Why can't I read non-fiction?

I've been reading(or rather trying to read) non-fiction for sometime now. I have 4 on my "currently reading" list:
1. If its Raining in Brazil, buy Starbucks: An interesting book about macro economic factors and how they affect the stock market.
2. The Tipping Point: A book by Malcom Gladwell on social networks and how they can spread ideas in the same way epidemics do.
3. Who took my money?: Another book by the Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy(just can't remember his name).
4. 7 Habbits of Highly Effective Teenagers: For those who know my age and are wondering why I'm reading this one... maybe I'll post about it one of these days:)

Its been more than a fortnight(actually its almost a month now), and I'm not even close to finishing a single one of them! I wonder why is that? Its definitely not because I don't enjoy books, I LOVE books. This recent inability to read them made me doubt this very statement. So on Friday night I went to the library and issued a Steve Martin legal thriller(The Attorney) and was done with it by Saturday night. That's close to 500 pages in a day!
Its not that non-fiction books are boring, infact some of them are very thought provoking, I've really enjoyed reading the few that I've actually managed to finish, but somehow I just don't seem to be able to get through most of them. I know many people who read non-fiction on a regular basis. My mom loves reading biographies, Dad is all into the Stock Market genre and my roomie has devoured the Gita, the Bible, Gitanjali, Plato and what not!
I've been giving this issue a lot of thought recently. The first question that came to my mind was, why would I want to read non-fiction in the first place? The answer to that was simple, I enjoy learning new things about this crazy but somehow logical world of ours, I get a kick out of finding out how the weather in South America affects the share price of a utilities company on this side of the world, or how is the spread of AIDS is very similar to the spread of the Hush Puppies shoes craze in the pubs in Newyork. And non-fiction is the clear choice for this kind of info. So obviously these books have the stuff that I want, but then why (the hell) can't I read these books?

After spending sometime, building and shooting down theories I think I've got it. Its the same reason that children are taught lessons through stories. Don't get it? Its the same reason that bitter pills come with sugar coated coverings. I want the pill, infact at some levels I need the pill, but I can't handle the bitter taste that comes with it, I'm still the 10 year old who wants to find out why it rains, but I don't want a book on Meteorology or the study of atmospheric phenomena!
Thus my friends....(and other people who for some strange/scary reason are reading this blog), I find refuge in Fiction. I quench my thirst for knowledge of the functioning of Airports or Hospitals or of the Auto Industry by reading Arthur Hailey, I understand the intricacies of Western Law through John Grisham, study the Green House effect (or the lack of it) with Michael Crichton and in an introspective mood seek the company of Paulo Coelho. These are my teachers, telling me stories about people who don't exist going about their imaginary lives, fighting cases, landing airplanes or curing patients, and I take it all in with a mouth hanging open, busy gulping down sweet colored goodies, not knowing or caring that they hide bitter pills inside :)




--------UPDATE(Aug 3rd '05)--------

Finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince(600 pages) in 24 hours. It was just about O.K., however there is no point discussing the book. Doesn't matter whether the book is good or not, coz Rowlings got all of us hooked, and she knows it :). She writes and we read, thats the way it is and will remain till the 7th book. PS: Someone does die, and that person is.....
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not Harry :P

Quarter Century

My Blog is 25 posts old!! Its been a nice ride, though not "all that I ever hoped for". You see I'm very good at hoping for things and thus my poor (25 posts) old blog can't possibly hope to match up to the expectations, but finally the best/only question I ask my self is, if I had to would I do it again and the answer is a no brainer "YES". So there you go, I'm happy to be here on this 25th attempt at.... whatever that is:). Since the only reason, I'm writing this post is that I have nothing else to do right now. Let me update you(who exactly are you? and why would you ever read my blog??), on my little discoveries over the last two weeks.
1. RSS Feeds: I know, I know RSS(Really Simple Syndicate) has been there for a while now, but I "discovered" them for myself only a few weeks back.
2. Bloglines: This online feed reader was a natural extension to the RSS thingy. Its really amazing, one of the few tools/applications that can drastically improve your productivity(in my case productivity means, I can now monitor a dozen more blogs to pass my time:).
3. Firefox: This browser rocks!! I love tabs :D

Every time, I don't blog for sometime, when I come back, I feel confused, I don't know what to blog about, sometimes so much has happened that it would require a couple of hours to put it all down and sometimes you really don't have much to say at all. This particular instance is a combination of the two. I started writing this post after reading a number of blogs archives and thinking that it would be awesome to go back a year in time and read about the person you were, and then the thought struck me that If I don't write about who I am today, how can I read about it one year from now??

