a waste of time

"Stranger, If you passing meet me and desire to talk to me,
Why should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?"

I was supposed to read my Econs notes in the library. But after a few minutes' interaction with price elasticity of demand and monopolies, I was sick of it and found it extremely unflattering. So I turned to the well-packed bookshelves, after all, what on them are the end of the existence of library itself, the air-con, the carpetted floor, the confy sofa are just the means to the end, maybe, I wondered.

After ten minutes, I set myself in the sofa, with my "welcoming" Econs notes beside my feet and four books in my hand.

I opened the first one. It was named "Is this the end to Harry Potter?" Judge me, but believe it or not, Harry Potter was and will be my favourite collection and first English book that I have ever read. The book was cute, but not smart. The author was definitely a hardcore HP fan as me. But the difference between us is that I would not write a book with a 13-page chapter dedicated to interpret the meaning behind each character's name in the Harry Potter series.

The second book was "The beauty of infinity" or something like that. It was a book about math published by oxford. I remembered seeing the name on the Cambridge Mathematics Department's reading list. I was actually supposed to have read it before my interview, but no harm read it now as well. I only got to one third of the first chapter before I threw it onto the floor, joining my lonely Econs notes. It was rather a history book. Here is a summary of that 20+ pages that I read: the introduction of zero into number was a pure coincident when people invented 10, a double digit number that 1 larger that 9; since 0 can exist here, then there must be a number 0, and it should denote emptiness; when one divides something by 0, one gets infinity. Then the whole bunch of intricate theorems comes out, GOSH!

The quote at the start of the post comes from the third book I read. Though I could not remember the name of the book, it was something like "How to read a poem". Anyway, I always think that a deliberate effort to interpret a poem is like using a brush to paint over a great art piece. All you are doing is just adding what you think that the author must be thinking into the poem. Ruin! The book further acknowledged my stand by using long prose and reckless attempts to "explain" poems to laymen like me. In vein, the author of the book only did one thing well, to provide the original poem before she butchers them with her "fabulous" vocabularies.

I could not get to the fourth book as I realized how much time I had spent on reading these "junk" 2 days before the most important examination so far in my life. So I put Shakespeare's "Hamlet" together with the other three books on the floor and picked up my beloved Econs notes and rejoined those oligopolistic firms in judging themselves of exploiting the society and causing inequality by means of excessive non-price competition and potential collusion.

Now I realized that I have once again wasted my time writing this post instead of nourishing my brain with the fruits of Adam Smith, J. M. Keynes and Milton Friedman. Before I end, just want to share a poem that I loved in that third book I mentioned. Pay attention to the last few lines, don't try to interpret, feel it.

"The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow,
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow,
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me,
I will not, cannot go."

All the best every one! Cheers!