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| 1538708280
| 9781538708286
| 1538708280
| 4.04
| 33,400
| Dec 06, 2022
| Apr 16, 2024
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it was amazing
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This book is a beautiful and captivating work of climate fiction. Great characters, amazing prose, and a story that comes unexpectedly full circle. Ab
This book is a beautiful and captivating work of climate fiction. Great characters, amazing prose, and a story that comes unexpectedly full circle. Absolutely loved it.
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 06, 2024
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Sep 08, 2024
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Sep 06, 2024
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Paperback
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| 1641972491
| 9781641972499
| 1641972491
| 4.51
| 15,274
| Dec 13, 2022
| Dec 13, 2022
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liked it
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At some point in our lives, most people begin to dream of finding their forever home. We think about what it might look and feel like, how we will arr
At some point in our lives, most people begin to dream of finding their forever home. We think about what it might look and feel like, how we will arrange the space, how we’ll entertain loved ones, and how we will create a safe haven from which to launch ourselves out in the world when necessary. If you’re a lucky homebody like me, you might spend most of your days on a single piece of property, surrounded by familiar objects and plants, cycling through routines that keep you happy and healthy. I know there are plenty of people who would not choose this life, citing it as too boring or confining, or both. But for me, it is as close to bliss as I expect to get. In light of my personal intimacy with and devotion to my home, I am solidly within the target audience of Ilona Andrews’s Innkeeper Chronicles. This series––which my wife affectionately calls “The Sweepy Books”––is a curious blend of fantasy and science fiction. It tells the story of Dina Demille, the owner of a magical bed-and-breakfast called Gertrude Hunt, located in a small Texas town. But Gertrude Hunt is not an ordinary inn; it serves as neutral ground for various alien species and supernatural beings who seek sanctuary there from different worlds and dimensions. In this fictional universe, the inns are living beings and an innkeeper’s relationship with their inn is symbiotic. Innkeepers can sculpt and reshape the internal spaces of their inns to suit a variety of different guests and events. I think my overall favorite parts of the series are the many descriptions of how Dina recreates Gertrude Hunt in each book to fit the needs of the moment, along with how she uses the inn’s magical powers to manage conflict within its walls. There’s a strong theme of hospitality, with many touching scenes of Dina having worked hard to create the perfect guest room for an alien being who then enters it and can immediately relax and feel at home. The “introvert-meets-adventure” vibe is unique and super fun. This series has other strengths as well. As any Andrews fan will anticipate, the writing is serviceable but nothing flashy. The worldbuilding is decent, although not as captivating as in the Kate Daniels series (the only other Andrews series I have read). The supporting characters are solid, including Dina’s hunky space-werewolf boyfriend, a sister who’s an excellent sword-fighter, and surly but honorable alien vampire, a former ruler of a multi-planetary empire, and––my favorite––a 7-foot-tall, porcupine-like master chef with a flair for Shakespearean melodrama. I think you can probably read that last sentence and get a quick idea of whether these books will intrigue or repel you. Considering the books’ plots, I think the series is strongest when it focuses on political conflicts and scheming, rather than action. My two critiques of the series are (1) that the overarching narrative moves too slowly, and (2) that the eventual host of supporting characters becomes too numerous and underdeveloped. At the start of the series we learn that Dina’s parents mysteriously vanished some years ago, and Dina only settled down at Gertrude Hunt after scouring the galaxy for them and finding nothing. But Dina still believes her parents are alive and hopes to find them one day. Over the course of the first five books, we do get some progress toward this goal, but oh so slowly. Additionally, after the first few books, I began to tire of Andrews’s tendency to pile more and more new characters into a book instead of deepening the stories of existing characters. At some point––especially in book 5––this became overwhelming and my motivation to give the books my full attention took a hit. That said, the end of book 5 was promising and I will continue this series if Andrews publishes more installments. Overall Series Rating: 7/10 ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 26, 2024
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Aug 30, 2024
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Jul 26, 2024
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Paperback
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| 1641971371
| 9781641971379
| 1641971371
| 4.39
| 18,842
| Jan 10, 2020
| Jan 14, 2020
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liked it
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I read the first five books in this series and wrote a single review summarizing my thoughts.
I read the first five books in this series and wrote a single review summarizing my thoughts.
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 14, 2024
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Jul 26, 2024
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Jul 14, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0593655036
| 9780593655030
| 0593655036
| 4.45
| 37,554
| Mar 26, 2024
| Mar 26, 2024
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it was amazing
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Summary: Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation is a masterful and urgently important work of nonfiction. It tells the story of how, starting in the e Summary: Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation is a masterful and urgently important work of nonfiction. It tells the story of how, starting in the early 2010s, the “phone-based childhood” began to radically transform the lives of young people around the world. Haidt calls this “The Great Rewiring of Childhood”––an event which he identifies as the primary cause of the recent global surge of mental health problems in children and adolescents. Another key factor is the simultaneous decline of the “play-based childhood,” which began in the 1990s and picked up steam over several decades. Haidt demonstrates how these two trends have harmed young people and their families, leading to social deprivation, sleep disruption, attention fragmentation, addiction, and spiritual degradation. The book also explains why social media is particularly damaging for girls and why gaming and pornography are more challenging for boys. In the final chapters, Haidt lays out a series of practical recommendations for collective action, including efficacious government policies, platform design updates, school reforms, and advice for individual parents. Key Concepts and Notes: ––I want to be upfront about the fact that I’m a fairly committed Jonathan Haidt fanboy, so I’m probably not the best source for a skeptical take on his work. Two of Haidt’s previous books––The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion and The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure––have had massive impacts on my ethical and intellectual development going back to the early 2010s. Time will tell, but I suspect that The Anxious Generation will be similarly influential when it comes to my take on modern technology, especially regarding when and how we should grant minors access to smartphones and social media. ––I also want to highlight Haidt’s four “foundational reforms” here toward the top of the review, both because they are the book’s most important takeaways and because I personally endorse all of them. I believe that Haidt provides more than sufficient evidence to justify enacting all of these reforms as quickly as possible on the largest possible scale(s). 1. No smartphones before high school 2. No social media until age 16 3. Phone-free schools 4. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence ––The Anxious Generation's central claim is as follows: “These two trends––overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world––are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation” (8-9). ––The Great Rewiring of Childhood, which took place between 2010 and 2015, was a period in which many already-existing trends began to accelerate, and some new ones also emerged. These include but are not limited to: increases in youth levels of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide; increases in youth screen time, especially on social media and gaming apps; decreases in in-person engagements with friends and family; decreases in young people engaging in “adult activities” such as drinking alcohol, getting a driver’s license, and having sex; higher levels of sleep deprivation/disruption; and increases in self-reported feelings of loneliness and kids feeling “useless.” ––Haidt also revisits the concepts of “safetyism” and “antifragility” that were central to The Coddling of the American Mind, demonstrating the drastic downsides of limiting kids’ access to real-world unsupervised play. It is indisputable that children and young adults need age-appropriate opportunities to take risks, make mistakes, and solve problems without adult intervention in order for healthy psychosocial development to take its natural course. Haidt makes a passionate and heartwarming case that adults should rediscover the joys of trusting young people to explore and grow on their own. ––Haidt presents a large amount of data and statistics to support his argument for the Great Rewiring. Some are correlational data and other data are pulled from designed experiments that he uses to justify causal claims about the negative impacts of smartphone technology. Haidt is bold in his assertion of an undeniable causal relationship between smartphone/social media use and negative mental health outcomes, but also admits that he is probably wrong about some things due to this field of research being relatively new. He created a website to complement the book where readers and researchers can dive more deeply into the data and where corrections can be posted as we learn more. The book is also very well-written, offers excellent bullet point summaries at the end of each chapter, and contains extensive notes, references, and an index. ––Haidt’s chapter on school reforms is an absolute masterpiece; as someone with some teaching experience myself and who also spends a lot of time socializing with educators in my community, I can say with confidence that fully banning smartphone use during school hours––not just during class time––would be the single most impactful reform we can and should be implementing in schools around the world. ––While most of the perspectives and arguments in this book were relatively familiar to me, there were at least a couple points that felt novel. The first was Haidt’s discussion of how male and female adolescents differ in the degrees to which they seek “agency and communion”––needs for independence/individuation as well as belonging/connectedness. Boys and girls both desire agency and communion, but girls tend to favor communion and boys lean more into agency. This helps explain why social media is more harmful to girls than to boys, because it preys on their desire to fit in and be accepted by others. It also explains why boys are more vulnerable to gaming and pornography, since those activities often simulate a sense of personal achievement and empowerment. As always with data on sex differences, these are differences in populations and do not dictate the tendencies/preferences of individuals. ––The other aspect of the book that surprised me was Haidt’s discussion of “spiritual elevation and degradation” in chapter eight. Haidt highlights how modern technology consistently pulls us away from the sources of deep flourishing that have been known to humankind since ancient times. I personally think that certain technology-assisted experiences can be incredibly elevating from a spiritual standpoint, but I also take Haidt’s point that doomscrolling definitely isn’t one of them. ––I tried pretty hard to find something major to criticize about this book, but I wasn’t able to locate anything that felt worth complaining about. Others on the web will do a better job than I can of poking holes and suggesting areas where further inquiry is needed. For my part, I’m appreciating Haidt’s contribution and feeling grateful to be alive in a time when we have people like him trying to understand and help solve society’s most pressing problems. Favorite Quotes: Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternate universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and––as I will show––unsuitable for children and adolescents. Succeeding socially in that universe required them to devote a large part of their consciousness––perpetually––to managing what became their online brand. This was now necessary to gain acceptance from peers, which is the oxygen of adolescence, and to avoid online shaming, which is the nightmare of adolescence. Gen Z teens got sucked into spending many hours of each day scrolling through the shiny happy posts of friends, acquaintances, and distant influencers. They watched increasing quantities of user-generated videos and streamed entertainment, offered to them by autoplay and algorithms that were designed to keep them online as long as possible. They spent far less time playing with, talking to, touching, or even making eye contact with their friends and families, thereby reducing their participation in embodied social behaviors that are essential for successful human development. The members of Gen Z are, therefore, the test subjects for a radical new way of growing up, far from the real world interactions of small communities in which humans evolved. Call it the Great Rewiring of Childhood. It’s as if they became the first generation to grow up on Mars. (6-7) As the transition from play-based to phone-based childhood proceeded, many children and adolescents were perfectly happy to stay indoors and play online, but in the process they lost exposure to the kinds of challenging and physical and social experiences that all young mammals need to develop basic competencies, overcome innate childhood fears, and prepare to rely less on their parents. Virtual interactions with peers do not fully compensate for these experiential losses. Moreover, those whose playtime and social lives moved online found themselves increasingly wandering through adult spaces, consuming adult content, and interacting with adults in ways that are often harmful to minors. So even while parents worked to eliminate risk and freedom in the real world, they generally, and often unknowingly, granted full independence in the virtual world, in part because most found it difficult to understand what was going on there, let alone know what to restrict or how to restrict it. My central claim in this book is that these two trends––overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world––are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation. (8-9) No other theory has been able to explain why rates of anxiety and depression surged among adolescents in so many countries at the same time and in the same way. Other factors, of course, contribute to poor mental health, but the unprecedented rise between 2010 and 2015 cannot be explained by the global financial crisis, nor by any set of events that happened in the United States or in any other particular country. (45) Everything about raising children is messy, hard to control, and harder to predict. Children raised