Can we design access to good literature?

All right, I don't just want to complain about the state of fiction and non-fiction literature, but find a solution. Can there be a system of making suggestions for literature of the meaningful kind? For those who might be wondering if I am looking for a favorite novel, then no. I am looking for titles on development sector and N.G.O. management, and titles on the practice of traditional art.

I've found that some of the most awesome books are only available as photostats in the market, while trash is selling in the name of good fiction and non-fiction in leading bookstores.

SELECTING BOOKS THAT WILL TRULY CREATE PERSONAL IMPACT
My tip: realize that most writers never even touch the world of their subject matter. Stay away from the theorist writer, find experiential writers: people who have actively dabbled, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially in what they have written about.

Words of such persons change us in fundamental and profound ways. The rest is all commentary that anyone with access to Google can find or make.

GETTING BOOKS WE LOVE. HOW?
Back on track: Liberty Books informed me they need at least 70 confirmed orders/ expected demand projection for a book to order it if it's not on their list. And I have been getting regularly frustrated that some of the most amazing books are never stocked by Liberty. (I do prize my ability to recommend very good literature on a variety of subjects.)

Can we devise a way to rally for the truly good books on matters close to our heart? How can we bulk-order the books we love? On the aside, it would be interesting anyway to have a group of people whose literary taste is un-quenched in the land of the pure - and who make Amazon their shrine, often to end up in cold sighs.

I am clueless on the subject and the logistics. Help!

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Literature: Opium for the psuedo-intellectual mind

All right, I despise this term "pseudo-intellectual" because it's often applied freely by those of low intellect who want to escape the responsibility of thinking by labeling the thinkers with all sorts of titles, but... I am going to use it.

What's up with this Liberty Books storing the kind of literature that is fodder for the pseudo-intellectual brain? I respect knowledge, but I no longer respect a kind of coffee-table, cafe-something knowledge that leads to endless chatters peppered with irrelevant literary references.

THE LURE OF OBSCURE
It was interesting for a little while when I was in the teens - to feel empowered by quoting the obscure and far-fetched. But it's no longer fun. No just because I am a practical adult, but because that's just not relevant to our world anymore. Who wants to know what you've read? Honestly, even the paindoos are laughing inside - nay, on the face. What we'd want to know is, do you have access to literature that has made you a better person, and made you able to talk to me, not at me?

Besides, I do have a personal preference for practical and experiential things. If only for fun.

I don't the best books that I am looking for in the top bookstores. The latest activity is often in the section of the latest hot-cake fiction. The non-fiction, I have realized, is primarily being written by the clueless who have gained authority by way of their access to sophisticated sounding, irrelevant knowledge. All right, this part of my rant is generalizing, but I won't steer back on course without reminding that "relevance" - to one's people, times, culture, and life - is one of the most critical characteristic of anything that enriches us or becomes part of our life. Be that a spouse, a product, or a book.

So. Let's steer back from the general world of publishing to non-discerning readers to BOOKS. More specifically, non-fiction literature available in Pakistan.

RELEVANT LITERATURE! NOW!
I want to see and read more practical, relevant literature that adds meaningful value to my life, enabling me to pass the same on to those around me. I don't care about the Russian slang of Clockwork Orange, about which Jugnoo the AAG TV VJ was recently enlightening the audience. Honestly!

In bookstores, there are terribly beautiful novels about "a profound sense of loss," and "shock and denial," and endless books about what turned Muslims intro terrorists and how America should fight back or get out and what Bush's got to do with it - but very books that truly enrich lives and lead one to meaningful action. Speaking more practically, most books I see are of the type that are just a better alternative to staring at the idiot box. What most of the selected literature in the bookstores does is to borrow our minds for a while, give them a tour of fantasy land or dip them in a quagmire of terrible thoughts, and return them to their place.

Yes, I know not all literature is like this. But speaking from the results end, it's hard to find many people whose lives have changed for the positive better (not the cynically educated) by reading the kind of literature we have access to.

More practically, I have not found some of the most profound books I have been looking for on the bookshelves of Liberty Books (and nowhere in their e-store) which makes this rant slightly personal, but still insightful on what I think is truly the state of literary taste...

My Name is Red: novel for the Renaissance Soul - 4

My nomination for the Wednesday blogwordoftheday # 19: Red.

Continued from Part 1 & Part 2 & Part 3

....
MY NAME IS RED

Now we know the premise of the ____________ that I am creating.

I found myself a little worried yesterday and frustrated today after I spoke with the artist's rep and Tazeen, respectively. I assured Tazeen that somewhere, somehow, many more people have thought of the same idea and are working on it. But we are not well-known nor are we connected.

I also told Tazeen that though un-named, un-nicked with a popular word... this concept is a living trend. It is living, and it is growing in this very 21st century world. I believe in this concept, whatever its name will be.

But I have just synthesised my life's long learning recently, and I was terribly alone - I knew few people in the modern world who have thought on this line. And even fewer in the Muslim world. (Oh by the way, another time I will tell that Muslims were the pioneers of the Renaissance, and that the ancients and the European Renaissance just fell short of the Great Synesthesia that Muslims would ultimately have moved towards if not for the eradication of knowledge from the Muslim world?)

