It's rare for a man of 38 whose been in Asia for more than 10 years to find something wholly new to do on a Saturday night, but yesterday I did, working through to 4am on some proofreading with nothing more than soda water and lemon to keep me going. It was good to let go of the pressure to have fun and instead get lost in the flow of getting the job done. It opens up today, and hopefully will act as a reference for the next two weekends until Yuki comes back.
Mishima and the orderly life.
The stack of books for the summer, which will mostly have to wait until after I move part time, contains Rousseau's The Reveries of a Solitary Walker, and it seems to be very good, although it probably helps if you're in a solitary mood at the time. Fortunately, solitude is my default state. Early on is this passage, which gets my idea of what I want this blog to eventually mean to me:
If in my later days as the moment of departure approaches, I continue - as I hope - to have the same disposition as I have now, reading [these essays] will recall the delight I enjoy in writing them and causing the past to be born again for me will, so to speak, double my existence. In spite of mankind [Note: at this point in his life J-J R felt totally abandoned by the world], I will still be able to enjoy the charm of society; and decrepit, I will live with myself in another age as if I were living with a younger friend.p7
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