Mar 01, 2005 05:53 PM
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(Updated Jul 07, 2006 09:59 AM)
When I was twelve years old, I learnt an important lesson that was to last me my lifetime :
Nothing is absolute. Everything is relative to something else. In the end, it?s all a matter of point of view !
As Tom Sawyer comprehended one day.......
Work consists of whatever a body is obligedto do, and . . . play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do...
So work and play are nothing but perceptions of your own tricky mind. We look at jobs and classify them as work (monotonous, drudgery, boring) and play (fun, exciting, forbidden). No prizes for guessing that we are always longing for the what our mind perceives as unattainable ? the forbidden fruit tastes sweeter !
Just imagine the number of opportunities that came disguised as problemsto you and you missed them because you were so busy lamenting over your bad luck. Tom Sawyer realized this simple fact when he was burdened with white washing his aunt's long fence on a holiday. As dark clouds of depression descended on his soul, he decided to transform his misfortune into an opportunity with an ingenious idea !
He started the laborious work of painting the fence and pretended to enjoy it.
That's it. When he says moodily to his friends who are enjoying a 'fun' filled day of freedom "How many times does a boy get to paint a fence ?" his friends are hooked. They feel they are losing a life time opportunity if they are not getting a fence to paint. Soon, Tom has them begging and trading off treasures just to work on Tom's fence ! At the end of the day, the fence has been painted and repainted over and over by gullible boys while Tom gets to fool around and play while supervising his 'victims'.
Well, you may have sensed by now that Tom was no picture of virtue - yet, he was brave, endearing, loyal and romantic (yes, at eight years !).He would stand up for friends and his adventures - well, no point going into all his adventures because that would fill a book (no pun intended). Suffice to say that he is getting in trouble almost all the time ? he runs away from home, comes back when he is homesick, gets lost in dark caves with his girlfriend, Becky, witnesses a murder with his best friend, Huckleberry Finn and even discovers hidden treasure. He is cute, mischievous, stubborn and quite manipulative at times too. Reading this book is a breeze. It has its own moments of suspense and thrills too, especially after the murder of the young doctor is witnessed by Tom.
About the author, Mark Twain : Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens who was born on November 30, 1835 in the small river town of Florida, Missouri. The character of Tom Sawyer was semi-autobiographical, fashioned around his own experiences as a young, sprightly boy living in an American town in the nineteenth century.
My thoughts.......
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn always remind me of Archie and Jughead.
Mark Twain was a Sagittarianand somehow, I feel that Tom?s profile is exactly like a Sagittarian boy - honest, daring, adventurous and endearing.
I still read this book when I can!
I love the coverof this book - where a young boy, about seven years old, wearing bedraggled, crumpled dungarees is lying on a hillock on a sunny day, looking up at the sky -his eyes are bright and gay and his expression is of contentment, that is characteristic of carefree boyhood.
It reminds me of my tomboyish, happy childhood days.
