Breath by James Nestor is one of the best books I’ve read this year, a fascinating look at something we’re doing every second of every day yet hardly ever consciously think about: breathing. It’s jam packed with interesting stories throughout history, of scientists and every day people experimenting with their breath as a way to change their own physiology and health. Many of the tips offered in this book are very simple, like this: Breathing through your nose is beneficial and healthy. Breathing your mouth is bad. Like, really bad if you do it consistently, as they showed in an experiment where they blocked their noses for 2 weeks (every significant biomarker worsened). There are tons of stories from the book I’d love to share (my highlighted notes from Kindle come out to 78 pages and are included at the end), but first I want to go over some of the basic breathing practices and then showcase two of the more out there stories. Whether complex or stupidly easy, what amazes me most about these stories and techniques are how wide ranging the positive effects of breathing properly can be, impacting nearly every area of your health, including sleep, energy, immune system, decreased anxiety and depression, improved focus and cardiovascular health, just to name a few.
Continue reading “Breath by James Nestor”My Favorite Books of 2019
I read a lot this year, much more fiction than I usually do, specifically a lot of detective and crime novels. And I loved it. I just focused on reading what I wanted to, and if I wasn’t enjoying a book I dropped it. Since I was only reading what I enjoyed, I read at a quicker pace and which led to more books overall than usual. I’m continuing this approach in 2020. Here are my favorite books I read in 2019.
11/22/63 by Stephen King
This was my favorite book I read this year. It hit a lot of targets I’m really interested in: Historical fiction set in the 1960’s. Conspiracy theories. Elements of crime and spy stories with a scifi bent.
The main story has an outsider (to both time and place) time traveling back to first prove without a doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK, and then decide whether or not to prevent the assassination by murdering the assassin. There are plenty of detours from this ‘main story’, which I actually loved, that explore all the realistic side adventures of a time travel story. He tries to save others along the way, sometimes with causing even more dire consequences. He bets on a long shot to win big and then has to avoid retaliation from the bookie that got duped. There’s a lot going on and I enjoyed it all. It also sneaks in a love story, which grew to be one of the most powerful parts of the book. We’re thrown in with the character adjusting to this new time and new place and how he forms relationships and ultimately becomes a part of the community he’s in. In these ways it reminded me of Winesburg, Ohio, which is one of the highest compliments I can give a book. King is amazing at making the setting almost literally become a character, an evil character here, with Dallas. It’s linked to his greater universe he’s created and we even get a glimpse at Derry (another evil city) and the monster that’s living there in 1958 (but more on IT later).
It’s just an amazing combination of genre, drama, and romance with plenty of tense, eerie suspense. On top of it all, it’s a time travel story, presented in maybe the best way I’ve seen it done. It’s laid out in fascinating, easy to follow detail right at the start, but then moves on with the rest of the story, returning to it when it needs to, without ever being bogged down by the ‘rules’. It’s a long book but I never felt bored. It was an exciting, interesting story the whole way through.
The Spenser Private Detective Novels by Robert Parker
While 11/22/63 was probably my favorite book this year, the Spenser novels are my favorite discovery. Robert Parker was a very local writer, living in Cambridge and teaching at BU, and though I hadn’t known of him previously, any time I brought him up to someone a bit older, they knew exactly who I was talking about. He’s a legend, considered the dean of American crime fiction, and wrote and released a book nearly every god damn year of his life once he got going. Almost all of the Spenser novels are set around Boston (with a few excursions, to London and Los Angeles, for example). It’s set when and where it was written, 1970’s and 80’s around Boston, but it also feels like it could be set any time, with many of the big landmarks and streets mentioned still here today. I read and enjoyed a lot of the detective novels I read this year, but this hit exactly what I was looking for. Spenser is the detective, and he’s a smart ass who likes to cook and read and work out at the YMCA. My guy!
While Spenser is recognized by all he encounters as one of the toughest, most reliable guys around, it’s much more realistic than a Jack Reacher Lee Child novel. He’s not unstoppable. He gets it as good as he gives at times, but his experience as a boxer and policeman make him a crafty, intelligent P.I.
Reading more about the author Robert Parker only made me like him more. Here’s some gold from his Wikipedia:
“Parker and his wife, Joan, separated at one point but then came to an unusual arrangement. They lived in a three-story Victorian house just outside of Harvard Square; she lived on one floor and he on another, and they shared the middle floor. This living arrangement is mirrored in Spenser’s private life: his girlfriend, Susan, had an aversion to marriage and living together full-time. Living separately suited them both, although they were fully committed to each other. Explaining the arrangement in an interview on CBS Sunday Morning, Parker said, “I want to make love to my wife for the rest of my life, but I never want to sleep with her again.”