in loving homes that support autonomy, play, and growth may still develop anxiety disorders; children raised in overprotective homes usually turn out fine. There is no one right way to be a parent; there is no blueprint for building a perfect child. Yet it is helpful to bear in mind some general features of human childhood: Kids are antifragile and therefore they benefit from risky play, along with a secure base, which helps to shift them over toward discover mode. A play-based childhood is more likely to do that than a phone-based childhood. (93) Smartphones and other digital devices bring so many interesting experiences to children and adolescents that they cause a serious problem: They reduce interest in all non-screen-based forms of experience. Smartphones are like the cuckoo bird, which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests. The cuckoo egg hatches before the others, and the cuckoo hatchling promptly pushes the other eggs out of the nest in order to commandeer all of the food brought by the unsuspecting mother. Similarly, when a smartphone, tablet, or video game console lands in a child’s life, it will push out most other activities, at least partially. The child will spend many hours each day sitting enthralled and motionless (except for one finger) while ignoring everything beyond the screen. (Of course, the same might be true of the parents as well, as the family sits “alone together.”) Are screen-based experiences less valuable than real-life flesh-and-blood experiences? When we are talking about children whose brains evolved to expect certain kinds of experiences at certain ages, yes. A resounding yes. Communicating by text supplemented by emojis is not going to develop the parts of the brain that are “expecting” to get tuned up during conversations supplemented by facial expressions, changing vocal tones, direct eye contact, and body language. We can’t expect children and adolescents to develop adult-level real-world social skills when their social interactions are largely happening in the virtual world. Synchronous video conversations are closer to real-life interactions but still lack the embodied experience. If we want children to have a healthy pathway through puberty, we must first take them off experience blockers so that they can accumulate the wide range of experiences they need, including the real-world stressors their antifragile minds require to wire up properly. Then we should give children a clear pathway to adulthood with challenges, milestones, and a growing set of freedoms and responsibilities along the way. (99) Adults are doing a variety of things to Gen Z, often with good intentions, that prevent adolescents from experiencing a widely shared and socially validated progression from childhood dependency to adult independence. We interfered with their growth in the 1980s and 1990s when we blocked them from risky play and ramped up adult supervision and monitoring. We gave them unfettered access to the internet instead, removing all age thresholds that used to mark the path to adulthood. A few years later, we gave their younger siblings smartphones in middle school. Once we had a new generation hooked on smartphones (and other screens) before the start of puberty, there was little space left in the stream of information entering their eyes and ears for guidance from mentors in their real-world communities during puberty. There was just an infinite river of digital experience, customized for each child to maximize clicks and ad revenue, to be consumed alone in his or her room. It all got worse during the COVID pandemic years of “social distancing” and online everything. (105-6) This is the great irony of social media: the more you immerse yourself in it, the more lonely and depressed you become. This is true both at the individual level and at the collective level. When teens as a whole cut back on hanging out and doing things together in the real world, their culture changed. Their communion needs were left unsatisfied––even for those few teens who were not on social media. After considering the four reasons that girls are particularly vulnerable, we can see why social media is a trap that ensnares more girls than boys. The lure is the promise of connecting with friends––enticing for girls who have strong needs for communion––but the reality is that girls are plunged into a strange new world in which our ancient evolved programming for real-world communities misfires continuously. Girls in virtual networks are subjected to hundreds of times more social comparison than girls had experienced for all of human evolution. They are exposed to more cruelty and bullying because social media platforms incentivize and facilitate relational aggression. Their openness and willingness to share emotions with other girls exposes them to depression and other disorders. The twisted incentive structures of social media reward the most extreme presentations of symptoms. And finally, the progress that many societies have made to reduce sexual violence and harassment in the real world is being counteracted by the facilitation of harassment and exploitation by companies that put profits above the privacy and safety of their users. (170) Boys have increasingly disconnected from the real world and invested their time and talents in the virtual world instead. Some boys will find career success there, because their mastery of that world can lead to lucrative jobs in the tech industry or as influencers. But for many, though it can be an escape from an increasingly inhospitable world, growing up in the virtual world makes them less likely to develop into men with the social skills and competencies to achieve success in the real world. (176) From a spiritual perspective, social media is a disease of the mind. Spiritual practices and virtues, such as forgiveness, grace, and love, are a cure. (211) I want to acknowledge how hard it is to be a parent these days, or a teacher, school administrator, coach, or anyone else who works with children and adolescents. It’s even harder to be an adolescent. We’re all trying to do our best while struggling with incomplete knowledge about a rapidly changing technological world that is fragmenting our attention and changing our relationships. It’s hard for us to understand what is happening, or know what to do about it. But we must do something. We must try new policies and measure the outcomes. (226) A school that is phone-free and play-full is investing in prevention. It is reducing overprotection in the real world, which helps kids to cultivate antifragility. At the same time, it is loosening the grip of the virtual world, thereby fostering better learning and relationships in the real world. A school that does neither is likely to struggle with high levels of student anxiety, and will need to spend large amounts of money to treat students’ growing distress. (253-4) When we give trust to kids, they soar. Trusting our kids to start venturing out into the world may be the most transformative thing adults can do. But it is difficult for most parents to do this on their own. If your daughter goes to the park and there are no other kids there, she’ll come right home. If your son is the only 8-year-old anyone in your town ever sees walking without a chaperone, someone might call the police. Re-normalizing childhood independence requires collective action, and collective action is most easily facilitated by local schools. When an entire class, school, or school district encourages parents to loosen the reins, the culture in that town or county shifts. Parents don’t feel guilty or weird about letting go. Hey, it’s homework, and all the other parents are doing it too. Pretty soon, you’ve got kids trick-or-treating on their own again, and going to the store, and getting themselves to school. Our kids can do so much more than we let them. Our culture of fear has kept this truth from us. They are like racehorses stuck in the stable. It’s time to let them out. (256) The Great Rewiring of Childhood, from play-based to phone-based, has been a catastrophic failure. It’s time to end the experiment. Let’s bring our children home. (293) This review was originally published on my blog, Words&Dirt. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 09, 2024
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Aug 06, 2024
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Jul 09, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 108014398X
| 9781080143986
| 108014398X
| 4.51
| 23,793
| Jul 16, 2019
| Jul 12, 2019
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liked it
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I read the first five books in this series and wrote a single review summarizing my thoughts.
I read the first five books in this series and wrote a single review summarizing my thoughts.
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 03, 2024
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Jul 14, 2024
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Jul 03, 2024
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Paperback
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| 1540857212
| 9781540857217
| 1540857212
| 4.45
| 32,761
| Dec 20, 2016
| Dec 21, 2016
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really liked it
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I read the first five books in this series and wrote a single review summarizing my thoughts.
I read the first five books in this series and wrote a single review summarizing my thoughts.
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 15, 2024
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Jun 29, 2024
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Jun 15, 2024
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Paperback
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| 168364669X
| 9781683646693
| B096NHMV2R
| 4.15
| 11,046
| Jul 06, 2021
| Jul 06, 2021
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it was ok
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I am working on a piece of creative writing related to my reading of this book, which I'll link to here if/when it's ready to share. Overall, I though I am working on a piece of creative writing related to my reading of this book, which I'll link to here if/when it's ready to share. Overall, I thought this book was okay. As a therapist, I like many aspects of the IFS model and find it useful in working with my clients. But No Bad Parts is not a very good book. It's repetitive, unfocused, and extremely grandiose. There's no doubt that Schwartz has made a worthy contribution to modern psychotherapy, but the claims in this book go way beyond what is justified by current practices and research. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 10, 2024
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Jun 25, 2024
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Jun 10, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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| 1518741282
| 9781518741289
| 1518741282
| 4.32
| 38,941
| Nov 13, 2015
| Nov 13, 2015
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really liked it
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I read the first five books in this series and wrote a single review summarizing my thoughts.
I read the first five books in this series and wrote a single review summarizing my thoughts.
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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May 27, 2024
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Jun 13, 2024
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May 27, 2024
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Paperback
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| 1683644239
| 9781683644231
| B0BHBRG1RV
| 4.45
| 1,740
| Jan 01, 2008
| May 09, 2023
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really liked it
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Summary: Richard C. Schwartz’s You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For is a guide for applying Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS) model of psycho Summary: Richard C. Schwartz’s You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For is a guide for applying Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS) model of psychotherapy to intimate relationships. IFS posits that all people have a multiplicity of subpersonalities called “parts,” each of which has its own perspectives, beliefs, needs, goals, and special place in a person’s “internal family system.” Schwartz argues that romantic relationships are compromised when partners rely on one other to care for their parts in ways they are not able to––the classic “you complete me” paradigm. The solution to this problem is for each individual to learn to be the “primary caretaker” of their parts through a process of internal exploration and dialogue, opening the way to what Schwartz calls “courageous love.” Key Concepts and Notes: ––Generally speaking, Schwartz displays a keen intellect and compassionate heart about relationship dynamics. Many of the observations and insights in this book will be useful even to readers who do not buy into the whole IFS modality/framework. ––Although I am wary of getting too enthusiastic about any single therapeutic modality at this early point in my career, I have to admit that engaging with IFS has significantly improved both how I conceptualize client cases and work with clients in sessions. I don’t think the notion that people have different “parts” is particularly novel, but I am finding Schwartz’s language and understanding of how parts form and interact to be useful and accessible for my clients. In particular, I have observed that helping clients learn to become the “primary caretaker” of their parts instead of expecting their partners, family members, and/or friends to do so appears to be both liberating and empowering for them. ––One critical component of Schwartz’s model is the concept of the “Self,” which he defines as “a calm, centered state” that allows people to access “something deeper and more foundational than all these conflicting inner warriors––something that spiritual traditions often call ‘soul’ or ‘essence’” or “mindfulness” (8). In the past I have often been allergic to these kinds of ideas, usually because they invoke some supernatural element and/or violate my understanding of current neuroscience, which is that we cannot find any “seat” or “center” where consciousness or “you-ness” manifests in the brain. However, I have become more open to Schwartz’s version of the Self, which is essentially our most mindful, compassionate, and curious part that is the “natural leader” of our internal family system. Indeed, Schwartz posits that learning and embracing “Self-leadership” is the pathway to becoming the primary caretaker of our parts. Two other related skills include maintaining Self-leadership by remaining the “I” in the storm of both inner and outer conflicts, as well as learning to let the Self “speak for” your parts rather than “speaking from” them. ––I also really like Schwartz’s suggestion that our romantic partners can become “tor-mentors”–– companions who precipitate self-inquiry by accidentally causing us to experience challenging and unpleasant emotions. Schwartz characterizes the experience of being triggered by our partner as an “emotional trailhead” on our journey toward greater insight, self-knowledge, and relational connection. He sees a certain level of non-abusive conflict as both inevitable and desirable in romance, and urges readers to focus more on constructing healthy “repair processes” rather than trying to eliminate conflict altogether. ––I think the IFS model syncs nicely with several other psychological concepts that anchor my current therapeutic stance. These include Scott Barry Kaufman’s “healthy transcendence,” Carl Rogers’s “empathic understanding” and “unconditional positive regard,” and Terrence Real’s “relational heroism.” IFS also aligns with the core tenets of Motivational Interviewing and the Buddhist idea of the “Boddhicitta,” which I recently learned about from one of my clients. In one way or another, all of these frameworks focus on helping people achieve healing, growth, and