K.A. Ashcomb's Blog, page 29

Cooperation or Competition?

I keep thinking about this line in a book about how birches and fir trees cooperate with each other, making both more lasting than if they lived in monoculture forests. So here, my thoughts turned to our society in general, applying it to the fact that most of us feel tired, alienated, and alone. Yet, “we” value individuality and admire those who have made it on their own, viewing them as superhumans and portraying them in our media. And there, my mind jumped into writing. It is a lonesome game ...

Lost in my thoughts

There is something to be said to the lost worlds even if they only exist in your head. I’m sure I can feel their winds and hear their oceans when I close my eyes

How can you have all the words at your disposal one moment and then have none?

It felt like I could create and be anything a couple of days ago and now I feel like I struckle to form a coherent thought let along a sentence. I sometimes wonder if I should only work when my creative chaos is at my best or work as I do now, write every day. But maybe there is no either or as is with everything.

The majestic beauty of the gently falling snow

Here is another picture of mine. This one is called Lost in Melancholy. I went into the woods Tuesday and took some photos. I have been feeling kind of blue lately, but I guess that’s a normal part of being alive.

Anyway, I’m editing my fourth book and hopefully will get it out at the beginning of the next year. My first book is at my editor, and I will republish it December. What else? My ankle is feeling a lot better, and I have been getting back to the wall. I even managed to climb 7a boul...

A Passing Thought

If I stay really still, there is only the frozen flower, the magpie stagnant behind my window, the quiet city with human destinies paused for a while, and no world where profit is made with the sick and dying

Image by me, you can find more of my macrophotography on insta

Book Review: The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel

Should merit dictate what we deserve and how our lives should go? And what does it mean if merit is the building block of how we value ourselves and others? And what if it is how politics is justified? Michael J. Sandel argues in his book how merit and meritocracy rule our modern societies and politics and how they have led to popular movements, especially as the elite overlook how their own policies are more the cause of how people can get ahead in life. So what is this merit and meritocratic i...

Book Review: A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

This book came at a perfect time. I was going through my ankle surgery and having my cast on. I was stuck inside my home, going crazy. Before breaking my ankle, I had been out almost every day climbing or hiking, and suddenly it all stopped, and four walls were pilling on me. So I needed to get lost in something. And here was a book with a field guide to just that, loaned by a friend to help me through the recovery.

The first chapters mesmerized me. I got lost in what it is to experience the ...

Book Review: The Push: A Climber’s Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going Beyond Limits by Tommy Caldwell

I have always found reviewing biographies hard, as people have a right to portray themselves as they want. Still and all, reading a polished version of someone’s life always feels off. There’s no way you survive here on Earth without bruises and cuts. So I was glad that Caldwell was willing to lay out his life and experiences, the good and the bad. He is a fascinating climber, having done some of the world’s first ascents, and he is so humble about it. It took a long time public to notice what h...

Book Review: Slade House by David Mitchell

The end of October is the best season to read this book. It has the perfect amount of mystery and horror for cold, dark nights. I enjoyed the book enormously. It hooked me from the first sentence on. It was the way how it laid the story to unfold. I’m not sure how much of the plot I should give away, as it was fun to read without knowing too much about the synopses. The book is about Slade House, a mysterious place that only appears every nine years. The house is just past the Fox and Hounds pub...

Short Story: The End of the Universe

What if I tell you a story about a dying man? A man who is the last of his kind at the end of the universe. What would you think of his last thoughts to be? Would he worry about bills? Would he care about the wrong thing he said zillion years ago? Without learning the person’s history, I guess there is no definite answer to give. It is even possible he was a man who had rage in his soul, and he was the one who caused the demise of his kind. But that would be a sad story to tell, at least for tho...