And, “when asked how his books would be viewed in 50 years, replied: ‘Don’t know, don’t care.'”
I’ve read 10 of these books upon discovering it, in just the last four months of the year. They’re incredibly fun, easy reads that you can move right through. My favorites so far are The Goldwulf Manuscript, Mortal Stakes, The Promised Land, & The Judas Goat. I look forward to reading even more in 2020.
A few more favorite detective novels this year: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, Slow Horses by Mick Herron, Gun Machine by Warren Ellis, Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling)
IT by Stephen King
I ripped through this book at a pretty insane pace, because of how well-written it is, but by the time I got to the end I was ready for it. Maybe I read it a little too fast. King really is a master, but at the same time, he could’ve easily cut 10-20% of the book and it’d probably be even better. That being said, it only really started to feel like it was dragging for a moment towards the end, but then the shIT hits the fan and it’s an exciting, terrifying ride straight to the end.
As gruesome as it all is, the friendships between the Losers, the escape from misery they get among friends, and the joy and light-hearted humor they’re able to have with each other is really heart-warming and somehow plays well within the fact that a MURDEROUS ALIEN CLOWN IS MASS MURDERING CHILDREN IN THEIR TOWN. Great book, and another entry for me into the world Stephen King has built.
Leadership In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin
This is a great format to learn history through. It wasn’t a straightforward biography of one individual. Those can always be rough starting out; I don’t care about Lincoln’s uncle’s cousin, I want to hear about how he learned in his environment and built on those lessons to become one of the greatest leaders in American history . And this book provided exactly that. It looked at four President’s formation into the leaders they become, their style and methods, and the change they navigated and brought about through their leadership. The four Presidents were Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Lyndon Johson, all incredibly interesting, different type of people and leaders. You get to learn about each leader in depth without treading repetitive ground or insignificant details. Kearns focused on their process and strategy, but also the things that happened to them in their lives that formed their pursuits, widened their empathy, and drove them in the direction they would go. Each portrait was very interesting, and I learned more than I previously knew about each man. FDR’s chapters were particularly illuminating because he’s the one I knew the least about before reading. Teddy Roosevelt navigating and balancing on the tight rope for the coal miner’s strike was was very interesting too, and could be a whole book in itself (I’m sure it is), yet is perfectly encapsulated by Kearns in a chapter. I look forward to reading more of her work and about these different leaders.
Spider-Man: Life Story by Chip Zdarsky & Mark Bagley
Far and away the best comic I read this year. While I enjoyed X-Men: Grand Design, this is what I hoped it would be. Chip Zdarsky reimagines the life of Spider-Man chronologically in real-time, each issue covering a different decade, from the 60’s to the 10’s, with Peter Parker and the world around him aging as it goes on. By pulling from over 50 years of comics, distilling the greatest moments in each decade, Zdarsky was able to not only cover the highlights, but imbue each issue and the story as a whole with a tremendous amount of emotion and thoughtfulness. In comics, characters almost never actually age, or if so, extremely slowly. Having Peter Parker go through life, love, loss, and more, grounds the character and makes the emotional beats of the story that much stronger. While Grand Design whipped through story plots, giving a summarization of decades of storytelling, Life Story somehow accomplished a more powerful story in a much shorter page count. I loved this book and would love to see Zdarsky explore more of his planned world, where Captain America, Iron Man, Reed Richards and more age and suffer and live complete lives.
Station Eleven by Emily St. Mandel
I really this twisty post-apocalyptic tale. It’s grim, as you’d expect the apocalypse to be, but it also has a lot of heart, showcasing the importance of community, story-telling, and hope even in the darkest conditions. The structure of the book is great and it wraps around itself and connects all of the characters across time in a really interesting way.
Keep Going by Austin Kleon
I’m a big fan of Austin Kleon’s blog and previous books, and this is another winner. It will instant boost to be more creative, but it’s equally motivating for life in general. The world can seem pretty depressing and this is a book that challenges us to continue to cultivate our own gardens, inside our homes, our relationships, our daily practices, and to keep going in the pursuits and passions that make us feel more alive.