self-actualization not merely for its own sake, but also as an active commitment to improving the welfare of other living beings. ––I had a few critiques of this book that I think are worth sharing. As mentioned earlier, the idea of “parts” isn’t new, despite the hyped-up IFS marketing language. One way to think about “parts” is that they are imaginary personifications of past wounds and coping/defense mechanisms adopted to compensate for or conceal those wounds. These are foundational dynamics that are addressed effectively by a wide range of modalities, so the “added value” of IFS shouldn’t be overstated. Further, treating the “parts” as full characters/subpersonalities might not be ideal for some clients, even if it works well for others. I haven’t gone deep enough yet in my own work to have an opinion about the usefulness of trying to “draw out” different parts and speak to them directly, but I imagine results will vary depending on the particular method(s) and relationship between therapist and client. ––For readers who are concerned with the question of how IFS “stacks up” compared to other modalities, this book will be disappointing. I’m not sure if Schwartz presents such evidence elsewhere, but this book contains not a single study––let alone an established body of research––to demonstrate that IFS produces comparable or better results than other therapeutic approaches. ––Like many books in this genre, You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For is both very short but also repetitive. The book contains several excellent summaries at the ends of chapters, and many readers could just read those plus the introduction and come away with a solid understanding of the book’s content. It also doesn’t have an index, which I found annoying. ––The one area where I found myself consistently disagreeing with Schwartz was his argument that clients “don’t need to learn communication skills…because your hearts are open and you have access to the qualities of the Self” (92). Schwartz makes this point a few different times and I always found it unconvincing. Sure, some people will communicate effectively once they sooth their vulnerable parts and tap into the Self, but I have a strong intuition that others will still struggle to find the right words even when assuming a Self-led position. The argument that teaching communication skills is unnecessary feels like a cheap way for Schwartz to discredit other modalities that are more focused on the communicative aspects of relationship dysfunction. Perhaps I am being too uncharitable here, but I can’t figure out why Schwartz wouldn’t temper this attitude with something like: “Even after Self-leadership is achieved, some clients will need extra help articulating themselves in a way that feels authentic, and that their partners can also receive.” ––On a final personal note, I’d like to say that IFS has provided me with some very helpful insights about my personality structure. I’m learning that my Self is often profoundly identified/blended with my powerful managerial parts, which can be very useful for getting things done but also harmful to my relationships. I feel like learning to more readily unblend my Self from my fear-based and productivity-driven protector parts is a meaningful and exciting growth horizon for me at this moment. Favorite Quotes: When people listen deeply inside, they encounter a host of different feelings, fantasies, thoughts, impulses, and sensations that make up the background noise of our everyday experience of being in the world. When people remain focused on and ask questions of one of those inner experiences, they find that it is more than merely a transient thought or emotion. Within each of us is a complex family of subpersonalities, which I call parts. These parts are the reasons we can simultaneously have so many contradictory and confusing needs. The American poet Walt Whitman got it right in “Song of Myself”: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes).” So do we all contain multitudes. Thus, the Oracle of Dephi’s admonition to “know thyself” should really be to “know thyselves.” (7) Another kind of happiness exists that you feel steadily whether you are in a relationship or not. It comes from the sense of connectedness that happens when all your parts love one another and trust and feel accepted by your Self. When you have that kind of love swirling around inside you, it spills out to people around you, and those people become part of your circle of love and support. You don’t need intimate others to keep you out of the inner dark sea because that sea has been drained of its pain, shame, and fear. In your inner world, your parts are on dry, solid land and are well housed and nourished. They trust you to be their primary caretaker, which allows your partner the freedom and delight that come with being their secondary caretaker. (18) The ability to hold the multiplicity perspective about yourself and your partner is enhanced by the simple (but often difficult) act of speaking for, rather than from, your parts. If, when you get angry, you say, “A part of me hates you right now,” your partner gets an entirely different message than if you say, “I hate you right now.” This is not just because the former words remind your partner that it is just a part, not all of you. It is also because in speaking for a part, you have to separate from it to some degree, so what you say doesn’t carry the same level of charge or contempt as when the part totally hijacks you and you speak from it. Later in this book, we will explore in depth this practice of speaking for, rather than from, your parts. For now, the point is that anything that reminds you and your partner that you both have a multiplicity of parts, and that you both have a Self in there somewhere, helps hold connection even during the perfect storms in your relationship. (29) Our exiles are a buried treasure that, because they are in a state of tremendous pain and need, we experience as toxic waste and remain convinced that if we get near them, we will be contaminated. Everyone around us agrees that we shouldn’t go there and instead should just get over it and not look back. This is because no one understands that what is toxic are the emotions and beliefs the exiles carry––their burdens––not the exiled parts themselves. On the contrary, those parts are the vulnerability, sensitivity, playfulness, creativity, and spontaneity that are the heart of intimacy. How can we expect to enjoy our partner when we’ve buried our joy? When relationships seem bland and tasteless, each partner blames the other without realizing that they both forgot where they hid the spice. (43) When you have courageous love for your partner, at another level you feel more connected and similar to them than when you were anxious. You understand what the nineteenth century philosopher William James meant when he said at the turn of the century, “Every bit of us, at every moment, is part and parcel of a wider self.” You recognize that at the level of your Selves, you are not different because you are drops of the same divine ocean or sparks of the same eternal flame, part and parcel of the wider Self. It is this realization of connectedness that allows you to give your partner the freedom to grow. (78) Is it possible not just to pretend to feel confident, compassionate, clear, and calm but to actually be in that state even while you are highly triggered? Because many of us have been socialized to believe that we have only one personality, this idea is foreign: “You are either angry or you are calm. How can you be both at the same time?” Once you get to know your parts and your Self, you understand that it is possible. Your Self becomes the “I” in the storm––the calm center of the inner tornado of your triggered parts and the outer hurricane of upset parts in the people around you. (111) By getting your parts to relax and trust you to speak for them, you become an empty vessel that can collide with other people without making them feel demeaned, competitive, pushed, repulsed, or otherwise protective. You have emptied your boat of egoistic parts, but calling it empty is misleading because your emptied vessel becomes filled with Self energy. Self energy has a soothing effect on any parts it touches whether they are in you or in another person. When your parts trust that you will speak for them, they feel less driven to take over and explode at people. What they really want is to have a voice––to be listened to by you and to have their position represented to others. Like people who have not been able to be authentic and fully express themselves, most parts don’t need dramatic, cathartic expression––just acknowledgment and representation. (113-4) It turns out that our needs are pretty simple: to be seen and embraced, and to see and embrace. When we can clear away enough of the jungle to do that, we find a partner for life whose goal is to support our mutual learning and unburdening. With that blessing comes the joy of knowing we are doing what we are here to do, and we are not doing it alone. (159-60) This review was originally published on my blog, Words&Dirt. ...more |
Notes are private!
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May 19, 2024
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Jun 02, 2024
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May 19, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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| 1494388588
| 9781494388584
| 1494388588
| 4.16
| 57,897
| Dec 02, 2013
| Dec 20, 2013
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liked it
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I read the first five books in this series and wrote a single review summarizing my thoughts.
I read the first five books in this series and wrote a single review summarizing my thoughts.
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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May 16, 2024
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May 27, 2024
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May 16, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0062508342
| 9780062508348
| 0062508342
| 4.21
| 30,380
| Jan 01, 1992
| Mar 17, 1994
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it was ok
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Summary: Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying presents a Tibetan Buddhist’s views on life, death, and the ways these states are inter Summary: Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying presents a Tibetan Buddhist’s views on life, death, and the ways these states are interconnected in Buddhist philosophy. Sogyal Rinpoche describes his vision of how to live well, how to prepare for one’s inevitable death, and how to undertake the spiritual process of rebirth. The book also provides guidance on how to be a compassionate companion to someone who is dying, including various practices one can use to facilitate a good death and mourn after a loved one has passed. Key Concepts and Notes: ––I’ve known about this book for a long time, but only recently decided to read it when a dear friend lent it to me. And although my reaction to it was mixed, I am grateful for the time I spent working my way through this strange text. ––The general goals of this book––to help people accept the reality of death, to healthily integrate thoughts of death into daily life, and to promote appropriate and sensitive behavior in the face of death––are near and dear to my heart. I’ve been volunteering with my local Hospice for the last few years and can say that spending time with dying and bereaved people is easily among the most important and rewarding work I have ever done. ––The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying contains much wisdom about how to conceptualize and respond to death. I found the chapters and sections that provide instruction on how to share time and space with dying people to be especially enriching. Sogyal Rinpoche passionately argues that celebrating a dying person’s accomplishments and opening all possible pathways to forgiveness/reconciliation with loved ones are crucial aspects of quality care. ––I really love the concept of a bardo, which Sogyal Rinpoche defines as “constantly changing transitional realities” that “are occurring continuously throughout both life and death, and are junctures when the possibility of liberation, or enlightenment, is heightened” (11). I hadn’t encountered this idea in my previous dabbling in Buddhist teachings, but as a therapist I am finding it useful to conceptualize my clients as experiencing various types “bardos” that, while usually difficult and sometimes devastating, can open new pathways to insight, exploration, and healing. ––Turning now to the things that I did not like about this book, it’s good to acknowledge that I’m probably not at the dead center of Sogyal Rinpoche’s target audience. I am not a practicing Buddhist, and while I have great respect for many Buddhist ideas and practices, I don’t have much patience for the mystical/supernatural elements of the religion. Throughout this book, Sogyal Rinpoche makes many claims about what happens during and after death that are completely unfalsifiable. His descriptions of the karmic cycle of birth-life-death-rebirth require readers to take on many assumptions that I am unwilling to accept. So in that sense this book was of limited use to me because my engagement was constantly being interrupted by feeling like trains of thought that seemed reasonable at the start were being derailed by supernatural obstacles. One example of this is Sogyal Rinpoche’s description of the “rainbow body,” a process by which someone who has attained a certain level of spiritual maturity will purportedly die by dissolving into light over the course of a week, leaving only hair and nails behind. ––Another thing that bothered me was Sogyal Rinpoche’s insistence that many high-level practices in his tradition could only be accessed through a lifetime spent in companionship with a “true master.” Some passages have a tone of elitism, a flavor of spiritual gatekeeping that says, “If you haven’t figured this out yet, it’s because you haven’t practiced long enough or in the right company.” I’m agnostic about whether this is actually true in Sogyal Rinpoche’s spiritual community, but as someone outside that community it felt alienating, which was a bit jarring in contrast to the open and welcoming vibe that permeates most of the text. This critique became even more salient when, after receiving some reader feedback on this review, I learned that Sogyal Rinpoche was credibly accused to abusing his role as a “master” at the Rigpa organization. This is sadly ironic given the frequency with which Sogyal Rinpoche highlights the “sacred” relationship between student and master, including his statement that true teachers “never abuse or manipulate their students under any circumstances” (134). ––My last criticism is simply that I think the book is far too long. It could easily have been half the length or shorter. By the end I found myself skimming chapters and even skipping a couple entirely after realizing that Sogyal Rinpoche seemed to just be rehashing the same concepts over and over. I’ll chalk some of this up to my own impatience and eagerness to move on once I had grasped what was valuable for me personally, but I also think cutting the book’s length considerably would make it much more accessible. Favorite Quotes: In this wonderful teaching, we find the whole of life and death presented together as a series of constantly changing transitional realities known as bardos. The word “bardo” is commonly used to denote the intermediate state between death and rebirth, but in reality bardos are occurring continuously throughout both life and death, and are junctures when the possibility of liberation, or enlightenment, is heightened. (11) What is our life but this dance of transient forms? Isn’t everything always changing: the leaves on the trees in the park, the light in your room as you read this, the seasons, the weather, the time of day, the people passing you in the street? And what about us? Doesn’t everything we have done in the past seem like a dream now? The friends