Recently we had the experience of starting a reading club in our community at home. In our first meeting, we discussed the themes that people in the club would like to explore. The most frequent theme that came up was religious texts and mythology. Another popular theme was books on self-help. These include topics like how to live a better life or how to do things right. We finally arrived at three more themes, biographies, thrillers/ mystery, and history.
The interest in self help books, surprised me. We remembered my professor who believed in such self help books. While helping to set up his library, we noticed that he had a book on teaching oneself to swim. We thought that was very funny. How did anyone teach themselves to swim without entering a swimming pool? The themes suggested by the people interested in self help books were equally amusing.
I have been reading a book by a Korean author, Hwang Bo-Rem, translated by Shanna Tan. The book is titled ‘Welcome to the Hyunam Dang Book shop’. It is a well written story on ‘How to do it yourself’ or ‘ how to manage your life better’. Through the life of a lady who starts a bookstore, the author tells a story about common people. These are the customers who come to the Store. They try to live their everyday lives. She paints a beautiful picture of their trials and tribulations. She also captures the challenges and weaknesses of the various characters that passed through the bookstore. The bookstore becomes a safe place in the neighbourhood to spend time and find like minded people.
The bookstore is equipped with a little coffee shop, and Minjun is the coffee maker. He spends his time trying to brew different coffee flavours. To achieve this, he collects coffee beans from a specialist coffee store. He did not want to look far into the future. One customer expressed this sentiment clearly. She said, ‘like focusing on coffee when making coffee right? That is the basic tenet of a spiritual life – to exist fully in the moment. It’s what you are doing’ she tells Minjun.
This reminded me of a blog post I had written on meditation (link here). At that time, someone had told me that true meditation was concentrating fully on the task at hand. He gave the example of people who loved driving. That was a form of meditation, he said, because the person is fully immersed in the task of driving. I thought that was a beautiful way to explain meditation, a spiritual life as the customer put it.
The lady protagonist set up the bookshop. Minjun is the coffee maker at the book shop. They both gave up regular jobs and were uncertain if they continue for long with this new passion. They had decided that they no longer wanted to live a life based on other peoples expectations. As a character in the book put it “a life surrounded by good people is a successful life. It is not success as defined by society. Still, each day is a successful day thanks to the people around you.” This beautifully captures the philosophy of the book.
The author noted that the book intended to create a friendly atmosphere. It was ‘a space we can escape to. It served as a refuge from the intensity of daily life where we can’t even pause to take a breather. Space to shelter us from the harsh criticism whipping us to do more, to go faster. A space to snuggle comfortably for a day’. And the book succeeded in doing so for me. Go ahead, take time off. Do what you like doing. Learn to ignore what the world or your peers say!
Unni-Verse 