Bob's Books

Why this book: I’d heard about it from several people, and then my friend Peter Rae strongly recommended it, so I pushed it to the top of my reading list.

Summary in 3 Sentences:  A jesuit priest, Greg Boyle – known as G, or G-dog by the gangbangers – lived in the gangland of East LA, and became a trusted and neutral observer of all the tensions and killings and violence taking place where he lived. He started out as the priest for Dolores Missions  and then went on to found Homeboy Industries to create jobs and a means for gang members to transition into making a living and becoming contributing members of society. This book is his story about his interactions with young, mostly hispanic men, women, teenagers from the world of gang violence in LA and how his unconditional love made a difference – while also it was inadequate to stop the killing of so many of those he was helloing.

My impressions: This is a powerful book by a man with more genuine courage, compassion and love than almost anyone I’ve ever heard or read about.  It is a spiritual book, it is a Christian book, but it doesn’t demand that you be a Christian or even to believe in God to recognize the wonder of love and a spiritual acceptance of people as they are.

It is often a sad book, as Father Greg is routinely called upon to speak at the funerals of young men and women he had worked with, and who were on the cusp of breaking out of the gang life and taking steps to become contributing members of society.   They were killed sometimes by stray bullets, sometimes by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, sometimes targeted by “enemy” gangs.  What in my neighborhood would be a rare and well publicized tragedy was (is?) routine in the world that Father Greg Boyle describes in Tatoos on the Heart.

By the end of the book, as he was telling an uplifting story about a young person who was committed to making sincere effort to break out and become a working adult, my heart would sink.  So often in this book, the end of that promising story was a sudden and untimely death by a bullet. And Father Greg himself broken hearted, would console a grieving mother and friends. And then he would  preside at the young person’s funeral. Sometime several a month.  Fathers were rarely part of the picture, and when so, not as positive role models.

Tattoos on the Heart is full of humor.  Father G tells stories about young men and women who only know the violent gang world of “live and let die” in the ghetto,  and are then exposed to the more orderly and predictable reality that I and most of you live in.   Those who were drawn to G-dog decided they knew that life offered something more than what they had experienced, and that maybe they could get it, but sometimes the transition to “polite society” could be  a bit awkward and funny.   He tells the story of a young man who, trying anew to get his high school degree, excitedly tells G, “On Monday we’re going to digest a frog!” With a  smile, Father G corrects him with  “dissect a frog.”  Response: “Yeah, well, whatever …Monday we’re fuckin’ with a frog.”

Or when he’s in a detention facility, they are reading the Eucharist, reading a letter of Paul to the “Phillipinos” or in  Acts of the Apostles they substitute a word they know – “genitals” for one they don’t – “Gentiles.”  Father G suggests “Go to the Acts of the Apostles, and substitute ‘genitals’ wherever you find ‘Gentiles.’  It livens up the book as never before.”

His chapter entitled “Success” was particularly meaningful to me.  He was constantly seeking donations to help build, sustain and improve Homeboy industries, and he was routinely asked for proof that his effort “worked,” and was told  “we don’t fund efforts, we fund outcomes.” While he recognized that this is the practical, hard-nosed, and clear eyed approach business must often take, he didn’t think it addressed the primary issue.  “If our primary concern is results, we will choose to work only with those who give us good ones” and not spend time with those who may most need help. He said a results-oriented approach would demand that he work primarily with “the well behaved and the most likely to succeed… and sidestep the difficult and belligerent and eventually abandon ‘the slow work of God.’  (p 178-79)

With all the violence and killing in the stories that Father G tells, it is ultimately a very upbeat book. When he believes in these young people, when he shows that he believes in them, by trusting them and giving them a chance,  they begin to believe in themselves.  And though he is often disappointed by those who are not ready to be trusted, or to accept love and trust, he continues to believe in them.   He notes the “the principal suffering of the poor is shame and disgrace.”  His acceptance of  and belief in them begins to break that stranglehold on their character.   He doesn’t judge – and they know he’s there when they’re ready to make a move – and he goes out on a limb to give them a chance, then another chance, and when they fail at that one, if they’re clearly sincere, and sincerely trying, he’ll give them all the chances they need.

Father Greg Boyles book is humbling to me and most of the rest of us.  Where are we making that kind of difference in the lives of people who REALLY need help, assistance, and love?

Why this book:  Selected by my literature reading group.  I had heard so much about this book over the decades, I felt it was about time I read it.   Brothers Karamazov is one of my top five favorite novels, and Drive and Punishment is considered Dostoevsky’s other master piece.  So, time to read some more Dostoevsky.

Summary in 3 Sentences:  This is a classic and well known story about a disturbed, intelligent, indigent, and somewhat isolated student in 1860s Petersburg, Russia who kills a greedy old woman pawnbroker (from whom he had recently borrowed money), in order to use her money to pull himself out of his poverty and provide him the resources to live up to his potential for greatness and do good in the world.  In the process of committing the murder he kills another innocent person who stumbles upon him in the act, and then struggles with his own conscience, his sense of identity, his obligations to his family and friends, and  the potential implications  of his actions.  It is a long hard look at his confused values, his moral anguish and disturbed psyche, and ultimately, at good and evil and redemption.

My impressions:  This book has attained classic status for being about a lot more than simply “crime doesn’t pay” or that a guilty conscience is the road to hell.  It is one of the early psychological novels, exploring the mind of an intelligent and self-conscious but disturbed young man who commits a heinous crime and what his anxiety, fear and conscience do to him and those in his circle of friends and loved ones.

Origins: Crime and Punishment was originally published in 1866 in monthly installments in a Russian literature magazine; the chapters are therefore pretty regular – about 10 pages long. Knowing that helps one to understand the structure of the novel as one reads it.  Each chapter ends with a bit of a cliff hanger to keep the reader anxiously awaiting the next installment.  For example, one chapter ends:  “As he was leaving, Svidrigaylov met Razumikhin in the doorway.” – these two being intriguing characters on different sides of the good – evil spectrum.

Good and Evil: Good and evil are not so simple in this book – as our protagonist Rodion Raskolnikov is clearly not “evil” but neither is he “good.”  The other characters in the book are indeed interesting, and also human – more or less flawed. There are a few characters who are agreeable and a few who are much less so – but Dostoevsky brings them all to life and makes them believable.   The hard part about reading this book is that much of it – particularly the first half of the book is inside the thoughts and consciousness of Raskalnikov, a not particularly sympathetic character who is suffering great mental anguish and confusion and on the verge of mental illness.  He is not at all easy to like, or sometimes even to tolerate.

Self-reflection: It occurred to me that part of what made it so uncomfortable for me to be inside Raskolnikov’s mind is that he represents so openly and explicitly those parts of my own character that I don’t like: self-absorbed, impulsive, insensitive, angry, bitter, alternating between passive and aggressive victimhood, between being compassionate and principled and completely selfish and self-centered.   I suspect each of us has a bit of Raskalnikov in us from time to time, but we are (usually) mature enough to suppress and overcome those destructive and self-centered tendencies.  In Raskalnikov, we see these tendencies up close and personal, in all their ugliness, in the full light of day.

Suffering: The idea of suffering is important in the book. Raskalnikov commits his crime in part to alleviate his suffering (and theoretically the suffering of others,) but as a result, he suffers more.  Other characters in the book suffer as well – from poverty, self-delusion, alcoholism, from the bad actions of others, or  simple bad luck.  Raskalnikov is an unhappy character throughout the book – but at some points his misery becomes so excruciating that he seriously considers suicide.  Ultimately he realizes that he can only be redeemed by atoning for his crime and suffering the consequences of his action

Petersburg Russia, 1860s.  Dostoevsky introduces us to the world of Petersburg Russia in the 1860s – a sophisticated city with one foot in mid-19th century European culture and another in the world of pre-reform serfdom and the middle ages of Russia.  We are exposed to much extreme poverty, including Raskalnikov himself, in a world  with no social safety net.  Shabby and dirty pubs and restaurants, and people begging and scrambling for kopeks, and for whom a ruble or two was a lot of money. There was a nascent revolution brewing in Russia – the early stages of what 50 years later became the communist revolution, and Dostoevsky lampoons one of the characters who represented pie-in-the sky ideals that are strikingly similar to the far left movement in the US today.  He also caricatures those in the middle class for whom achieving upper class status and respectability is a primary life goal. I was reminded of the British series Keeping up Appearances. 

I enjoyed getting to know the many interesting people who are part of Raskalnikov’s life – his mother and sister, his best friend, his landlady and servant girl, along with some of the less-reputable people he gets to know during the course of the book – each brings something different into the story.  Raskalnikov’s interactions with them – especially while he is in the depths of his moral anguish and identity crisis – are difficult to understand and sympathize with.  But that is an important part of the story; what his poorly considered actions do to a man who is already on the edge, and to his relationships with and the lives of the people on whom he depends.

Raskalnikov does show strength of character in his adamant insistence that his sister not marry a manipulating self-serving lawyer, who wants to use her to support his career.  His love and support for his sister and mother are admirable.  Though he ostensibly murdered for money, he is not money-hungry and as a matter of principle turns down money several times.  He sticks up for and supports the poverty stricken family of a man he’d met in a pub.   He recognizes the strength-of-character of Sonya – the eldest daughter of his former friend, and supports and respects her regardless of how polite society treats her as a social outcast.  His charity and acceptance of her are rewarded – Sonya is almost a Mary Magdelin-like character, but Sonya becomes the savior, more so than the saved.   At the end of the book we learn of  supererogatory acts of charity and courage that Raskalnikov had performed before we meet him at the beginning of the book – which makes his character that much more interesting, and indeed somewhat more sympathetic.

The further one gets into the book, the more the story is about the other people in  Raskalnikov’s life and his self-centered and rude behavior do not occupy center stage as much.  That said, the care and concern of those who love him, and the impact of his behavior and his crime on them remains a key theme.

Nietzsche and the Ubermensch.  As a fan and student of Nietzsche for many years, I was intrigued to learn that Raskalnikov’s crime was motivated in large part by a shallow understanding of Hegel’s philosophy that Nietzsche himself developed several decades later – the idea of the Ubermensch – a superior person – who lives by his own rules. As Raskalnikov saw it, the superior man – and he saw himself as such a person – should not feel compelled to abide by the rules of the the common people. The übermensch has a higher calling to greatness, and the laws and social rules meant to restrict the behavior of the common people should not stand in the way of one destined for greatness, and to accomplish great things for the greater good.   Raskalnikov repeatedly referred to Napoleon as such an ubermensch, and he saw himself as having the potential for greatness as well, and that murdering the pawnbroker would be a justifiable step for him to achieve his destiny.  This is of course a bastardization of the ideas that Nietzsche later developed,  but it was interesting to me to see how this idea could be misunderstood and mis-applied by an immature mind like Raskalnikov’s, or as the Nazis did 70 years later.

Brothers Karamazov. Having read Brothers Karamazov several times  (my review here),  I see a number of interesting parallels in themes and characters in Crime and Punishment, written 15  years earlier.  Dostoevsky’s empathy for the working class and those who struggle to maintain their dignity and get by in a highly class-structured society is evident in both books.  His disdain for the pretensions and self-righteousness of those of  the upper class is also evident in both books, and he caricatures those in the middle who so ardently aspire to upper class status.   We see his strong spiritual  sensibility in how Raskalnikov the atheist, with no spiritual foundation, struggles and suffers, as does Dmitri the oldest of the Karamazov brothers.  In Raskalnikov’s intellectual rationalizing, we see elements of Smerdyakov and middle brother Ivan.  In the sensualist Svidrigaylov we see elements of the senior Karamazov, father of the brothers K.   And in Sonya we certainly see parallels with the almost saintly virtues of love and tolerance in the youngest of the Karamazov brothers Alyosha.

Crime and Punishment is not an easy read – but it is very much a worthwhile read. As with all Russian literature, one must get used to the multiple, long, and multi-syllabic Russian names – with family names, nicknames, and diminutives all mixed up.  But after a while one figures it out.   I recommend reading it with others who are willing to go the distance – in order to have someone with whom to discuss the various moral dilemmas and issues after finishing the book.

Aid to understanding. I also found it useful, as I do with most longer classics, to read cliff-notes or spark notes along with the text; I read a few chapters of the book, and then read the “notes” summaries and commentary.  My Cliff notes version helped me keep track of names, and it provides a map of Petersburg with all the key locations.  Reviewing the Cliff notes summaries revealed parts of the story I had somehow skipped over or missed, and though I didn’t always agree with the commentary, it was useful to consider.  This book definitely deserves to be discussed – not just read and put back on the shelf.  But the right translation is important.