we grew up with, the childhood haunts, those views and opinions we once held with such single-minded passion: we have left them all behind. Now, at this moment, reading this book seems vividly real to you. Even this page will soon be only a memory. (26-7) To be a spiritual warrior means to develop a special kind of courage, one that is innately intelligent, gentle, and fearless. Spiritual warriors can still be frightened, but even so they are courageous enough to taste suffering, to relate clearly to their fundamental fear, and to draw out without evasion the lessons from difficulties. (36) Anyone looking honestly at life will see that we live in a constant state of suspense and ambiguity. Our minds are perpetually shifting in and out of confusion and clarity. If only we were confused all the time, that would at least make for some kind of clarity. What is really baffling about life is that sometimes, despite all our confusion, we can also be really wise! This shows us what the bardo is: a continuous, unnerving oscillation between clarity and confusion, bewilderment and insight, certainty and uncertainty, sanity and insanity. In our minds, as we are now, wisdom and confusion arise simultaneously, or, as we say, are “co-emergent.” This means that we face a continuous state of choice between the two, and that everything depends on which we will choose. This constant uncertainty may make everything seem bleak and almost hopeless; but if you look more deeply at it, you will see that its very nature creates gaps, spaces in which profound chances and opportunities for transformation are continuously flowering––if, that is, they can be seen and seized. (108-9) True teachers are kind, compassionate, and tireless in their desire to share whatever wisdom they have acquired from their masters, never abuse or manipulate their students under any circumstances, never under any circumstances abandon them, serve not their own ends but the greatness of the teachings, and always remain humble. Real trust can and should only grow towards someone who you come to know, over time, embodies all these qualities. You will find that this trust becomes the ground of your life, there to support you through all the difficulties of life and death. (134) Things will never be perfect. How could they be? We are still in samsara. Even when you have chosen your master and are following the teachings as sincerely as you can, you will often meet difficulties and frustrations, contradictions and imperfections. Don’t succumb to obstacles and tiny difficulties. These are often only ego’s childish emotions. Don’t let them blind you to the essential and enduring value of what you have chosen. Don’t let your impatience drag you away from your commitment to the truth. (136) Always when you are with a dying person, dwell on what they have accomplished and done well. Help them feel as constructive and as happy as possible about their lives. Concentrate on their virtues and not their failings. People who are dying are frequently extremely vulnerable to guilt, regret, and depression; allow them to express these freely, listen to the person and acknowledge what he or she says. At the same time, where appropriate, be sure to remind the person of his or her buddha nature, and encourage the person to try to rest in the nature of mind through the practice of meditation. Especially remind the person that pain and suffering are not all that he or she is. Find the most skillful and sensitive way possible to inspire the person and give him or her hope. So rather than dwelling on his or her mistakes, the person can die in a more peaceful frame of mind. (216) Not everyone believes in a formal religion, but I think nearly everyone believes in forgiveness. You can be of immeasurable help to the dying by enabling them to see the approach of death as the time for reconciliation and reckoning. Encourage them to make up with friends or relatives, and to clear their heart, so as not to keep even a trace of hatred or the slightest grudge. If they cannot meet the person from whom they feel estranged, suggest they phone them or leave a taped message or letter and ask for forgiveness. If they suspect that the person they want to pardon them cannot do so, it is not wise to encourage them to confront the person directly; a negative response would only add to their already great distress. And sometimes people need time to forgive. Let them leave a message of some kind asking for forgiveness, and they will at least die knowing that they have done their best. They will have cleared the difficulty or anger from their heart. Time and time again, I have seen people whose hearts have been hardened by self-hatred and guilt find, through a simple act of asking for pardon, unsuspected strength and peace. All religions stress the power of forgiveness, and this power is never more necessary, nor more deeply felt, than when someone is dying. Through forgiving and being forgiven, we purify ourselves of the darkness of what we have done, and prepare ourselves most completely for the journey through death. (217) People who are grieving go through a kind of death. Just like a person who is actually dying, they need to know that the disturbing emotions they are feeling are natural. They need to know too that the process of mourning is a long and often torturous one, where grief returns again and again in cycles. Their shock and numbness and disbelief will fade, and be replaced by a deep and at times desperate awareness of the immensity of their loss, which itself will settle eventually into a state of recovery and balance. Tell them this is a pattern that will repeat itself over and over again, month after month, and that all their unbearable feelings and fears, of being unable to function as a human being any more, or normal. Tell them that although it may take one year or two, their grief will definitely reach an end and be transformed into acceptance. (315-6) It is crucial now that an enlightened vision of death and dying should be introduced throughout the world at all levels of education. Children should not be “protected” from death, but introduced, while young, to the true nature of death and what they can learn from it. Why not introduce this vision, in its simplest forms, to all age groups? Knowledge about death, about how to help the dying, and about the spiritual nature of death and dying should be made available to all levels of society; it should be taught, in depth and with real imagination, in schools and colleges and universities of all kinds. (361) This review was originally published on my blog, Words&Dirt. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Mar 27, 2024
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May 15, 2024
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Mar 27, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0593332458
| 9780593332450
| 0593332458
| 4.46
| 1,531
| unknown
| Feb 06, 2024
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really liked it
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Summary: Coleman Hughes’s The End of Race Politics is a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun of a book. Its modest page-count shortens both barrels, but Summary: Coleman Hughes’s The End of Race Politics is a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun of a book. Its modest page-count shortens both barrels, but they still pack a punch at close range. The shell in the first barrel contains arguments in favor of Hughes’s “colorblind principle,” which impels us to “treat people without regard to race, both in our public policy and in our private lives” (19). In the second barrel resides a passionate polemic against what Hughes calls the contemporary movement of “neoracism,” the belief that “race matters for societal and historical reasons: that discrimination in favor of non-whites is justified on account of the hardships they endure––and hardships their ancestors endured––at the hands of whites” (17-8). Hughes calls neoracism “the latest form of socially approved bigotry” and rejects it roundly (44). Readers who decide to pull the trigger on this book should prepare themselves for its considerable kickback, and would do well to aim it carefully. Key Concepts and Notes: ––I remember first discovering Hughes’s writing in the late 2010s, and then his podcast in 2020. Around that time, I had begun feeling like the most extreme versions of race-based identity politics in America were verging into bizarre and befuddling territory. This trend seemed especially concerning on the political left, which I had previously considered “my side” on most issues (I identify more as liberal/centrist these days). Just as I was becoming thirsty for balanced, non-hysterical perspectives on the topic of race, this young, brilliant new voice arrived on the scene. It’s not an overstatement to say that I felt––and still feel––that Hughes’s commentary restored sanity to the internal conversation I was having with myself about the problem of race in American life. There have been plenty of other writers and public intellectuals who have supported this process, but none of them has had as big an impact on me as Hughes. ––The End of Race Politics is Hughes’s first book. It was a pleasure to read and I found it intellectually satisfying in several ways. As mentioned above, the book is very short, which is both a strength and a weakness. To continue the shotgun analogy, Hughes has no problem inflicting mortal damage to “close range” targets––the silliest “neoracist” ideas and writers who have recently curried favor with elites and well-meaning citizens eager to assume the mantle of antiracism. He also makes a strong and sensible case for colorblindness, although it sometimes takes a backseat to his blasting of neoracist ideology. I think the book struggles, however, to successfully take down some of the more nuanced and sophisticated objections to Hughes’s perspective. ––Let’s start with what works well, which is a lot. Most of the book reads like an extended ELI5 (“explain like I’m 5″) post you might run into on reddit. He reinforces ideas that I thought were obvious to most people when I was growing up, such as “the way to move closer to achieving the goals we care about together is not by revitalizing race thinking but by extracting ourselves from its grip” and “race is not an essential part of our identities…race has nothing to do with who we are, deep down” and “we need to accept that no one’s lived experience is categorically superior to anyone else’s” (26, 62, 143). Such statements would feel patronizing except for the fact that the national conversation about race in America has become so warped compared to that of previous generations. We now need someone like Hughes to remind us that colorblindness was the original aspiration of the American abolitionist movement, the brave activists who fought against Jim Crow, and the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement such as Martin Luther King, Jr. “Race-conscious” approaches, now all the rage, were for generations considered to be the main drivers of racist thinking and policies. Hughes does a great job of arguing that we need to ditch these neoracist views and return to the colorblind principle––the core value that generated such incredible progress for people of color over just a few short centuries and can be expected to create more progress in the future. This is “common humanity” identity politics in its most noble and potent form. ––The term “neoracism” is useful and easy to integrate into how we think and speak about these issues. I hope it gains traction in the media more generally because it serves as an excellent shorthand for distinguishing between neoracist views and “true antiracism,” which Hughes rightly points out is more aligned with colorblindness. ––In general, Hughes’s analysis of how neoracism has gained ground is on point. I especially enjoyed his description of how neoracist views––many of which are inherently inflammatory and divisive––spread more effectively on social media and drive more engagement on traditional media platforms compared to sober and unifying calls for colorblindness. He skillfully shows that this dynamic has led to a perception of increased racism and racist violence in America, when in fact these factors have decreased significantly since the civil rights era. ––Hughes’s discussion of how cultural factors influence societal outcomes is also enlightening. He drives home the point that cultures––which are not the same as race but often correlate with it––do not all share the same norms and values. This means it is therefore unreasonable to expect members of all cultures to be represented in education, business, and politics in proportions that precisely correspond with their share of the general population. This is yet another position that feels like it should be common sense, but is necessary to refute the simplistic models of “racial equity” (i.e. racial quota systems) that are presently being pedaled in our elite institutions and beyond. ––This is a minor point, but as someone who cares about the subtleties of writing, I appreciate Hughes’s stylistic choice to use the terms “black” and “white” without capitalization. This bucks contemporary fads and appropriately deemphasizes the importance of these labels. ––Throughout the book, Hughes does a nice job of anticipating objections to his arguments, articulating those objections in a fair way, and then responding. This pattern is where his philosophical training tends to shine, demonstrating his commitment to reason and logical consistency over tribalist or historically-contingent views. ––There are several areas, however, where I think Hughes’s efforts to head off of his opposition fall short. Most of Hughes’s criticism of neoracism is leveled at Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. This is unsurprising since these two public figures have probably done more than anyone else in recent years to advance neoracist ideology. But they’re also easy targets. Both writers have committed to positions that non-neoracists find confusing and nonsensical, such as Kendi’s insistence that “There is no such thing as a not-racist idea, only racist ideas and antiracist ideas” and DiAngelo’s assertion that “Only whites can be racist.” Their books are replete with poorly-argued, non-evidence-based neoracist platitudes that are easy to dismiss (e.g. Kendi: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”). Although they certainly bear responsibility for being neoracism’s most ardent evangelists, I wouldn’t say they’re anywhere close to the movement’s most sophisticated thinkers. I think Hughes missed an opportunity to engage with other writers who present more nuanced and challenging views. Just a few from my recent reading list include Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Heather McGhee, Ta-Nehisi Coates (who does get one mention), and Richard Rothstein. To be clear, I doubt any of these writers would self-identify as “neoracists,” but it would have been interesting to see if Hughes thought they fit the bill. ––I think Hughes is guilty of occasionally misrepresenting the views of neoracists. One good example is his claim that neoracists endorse “a type of de facto race supremacy” in which they “deny our common humanity…[and] deny that all races are created equal” (33). I can’t speak for DiAngelo because I didn’t read her book, but I have read Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist cover to cover and can say with confidence that this is not true of him. I’m critical of many of Kendi’s views, but nowhere in his work have I encountered denial of our common humanity or the idea that people of any race are superior to people of any other race. Surely there are some crazy neoracists out there who fit Hughes’s description, and “anti-white” rhetoric has become frustratingly acceptable on social media, but I have a hard time believing that these extreme examples represent the majority of folks who would self-identify as “antiracist.” I think Hughes goes too far trying to make neoracists look just as bad as actual race supremacists. ––There were also times when I felt Hughes was cherry-picking a small number of eye-popping examples and using them to make a broader point that didn’t hold. This was mostly in Chapter 3, where Hughes argues that neoracist ideology has captured elite institutions––government, medicine, education, and media. I think it’s obvious that neoracist attitudes and policies are present in all of these institutions to some degree, but I didn’t find his presented evidence convincing enough to conclude that neoracism is dominant in these massive organizations throughout our society. There’s no doubt that neoracism has transcended its status as “a fringe ideology believed by a few radical academics and activists,” but I’m not sure it has fully broken “into the mainstream” in the way Hughes describes (88). ––I found Hughes’s problematization of “systemic racism” largely convincing, especially his point that this label is used to inject unproven and vague claims of racism into causal narratives for various social outcomes when other explanations are more plausible. But he totally ignores some of the most powerful examples of systemic racism that continue to have negative impacts––notably our nation’s shameful history of housing discrimination (i.e. “redlining”) and trends of disinvestment in public goods during periods when people of color began demanding equal access. These issues have been thoroughly documented by Richard Rothstein and Heather McGhee, among others, and I would have loved the opportunity to learn what Hughes thinks about this research. ––Overall, I think The End of Race Politics makes a valuable contribution to America’s ongoing debate about the character of modern racism and possible ways of ameliorating it. I was already on board with colorblindness when I picked the book up, and found plenty of additional reasons to keep supporting it. Additionally, I just want to say how exciting it has been to watch Hughes’s career take off. He’s such an incredibly smart and talented man who has made a significant cultural impact at a very young age (he’s not even 30 years old!). I’m looking forward to seeing where his journey leads next. Note: My review was too long to include my usual list of favorite quotes from this book, so if you want to check that out you can do so here. This review was originally published on my blog, Words&Dirt. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 19, 2024
