I've been spending a lot of time reading over the past few days. I've managed to acquire the NLB's only copy of Fitzpatrick's War, and obtained World War Z through devious means. A friend asked me if Fitz's War was science fiction, and I was kind of struck dumb. It's strictly not, but I'll spare you geeky hair-splitting. I just read weird non-literary books.

A grand yarn generally requires heroes. On some extent, we all venerate heroism, because it doesn't seem to come easily, and some love being heroes. I used to like wondering how I'd behave if the balloon goes up in one way or another. In times of emergency, what would I do? World War Z covers a worldwide zombie outbreak through fictitious UN interviews with survivors, and the anecdotes within got me thinking. I'll spare you the examples, but I admit my mind wandered off into considering what I might do in such crazy situations.

Well, it doesn't matter. Perhaps I might have acted with valour, perhaps I might have not. It doesn't matter how I might have acted in artificial situations: what matters equally is the here and now. If those situations do come, I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Personality is forged and understood in moments of pressure, but is also shown every day.

Right, that's enough talk. I'm tired, and I need to be ready and plan for something important.

The sheer mental clarity that some people I know can show on demand is just stunning.

On a side note, MBTI is a fascinating and useful device!

It's a bit strange. For most of the day I've had a strange impulse to type a reflective blog post, but I can't seem to find the words right now. Well never mind then.

I spent the afternoon reading a collection of James Bond short stories, which was rather a fun experience. I do see the appeal of the Bond character now. Still, I got a little annoyed by Fleming's name-dropping: yes, SHAPE, COMSTRIKFLTLANT, SACLANT and SACEUR are all very period acronyms, and I do know what they stand for, but it's a bit contrived for Fleming to artificially mention them all in just two pages just to create a Cold War atmosphere. The last three acronyms all appeared in one sentence, unbelievably enough. Well, perhaps its part of the appeal.

"I don't believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be." - Ken Venturi

"Understanding is a two-way street." - Eleanor Roosevelt

It requires not a bit of effort, too, and it isn't something that should ever be done with expectations of repayment. Harrumph.

Humph. Quite a few things on my mind, but nothing worth blogging about. Still, my gruntings aside, this is masterful: