01/19/2010: "Unseen Academicals"

I am reading Unseen Academicals, as slowly as I can. It is the last and latest novel by Terry Pratchett who has fallen victim to Alzheimer's disease and will not be writing any more.

I am savoring each passage as a small delight, the total reverse of my usual reading practice.

The positive psychology people say savoring is one of the secrets of a happy life, and that those people who savour small pleasures magnify their potency. One way of savoring is to share a delight with another. So I have decided to share the first passage of the last Pratchett with you here.

"It was midnight in Ankh-Morpork's Royal Art Museum. It occurred to new employee Rudolph Scattering about once every minute that on the whole it might have been a good idea to tell the Curator about his nyctophobia, his fear of strange noises and, he now knew, his fear of absolutely every thing he could see (and, come to that, not see), hear, smell and feel crawling up his back during the endless hours on guard during the night. It was no use telling himself that everything in here was dead. That didn't help at all. It meant that he stood out."

Three morals in this story:

1. Savoring small pleasures adds greatly to our happiness.
2. The mind is infinitely powerful; the brain is heartbreakingly fragile.
3. Some people would rather die than stand out.

Yours with creativity and imagination,
Darlene