Maus

Vladek was a Jewish mouse who survived Auschwitz.

"Friends? Your friends?..."

"If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week..."

"...then you could see what it is, friends!"

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Art was the son of Vladek.

Art: Sigh. I'd rather kill myself than live through all that...

Francoise: What? Returning groceries?

Art: No. Everything Vladek went through. It's a miracle he survived.

Francoise: Uh-huh. But in some ways he didn't survive.

-From Maus: A Survivor's Tale
by Art Spiegelman

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I like this book because it retells the standard artistically meaningful Jewish sob story in a unique and compelling way. With mice!

In a society where we have every convenience and people often dramatize every little change in their lives, it's interesting to think about how we might deal with real hardship. Like being locked in a cattle car for days, standing in other people's shit with no food or water.

I wonder how someone who complains about the hot weather while sitting in an air conditioned SUV would react if put into Vladek's situation.

No New Year's Resolutions

I don't need to lose weight or pay off any gambling debts, so this year I resolve not to make any resolutions.

Here's one of my favorite poems instead. It reads really well when coupled with doubt or loneliness.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

—Mary Oliver