Reading Update

Updated the books section. As you can see I've been busy reading stuff:). All the serious material was turning out to be a bit of a drag so decided to go back to fiction, started with The Rule Of Four. Seems O.K, read up till late last night, which did not help with the Monday blues. Managed to catch the 10 o'clock bus somehow and have been a bit drowsy the whole day. Will resist the temptation to finish it tonight as I have a deliverable first thing tomorrow morning, can't afford to be late. The weekend was fun and hectic, V,T,J,A has come from tvm and hyderabad. Went to LalBagh.... twice in two days:). Binged on lots of junk food and discovered the pleasures of paid coffee.
The coming week looked as if it would turn out to be another one of those slow ones, without any work, but during a momentary loss of sanity mailed my manager, explaining that I was free, getting bored and would love to help him out with any work that he can give me!!! I know.. I know, I'm seriously considering medication, hopefully it was just a once a lifetime thing, helped by my lack of sleep last night. Going by my managers reaction I think I will be busy for the rest of week starting from tomorrow morning. Lets see if I can sneak in another post during the next few days.

Been a while....

Its been a while! I've been very very busy, with so many things happening one after the other. My bro and buddies were here for a few days, it was awesome, don't know where the days went. Next thing I knew, had a ton of work with a unbelievable dead line( boss told me that I better believe it:). Just finished the work today(I didn't have breakfast or lunch! Since morning I've had
1. A cup of tea
2. A slice of chocolate cake(was my friends bday)
3. A pack of chips....
Going out for a pizza. Gonna bing on a 8 inch with extra cheese ssssslurp! Ohhh by the way went for "Bunty aur Bubli" with the gang, it sucked big time, the highlight was watching my bro trying to get through the movie(he had the same look on his face that he used to get when mom used to blast for him something) . It was hilarious:) and he got to go again back at home, his friends forced him! LOL! Sometime, just sometimes I pity the guy;)
me hungry, will blog soon, ciao.......

Only the paranoid survive

Yesterday night I finished "Only the paranoid survive" by Andrew S. Grove, the CEO of Intel. I had started it a while ago, but due to various reasons had left it half way. The whole book revolves around the concept of strategic inflection points. What are they? Why are they so important? How do you spot one? How do you survive one? Most of it was typical management theory, you know... the usual stuff. The high point of the book was the last chapter: Internet, signal or noise? In this chapter, the author applies all his priciples(theory) to the new concept of the internet. Here the point to note is that, this book was written in 1996, before internet really took off, before the dotnet phenomenon and way before the internet bubble burst. The conclusions he comes out with are bang on! Even in retrospect, this chapter couldn't have been written any better. The experiences and situations that Grove uses are also very interesting and some of them are very suprising! Did you know that Intel was a semiconductor memory company, and that it moved over to microprocessors only when the japanese started kicking there ass in the memory chip market. A good read for anyone interested in the history of the computer hardware/software industry.

Net Identity

Been reading a lot of blogs recently, and noticed one thing which was common across all. It is the use of a separate net identity. This is something that I've never had. I think having a net identity would be very liberating. Its not so much about hiding your existing identity as it is about getting a new one for a new world. Another thing I noticed is that most "alias" arent cool or heroic(like superman or jamesbond:). Here is a random list or some: gurupanguji, wakechick, britchick(lots of chicks:), mbagirl, iceman07. More commonly it is something personal, something you are passionate about.
Inspired, I decided to get myself one. I started out with my name and thought of picking out a part of it, but since its barely one and a half symbols, there isn't much scope there. My next idea was to use one of my nick names. Well I've had only two nick names in my life. The first one was used probably till I entered my teens, which I'm not going to mention or adopt as it is one of those innocent baby sounds that can be twisted to mean lots of other things(know what I mean:). And the second was given to me by one of my classmates in school, which is Chow by clipping my surname. Thought about it, but it sounds oriental, not that I have anything againt that, it just isn't me. So the hunt is still on... Any suggestions?

Clients on campus....