Which Translation: Depending on why you are reading the book, it’s important to find a translation that fits your needs.  Knowing this from having read Dostoevsky in the past, I did some research which seemed to point to the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, which many people seemed to prefer.  I bought it read,  the first half of the book and didn’t particularly care for it.  If I were teaching a graduate class on Dostoevsky and Russian literature, I might use this translation – it is very well footnoted (which  provides great additional background, but it is distracting having to go to the back of the book so often) and uses English language which evokes 19th century Europe, but which I found a bit off-putting- using terms that are not comfortable or familiar to most 21st century readers (like niggardly, pot-house, lackey, etc). So I did some more research and found the Michael Katz translation, which worked for me.  I read the 2nd half of  C&P using Katz’s translation and enjoyed it much more.  He intentionally makes it easier to read – he doesn’t offer extensive background in footnotes,  the footnotes he does provide are at the bottom of the page, and the language is much more accessible. I compared P&V and Katz translations of certain passages and still preferred Katz. SO – for a more enjoyable, more accessible read, get the Katz version!

Why this book:  I had read this book maybe 20 years ago. It was selected as the book of choice by a group of young men getting ready to go through SEAL training – it is a very popular book among Navy SEALs. So I decided to read it again – glad I did.

Summary in 3 sentences:  In 480 BCE  ancient Sparta sent 300 of its best warriors to defend Greece from an invasion by an overwhelming Persian force.   Gates of Fire tells this story in novelized form, in retrospect from the perspective of a young non-Spartan helot, who at the end of the battle, severely wounded and dying on the battlefield,  was kept alive by the Persians, to explain to them –  who were these men who had fought to the death so valiantly, killing thousands of Persian warriors?   Our narrator shares the  story of his very difficult childhood, how he became a slave in Sparta and eventually a squire to one of the leading Spartan warriors, who ultimately was selected to be one of the 300 selected to fight in Thermopylae.  Though we all know how the battle ends, in his telling of the story, we get to know King Leonidas, many of the Spartan warriors, we learn about their culture and values, and we experience the brutality of their training and finally of the  battle which inevitably led to the deaths of them all – except our severely wounded protagonist  – a lone survivor.

My impressions:  This book matures with age, like a good wine. When I first read it, it was a really good historical novel and adventure war story.  This time, I got so much more out of it.  Has the book changed? Of course not. But I have.

In the world I live in – Special Operations and more specifically the Navy SEALs, this book is well known and widely read.  It describes an ideal warrior culture – one that transcends time and place.   Pressfield’s story provides an inside look at an ancient Greek version of the ideal culture that I grew up aspiring to build in the various SEAL units I served in,  and this ideal is shared by the US Marine Corps and US Army infantry and Special Operations Forces, as well as by the many non-US special operations units I trained with in my career.  Different and less violent versions of it are reflected in the ideals of non-combat military units.  The brotherhood and mutual commitment that these warriors felt for each other is an ideal that leaders in any organization should aspire to build.

But when I mention this book to my civilian friends, most had not heard of it.  I shouldn’t be surprised.  Different cultures and subcultures read different books, watch different movies, have different heroes, believe in different myths.  This book and this story embodies much of the mythology that inspires the best military combat units as they seek to develop their warrior cultures.  In Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield writes a novel that seeks to be as historically accurate as possible, to tell the story of how a small group of uncompromising Spartan warriors performed in this epic battle for the ages, while reinforcing the mythology that backs up an ideal warrior culture.  He describes the build-up to the battle, and then the courageous sacrifice of these warriors willingly fighting and dying to save Greece.  Their courage in that place and time arguably saved not only Greece, but Western civilization from being subsumed into a more subservient and hedonistic Persian culture.

In addition to being a well told story and great read about a key event in Western history, Gates of Fire includes much wisdom and many insights of interest to warriors, young and old, and I would argue, to the rest of us as well.  Some of these are: (page numbers refer to the 1998 hardback version)

Fear – Dienekes, one of the heroes of the book and the warrior to whom our narrator is a squire, is speaking to young and new warriors before their first battle, and asks them “What is the opposite of Fear?”  The discussion obviously turns to courage, but Dienekes responds that courage is not the opposite of fear, because, much of our courage is based on fear of disgrace, fear of letting down our king, country, comrades, family.  He says the opposite of fear is also not fearlessness.  He leaves the question open – until the end of the book.

Andreia – the Greek word for “manly” or heroic virtue. Dienekes asks the young warriors who they believed best embodied andreia.   Diekenes surprises his listeners by denying that Achilles had it – because he needed fear no death – he was (nearly) immortal. Polynikes comes close but not quite – his courage is too brazen and unconscious.  He surprises all be saying that no one he knows embodies andreia more so than his wife.  And he explains why.

Developing the strong warrior A good part of the book was about the brutal and relentless Spartan training, noting that this is what differentiated them from any other warriors in the world.  At one point, Dienekes says the key to being a great warrior is to develop the right habits.   “Habit will be your champion. When you train the mind to think one way and one way only, when you refuse to allow it to think in another, that will produce great strength in battle….Habit is a mighty ally, my young friend. The habit of fear and anger, or the habit of self-composure and courage.”  (p 139)

The women of Sparta  Gates of Fire is about men at war in ancient times – very much about male warrior virtues.  But Pressfield honors women throughout.  At the beginning of the book, Diomache – our narrator’s female cousin,  is strong and virtuous.  Dienekes declares his wife to be the embodiment of heroic virtue – based on how she violated so many of Sparta’s cultural norms to avert injustice to save her nephew, and calls out the men for their blind and cowardly adherence to tradition.  One of the young warriors in the discussion of fear, observes in an admiring way, how women’s courage is different from men’s courage.  And at the conclusion of the book, Leonidas reveals that one of the main criteria for selecting those who would accompany the 300 into battle was the strength of their wives.

Katalepsis  – The Greek word for “possession” – a “derangement of the senses that comes when terror or anger usurps dominion of the mind.”  Pressfield brings up katalepsis numerous times in the book – to maintain ones composure and not succumb to katalepsis was a a key Spartan value – which leaders struggled to maintain when the young warriors got fired up.   To train themselves to resist katalepsis, Spartan warriors would abuse and bait young warriors-in-training as well as each other “to inure the sense to insult, to harden the will against responding with rage and fear, the twin unmanning evils of katalepsis – possession. The prized response, the one the (warriors) looked for is humor. Deflect defamation with a joke, the coarser the better. Laugh in its face. A mind which can maintain its lightness will not come undone in war. ” (p130)  Leaders had to control and contain katalepsis in their men, or they would be apt to do things that were against the Spartan value of detached and impersonal violence.

Battlefield Ethics – there was no discussion of ethics on the battlefield as we know it today – no Law of Armed Conflict and no sense of obligation to the enemy’s humanity in those days.  Polynikes in fact spoke of an almost sexual pleasure he got out of killing in battle.  It was routine to offer “no quarter” to the enemy, and in fact the Spartans trained to become impersonal killing machines and to not see their enemies as human beings. The ideal Spartan would kill, machine-like, simply out of duty, but not out of rage.  This was part of their proscription against katalepsis – succumbing to anger, rage and fury.   In the story, we saw examples of Spartans going onto the battlefield after the battle and  slaughtering the wounded enemy, and torturing and killing prisoners. This was a standard practice.  But Pressfield, acknowledging that such was the way things were back then,  includes Dienekes’ discomfort with such wholesale kataleptic slaughter, and Dienekes stepped in several times to successfully argue for  wise and less violent alternatives to the primal and kataleptic responses warriors may default to,  in an environment where killing and violence were routine.

The house with many rooms. Several time in the book Dienekes speaks of the mind as being a house with many rooms, and that “there are rooms we must not enter.  Anger, Fear.  Any passion which leads the mind toward that ‘possession’ which undoes men in war.” (p 139)  He later relates that another room one should not enter is thinking about one’s possible death in battle.

Dienekes I felt he was the hero of the book. He was not the greatest warrior – but was the best man and was highly respected as such by the other Spartan warriors and the citizens of Sparta.  He was not Achilles or Polynikes, but a fallible mortal.   “He was just a man doing a job whose primary attribute was self-restraint and self-composure, for those whom he led by his example.”  ((p112) He was contrasted with Polynikes who indeed was the best, most athletic and gifted warrior of the Spartans.  Whereas Polynikes courage oozed from his muscles, bones and marrow, Dienekes’ courage came from his heart, “by a force of some inner integrity which was unknown to Polynikes” (p134) His courage and resilience were  without question, and yet over and over, he is the “Solomon” in the group – the wise leader.  He was a great warrior, who had not sacrificed his humanity to become so.   When Leonidas asks Dienekes if he hated the enemy, he replied that he did not.  “I see faces of gentle and noble bearing. More than a few, I think, whom one would welcome with a clap and a laugh to any table of friends.” Leonides nodded his approval of that response.

Polynikes was the Spartans’ most heroic and athletic warrior – he had been an Olympic champion in sprinting -and he was extremely competitive. He was also cruel, vain and self-righteous.  His intensity scared people – including some of his fellow warriors.  I saw some of Eddie Gallagher in him;  with rage and fury (katalepsis) he went after some of the less athletic or talented young men in training, especially Alexandros.  And yet in the chaos of battle he was unmatched.  Exhausted and facing the inevitability of his own death at the end, he softened and became more human, humble, and giving  – his talent and energy had met their match.

Alexandros Alexandros was my second hero in this book. He was a gentler soul, a singer with the heart more of an artist than of a warrior.  He was not a natural athlete nor  warrior, but it was his challenge and fate to become a warrior, and to live up to the expectations of his father as well as his mentor (Dienekes)  – and he accepted it.   He suffered mightily in the training and was tormented especially and repeatedly by Polynikes. But he persisted, never gave up, and though he struggled and suffered more than most, and worked much harder than most, he eventually became a valiant and valued warrior – which in the end was acknowledged even by Polynikes, who apologized for how he had treated him.

Leonides and “what is a king?” Leonidas, the king of Sparta who led the Spartan contingent to Thermopylae, is Pressfield’s ideal leader in this book.  He is both father figure, and fellow warrior, and though close to 60 yrs old continued to fight on the front and with the men. He is the embodiment of leadership by example. He addresses them as a king, as a father, and as a fellow warrior – and they feel his love for them – but also his total commitment to the honor of Sparta. It is Leonidas who refuses the Persian offer to let them live in exchange for their arms – his commitment was to the greater cause of protecting Greece and the honor of Sparta.  He shows compassion in letting the other allies leave.  At the end of the book, our narrator boldly lectures the Persian Emperor Xerxes on “what is a king,” and then goes on to describe the attributes of Leonidas, concluding that a true king serves his people, not they him. .

The Warrior’s thoughts on the brink of battle.  During the several days of the battle of Thermopylae we get inside the heads of the warriors – most are badly wounded and almost too exhausted to think or care, much less to continue to fight.  But they do. On the final day, when all knew it would be their last, Pressfield tells us what the warrior thinks of when alone and facing his own death:

• The faces of his family and those he loves who he leaves behind;
• Those he loved who have already died – from his family, his friends, his fellow warriors;
• The gods.

Suicide’s soliloquy – Suicide was the name of Dienekes’ primary squire.  He was given that name because when he began work for the Spartans he wanted to die because of a crime he had committed in his native Scythia, which forced him into exile to ultimately join the Spartans.  He cared little for his life, and his reckless courage and willingness to die to support his master (Dienekes) in battle became legendary.    Toward the end of the book, he shares why he loves serving the Spartans, why he loves being associated with and part of their brotherhood.  He believes that their brutally arduous training is the glue that holds the Spartan phalanx together.   “For what can be more noble than to slay oneself? Not literally.  Not with a blade in the guts.  But to extinguish the selfish self within, that part which looks only to its own preservation, to save its own skin. That, I saw was the victory you Spartans had gained  over yourselves. That was the glue.”  (p 332)

The opposite of Fear (redux) –Suicide’s soliloquy inspires Dienekes to finally reveal what he sees as the opposite of fear – he declares that to be love.  When one sufficiently loves one’s country, comrades, family, and cause, fear is no longer a factor – one has NO  fear  facing the prospect of sacrifice to save them.

Why this book:  I’ve heard Tim Ferriss refer to this book several times, and I listened to  his interview with the author Rolf Potts. It sounded like something that I would like, given that I’ve got the urge to visit in a less structured way, some interesting, exotic, and out of the way parts of the world.

