Finding Your Element

I am constantly trying to figure out what I'm really supposed to be doing on this Earth.  I really enjoy my current career in the health field, but I think there is something more I'm supposed to be doing. What is that 'more'?  Well I picked up Ken Robinson's book to see how I could go about finding out the answer to that question.  I first saw Ken Robinson during this TED talk.  I really enjoyed the talk and felt he had a lot of valid points.  So, naturally, I was interested to see what he recommends in this book about finding out what gives you life.

As far as self-help books go, this one was pretty inspirational and helpful.  It doesn't give you too much psychological mumbo-jumbo.  What it does provide in the way of psychology and research is mostly already known and established so it's not overwhelming.  There are some step-by-step measures and recommendations given.  There are even some exercises to complete if you're interested.  I think the best thing the book does is ask the questions you need to answer in order to move forward on your quest to find your passion.  Taking personal time to just sit down with yourself and ask some of these questions might be the only jump-start you need.  I found that just reflecting on the questions and jotting down a few notes for some of the exercises got my mind flowing.

The individual stories that are interspersed throughout are good and will leave you thinking: "If they could do it, why shouldn't I be able to as well?"

If you decide to pick it up, I wish you luck on your journey.

Inferno

When I read The DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons years ago, I remember not being able to put them down. The chapters were short and always ended with a mild cliffhanger so you just had to keep reading, and you wanted to keep reading.  Everything was a clue to something big.  I remember being absorbed by those books.  They kept me up at night turning the page.

Now comes Inferno.  I was going to the bookstore to read it with the hopes that eventually I would move up on the library waiting list.  I think I was around number 300 or so. I know, call me an optimist.  Anyway, since the list was moving at a snail's pace, and I wanted to kick my feet up on my couch to read it, I finally broke down and downloaded it to my eReader.  What can I say now that I've finished it?  Well, I kind of wished I'd waited for the library.

The book is definitely engaging. It's the same Dan Brown style we've known all along. Short, quick chapters. The protagonist racing through the streets of a European city trying to save the world one Art History clue at a time.  This time around he is mostly in Florence, Italy following clues related to Dante's Inferno.  He's trying to stop a virus from being released into the general population.  The creator of the virus has a problem with the rapid population growth on Earth and has a mind to do something about it.  Well not if Robert Langdon and the World Health Organization have anything to say about it. The whole book you think that if the virus is released people will die, but there is a little twist to that.  If you know for a fact that you won't read the book, highlight my spoiler starting here ---> The virus actually will make one-third of the population STERILE so they won't produce any more kids, therefore putting the population in check without actually killing anyone. <---

My first degree is in Art History so I love the idea of Robert Langdon.  This is why I loved The DaVinci Code. However, I just wasn't into this book as much as I thought I would be and I know exactly why.  The writing is not good.  I was reading it and that same thought kept coming to my mind. It took away from the story for me.  There were chunks of the story that were repetitive. There were also a lot of catch phrases and clichés.  I kept thinking about Stephen King's book about writing and shaking my head because I think Dan Brown might not have read it.  If he did, he certainly didn't heed any of the advice in it. 

Overall, it's a perfectly good book for vacation and a lazy weekend.  It's a quick read and might give you some food for thought regarding population control, but don't fool yourself into thinking it's a classic.  

**Edit:  A friend of mine just reminded me that I also read The Lost Symbol a few years ago.  I forgot I ever read that book. I guess that speaks volumes.**

  

Inside-Out Simplicity

Yes, I'm on a bit of a "peace and love" reading frenzy.  It comes in peaks and valleys.  It's a process to simplify your life.  I've been working at it for about three years now and still have far to go. This book touches on almost every aspect of life and how you can make small changes to start simplifying. There are a lot of common sense ideas, but also some unique ideas that may be useful.

As with any book that promotes change, this is a book you have to be ready to read. If you are not in a place in your life where you are ready to implement some kind of change, you probably won't enjoy it.  However, if you are thinking about simplifying your life or you've looked around you lately and thought to yourself "I'm tired of this clutter and turmoil" then you might glean some tips from this book.  The author divides the book into sections dealing with our relationships to our world. There are segments regarding our relationship with ourselves, others, possessions, money, and so on.  He discusses how, by simplifying our lives, our lives become more meaningful.

It's only about $3 for the e-book.  I think that's a good deal.  Even if you end up hating it or certain sections don't apply to you (i.e. the section about your relationship with kids or spouses isn't applicable to all), you will be happy you didn't have to break the bank for it.

The Four Agreements

This book has been recommended to me multiple times.  I finally read it and I'm glad I did. I am a big believer in the power of the mind.  I think you can influence your life either positively or negatively by what you believe. This book lists and discusses four agreements you should make with yourself in order to live a life of happy freedom from the status quo.  The four agreements are:

1) Be impeccable with your word
2) Don't make assumptions
3) Don't take things personally
4) Always do your best

The author explains how, by implementing these agreements into your life, you can open your heart and mind to more compassion and love. I love reading positive writing like this.  I know it's not for everyone, but if you gravitate towards writing about inner peace or Zen-like topics, this is a good selection. It's also a quick read, but be sure to have a highlighter handy.  There are some good points made that you won't want to forget.

