Archive for Tolstoy

The Lost Art of Reading

Posted in Reading with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 4, 2010 by Jarrod Boyle

The Lost Art of Reading

This entry takes its title from Rodney Hall’s keynote address at the 2010 Byron Bay Writer’s Festival. I had hoped to begin with a link to the lecture which I believe the ABC filmed and will eventually upload onto youtube. While googling, I found this interview, which is a really interesting introduction to the man.

http://blog.booktopia.com.au/2010/04/27/feature-rodney-hall-author-of-popeye-never-told-you-answers-ten-terrifying-questions/ Continue reading

Discipline

Posted in Kickboxing, Reading, Writing with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 15, 2010 by Jarrod Boyle

dis·ci·pline //  (d s -pl n)

n.

1. Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, especially training that produces moral or mental improvement.

2. Controlled behavior resulting from disciplinary training; self-control.

3.

a. Control obtained by enforcing compliance or order.

b. A systematic method to obtain obedience: a military discipline.

c. A state of order based on submission to rules and authority: a teacher who demanded discipline in the classroom.

4. Punishment intended to correct or train.

5. A set of rules or methods, as those regulating the practice of a church or monastic order.

6. A branch of knowledge or teaching.

tr.v. dis·ci·plined, dis·ci·plin·ing, dis·ci·plines

1. To train by instruction and practice, especially to teach self-control to.

2. To teach to obey rules or accept authority. See Synonyms at teach.

3. To punish in order to gain control or enforce obedience. See Synonyms at punish.

4. To impose order on: needed to discipline their study habits.

Definition taken from the free online dictionary

(Please ignore the aspects relating to compliance or submitting to authority, because I certainly don’t advocate or believe in that).            

I am endlessly fascinated with the development of skill as the means for undertaking the profound existential journey. Regardless of what it is, almost; whether it’s building a wall as in Solzhenitsyn’s ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’, reaping a harvest as in Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’ or even a seagull obsessed with flying, as in Richard Bach’s ‘Jonathan Livingstone Seagull.’ Continue reading