Summary in 3 sentences:   A short and easy to read book which is not only a philosophy of how to travel simply with an open mind to maximize one’s experience, but also a resource guide for finding out more information about whichever mode of travel suits one best, as long as it is not guided tourism.  He recommends  travelling apart from the standard tourist packages, which promise to keep you comfortable and unchallenged, and insulate you from dealing with the the realities and occasional discomfort of being in a different culture.  Vagabonding is full of the wisdom of the ages, offered from vagabonders past and present, and if looked at broadly, is also a philosophy for living more simply and more openly at home.

My Impressions: I loved this little book.  It is short, unpretentious and not only provides great practical advice for travelers of a wide variety of “persuasions,” its philosophy of unstructured, adventurous and open-minded/ open-hearted traveling  can be applied to open-minded and open-hearted living in one’s “normal” life at home.  I read it several months ago, and in reviewing it to write this review, I realize that it is a book I need to read again, and again.  It is redolent with the spirit of Walt Whitman’s Song of the Open Road, and it inspires that in me, and hopefully it will in you as well..

Rolf Potts distinguishes “vagabonding’ from a “mere” vacation where one is merely trying to get away and relax.  Vagabonding is a deliberate adventure, where one expects the unknown and unexpected,  anticipating both wonderful and not-so-wonderful experiences. The traveler intentionally travels with an open mind and heart.    He calls it “a rediscovery of reality itself.”   Isn’t that something we should aspire to every day?

He suggests that the vagabonder try to be more a “traveler” than a “tourist,” noting that travelers truly “see” their surroundings, whereas tourists merely “look” at attractions.  He also adds that vagabonding includes both, but encourages more traveler behavior than tourist.

He stresses repeatedly to default toward simplicity.  “What should I plan to bring on my travels? As little as possible, period. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to travel light.”  (P. 7) It is a guide to simple living, and his advice reminds me of the old NOLS saying which opens the door to creative and expedient solutions to having limited resources at hand: “If you don’t have it, you don’t need it.”

He provides guidance on different versions of “vagabonding” and offers tips on pursuing whichever version may appeal most to you.  He offers guidance on going it alone, vagabonding with a partner, how to prepare to travel  while avoiding over-preparing, guidance for “senior” vagabonders, vagabonding with children, guidance for solo women vagabonders,  guidance for engaging with the locals, as well as with other travelers one meets on the road.   He offers guidance on eating strange food and staying healthy, and how to be appropriately cautious, and minimize the chances of being victimized or exploited.

He offers great guidance on negotiating awkward cross-cultural experiences, and warns against too quickly falling in love with the new and exotic, while still appreciating different cultures.   He gives advice on how to deal with  occasional unwelcoming behavior, to expect to be insulted and demeaned, as well as to be welcomed with open arms, loved and celebrated.  “After all, if you can find joy in insults – if you can learn to laugh at what would otherwise have made you angry – then the world is indeed ‘all yours’ as a cross-cultural traveler.” (p. 119)

He warns against travelling with a fixed mindset regarding political ideology, cultural values, or ingrained prejudices that become blinders that get in the way of seeing and appreciating things as they are.  He also warns against vagabonding with an agenda focused too much on “fun” or “partying” – a tendency he’s often seen, especially in younger travelers.  While certainly not recommending abstention or teetotaling,  he warns that  “falling into a nightly ritual of partying… is a sure way to overlook the subtlety of places, stunt your travel creativity and trap yourself in the patterns of home. “(p. 168)

This wonderful little book includes a rich collection of great quotes scattered throughout, from wise teachers down through the ages, as diverse as Aristotle, Bertrand Russell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Abbey, the Upanishads, Thoreau, Garrison Keillor, Bhagavad Gita, John Muir, Vonnegut, Melville.

Each chapter concludes with an extensive “Tip Sheet” with URLs to websites that provide guidance on the topic of the chapter, as well as recommended books, magazines, and other resources to help the aspiring vagabonder prepare.  The conclusion of each chapter also includes one page of “Vagabonding Voices”  – quotes from regular folks who have had experiences relevant to the topic at hand, as well as a one page “Vagabonding profile” – a short bio piece on well known and not-so-well known people with experiences and insights relevant to his theme.  The more prominent include Thoreau, Walt Whitman, John Muir, Isabelle Lucy Bird, Annie Dillard.

He concludes with chapters on how vagabonding can and should feed one’s creativity, and one’s spirituality (that’s small “s” spirituality) by opening our eyes to the wonder and the sacred in everyday life.  In the final chapter he addresses the challenges of coming home, reintegrating one’s changed self into the world one left behind, which will seem not to have changed at all.  He challenges us to “Explore your hometown as if its were a foreign land and take an interest in your neighbors as if they were exotic tribesmen.  Keep things real, and keep on learning. Be creative, and get into adventures.  Keep things simple, and let your spirit grow” (p. 208)

To me, Vagabonding reverberates with themes from Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey – leaving one’s known comfortable environment, often to go abroad, to face new challenges, expecting to be surprised and challenged, to take risks, to fail, to succeed, to experience joy and disappointment, and to learn and grow from the experience. And then to return home stronger, wiser, and more resilient, and thereby positively transform the world to which one returns.   In Vagabonding, Rolf Potts says that “Of all the adventures and challenges that wait on the vagabonding road, the most difficult can be the act of coming home.” (p. 205)  In Vagabonding, as in Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, Rolf Potts points out how coming home can be the  most important part of the journey. It is where we cash in on the longterm investment of having left the comforts of home, to head out and face new challenges and deal with them, as best we can, come what may.

Why this book: I’ve been exploring mental performance on my own and at work for quite some time. This book was given to me as a gift by my friend Doug Watterson, so I gave it a try. So glad I did.

Summary in 3 sentences: Gary Mack is a professional sports psychology consultant and shares his insights after years of working with professional athletes from many different sports.  He offers key principles, but also underscores their value and importance with fascinating vignettes from the lives of  celebrity athletes. But his book is also about mental performance for the rest of us, and is full of ideas and tools for performing and living well, not just in the arena of sports, but in the arena of life.

My impressions: So much wisdom, not only for high performance athletes, but for all of us. This book is a compendium of wisdom from great players and coaches from his experiences as a sports psychologist consultant for professional athletes in the 80s and 90s.   That wisdom applies not only to how best to succeed (however you define success) in sports but also how to succeed in other endeavors in life.   He makes his points and then backs them up  with vignettes and quotes from the greats in many sports.

It was a joy to read.  I’m way past my athletic prime but there is so much in there that I can still use.  It is a book for anyone who wants to perform better, and each person can take from it which ever gems can help them perform better in life.

A few examples:

His chapter “Riding the pines” – a euphemism for sitting the bench – advises players to “Inc themselves,” meaning to see themselves in a broader context – as an incorporated business – and he reminds them that they are writing their career resumes with everything they do – with every performance, including with how they respond to every setback.

His chapter “Hurry, Slowly” (in Navy SEALs lingo: “slow is fast”) is followed by the chapter “Try Easier” – both about relaxation and against over-trying, recommending  effortless power, not powerful effort.

His chapter “Be Here Now” is all about mindfulness.

His chapter “Simply Observe” is about focus.

His chapter “White Moments” is about being in “flow” or lost “in the zone.”

His chapter “Paralysis by Analysis” is about slumps, getting into them and getting out of them.

His chapter “Trust your Stuff” is about being decisive and committed, and overcoming self-doubt and tentativeness.

He has separate chapters on dealing with fear, dealing with strong emotions, dealing with failure and disappointment, and includes a chapter on what he calls the ugliest label in sports – “choking.”

HIs chapter on “Paradoxes of Performance” is really interesting – and includes explanations of 10 head-shaking paradoxes that are common in sports such as: less can be more, slowing down can make you faster, playing safe can be dangerous, a step backward is a step forward…

His chapter “The Hero Within” tells about how training the mind can unleash the hero in each of us – that with the right mental attitude and focus, “ordinary people can do extraordinary things.”

He makes clear in his chapter “Bottom Line” that self confidence and belief in oneself  are the most important part of the mental game.  The rest of the techniques are basically designed to support that one.

He concludes Mind Gym with a chapter entitled “The Big Win” which explicitly points out some of the implicit key points about how one performs in sports are analogous to how one lives a good life. Winning and losing are not the most important things – character, effort, attitude, grace and gratefulness – if these can be nurtured in how one plays – that is the Big Win.

Criticism – this is one of the earlier books on mental performance. It is organized to be easy and fun to read, but not as a good reference.   Some of the chapter titles are clever, but you have to get into the chapter to find out what it is about.  It was published in 2001, and probably written in 1999-2000.  Meditation in the 20 years since has become a recommended staple in high performance athletes, but it is not mentioned in this book – I assume because it was not a tool he recommended back in the 90s.  But the chapters on focus and visualization, and mindfulness and emotional control come at the same objective from a different direction.

This is not a criticism, but remembering that this book was published in 2001 it was amusing to read great quotes on performance from Mark McGwire, Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods before they fell from grace.

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Some (a LOT of) Quotes from the book for my (and perhaps your) future reference.  I had great fun going back through this book and reviewing these many quotes and what I regard as highlights. (Page numbers refer to the paperback copy:)

p. ix-x Alex Rodriguez:  I try to attain my goals mentally first…I believe a champion wins in his mind first, then he plays the game, not the other way around.  …During tough times I don’t worry. I don’t judge my performance by results.  Most important is my physical and mental preparation.

p 4 The world’s greatest athletes and the most successful people in other walks of life know this to be true – that once you reach a certain level of competency, the mental skills become as important to performance as the physical skills, if not more so.

p. 7 What you think affects how you feel and perform. Training your brain is as important as training your body.

p. 9 One key to achieving success in sports is learning how to focus on the task and not let negative thoughts intrude…..In working with place-kickers, I use a distraction technique. I ask them to create a word that, when said to themselves, will block out all negative thought and help relieve tension.

p. 11 I give athletes  I work with a three-by-five card. On one side I have them list their personal keys to success; on the other, their performance keys to success.

p. 12 By changing your thinking – and you can choose how you think – you can change your performance.  Put another way, if you don’t like the program you are watching, switch the channel.

p. 14 The power of visualization and mental rehearsal has been demonstrated in dozens of research studies. If you take twenty athletes of equal ability and give them mental training,  they will outperform the ten who received no mental training every time.

p. 15 I still remember what Pele said: enthusiasm and the mental edge are the keys to winning.

p.17 To get the head edge, try creating your own mind gym.  You always can do mental practice, even when you are physically tired or injured. Make your images as vivid and as clear as you can.  See yourself overcoming mistakes, and imagine yourself doing things well. Remember, confidence comes from knowing you are mentally and physically prepared. ….Mental skills, like physical skills, need constant practice.

p. 18 Scott Hamilton: “Under pressure you can perform fifteen percent better or worse.”    Ken Griffey Sr. “When you have fun, it changes all the pressure into pleasure.”

p. 22 In a study on the experiences of athletes during their “greatest moment” in sports  (the researcher) found that more than 80 percent of the athletes said they felt no fear of failure. They weren’t thinking about their performance. They were immersed in the activity.

p. 24 Chris Evert: “Competitive toughness is an acquired skill and not an inherited gift.”

p. 25-28 Seven characteristics of mental toughness:

• Competitive Nancy Lopez; “a competitor will take bad breaks and use them to drive themselves just that much harder.  Quitters take bad breaks and use them as reasons to give up.
• Confident.  Tiger Woods:  “Every time I play, in my own mind, I’m the favorite.”
• Control. The hallmark of mentally tough athletes is the ability to maintain poise, concentration and emotional control under the greatest pressure and the most challenging situations.
• Committed.  Mentally tough athletes focus their time and energy on their goals and dreams.
• Composure.  Mentally tough athletes know how to stay focused and deal with adversity (and the inevitable bad referee call or unfair bad break.)
• Courage. A mentally tough athlete must be willing to take a risk. Are you a mountain climber who will get to the top, or a camper?
• Consistency.  Mentally tough athletes possess an inner strength. They often play their best when they’re feeling their worst.

p. 41 Arthur Ashe “you are really never playing              an opponent. you are playing yourself.”

p.41 In psychology there is something we call the self-consistency theory. It means we act consistent to our self-concept – our self-image… we will talk about the importance of seeing yourself as being successful.

p. 42-46.  Here is my check list of self-defeating thoughts and behaviors that undermine performance. I call them gremlins.

