consider starting a book club and other random stories

These past days I was thinking how if I have my own book club even though I am the only member. I know that I am used to review and talk about books already, but this time I want to take a step more under a book club. For as long as I think it will be fun, I may gonna try. I think this can provide many benefits even to myself.

1. Opportunity to Learn New Things: When you read books, you will gain new knowledge that you can learn and use in your life. By having your own book club, you can read any book you want and learn new things that you might not have discovered if you didn’t read books.
2. Opportunities to Share Knowledge: When you read books, you will find lots of interesting information that you can share with others. Even if the book club only has me as the only member, I can still talk to other people about the books I’ve read and share my knowledge about them.
3. Opportunity to Improve Skills: By reading books and taking part in my own book club, I can improve my reading, writing, and speaking skills. The more books I read and the more I talk about them, the better my skills will be.
4. Opportunities for Alone Time: Sometimes, reading books and being in a book club by yourself can be a great way to enjoy alone time and reflect on things. This can also be a time to recharge and relax.

This time honestly I am gonna show you books I am currently reading. There are four books I read in the same time simultaneously for I am sooo easily bored. I am making sure my moody behavior keeps on check by expecting small targets each week.

1. The wives of the Prophet by Bint Al Shati. My interest toward women and their spirituality brings me to learn how the wife of the noblest man behaves. The author herself is a female Muslim scholar who bases the sources in her book based on the Koran, hadith and sirah Nabawiyah. I have written a brief of the book on this post.
2. Self-made man by Norah Vincent. This book is sooo mind-blowing. We already know about woman empowerment and how we are also being so familiar on how hard it is on being a woman. In recent years, I grow the realization that even though women are struggling, it doesn’t mean that men are not. This book is about a strong feminist wing who disguise as a man. I wish I had more objective insights on the struggles men facing in the world that demands men to be mentally stronger than women.
3. Dopamine nation, finding balance in the age of indulgence by Anna Lembke. I just found out about this book from my friend and after taking a look on its content list, I decide to start putting the book on my current reading lists. I like this book for the book is written by a psychiatrist who try bringing the ideas how to set balance between pain and pleasures. This book combines neuroscience, patient stories, and healing wisdom to show how the overuse of dopamine-rich stimuli such as drugs, alcohol, food, sex, and even smartphones can lead to pain and imbalance. The book also explores the interesting relationship between pleasure and pain and how exposure to moderate pain can enhance our ability to experience pleasure.
4. Al Sira al Nabawiyya (The life of the Prophet) by Ibn Hisham. There are some writings of Al Sira Al Nabawiyya but the one written by Ibnu Hisham is the most common resource used as reference of anyone who need both The Prophet and the Islamic history. Sirah Nabawiyah Ibn Hisham is the phenomenal work of a great scholar and historian of the 3rd century Hijriyah. The book, which is more popular called Sirah Ibnu Hisyam, is a complete reference to the life of the Prophet Muhammad sourced from valid and reliable narrations and references. As much as I love reading especially biography, I have never read full biography of the Prophet. I realized this just some weeks before Ramadhan so I take the moment of Ramadhan to start indulging myself on The Prophet’s life story. Luckily my Dad’s vast interests on religious books made me easy to find this title on one of his collections.

I do not really target myself on reading many books so I do not expect I am gonna finish everything in weeks. Besides, I have some other hobbies other than reading during my free time. I enjoy cooking, gardening, painting, and running. However just recently I start broadening my skills on Musics. I start playing Ukulele!! Here is the first song I try to cover with the ukulele, Riptide by Vance Joy. I feel that this song is a mandatory song that must be covered by anyone who plays the ukulele.

I also started my own podcast months ago. The podcast is a place where I share my thoughts on self-discovery. They are still far from perfect but what I really want to emphasize is I am learning how to bring myself when I talk. For you who’ve known me in real life must realize I am quite awkward myself, especially when I start talking. At first, I was making the podcast, so I’ll get used to talk just randomly. However recently, due to the many schedules, of course, the Podcast stopped right before Ramadhan. I might gonna start new season after Ied Fitr. I think I am just enjoying my life to the fullest for exploring things I might really enjoy spending time with. Maybe I will share some of my cookings and small gardens on this blog later. I am not all serious you know. I am just passionately very serious thinking of happy stuff. For the time being, I am happy just making sure I am going to have both physical and spiritual growth throughout my life.

Having this variety of hobbies can be beneficial for me as well as providing opportunities for my own personal growth and creativity. Engaging in a variety of hobbies can most of the times also lead me to meeting new people, exploring new interests, and expanding perspectives on life. I remember I was once joining Postcrossing Indonesia. I am a post-crosser myself. Just for now I do not have time and allocated money to maintain this hobby. Priority leads me to focus on things which practical mainly in supporting my life. I do not think being a post crosser will allow me to acquire more skill beside piling up more postcards and more things to organize. Even I stop buying books for I do not have the time to maintain all the books I have. At very least I still need space for storing both the books and the postcards. After all I prefer reading to cleaning and organizing my book collection for they both alone will just reduce my time for reading.

I somehow start taking cooking and cleaning as hobby also for practical reasons. I cannot live without food in a messy home so I grow my liking for cookings and cleaning or Deco Rating home. It is just a natural way as well as, to me, a basic survival skill anyone should have. As for painting and gardening, well, pretty things indeed ease the heart!!! I enjoy seeing my plants and paintings and somehow my mom even has better idea to frame all the pictures and paintings I have made so that I may gonna have my own art gallery in the future. I am just lucky to have her supporting me in her own way. Please do not expect that my paintings are such mastery instead it is thanks to YOUTUBE which allow me to follow through the steps of every paintings.

Anyway what do you think? Do you enjoy yourself with the hobby you have?