Writing this blog is subtly altering my process of reading. Where I might have put the book down and left it to read something else for a while, I am reading everyday. And when I do read I try to read a chunk that will facilitate some kind of rounded writing for the blog. The fact of writing about the reading makes me read more critically and more constructively stops me rushing though too much too quickly. I read a short chapter last night - Zionstrasse - and am starting to read with a little bit of envy as well as interest How convenient to be the scion of such a hugely wealthy and influential family, and inherit not only money, but art. No wonder he has the time to wander about Paris and Vienna, no wonder he was able to be a potter. However these thoughts, while they flit through my mind at odd times ( a cliched description seems apt for a cliched resentment) are just dismissible trash. It is possible to spend one's entire life enviously looking at others who have more, and slightly more satisfyingly looking at those who have a little less, and then guiltily at those who virtually nothing. Of course we know this isn't they way to live any life, but it i surprising how much time my thoughts run up and down this little comparative continuum comparing him or her with me, him with her and him. Comparisons, comparisons, fitting ourselves into the world.
The end result is that we tend to gravitate to those who are on a similar rung - or at least one of the same ladders. Partly by accident of place - if you can afford to live in this area, you'll have neighbors of a certain ilk. Partly by job and progress - you mix with your work peers perhaps. Partly by birth and where you came from. But somehow it seems to work that you choose to stay in contact with the people who you perceive to be at a similar level. Nothing new or exciting about that. Exactly. I probably have a bigger span of acquaintance than most, and it's sometimes its as uncomfortable spending time with someone who is hopelessly less well off than you as it is someone who is hopelessly richer or more successful. The singular thing that saves all this from a kind of same old same determinism is that sometimes you just connect with someone across all these gaps, and it works. Or it doesn't, because that spark isn't there. And then there are the "same level" people as you who you keep in touch with out of comfort and habit ( as well as the ones with the spark).
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