I came back from home last tuesday. Since then have been slogging it out at office(clocking 15hrs a day). Been busy with preparations for a client visit. Yesterday left office around 1!(i.e. today morning). Today the clients are here, and since I'm not involved in the presentation, I suddenly have nothing to do. I'm tired, sleepy, bugged, worried, bored and I have a headache. In the background, a "PR" problem has cropped up. Should get resolved/blown-up-to-dangerous-propotions by today evening. Not looking forward to it.
Just finished a cup of extra strong tea hoping that it will get my spirits up. Doesn't seem to have helped much. Been reading lots of MBA blogs. I have four books at home that I have started and haven't been able to get back to for more than a fortnight due to work. Will try to do some reading this weekend. Got a forward today and discovered this french new reporter Melissa Theuriau. She looks awesome, been a while since a face struck me as so beautiful. Hey my headache seems to have dissapeared, feeling much better(Must be the tea)! Pangs blog something.. ur exams are over! I think I will take this current upswing(of my mood) and put it to some constructive use.... Ciao.
Some of the blogs I've been reading today: Simba, WakeChick, BritChick, IceMan07, PoweYogi.

Traveling back home....

Its thursday morning, and I'm a few hours away from starting my trip back to trivandrum. This will be my fourth trip back home. I just wish the journey was a bit shorter and a little less eventful. I travel by bus. A typical trip starts at around 6:00pm. With one stop for food, the scheduled arrival time at tvm is 8:00am the next morning, i.e. 14 hours for the entire journey. This however is the theory. In most cases the actual time goes upto 18hours. My second trip took 20! It was a mess. The tsunamis had just taken place, the president was visiting the state and the roads were blocked. I reached home in the afternoon.
For people visiting chennai, the journey can be completed in as less as 4 hours!!(or so they tell me) If that was the case I would go home every weekend! But I shouldn't be complaining, some of my colleagues have to take a flight and then a train to reach home. One of them needs atleast 4 days just for traveling(total). Then there are other people who are based out of bangalore itself, but some of them are staying far away from Electronics City and spend 3 hours every day for commuting! I don't know which is worse. The best thing to do is to be happy with what you have, and how do you do that? just take a look at people who are worse off, trust me there will always be someone around:)

New apartment

This weekend was very busy, we (arj and I)spent both days relocating to the new place. It was a very new experience, we bought all kinds of things for the first time, buckets, brooms, mops, drinking water! Next was the cleaning process. We dusted, swept, scrubbed and mopped. It may seem strange but, i had a blast scrubbing away at the layers of dust that seemed to have fallen in love with the floor of my room. Next we filled up the showcase in the hall with all kinds of things, mostly books. arj has an impressive arsenal of books, including the "Bhagwad Gita" and verses from the "Prophet". For the house warming, arj suggested that we quote Kahlil Gibran:).
Finally... I have my own place. The night too was very eventful, the rooms were very hot, and i saw arj get up around midnight and start pouring water all around his bed!! why? because evaporation would lead to cooling:). Anyway the best part of the whole thing was today morning. When i ended up getting up at around 6!! Now for people who know me, this will come as a shock. It was because my room faces east, and as the sun rose, it sent its warm rays through my bedroom window to persuade me to quit the dream world. It was a lovely feeling, i opened my eyes and the first thing i saw were the swinging branches of the lush green trees right outside our place through the bedroom window. I'm looking forward to getting up each morning:)

Kingdom of Heaven

On Saturday I went for Kingdom of Heaven, with some people from office. The movie was good. I'm not a fan of period movies, but the characters in this movie transcended time. Loved the way they were developed over the course of the movie. Orlando Bloom was convincing as a.... well i don't know what exactly he was. I have to plead ignorance in the whole crusades-jerusalem area of history. For anyone as ignorant as i am in this area, this movie still holds a beautiful story, complex and fascinating characters, quality picturization. I'm not much of a movie buff, much less of a critic of the technical aspects, but in KOH, one thing that stood out, was the very abrupt and sometimes confusing editing. I don't know whether it was the theatre people cutting out chunks of the movie to reduce the total time(they do that sometimes), or just bad editing. Overall a movie worth watching, especially if you are into the whole crusades-jerusalem episode.

