O Mundo de Claudia:

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December 11, 2006

I was thinking how I was such an avid reader as a teenager partly because I wanted to know so many things and books seemed to be the best source for instruction for whatever I didn't know yet, intellectually or emotionally. In part all this reading was helpful, in other ways I suppose I got some prejudices on matters I didn't have enough real experience to have an opinion on. Yes, I was - and I still am - an impatient person. And one of my favourite quotes is still Einstein's "There's nothing as practical as a good theory". Or something like that.

The best part of getting older, book wise, is rereading. If you're fairly smart, you'll understand the book on a first read. For instance, I read "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" when I was 17 and thought it was brilliant. I read it again 12 years later. As I finished it, closed it and laid it on the bed of a hotel room in a distant country that smelled of musk & sea & dirt, I put my hand on my forehand and realized how naive I had been. I imagined Milan Kundera, somewhere in France, in a control room filled with TV sets from floor to ceiling, monitoring his readers reactions, spying on me and going: "Ha! Silly girl! Did you think you could grasp the meaning of my book the first time you read it without having been through love & jealousy & desire & heartbreak?"

I wonder what will it tell me if I reread it 10 years from now?

Posted by claudia

Comments

Naiveté is an evil word thrown at, cursed at a certain view at a certain time with a certain mindset. I believe it to be evil because its demeaning and dismissive of a thought, feeling or opinion that is unique in its context. It implies an error in judgement. One cannot be naive i think, because there's no such thing as an error of judgement. Don't mean to sound too relativistic.... But most importantly, "naiveté" is a damaging word, it invites ignorance by relegating to insignificance bits of opinion and thought. Its pernicious. Its a smearing campaign promoted by oneself. It contaminates your thoughts, it corrupts your files, it renders unrecoverable important pieces of data. It brings forward ideas of naive "savages", naive love affairs, naive ideals, naive expectations, naive ambitions, and naive dreams. I hate it. There i said it. I can move on.

Posted by Filipe Ling at December 13, 2006 02:45 PM

i had imagined you looking more like louise brooks

Posted by tristan at December 14, 2006 05:36 PM

Ahem. That's a painting by Roussell. :) Filipe: I love the word Naive! I don't find it dismissive or demeaning. It's just what happens when you have incomplete information and you don't realize it. And you have incomplete information because you aren't wicked or doubtful enough or don't have the experience to know where to look for it.

Posted by claudia at December 14, 2006 08:32 PM