoyed it; gently ironic, often highly amusing, yet touching at the same time.

#20: Erich Fromm, Psychoanalyse und Religion

Interesting. I'm not sure to what extent there still exists a controversy between psychoanalysis and (christian) religion, but it helped putting into perspective my perhaps too extreme baby-with-the-bathwater attitude towards religion, by making a distinction between harmful authoritarian systems, whether they are 'religious' or 'secular', and the concern for humanity and the human soul, for truth and love, whether it comes in the guise of religion, philosophy or psychoanalysis. I don't think I ever will (or should) overcome my distrust and dislike of the former, but Fromm's writings made me realise that there's another side to it, too, or rather, a realm of thought opening up beyond the historic, literal and limiting elements of organised religion, helping me gain a more balanced and open-minded outlook instead of knee-jerk automatic rejection.

In the face of today's prevailing materialism and disillusioned cynicism words like truth and love, concern for the human soul and its growth ring almost old-fashionedly idealistic, but that doesn't make them any less imperative IMO. And seeing as the old argument that atheism automatically must mean a lack of ethic standards still crops up now and then, perhaps the book's central argument isn't as dated as it may seem at first glance...