Franny and Zooey

Like most Americans, I had to read The Catcher in the Rye during my high school years. It was quite forgettable to me as a teen, so I re-read it as an adult and I still could not tell you what was so great about it.  It just wasn't a memorable book or one that I could relate to personally. That was the only Salinger I ever read until now.  Franny and Zooey was originally published as two separate stories in The New Yorker back in the mid-late 1950s. The two characters are the youngest children in the Glass family.

Franny (Frances - age 20) experiences the beginning of an existential nervous breakdown in her story.  She's with her boyfriend at a restaurant and starts to tear down everything he says. She basically tells him that he's an idiot and all the people in her world are idiots as well.  She's chain-smoking while doing this and refusing to eat her food. Then she passes out while walking to the bathroom. When she comes too, her boyfriend says he'll get a cab for her.  Presumably, he gets her back to her NYC family home because then Zooey's story begins shortly after this fainting incident.

Zooey (Zachary - age 25) is in the bathroom taking a bath and reading an old letter from one of his brothers who encourages him to follow his dream of acting regardless of what their mother thinks he should do.  He finishes reading the letter and proceeds to start looking at a script for a project. Then his portion of the story really takes off. The mom comes into the bathroom and has this long, drawn-out conversation with Zooey.  The conversation is borderline abusive with Zooey calling his mother stupid and fat and things like that.  The mom just chain-smokes and berates Zooey too, telling him to go talk to Franny, who we learn is malingering on the couch in the living room chanting The Jesus Prayer to herself. Zooey says he has a million things to do that day and can't be bothered since he talked to her the previous night.

To make a long story short, Zooey does go and talk to Franny in the living room (another long conversation) and eventually walks out of the room because he's driven her to tears. Then he calls her later from a phone line within the same apartment to speak more kindly to her and she fares much better with the kinder conversation. She seems to have an epiphany or a moment of enlightenment at the end of the nicer conversation, and so the story ends.

I know I usually don't type so much detail about a plot. Even with this one, I've left out a great deal about the oldest children in the family and their role in the current situation. Since they were originally two stories, though, I wanted to give each story a little description. The book has a lot of religious references and meditations. It actually reads more like a play than a book. The dialogue is so dense that it's hard to remember you're reading two interconnected stories. If you are interested in religion or spirituality, it could be an interesting read for you.  If not, I'm afraid you may be unable to finish it.  The characters do come off as pompous, entitled brats at times, especially in the way they speak to one another.  However, by the end you get the sense that they do care about each other in some odd, abstract, philosophical, academic way.  Even with characters like that, I enjoyed this one much more than The Catcher in the Rye because it was more thought provoking for me and also more memorable.

The Interestings

This book is the October book selection for the small book club I attend.  I'm already thinking about how I'll explain my ambivalence.  I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. It was actually kind of sad and depressing if I think too much about it.  Yet, I think maybe that was the whole point.  With a title like this you would think the book would be interesting, right?  Well if I oversimplify it, I would say it's actually about how uninteresting life can be, and that's pretty sad.

The book starts in the 1970s when six teens (three girls and three boys) meet at a New England summer camp and become friends. The main character, Jules, is a shy girl with low self-esteem who is dealing with the recent death of her father.  She begins to feel like this new group of friends provides something she thinks she is missing from life. She glamorizes their lives because they all live in Manhattan while she lives in a suburb of NYC.  After camp is over and they all return to their respective homes, she takes the commuter train into the city to visit them often and idolize them.  She starts thinking her suburban life isn't good enough and never really ever lets go of this desire to lead a more interesting life. One New Year's Eve, one of the boys gets into a situation where he is accused of raping one of the girls.  This causes a split among them although the majority of them remain friends. Years go on and life goes on. Jules ends up in a regular marriage with a regular guy while two of the other friends from the group become a millionaire power couple.  The majority of the book is Jules wishing her life were different or that life could always be like summer camp when she was happy.  That was the sad and depressing part for me.  If you keep wishing for a different life, you inevitably miss the one you're actually living.

Spanning from the 1970s to today we follow the trajectory of each of the six teens as they become young adults, spouses, parents, and older adults. They are in their mid-fifties by the end of the book. While I didn't mind reading the book, the characters were shallow and it really was just about life.  People get jobs, they struggle with depression, they fight with their spouses, they lie, they reconcile, they move on from tragedy, they avoid sticky situations, they drink, they smoke, they are successful, they are mediocre, they are unsuccessful, they are frustrated, they quit jobs, they have kids, they defer dreams, they eat, they sleep, they worry, they stress, they desire, they love, they hate, they make good decisions, they make bad decisions, and it goes on and on. That's life.  That's pretty much what goes on in this book. The author tries to make the alleged rape the turning point of the friendships but it only comes up sporadically as the book continues hurtling the characters through life.  In the end, that's what I think the book is really about: the banality of life and the fact that we are all hurtling through it.  These particular characters weren't developed well enough for me to really care how they got through life, though.

If you read books to escape reality, this won't work for you because I suspect that most people will recognize something of the banality of their own lives in this work. The plus is that the writing flows very well so even though it's 450+ pages, you can move through it smoothly. Also, it does have good closure at the end so you won't feel it was all for naught.