Awareness by Anthony De Mello
This is a kick in the pants book. I don’t know if I’d agree with everything De Mello says in this book, but his blunt, no bullshit talks on how life really is, how people really are, certainly attunes you to the way you’re living. It’s a good palate cleanser to wake you up and think about how much time your wasting on the inconsequential, and to get back in touch with who you really are.
Eat Me: the Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin by Kenny Shopsin
Another no bullshit taker, Kenny Shopsin, wrote this wonderful cookbook/musings on life and creativity. This book reinvigorated my passion for cooking and is packed with glorious comfort food recipes. But the real value in this book is Shopsin’s view on life and creativity, allowing no compromises in how he runs his restaurant, how he cooks his food, and how he lives his life. Everyone is different, and Kenny Shopsin is certainly unique, but his drive to live on his own terms is truly inspiring.
A Few More Favorites:
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
All That You Leave Behind by Erin Lee Carr
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh
The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
The Black Monday Murders by Jonathan Hickman
House of X/Powers of X by Jonathan Hickman
X-Men Grand Design by Ed Piskor
Thoughts and Feelings, Feelings and Thoughts
For as long as I can remember, this is how I thought it went down: I think about something and then feelings form in response to those thoughts. That’s how it always seemed. Usually the thoughts were made up of worries, and then I’d feel anxious, stressed or impatient. It always seemed to be at it’s worst when I woke up in the morning. I’d immediately begin thinking of all the things I had to do, the people and problems I had to face (I didn’t actually have that many problems). I’d keep on thinking about my worries, leading to a downward spiral that could set the tone for the rest of the day. I’d wake up, worry, feel anxious about my worries, repeat. I now think I had it wrong. Despite it being not quite right, it was still a functioning, misdirected loop that ended up just making me feel worse.
After another beautiful day of vacation, I was sitting down to eat dinner and watch an episode of the Office when I was struck by a feeling of anxiousness. I began to search my mind for the reason for this feeling and before I settled on the answer, I recognized what was happening. I felt a feeling, and then I looked for a thought to attach to that feeling, a thought that would justify why I felt anxious. It could have been anxiety over the eventual job search I’ll have to do, or anxiety over my lack of clear direction for the future. No matter what was going on though, I’m sure I could’ve come up with a reason. I’ve always been able to. But this time I recognized there was no thought, no reason, preceding this feeling. The feeling arose on its own, and now I was trying to support the unpleasant feeling by coming up with a justification for it.
I’ve been meditating for a few years now. I’ve read books and listened to podcasts that deal with meditation, mindfulness, presence, compassion, and gratitude. A lot of these sources are repetitive and ultimately say the same thing, but I continue to go back to them. It helps me remain in that mindset, to be present and grateful, interested in life around me, right in this moment. It’s frustratingly easy to lose this connection if you don’t keep it up. The other reason I continue to revisit these topics is because I’ve learned that all it takes is one subtle shift, the right metaphor, or one moment of clear recognition in real time, to drastically change my understanding of how the whole thing “works”. In this case, it clicked for me in a moment of awareness and then recognition, feeling something and then catching myself reaching out for a thought. In this moment I was able to see clearly something I’d read plenty of times: feelings and thoughts, for the most part, arise randomly and constantly. And you don’t need to prop them up. Most of the time you can just feel the feeling, or recognize the thought, and let it go. Of course that’s easier said than done.
I’d heard and read this time and again, in scientific and spiritual terms, that thoughts and feelings are, for the most part, out of our control. They arise from our unconscious. But it took all that repetition, all the different ways of hearing the same thing, before I was able to fully grasp it. I read Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance before I left, and I listened to an incredible podcast with Jack Kornfield while here, and both talk a lot about this. Strangers to Ourselves is a book all about the unconscious mind. I touched on some of these ideas in a recent piece. But even when I thought I knew it, there was a deeper moment of understanding to come (and I’m sure many more still to come).
Strangers to Ourselves really hammered home some uncomfortable but mind-blowing facts about our brains, of our lack of awareness and control. Feelings can come from our environment, or or our own thoughts, but just as easily they appear randomly. We’re just used to supplying a reason for it, something that makes sense to us, because we like to feel in control. Scientific studies show that our brain unconsciously makes a decision, and milliseconds later, our conscious self feels as if it has come up with it on it’s own, with some reason to point to, even though the decision was already made.