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Feb 26, 2024
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Feb 19, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 0465094457
| 9780465094455
| 0465094457
| 4.58
| 35,034
| Jan 08, 2007
| Aug 29, 2017
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really liked it
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Summary: Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz’s The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog is a harrowing yet hopeful examination of childhood trauma and its consequ Summary: Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz’s The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog is a harrowing yet hopeful examination of childhood trauma and its consequences. Presented as a series of real-life clinical narratives backed by scientific research, Perry and Szalavitz tell the story of how Perry learned to care for some of the least fortunate and most mistreated people in our society––a process that eventually produced the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT). The clinical cases describe victims of abuse (sexual and physical), neglect, religious brainwashing, and other forms of developmental and attachment disruption. Perry and Szalavitz provide an inside view of the intense challenges that these individuals and their caregivers must face, along with the neurological and psychological frameworks that allowed Perry to help them begin healing. The book also explores systemic causes and reasons for the perpetuation and mishandling of childhood trauma, and proposes some general directions for societal improvement. Key Concepts and Notes: ––Much of the scientific content was review/synthesis of information I've learned from other books and my graduate program in counseling psychology, but some aspects of the neuroscience and NMT theory were new to me. It was really the clinical narratives that drew me in and kept me engaged; these stories are so valuable for clinicians who want to learn about how these problems manifest and play out in treatment. ––This probably goes without saying, but if you have a hard time facing the facts of how child abuse occurs in the modern world, you might want to stay away from this book. It's really upsetting and ugly, despite Perry and Szalavitz efforts to focus on the positive as well as the negative. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the subject matter, but it's not an easy or light read by any means. ––The most important and dominant theme throughout the book is that relationships are the single most important factor in a child's life. "The more healthy relationships a child has," Perry and Szalavitz write, "the more likely he will be to recover from trauma and thrive. Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love" (258). This might sound cheesy but it's actually true, as documented in this book and so many other sources. In the therapeutic relationship and also in families and communities, we are learning more and more that social connection is a kind of co-regulatory "master dial" that can reduce human suffering and increase flourishing––or vice versa. ––I pulled a lot of useful lessons from this book that will serve as rules of thumb in my clinical practice. Here are the highlights: 1. All kids need a stable, safe, loving, and predictable life structure that is controlled and adapted to their needs by caring adults. Getting some version of this structure in place––or strengthening an existing structure––is the best thing to help a traumatized child. 2. While the old adage that "kids are resilient" is true, it's also true that kids are acutely sensitive to developmental disruption. Neuroplasticity cuts both ways. Children can "bounce back" from challenging and traumatic experiences, but they need a lot of support to do so effectively. Also, the sad reality is that some traumas leave a child so damaged that they will never fully recover; the rest of their lives will be spent coping and managing the problems created during a time when they had absolutely no power or ability to choose a different path. 3. Trauma can cause certain sequences of a child's neurobiological development to slow or stop altogether, even as other sequences proceed as normal. The result is that their cognition and behavior may change radically depending on context, and may not be congruent with our expectations for someone of their chronological age. Helping such children requires being able to identify which "part" of them is current expressing itself and meeting it with an age-appropriate response. In some cases, doing so can help restart the brain's natural development process and promote recovery. As far as I can tell, this is the core principle of NMT. 4. Oftentimes, diagnoses of Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and/or Conduct Disorder ought to be reconsidered in favor of a diagnosis of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder resulting from childhood adversity/trauma. Especially in cases of severe dysfunction and/or violent behavior, taking the time to acquire a full clinical history is essential for understanding the developmental narrative in which oppositionality, inattention, hyperactivity, or misconduct are arising. 5. Rushing a traumatized child into treatment––especially talk therapy that expects them to verbally explore their trauma––is generally not a good idea. Some kids are ready to talk about trauma right away, and that's fine. But many need time to think, to feel, and to learn to trust adults again in a therapeutic setting. Playing games, making art, or allowing children to nonverbally reenact things that happened to them at their own pace is usually the best approach. Allowing the child to be in control of how they "dose" their explorations of traumatic experiences is essential for restoring their sense of safety, predictability, and capacity for self-regulation. 6. A key aspect of healthy neurobiological development is the linking of social engagement––including touch, language, and body language––with the brain's capacity to reward itself, producing the internal experience of pleasure. If socializing and pleasure are not adequately associated in early life, a child is much more likely to experience social disconnection and/or exhibit antisocial behaviors later in life. ––The chapter called "Healing Communities," which is second to last in the 2017 edition but was the final chapter in the first edition, contains impressive summaries of collective problems that make it harder to protect and nurture young people in modern America. Given that this book was originally published almost twenty years ago, Perry and Szalavitz were ahead of curve in understanding the negative impacts of bureaucratic dysfunction in social work and education, technological distraction, family structure breakdown, poverty, discrimination, safetyism, poor sleep hygiene, and a justice system that focuses more on punishment than rehabilitation. They rightly point out that even the best therapies and treatments we can offer won't fix these problems without complementary systemic change. ––Overall, this was an excellent book that helped me wrap my head around a difficult topic. Favorite Quotes: Surprisingly, it is often when wandering through the emotional carnage left by the worst of humankind that we find the best of humanity as well. Ultimately, what determines how children survive trauma, physically, emotionally, or psychologically, is whether the people around them––particularly the adults they should be able to trust and rely upon––stand by them with love, support, and encouragement. Fire can warm or consume, water can quench or drown, wind can caress or cut. And so it is with human relationships: we can both create and destroy, nurture and terrorize, traumatize and heal each other. (xxvii-xxviii) Throughout history, while some humans have been our best friends and kept us safe, others have been our worst enemies. The major predators of human beings are other human beings. Our stress response systems, therefore, are closely interconnected with the systems that read and respond to human social cues. As a result we are very sensitive to expressions, gestures, and the moods of others. As we shall see, we interpret threat and learn to handle stress by watching those around us. We even have special cells in our brains that fire, not when we move or express emotions, but when we see others do so. Human social life is built on this ability to "reflect" each other and respond to those reflections, with both positive and negative results. For example, if you are feeling great and go to work where your supervisor is in a vile mood, soon you will probably feel lousy, too. If a teacher becomes angry or frustrated, the children in her classroom may begin to misbehave, reflecting the powerful emotion being expressed by the teacher. To calm a frightened child, you must first calm yourself. Recognizing the power of relationships and relational cues is essential to effective therapeutic work and, indeed, to effective parenting, caregiving, teaching, and just about any other human endeavor. (71) The price of love is the agony of loss, from infancy onward. The attachment between a baby and his first primary caregivers is not trivial: the love a baby feels for his caregivers is every bit as profound as the deepest romantic connection. Indeed, it is the template memory of this primary attachment that will allow the baby to have healthy intimate relationships as an adult. (98) Those of us who work with troubled children have to guard constantly against our preconceptions about a situation; one person's "troubled teen" may be another person's "victim of sexual abuse," and the label given to the child often determines how he is treated. A child seen as "bad" will be treated differently from one viewed as "mad," and both will have their behavior seen in a very different light depending on whether the clinician sees a "victim" or a "perpetrator." Further, depending upon one's point of view, the exact same behavior can be framed as "running away" or "seeking help" and the perspective will profoundly affect decisions about what to do for and two the child. (234) The more healthy relationships a child has, the more likely he will be to recover from trauma and thrive. Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love. (258) Trauma and our responses to it cannot be understood outside the context of human relationships. Whether people have survived an earthquake or have been repeatedly sexually abused, what matters most is how those experiences affect their relationships––to their loved ones, to themselves, and to the world. The most traumatic aspects of all disasters involve the shattering of human connections. And this is especially true for children. Being harmed by the people who are supposed to love you, being abandoned by them, being robbed of the one-on-one relationships that allow you to feel safe and valued and to become humane––these are profoundly destructive experiences. Because humans are inescapably social beings, the worst catastrophes that can befall us inevitably involve relational loss. As a result, recovery from trauma and neglect is also all about relationships––rebuilding trust, regaining confidence, returning to a sense of security and reconnecting to love. Of course, medications can help relieve symptoms and talking to a therapist can be incredibly useful. But healing and recovery are impossible––even with the best medications and therapy in the world––without lasting, caring connections to others. Indeed, at heart it is the relationship with the therapist, not primarily his or her methods or words of wisdom, that allows therapy to work. All the children who ultimately thrived following our treatment did so because of a strong social network that surrounded and supported them. (259-60) Relational health measures are more predictive of outcomes than adverse developmental experiences are. In other words, having a strong social network with many, high quality relational interactions over time predicts good mental health and other positive outcomes better than traumatic experiences predict poor prospects. Relational connectedness buffers current distress and helps heal past trauma. That's not to say that developmental adversity doesn't do serious harm––it certainly can. But strong relational health can help protect children from lasting damage connected to these experiences and is essential to their resilience. Consequently, if you want to predict someone's mental health and functioning based on their childhood experiences, looking at positive social factors will actually tell you more than focusing exclusively on trauma. If there is trauma, good social supports can actually counteract the harm that has occurred. (328-9) This review was originally published on my blog, Words&Dirt. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jan 19, 2024
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Feb 2024
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Jan 22, 2024
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Paperback
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| B00TOT9LDA
| 4.34
| 169,218
| Mar 20, 2008
| Jan 2023
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it was ok