And then tonight, while checking the Amazon Bestseller Books rank for In the Line of Fire, I found My Name is Red : an intellectual mystery novel about a Muslim miniaturist's murder. Written by Orhan Pamuk, and riding the bestseller wave as Pamuk just became the 2006 Nobel Laureate in Literature. Orhan's Nobel win confirms my thesis that persons with this line of thought represent a strong though non-popular trend in contemporary human thought. And that it is reason enough, if passion & belief alone were not, for me to create [the gallery].

I haven't read the book, of course, but overviews & my instinct tells me I have found a twin soul... there is no co-incidence this co-incidental. I can't begin to tell in how many ways this is just the book that answers my many, many questions!



Post-script thoughts:
"Islamic Renaissance Art"... "Global Renaissance Art"... great words to capture this concept, but sadly over-used in all the wrong contexts. ??????? Hmmmm.




------------------------
Similar earlier thoughts:
Will Robert Langdons of Linguistics Save the World?
"Whole World Thinking" - the Third Way
Divine Beauty



Concluded.

My Name is Red: novel for the Renaissance Soul - 3

My nomination for the Wednesday blogwordoftheday # 19: Red.

Continued from Part 1 & Part 2


BEYOND ART & SCIENCE - AND...
In my view, a true renaissance soul is one that is beyond art and science, or for that matter, any common conflict. It is the soul that has learnt to embrace the many without prejudice or question. That is why, such souls not just have multiple talents, but little resistance to any new hobby or learning that comes their way.

In our boxed-education-ridden human society, we often call these people "unfocused." By God, it is our gift to be not focused on any one thing! We are like museums and encyclopedias - timeless and spacefree. We embrace everyone and everything... we sacrifice a single identity, to find many!

And so I am creating this __________ for [Islamic-human Arte-Scienza/IHAS]. These species need names.

ISLAMIC-HUMAN ARTE-SCIENZA
IHAS's idea is: differences between east and west and north and south are meaningless. True knowledge and art and science are those that realize that the four fingers and the one thumb are sticking out of One Hand. Humanity has a common source of knowledge - even though all humans see that through their own lens. The human "arte-scienza" is an aesthetic approach to real (vs. fantasy) knowledge that embraces all humanity. In other words, the real human knowledge presented artistically.

This is not the idea of a lone nut. We have heard just these ideas, by many other names: The Da Vinci Code was all about knowledge of the world (scientific, mathematical, truly renaissance) hidden in/ represented by art. Only, the novel had a Christian context.

Enter Islamic-human Arte-Scienza.

The European Renaissance is the only time in modern history to which this synesthesia is attributed. Actually, the ancients have always been aware of this concept - and their learning is now surviving in Pagan and Shamanic faiths. Don't judge yet... I don't advocate paganism. I only say that a pagan sees the same Fibonacci sequence in a sunflower petal arrangement that a Muslim or a Christian or an atheist does. Therefore, there is really no grand behind-the-scenes-conspiracy in the symbols that were so masterfully described in The Da Vinci Code.

There is nothing shocking about the fact that the blade & the chalice are actually rather prevalent symbols. In fact, the dome & the minarets of the masjids also are blade and chalice! What is shocking is that humans are blind to what is right in front of our eyes!

Darlings, a circle is a circle... and we may find it in a flower, or the dome of a mosque. Big wonder?

Now: Islam. A monotheist religion. To skip a very possible second essay, here's the summary: at least the prevalence of similar symbols must indicate to One God? Or whatever you want to call it, but a Common Design behind it all?

This Common Design is above (picture it ABOVE/ ATOP right now) and it is beyond (picture it BEYOND/DISTANT) all cultures and times and spaces. It is above and beyond only Science and only Art. It is above and beyond only Yin or only Yang. It is above and beyond only East or only West. All our existence and consciousness and creativity is contained in this One Design. And no artist or scientist or renaissance soul ever created anything ex nihilo.



------------------------
Similar earlier thoughts:
Will Robert Langdons of Linguistics Save the World?
"Whole World Thinking" - the Third Way
Divine Beauty



Continued in Part 4...
Next: My Name is Red

My Name is Red: novel for the Renaissance Soul - 2

My nomination for the Wednesday blogwordoftheday # 19: Red.

Continued from Part 1


THE RENAISSANCE SOUL
All my life, I have believed that humans and human minds and hearts have a tremendous undiscovered potential. I believe there is a vast reservoir of knowledge out there, and that our hearts and minds have as deep and wide an access to it as we wish. I believe that in this world, as always, we need people with a generalist knowledge - the wise Oracle of yore, the know-it-all of today. In fact, there is a name in the world of knowledge for just such a person: the renaissance man. Or in contemporary, more gender-friendly terms: the renaissance soul.

This specie is quite different form another one that we commonly encounter: the... the "person" with an opinion on everything, just because they have heard something about everything, and if they have not, it still does not matter. Yes, we know who this type is, and sometimes they are literate and equipped with the latest quotes and facts & figures which baffle a normal person. You know they are just parroting away at your mind, but you can't block them out with as many facts.

But these are not renaissance souls. The quick & dirty test is: is, in any field of their life, the experience of that knowledge evident?

We will leave this specie here and move on to the Renaissance Soul. There is a growing number of literature and research that is now advocating the "rise" of the creative, the right-brained, the artistic soul. Because of the elitist and erudite nature of art, it is easy to once again believe that artists have renaissance souls. Possibly, but not automatically.



------------------------
Similar earlier thoughts:
Will Robert Langdons of Linguistics Save the World?
"Whole World Thinking" - the Third Way
Divine Beauty



Continued in Part 3...
Next: Beyond Art & Science - And...