Scott West > Recent Status Updates

The fall of the house of usher is poetic, perverse and twisted. Love the tale of someone visiting a haunted house inhabited by Roderick Usher who brings his nightmares to life.

Ligeia is my favourite short story so far. Love the rumination on a lost love that obsessed and enfatizares a man. Ruminations are beautiful with flowery language expressing amor. The feeling of obsession to get this love back which leads to a horrid resurrection raises interesting conceptions on the nature of life and death.

Morelia is good. Interesting reflections on death and love.

Invasion of Japan was quite glossed over and underrepresented. Quite disappointing given there was such a build up to it and it was a time when nature changed history. I would have loved further in storytelling on the heroes of that invasion who repelled the Mongol advance, and the affect of the invasion on Kublai’s gradual mental decline. Missed opportunity I feel.

Love the dissection of Kublais character and the illumination of his role in incorporating foreign influences into the Chinese psyche. Certainly an interesting, enigmatic and underestimated ruler. Water walls are greater than real walls and showed remarkable adaptability and diplomacy to get around the Yellow river to conquer the Song while dealing with the fight over Genghis’ legacy. Great book so far!

Love the illumination on the role the Vietnamese played in curtailing the Mongols, despite not scoring a victory during Mongke’s invasion. Certainly a tenacious overlooked people at times. Sometimes survival, political savour and maneuvering well are more important than a bellicose army. This part is curt and would love to explore in more depth through reading a paper.

So far so good. Solid introduction to setting up and working with Python.

Enjoying the erudite, concise summary of the Mongol conquests. Turning the narrative to the difficulties the Mongol aversion to the sea, Weatherford shows their remarkable adaptability in transitioning to a navel power. Or that transformed trade. The political machinations to build a navy and put Kublai on the throne are intricate, subtle and lucidly portrayed. This is just as entertaining than the conquests.

I need to try EMDR with my therapist as it sounds interesting putting your experiences into the dream state to come up with imaginary fixes and more easily associate them in your body with the past. Important for moving forward and realising the danger has passed.

I wish this book had easy trauma fixes, though excellent useful tips. Revisiting the past and re-contextualising. Journaling to downgrade the emotional harm certainly seems to have merit. Eastern exercises have great healing power by connecting body and mind. Need to try Thai chi or Yoga. Childhood certainly has the capacity to easily scar due to dependency and helplessness as elaborated. Helpful read for me.

Providing context on dissociated traumatic memories and helping the mode then into a coherent narrative as you would with standard memories is an excellent idea. Dampens the emotional charge and assists with contextualising, remembering other behaviour is not always about you and putting the danger in the past for healing.

Love the informative information on dissociation. We struggle to feel truly present and relive the past not from our own perspective. Therefore we relive the past as it happened in fragments that are most graphic struggling to make sense of the real and present in our bodies. Important to learn the danger has passed and teach our bodies through helpful exercises. Helping reframe my own experiences.

Turning into one of my favourite books so far. Insightful information on trauma initially. Love the dissection of how our relationship with primary care givers influences our behaviour and propensity to engage in self sabotaging. Empathy in dissecting how such behaviour can be learnt from a young age focusing on the causes and the subsequent pernicious influence. Sets up for an enticing how do we heal climax.

Lesser known societies such as Massalia, Carthage, Etruria and Sicilian cities are reviewed with tact in addition. I wish there was a more in depth discussion of their cultures and social concepts from trade, religion, social norms and the permeations for the present day. Nevertheless insightful how Rome was a convolution of many of the ideas and practices of these colonial societies of Greek and Phoenicians.

Certainly there were many ancient societies that had a profound effect on western civilisation beyond the common myopic view of Rome and Greece. Quinn brings to light the machinations of the Persians and Assyrians with proving tact in forming a view of Europe on the periphery, discussing how their views of white people and trade influenced our modern purview of Europe.

I am enjoying the overview of the ancient world so far. Particularly the influence of Assyria and Egypt on the concept of European civilisation. The question is tacitly asked how can we coin these ancient peoples into civilisations with some having a profound influence on us and other not when it is such a modern concept and ancient civilisations were so interconnected. A probing and insightful question.