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Summary: Joe Abercrombie’s Last Argument of Kings is the third and final book in The First Law Trilogy. As the Union’s war in the north continues to ra Summary: Joe Abercrombie’s Last Argument of Kings is the third and final book in The First Law Trilogy. As the Union’s war in the north continues to rage, Logen Ninefingers is reunited with the Dogman and his other companions, who have joined forces with Collem West. Meanwhile, intrigue in Adua heats up as a new king is crowned and the Gurkish army arrives to claim the city for its shadowy Emperor. Bayaz, Glokta, Jezal, and Ferro all prepare to play their parts in a desperate defense of the Union’s capital. New alliances are formed and others collapse as the trilogy’s epic final battle unfolds. Key Concepts and Notes: ––This trilogy contains several strong themes, chief among them the futility of seeking revenge through the perpetuation of violence. The series doesn’t demonstrate how characters can effectively escape vicious cycles of offense-revenge-offense, but it also doesn’t downplay the horrible harms that such cycles produce. The related theme of recognizing our regrets and asking whether we can start again after committing atrocities is also nicely explored, mainly through Logen's experiences. The painful disillusionment of learning how the world really works is another solid theme that echoes through the story. ––I came to appreciate the Dogman after thinking he was a dull character for the first two books. The early sections in which he and Logen are together again after a long separation were a delight. ––There were a few clever plot reveals that I didn’t see coming. One in particular made the historical backdrop of the world come to life in a fun and surprising way, mingling myth, magic, and the gritty present. ––A few of the character arcs stood out to me as worthy of note. Jezal’s was probably my favorite, and I also liked how Ferro’s and West’s respective journeys turned out. Wish I could say the same for more characters; they all felt promising in the trilogy’s early pages but most didn’t fulfill their potential. ––Although I personally didn’t enjoy most of the action scenes, I will admit that they are well-executed. Readers who relish complex fight sequences will be amply entertained. My final bit of praise is half compliment, half critique. I can’t say I know anything concrete about Abercrombie’s intentions for this series, but it seems to me like he was trying to write an epic fantasy trilogy in which he actively subverts many of the tropes we’ve come to associate with such stories. For example, Bayaz turns out to be a kind of psychopathic anti-Gandalf, which I found sickening but also fascinating. And the ostensible villain, the Gurkish Prophet Khalul, just never shows up to the party; instead he sends his vapid cannibal henchmen to do his bidding. It’s as if The Lord of the Rings ended with the battle of Helm’s Deep, and only Saruman was defeated but Sauron was still at large. If subversion of the “expected fantasy narrative” was on Abercrombie’s agenda, I think he totally nailed it. But the problem, at least for me, is that the final product is really unsatisfying for several reasons, which I’ll try to explain below. To pull off a successful subversion of a genre, you have to convince the reader that your “twisted” version of the genre makes for a better––or at least equally good––story, and I don’t think Abercrombie even came close. ––Ardee said it best: “I’m onto the third and it doesn’t get any easier. Too many damn wizards. I get them mixed up one with another. It’s all battles and endless bloody journeys, here to there and back again” (424). Again, I’m not sure if Abercrombie intended this to be ironic, but whatever the case it’s an accurate description of how I felt reading Last Argument of Kings. The book is action-packed and somehow tremendously boring. Just when you think you’re going to get a breather from all the bloodshed so something interesting can happen, another battle begins. I was worried about this after reading The Blade Itself, but hoped the problem would improve. I was wrong––it got much worse. ––Another glaring flaw is that, on the whole, the characters don’t change much. These books were pitched to me as “character-driven fantasy,” but I don’t think that’s accurate. Character-driven narratives contain character development, and The First Law Trilogy is very light on that. Setting aside the exceptions mentioned above, most of the main characters in this series end the story more or less how they started. They may have learned a few practical lessons or gained a different position in society, but their fundamental moral and behavioral constitutions are the same. The payout of character-driven novels is the feeling that someone has been profoundly transformed by impactful events, but here we just have a lot of impactful events that don’t seem to be transforming anyone. ––All of this is made worse by Abercrombie’s writing. The guy can turn a phrase, certainly, and his descriptive passages aren’t bad, but multiple books in a row revealed how uncreative and repetitive his prose is. Intelligent one-liners that hit home the first time or two became cloying as he rolled them out over and over. By the third book I’d all but stopped reading Glokta’s internal monologues, which always followed the same tiresome cadence and rarely revealed anything novel. Finally, this series contains the absolute worst sex scenes I have ever read. Sex writing isn’t a particular interest of mine so I’m sure there’s worse stuff out there, but I found Abercrombie’s descriptions of sex acts to be awkward at best and repellent by default. Maybe this was another attempt at narrative subversion, or maybe Abercrombie likes grossing people out, or maybe he even thought the sex scenes were erotic. But they were painful to read. ––It would be hard to argue that any reader could finish this series without a vivid sense of the world’s history and the kinds of people who inhabit it. However, the same cannot be said of Abercrombie's magic system, assuming he even bothered to create one. Apart from hand-wavy statements about pulling power from “the Other Side” and gaining super-human abilities through acts of cannibalism, I never got a clear idea of how Bayaz and the other magic-wielding characters practiced their art. This felt appropriately mysterious at the beginning of the series, but by the end I wanted to know a lot more. ––I’ll wrap this review by stating that I do not think these books are objectively bad. I have occasionally said that about books in the past, but it’s a very high bar to clear. These books are fine, and will even be great for some readers. But for me they were a disappointment. Favorite Quotes: It can be a fearsome weapon, patience. One that few men ever learn to use. (69) That’s what life is. A bunch of errands. If you’re worth a shit you do your best at ‘em. (100) Now he saw his mistake. He’d made a trap for himself, years ago. He’d made a great heavy chain, link by bloody link, and he’d bound himself up in it. Somehow he’d been offered the chance to get free, a chance he didn’t come near to deserving, but instead he’d blundered back in, and now things were apt to get bloody. He could feel it coming. A great weight of death, like the shadow of a mountain falling on him. Every time he said a word, or took a step, or had a thought, even, it seemed he’d somehow brought it closer. He drank it down with every swallow, he sucked it in with every breath. He hunched his shoulders up and stared down at his boots, strips of sunlight across the toes…How many things halfway good had he been offered in his life? And now he’d turned one down, and chosen to come back and settle some scores. He licked his teeth, and he spat sour spit out onto the earth. He should have known better. Vengeance is never halfway as simple, or halfway as sweet, as you think it’s going to be. (118) Proof is boring. Proof is tiresome. Proof is an irrelevance. People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes. And most of us would far rather have a king with no friends and no enemies, than a king with plenty of both. Most of us would rather have things stay as they are, than risk an uncertain future. (153) Jezal was beginning to doubt that anyone in a position of high authority ever really knew what they were doing. The best one could hope for was to maintain some shred of an illusion that one might. And occasionally, perhaps, try to give the mindless flood of events the slightest push in one direction or another, hoping desperately that it would turn out to be the right one. (363) I’m onto the third and it doesn’t get any easier. Too many damn wizards. I get them mixed up one with another. It’s all battles and endless bloody journeys, here to there and back again. (424) Do you know what’s worse than a villain? A villain who thinks he’s a hero. A man like that, there’s nothing he won’t do, and he’ll always find himself an excuse. (601) This review was originally published on my blog, Words&Dirt. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 04, 2024
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Jan 25, 2024
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Jan 04, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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| 9780593230060
| 059323006X
| 4.13
| 19,420
| Oct 24, 2023
| Oct 24, 2023
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it was amazing
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Summary: The purpose of David Brooks’s How to Know a Person is to help readers learn to become “Illuminators,” which he defines as folks who “have a pe Summary: The purpose of David Brooks’s How to Know a Person is to help readers learn to become “Illuminators,” which he defines as folks who “have a persistent curiosity about other people” and are experts in “the craft of understanding others” (13). In service of this goal, Brooks explores his personal history, the life stories of other writers, and a variety of psychological and philosophical frameworks. In Part One, “I See You,” Brooks lays out our best available theories and techniques for social engagement in ideal circumstances. In Part Two, “I See You in Your Struggles,” he demonstrates how these tools can be utilized and adapted to provide companionship and support to people in the depths of immense suffering. And in Part Three, “I See You With Your Strengths,” he describes how we can help people share and revise the stories of their lives in ways that are compassionate, edifying, and empowering. Simultaneously modest and deeply ambitious, How to Know a Person is a remarkable work of intellectual synthesis that is guaranteed to benefit anyone who reads it. Key Concepts and Notes: ––This book is a fully-realized guide to “relationshipping”––a term I first encountered in a book called Friends, for life: The psychology of personal relationships by Steve Duck. Duck describes relationshipping as an active practice “that can be improved, refined, polished (even coached and practised) like any other skill, trained like any other, and made more fluent” (4). Brooks takes the same approach but in a much more thorough and systematic fashion, pointing out that while some people will always have a natural talent for social engagement, anyone who decides to put in the effort can learn to do it effectively. ––This isn’t explicitly a book for therapists, but therapists would do well to read it, especially if like me they are early in their careers. Many of the perspectives and communication strategies that Brooks endorses are among the “common factors” or “therapeutic skillset” that all therapists should learn and refine. His ideas about accompaniment of others, therapy as a kind of editing process, the crucial role of patience, and insistence that we strive to see people in their full moral complexity are all foundational pieces of good therapy. ––Throughout the book, Brooks strikes an elegant balance between subjective and objective viewpoints. He’s not afraid to share intimate details of his life, including personal failures and regrets. He puts himself humbly and convincingly forth as a person whose life has improved significantly through studying how to become a more socially sensitive and adept person. But he also brings plenty of facts and scientific data to the table, along with lots of true stories about the lives of ordinary people that help to illustrate and reinforce his arguments. ––Brooks’s chapters on empathy, psychosocial development, life narratives, and wisdom are all bangers––some of the best writing on these topics I have come across in recent years. His treatments aren’t exhaustive but they’re keenly crafted and focused on the book’s skill-building theme. ––There is just one small feature of Brooks’s outlook that doesn’t click for me. He likes the idea of people having “souls,” which he defines as “transcendent sparks” with “no weight, size, color, or shape” that are somehow supposed to generate awareness “that at the deepest level we are all equals” (31). I’ve never bought into this religious (or at least religious-adjacent) notion, although I appreciate the humanist tradition from which it stems. Fortunately, I don’t think that sharing Brooks’s belief in a soul is necessary to get on board with the rest of the book. ––On the whole, How to Know a Person constitutes a wonderful contribution to modern virtue ethics. I just hope the scope of Brooks’s influence remains limited, because if everyone becomes an Illuminator overnight I’ll be out of a job! ––If you’re interested in this book but are on the fence about whether to read it, please do review the passages below. Brooks’s writing is exquisite and speaks for itself much more effectively than I can. Favorite Quotes: When I was young, I wanted to be knowledgeable, but as I got older, I wanted to be wise. Wise people don’t just possess information; they possess a compassionate understanding of other people. They know about life. (7) In this age of creeping dehumanization, I’ve become obsessed with social skills: how to get better at treating people with consideration; how to get better at understanding the people right around us. I’ve come to believe that the quality of our lives and the health of our society depends, to a large degree, on how well we treat each other in the minute interactions of daily life. And all these different skills rest on one foundational skill: the ability to understand what another person is going through. There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen––to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood. That is at the heart of being a good person, the ultimate gift you can give to others and to yourself. (9) Morality is mostly about how you pay attention to others. Moral behavior happens continuously throughout the day, even during the seemingly uneventful and everyday moments. (38) A person is a point of view. Every person you meet is a creative artist who takes the events of life and, over time, creates a very personal way of seeing the world. Like any artist, each person takes the experiences of a lifetime and integrates them into a complex representation of the world. That representation, the subjective consciousness that makes you you, integrates your memories, attitudes, beliefs, convictions, traumas, loves, fears, desires, and goals into your own distinct way of being. That representation helps you interpret all the ambiguous data your senses pick up, helps you predict what’s going to happen, helps you discern what really matters in a situation, helps you decide how to feel about any situation, helps shape what you want, who you love, what you admire, who you are, and what you should be doing at any given moment. Your mind creates a world, with beauty and ugliness, excitement, tedium, friends, and enemies, and you live within that construction. People don’t see the world with their eyes; they see it with their entire life. (64) If you want to know someone well, you have to see the person in front of you as a distinct and never-to-be repeated individual. But you’ve also got to see that person as a member of their groups. And you’ve also got to see their social location––the way some people are insiders and other people are outsiders, how some sit on the top of society and some are marginalized to the fringes. The trick is to be able to see each person on these three levels all at once. (109) At some point in their lives, most people come to realize that some of their models are no longer working. The defenses they built up in childhood are limiting them in adulthood. The avoidant person wants to become more attached. The person with a deprivation schema wants to feel her full worth. The overreactive person realizes that a life of constant strife only brings ruin on herself and those she loves. This moment usually arises as a crisis. A person, because of their own stupid behavior, has broken