So I had an understanding that our feelings don’t always need to be thought more of, to be analyzed and processed. But even after all that, it took a moment of anxiety washing over me to finally catch the actual process unfolding. The process that I had become so used to that I was now blind to it. It seemed to me that constantly thinking about future events made me worry, and I’d ruminate on that worry, increasing it the more I thought about it. And that is certainly a part of it. But the more I learned and reflected, even just after this most recent realization, I recognize how I could have gotten the cause and effect wrong. I thought I woke up, thought about problems, and then felt anxious. But more likely, I woke up, felt anxious, and latched onto minor stressors or even just bits of routine life, and made them the reason I felt worried. In hindsight it makes much more sense that drinking every weekend and having a poor diet predisposed me to feeling anxious upon waking. Through that one moment of recognition the other day, I’ve been able to connect these dots, from the past, present, and hopefully future, and better understand part of the deeper processes going on inside myself.
I love when interests of mine collide from unexpected places. After beginning this piece, I watched a video of Chris Evans (aka Captain America) talking about how he deals with his own anxiety. His process rests on the same principles. When anxiety and overthinking come, he says to his mind ‘Shhhh’.
“It’s been a big thing for me, ‘Shhhh.’ It’s so funny how noisy my brain is. Everyone’s brain is noisy, it makes thoughts. The problem is, in most of our lives, the root of suffering is following that brain noise and listening to that brain noise and actually identifying with it as if it’s who you are. That’s just the noise your brain makes, and more often than not, it probably doesn’t have much to say…The moments I’ve felt my best is when I can pull that plug and say Chris, shhh. It’s rising above the thought, operating on a separate plane.”
Feelings and thoughts are fleeting; we can feel happy and then sad and we can usually point to some series of events that prompt this. Our natural inclination is to provide a thought that justifies how we feel. Finally internalizing this, and recognizing it in the moment, produced a complete paradigm shift. In that moment of recognition, I stopped myself from searching for a thought to attach to the feeling. Instead, I just felt the feeling. And then it was gone, as quickly as it came, and I got to enjoy my dinner and laugh at Michael Scott. A few days later, I woke up and felt those familiar feelings of morning anxiety. But instead of searching for a reason, I just took some deep breaths and cleared my mind before it could gain that usual momentum. And then, again, the feelings dissipated. I realized I had been the one fueling it in the first place.
It’s such a slight shift and hard to notice in the first place, but when I did, it felt like a massive change in perspective. And that’s how most of what I’ve learned from the books and podcasts and the practice itself has been: it comes slowly, subtly, and then upon realizing it, and feeling it, it’s there all at once and clicks into place, as if I solved a complex math equation (I wouldn’t know for sure, I stink at math).
It’s a small, simple yet powerful tweak in how I see things. Inherent in it is recognizing that this doesn’t banish unpleasant feelings. On the contrary, it’s accepting of them, recognizing them when they come, and feeling them fully, in part so they can go through you and out the other side that much quicker.
Part of this hard work is recognizing which thoughts have merit and should be explored, which should be outright ignored, and maybe the toughest of all, which need to be looked at as a loving witness, with compassion. Jack Kornfield explains that many of these negative thoughts, reactions or habits we seem to be plagued by once served a purpose. They were once necessary to get us through a tough experience. We needed to think or behave in this way, to escape suffering as a kid, to survive abuse, to survive the thoughts in our own head. But now, we recognize we no longer need them. Being a loving witness, we thank it for helping us get through that tough time, and then we tell it we no longer need it in our lives. That might sound simple or childish, but I think it’s supremely powerful and beneficial.
If it feels like I’m writing about the same things over and over again, it might be because I am. I feel like I’m learning the same things over and over again, except one subtle level deeper each time. That’s what the whole process of meditation and mindfulness is. It’s what learning is in general, but with even more subtlety and repetition. It is a practice, something you need to repeat and repeat, even when it doesn’t feel like you’re making any headway. Because eventually, seemingly out of nowhere, it connects and you truly feel the change.
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Here’s a list of resources that I’ve learned from:
Jack Kornfield on the Tim Ferriss Podcast
Tara Brach on the Tim Ferriss Podcast
Sharon Salzberg on the Tim Ferriss Podcast
Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach
Strangers to Ourselves by Timothy D. Wilson
Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong by Norman Fischer
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman
Waves
I took a surf lesson at the La Jolla Shore. It was awesome. I had a great instructor and the water was perfect for practicing. Low tide with calm but steady waves. I got up on 7 or 8 waves and plenty of fun fall-off’s. It was a blast, it kicked my ass, and I want to do it again.
