Recent books read, recent series watched.... As mentioned in a previous post, perhaps a couple months back, I found this book unapologetically dark. I was looking forward to this book for some time, and anticipated a glimmer of hope at the end if not a happy/happier ending than what I found. I put the book down after finishing it rather distastefully. As some of you may know I entertain the idea/notion of large control mechanisms occurring in reality, but often hidden, in our world. This world was a bit too close for comfort to the dystopia that I don't want to see our world become. Unfortunately of late, the probability of such seems much higher than previously. Of course I hope that I am wrong. The future is not written in stone is my firmly held belief, but of course there are those (again my belief) that appear to be (mis)directing humanity as a whole. Not my kind of book, but worth reading once.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I like to think we can heal ourselves without the use of the strongly pushed medications in western societies. Mind you some highly marketed allopathic medications are a saviour and definitely have their place. This book was a foray into that kind (natural) of territory. Simple enough, straightforward enough. Seems like common sense, but it's not. High-dose vitamin C is being constantly proven in research as a wonderous miracle for human health. Research papers are proving this frequently, numerously and incessantly and yet we continue on with the marketed allopathic be all and end alls. I reserve the right to choose how to heal myself and yet in society today that seems to be becoming markedly less permitted (see my comments on 1984). Dangerous territory - don't you dare think for yourself!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After 1984 I needed a feel good book. Straight forward language again, straight forward principles but rarely applied in modern day life. I've read the original in English, this is the first time I've read the translation. It'll remain on my bookshelf with a bunch of other books as my go to 'reconnecting books' for when I need to remind myself of our true human (spiritual) nature. A really entertaining story with some very decent underlying truths about our nature that can be put into practise by anyone willing to.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another translation (they are all in this list). Another book that will be added to my pile of 'reconnecting books' as the last one above. Although I've certainly been one to accept other disciplinary approaches than corporal punishment, I was never 100% convinced that eliminating the use of such punishment was necessarily the best approach. I don't encourage nor practise corporal punishment but felt that the idea of complete elimination of such disciplinary approaches might one day be proven to be incorrect. I've always felt that any new idea (okay it's not
that new) touted in the public sphere as the next best thing since sliced bread ought to be addressed with caution before swallowing it as the hard cold latest absolute truth.
So I began reading the book open-mindedly yet with an eye for propaganda/sales pitch. I do feel that many a book has been written merely to sway public behaviour and orchestrate social engineering, albeit subtly at times. I was pleasantly surprised and pleasantly convinced through the author's presentation of reasoning and research as to why corporal punishment and dictatorial approaches are absolutely not a sound approach to raising children in a most encouraging and peaceful manner.
Of course complete permissiveness is not the answer either, again as discussed in the book. This makes me think that the answer to extreme left wing politics is not the extreme right and vice versa. The I say, you do authoritarian approach is not the answer to raising free thinking wise children, and utter permissiveness creates chaos at the other end of the spectrum.
Of course, it's not a walk in the park raising free thinking, self-reflecting children, but this book lays out some pretty decent strategies and tools more likely to produce success and close relationships with your children as opposed to children who can't wait to escape tyrannical leadership or complete chaos. Children need guided structure, not authoritarianism, nor rule-free best friend parents that unwittingly promote a trail of chaos.
I recommend this book to any parent willing to self reflect on their parenting strategies or remind themselves of the importance of raising children through love and nurturing independent thinking. Ironically much of the authoritarian style parenting reminded me of our state leader - "You will do as I bloody well say!"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finished season 3 of
Dark, a German time-travel series. In series one and two I was blown away by the high quality of the series. I watched it in French dub. Season three was more of the excellent quality and managed to tie things up nicely. I still think I enjoyed the first two series perhaps slightly more despite the very high ratings on imdb.com continuing in third series. I felt the theme got slightly tiring at times trying to work out who was who from which time period and how they tied into the whole time loops, but still bloody awesome all round. Highly recommended.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lost in Space...
Easy watching (French dub again). I watched this when I couldn't bring myself to study or was simply to tired to. Not that keen on the third series in the beginning, but then again quite good when held up against other sci-fi films and series set in outer space - a genre I generally consider to be usually poorly done (perhaps it's just a difficult genre to make decent content in?). This one, although not awesome, held up pretty well against the rest and was generally quite entertaining.