Finished reading

 

Finally done reading four titles today.  All four books started weeks, maybe full months, before. All became part of this stack of more than fifteen books (on this round, black, side table beside the gray, now dirty couch) that were simultaneously being read (or rather, one after the other, round robin style) on certain days and times during the week. Sometimes quite early in the morning, if the dog is still asleep; or at night, if there is still some energy remaining after a day of grinding knowledge work in front of the laptop; on weekends, especially Saturdays which have been meticulously observed as a kind of sabbath - no work of any kind, just reading and black coffee; punctuated or interspersed only with preparing meals, washing clothes, watching old films, working out (with the two 15-pound black dumbbells), simply checking messages (from the girls, or Legazpi) and posts on this social media platform, or scanning articles in my phone's browser.

Frank Herbert's Chapterhouse: Dune was finished first.  The final book in Herbert's hexalogy or sextet (had to look online for these terms), this novel happened thousands of years after the setting of the first book Dune which revolved around the character of Paul Atreides and how he ascended to the position of emperor of the known universe after his noble family lost their fiefdom in the desert planet of Arrakis following the death of his father Duke Leto Atreides in the hands of the Harkonnens and the emperor's Sardaukar warriors. In Chapterhouse, the story shifts to the deadly power struggle between the Bene Gesserits, an ancient order of women with extraordinary abilities (like controlling other people's actions through the power of voice, rendering poisons useless by controlling every cell in their bodies, those quick bursts of superhuman speed during combat, and being able to transfer and access past memories of their long dead sisters called Reverend Mothers), and the Honored Matres, a more aggressive version of the Bene Gesserits.

Then came Kerouac's On the Road and Abbey's Postcards from Ed.  Started reading both months ago, and was quite surprised to see yesterday (or today) that bookmarks (old calling cards) were left almost at the end of the two titles.  So honed the mind this morning to try and finish both.  Really poignant endings.  The Dean Moriarty character in Kerouac's On the Road was mysteriously incoherent (almost felt like he had a stroke or was suffering from some early signs of dementia or Alzheimer's) and seemed like a mere husk of the quintessential macho male that led this life of wild abandon and swept away all other beings in his path all throughout the novel.  One of Abbey's last few letters was to John Nichols (author of the Milagro Beanfield War trilogy - which also needs to be read one of these days), talking about being ill (under some kind of Damocles sword) though still quite hopeful to finish writing a few more books he had in mind.

Finally, there was Cal Newport's A World Without Email which outlined all these strategies in managing work flows more efficiently, minimizing distractions, and freeing up more time during the day for deep and specialized knowledge work.  As Zizek would perhaps describe it: how to optimize all the available information and communication technology to finally squeeze out more brain juice and finally achieve that spectacular boost in productivity from today's office-based workers. What would probably be the old capitalist system's latest and most groundbreaking innovation, comparable only to Ford's invention of the famous assembly line. Tried applying his idea of the project or work flow board to the team's tasks, by setting up one on this platform called Miro. But retained my old To Do lists in Excel, with all its pie charts and tables to track completion of tasks that are due for the day, that are high priority ones, and that had to do with personal well-being (shouldn't forget that work-life balance thing).  After about two weeks of using the tools, had this peculiar sense of being able to accomplish more.  Though have yet to see the time spent on checking emails, responding to urgent ones, and archiving read messages actually going down.