After finishing Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday (which was really good) I grabbed a book I had my eye on for awhile, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan. I knew little about this book other than that it was a memoir about surfing, it had won the Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography, and I’d seen it recommended a lot. The author grew up moving back and forth between California and Hawaii but surfing constantly at both. Early on I came across a passage talking about surf clubs: “I had never been in a surf club. In California you heard about Windansea, which was based in La Jolla and had some big-name members.”
This is the exact beach we’re staying four blocks from, where we’ve gone every day it was sunny, and where I I’ve walked down to in the evening and watched surfers catch waves.
The book is wonderful so far. I love coming of age stories, and this one infused in the culture of surfing and Hawaii in the 60’s is interesting and new to me, and I’m learning a lot.
Surfing was a way of life for Hawaiians. It had religious importance. When the waves were good “all thought of work is at an end, only that of sport is left”.
“The islands were blessed with a large food surplus…Their winter harvest festival lasted three months- during which the surf frequently pumped and work was officially forbidden.”
Until the Europeans came. Calvinist missionaries specifically. “They changed the Hawaiian’s way of life, changed their religion, their agriculture and industry. They banned surfing. And spread disease…between 1778 and 1893, the Hawaiian population shrank from eight hundred thousand to forty thousand”.
The survivors were “forced into a cash economy and stripped them of free time.”
We sure know how to fuck up a good time.
Luckily surfing survived “thanks to the few Hawaiians, notably Duke Kahanamoku, who kept the ancient practice alive. Kahanamoku won a gold medal for swimming at the 1912 Olympics, became an international celebrity, and started giving surfing exhibitions around the world. Surfing caught on and postwar Southern California became the capital.”
It’s interesting to think of what manages to survive and everything else that fades, either from the collective memory, or the face of the Earth.
We used to spend our summers on the Cape at Nauset Light. That beach has faded from the erosion of waves. A video shows the damage after a storm and how far the tide’s gone up. The Nauset facilities we knew have been demolished because the erosion posed a public safety risk. You can still go to other parts of Nauset, but it’s completely different from what it was even 10 years ago.
The waves were ferocious when we first got here and one day me and Sean swam out into them. Ducking under, swimming into, bobbing our heads up and under amongst some vicious waves. This is what we used to as kids with our Dad. You go under and feel it pass over you. Or you let it crash into you and you’re thrown around and lose up from down. Being in and under waves like that puts you into a special kind of flow and it puts you in your place.
Finnegan describes the allure of waves poetically: “I couldn’t get enough of their rhythmic violence. They pulled you toward them like hungry giants. They drained the water off the bar as they drew to their full, awful height, then pitched forward and exploded. From underwater, the concussion was deeply satisfying. Waves were better than anything in books, better than movies, better even than a ride at Disneyland, because with them the charge of danger was uncontrived. It was real.”
After ducking under and going over wave after wave, exhilaration becomes exhaustion. It was a real struggle to get to shore with the tide pulling you back in. For a split second you feel that real fear. And then you let the next wave push you forward, and you’re back on land.
The Horrifying Wonders of the Human Mind & Body: The Unconscious Mind
All the ways in which the human body actually functions are astonishing, and for the most part, completely overlooked by all of us. The brain is where my interest first started, and since learning about it, whenever I’m curious about a part or process of the body, I do a quick Google search to try to figure out what the hell is going on. I wanted to start sharing what I learned to shed light on how mind blowing these processes and functions are, and how completely oblivious we are of them. Today we’ll start where I started, with the brain, and I hope to explore more aspects of the human body and mind in the future.
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The brain is incredibly complex and there’s so much interesting, crazy stuff going on in it, that it’s hard to know where to start. Neuroplasticity and cognitive biases are two of my favorite areas, but there’s something else that’s seemingly straightforward, yet baffling, that I want to highlight here. I learned about this probably a year ago and it’s only really hitting home now.
This seemingly simple, scientifically proven fact is:
The brain decides before “I” decide.
That seems obvious. Of course decisions arise from our brain, that’s where all thought processes come from. More specifically put, the unconscious mind decides, then the conscious mind, or “I”, decides. The distinction is important, as we’ll see. Your brain decides, then you decide. The more you think about it, the more questions arise.
