Hey frends. Just wanted to drop by a few thoughts on some books I’ve read recently. Three nonfiction books, which is rare for me! I usually gravitate towards fiction. Anyways, enjoy these short reviews of Joni Mitchell: Reckless Daughter, Black Wall Street, Men Without Women, Wool, White Noise, Pnin, and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, below:
Continue reading
My sister gave me “To Touch the Top of the World” as a gift, maybe ten, twelve years ago. “It’s about a blind guy that climbed Mount Everest,” she said. “Super inspiring.”
Cool, I replied, probably with a roll of my eyes, and set it aside. The book sat in my bookcase for the next decade, patiently waiting.
I picked it up the other day, in a moment of boredom, and found myself tearing through it. It is, as my sister said all those years ago, super inspiring.
Women’s issues are inescapable in Morocco.
A moderate Islamic society, Morocco isn’t so severe as some places in the world; it is no Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Mauritania. But nonetheless, a Westerner cannot walk here without feeling it, without seeing it, without experiencing it every day.
And as a man, of course, I do not experience the worst of things. My sister, my traveling partner for this jaunt, wrote a good blog post about her thoughts on the gender gap, here.
Speaking on this subject as a man is a difficult needle to thread. So I won’t try. Not yet, anyways. But I would be lying if I said it hasn’t been in my thoughts, a lot.
The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood. Recently, The Handmaid’s Tale has reached a new audience, through the Emmy Award-winning Hulu series. I haven’t seen the series yet, but I knew the basic premise of the book. What better place to read about a dystopian patriarchy than in Morocco?
When I was in Panama six weeks ago, I found myself in a bad place. I was depressed and isolated. There was no reason for this feeling really — my way was being paid by a blogging partnership, and I was practicing my Spanish. I was caught up in my own head, feeling depressed in a situation where I knew I needn’t.
As I was walking around one of the poorer districts of Bocas Del Toro, feeling sorry for myself, I had a stark realization: I felt no drive to help these people.
Bocas is a place of contrasts: hovels and broken roads alongside million-dollar homes for wealthy expats. Privilege alongside poverty. And no matter how poorly I was feeling, I knew I fell firmly on the privileged side of that divide.
I thought of my sister, Christina, who has dedicated her life to helping the less fortunate. Once you have seen true inequality with your own eyes, “I don’t see how you could want to do anything else,” but try and alleviate it, she had once told me.
Which brings us to “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” by Tracy Kidder. Christina handed it to me recently, with the instructions: “You should really read it. If only to understand your dear sister a little better.”
My review of Paulo Coehlo’s The Alchemist is one of my most popular posts. The Alchemist is one of my favorite books; I connect deeply with the message. I feel that it was introduced to me at a pivotal moment in my life — the message appeared exactly when I needed to hear it.
Last summer, a good friend’s long-term girlfriend handed me a copy of The Alchemist. They’re both engineers, based in Seattle. They were making great money, lived in a modern apartment with a magnificent view, and seemed to be doing great. “It’s my favorite book,” the girlfriend told me as she handed me the book. She longed for travel, like I had done.
Mt. Rainer loomed in the distance, visible from their apartment window. The boyfriend spoke of climbing it next summer. I thought that sounded fun. But you could tell, it wasn’t the girlfriend’s dream.
I was just back from extended travel in Asia. I was unemployed, emotionally devastated, and unsure of what to do with my life. I had been home for two months, floating around from friend to friend, spending my days mostly sleeping and trying to make sense of everything I had learned from breaking up with my girlfriend in the Hong Kong airport, and going on to Nepal. I was spending money recklessly, including coming out to Seattle for just a weekend. Chasing my dreams had, in a very real way, destroyed my life.
If there is a better time to be handed a book about the power and importance of following your dreams, I don’t know when it would be.
thisisyouth 