Completely taken aback, heard today that Felix had a stroke. Unsure of
the details, flying back to Joburg now to visit him and meet w Intdev.
Unexplainable.

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Just finished Laurence Shorter's The Optimist, yay. A fun refreshing book about diffent views on life, the future, our moulded and influenced views, and the purpose of it all. The read was fun in that it was a recital of the author, a living full-bodied character, living throught a rollercoaster of experiances in his search for the true definition of optimism. In part, the book touched on valid own personal experiences that gave it depth and texture. He tried to explain the motivations behind the JBF (junp-out-of-bed factor), the Bhuddist equivalent of detachment, self-positivity biases (which Felix himself has studied closely), even the release from everything familiar; only to find that it is him who is not changing!! I take home two important lessons from this book: do what you want to do i..e. have your own mission and goals, and working toward these will keep you optimistic about reaching then; the second being the lesson about being confident and trusting without deeply caring. Through this is a paradox and itself a catch-22 (as we must care to be confident and trusting), I think it is more the perception by others that matters more than my opinion of the situation. Therefore, I see these two going hand-in-hand in that I'll need to reestablish my own goals (near and long term), focus on achieving those with conviction with less regard to others (in part even my own) opinion during the process. Perhaps slightly ignorant but, as they say, naiivity is bliss))

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well, while mufin player is really cool, it can not simulate the soothing sounds of birdsong.... and then i was completely moved by the girl effect.