20 book challenge 2019: 1st quarter update
Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
Last year, I tasked myself with the challenge to read voraciously, with no target. And over a period of 12 months, I was able to read 16 books. So I set myself a target.My challenge for 2019: read 20 books and quarterly construct a brief overview of the content and my opinions.
But why read? I think one of the quickest ways to know who you are is from the pages of a book. The concept of identity in simple terms is a set of rules that govern an individual’s response to a variety of circumstances. From the pages of a book, one can sieve through a range of opinions and pick out a pattern of response that resonates with who the person is, both presently and aspirationally. The most powerful thing about reading isn’t that the reader can recite every single word. But rather,(s)he cultivates an insight into the working of the world; and insight that becomes a part of his(her) identity.
Over the past 3 months, I read 4 books. These books touch on topics ranging from Economics, Identity, Big History to Strategy.
The things we need the most are the things we have become most afraid of, such as adventure, intimacy, and authentic communication. We avert our eyes and stick to comfortable topics.
I listened to his conversation with Russell Brand about the systems of the damned and decided to buy his book. His book gave an insight into an alternative way to organise society; something different from the perpetual monetisation of everything. He explored how management theories and drive for economic growth is licking away every thread left of humanity and the social fabric of our society; a vicious circle which ends up corrupting the essence of money in our society.
He warned of the danger with this type of living. A danger in a life that seeks to monetize everything will dig deeper into the sanctity of civil society and human relationships. It was coined in the book as below:
“Indeed, when every forest has been converted into board feet, when every ecosystem has been paved over, when every human relationship has been replaced by a service, the very processes of planetary and social life will cease. All that will be left is cold, dead money, as forewarned by the myth of King Midas so many centuries ago. We will be dead—but very, very rich”.
Despite commenting on the practicality of his recommendation, I felt otherwise. They appeared rather utopian and somewhat ‘hippie sounding’ as he moved from recommending a world of negative interest currency, elimination of economic rents and to one where economic protectionism is enabled via monetary localisation. As much as his ideas were appealing, I failed to see how this can be achieved without some form of catastrophe to disrupt the current order of things.
There are still some very important issues this book points to, and I think it is a relevant book to review as we reflect on the world we desire.
Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
What lies at the heart of every living thing is not a fire, not warm breath, not a “spark of life.” It is information, words, instructions …. If you want to understand life, don’t think about vibrant, throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology.
— RICHARD DAWKINS, THE BLIND WATCHMAKER
Bill Gates summer reading for 2018 recommended this book. It was my introduction to the concept of “Big History”, a unifying story of the 14 billion years of the planet earth and our universe. It also postulated of a possible future in which the galaxy entropies.
It was a story on the nature of elements and how certain conditions were necessary to ensue the chance emergence of life as we know it. The theme speculates that our reality results from a goldilocks condition between two opposing forces working in contradiction to one another. On one end, we have a force that seeks order, and spearheads life and continuity. On the other hand, we have a force that pushes for chaos, decay, and entropy. The dance between both forces catalysed the Big Bang into the evolution of our planetary systems, natural systems, human and social systems. It is this dance that will lead to the demise of humans, galaxies and the reality that resulted from a reaction initiated by the Big Bang.
Despite the book using pure science themes (that is themes from Biology, Chemistry and Physics) to frame our origins and evolution, it still presented a very melancholic undertone on our relationship with the material world. It sought to educate on how maybe, we can explore ways to slow down the voracious depletion of our physical environment which speeds up the entropy and the destruction of our planet.
The challenge we face as a species is pretty clear. Can we preserve the best of the Good Anthropocene and avoid the dangers of the Bad Anthropocene? Can we distribute the Anthropocene bonanza of energy and resources more equitably to avoid catastrophic conflicts? And can we, like the first living organisms, learn how to use gentler and smaller flows of resources to do so? Can we find global equivalents of the delicate proton pumps used to power all living cells today? Or will we keep depending on flows of energy and resources so huge that they will eventually shake apart the fantastically complex societies we have built in the past two hundred years?
It didn’t matter that the story had begun, because kathakali discovered long ago that the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again.
That is their mystery and their magic…
Arundhati Roy’s “god of small things” was a beautiful account of our societial structure and how a myriad of forces will stand up against any attempt to challenge the status quo. The writing was consistently poetic and style of delivery, captivating.
It is a fictitious story set in 1960 India. It was about the illustrious family of the Ipe, who (following a series of unfortunate seemingly insignificant events) witnessed the dismantling of their dynasty and family. I wrote a review of the book here (with spoilers).
“We’re Prisoners of War,” Chacko said. “Our dreams have been doctored. We belong nowhere. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough. To matter.”
This view of strategy as a general orientation toward the environment offered a framework for evaluating all other endeavors within the organization. Strategy of this sort had to be long term, and it might have the elements of a plan, with an anticipated sequence of events geared to an ultimate goal. The strategy could be much looser than that, however, setting out a number of goals with some sense of priorities, available resources, and preferred means, maintaining considerable flexibility to allow for changing circumstances.
I felt Lawrence Freedman provided a robustly adequate view of strategy with this book. In it, he laid out its origins going as far back as the early civilisations, where deception, coalition formation, and violence shaped how things got done. He pointed to primordial elements in us and, an image so ingrained that we have weaved it into our origin stories and impression of self. An interesting example what the view of the Biblical God and his role, which according to him:
God created strategy by allowing choice, because he wanted people to choose obedience through an act of will rather than because they were programed to do so. Even if individuals were part of a divine plan that had been set out at the moment of creation, they were allowed the sensation of choice and the ability to calculate and plan.
These features of deception, coalition formation, and violence permeated through time flowing through myths, schools of thoughts, military organisations, revolutionary movements, political orders, and business & management practices. The appropriate mix of these three elements in an adversarious encounter is what we deem strategy.
The book goes further to explore the importance of communication and power in the implementation of a strategy. It reassures of the limits of strategy, and how the boundaries of our rationality are limited in effectively anticipating next steps of allies and foes that will be crucial to the success of our venture in view. With these limitations of a strategy, he concludes that
a strategy could never really be considered a settled product, a fixed reference point for all decision-making, but rather a continuing activity, with important moments of decision.”
So what books do I intend to have finished by June 2019? I hope to read 5 books this next quarter. I intend to start with Americanah a book that fictiously digs into the concept of race and identity. This should be the first Chimamanda Adichie’s book I would read (despite being an avid fan of her work).
The next book on my list is Richard Dawkin’s The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design. I think the real attraction to this book was the quote from Origin Story (which I stated above), culled from this book.
I stumbled on another book Sleeping with Strangers, that promises to explore how films shape our desire and world view.
Alice Miller’s The Drama Of The Gifted Child explores how parent’s antiques might prevent children from truly being themselves.
Then the last book I hope to read would be The Great Leveler, which promises to be a book about the history of the interplay between violence and inequality.
To any book-lovers who with ideas on books #IBetterBeReading than my list above, please drop a comment. I would appreciate this.
I will end this post with a quote from Fran Lebowitz, to extol the importance of readin….“Think before you speak. Read before you think.”.
