Welcome to this week’s 5BF: a satirical novella that brings
together the past and present, on having ‘Meh’ days in a row and adjusting, a
three-hour long war movie, and more…
1 – what I read
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli – told in two parts where the
past connects to the future, Shibli’s novella takes us into the conflicted regions
of Israel and Palestine with incredible detail and vividness. Reading the news
could’ve never made understand the conflict in this region as much as short
book did.
2 – what I watched
Apocalypse Now (1979) – an US army caption who now cannot
find meaning outside war is sent on a mission to find and kill another US army sergeant
gone rogue. A three-hour long movie in which we come across almost every aspect
of war: its meaningless, the heavy and unnecessary loss of innocent lives, the
stupidity of it, and rather weirdly, its addictiveness nature to soldiers. A
popular yet weird and slow-paced movie that will leave you with confused questions.
3 – On comfortlessness and learning to live with one’s unease
Due to changing phones and not having an updated backup, I
lost my streak at Daylio, a mood tracking app’. But because I was so hooked to
this app and nightly entry about my day, I installed it again. It is an objective,
statistically factual, and corrective measure of how one’s life is going,
contrary to how one feels. You might feel like shit one day but it doesn’t mean
your life is shit; this reminds you that. However, in the past week, I had five
‘Meh’ days in a row, which lies in the middle between good and rad on the right
and bad and worst on the left. Meh means fine for me, an okay day, uneventful,
but something to be happy about either. I either have dull days, meh, or have a
mixture of good and bad things happening to me during a day which as they neutralize
each other also makes for a ‘meh’ day. This got me thinking: what if life
becomes uncomfortable, what if you do not have a comfort zone, what if
happiness becomes distant? Can one live such a life where every other day is as
dull or even worse? We probably do not need adjustment to live that in constant
flux, where one day is awful and the next really great; but a monotonously
linear graph of ‘meh’ days does need some adjustment. It requires one to accept
this monotony and learn to live with without thinking about what may happen in
future. Live and not just wait to pass. Live. Accept.
4 – the hunter and the bear: a joke
While watching season four of the Netflix series ‘The Crown’,
there came a scene where Prince Charles is telling a joke to a guest crowd
about a hunter and a bear. It gave me a good laugh and can be used in the
gathering of friends to cheer everyone up. The joke goes like this:
A hunter sees a big bear in a jungle one day and immediately
pulls out his gun, aims, and fires. The bear is gone in the next moment; hunter
thinks he has got it.
Then he feels a tap on his shoulder, the bear is standing
right behind him. He says to the hunter: either I eat you violently or you pull
down your pants and let me have my way with you. Hunter pulls his paints down
and the bear has his way with him.
The next day hunter brings a bigger gun, a shotgun. He finds
the bear and shoots again. The bear is gone. He thinks ‘huh! Got him!’. Then,
he a tap on his shoulder. The bear standing behind him says, ‘you know what to
do’.
The next day, hunter brings an even bigger gun, a bazooka. Finds
the bear and fires, being almost sure that he has got the bear this time. But
again, a tap on his shoulder from behind and the bear says, ‘I don’t think you
come for hunting here anymore’. Ha ha ha…
5 – this week’s quote
‘Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love
represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.’ – Anton
Chekov