a marriage, been fired from a job, lost a friend, hurt their children, suffered a public humiliation. Their world has crumbled. In theory, it should be possible to repair yourself alone. In theory, it should be possible to understand yourself, especially the deep broken parts of yourself, through introspection. But the research clearly shows that introspection is overrated…Introspection isn’t the best way to repair your models; communication is. (142-3) Coming up with a personal story is centrally important to leading a meaningful life. You can’t know who you are unless you know how to tell your story. You can’t have a stable identity unless you take the inchoate events of your life and give your life meaning by turning the events into a coherent story. You can know what to do next only if you know what story you are a part of. And you can endure present pains only if you can see them as part of the story that will yield future benefits. (217) Therapists are essentially story editors. People come to therapy because their stories are not working, often because they get causation wrong. They blame themselves for things that are not their fault, or they blame others for things that are. By going over life stories again and again, therapists can help people climb out of the deceptive rumination spirals they have been using to narrate themselves. They can help patients begin the imaginative reconstruction of their lives. Frequently the goal of therapy is to help the patient tell a more accurate story, a story in which the patient is seen to have power over their own life. They craft a new story in which they can see themselves exercising control. (225-6) I’m not just listening to other people’s stories; I’m helping them create their stories. Very few of us sit down one day and write out the story of our lives and then go out and recite it when somebody asks. For most of us it’s only when somebody asks us to tell a story about ourselves that we have to step back and organize the events and turn them into a coherent narrative. When you ask somebody to tell part of their story, you’re giving them an occasion to take that step back. You’re giving them an opportunity to construct an account of themselves and maybe see themselves in a new way. None of us can have an identity unless it is affirmed and acknowledged by others. So as you are telling me your story, you’re seeing the ways I affirm you and the ways I do not. You are sensing the parts of the story that work and those that do not. If you feed me empty slogans about yourself, I withdraw. But if you stand more transparently before me, showing both your warts and your gifts, you feel my respectful and friendly gaze upon you, and that brings forth growth. In every life there’s a pattern, a story line running through it all. We find that story when somebody gives an opportunity to tell it. (227) We all know people who are smart. But that doesn’t mean they are wise. Understanding and wisdom come from surviving the pitfalls of life, thriving in life, having wide and deep contact with other people. Out of your own moments of suffering, struggle, friendship, intimacy, and joy comes a compassionate awareness of how other people feel––their frailty, their confusion, and their courage. The wise are those who have lived full, varied lives, and reflected deeply on what they’ve been through. (250) The wisdom I’ve learned and tried to share in this book has given me a clear sense of moral purpose. Parker Palmer’s words ring in my head: Every epistemology implies an ethic. The way I try to see you represents my moral way of being in the world, which will either be generous and considerate or judgmental and cruel. So I am trying to cast the “just and loving attention” that Iris Murdoch wrote about. Having written this book, I know, in some concrete detail, what kind of person I seek to be, and that’s a very important kind of knowledge to have. An Illuminator is a blessing to those around him. When he meets others he has a compassionate awareness of human frailty, because he knows the ways we are all frail. He is gracious toward human folly because he’s aware of all the ways we are foolish. He accepts the unavoidability of conflict and greets disagreement with curiosity and respect. She who only looks inward will find only chaos, and she who looks outward with the eyes of critical judgment will find only flaws. But she who looks with the eyes of compassion and understanding will see complex souls, suffering and soaring, navigating life as best they can. The person who masters the skills we’ve been describing here will have an acute perceptiveness. She’ll notice this person’s rigid posture and that person’s anxious tremor. She’ll envelop people in a loving gaze, a visual embrace that will not only help her feel what they are experiencing, but give those around her the sense that she is right there with them, that she is sharing what they are going through. And she will maintain this capacious loving attention even as the callousness of the world rises around her. (270-1) This review was originally published on my blog, Words&Dirt. ...more |
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Dec 20, 2023
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Dec 20, 2023
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Hardcover
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| B00TOT9LIA
| 4.35
| 183,303
| Mar 15, 2007
| Jul 2021
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it was ok
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Summary: Joe Abercrombie’s Before They Are Hanged is the middle book in The First Law Trilogy. As Collem West enters a bitter war in the north for the Summary: Joe Abercrombie’s Before They Are Hanged is the middle book in The First Law Trilogy. As Collem West enters a bitter war in the north for the Union’s holdings in Angland, Sand dan Glokta is sent to the southern port of Dagoska to root out a conspiracy and coordinate the city’s defense against the Gurkish Emperor’s massive army. Meanwhile, Bayaz, Logen Ninefingers, Ferro Maljinn, and their companions venture west in search of a powerful item that might turn the balance of power in conflicts to come. Key Concepts and Notes: ––My favorite part of this book is how the relationships evolve in the crew that travels west with Bayaz. Logen, Ferro, and Jezal all have experiences that help them soften toward one another and grow as individuals. Jezal’s character building is especially poignant, with him learning the hard way that he’s led a privileged life for which he hasn’t been remotely grateful. ––Glokta’s narrative also continues to be intriguing, with hints that he might yet retain some shreds of decency and mercy. ––Abercrombie maintains and expands the feeling from the first book of being caught up in a vast historical/mythological drama that no character fully understands. There are some solid additions to the worldbuilding and filling in of backstory in this book. ––Unfortunately, I didn’t like this book nearly as much as The Blade Itself. Before They Are Hanged is replete with failures, setbacks, and deaths, and I struggled to find positive elements to connect with. I think the anticlimactic tone is intentional, to be fair, but I found it pretty oppressive. ––The book’s grim vibe would have been more tolerable if it wasn’t also boring. The vast majority of Abercrombie’s characters are static and predictable. His prose is serviceable but he recycles the same conventions and tropes over and over. And the action scenes are well done but far too plentiful for my taste; I found myself skimming through them most of the time, wondering when something interesting would interrupt the bloodbath. ––Middle novels in trilogies can be tough to nail, so I don’t fault Abercrombie for slipping up here. And sometimes a slump is necessary to set the stage for a masterful finish, so I am hopeful that Abercrombie can bring it home with the next book. Favorite Quotes: Without trust and respect the group would fall apart in a fight, like walls without mortar. Still, Logen had won over tougher audiences, in his time. Threetrees, Tul Duru, Black Dow, Harding Grim––he’d fought each one in single combat, and beaten them all. Spared each man’s life, and left him bound to follow. Each one had tried their best to kill him, and with good reasons too, but in the end Logen had earned their trust, and their respect, and their friendship even. Small gestures and a lot of time, that was how he’d done it. “Patience is the chief of virtues,” his father used to say, and “you won’t cross the mountains in a day.” Time might be against them, but there was nothing to be gained by rushing. (118) We are left one with the ruins, and the tombs, and the myths. Little men, kneeling in the long shadows of the past. (162) Fearlessness is a fool’s boast, to my mind. The only men with no fear in them are the dead, or the soon to be dead, maybe. Fear teaches you caution, and respect for your enemy, and to avoid sharp edges used in anger. All good things in their place, believe me. Fear can bring you out alive, and that’s the very best anyone can hope for from any fight. Every man who’s worth a damn feels fear. It’s the use you make of it that counts. (183-4) Doing better next time. That’s what life is. (206) A length of wood does not by itself make a man wise, or noble, or powerful, any more than a length of steel does. Power comes from the flesh, my boy, and from the heart, and from the head. From the head most of all. (501) This review was originally published on my blog, Words&Dirt. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 02, 2023
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Jan 04, 2024
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Dec 02, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 0316387339
| 9780316387330
| B00TOT9LDK
| 4.21
| 262,151
| May 04, 2006
| Sep 08, 2015
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really liked it
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Summary: The Blade Itself is the seductive and brutal opening act of Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law Trilogy. Set in a vast fantasy world of kingdoms v Summary: The Blade Itself is the seductive and brutal opening act of Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law Trilogy. Set in a vast fantasy world of kingdoms vying for power in an ever-shifting geopolitical landscape, Abercrombie introduces a host of characters from different regions who appear to have nothing in common. He then proceeds to slowly draw them together, doling out delicious morsels of character development and worldbuilding along the way. Despite turning out to be 500 pages of mere exposition, The Blade Itself is neither boring nor disappointing, and will leave readers eager to pick up the trilogy’s next installment. Key Concepts and Notes: ––Abercrombie’s writing is nothing special from a structural standpoint, but he does have a nice way with words. This novel contains a lot of clever one-liners that I loved (see quotes below). ––The novel’s focus on character development rather than plot or worldbuilding is probably its greatest strength. The characters aren’t likable in the traditional sense, but despite their rough edges I was drawn to them instantly. My favorites so far are Logen and Glokta. Logen’s a fascinating combination of raw aggression, hard-won strategic intelligence, world-weariness, and compassionate stoicism. And Glokta…well, let’s just say that Glokta deserves little of the overwhelming love I instantly and inexplicably had for him. My best friend who recommended this book to me put it perfectly: “Even as he’s torturing people he knows are innocent, you can’t help but root for him. It’s weird.” ––As the story proceeds, we learn that our unlikely band of protagonists are caught in a web of epic historical events that are playing out over deep time. Abercrombie does a great job of making this narrative feel mysterious and huge, but risks disappointing readers if he can’t ultimately fill the gaps with substance. I’m told by lovers of this trilogy that I shouldn’t be worried about this. ––I had a couple noteworthy critiques of this book, the first of which was partially resolved in Part II. The novel opens with a distinct lack of female characters, and none who appear to be central to the story’s unfolding. In Part II, Abercrombie adds an intriguing female protagonist who will obviously be very important, but I still feel like, on the whole, The Blade Itself is a dude-fest. Which is fine, of course, but might turn off readers who like a better balance between masculine and feminine energies. ––My other complaint is that this novel is a bit too action-heavy for my personal taste. Abercrombie executes the action scenes very well––even for someone like me who struggles to construct physical fights in my mind’s eye. But too many times I found myself skimming action sequences that didn’t seem to move the story forward. This was not true, however, of all the actions scenes; I can think of two in particular that were especially fun to read and that influenced the storyline significantly. Favorite Quotes: You have to learn to love the small things in life. (70) Hard words are for fools and cowards...If you mean to kill, you're better getting right to it than talking about it. Talk only makes the other man ready, and that's the last thing you want. (89) Every man has his excuses, and the more vile the man becomes, the more touching the story has to be. (148) You have to have fear to have courage. (162) Vengeance can feel fine, but it's a luxury. It doesn't fill your belly, or keep the rain off. To fight my enemies I need friends behind me. (186-7) The seeds of the past bear fruit in the present. (418) Knowing your ignorance is the first step to enlightenment. (419) If you're going to travel with a man, and maybe fight alongside him, it's best to talk, and laugh if you can. That way you can get an understanding, and then a trust. Trust is what binds a band together, and out there in the wild that can make the difference between living or dying. Building that kind of trust takes time, and effort. (469) This review was originally published on my blog, words&dirt. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 04, 2023
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Dec 2023
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Dec 02, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 0393970124
| 9780393970128
| 0393970124
| 4.02
| 1,313,721
| May 26, 1897
| May 12, 1986
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really liked it