2 Apartments And A Book

This weekend was very eventful, spent Saturday with Mausam Ajay and Sriram, helped them move into their new place. In the
evening, Ajay bought a TV, and then we visited a Hanuman temple. I went to a temple after a long time. It was a nice
experience, the place was huge and the prasad was very tasty:). Dinner was packed rolls from leo's. Yesterday(Sunday), Arjun
and I took possession of our new place. Its very close to where these guys are staying, and in the evening, we went hunting
for mattresses. Had Dinner at Udupi. In between all this i managed to finish "The last juror" by John Grisham. Another very
slow paced novel, reminded me of "The Broker". The ending was very predictable, unlike most John Grisham books. The strangest
part of it all was that the backcover teaser covered almost the entire story! By the time that got over, there were less than
100 pages left! Overall, an O.K. book, die hard John Grisham fans might like it. I've started with the next book, its called
"What they don't teach you at Harvard Business School". Just read a few pages, lets see how that turns out.

Prospective Good News....

For the last one month, I have been getting prospective good news... It has been coming in spits and bursts, and finally it has piled up into a decent sized hill of signs indicating something good is about to happen in the near future. The problem with the whole thing, is that the news comes with very clearly defined "ifs and buts", so before i decide to share it with the whole world, i shall wait, patiently and anxiously, for destiny to take its coarse through the "ifs and buts" and reveal in due time, what lies in store. This should take a month or two. Hopefully everything works out fine. Till then i going to try living my life normally, hoping for the best and preparing myself to smile through the worst.

UWL Configuration

The week is coming to an end. This entire week, I was busy with a particular configuration. Today at around 5:30PM, it finally worked! I'm going to describe what it was, it will be interesting to see, whether 6 months down the line it makes any sense to me:).
I was trying to view the R/3 Workflow Items from a backend users inbox, in Enterprise Portal(EP) using Universal WorkLists(UWL) and User Mappings. We also had the Internet Transaction Server(ITS) installed, but later found out that to view the items we just needed to use the WebFlow Connector. Steps:
1. Create a system for the backend in the SLD, configure connector/WAS/ITS/Alias
2. Create a UWL system, select connector(Webflow)/Alias
3. Register the WI/Clear cache
4. Create User Mapping for backend system
5. Add UWL iView to Home Workset

and voila!! it works:)

The Blinking Alchemist

Last week I finished two books, "Blink" and "The Alchemist". Two very highly acclaimed and very different books. Blink happens to be Malcom Gladwel's second book, his first one is the very famous "The Tipping Point". Still trying to get my hands on that one. The Alchemist is a story by Paulo Coelho. It was originally written in Portuguese and has been translated into over 20 languages.I'm not going to summarize either of the two books here, as both have hundreds of reviews available over the internet. But I am going to recommend both the books to anyone looking for good reading material. If you are into fiction, The Alchemist is just the right blend of story telling and telling the story of life:). For anyone who wants an insight into how people think/work/judge/taste/hear/talk/see/visualize/verbalize this books comes highly recommended.

XI Training

This week XI training going. XI stands for "eXchange Infrastructure", its is an open integration solution by SAP, its available on the new platform by SAP called Netweaver. This time for a change, I'm following the training a bit! The trainers are good, and the pace is reasonable. Going by the first two days, I wouldn't be surprised, if I don't get time to pen another blog this week. The other new development this week has been the search for a new house. It looks like I might finally be moving into an apartment after all!! I'm looking at shifting into the new place some time around the begining of next month. Hope everything goes according to plan, I'm keeping my fingers crossed:).

The Week that Was

This week i've been lazy, not a single post!! And before i realized, its Friday!! Time has gone by swiftly. Before i forget, here is a small summary of what happened.
Saturday: No idea what i did!!
Sunday: Went out with friends for a typical kerala meal on.
Monday: Got food poisoning, vomited anything i tried to eat or drink(except water:).
Tuesday: Spent most of the day, trying to eat stuff and keep it down(was very successful), put in some work on a long overdue assignment..
Wednesday: Boss was impressed with the work i did, went to his office to explain how i did it, ended up shifting offices to tower 11!
Thursday: Did some serious studying, trying hard to learn this new EP thing.
Friday: Didn't do much today, almost finished Blink! and got myself the Alchemist from the library, should be an interesting read.
On the whole its been a good week, did go by real soon though... Lets see how the weekend turns out. My guess will sleep and sleep then eat a little and sleep some more. Be back on Monday to do an analysis on how accurate my predictions were. Ciao!

