Notes to Myself: Facades

Notes to Myself: Facades

Sometimes mankind has to ask the question ‘what is it that makes up the actions and determines the type of interaction that we display when around other people?' Notes to Myself is the contemporary world's way of questioning the value of putting on facades. The novel also questions things we know as ‘ trivial' such as watching a cat sleep on our belly or staring at clouds in the sky. The author used an interesting form for writing his collection, omitting page numbers and leaving no indication as to what subject the reader should expect to be encountering upon reading sections. His views are interesting to say the least. Focusing on self meditation and self reliance, he proceeds to describe human interaction and what he really is thinking when exposed to different situations. For instance, he describes a conversation with a young lady in which she wanted to ‘just be friends' while he being ‘male' can do nothing about the fact that he may be sexually aroused by her whether they were ‘just friends' or not. This type of unconventional expression of human emotion is the color of all of the selections. The author does not wish to conceal feeling nor put on different faces in different situations but be himself and be happy being himself at all times. Interesting stands on happiness are also expressed. Boredom is vaguely related to happiness by the rationalization that one can be happy simply by picking lint off of the floor. While his thoughts are genuine, one can almost comprehend the randomness of human thought. There is a wrinkled cellophane wrapper on my desk and it reflects my image just as water does. Randomness is definitely one of this books strong points. (That random sentence beforehand was a personal example of the wandering mind). This is the type of book that you would not want to read between commercials but one that warrants a good hour and a half (at least) of quiet and thoughtful reading. This is not a book with a plot. There is only one main character and that main character is the embodiment of the philosophy of ‘ me myself and I'. If you like books that exemplify the importance of the individual, you will definitely like this attempt to show how mankind should be. Or rather, it shows the true nature of human beings (selfishness).