From another’s point of view

According to Mark by Penelope Lively

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this book up a couple of months ago from a British Library clearance sale. It looked like a promising read right from the start. Until the end, you really don’t know what will really happen. Since I just got back from tripping over France it had a special connection.

The story is about a biographer Mark and his journey of gathering facts, lies and silences on his muse. Saying anything more would land up just ruining the book. It has twists and turns while being so straightforward. At the end, you land up empathising, with both Mark and his muse. You understand their actions and why they did act in a certain way.

A good holiday read, According to Mark, can’t be dismissed as frivolous, but a light read for sure.

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Leaf by Niggle – A must read

Leaf by Niggle by J.R.R. Tolkien

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you have read the Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit and think that is Tolkien at his best. Think again.

The simplicity with which this short story is written is just delightful! You wouldn’t know what to take out of this surreal story till you don’t read the Afterword by Tom Shippey where he interprets this story as an allegory as to what was happening in Tolkien’s life with the Middle Earth Saga.

There’s a beautiful line in the story, where two people are talking and one almost feels sorry for the main protaginist– Niggle – mentioning “Oh! poor little Niggle! Never knew he painted.” This one line sums up man’s self doubt, need for recognition and confidence that he is good at what he is does whether it’s distraction or what he does for a living.

Around 64 pages long it’s a perfect metro read. Block yourself from the outside world and enter Tolkien’s Perilous Realm once again.

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So, I’ve been thinking…

In the past few months I’ve written some five blog posts, edited many others, written press releases, designed more often than not, worked with a team whose attitude is greater than their capability and have been challenged at every step about my own capability and patience to take inefficiencies.

Well, when you work for someone else you need to be able to take crap and yes, huge amount of sub-standard sh*t which you would have simply throw out earlier. It’s been difficult after five years of working on your terms that you need to depend on others. After five years of being in control, you need to look at others to have some semblance of the situation.

Internally, it’s been a huge learning experience. Anger management, language management, attitude management and whole host of other things that come with working with all kinds of people. Guess, it has to do a lot with the next stage in life as well…

So, here are three things I want entrepreneurs to consider before deciding to take on something else:

• If you decide to take something else for some extra dough cause your life stage demands it, reconsider.
  Work harder at what you are doing and think twice whether the mental exertion will be worth it
• Evaluate what is more important. Freedom to choose the work you want to do or again, the extra dough
• Reason and check your personality type. See what kind of a boss are you – kind and motivating or a one man show – A one man show is good when working for yourself, in a company with ‘processes’ you get agitated with bureaucratic delay

Hope this helps in making you in making your decision. Me? I’m still evolving.