my favorite book is a boring read

i remember high school when the "in thing" in class was to sign somebody's autograph book. having somebody ask for you to fill up their AG book was like them saying, "i think you're interesting" or, "just sign it cause we're in the same goddamn class and it'd be mighty impolite if i didn't make you sign it". i signed three AG books in those 4 years so that makes me an unpopular person back in high school. and other than being unpopular, i was normal.

well, yes! as surprising as it may come i was a normal person. and i did what normal people do. i read books. and because you read books you have to sign that line that says - favorite book. along with: favorite color, favorite food, favorite movie and all those other favorites including the all important question, "who is your crush?"....with which i would often sign in....SECRET

don't laugh! go through your AG book and you would see that probably half of your classmates wrote there SECRET or some made-up name....like GOOGLYBEAR.

so what did i fill up as my favorite book? uhmm...probably then it was Basics of Chemistry or Advanced Trigonometry. hah! yes! back then i was a nerd and don't go teasing me around about it.

but then, make me sign another AG book and i'd probably write two. and as how all favorite books go, such reads are those that would have had the most influence on your personal growth. as it happens, those two books happen to be boring reads. by boring, i would mean lengthy narrative boring. but despite this, those two books have been critical to shaping how i see life in all it's desplendor.

so let me kill the suspense and just tell you what they happen to be. the first one, would be jostein gaarder's or gaardner's "sophie's world". whatever the real name of the author is doesn't matter, so don't make me research it. i didn't blog here to write about my favorite author but instead about my favorite book. okay? so what's so great about sophie's world. it's just a thick read full of philosophical bullshit! well. that's it really! it's the philosophical BS. it's out there. it's about existentialism and all that "are we for real?" crap.

the other book happens to be the one i like better. it's oscar wilde's "the picture of dorian grey". it's classical and it's old. few people have read it. unless of course they were forced to read it in high school literature class.

the great thing about the DG book is that it's an interesting take on my favorite sin, "vanity". in fact this said book was the inspiration for me to write my first ever blog. at that point i was being intellectually vain.

but it is not really just a take on vanity, it's a question into the morality of man. when is it that we are truly moral. is it when we conform to the mandates of society or is it when we do as we feel and think? if it were the latter then to be moral is to sin. and if we are to talk about sin then none are graver than the 7 Capitals. Pride, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy, Sloth and that other A which i keep forgetting, Avarice. and if i reflect on my life i'd say i've done every bit of those. (so god help me but i think i've reserved myself a spot in hell!)

and when i think about the Capitals all that comes to mind as an excuse is that, "that's what i wanted." because at some point in our lives we want something. it may differ from person to person. we may want recognition, sex, war, food, what others have, the absence of responsibilities, or just plain wanting. in a sense we may sometimes be moved to what we desire. and often what we desire above all else is in turn to be wanted. and by who? my recollections of high school lead me to one conclusion.....that it must be SECRET.