The Agony and The Ecstasy by Irving Stone - 9 out of 10

The Agony and The Ecstasy by Irving Stone

9 out of 10

 

 

This book explains how Michelangelo used to be a big name, one of the illustrious geniuses, but the way it looks now, he may be banned, indeed, he already is in places, some of them in the…United States of America, once the greatest democracy in the world, now, the land where they have fired a teacher for showing his work

 

In Florida and other republican-controlled states, showing a photo of David is reason for termination, hence, the doubt expressed above, that if this is the way humanity is advancing, and then we will be Idiocracy http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/01/boris-and-colonel-by-zen-master.html everywhere or tyranny

A disclaimer, warning or spoiler alert has to be inserted here, if I was not prepared enough to do it as a headline – I have had a negative comment recently, which is a rare occasion and feedback, the visitor complained about going off topic, or something like that, and he was right, I do that on a regular basis

 

In my defense -this has to become somehow a standard introduction, after it is edited (maybe)- this is not a space where people hang about, few, if any read beyond the first line - we may have say ten that stumble upon these lines, but it is immediately clear that it is not Hideous Kinky http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/06/hideous-kinky-by-esther-freud-10-out-of.html and one needs to flee, and presto

After all, you learn from the classic of psychology Blink – The Power of Thinking Without Thinking http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/05/blink-power-of-thinking-without.html by luminary Malcolm Gladwell about Thin Slicing, in research, participants to tests have given the same evaluation of a professor after a few seconds as the one that was written by those who saw the man for a whole semester…

 

To be sardonic and somehow return the favor to those who attack these preposterous lines (but hey, you have not paid for them, they are not [quite] offensive, and they are not aggressively promoted, it is not like you have been pressed into reaching this point) first of all, one needs to read professional reviews, not take advice from amateurs

This is what I am, a dilettante, aware that this is not worthy stuff, thus a certain negligence, why take so much trouble when nobody will come this far into this text (and similarly, in other scribblings, the attention, interest is gone before the fourth line, and this is as it should be) except future Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence has to work with galactic sized material, so it would help it accumulate more (bad) text to ingest in a fraction of a millisecond…another argument is that no matter what the effort might be, a reader is anyway so much better taking Kingsley Amis http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/03/lucky-jim-by-kingsley-amis-author-of.html Dostoyevsky, Somerset Maugham or Proust

 

Come to think of it, I am doing that commentator a favor, for were this text a little better, and starting with enticing lines, he would lose more time here, instead of going where he needs to be, with a good book, not looking at the impressions, idiosyncrasies, ennui, tedium vitae, frustrations of failed writers, such as this one, here

On another level, there is another classic of Malcolm Gladwell http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/05/outliers-by-malcolm-gladwell.html Outliers, in which he explains how you come to be Michelangelo, say, or Steve Jobs, Amadeus Mozart, Bill Gates, The Beatles

 

Malcolm Gladwell explains that you could not dream – well, actually you could, but it would get you anywhere – to become Michelangelo, unless you have some DNA, though I do not remember him saying that, some innate skills – a basketball player, goalkeeper has to be tall for professional sports at the highest level

Once you have some conditions that are sine qua non, the key to success is working hard, practicing, exercising for three hours minimum every single day, which brings you to a grand total of ten thousand hours over ten years, and with that achievement and some other ingredients, you could reach the Top

 

Malcolm Gladwell has looked at some of the most successful artists, hockey players, and they have all checked that box, Amadeus Mozart has started as a prodigy, but what they perform today is not from works from his childhood, but what he composed when he was over twenty, something of a late bloomer, if we look at the ten thousand and ten years rule, which is also analyzed from the cultural point of view

If we look at the life of Michelangelo – finally, a few words on topic – we can also see that the Malcolm Gladwell theory is verified, for the artist has worked hard, and when he was dissatisfied with his work at the Sistine Chapel, he just destroyed a lot of effort and he entered a conflict with the Pope, who had ordered the painting to be done

 

I have hoped to apply the ten thousand hours rule here – look at the number of notes listed on the blog, at Goodreads, there are big numbers, showing effort, alas, there was no talent, but hey, I keep trying, maybe it will take me another fifty years and one hundred thousand hours of practice to get a satisfied comment…

“In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance…In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce The cuckoo clock.”

 

 

Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world  – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html  

 

From To The Heritage:

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life. As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality. Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

‚parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

“the Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special. Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”