Power Failure and a Socks problem

Yesterday I went home early. Wanted to wash some clothes and sleep on time, so that i could reach office on time(Recently i've been reaching around 10:30!). I got home around 9. Soaked the clothes and was just flipping channels when it started to rain. I didn't think much of it, but mausam let out a groan and complained that the power would soon go. And so it did. Now it was around 11 at night, no power at all, my mob was out of charge, all my socks were soaking in a hot concoction of water and surf. I needed to get atleast a pair out, so that i would have something to wear to office the next day. So i decided to rinse some of them in the dark and put them to dry. Now i had soaked 4 pairs of socks, and in the dark there was no way to figure out a pair. This reminded me of the socks pair problem we all did as kids. You have 10 pairs of socks in a drawer in a dark room. 5 black and 5 white pairs, what is the minimum number of socks you need to take out to get a pair? the answer is 3. Applying the same logic i need to take out 5 socks to ensure that i have a wearable pair in the morning, but what the hell, i rinsed all of them(so much for problem solving abilities). Not that i could have gone to sleep anyway, with all those mosquitoes making attempts at a major blood transfusion. Anyway the good news is that the power did come back on at around three in the morning and i was finally able to go back to sleep and in the morning i had a choice between four pairs of freshly washed socks to wear to office;)

Party

Yesterday was my first office party. It was rockin'. We started out early(at 4) towards M.G.Road. The first phase was bowling at Amoeba. Everybody went for 3 rounds! Imagine that.. 25 people bowling, shouting, screaming, booing for three hours. I'm still hoarse from the experience. I managed 2 hundred plus scores and a 90 something. Not bad, considering it was my second time:). The next phase was dinner. We walked to a nearby restaurant called "Mainland China", a slick joint. I noticed some cute women in traditional dresses ;). The food was good. I had two types of wine( red-californian, white-french), was a bit woozy by the end. Had 6 or 7 rounds of starters! By the time we were done with the starters and the soup, i was stuffed, so skipped the main course and went straight for the dessert. Ordered their special, it was awesome, three scoops of icecream with yummy sauces and walnut toppings(slurrp!). Overall an extremely enjoyable experience. Got to know a lot of my team mates better. Plus the whole thing was free, which makes it extra special;). The food bill alone, was a cool 10 grand!! Hope we have more of these.

The Weekend

This is a typical blog about what happened during the weekend. No introspection here, just a statement of facts, a typical log entry. Some of the highs and lows:
1. The Pope John Paul II(1920-2005) passed away on Saturday 2137(Rome), he was 84 years old. The first non Italian pope in the last 450 years(He was Polish).
2. India won the first one day international against Pakistan held at Cochin. Tendulkar took 5 wickets!
3. I left the house on Saturday only at 6:30 P.M., i.e. I skipped breakfast and lunch!
4. Mausam(my roommate), made a trip to chennai on his bike with Ajay.
5. Saw "Million Dollar Baby", decent movie.. but don't know why it won so many Oscars.
6. Today morning I got my PAN card, now I'm an official tax payee :)

Money

I got my salary yesterday, one day ahead of schedule. There were powerful emotions in the air. People were overjoyed, and started making plans for the weekend. Others were relieved, coz now they could pay there credit card bills:) The news did not have a much of an impact on me. When i saw the total lack of emotion I was experiencing i started wondering... I have always claimed that i'm not much of a money guy, i can picture some rolling eyes right now:), ok ok i admit that i do need some money, i want to be able to afford a decent accommodation, have a clean pair of clothes to wear every morning, and ahh.. yesss.. food, that is one of my luxuries, if i may... i want enough money to be able to eat what ever i want, when i want and how much ever i want. But that's about it! And for this my current salary seems more than enough.
I'm not saying that this is a good thing, but it does give me more freedom. I can work where ever i want, i don't have to worry(much) about the money aspect. My current job doesn't pay a lot, its decent by industry standards, but certainly not the top draw, and with me completing six months, better offers(salary wise) are all over the place. Luckily for me, i love my job, i love the technology i'm working in, i love the team i'm working with:). So no temptations at all:)
On the other hand, money in some ways can be a very powerful motivator, it can drive you to work harder, and help you achieve more in your professional life. In that way i might be at a disadvantage, with no monetary motivation, i might end up having a laid back attitude towards work, but then who knows? if i see my colleagues get better increments than me, i might start appreciating money more:), but i think it wouldn't be bcoz of the money, rather i would perceive a comparatively lower increment as a sign that i'm not being appreciated, and that is something which would definitely bring out some strong emotions(it would piss me off :))

BULATS

I got my test results for the BULATS yesterday. The scores were pretty impressive, even if i say so my self:). For the computer based test, i got a listening score of 100 and a reading and language knowledge score of 100, and thus an overall score of 100, which is the maximum possible. This score gets me an ALTE level 5 rating, which is the highest you can get for this test.

