Posted 8:17 AM by Blah blah

Limits of Human Endurance

Why do I think stories of suffering and cruelty are good for me to read? Because they force me out of my laziness, my spoiled comfort. Because I see how a human being can be stretched to a much further limit than I ever dreamed and still endure. Because they make my daily problems all seem incredibly petty and make me never want to complain about my life again. Because they reveal some of the smoldering anger and unrelenting drive that fuel Nazi survivors, like Intel's Andy Grove and director Roman Polanski, to success. In the end, I bow my head in humility before them, survivors all, and lift it with a new gritty determination.

Some people ask me where I get my ideas. I write about whatever has reached boiling point after cooking in my head that day. And my brain is weird, as you already know. Stay tuned for more on:

1. Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing. Oh my God. If Nazi occupation was an extreme of human cruelty, this book covers Nature's ruthless cruelty to man. Horrifying and riveting. It's about British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton's voyage in 1919 of 28 men on the first attempt by mankind to cross Antarctica by land. How they struggled for life every mile of the journey, completely alone, for years. I've never found a more grueling and chilling true adventure story, filled with determination and leadership against insane odds. Makes TV's Survivor look like a kindergarten lunch break.

2. The Good Women of China, by Xinran Xue. Netneur0 cried when she read this book. For every tale in the book, she can relate it to someone she has known. It tells the true, secret tales of several women in China who endured sexism, abuse, adultery, persecution, and more from their men and Chinese society. Tales that many women in China have undergone but are afraid to speak about in public. Eye-opening and painful.

Time article about this book.

3. Joyce (who wrote me a nice letter)
4. The Pianist, which I recently saw. It gave me the chills. This Roman Polanski film is the most emotionally gripping and horrifying film I have ever seen since Schindler's List. In some ways it's MORE effective than Schindler. The Pianist and its main actor, Adrien Brody, richly deserve Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actor of 2002. No one else comes close. I literally felt that I had just lived through the Nazi Holocaust. At the end of the movie, no one left until they finished playing the music of the last haunting credits. We all watched in stunned silence.

This film is more scary than any horror movie I've ever seen.

The Pianist won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm), the top award at the Cannes Film Festival. A dream deferred: Brody finally gets recognition in 'The Pianist': "the highlight of Adrien Brody's career...would have to be the emotional 20-minute standing ovation The Pianist received from a 3,500-member audience during the film's world premiere a few nights before the Palme d'Or was bestowed."

Watch The Pianist, if you dare. I plan to read the original book by Wladyslaw Szpilman. It's his true story.