• Fear – usually it’s a threat to our self image.
• Anger – we have to learn to control our emotions or they will control us.
• Anxiety – a sense that something bad is going to happen.
• Self- consciousness  – being afraid of looking bad.  Ozzie Smith: “Show me a guy who is afraid of losing bad and I can beat him every time.”  You can’t perform well if you’re afraid of embarrassing yourself.
• Perfectionism. Perfectionists often have a very critical, self-condemning voice and are never satisfied with their performance.
• Stubborness. Some people are stubborn, unwilling to learn..in sports you must learn how to fail successfully.
• Lack of Motivation.  Joe DiMaggio: “Motivation is something nobody else can give you.  Others can help motivate you, but basically it must come from you, and it must be a constant desire to do your very best at all times and under any circumstances.”
• Competitiveness.  When people lose the willingness to do the work to be as good as you can be.
• Distractions. Unwillingness to discipline oneself to give up the things that impede one’s performance – booze, partying,drugs, other things.
• Persistence – unwillingness or inability to look at setbacks as opportunities.

p. 46 It’s important to look at yourself and identify your gremlins. In sports as in life, the first step to success is getting out of your own way.

p. 47 Ealr Weaver: “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”                        Knute Rockne: “Build your weaknesses until they become your strengths.”

p. 47 One thing I learned from my association with Japanese Baseball was the concept called kaizen which means constant daily learning…

p. 49 I believe in the parachute principe. The mind is like a parachute – it only works when it’s open.

p. 55 Lou Holtz: “You must have dreams and goals if you are ever going to achieve anything in this world.”

p. 58 It is said the extraordinary people live their lives backward. They create a future, and then they live into it. ACT backward.  Accept your present state, Create your desired state, Take action to achieve your goals.

p. 60 Goal setting is a master skill for personal growth and peak performance.

p. 61 You should develop performance goals as well as outcome goals.  A performance goal, or action goal is something you can control.

p. 61 Greg Norman: “Setting goals for your game is an art. The trick is in setting them at the right level, neither too low nor too high.”

p. 64  Seek progress, not perfection.

p. 76 Jimmy Johnson: “Really it comes down to your philosophy.  Do you want to play it safe and be good or do you want to take a chance and be great?”

p. 76-77  Fear of failure, more than any single thing, keeps people in sports and in all avenues of life, from realizing their full potential.  ….Fear makes you play safe. Fear makes you play small.

p. 79 Athletes should look at failure as feedback.  Greg Maddux:  Failure is the best teacher in the world..you get to learn from what happens to you – both good and bad – in a real-live game situation.

p. 80 Michael Jordan and many other great athletes learned to turn fear into anger.

p. 80  Learn how to fail succesfully.  Hate to fail but never fear it. Learn to view failure as feedback.

p. 81 Dennis Connor: “You can’t outperform your self-image.”

p. 84&86 Limits begin where vision ends.  You have to see yourself as a no limits person.  Visualize success and give yourself permission to win.

p. 88 An athlete’s success is said to depend oupon four factors – physical ability, physical training, mental training, and desire or drive.  The desire to succeed needs to be stronger than the fear of failure.

p. 93  Learning how to use one’s mind can be as potent as any performance-enhancing drug. In medical studies, many patients report improvement in their physical condition after they are given placebos, or sugar pills. Why? The power of the mind.

p. 94-96  The Four D’s

• Desire -“want’ power is as important as will power.
• Dedication – turning desire into action with a lasting commitment.
• Determination – an unwavering resolve to achieve one’s goals and succeed.
• Discipline – self-discipline -the only kind that lasts is action oriented. doing what you have to do when you need to do it, whether you want to or not.  Tom Landry: “Setting a goal is not the main thing.  It’s deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with the plan. The key is discipline.”

p. 99 Scott Hamilton: “I firmly believe that the only disability in life is a bad attitude.”  Payne Steward: “A bad attitude is worse than a bad swing.”

p. 99 Atitude is like a pair of eyeglasses. It is the lens through which we view the world.

p. 100 Talent being equal, players with a positive, optimistic attitude will outperform those with a negative, pessimistic one.

p. 103 There are three P’s for changing pessimism into optimism:

• Permanence. Optimists experience setbacks and these disappointments are temporary.
• Pervasiveness.  Optimitst are able to put their problems in a “box” and not let them distract them or affect every other area o their lives.
• Personalization. Optimists internalize victories and externalize defeats.  The pessimist does just the opposite.

p. 103 It is said that 10 present of life is what happens to us and 90 percent is how we choose to react to it.

p. 103  Your attitude determines your altitude. If you think you can, or can’t, you’re probably right. The choice is yours.

p. 106 (after a setback -Erik Hanson🙂 “ I learned ten times more from one night of not throwing a ball than I have my whole life in pitching -all from observing, visualizing, and going through it all mentally.”

p. 107 It doesn’t take talent to hustle and work hard.  Invest in yourself with a positive attitude and “can-do thinking.”

p. 109. In psychology, the term self- efficacy is the belief in one’s own ability to be successful. Simply believing in yourself doesn’t mean you’re always going to win.  But believing in yourself can help enable you to put yourself into a position to win.

p. 112 In truth, life is based upon failures. If you don’t fail, you’re probably not challenging yourself enough.

p. 112 Muhammad Ali “To be a great champion you must believe you are the best.  If you’re not, pretend you are.”

p. 117 Ted Williams: “If you don’t think too good, don’t think too much.”

p. 118 (on self talk)  Which voice do you hear? Which is louder, the negative critic or the positive coach? You can choose to listen to the voice that offers and reinforces positive thoughts. It has been said that thoughts become words. Words become actions. Actions become habits. Habits become character. Character becomes your destiny.

p. 124  Be the solution, not the emotion. When you let anger get the best of you, it brings out the worst in you. The key question is who is in control – you or your emotions?  Remember, before you can control your performance you need to be in control of your self.

p. 126 When I’m nervous or trying too hard, I don’t perform well. Instead of playing my game, I play it safe. I play not to lose; I play small; I play scared…What I’ve had to learn – what I’m still working at – is not to let fear control me. Stop worrying about making a mistake.

p. 127  Fear lives in the future.  These (the best) athletes live in the present – the here and now. Their participation is fun and rewarding.

p. 129  Remember, fear doesn’t keep you safe. our training does.  Don’t let fear scare you. Feel the fear and do it anyway.  Fear is often false evidence appearing real.

p. 130 “Choker.”  It’s the ugliest label in sports. …There is no more damning gesture than a mocking hand to the throat, the choke sign. Yet choking happens every day. It happens at Wimbledon. It happens at the Olympic Games. No one is immune.

p. 132 Choking is a normal human reaction, a physiological response to a perceived psychological threat.

p. 132 When you are under stress, deep breathing helps bring your mind and body back into the present….Breathe in energy.  Breath out negativity. Breathe in relaxation. Breathe out stress.

p. 132  Over the years I have handed out thousands of little stickers to athletes that read “Breathe and Focus.”

p. 134  Choking is nothing more than paying attention to your physiology when you should be focusing on your opponent and the task.

p. 135  Billy Jean King: “Each point I play is in the now moment.  The last point means nothing, the next point means nothing. ”

p. 136 Alex Rodriguez: “My only goal is to learn how to play one entire game in the present.”

p. 136 Bobby Jones: “It’s nothing new or original to say that golf is played one stroke at a time. But it took me years to realize it.”

p. 136 Successful athletes who speak of “playing in the zone” are describing what it feels like to perform in the present, mind and body attuned, working together. When you are playing your game right on time, in the present, you perform at your best. Why? because in the present, there is no pressure.  Pressure is created by anxieties about the future and remembered failures from the past.

p. 137 Worrying about a mistake will usually get you another one just like it.

p. 139  Learn from the past. Prepare for the future. Peform in the present.

p. 144 The more you hurry the later you get. When you find yourself rushing you are no longer in the present. Pace instead off race.

p. 149 If you can relax your body, you can relax your mind. Quiet mind, Quiet body.  Relaxation happens when you stop creating tension. Over-trying leads to under-performing.

p. 151  Some well- meaning instructors make the game too complex.  The old joke is that if golf instructors taught sex education, it would be the end of civilization as we know it.

p. 151  This should be your goal: Play with your eyes, not your ideas….”I see the ball, I hit the ball,” Ken Griffey Jr. says.

p. 152  Jack Nicklaus calls concentration  “a fine antidote for anxiety.”

P. 154 If your mind starts to wander, so will your performance. Keep your eyes centered on the target and your mind set on the task at hand.  Focus on the process and let go of the outcome.

p. 156 What do you think is the most important part of the mental game? It’s a question I’ve asked hundreds of managers, coaches, and professional athletes during plane flights and bus rides to stadiums one rthe past twenty years.  The answer is always the same.  It’s confidence  When you’re confident you can relax, trust your stuff, and perform at your best. Confidence is the bottom line.

p. 156  Where does confidence come from? Great athletes say that confidence is knowing they are prepared physically and mentally.  .Confidence is the emotional knowing that you are prepared, mind, body, and spirit, for anything.

p. 157 Louis Pasteur: “Chance favors the prepared mind” or as golfer Tom Kite said, “Give luck a chance to happen.”

p. 157  Confidence is the result of preparation, and preparation begins with forming a mental game plan.  Reggie Jackson called winning the science of preparation. “And preparation can be defined in three words: Leave nothing undone. NO detail is too small.”

p. 159 when you’re relaxed, you’re in a more receptive state for positive affirmations and visualizations.

p. 164 When asked for golfing tips, I tell friends that the best advice I can give is that it’s better to be decisive than right..

p. 166 In practice, you learn to train your brain as well as your body. Sam Snead said that practice time is when you put your brain into your muscles.  The conscious practice of routines leads to the unconscious habits of success…Routines are comforting mechanisms – triggering mechanisms.

p. 167 Switch from the thinking mode to the trusting mode.

p. 169 Many people who play sports long enough  or work at their craft hard enough experience those magical moments where their training and trust in themselves come together in perfect harmony. Their performance flows smoothly, effortlessly, and almost unconsciously.

P. 169  All great athletes know the feeling . They use different words to describe it.  They’re on autopilot; they’re tuned in; in total control; in the groove; locked.  Japanese players have their own word for it , loosely translated, it means ‘no mind.”  Tennis star Arthur Ashe called it “playing in the zone.”

p. 171 When you’re in the zone, you have switched from a training mode to a trusting mode.  You’re not fighting yourself. You’re not afraid of anything. You’re living in the moment, in a special place and time.  As a certified hypnotist, I see similarities between people who are in a trance and those in a performance zone.

p. 172.  Tiger Woods  “You ever go up to a tee and say, ‘Don’t hit it left, don’t hit it right?’  That’s your conscious mind. My body knows how to play golf. I’ve trained it to do that. It’s just a matter of keeping my conscious mind out of it.”

p. 173 The harder you try to get into the zone, the further way you get. The zone is the reward for all your hard work and preparation . Just go with the flow and enjoy the moment.

p. 174  Johnny Bench: Slumps are like a soft bed, easy to get into and hard to get out of.

p. 179  The key to overcoming a slump is finding a difference that will make a difference. Usually this means doing less rather than more.    Sports is filled with ups and downs. Remember the first rule of holes is to stop digging.  Go back to basics and keep things simple.

p. 181  You have to be wiling to get worse before you can get better, which is one of the paradoxes of sports.

p. 183 Trying easier can be harder.  Remember the golfer’s prayer: “God, grand me the strength to swing easier.

p. 183  Over-control gets you out of control…Performance improves when they surrender to the process.

p. 187 Sport psychology is especially prescribed for two kinds of athletes.  Some perform well in practice but break down in competition because they become self-conscious or overanxious. Others possess worlds of talent but can’t perform consistently. Consistency separates good athletes from great ones. The best athletes win consistently because they think, act and practice consistently.

p. 188  Chris Evert boiled inside when she played. If her confidence was shaky, or she was losing her composure, she worked very hard not to show it.  “If you give in to your emotions after one loss, you’re liable to have three or four in a row.”

p. 189 “The trick,”  Arnold Palmer said,  “is to stay serene inside, even when things are going badly outside.”

p. 189  Jim Colbert echoing Sam Snead:  “My reaction to anything that happens on the golf course is no reaction. There are no birdies, or bogeys, or eagles or double bogeys. There are only numbers. If you can learn that, you can play this game. ”

p. 189 All performers can act themselves into a way of thinking just as they can think themselves into a way of acting.  Mental attitude is very important.

