Trying to stay awake as late as possible tonight.

The next five shifts for me are all overnight, so I need to change my sleep pattern. So let us see how much I can ramble on.

I've been reading Rousseau's Confessions over the summer. Just during my breaks at work, you understand. I tried reading it straight through back in high school and just couldn't do it. An autobiography can be so tiresome to read. Maybe my age also had something to do with the repugnance with which I abandoned it? Anyhoo, I'm past the middle point now and I honestly don't know what to think. I don't, or didn't know anything about Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I know nothing of philosophy except for that darn "Philosophy of Science" course I took in U of T and I hated it, to put it simply. I can't even be bothered to elaborate on what a waste of money and time that was.

The only other book of Rousseau's I have in my possession is La Nouvelle Héloïse and I haven't read it yet. I mean to, after Confessions and I hope I can get past the epistolary style. I know the first time I read "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", I was extremely confused about what was going on.

How do I find this autobiography of a man who describes himself as "too loving"? I suppose if he's being as truthful as he claims to be, then I can forgive his effusiveness. But here's the general feeling that I felt while reading:

Rousseau the child, clever but not thoroughly educated - Understandable.
Rousseau the teen, easily swayed by passions and whims - What a dumbass.
Rousseau the young adult, too full of dreams to be any useful - Still a dumbass.
Rousseau the somewhat successful adult, useful but still all over the place - Eh.

Reading the above, you can probably tell that I'm not too horribly impressed by his life. But maybe that's an indication that he really is trying to be honest about everything he's done. He's not trying to build himself up as anything more. All the impressions I got of his stages in life are what he thought of himself, I think. So that's good. Will it make the book very interesting for anyone but himself (and maybe his friends who are mentioned in it)? Probably not. I feel as though I'm reading it to be reading it. And that's never a good thing to say about a book, is it?

I have a feeling that once I'm done with it, it'll go back on my shelf and stay there for a long looooong time. ^_^;;