Before we go on, a quick distinction between the unconscious and conscious mind. The unconscious mind does things automatically, without the need to even be aware of it happening. Our breathing and our digestive system are two examples of this unconscious process. We don’t need to focus on or even think about these things for them to run properly. The unconscious mind also contains desires and fears that we may not be consciously aware of, but nonetheless direct us. The unconscious mind is completely inaccessible to our conscious mind. The conscious mind is actively thinks or acts. It plans our dinner later that night and what ingredients we want to use, it chooses between two movies, it lifts the barbell for another rep. Our conscious mind makes decisions. Or so we think.
In Sam Harris’s book Free Will, he makes the case that we do not truly have free will. One of his main arguments for this point is that through scientific lab studies, “fMRI techniques show that our brains indicate the choice we are going to make 700 milliseconds before we are aware that we are going to make the choice.” These conscious decisions that we feel we came up with, that we’ve decided on, were actually made by our brain, milliseconds before, unbeknownst to us.
700 milliseconds might not seem like a lot of time, but the fact remains that the brain makes a decision that is completely unconscious to us, THEN, milliseconds later, we consciously seem to “come up with it”. But “I” didn’t actually “make” the decision. As Harris lays out, “the intention to do one thing and not another does not originate in consciousness. Rather it appears in consciousness. As does any thought or impulse that might impose it.”
All sorts of thoughts and questions sprout from this one clear fact. Our idea of free will is certainly different than how we think of it, if it exists at all. It distinctly shows the power of the unconscious mind over the conscious mind; the unconscious mind decides, then makes it appear that the conscious mind has chosen. We have all of these unconscious thoughts, feelings and desires, which we are completely unaware of, until the unconscious decides to almost plant them in our conscious mind, making us feel that we determined it. It helps explain why it’s so hard to change a habit or escape from an addiction that we so clearly, consciously want to change, because they are rooted deeper, not in the conscious, but in our unconscious. It casts questions over the nature of consciousness itself and the power and control we assume we have over our lives.
This is a tricky one to wrap our heads around. Like I said, I learned about this a year ago, but only after recently reviewing a summary of the book, did the subject sort of click it in my mind. Sure, “I”, this human body that is Sam Post, is still making the decisions, but it’s not necessarily coming from the “I” I imagined it was, that conscious self I identify as. It’s coming from another layer in, the unconscious part of my mind that I, nor anyone else, has access to. So who the hell is running the show that is ourselves? The better question might be, what shapes the unconscious mind and what determines it’s desires and feelings that prompt our actions and behavior?
The genes we are born with determines a lot, anywhere from 20-50%. But once born, our environment, our conditioning, how and where we were raised, and much more, all form and shape our unconscious mind. And the really interesting part, and the hopeful part, I think, is that it is possible to change our unconscious mind, even if we can’t access it directly. It can’t done by our conscious thinking. It can only done by taking action and by changing our behavior in the real world first.
This is where I think Sam Harris’ argument against free will starts to show it’s cracks. While thinking about change and consciously desiring it does very little to impact our unconscious mind, directly changing our behavior in the real world has a much more powerful effect. This is where the principles of habit change, or the concept of “fake it till you make it”, comes in. By forcing yourself to do something enough times, even if it’s at first uncomfortable or challenging, you’ll eventually form a habit, or put another way, a behavior that doesn’t need to be directed by your conscious mind. The behavior becomes automatic. It has become a part of your routine and can be done without even thinking about it. One example would be learning how to drive a car. At first it seems very complicated and hard, but after enough experience, it seems to take very little conscious will power to get where you’re going.
Harris’ argument to this would be, well, this person that eventually changed, had whatever factors already set in place that allowed them to change in the first place. His genes or his brain had the capability to do so, and it finally did. That seems a bit to deterministic to me, and for an atheist like Sam Harris, it just seems to run too close to what others might call “fate”. But he is much smarter than me. That’s just the way I choose to look at it now, maybe because it’s more comforting and encouraging.
All of this has gotten me much more interested in the unconscious part of our mind, that we all basically ignore, understandably so, because we aren’t even aware of it in the first place. We literally can’t be aware of it, until we start to pay closer attention to and examine our thoughts, actions and behavior. The unconscious mind and it’s importance has appeared countless times throughout my reading, from great thinkers like Carl Jung to Joseph Campbell and beyond, and I’m only now feeling like I’m able to grasp what it actually means. After reviewing Free Will’s book notes, I found another book James Clear summarized titled Strangers to Ourselves, and it helped clear up some of the confusion I had. I ordered that book and can’t wait to dive in. Maybe I’ll return to this topic after I learn more. But for now, I think this simple fact, that there’s a lag between the unconscious brain deciding, and then ourselves feeling the conscious decision, is more than enough to ponder. At the very least, maybe it can make us a little more thoughtful, or questioning, or simply awed, the next time we’re making a decision, whether it’s what we’re having for dinner, or what we want to do with our lives.