p. 189-90 Dave winfield, a member of the 3,000-hits club knew that what he thought affected how he performed. “Sometimes you have to say to yourself that you’re going to have fun and feel good before you go out there.  Normally, you have fun after you do well, but I wanted to have fun before I did well.  And that helped.”

p.190 To perform consistently you must prepare consistently.  Act the way you want to become until you become the way you act.

p. 192  Shaquille O’Neal: “It was Aristotle who said ‘ Excellence is not a singular act but a habit. You are what you repeatedly do.’”

p. 193  People with inner excellence look at competition as a challenge.

p. 193  Ten qualities of Inner Excellence:

• The person who is a winner within has a dream. Eleanor Roosevelt: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
• Commitment  to do the hard work.  Joe Frazier:” You can map out a fight plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you planned, and you’re down to your reflexes – your training. That’s where your roadwork shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of morning, you’re getting found out now, under the bright lights.”  (Great quote.)
• Responsibility – Those with the inner quality of excellence take responsibility for themselves and their actions.
• Openness to learning and growing.  Kaizen.  Learn how to play with the paradoxes of sports. We don’t grow old. We get old by not growing.
• Optimism  A positive mental attitude is essential to becoming the hero that is within you.
• Self Confidence.  No one can outperform his or her self image.  The greats believe in themselves and their abilities and they know how to do within, when they’re doing without.
• Emotional Control. Ask yourself – Was that appropriate? Does that serve you well?
• The adversity quotient.  An MVP looks at obstacles as opportunities and views setbacks as springboards for comebacks, stumbling blocks as stepping stones.   “Act like a champion.”
• Those with inner excellence posses the backbone of character.  Success with honor. Pick people up; don’t put them down. Walk your talk. Live by your principles. If you don’t stand for something, you can fall for untying.  If you stay in the middle of the road, the chance of getting hit are doubled.
• An MVP is persistent and patient.  Don’t give up on your dream. Hang out with people wh o stoke your fire, not soak your fire.

p. 196 When times are good, be grateful, and when times are bad, be graceful.

p. 196  Working on the inside shows on the outside. What lies ahead of us or behind us is of little matter to what lies within us.

p. 197 Ralph Waldo Emerson: “A hero is no braver than the ordinary person. He is just braver five minutes longer.”

p. 198 Dr Thad Bell “You can rise above almost any obstacle if you’re willing to work hard and believe that you can do it.  I want everyone to remember that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.”

p, 211 Great athletes strive for balance in their lives. On game day they find the warrior within.  They know when and how to turn it on, and when the game is over, they know how to turn it off.

p. 211 When the lights go on, it’s showtime. Be prepared mind, body, and spirit to do battle with everything you have, so when the contest is over you can leave the game behind, with no regrets.

p. 214 John McKay: “You shouldn’t worry about the fans or the press or trying to satisfy the expectations of anyone else.  All that matters is if you can look in the mirror and honestly tell the person you see there that you’ve done your best.”

p.215-217 Harvard researchers collaborated on a project to define what makes a successful life. They produced a list calle the Five L’s

• Love Without love for your sport and those people who are important to you, you aren’t living. Fall in love with what you are doing and the people you’re doing it with.
• Labor. Love what you’re doing, and you never have to work a day in your life.
• Learn  Frank Howard: “The trouble with baseball is that by the time you learn how to play the game, you can’t play it anymore.” Dan Fouts:  “I felt I can’t play forever but I’m learning more every day.”
• Laughter. Don’t let competition kill your sense of fun.  Life is to important to take too seriously. If you learn to laugh at yourself, you will enjoy a lifetime of entertainment.
• Leave, or let go. Charles Barkley:  “I’ve never believed my critics or my worshippers and I’ve always been able to leave the game at the arena.”   Sparky Anderson: “Win or lose, the game is finished. It’s over. It’s time to forget and prepare for the next one.”

p. 219  Success in life is peace of mind, the feeling of having no regrets.  It comes from knowing you did your best, on and off the field as a player and as a person. When you leave the game how do you want  to be remembered. How do you define success?

p. 220 Emmitt Smith:  I may win and I may lose, but I will never be defeated.

p. 224  the greater victory is the victory over ourselves. Remember, it’s always too soon to quit.

 

 

Why this Book:This book has been recommended to me for many years by friends and acquaintances.  It has also been number two (behind Killer Angels) on the survey of recommended books by active and retired 4-star military officers, published as the Leader’s Bookshelf by Adm Jim Stavridis, My friend Dittie Dittmar has been insisting for several years that I ]read it.  Then my friend Jay Hennessey brought it up, which resulted in a group of our friends committing to reading it.

Summary in 3 Sentences: It’s a novel about one man’s journey in the Army through most of the first half of the 20th century – to include WW1, the interwar years, WW2, and the beginning of the Vietnam War.  We learn a lot about Army culture, marriage and family life in the Army, the experience of the ground soldier in brutal combat, and the challenges of leadership in battle.  It is mostly a character study of how a number of people deal with those stresses, but most prominently, the tensions between a rather selfless combat leader who loves his men, and a self-centered and gifted staff officer who is a great manipulator of the system for his own benefit.

My Impressions: Quite an Epic! Covers five decades of the 20th century and so much territory, to include the horrors of battle in two world wars and the beginning of our Vietnam War experience,  the challenges of leadership in combat as well as in less dramatic contexts, and how different types of people deal with a variety of different types of adversity and stress. It’s about honor and ambition, about love and friendship, marriage and family, camaraderie and responsibility, a little bit of hate, and lots of killing in the contexts of war.  It deserves it’s reputation as a great epic of the 20th century. It will have more (or different) meaning to readers who have a close connection to the military, but I spoke to a good friend with no close contact to the military who loved it.

But more importantly,  Once an Eagle is about issues of character – focussing on one main character, but with a rich cast of supporting characters whose stories and behavior add depth to the character discussion.   And it is about values, compromise, struggles with conflicting values and loyalty.   There is much to discuss and think about in this book.  It is not a quick read – the copy pictured above is close to 1300 pages, but it is a fascinating read – not hard to pick up, and often hard to put down. It took me a couple of months, but in that window, I read 3 other books in parallel. I’m really glad my friends Dittie and Jay nudged me to finally pick it up.

Anton Myrer was student at Harvard when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He immediately enlisted in the Marines and served in the Pacific, participating in the battle of Guam, where he was injured, was discharged in 1946 and returned to Harvard where he graduated Magna cum Laude in 1947.  He wrote Once an Eagle in the early/mid sixties and so we are looking at the world and how his characters  meet their challenges through the eyes of veteran of WWII from that era.

The main character is Sam Damon, who was born at the very end of the 19th century,  grew up with classic American midwestern values in a small town in Nebraska (where my parents grew up and where I was born.)   Once an Eagle  begins when Sam decides to leave home and enlist in the army to fight in Europe, then we follow him to becoming a hero in WW1, awarded the Medal of Honor and eventually a field promotion to be an officer in World War I. We then follow his courtship and marriage at the end of the war and the inter-war years with Sam learning to be an officer in peacetime, as well as a husband and father.   Over the next 20 years, he and his environment evolve and change, until the outbreak of WWII, and his eventual promotion to General Officer to lead troops in several critical engagements in the South Pacific.

Courtney Massengale. The other primary character in Once an Eagle is a contemporary of Sam Damon’s, Courtney Massengale, a West Point graduate, full of charm, ambition and a talent for winning the trust and confidence of his superiors in rank and very comfortable in the salons and offices of power. He is uncanny at landing  plumb assignments, avoiding combat and the less glamorous jobs, and getting promoted.  Massengale is the anti-hero in the book, and his and Damon’s lives intersect at various key interludes.  The differences between Damon and Massengale is one of Myrer’s main themes, and they represent two fairly extreme ends of the spectrum of military officers one encounters.  Most of officers I know and have met  – and I’ll include myself in this group – are somewhere in the middle between these two. The moral and personality clashes between Damon and Massengale, and their different approaches to their roles and responsibilities in the Army form the backbone of the book.

Tommy Damon. A third primary character in the book is Sam’s wife Tommy, which allows the story to explore the challenges of marriage and family life within the military (or any high stress, demanding profession for that matter.)  Tommy is independent and headstrong and rebels against the army’s expectation that wives be docile and submissive.  Once an Eagle explores the challenges that Tommy and Sam have – two very different, very intelligent and  stubborn people – raising a family and making a marriage work within the military.   The arguments and tensions between Sam and Tommy were familiar to me – having grown up hearing many very similar arguments between my career Navy father and my mother during the 50s and 60s, and I’ve felt similar tensions between the demands of my Navy career and my very independent and sometimes rebellious spouse.  Through Tommy’s and Sam’s friends and fellow officers in the Army, we see other marriages, with both different and similar issues and struggles, and painfully, we also see the impact of the constant threat and reality of loss on military families.

The book concludes in 1962, at the beginning of the Vietnam War, when the Chief of Staff of the US Army asks Sam to come out of retirement and go to Vietnam to look around, evaluate what he sees, and report back – to provide the Chief of Staff with a fresh perspective from an old soldier.   Given that the book was published in 1968, Myrer, through Sam Damon, provides a blistering criticism of how the US mis-interpreted what was happening on the ground in Vietnam, and  our decision to get involved as we did. Of course, Courtney Massengale appears again in this final section of the book, with his very personal agenda, tuned to which way he sensed the wind to be blowing.

As much as Myrer clearly admired the Army and many (most?) of the people in it, Once an Eagle is very critical of much of Army culture, and he admitted that it is very much an anti-war book.  But the paradox that we see in this book is that as much as war brings about so much needless suffering and death, it can also inspires great courage and strength of character.  In  Once an Eagle we see the horrors of war, the weakness of men, as well as examples of men and women at their best.

In spite of some of the weaknesses critics have pointed out, I think it is a must read for anyone who wants to understand 20th century America, and the issues that drove and defined who we were.

Those are my general comments – Below are my thoughts on different aspects of this impressive book that interested me.

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Masquerade: At one point while Sam was in China, Tommy attended a military masquerade ball, and the metaphor was non-too-subtle about how everyone there, overtly pretending to be someone else, was in fact ALWAYS in their work, hiding who they really were, because that is what the Army expected.   The metaphor of the masquerade party was brilliant. It’s interesting to me that Myrer included this scene when Sam could not attend.

Guerilla Warfare – China and Vietnam.  In the mid 1930s, Sam was detailed to be an observer of the Chinese peasant rebellion against the Nationalist Chinese forces – what would eventually become the Chinese communist revolution.  Sam agreed to spend nearly 2 years “embedded” with a Chinese guerrilla group, and at the end had had many close calls, but also gained many important lessons learned.  He was awed by their focus, physical and mental toughness and their complete and selfless dedication to their cause.  These lessons formed the basis of his assessment of the Vietnam War nearly three decades later.  Also, typically,  when Sam completed his assignment in China and returned, the senior officer whose vision had sent him on this “errand” was no longer there, and his successor was indifferent to China and to Sam’s insights.

We relive part of Sam’s experience in China when he is able to visit and engage with a guerrilla leader during his visit to Vietnam.  It’s clear that Sam has far more respect and admiration for both the Chinese and the Vietnamese revolutionaries than for many with whom he was serving at the time.   The guerrillas were fighting for something that they passionately believed in, and they and their troops were willing and able to suffer much more than Americans.

Also, Sam’s experience in China had another side – his family.  He had been asked to go – he was not directed – to spend nearly an entire tour of duty in China away from his family.   The great challenge, the opportunity to learn and experience something truly novel appealed to him professionally and appealed to the adventurer in him and he agreed.  At that time Tommy was not happy with her life; they had two children at home, and she was struggling.  His leaving her alone for that amount of time put a great hardship on her and their family.  He chose his professional challenge and opportunities over her and the needs of his family.  This had long standing consequences.

The Army and The Family –Once and Eagle takes place in an era in which it was frequently said, only partly in jest, that if the Army wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one.  In the case of Tommy – she went into her marriage already soured on the Army;  she was a high spirited and independent woman who had grown up in an Army family (her father was Sam’s primary mentor) and she had fought the yoke of military social propriety growing up.  She saw many of the “rules” and expectations she was expected to conform to as having been made by small-minded people with little imagination and a craving for control. She resisted them at every turn. The Army demands conformity to Army rules and codes of behavior, not only in the ranks, but also socially, from the wives and from its soldiers in their private life. This is not so strict today as it was then, but it still exists. It’s part of the sacrifice of being in the service.

