The Great Work of Your Life

I heard about this book when I went on a yoga retreat a few months ago. Many of the people on the retreat had read and enjoyed the book. While I am not on some quest for a new career or life make-over, I was moved by the testimonials I heard.

The book begins with a quote by Thomas Merton

Every man has a vocation to be someone: but he must understand clearly that in order to fulfill this vocation he can only be one person: himself.

The book uses the struggle of the central character of the Bhagavad Gita as a guide to illustrate the work necessary for human transformation. He also follows the lives of a few historical figures: Thoreau, Beethoven, Harriet Tubman, Susan B Anthony, and Walt Whitman as well as a few people the author met during his time as the head of the Kripalu Institute.

There is a lot of wisdom in the book but here are a few passages I liked

-- Our understanding of dharma is obscured by the narcissism of our time

-- again from Thomas Merton:

We cannot master everything, taste everything, understand everything, drain every experience to its last dregs. But if we have the courage to let almost everything else go, we will probably be able to retain the one things necessary for us-- whatever it may be. If we are too eager to have everything, we will almost certainly miss even the one thing we need.

--Do your daily duty, let the rest go.

Naturally Tan

I love a good pun. Naturally Tan, the memoir by Queer Eye's Tan France, is a good one.  One of his strongest traits is that he has always just been himself. Even though he is the gay son of Pakistani immigrants to England, he never considered hiding. He was also one of the only non-white children at his school and in his neighborhood -- I think that's another nod to the title as many people still have no idea about his ethnic identity.

He was interested in fashion from a young age and started several successful clothing lines. He was asked to try out for Queer Eye as he had no interest in acting or entertainment. He said during the casting call -- which lasted for days -- he was just himself and was not worried about getting on the show. He clearly had no idea what it would mean for his life.

I love the Queer Eye show.  I watched the show after reading a great essay on its implicit critique on toxic masculinity. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a18922990/queer-eye-reboot-antidote-toxic-masculinity/

I liked the book -- it's a quick, light read. It is probably not fair to compare it to the other memoirs I have read in the past year. People who are interested in fashion might enjoy the details more than I did.  I picked the book up at my library because it was featured by our librarians -- the only way I pick up a book spontaneously.

It's Trevor Noah Born a Crime

I read Born a Crime, Trevor Noah's memoir a couple of years ago. Noah just released a young adult version of the book which doesn't remove any of the violence of apartheid or hardship he faced but rather all the swear words. Sonia and I are reading this book together and reading it with her is a very different experience. 

He introduces each chapter explaining one of the legal structures or consequences of apartheid then the chapter shows how that structure affected his life. It is tremendously sad. He doesn't spend any time in this book explaining how he becomes famous so when it ends you can't even imagine how he got from there to here. Maybe he'll write another book?

Night Thoughts

Night Thoughts is a collection of essays by Wallace Shawn. I listened to Shawn read his essays and it's hard not to think of his character from the Princess Bride. Shawn is also well-known as a playwright but I have never seen any of his plays. Ryan is a big fan and he found these essays.

I love anything that challenges the dominant capitalist / neoliberal narrative that seems to cause enormous suffering for many, many people on this planet. Shawn apparently identifies as a socialist and that makes sense. In one of the essays, he imagines the housekeeper of a wealthy friend smashing his friend's head into a marble dinner table until the friend is dead. 

Interesting stuff.

Educated

I read this book last year but when my book group selected it, I decided to read it again. It's even better the second time. I don't have the language to explain the many ways this book made an impact on me. Like all great books, it seems to be about all the philosophical issues relevant to human existence.

I watched a few videos with Tara Westover. She was interviewed by Bill Gates and Ellen DeGeneres among many other interesting people. Bill Gates wanted to talk to her about her views on education, Ellen wanted to discuss how she overcame her abusive relationship with her brother and her family's rejection. I suspect that Westover never thought about the fact that her very personal experiences were going to be dissected in front of millions of people. 

Here is an exchange between Westover and Oprah that I found which captures one of the most important themes of the book.

From Oprah's podcast

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tara-westover-educated/id1264843400?i=1000437295457
(43 minutes and 8 seconds into this podcast.  )

OPRAH: So often in the book you write about the thoughts in your head about actions, decisions you struggle with because they were against your father's teaching. You say that you knew your learning was unnatural.

Oprah reads from the book: This knowledge like so much of my self knowledge had come from me in the voice of people I knew and people that I love. All through the years that voice has been with me whispering, wondering, worrying that I was not right, that my dreams were perversions. That voice had many tempers and many tones. So often it was my father's voice but more often it was my own.

OPRAH: so in your everyday life do you still hear those teachings in your father's voice?

TARA: I think we all do, and that's what's deceptive about the ideas we get from other people. We feel like they're our ideas. My dad's version of history didn't feel like history I learned, it felt like history.

Westover is so extraordinary because she transcended the dominant narrative of her family and culture to find who she really was.