LIFE | 3 June 2010

Just a quick update to my friends on what has been going on with my life - and the reason (or excuse) why there hasn't been many posts.

I quit my job late last year and took a break for a few months. This is the first time in 9 years that I am without a regular income. The family has also moved to a new apartment - it's smaller, and things are all new. (Imagine coming home to an apartment where you don't really remember where the light switches are) It is an understatement to say I have been treading through unfamiliar territories the past few months.

Now I am back and trying to find new employment. I am not sure if I wish to continue in the book industry - while I still love books and always will - there comes a time when you need to step away from books as a JOB to appreciate it again.

Which now begs the question of what to do next? That's a question I keep asking myself every day. Friends tell me not to fret. Things will fall into place when it is time.

I wish I possess greater wisdom to see past this. I am asking lots of questions right now - or maybe just asking the same questions over and over with no answers. Then I was at the library yesterday and found this book on display: How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts At An Answer. It's sort of a biography on Montaigne, as he lived his life and pondered. And wrote. A lot. Right now a book about a man who kept asking himself, "How to live?" feels like the right reading material for this clueless one. I have only read some essays of Montaigne's. The Complete Works of Montaigne that I have sitting at home feels a little too daunting right now. I suspect I will be dipping in from time to time only. But then again - he took a lifetime writing it. Perhaps it's the kind of book that takes a life time to read. So, it's all good.