My Year in Reading 2017
Books
This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff
This was my favorite book of the year. I’d heard about Tobias Wolff before, from two incredible writers who are huge fans, George Saunders and David Sedaris, but based solely on the name I figured he was Old and Boring. Boy was I wrong. I picked this up and couldn’t put it down. It’s essentially a memoir of his childhood with his single mother and eventually a step-father that did not treat him very well, to say the least. He also spends plenty of time talking about all the trouble he caused as a kid and it was vividly familiar. His writing is beautiful, funny, and honest, and I couldn’t recommend this book highly enough.
Theft By Finding: Diaries 1977-2002 by David Sedaris
I got into David Sedaris in 2016 and read even more of his books this year. He released a large collection of his diaries in March and as an avid journaler I loved it. He’s one of the funniest writers I’ve ever read and seeing his raw diaries be that funny was both inspiring and exasperating. What struck me most about it though was the casual harshness he encountered throughout the late 70’s and 80’s. Sedaris is a gay man growing up in these times and he routinely witnessed or was the victim of constant harassment, where you could get mugged, be called a faggot, or have something thrown at you from a car all in the same month. While we clearly still have a long way to go, the misogyny, racism, and homophobia all seemed to be so much more out in the open and blatant back then, ready to greet you at any street corner. And this wasn’t the 1950’s, this was all happening in the decade or so before I was born. While the shitstorm of the last year has revealed how much more we still need to reckon with as a society, it’s important to recognize the ways life has gotten better, but even more importantly, that we’re always going to have to work to make it better and uphold the good, even if it is hard, often demoralizing fucking work.
(My other favorite by Sedaris that I read this year was Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls. Yup, that’s the title. But you’re not gonna go wrong picking up any of his essay collections, they’re all hilarious.)
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia & Discontent and its Civilizations by Moshin Hamid
The first a novel, the second a collection of non-fiction essays, both show the incredible strength, intelligence, and versatility of the writer Moshin Hamid. I learned more about Pakistan than I’d ever known and about a culture that was completely foreign to me, but at the same time Hamid expertly shows all of the striking similarities of desires and conflicts that they share with all people regardless of location. ‘Immigrant’ and ‘minority’ is a word thrown around so often but so few of us who aren’t ones ever actually learn what the experience is like. These two books have the same power and affection that Americanah, The Sympathizer, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao gave me the year before.
Seeking Wisdom by Peter Bevelin
The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant
These three were my favorite “intellectual” reads of the year. I set out not to finish these books, but to get what I thought was interesting and useful from them, and in that I succeeded. All three give you a better understanding of the world we live in and why the way things are the way they are. Seeking Wisdom is one of the best books on cognitive biases I’ve read, and uses great examples from Charles Darwin all the way to Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger to show you the ways human beings trick themselves.
The Story of Philosophy was very interesting and really readable thanks to the great Will Durant (check out him and his wife’s short book, the Lessons of History. They are beasts.) I learned many of the most important philosophers’ thoughts and ideas about society, religion, science and government, and on that last point, it was somewhat reassuring to see people trying to figure out how the hell to organize society and running into the same problems for millennia.
Finally, Principles was extraordinary, with a ton of useful, practical, yet mind-blowing principles you can apply in your own life. I’d recommend checking out Ray Dalio on the Tim Ferriss podcast where they go over some of the book and his story. Dalio seems like an incredibly intelligent, humble, caring guy who’s also massively successful. The best thing about these books is that I’ll be picking them up and learning from them again and again in the years to come.
The Night of the Gun by David Carr
I read a few memoirs on addiction and recovery this year, but this one gobsmacked me. David Carr was a highly respected journalist for the New York Times (he passed away in 2015). But before that he had been an abusive crack addict. With this book he not only writes about his past, but investigates it, just as he would with any other piece of reporting, going back and interviewing the people he ran with at the time and researching and fact checking. The book is about addiction and recovery, but even more so about memory, what we choose to remember, and what we don’t, and how the way we see ourselves often lines up with a view that allows us to move on and live our lives as best we can.
The first Jack Reacher novel in the series and the first I’d ever read. It was a great, pulpy tough guy novel and a blast to read.
