Augusto... Playing on the World's Stage

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Human heartbeat

Every human heartbeat is a universe of possibilities [...] I'd always thought that fate was something unchangeable: fixed for every one of us at birth, and as constant as the circuit of the stars. But I suddenly realized that life is stranger and more beautiful than that. The truth is that, no matter what kind of game you find yourself in, no matter how good or bad the luck, you can change your life completely with a single thought or a single act of love.

The quote above, beside reflecting one of my biggest belief, is from a great book I recently finished to read. "Shantaram" is an incredibel truth story (even though classified as fiction, probably due to some forcing... so called artist license) about an Australian guy escaping a sicurity prison and ending up in Mumbai, India to re-discover himself with the pain of a lost past and uncertain future, but above all a present made of an overwhemling culture and surrouding. Shantaram is a bit Godfather (knowing how popular is Puzo's masterpiece in India, I'm sure the author has been influeced by it!) and a bit of a philosophical collection of thoughts that eventually deal with what everyone faces in life.

Being in Australia and ranking India on top of my best life experience might have given a recent sweet taste to my reading of this book, but I believe everyone would find it exceptional. Check out the
Shantaram website, unfortunatly not much update lately, managed by the author Gregory David Roberts.

What I loved the most is probably the very first page of the book... below however are the first last line which you might skip if you've already decided to give the book a try... Enjoy!

For this it what we do. Put on foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another passionate search for a truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forvige us. We live on.

The new book I'm reading seems very promising as well: "A prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving... however I only read 50 pages so far. I bought it a few months ago at a garage sale I passed by and just this morning found two tickets for some public transportation means marked in UK pounds, (60 cents) and date 1991. Eventually I noticed the book has an handwritten name on top of the introcution page... it says: Brett Garrston, July 1990 - Birmingham... now I may have met Brett at that garage sale or maybe the book passed through so many hands... I definitely don't know, but I wonder how many human hearbeats brought it to me!

Sunday, September 10, 2006

I'll write the title here tomorrow

Why procrastinate today when I can procrastinate tomorrow?!

And so I have been willing to update my blog for many weeks now... and now I'm here trying to come up with something smart or just vaguely interesting to write... it's going to be short post!!

I caught the Sydney's trainee disease called PR... applying for Permanent Residence seems to be the next big step of my life: working and studying in Sydney is what I'm likely to be busy with for the next few years... assuming of course that the long process of getting the PR would eventually work out: it takes time and probably I'll be back to Europe, or anyway away from Australia for a few months starting from Feb...

Does it sound confusing?! Welcome to my world!! With the result that I feel I'm procrastinating many things... for example, take the... ahh, anyway...

Time to go and rock... puff, what a life...