Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life

This book (subtitled Living the Wisdom of the Tao) is by Wayne Dyer and gives readers his take on the Tao Te Ching and how one might apply its teachings in life. Some may not like what he did with it, but it seemed to me to be a lot easier than trying to get through a more "philosophical" interpretation. The verses tend to be very "Zen" and an approach like Dyer's is very helpful to people (like me I'll admit) who don't want to spend a lifetime trying to decide if the Tao is "for them".

Overall, I liked the book. It starts out with some introductory material, then presents each of the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching with an interpretation and a suggested application. There is an Epilogue which is a VERY worthwhile read - please do not skip it as it puts the whole book into perspective. I read only one of the 81 sections per day to allow time to digest what I read which is probably the best way to handle getting through the book.

Personally, I thought that the concepts presented relating to allowing and accepting things as they come up in life (the recent TV commercial for that cereal showing the surfer going with the wave and not fighting it comes to mind) and being less concerned about amassing material possessions are things to give some serious thought to adopting, at least to some extent. However, there seemed to be too much emphasis on taking a passive/going with the flow stance for my taste; bending like a palm tree when there is a hurricane seems the way to go, but the book suggested going MUCH further than this which I find questionable. These suggestions to passivity went on and on in a long section of the book which made me a little glad that I got to the end. Maybe I am just too Western for this (or just missed the point). Readers will have to decide this one for themselves.

I did like Mr. Dyer's book, The Power of Intention, and do enjoy watching him on TV. I recommend both - maybe a little more than the book reviewed here actually.

On the Meaning of Life

This is a book by Will Durant of THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION fame.

I was convinced that I really had to read this book given Durant's reputation and some "promo" for it that I saw which I paraphrase here:

In the fall of 1930, Will Durant found himself outside his home raking leaves. He was approached by a well-dressed man who told him that he was going to kill himself unless the philosopher could give him a valid reason not to. Durant did his best to furnish the man with reasons to continue his existence, and the man left never to be seen again. Haunted by this encounter, Durant contacted 100 luminaries of the day, challenging them to respond not only to the fundamental question of life's meaning but also to relate how they each found meaning, purpose and fulfillment in their own lives. Durant turned their answers and his own into a book entitled "On The Meaning Of Life", which was released to the general public in 1932. Unpromoted, the little treasure found its way into few hands, and almost no copies of the original book exist today. It is only recently available again in a new release. Within their varied insights, the reader will note a consistent thread running through their viewpoints, revealing a commonality among human beings who not only seek meaning in life, but who actually achieve it.

Shockingly, Durant's advice to the potential suicide was (as readers will see described early in the book) to get a job and/or have a good meal. Maybe I am not taking this the right way as I was not standing there to hear how he said this, but this sounded pretty flippant to say to a potential suicide (and it being 1930, the depression and all). As it turned out, the man had a job and was not hungry. He left unimpressed and was not heard from again. Should we be surprised?

I thought to myself at this point that maybe I did not want to read this book after all, but I had gone to a lot of trouble to get it, and it is rather short at only about 110 pages, so I kept going.

The letter that Durant sent out and some initial comments were pretty depressing stuff. He was not big on God - maybe that was part of his problem, but I won't speculate any more on that. Oddly, he did seem to think that atheists should leave "believers" alone about what they believed even if the "believers" were probably wrong - he said that atheists who liked to burst bubbles exhibited the "mark of a shallow and ungenerous mind". Guess Durant was really an agnostic as I hear he claimed to be.

The answers he got to his letter or at least those he published here were fairly superficial in my opinion for the most part - most of the more intelligible points made (vaguely) involved work and/or family as giving meaning to life. Some were almost rudely superficial - I felt bad for Durant in those cases. Some of the "ruder ones" never seemed to have a problem from what I have seen going on and on about a lot of nonsense in other writings, but could not or maybe would not make an effort here. Makes one wonder. God did not figure very much in most replies.

That being said (about superficiality), a few of the replies were good, but I think two were especially so and worth pointing out. One was from Abbe (Ernest) Dimnet, who for example, took Durant to task (although he did it politely) about reaching such pessimistic conclusions on the subject at hand with what might be incomplete data. I had never heard of this guy before (and I must admit that I had never heard of many of the others who replied either but 1930 was a long time ago), but apparently Dimnet wrote a book called THE ART OF THINKING that made him as popular as Dale Carnegie when the book reviewed here was written. Interestingly to me at least, it seems that Dimnet also wrote a book on French grammar (available in full on google books) that looks quite useful if that subject interests you. If nothing else, I learned about Dimnet by reading this book. If his "ART" book is anything like his letter here, it is worth finding and reading.

The second of the replies that I will mention specifically is by one Owen Middleton - then a life-term convict at Sing Sing in New York state no less. This guy wrote very well and had a lot of positive things to say, especially considering where he was writing from here. Apparently, it was the publisher's idea to get this viewpoint not so much Durant's.

Durant finishes up with a reply to a letter he got from a suicide - what is it with him and suicidal people? This was much more hopeful I think that what he wrote before it, even if not all that profound - well it was a little profound here and there I guess. He seemed to be big on work, home and family. As to God, well, he was the sketchy agnostic.

All in all, I would only weakly recommend this book. I had hoped for more. Maybe that says something about me and my search for meaning. I'll have to think about that some more.

The City

The City by Joel Kotkin is a very short (about 160 pages of text) and to the point survey of the history of cities in all areas of the world.

Overall, I liked the book, but it left me wanting more AND wondering why Kotkin just didn't provide it to his readers. There were about 45 pages of notes (really just giving the reference citations with very little footnote type text) and suggested readings FOR A BOOK WITH ONLY 160 PAGES OF TEXT!! Was there a paper shortage or something? He did a lot of research and seemed to have very little to say about it. The book ends up coming off as very superficial in many spots.

Kotkin's thesis (seemingly a reasonable one to me) is that cities must remain somehow sacred, safe and busy in order to survive and thrive. He does not do a great job of "pushing" his thesis in the book as one might expect though. He makes a good effort when discussing some earlier cities, but does not carry this forward all that well later. I think that the issue of the sacred in the modern city was something he really could have explored much more.

It is almost like the book was a detailed working outline for a more complete text that he never got around to writing. A real shame, as I think he would have done a pretty good job if he had expanded it some more before publication. His writing style was pretty good, but it seemed so compressed that it made it hard to get through the book quickly even given its short length.

Kotkin does point out many issues that face modern cities that maybe many people do not fully consider. They might be summarized as relevance, at least for cities in the developed world. With the appearance of the internet, telework and all that, are cities as necessary as they have been in the past for "progress"? I guess one could then ask, can great cities survive, just because we like them, even if they are unnecessary?

One point that I noticed made several times in the book was the apparent importance of diversity in the development of cities - BUT this was diversity not for its own sake, but where the minorities really brought something to the table. Think the Greeks in Rome NOT the Visigoths.

Kotkin also brought up how city life is very important in Islam and how this led to development of some very great cities; he presents some ideas on what may have gone wrong later. He also made interesting points about other cities in many other cultures as well.

In any case, I would recommend the book as a starting point for people interested in the topic, but probably only that.