Comics
These comics all blew me away and showed me just how wide-ranging and powerful a comic could be. I’d put these selections up there with any book I read this year.
X-Men Grand Design by Ed Piskor
I’ve been excited for this book as soon it was announced. I wanted to get into the old school X-Men mythos earlier this year but all the books I picked up felt dated and too convoluted. Then I heard about this project by Ed Piskor, a one man cartoonist who writes, draws, colors, and letters the whole dang comic. He was going to streamline the entire early history of the X-Men in how own style for a modern read. This was exactly what I was looking for. I read his previous work (mentioned below) and loved it. I had high expectations awaiting the first issue, which finally came out on December 20th. It wildly exceeded my hopes. The first issue goes over both Professor X and Magneto’s early lives and how they became who we know them as, and wraps up with the recruitment of the original X-Men. I expected it to look dope and be cool, but I did not expect the trauma and pathos each character goes through on their way to becoming the heroes we’re familiar with. Piskor doesn’t shy away from these harrowing trials and tribulations and each one is conveyed with simple but powerful visuals. The pace is breakneck and I can’t wait to re-read it again before the next issue comes out in just a few days on January 3rd. If you’re into the X-Men at all go out and grab this book!
Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor
My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris
I wrote about these two earlier in the year. Click the links for my thoughts and praise of HHFT and MFTIM.
Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender
This book is so badass. I was lucky enough to borrow the omnibus from a friend in 2016 (shoutout to Kyle!) and took my time with it, finishing it early this year. It’s basically Wolverine leading a team of assassins against any threats the X-Men wouldn’t necessarily have the stomach to handle. The team includes Deadpool, Psylocke, Archangel, and Phantomex (some sort of robot/artificial assassin James Bond-type that I still don’t fully understand but was instantly memorable). It’s a brutal book and puts each character through the ringer, all for a sprawling look at what it means to take life and death into your own hands.
Recommended: American Tabloid by James Ellroy
I read American Tabloid at the very end of last year, and I’m still constantly thinking about it. It was that good (and right up my alley, interest wise). It follows three men intertwined with the FBI and the Mob leading up to the Bay of Pigs and JFK’s assassination. I struggled to put it down and finished it in something like 9 days. If you like crime stories, spy stories, and the seedy underbelly of U.S. history (especially the 1960’s, like me) you will love this book. His writing style is quick and brutal, like a knife to the gut. I’m starting the second novel in the Underworld USA trilogy (badass, right?) today, and as you can tell, I’m excited.
James Ellroy calls himself the greatest crime writer to ever do it, and somehow I don’t shake my head in disgust at his ego. I just nod. He’s probably right.
Recommended: The Spy Novels of Trevanian
Trevanian’s protagonists all fit the same mold. They’re geniuses, masters of many fields, and they disdain basically everyone around them. James Bond, but somehow even more of a dick. Former assassins who just want to be left alone to their specific interests (gardening, mountaineering, art collecting, lovemaking) yet each time are leveraged into doing “one-last-job” for whichever faceless monolithic espionage unit comes calling this time.
And yes, the author is Trevanian, one word, one badass pseudonym. Glancing at his Wikipedia page perfectly describes him: “the only writer of airport paperbacks to be compared to Zola, Ian Fleming, Poe and Chaucer.” The novels are pulpy and the writing fits well with his protagonists: witty, cynical, and to the point.
I’ve read two of his spy novels and I’m in the middle of my third. The first was Shibumi, which was straight down my fucking strike zone . Here’s a bit from Amazon’s summary: “Hel survived the destruction of Hiroshima to emerge as the world’s most artful lover and its most accomplished—and well-paid—assassin. Hel is a genius, a mystic, and a master of language and culture, and his secret is his determination to attain a rare kind of personal excellence, a state of effortless perfection known only as shibumi.” This is probably my favorite of the three, but just slightly over the next one.
The second, The Eiger Sanction is incredibly similar, but with enough of a twist to keep it fresh.
This time our genius playboy spy is “an art professor, a mountain climber, and a mercenary, performing assassinations (i.e., sanctions) for money to augment his black-market art collection”. I’m now reading the follow-up, The Loo Sanction, which isn’t as good as the first two, but is still thoroughly entertaining. The Sanctions are designed more as direct spoofs of Agent 007, but are damn fun in their own right.
If you’re into the spy genre at all, I think you’ll dig Trevanian.