Nice book. The prose is colourful and characters are insightful. Central plot is too meandering though and lacks a strong coherent narrative to keep you hooked and entertained. Wish Anna Karenina was featured in her own book more. Too many side characters and storyline’s for me.

Some insightful articles on transformative change AI will bring in business. This is an exciting concept that needs to be harnessed by companies or they will fall behind. Enjoyed the read! Great quality data and being critical is key to ensuring Andy answer is robust. Recommend to anyone interested in ML and AI.

Insightful articles on learning on digital transformation through Artificial Intelligence. The traditional approach of learning on the job (LOJ), is transforming due to input from AI and a conversation is required on managing that effectively. How to ensure machine learning is effective and predictions are on point is a key topic. Being mindful of inputs, understanding models and training data is paramount.

Anna Karenina is becoming more interesting. Love the repartee on friendship. Seeing Kitty compare herself to others developing doubts, judgements and mistrust being the seed of life unhappiness is insightful. Such aspects and attachments to others opinions are harming her psyche. Particularly in comparison to her new friend Varenka who blissfully lives in the moment seeming to have no commitments and attachments.

Tenets espoused of staying still and being one with the world, letting everything flow and naturally balance itself. Be one with your breath and life to achieve a state of flow and happiness. Eschewing simultaneously Western pro activity of needing to change the world and intensifying by indoctrination with further and further religious ideas. Simplicity and being in a natural state is bliss. Fascinating east ideas!

Insightful set of musings on zen with its various intricacies. I love the parts around how the sole can be unsettled causing you to not fall asleep properly and the different aphorisms to represent order in the universe. The philosophical discussion at times is too deep for me being a layman. Moderately interesting read so far, though not wonderful.

The PTSD is palpable during these meandering adventures killing time away from the hated school where a new failure seems to be beckoning around the corner. Holden is struggling to have an earnest conversation with anyone, seemingly distant from his family, friends and society. I can’t decide if his attitude is recalcitrant or misanthropic. While the exploration of anxiety is interesting, events are too meandering.

Scared of women since his mom sent him away and his poor relationship with his sister, scared of applying himself due to his lack of purpose scared to form connections with others since his parents have abandoned him. Rather than seeing him as a rebellious teen I have a lot more pity on him as his misadventures have gone on.

Seeing this novel through the prism of mental health trouble illuminates the story and makes Holden far less impudent and more relatable. He is deeply insecure about his place in the world due to his troubles at school and with his family, so he is scared.

Initially I was reading this thinking it was a rebellion against the system. A relatable, vulgar kid who hates school and is unsure of what to do with his life. This is only partly correct. The main theme I now realise is mental health. Holden has PTSD and bad anxiety due to his family troubles and issues at school. His misadventures with prostitutes and nonchalant attitude are a mask for the fact he has trauma.

Witty, articulate, facetious and downright hilarious, Holden engaging in repartee with Morrow’s mother is hilarious. He reminds me of myself when I was in high school trying to cause trouble. The vulgar vernacular truly starts to pay dividends at this point, allowing you to relate to Holden as a blue-collar honest, relatable bloke. The sort of literary protagonist lacking in regular fiction or la la land.

My vocabulary has decreased by 10% reading this. Feels like a 15 year old writer. Holden is one of the most obnoxious protagonists I have come across in literature. Irreverent and recalcitrant towards everything related to school. I am a reader who is a nerd at heart, don’t tell me to hate school. I feel this would be appealing to someone who wants a somewhat humorous and vulgar novel. So far not my sort of read.

What a contrast? I recently finished War and Peace which swelled into grandiloquent themes of power, live, humanism and the nature of events. Epic. Anna Karenina is pure repartee. High society life with elegant prose and meandering discourse. Struggling to grasp the central construct so far. Perhaps I am dumb since this is the greatest novel ever? Since I am ruminating on this it shows Tolstoys power as a writer.