The Yellow World Read Online Free PDF Page A

would write down the question, the problem I wanted to solve, and the person I should ask about it. I really recommend you do this; you’ll start off by thinking that it’s ridiculous to write down silly questions and the people who you think might have the answers. But as you start to get answers you’ll realize that the method is very effective, and you’ll become an addict of your little notebook.
    I’ve used this method in every aspect of my life: my love life, my family life, my friendships, my yellow life (in a bit, I’ll explain what the yellow life is). And it has always made me feel better.
    So, it’s easy:
    1. Choose a color for your notebook. The color has to have something to do with you. Each of us has a color that has nothing to do with the clothes we wear. Maybe you love your blue jeans but your color might be orange. It’s really easy to find your color. Look at a boxof felt-tip pens and choose one to draw with; the one you choose will be your color.
    2. Buy ten notebooks. Yes, I know. It might seem that one is enough, but actually each book is for a different aspect of the world. I’ve always thought that people have ten different worries about the world, ten possible paths through it. So use one book per path.
    3. Write down all your queries. Stupid queries: How do people manage to get their hair looking nice? Complicated queries: How can it be that people fall in love and I only think about sex? Eternal queries: Who am I? Who do I want to be? Do I really know nothing? Practical queries: How do you rent a light aircraft? How do you proceed with a divorce?
    4. Look for the person who has the answers. Next to each question you should write down a possible candidate for the answer. Never leave this bit empty; put someone down, even if you don’t yet know them personally, even if it’s someone famous or invented or impossible.
    5. Ask, absorb the answer, note down the queries that emerge, and ask again. The more queries you get answered the better you’ll feel.
    In the hospital they told us that it is good to drink two liters of water a day. And my doctor always added: “And ask five good questions.” Don’t forget it, five questions a day and two liters of water.

5
Show me how you walk and I’ll show you how to laugh
    It’s not easy to laugh. It’s not easy to breathe, either. There aren’t any schools for laughing and breathing. Am I boring you?
    —the last words I heard from the nurse who took me to the operating room to get my leg cut off
    We are born lacking things, lots of things, lots of very different things. With time we manage to cover this up in some way or another. Sometimes we do it well; sometimes we just do it as best we can. We even end up not knowing that we’re missing things. The brain is so clever that sometimes it hides very basic things about us from ourselves.
    We don’t know how to walk, but we find out bit by bit how to walk. I’ve been lucky enough to have four kinds of walk:
    1. My first steps, a year or so after I was born. It was a walk made up of quick steps and as I approached adolescenceit was becoming a bit naughty. A walk that made me laugh a lot, in lots of different strange ways.
    2. Years later, my second first steps, when they gave me my first mechanical leg. It was a slightly cruder walk, more like bouncing on a spring. A walk that changed the way I was, stopped me feeling comfortable, and stopped me laughing.
    3. Then they switched me over to a hydraulic leg. This gave me a walk that was more cheerful, more singsong, more like something out of a musical. It made me feel better and I started to laugh in short, glissando-like bursts. This was when I realized that laughing and walking are connected. Show me how you walk and I’ll show you how you laugh. There’s something in the way we walk that affects our laughter, our sense of humor.
    4. Now I’ve got an electronic leg, and walking and laughing seem absolutely connected. The weirdest thing is when