I've often mentioned how I find it hard to write at night. On one hand, it's because I'm often tired, but it's usually also the time when I do stuff with my wife. These past few mornings have been a bit busier than usual, and with me having started working again after vacations and everything, I had little time to write till now, 8 p.m., after the kids have gone to sleep.

Conveniently, my wife is doing some work of her own, so we don't need to interact that much.1 We're sitting in the living room and, in theory, we're also watching "Avatar: The Last Airbender". I'm not that good with multitasking, so we'll see how today's post turns out!

I usually don't mind doing stuff when the TV is on because I'm not often interested in what's playing, but Avatar is different! The show is really cool and wholesome, and we haven't rewatched it in a couple of years, so there are lots of things I don't remember.

Anyway, onwards...

Yesterday's post was a bit gloomy, so today I want to try for something more fun. And what can be more fun than talking about the genius of Terry Pratchett! I've often talked about him on this blog. Perhaps a bit too much, but I really admire his work and, more than anything, his way of looking at life.2

I actually discovered Pratchett's books later in life than I imagine is usual. I was around 19 or so, living in a hostel, and every day I kept seeing one of the staff reading a book and laughing out loud whenever he had some time off. I asked him what book it was, and he gifted it to me, as he'd read it many times. I sadly don't exactly remember which one it was3 as I lost it soon after. It was one of the witches stories, I think.

Anyway, I resolved to give it a shot and got a copy of the first Discworld book, "The Colour of Magic". I had a lot of fun with it and immediately jumped into the next one, and the next.

Shortly afterward, I left the hostel and went to grad school, and every morning I would walk to class while listening to Discworld. The books brought quite a bit of comfort and helped me remember that there was actually a "real life" out there. I can't express how much this meant to me at that time, especially as I faced the stress of my coursework plus working part-time.4

The books are really entertaining, but they're also much more than that. They contain, I think, many deep and razor-sharp observations and critiques about human nature and society, handed down to us as "funny jokes".

This is probably not the time or place to do an extensive treatise on all the ideas presented in his works (I also don't have the required knowledge), so instead I'll just share some fun quotes that are top of mind right now. Starting with:

“It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living”. ~ The Last Continent

This is such a classic. It really showcases Pratchett's wit, taking a common saying and flipping it on its head. It's telling us to never take our personal (or our culture's) assumptions as a given, and that instead we should always reevaluate them and look for the "crunchy bits".

But it's not only "making fun" of "the establishment". It goes deeper than that. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but to me this quote seems to say, "enjoy your life now, don't wait till you die to revisit it"; it reminds us that we're, in fact, alive right now. In some ways it's like a funnier version of "carpe diem".

Another quote I'm quite fond of is:

"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life". ~ Jingo

Again, flipping it on its head. On the surface it seems pure silliness; you set a man on fire and, of course, he will die, so he'll at least be warm for "the rest of his life". But again (and again, maybe I'm reading too much into it), that's not all I see in it. To me it speaks to how often we feel "our way is the best way", and we don't reconsider what we do or what we think. It speaks to how we're often stuck in static ways of thinking, without allowing our creativity real freedom to express itself.

...

Discworld books have real "magic" in them. I don't know if it happens for everyone, but for me they tickle my brain in special ways that make me more present and compassionate. They often show me how I'm spinning up all sorts of illusions about myself and the world around me, and how I can easily cut through all of that by just "twisting it all on its head".

Writing this post in front of the TV was a lot harder than I thought. It usually takes me half an hour or so to write, edit, and publish one of these word vomits. It's been almost an hour and a half, and I'm barely done with the write-through! Not to mention that I'm confused about what I'm writing (context switching is terrible for short-term memory).

I don't think I'll do this again if I can help it :P

Footnotes

  1. heh, would be fun if she ends up reading this. ↩

  2. Feels silly saying this as I didn't really know him personally! But you know, some things come through in his writing. ↩

  3. I don't remember the book, but I remember the staff guy trying to tell me the joke he was reading, and it had something to do with a chicken. The problem is that Pratchett has A LOT of poultry jokes, so... ↩

  4. That was probably the most stressful period of my life. There were many different things that helped me along, but still, Pratchett's wisdom and wit definitely played a role. ↩