Tommy – the voice of cynicism. Tommy expresses her and I believe the author’s cynicism about the patriotism and flag waiving of the Army.   “You know something Sam? It’s all a pretty little fraud. band playing, spit-and-polish system you’re wound up in. It is simply insane.  The system says you’re all noble knights in modern armor, holding the wall against the shaggy barbarian invaders…The system says Batchelder is a fine, upstanding old soldier and Peavey is a brilliant tactician and Votaw is a wizard with weapons, and that they’re all officers and consummate gentlemen.  The fact – the truth which nobody can mention inside this myth-laden booby hatch – is that Votaw is a pompous ass, and Peavey is a power-drunk sadist, and dear old Batchelder is a miserable, wretched, skirt-chasing rummy!” p. 507-08

Through her we experienced the wives clubs, the experience and sisterhood of those left behind when their husbands went to war, and their petty jealousies and social ambitions. These were all familiar to me as I heard so much about it from my mother growing up. My own wife stayed clear of much of that – much easier for today’s military spouses to do than it was in Tommy’s or my mother’s day.

Starting a few years into their marriage, Tommy became a bit ambivalent and even disenchanted with Sam. While she clearly admired and loved him, she could not accept his willingness to quietly accept and abide by the orders of the Army. She clearly started to see him as something of a chump, used and exploited by cleverer men (like Massengale), taking the shit jobs that the clever ones could avoid.

And she never fully forgave him for accepting the challenge to go to China, and leave her for 2 years alone in the Philippines with their two small children.  She saw him as more selfishly interested in pursuing his own self-interest and professional development through military adventures, than he was in supporting her and their family.  This is also a legitimate charge against many SEALs I know, and my wife would probably include me in that group.

What kind of a leader was Sam There is much more room for discussion of this topic than I feel like giving it – Sam is an admirable character on so many levels.  The closest approximation of which I’m aware is Hal Moore, the battalion commander immortalized in his and Joe Galloway’s superb memoir We were Soldiers, Once and Young, and played by Mel Gibson in the movie.

Apart from his competence and love for his troops, I was struck by his constant effort to learn and improve himself, always reading, and learning, and preparing himself to better serve and succeed at whatever came his way, whatever his duty was.  He taught himself French to better serve in WW1. He taught himself Chinese in order to better work with the Chinese guerillas.    Though he never had a college education,  he could quote the classics and discuss literature with the best of them.  Languages and knowing literature were the signs of an educated officer in his day – back when officers and “class” were meant to be synonymous.

I also was struck by his calm in battle – as were his men.   He epitomized and lived by the dictate to “never let ‘em see you sweat.”  This was in part an affectation that came naturally to him, to display confidence and not show fear in order to serve his men and inspire them to better perform their duty.   He was always leading by example – that included remaining calm.  Also his calmness was a result of his focus – being completely preoccupied with his duty and his men, and having no fear for himself.  However, Myrer does show us that he was human, and how he nearly broke down from stress that would kill almost any normal man.

Death and Dying- There was a lot of killing and death in this book – much of it takes place in war.  But Myrer gets inside the heads of several characters who we get to know and then we experience with them, their own deaths.  He describes that final experience, powerfully, and believably in a way that made an impression on me. Death and dying become more real and more personal, as we got to know these characters, are with them in battle, and we are in their heads with them as they meet their end.   Sam notes separately, “Death is not an individual matter. We like to think it is, but it isn’t.” Then Myrer adds:   All the dead were alike: all emptied, putrescent flesh was one.  It was life that gave individuality, a bright sacredness….

War is a Racket. I suspect that Myrer had read Marine Maj Gen, and two time Medal off Honor recipient Smedley Butler’s monograph War is a Racket, (more about that here) published in 1935.  We see its themes throughout Once an Eagle.  After WW2, Sam’s speech at the dedication of the war memorial in his home town (p 1166) could almost have been given by General Butler himself.  The theme of Sam’s speech:   There are many politicians and business leaders who advocate for war out of patriotism, but who themselves don’t go to war, but then profit immensely from it. The costs are dire for the men who fight and die, and for the country as a whole.  To  his dumb-founded audience of people he’d grown up with, he doesn’t give a rousing patriotic speech, congratulating America for winning the war. Rather he tells them about the brutality of war, the horrors of battle, that there is no glory in so much pointless death and suffering, and it should be avoided at all costs.  And once again, he is seen as a renegade in the Army.

War is inevitable – this theme comes out frequently in the book.  Sam’s mentor Major General Caldwell states it to keep Sam in the Army after WW1. Then Sam believes it and states it again between the wars.  Then after WW2 we hear it again.  And we see the generations of Sam’s family – all warriors- his grandfather in the civil war, his uncle in the Spanish American War, then Sam, and Sam’s son in WW2, and then Ben Kisler’s (Sam’s best freiend) son in WW2 and Vietnam.

Sources of Sam’s and Massengale’s characters.  The contrast between Sam and Massengale is probably the major theme of the book.  How did they become so different?  When we look at their backgrounds, where and how they grew up and matured, these differences are not so surprising.   This perspective may perhaps allow us a bit more sympathy and even a touch of admiration for what Massengale achieved.

Sam’s moral challenge:  At a key point in the book – what I would call the book’s moral fulcrum – Sam faces the challenge of having two primary principles – two North Stars – in conflict.  The first principle was to be honest and true to himself and his principles, and to have the courage to call a spade a spade, no matter the consequences, to not be afraid to say or do what needs to be said or done. This had made him something of a renegade within the Army – he stood up for his men, against the establishment, at the expense of his career.   The second principle was his complete devotion to his men and their welfare.

These are both admirable guiding lights, but when they came into conflict, Sam had to choose, and whichever principle he chose to follow, would be at the expense of the other.

He was committed to the Army and to being the good soldier, AND he loved and was  committed to his men – men who were in the Army to give all of themselves for each other and their nation.   Sam struggled with knowing that the men he loved were readily used and exploited by others in the Army whose motives were not so noble, and who had no such love for them. And he realized that to follow his conscience and confront those exploiters would in all likelihood, hurt the men who trusted him to do all he could to take care of them.

David Whyte writes in his book Crossing the Unknown Sea: “To live with courage in any work or in any organization, we must know intimately the part of us that does not give a damn about the organization or the work. That knows how to live outside the law as well as within it…”  Sam struggled with living inside the law and outside it, with being a “good soldier” and competent Army officer, and a renegade who marched to his own drummer.  He could not commit entirely to either one.

Sam experienced what in moral philosophy is commonly referred to as “dirty hands” – which argues that senior leaders making tough decisions when the stakes are high, cannot be morally pure.  At a certain level of leadership, no matter what choice the leader makes, innocents will almost always suffer.  For my money, Sam made the right choice for the right reasons,  and the pain of his dirty hands was the cost.  It bespoke his moral character that he suffered, as he should have.  As every leader does after making tough calls, when primary values are in conflict.  Almost a Sophie’s choice horrible dilemma.  It is part of the burden of being a leader of character.

I never admired Harry Truman for saying he never lost any sleep over dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, which intentionally killed tens of thousands of civilians who had nothing to do with going to war against the United States. Arguably the right call, (extreme emergency) but not one that should leave the leader chipper and with no regrets.

Criticisms of Once an Eagle;   There are many critics.   Just type the title into google and a number will show up. Most criticize it’s length, lack of imagination,  wooden or lack of fully developed characters, that it doesn’t deserve its reputation among military leaders.  That said, I and most of my friends who’ve spent a good part of their lives in the military, and many who haven’t, found Once an Eagle a compelling and very worthwhile read.

There is a short article by Major General Scales that claims that Once an Eagle has done damage to the Army by overly glorifying Sam as the archetype of the soldier’s ideal fighting leader,  and making the staff officer, represented by Massengale, the villain.   Scales notes that the Army needs great staff officers, and though he doesn’t admire Massengale’s character, his skills and abilities as a staff officer are clear.  Gen Scales notes that some officers are by nature best suited to be great troop leaders,  others to be great staff officers.  The Army needs both.  When our most talented staff officers are put in line officer leadership positions, and our best line officers are forced into positions that demand excellent staffing skills, the Army and everyone in it suffers.  No one will admire Massengale’s ego-centricism or self-serving arrogance, but I admired and envied his social abilities and charm – talents that are clearly valuable in many contexts within the military, and which those who know me know that I don’t have.   I agree with Gen Scales, but Army and military culture in general are about War Fighting – and to remain focused on War Fighting, the War Fighters should get the glory they deserve. Perhaps the Army and other services could find a way to give greater recognition and status to great staff officers, who also show selflessness and integrity.

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A few quotes that struck me, which I’d like to share:

p. 299 Sam: I’ve never liked him myself, I’ve never approved of certain things he does.  But he’s good in combat. He’s utterly fearless…” Col Caldwell:  “That’s just it. He has no fear. None at all. I will have no man in my boat who is not afraid of a whale.” (quote from Moby Dick.)

p. 480 Sam:  “Massengale will never make an enemy, and he’ll never have a friend.”

p. 930 This was the focal point of what Washington was pleased to call The War Effort.  The private in his concealed outpost, soaked to the very marrow of his bones, hungry, shaking with malaria, a jungle ulcer suppurating on his neck, his guts griping and burning with dysentery spasms, straining to hear, alone with his fear of the shadow darker-than-dark, the near flurry of movement, the knife, the cataclysmic flash of the grenade: held together by loyalty to his squad mates, pride in his company, grinding hatred of the enemy who had killed and mangled the bodies of his friends, fugitive dreams of the hometown whose inhabitants now worried about B-cards and points for roast beef and shoes and liquor,  who cursed the ration boards and cheered and clapped at the newsreels between the fear films….

p. 1003 Sam thinking of Massengale:  And one more thought at this late, dark, heavy hour: if I despise him and am afraid of him, how much of a man am I?

p. 1084 Good girls. They were good girls.  They had done what they could, had skimped and saved during the lean years, helped one another out with food and dishes on the evenings they entertained the CO and his wife, and maybe even flirted with one another’s husbands after a post party; and here they were, at the grand climax of the greatest war in history, their sons at the Point or in service, their daughters married or off to school, their husbands away in foreign lands running the big show – and all it meant for them now was separation and dogged cheerfulness and incessant strain.

p. 1121 Sam thinking to himself: For the good of the service. Was he turning into a circumspect subaltern, loyal to the point of subservience, drowning moral principle in the common good, a perfect tool for the arrogant and conniving – was he becoming the kind of soldier he’d always hated and despised? Ben – Ben would tell M to go and fornicate with himself, Ben would already have beaten him to jelly with one arm…1121

p. 1119 Massengale’s sin – there was none greater – was that he had decided neither grace nor nobility nor love existed in this world.

p. 1123  At the doorway he paused, and extended Murasse’s sword; the jeweled hilt glittered in the soft light. “You’re quite sure you won’t accept it?”  “Quite sure, General. As you say, it’s a barbaric weapon. I want you to keep it.”

p. 1133 All men had feet of clay, as Court Massengale once said; it was only necessary to discover the particular weakness and play upon it artfully..

p. 1127 You’ve all been stabbed to death by the twelfth century. You don’t see how things operate. Every war has to be a gleaming crusade, with a hovering Grail of Joseph of Arimathea for only the holiest eyes to behold.  When the plain fact of the matter is that war resembles nothing so much as a big corporation going full blast, with it’s board of directors meetings and reporters and prospectuses, its graphs and charts and shipping sections, layout and advertising – right down to the final product.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why this book: My wife read it twice and was really impressed. It is a Pulitzer Prize winner. My reading group was looking for a shorter book after we had finished a much longer one.

Summary in 3 sentences: It is the story of a father and son – but not about their relationship, but about specific periods in each of their lives.  The son we get to know as he is dying; the father we get to know as a boy and a young man, many decades earlier.  It is beautifully written exploration of character, of life, death in the context of rural New England 100 or so years ago.

My impressions: Very interesting and powerful book – about life, death, our connection to our parents, and to nature. I’ve never read anything quite like it.  It’s short – just shy of 190 pages.  The story isn’t linear – the story bounces back and forth between the lives of its two primary characters,  several decades apart.  The story begins with  the son George, dying at home in his 80s, at the end of a good life.  Then we get to know George’s father Howard, long since dead, but who continues to pop up in the somewhat hallucinatory and somewhat random and confused thoughts of George, in his delirium in his death bed.   Then the narrative switches to Howard’s – the father’s –  life, growing up in rural Maine in the late 19th early 20th century.  The author describes the world as they experienced it – it is very much internal – about the thoughts and reactions to their experiences of two very introverted men.