The english speaking test results were ok. I got an ALTE level 5= rating, which is the decent. There are five levels(1...5) and in each level there is a sub level rating in the form(+,=,-). So the highest possible rating in this test is 5+, while i managed the next level 5=. To find out what these scores mean check out the following link ALTE Levels.

5 Reasons

This is my third trip back home. Every time I come home, in the first few moments as i enter the house somethings hit me with such intensity that the wind gets knocked out of me. Things from my days back in college that I used to take for granted. Here are five... five reasons i contemplate leaving my job in Bangalore and shifting base to tvm everytime i enter my house:)
1. The (really really) clean tiled floor. God!! I could sleep on the floor anyday:)
2. My bed. Its so big, and clean and neat, with spotless sheets and puffed up pillows and streched bed sheets without a wrinkle from end to end.
3. 15Gb of songs, ahh with everything from John Mayer to Bryan Adams to Metallica to Carnatic Music, everything sound "awesome" on my four point surround system :D
4. The view! From my bedroom window you can see into the next state on a clear day! Its such a breathtaking sight! Kilometers of the lush green carpet of coconut trees, ahhh good 'ol trivandrum.
5. Offcourse, my Mom(you can actually see the love in her eyes when i reach home), my 6foot tall brother(unshaven, not had a bath and normally sleeping when i reach home), and my dad(good 'ol dad):)

An attempt at poetry..

old and wrinkled sitting by the door,
her bag full, all it can store,
knitting needles and balls of yarn,
shining silk scarfs and much more,
quite and brisk, i walk by,
denying her existence, not even a smile,
day after day, and everyday,
still can't tell you her name...
'cause you see,
life's a game,
and I'm in it for fortune and fame

spring comes and goes,
sweltering heat and then it pours,
christmas carols and midnight masses,
beautiful landscapes when it snows,
year after year,
but i'm not one who knows,
why you ask?
i'll give it to you simple and plain...
'cause you see,
life's a game,
and i'm in it for fortune and fame

moments and years after,
times gone by, slower, and then faster,
i'm now older at this game,
a veteran, a master,
have forgotten the pain of sorrow
and pleasures of laughter,
its such a shame,
'cause you see
life's a game,
and i was in it for fortune and fame

Purpose

The question of the day is the purpose of this blog. Why did I create this blog? After many years of spending time on the net, doing God knows what:), on 11th of March 2005, I created "Limpid Pools of Solitude". What were the compelling reasons, if any, for me to create a blog? I can think of atleast a dozen logical answers to that question, but I dont agree with any of them completely.
A purpose by definition restricts the scope of the task at hand, it helps us focus. A good purpose quanitifies goals, it helps establish a destination for a journey, a set of parameters by which to measure success. This is considered a good way of working, some people call it engineering. I agree, for most tasks undertaken by man, a well defined goal is a must, but to make this the norm for doing things would be a grave mistake. The concept of setting goals is based on the underlying assumption, that it is indeed possible to conceive the desired goal. I at this moment can't conceive one for this blog, so let me stop the crap and just say... The purpose of this blog is to discover its own purpose.

What's in a name?

Motivated by the many blogs I have been reading in the past few weeks, I've decided to get myself one too. Blogger.com must have one of the simplest registration forms I've ever filled. It takes a normal person less than 2 minutes to get his blog up and running on this site, but then again, I'm no normal person:). After spending a couple of hours browsing through dictionaries, the Webster thesaurus and good ol' google looking for a good name for my blog, I finally decided on "ratiocination".

Ratiocination: ratiocination(n)
1: the proposition arrived at by logical reasoning (such as the proposition that must follow from the major and minor premises of a syllogism)
2: logical and methodical reasoning

But of course it was taken, I was pissed, and went into a frenzy looking up weird names and "limpid pools of solitude" was born, I thought "limpid pools of silence" sounded better, but somehow didn't fit the context, don't you think? Anyway so "limpid pools of solitude" it is...