Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake: A Novel. New York: Anchor, 2004.

Finished: 2015-04-28

The thing to remember about being vulnerable is that it’s not just a theoretical openness. It’s a willingness to step out and actually be wounded. If you commit to being vulnerable, wounds will happen, and in fact at times the source of those wounds will be the most wounding part of all. Not everyone has patience for a little blood and gore, not even within your own tribe.

Solstad, Dag. Shyness and Dignity: A Novel. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf, 2006.

Finished: 2015-04-24

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor, 1995.

Finished: 2015-04-21

Gospodinov, Georgi, and Zornitsa Hristova. Natural Novel. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 2005.

Finished: 2015-04-17

Krasznahorkai, László, and George Szirtes. War and War. New York: New Directions, 2006.

Finished: 2015-04-16

Murthy, U. R., and A. K. Ramanujan. Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man. Pbk. ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1989.

Finished: 2015-04-12

Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.

Finished: 2015-04-12

Parnashavari, the Forest Goddess with three faces and six hands, wears a skirt and a garland of thatched green leaves.

I tried the mental exercise of projecting the dismissive contempt I have for sports onto the things that I value (literature, music, philosophy, visual arts). I imagined strongly believing them to be pointless preoccupations riddled with unsavory ideologies of power and consumption. The process shed helpful light on the variations of personal passions as well as their underlying lack of specialness and ultimately helped me reframe the notion of “being interested in something.”