Through George, we get a sense for what it is like to have one’s health failing and life ebbing away, as one lies at home supported by family.

Though the book begins and ends with George lying at home knowing that he is dying – we actually learn a lot more about the life of Howard, his childhood and young adulthood in rural New England among poor, working class country folks, with few urban comforts, taking care of each other, struggling to get by.   As we get to know Howard as a young boy, and the difficult time he had growing up, we also get glimpses of the Howard’s father, a minister in rural Maine, who was having a psychological breakdown, and the impact that had on Howard.

Then later we get to know Howard as an adult – a Tinker – driving a wagon around the country selling household goods to farms and very rural people for whom getting to town to buy pots, pans, tools, etc is very difficult.  George is Howard’s oldest child at home, but the story is mostly about Howard.  Howard has a special relationship to nature, beginning as a young boy, continuing into his adult life as he spends so much of his life driving his horse-drawn wagon through the woods and down country roads.  This special relationship to nature comes out in the poetic descriptions of how he experiences nature and life.

We also experience the quiet desperation of Howard’s wife, stoically raising children alone, with few resources, while her husband is out selling in the countryside.  There are only a few characters in this book but they are well developed and I felt a connection to and empathy for each of them – they are all very quiet and self-contained; thru the author we get to know their internal life.

The book is beautifully written in an almost poetic style, especially his descriptions of nature.  Charles also grows up to become a modern day tinkerer; he repairs – tinkers with – clocks and watches,  and the author plays with the metaphors of time and the intricacies of clock mechanisms to the world we live in.

This little gem is a meditation on life, and the lives and struggles of ordinary people, and death is treated as a part of life – by looking clear-eyed at what it’s like to die.  And in the process we also experience the connection between fathers going back 3 generations

There are a lot of interesting pieces to this little book – my wife Mary Anne chose to re-read it after she had finished it, and I can understand why.  Knowing the outlines and end of the story made it easier for her to appreciate and savor the beautiful writing, and notice nuances in the rich descriptions of the key characters in the book.  Not a book I’d recommend to everyone, but for those who appreciate beautiful writing and are willing to experience a different type of literature, again, this is a gem.

When she couldn’t attend our reading group to discuss Tinkers which she had recommended to us, Mary Anne wrote the following review:

Tinkers was a book that I bought at the Coronado Book shop, and I had it in my possession for about three years.  I finally picked it up to read on a plane ride from San Diego to Florida and I was immediately taken with the author’s use of language to describe very minute and fleeting moments in our lives.  Who would have imagined that a small grass woven basket for a tiny bird could be so described for several pages.  It highlighted for me that moments are all we have….not grandiose, or important…..just moments when we can become still and see the beauty in these seemingly unimportant evolutions.

It’s not a happy book, but it is a real book, about ordinary people (in New England) during the early 1900 to the present day.  I loved that it was the interior thoughts that were emphasized throughout the book.  No grandiose happenings, just life, day by day, in a particularly hard environment.  

None of the characters were heroic, or did anything that might draw accolades.  It is the majority of us! And there are flaws galore with each of the characters…..whether it be physical, like epilepsy or emotional, like Howard’s wife, holding resentment against her lot in life.

The use of time and the work on clocks indicates the fleeting nature of our existence here and we need to be aware of that. 

Love the story of the tinker selling soap in a newfangled box and how the women didn’t understand why the box needed to be updated….
Or the deathbed scene in the beginning when the roof caves in and the cellar swallows the bed .

Or, when George thinks about how he will be remembered by his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren….page 65 (too long to copy!)

To me, there is so much in this quiet book that speaks of the mysteries of our existence.  I’ll keep this book on my shelf to read again!

Why this book:  While travelling in New Zealand, this book was recommended by a salesman at a bookstore and one of my NOLS colleagues with whom I was hiking.

Summary in 4 sentences: This is short novelized version of an old Maori tale, transposed onto a Maori village in modern times (1980s),  focussing on a young girl born as granddaughter to the Maori chief of that village. The village and the Maori tribe are at a key crossroads in their history, and the grandfather chieftain is upset that the young girl isn’t the grandson whom he had hoped to groom to help lead the village and tribe into the future.  A strong connection to whales had been integral to the history and mythology of this tribe and the chieftain believed that preserving this connection to whales would be key to the village’s future survival.    The granddaughter eventually is able to help rebuild the village’s positive relationship to whales, and thereby serve as a catalyst to positive change in the culture and values of the community.

My impressions:  The Whale Rider is a short enjoyable read that tells a tale about how the Maori village of Whangara on the North Island of New Zealand struggles to hold on to its values and traditions in the late 20th century.  It nicely complements Come Ashore and We will Kill You and Eat You All   as background and insights into Maori culture and values in the 20th century.

The Whale Rider is something of a modern fairy tale, with many references to Maori legends and mythology associated with  the origins of the Maoris as well as the origins of the village of Wharanga, where most of the novel takes place.  The short passages from Maori mythology help to illuminate how the elders and the grandfather chieftain perceive themselves and their place in the world.  The Whale Rider is written in the first person from the perspective of Rawiri, a young Maori man who is nephew to Kora Apurana, the village elder and chieftain of this tribe of Maori.  The young man represents the youth and values of modern New Zealand while Kora Apurana seeks to preserve Maori traditions and values as the world around them changes.

The central character in the story is the young girl Kahu, Rawiri’s neice and Kora Apurana’s granddaughter.  When Kahu was born, Kora Apurana was very disappointed she was not the grandson he had hoped for, since one of the Maori traditions he insists on preserving is that women have no place in performing the sacred and most important duties of the tribe.  Throughout the story, Kora Apurana is bickering constantly with his outspoken wife, Nanny Flowers, a strong woman who holds the family together in a more traditional matriarchal manner, but who is not cowed by her husband’s position or authority. Nanny Flowers insists that beyond their traditional roles, women should also play key roles in deciding important issues of the community.   Kora Apurana ignores her,  ignores his granddaughter Kahu, and focuses on preparing the young men for the challenges that the village and tribe face in modern New Zealand. But as she grows older, Kahu’s special gifts and talents become apparent to everyone in the village,  and she is a constant presence in the story.  But Kora Apurana insists that as a girl, she cannot help  address the difficult issues the village is dealing with.

The story digresses a bit when Rawiri, our young protagonist, leaves Wharanga to work in the big city of Sydney Australia, where he connects with other Moari as well as with  men and women from other parts of the world, and we get perspectives on how young adults from small Maori villages respond to the temptations and distractions of the big city.  When later he accepts work as a ranch hand for a British farmer in Papua New Guinea, he comes face to face with subtle and not-so-subtle racial prejudice and  discrimination.  Maori culture is very much built around home, family, and community, and experiencing racial prejudice inspires Rawiri to return to his roots and the simple pleasures of being with his boyhood pals, Nanny Flowers, Kora Apurana, Kahu and others in the village of Wharanga.

After he returns home, a mass whale beaching occurs and the villagers are reminded of their long ignored connection to whales.  At this point a bit of magical realism creeps into the story,  as the worlds of the mythological and mystical become enmeshed with our world of objective, consensual reality.  Almost as expected, but perhaps in an unexpected manner, Kahu, with her heightened sensitivity to people, animals and the environment helps her village reconnect to whales and the world of their ancestors, and helps to tie present Maori realities to their mythological past in a rather fantastic final dramatic scene.

The author, himself a Maori, concludes The Whale Rider with a fascinating several page essay about his own past and how it influenced him to write this book, how it got published, and what has happened since it’s first edition.

The Whale Rider is a very well known book in New Zealand, and since it was made into a movie in 2002, it has become widely read internationally.  There are a lot of Maori words and phrases in the story – the meanings to some of which are self-evident, and for others, there is a glossary in the back of the book. The Maori language and the Maori names might be a bit distracting to some,  but I felt they enhanced my experience reading this book as a medium to help me better appreciate and understand Maori culture.

Why this book:  I was at the beginning of my trip to New Zealand and this book was recommended to me as a well-written and enjoyable introduction to Maori culture and how it interfaces with Western culture in New Zealand.

Summary in 3 sentences:  This is a memoir of a well-educated American woman who, travelling in New Zealand after college became involved in the Maori culture, married a Maori man and how they made a life together, always tied to his roots in New Zealand.  She regularly interrupts their  story with digressions that tell the story of the Maori people in New Zealand, beginning with the first Polynesians inhabiting New Zealand,  the early European visits to New Zealand beginning with Abel Tasman in 1642, the period of colonization beginning nearly 200 years later, tribal warfare among Maori tribes, and tensions and conflict between Maori and English colonists (she uses the Maori word “Pakeha”).  Her stories and digressions address myths and realities surrounding the Maori culture, and are always tied to helping her explain the friction points between the western and Maori  cultures and values, as reflected in her own family’s experience.  

My impressions:  I really liked this book – it is a fascinating and enjoyable read about New Zealand and the life of a very interesting woman, and how over a life-time, she and her American-Maori family come to understand the cultural forces that made them who they are.  At the conclusion, I felt I had a good background on the fundamentals of the history and friction between the Maoris and white colonials which created the New Zealand we know today.  After marrying into the Maori culture, the author goes back and forth between her family’s personal story and how New Zealand’s history with the Maori’s have served as a backdrop to help her better understand her and her family’s experiences.

The unusual title is a quote from how the Maori’s greeted James Cook when he visited and claimed New Zealand for the British crown in the 1760s.  Christina Thompson is a great story teller – she can write – she’s the editor of the Harvard Review.  She (almost) seamlessly weaves her story of her family’s evolution and frequent moves into her description of Maori culture and why the Maori’s were like they were, and are like they are.

She met her Maori husband Seven while essentially back-packing around New Zealand after college, when, needing a place to stay, he invited her to stay with his family in a small Maori town on the North Island of New Zealand.  She was intrigued by Seven and his family – they were so very different from her and her own background. She and Seven came from two very different cultures and world views, but as opposites often do attract, they connected and eventually married.  She was the product of a progressive western education, eventually earning a PhD and working as an academic and researcher, while Seven had a primary education and none of the ambition and concern for achievement and status that we westerners admire and foster.

Seven was solidly focused on what was in front of him, didn’t worry about personal slights or things he couldn’t control, and worried little about the future -the future would take care of itself.  His relaxed imperturbability was a daily embodiment of Maori cultural values in her life.  She describes him as almost Buddha-like in his detachment from the hurly-burly worries that consume most of us – and how his equanimity balanced her own anxieties and typical western concerns.  That said, she was the primary bread winner in the family, while Seven calmly supported her, working in a variety of jobs that played to his practical strengths, as they raised three children often under financial stress, and frequently moving as she sought work, in Australia, Hawaii, and eventually, Boston.

As she shares with us her journey of discovery in getting to know the culture she was now a part of, the author devotes nearly entire chapters to explaining  Maori customs and practices of the past.   She explains and describes the practice of tattooing,  of cannibalism – eating their enemies, how such peaceful people also had such a warlike culture, and she describes events that led to warfare among the Maori tribes during the early years of the colonial period.  She includes a chapter on the “smoked heads” – the unusual ancient Maori culture of taking the heads of their enemies and preserving them, and how she and her husband requested and got a special viewing of specimens locked in the basement of a Boston museum.   We learn about the Polynesian origins of Maori culture, how colonials exploited Maori innocence in the world of business – purchasing hundreds and thousands of acres of land for a few iron implements, western cloth and weapons.   There are many analogies to how Americans similarly exploited native Americans – but she does not describe any whole-sale genocidal killing, as happened in the US.

In describing the differences between her own family history and background, and Seven’s family history and background, Christina Thompson explores differences in how Americans and Maori culture view family, belonging, individual and community responsibility, achievement, competition – and she addresses issues of race and prejudice  that continue to exist in New Zealand.   Within New Zealand,  there is ambivalence toward “integration” of the Maoris, since that usually means absorption into white culture and abandoning the good that comes from the more communitarian and family Maori values.

Here is a telling quote from the book (p 192 in paperback edition):

Maori values are tribal values: what is good for the group is good for the individual, whereas the reverse does not necessarily hold true.  In the ideal Maori community, there is a sharing of both resources and obligations.  Sacrifice is often demanded; loyalty is highly prized.  Competitiveness – unless in sports – is generally discouraged, while greed and selfishness are openly despised.   The result is a  society in which everyone is cared for, but also one in which individual achievement is the exception rather than the norm.  One consequent of this is that from the Pakeha (white) point of view, Maoris often look unambitious, while Pakehas, seen from the Maori perspective, look ruthless, isolated and cold.

