in thoughts...

db was reading "Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination" during guys' health check, i read the first page and tot it interesting, so went to find it. now about half-way thru it.

i like fiction books, especially those with little bits of gems hidden. not those self-help wannabe books that tell you straight out what to do with your life, but books that subtly give you ideas.

from this book by Helen Fielding, from what i've read so far, i like this part, where Olivia meets this old couple who asks her to take a photograph for them. They tell her that they are on their honeymoon.

'Your honeymoon? Have you known each other a long time?'
'Fifty years,' said Edward proudly. 'She wouldn't have me when she were eighteen.'
'Well, you started courting someone else. What did you expect?'
'Only because you wouldn't have me.'

"Well,' said Elsie, 'anyway, he thought I weren't interested, and I thought he weren't interested, and we lived in the same town for fifty years and never said 'owt. Then my husband died, and Vera, that was Edward's wife as was, she died, and then...'
'Well, here we are. We was married two weeks ago and we've got a lot of missed time to make up for.'
'That's so sad,' said Olivia. 'All that time, wasted.'
'Aye,' said Edward.
'Nay, lass,' said Elsie. 'You can't go regretting stuff because there wasn't anything else that could have happened.'
'What do you mean?'
'well, you know, it's cause and effect. Every time anything happens it's because of all the other things happening all over the world. Any time you make a decision, there wasn't 'owt else you could have done because it were who you were, like, and it was all the things that happened up to then that made you decide that. So there's no point regretting 'owt.'

***
I love the idea of nature and nurture. and in that sense, how much control one has over life. this is perhaps the world's way of making you feel not so bad.

things dun go your way, but you tried your best, hey.. just think - there's a limit to how much you can do, cos part of it is nature at work.

nature handed you a lousy card, but hey.. just think - there are things within your control, you can change some stuff to make things better.

it's easy to comfort yourself in this way... thinking that nothing is absolute, but not exaggerating your inner locus of control.. of course this is easy to abuse... but oh well.. nothing is perfect rite?

***
feeling like i just wanna shut the world out and read and read and read...