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Summary: Well over a century since its original publication, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a classic that stands the test of time. This captivating epistola Summary: Well over a century since its original publication, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a classic that stands the test of time. This captivating epistolary novel tells the tale of a small group of people who encounter a mysterious and daunting horror. Throughout their harrowing adventure, these heroes leverage their capacities for friendship, love, cooperation, courage, and loyalty to overcome their crafty vampiric adversary. Brimming with creepy imagery, metaphorical richness, and interpersonal tenderness, Dracula celebrates the humanist aspirations of Victorian England with shadowy panache. Key Concepts and Notes: ––In a very refreshing way, the text of Dracula feels old. Contrasting most modern fiction, this novel is a very slow burn. Stoker’s methodical build-up of frightening and tense moments instills a classic sense of dread in the reader that lingers to the last page. ––The novel is a terrific example of old-school detective and mystery genre writing. Stoker parses out information using the letters, journals, and voice recordings of his main characters, conveying a gradual but steady sense of discovery with a satisfying conclusion. ––The actual character of Count Dracula is somewhat less present in the story than I imagined he would be, but I think this just makes him even more elusive and menacing. As Dracula himself declares: “I love the shade and the shadow” (29). ––The novel contains a solid cast of characters, my favorites being Mina Harker and Van Helsing. Van Helsing is a wonderful Victorian hero––more a man of brains than brawn. His scientific and medical mindset is aptly coupled with an openness to the fantastical that would be necessary for a man trying to hunt vampires, and his sense of duty and loyalty to his friends is inspiring. For her part, Mina Harker is a fantastic heroine––intelligent, caring, and resilient as she wills herself to resist Dracula’s evil pull. Although Dracula's gender politics are admittedly dated, I actually loved how the archetypical male and female roles complemented one another throughout the story. ––The narrative of Dracula in modern culture tends to be dominated by gruesome violence and epic battles between needle-toothed monsters and stake-wielding hunters. But Stoker’s vampire is unnervingly subtle––more a deliverer-of-decay than a blood-soaked-butcher. Stoker’s Dracula is perhaps best interpreted an insidious illness that sucks away a loved one’s virtuous qualities and stealthily replaces them with a pure and deathless evil. In the first half of the novel, Stoker deftly captures the grief and trauma associated with witnessing this horrific process and feeling powerless to change it. And in the second half, he does an equally commendable job of showing how brave people can rally and come together in the wake of loss to prevent further tragedy. Favorite Quotes: I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young; and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken; the shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may. (29) There will be pain for us all; but it will not be all pain, nor will this pain be the last. We and you too––you most of all, my dear boy––will have to pass through the bitter water before we reach the sweet. But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and do our duty, and all will be well! (154) The world seems full of good men, even if there are monsters in it. (198) We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked. (203) You know what we have to contend against; but we, too, are not without strength. We have on our side power of combination––a power denied to the vampire kind; we have resources of science; we are free to act and think; and the hours of the day and the night are ours equally. In fact, so far as our powers extend, they are unfettered, and we are free to use them. We have self-devotion in a cause, and an end to achieve which is not a selfish one. These things are much. (210) True friends, I want you to bear something in mind through all this dreadful time. I know that you must fight––that you must destroy even as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter; but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest of all. Just think what will be his joy when he too is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction. (268-9) It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. (279) We want no proofs; we ask none to believe us! This boy will someday know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and loving care; later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake. (327) This review was originally published on my blog, words&dirt. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 10, 2023
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Nov 04, 2023
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Oct 10, 2023
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Paperback
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| 0156001454
| 9780156001458
| 0156001454
| 4.29
| 8,017
| Mar 01, 1994
| Feb 17, 1995
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really liked it
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Absolutely lovely memoir of Paulsen's courageous and wild adventures learning to run the Iditarod. An excellent read for outdoor enthusiasts and/or an
Absolutely lovely memoir of Paulsen's courageous and wild adventures learning to run the Iditarod. An excellent read for outdoor enthusiasts and/or animal-lovers.
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 21, 2023
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Sep 24, 2023
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Sep 21, 2023
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Paperback
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| 1101972122
| 9781101972120
| 1101972122
| 4.26
| 110,275
| Jul 05, 2002
| Jun 14, 2016
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really liked it
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Summary: Stories of Your Life and Others is the first collection of short stories by Ted Chiang, a man who will surely be remembered as one of this era Summary: Stories of Your Life and Others is the first collection of short stories by Ted Chiang, a man who will surely be remembered as one of this era’s finest writers. Ranging from reimagined biblical fables to ethical examinations of near-future technology, Stories contains a batch of bizarre narratives brimming with emotional poignancy and intellectual depth. With each tale, it’s as if Chiang generates an entirely new universe––complete with its own bespoke laws of physics, evolutionary history, and mythology––and then flenses off a tiny slice of human life for analysis under his literary microscope. Speaking with a powerful voice both starkly alien and deeply humanistic, Chiang invites readers to become transported, bewildered, delighted, and horrified. Key Concepts and Notes: ––My favorite stories in this book are: “Understand,” “Division by Zero,” “Story of Your Life,” and “Liking What You See: A Documentary.” ––“Understand” puts a nice twist on the transhumanist question of what might happen if we could massively increase an individual’s level of intelligence, resulting in a superintelligent being living amongst normal humans. Chiang does a great job of dropping the reader into the overwhelming phenomenology of such a mind, and also confronts the ethical question of how such towering intelligence should be utilized. ––“Division by Zero” presents the idea of a mathematical equation with the potential to drive people mad, or at least plunge them into a major existential crisis. The story itself isn’t too remarkable, but its core concept is haunting. ––“Story of Your Life” is the crown jewel of this collection, well-deserving of its excellent adaptation into the 2016 film Arrival. Chiang’s musings on the nature of language, perception, time, causation, grief, and parenthood are equal parts emotionally stirring and intellectually gripping. I feel like this is one of those rare instances where the written story and the film are both excellent in their own rights, containing many overlapping qualities but also uniquely suited to their respective mediums. ––“Liking What You See: A Documentary” is intriguing both in its form and content. It’s written like a series of interviews, very much like what we’ve come to expect from a mainstream documentary film. I’ve never seen that style presented in written form before, which was interesting. The story presents a diversity of views on how (or if) we should make use of a new technology that induces “calliagnosia.” This condition essentially cancels out a person’s aesthetic response to seeing human faces, the result being that no one appears more or less beautiful than anyone else. This story is an absolute master class in perspective-taking, with Chiang working extremely hard to present the ethics of calliagnosia from every possible angle. ––Overall, I didn’t find Stories quite as captivating as Chiang’s more recent collection, Exhalation. But that’s great news because it means that the quality of Chiang’s work seems to be improving over time. I am very eager to see where his remarkable imagination takes us next. Favorite Quotes: Blinding, joyous, fearful symmetry surrounds me. So much is incorporated within patterns now that the entire universe verges on resolving itself into a picture. I’m closing in on the ultimate gestalt: the context in which all knowledge fits and is illuminated, a mandala, the music of the spheres, kosmos. I seek enlightenment, not spiritual but rational. I must go still further to reach it, but this time the goal will not be perpetually retreating from my fingertips. With my mind’s language, the distance between myself and enlightenment is precisely calculable. I’ve sighted my final destination. (55-6) It will forever astonish me how quickly you grow out of one phase and enter another. Living with you will be like aiming for a moving target; you’ll always be further along than I expect. (115) The physical universe was a language with a perfectly ambiguous grammar. Every physical event was an utterance that could be parsed in two entirely different ways, one causal and the other teleological, both valid, neither one disqualifiable no matter how much context was available. When the ancestors of humans and heptapods first acquired the spark of consciousness, they both perceived the same physical world, but they parsed their perceptions differently; the worldviews that ultimately arose were the end result of that divergence. Humans had developed a sequential mode of awareness, while heptapods had developed a simultaneous mode of awareness. We experienced events in an order, and perceived their relationship as cause and effect. They experienced all events at once, and perceived a purpose underlying them all. (133-4) Before I learned how to think in Heptapod B, my memories grew like a column of cigarette ash, laid down by the infinitesimal sliver of combustion that was my consciousness, marking the sequential present. After I learned Heptapod B, new memories fell into place like gigantic blocks, each one measuring years in duration, and though they didn’t arrive in order or land contiguously, they soon composed a period of five decades. It is the period during which I know Heptapod B well enough to think in it, starting during my interviews with Flapper and Raspberry and ending with my death. Usually, Heptapod B affects just my memory: my consciousness crawls along as it did before, a glowing sliver crawling forward in time, the difference being that the ash of memory lies ahead as well as behind: there is no real combustion. But occasionally I have glimpses when Heptapod B truly reigns, and I experience past and future all at once; my consciousness becomes a half-century-long ember burning outside time. I perceive––during those glimpses––that entire epoch as a simultaneity. It’s a period encompassing the rest of my life, and the entirety of yours. (140-1) When you see a smile that’s genuine, you’ll see beauty. When you see an act of courage or generosity, you’ll see beauty. Most of all, when you look at someone you love, you’ll see beauty… True beauty is what you see with the eyes of love, and that’s something that nothing can obscure. (269) This review was originally published on my blog, words&dirt. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Sep 15, 2023
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Oct 08, 2023
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Sep 15, 2023
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| 4.04
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it was amazing
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Sep 08, 2024
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Sep 06, 2024
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| 4.51
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liked it
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Aug 30, 2024
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Jul 26, 2024
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| 4.39
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liked it
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Jul 26, 2024
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Jul 14, 2024
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| 4.45
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it was amazing
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Aug 06, 2024
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Jul 09, 2024
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| 4.51
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liked it
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Jul 14, 2024
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Jul 03, 2024
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| 4.45
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really liked it
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Jun 29, 2024
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Jun 15, 2024
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| 4.15
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it was ok
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Jun 25, 2024
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Jun 10, 2024
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| 4.32
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really liked it
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Jun 13, 2024
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May 27, 2024
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| 4.45
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really liked it
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Jun 02, 2024
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May 19, 2024
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| 4.16
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liked it
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May 27, 2024
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May 16, 2024
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| 4.21
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it was ok
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May 15, 2024
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Mar 27, 2024
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| 4.46
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really liked it
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Feb 26, 2024
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Feb 19, 2024
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| 4.58
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really liked it
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Feb 2024
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Jan 22, 2024
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| 4.34
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it was ok
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Jan 25, 2024
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Jan 04, 2024
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| 4.13
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it was amazing
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Jan 02, 2024
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Dec 20, 2023
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| 4.35
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it was ok
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Jan 04, 2024
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Dec 02, 2023
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| 4.21
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really liked it
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Dec 2023
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Dec 02, 2023
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| 4.02
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really liked it
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Nov 04, 2023
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Oct 10, 2023
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| 4.29
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really liked it
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Sep 24, 2023
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Sep 21, 2023
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| 4.26
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really liked it
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Oct 08, 2023
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Sep 15, 2023
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