Christina Thompson not only writes a fascinating story of her own efforts to understand the culture she married into, but also how she and Seven raised their sons to understand, appreciate, and feel comfortable in both Maori and Western culture.   Part of why I liked this book so much was that I liked the woman who comes through in the writing.  Christina Thompson tells her story and shares her insights and research into the Maori culture from the perspective of a wise, humble and insightful woman.

I highly recommend Come on Shore… to anyone who would like to read and learn about New Zealand and Maori culture from the perspective of a modern woman of great wisdom who writes compassionately about a fascinating and very current subject.

Why this book:The publisher’s agent asked me if I’d read and review the book and I agreed. I’m glad I did.  They sent me a copy and here is the my review!

Summary in 3 sentences: The author Cathy Heller hosts a well subscribed and highly regarded podcast of the same title as this book, and the book is a compilation of much of the wisdom from her own life and from her interviews with her many guests on how to create a profession out of a hobby or extracurricular passion.   She encourages her readers to balance risk and reward and then go for it – to take responsibility, jump into the market place and make a dent.  She offers a lot of advice about how to do that well, manage risk, and develop momentum that over the long run, with hard work, good judgment,  patience, and a little bit of luck, will lead to success.

My impressions:  Fun read, full of great insights and advice.  Indeed, I not only really enjoyed the book, I learned a lot as well – since I also regularly get asked for advice from  people transitioning careers – mostly out of the Navy into the civilian sector. I will be recommending that they read this book, if they are interested in becoming an entrepreneur or solopreneur.  Cathy Heller infuses her book with enthusiasm and wise counsel, borne of her own experience and that of many of her clients and wide network,  to help someone new to the world of entrepreneurship and solopreneurship to take the initiatives necessary to build a hobby, a passion, an avocation into a business.

Her approach to tackling the challenge of making a hobby into a career is also a philosophy of living and being happy.  She basically tells the reader – it’s on you.  Decide and act, and learn, and keep at it.  Act, learn, get inspired, and keep taking action.  One of my favorite quotes in the book is  “Failure and success are the same road, the exact same road.  Success is just further along that road.”  Which reinforces and says in a different way a famous quote from Winston Churchill:  “Success consists of going from failure to failure without  loss of enthusiasm.”

She has chapters on “Learning to Restore,” “Your Mess is your Message,” “Build the Runway” which provide invaluable insights and guidance – nothing really new, but a compilation of the wisdom she has accumulated from her own experience and that which she’s gotten from the many successful people she has interviewed on her podcast.   I particularly enjoyed her chapters “Grow your Tribe, “and “Expand your influence.” 

The chapter “Learning to Restore” offers up many of the same skills that we teach Navy SEALs to help them deal with the stress of preparing for and going to war – to include breathing exercises, dealing with fear and visualization practice.

Her chapter on “How to Teach and Podcast” is excellent.  It includes some of the technical questions that would concern many of us, but mostly she encourages us to overcome the self-doubt surrounding the question: “Why would anyone want to listen to me?”  She talks about overcoming “the imposter syndrome”  which holds many talented people back.  I listen to a lot of podcasts, and her advice is wise and insightful.  She offers advice on how to bring out the best in interviewees, which she points out is also great advice for teachers to help them bring out the best in their students.  Make the other feel fascinating.   “One of your biggest tasks as a teacher is to keep showing your students the potential you see in them so that they start to see it in themselves.”  In fact, that is what she is doing in this book, inspiring her readers, her students to see the potential in themselves.

Toward the end of the book her chapter “Align with Abundance” is meant to help beginners accept that it’s OK to make money and thrive doing what you love to do anyway.   She notes how a lot of people – especially artists – feel guilty about making money doing something they love. She offers perspectives that are wise and practical.

I’ll recommend this book to anyone who is not happy in their job or career or who may be looking for a “job” that will engage their passions.  Perhaps as important as liking her message, I like the person who comes through in her book – Cathy Heller.   I love her honesty and enthusiasm.  She is a woman I would like to meet and I recommend that we trust her advice.

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I highlighted a lot in this book.  I enjoyed going back through the book and recording a number of the quotes I liked – for my own personal review.  Here they are for you, should you desire to get a sense for Don’t Keep Your Day Job.  (Page numbers refer to the 2019 Hardback edition.)

p.1 The opposite of depression is not happiness.  The opposite of depression is purpose.

p.3 The phrase “day job”” is a synonym for the system that’s told us to stay in line.  Most people spend their lives building someone else’s dream.

p. 9 One belief that I say over and over again on my podcast is how often we think it’s a lack of resources that stands in our way. We feel deflated when we don’t have the money, the right contacts or the right zipcode. I have found that our greatest resource is our own resourcefulness.

p.14 In any industry, successful people are not looking for opportunities. They’re looking to solve a problem for someone else.

p.19  The happier you are, the more you give others permission to do whatever makes them happy too.  Because ultimately, we’re here to serve.  The more you have, the more generous you can be.

p.20 David Sacks: Make your life into art.  Ask yourself every morning, “How can I serv.e the world? How can I make a difference for another person?”

p.23  Danielle Laporte: Choose the path you are most enthusiastic about.  Enthusiasm is a heightened state of consciousness.  Enthusiasm actually vibrates at a higher level than happiness or contentment.

p. 23 Clarity (and inspiration) will follow action.

p. 38 Angela Duckworth: You don’t discover your passion. You develop your passion.

p. 39 Angela Duckworth: Knowing your reasons for things is going to help you keep recommitting to how hard it is, because you know the reason you want it.

P 43 Marsha Beck introduced me to the concept of the essential self versus the social self. It completely changed how I perceive my internal states.

p. 44 How can you tell if your essential self and your social self are aligned? There are tell-tale signs when they are at odds.

p. 44 The rules we think everyone wants us to follow are far less than we assume.

p. 51 Martha Beck: Joy is enough of an excuse for being.  That’s really why we’re here.

p. 51 Instead of wondering what our calling is, what if we allowed ourselves to become curious about what excites us?

p. 59 The main thing holding everyone back is this overwhelming need to do something perfectly or not at all….Successful people recognize that it is all beta. There is no arrival. We’re here to make the best of the next iteration.

p. 60 Amber Rae: We are in control and we can negotiate with our perfectionist. We can negotiate with our anxiety as long as we have a conversation with it and understand it like a person we are disagreeing with.

p. 65 Alexander den Heijer: When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.

p. 79 When Chris Guillebeau author of The Art of Non-conformity and host of the daily podcast “Side Hustle School” talked about the four roles you can take to turn your passion into a career: The Creator, The Teacher, The Curator, The Investigator.

p. 84 Kyler England: The biggest things that have happened in my music career were not the things that I was aiming for directly…Be open to what comes.

p. 84 You don’t need to know how you’ll get to your goal. No one ever does. Just take the next step and keep following your curiosity. Your joy will lead you smack dab where you’re meant to serve the world the most.

p.92  We are living in an opportune moment. The majority of the human race is a click away. For the first time, individuals can go directly to their audience to sell, share stories, and ask questions.

p. 94 Tami Gonzalez mastered the runway stage. By keeping her day job, she was able to test her market, validate her idea, build an audience and start generating income… Everyone’s runway is different….

p. 97 The five steps to building a runway are: Experiment, Educate, Evaluate, Envision, and Execute.

p. 98 You don’t get to Eden on a bullet train.

p. 102 The best sign you’re on the right track is excitement.

p. 104 My philosophy is always get better for next week’s game.

p. 105 Creation, evaluation, re-creation is a cycle that should be repeated over and over again.

p. 106 Chris Guillebeau advocates building a “side hustle” that contributes to your financial and creative freedom.

p. 107 You must get accustomed to people paying for your service, product, or content if you’re ever going to make it a real business.

p.112  Elizabeth Gilbert talks about the arrogance of belonging in Big Magic.  It means you believe you have a right to be here and a right to share your gift. People go with their plan B because there’s a lot of shame around admitting you want your plan A.

p.116 If you take only one strategy from this book, let it be the importance of building your tribe… Find your tribe, then serve them.

p. 117 The difference between a business and a hobby is that the former is about someone other than you.

p. 119 Go in search of your tribe on-line and in person… The first day of your business is the same day you need to start providing value and anticipating needs.

p. 122 As you build your email list, the first step is to give, and give, and give, and give.

p. 123 Vulnerability is a strength… it takes courage to be vulnerable and authentic.

p. 125 Laura Belgray: What draws people to you is taking about flaws and struggles…. We buy from people we know, like, and trust. The way to get people to know, like, and trust you is to be you and show yourself.

p.125 The best way to build an audience is to have fun.

p. 130 My experience, and that of so many other experts, shows that followers only want to pay once they’ve accessed your free but very valuable material. Followers who convert into paying customers often become your greatest ambassadors.

p. 131 Kristy Vail: Although I don’t do it for the karma, I’ve been amazed to find that generous energy is always returned to me in the form of a testimonial, new client, or random act of kindness.  (echoes Adam Grant’s Give and Take)

p. 132 The more you invest in your community, the less you rely on a specific product or service.

p.143  As you’re building out your product or service, it’s very important to keep two groups of people in mind: End Buyers and Target Buyers.

p. 143 The End Buyer is the individual who will enjoy your product and service in their daily life… The Target Buyer is someone who will buy your product or service to make it available to the end buyer. (you have to target and influence both)

p.147 Become impressive – there is more than one kind of charisma.

p.148  Vanessa van Edwards:  I realized that maybe being impressive was not about impressing other people.  It’s actually about giving them the opportunity to impress you….it’s about celebrating what makes somebody feel special.

p.148 (This approach to being “impressive”) totally takes the pressure off me and allows me to just honor other people’s accomplishments. And it’s the best way to combat anxiety.

p. 149 Jordan Harbinger: The most important concept of productive networking is reaching out long before you’ll ever ask for something in return.

p.151  I have relied on polite persistence my entire career. Polite persistence has a way of working out, if done well.  (But) There is a fine line between persistence and harassment.

p.153 Susie Moore:  Failure and success are the same road, the exact same road.  Success is just further along that road.

p. 154 Networking is about creating relationships.

p.162 Generosity without asking for anything in return costs nothing, but it positions you well to receive unexpectedly in the future.

p.167 Kate Northrup:  In her book (Do Less) she nots “the way we work in our culture is as though we’re in a perpetual harvest.  But anyone who’s grown anything in the earth knows that this is impossible.

p. 169 Susan Kaiser Greenland: Creating some space between our thoughts and our reactions allows us to reassess the validity of our perceived threats. You become the watcher of your thoughts, which gives you the god-like ability to focus only on those that are the most positive and empowered.

p. 170 Susan Greenland: Feelings are like visitors. They’re going to keep knocking on your door louder and louder. When you sit with them for a while, they’re going to leave; just like that houseguest is going to leave.

p.174  The consistent practice of breathing and clearing out the mind has been a game changer for me on a personal and professional level.

p. 194 One of the first lessons that really stuck home for me was the importance of giving away tons of valuable free content. The more value you create, the more excited people are to listen.

p. 200 Amy Porterfield: Here’s the deal. I always say that the energy of your business is directly tied to the strength of your email list. When you want to build a community, you want people to pay attention to your free stuff….You need to create an enery around your business so that people want to hear from you.

p.202  There’s no point in creating a business if you’re not excited about the work.

p.210 Creative people in particular hold on to biases around money.  I’ve seen it time and time again. Artists tend to think that making money takes away from the importance of their art.

p.212  Seth Godin explained how his story about money changed as he transitioned from being a freelancer to an entrepreneur.  “Entrepreneurs use money to grow, and freelancers use effort to grow.”

p.213  Take responsibility for your self-defeating beliefs and work diligently to reconcile yourself with the truth that abundance is your birthright and will provide you the freedom and resources to make an incredible impact on the world.

p. 231 Jessica Huie: Just consider the possibility that the biggest obstacle between where you are now and where you want to get to is your opinion of how possible that is for you.

p.232 We have to do the things that scare us; that’s how we prove to ourselves that we are stronger and more powerful and braver than we thought.

p.234 There is one critical element to their success that I think gets overlooked: Patience. Patience is underrated. I’m obsessed with the climb.  I’m obsessed with the challenge.  I crave that feeling of fulfillment.  But all those fiery emotions would produce nothing if I didn’t have the patience to persevere and see my hard work come to fruition.