Book Review-Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are

I awaited the publication date of this book with great anticipation, I even pre-ordered it. I thoroughly enjoyed John Kaag’s previous book, American Philosophy: A Love Story. What drew me in was that it was a fantastic blend of the American philosophical history that I was unaware of, a very nice love story, and a story of self-discovery. It was a brave and honest narrative of Kaag’s adventures in rediscovering some American philosophers. His rediscovery was my discovery.

This book, even though the author sees it as a continuation of his self-discovery and honest revelations, was different to me. He has moved the emphasis to Europe, a more familiar philosophical ground but his focus was on Nietzsche, a profoundly difficult and intimidating writer and thinker. It takes a lot of attention from the reader to be prepared for the kind of mental gymnastics that Nietzsche presents.

This book also allows us to look at the inner turmoil within the author, his relationship with his father, his emotional fragility when he was much younger and the pilgrimage he took as a young man to the very same places he is revisiting as an older man and presumably a man who is more able to deal with the emotions and thoughts that had tortured him as a young man. I sometimes felt like a voyeur peeking into places I really should not peek into while I read the book.

The reading did not begin auspiciously, I was quite often distracted and the narrative did not grab hold of my attention as I thought it would. I struggled with the whole imposing reputation and darkness of vision that is attributed to Nietzsche. While the oscillation between Kaag’s remembrances of his past journey and his present journey served as good juxtaposition for the advancement of his story, it made my mind fatigued. I took a very long and circuitous route; I laid the book down often and I ignored it for a number of months.

I started the book while it was late Autumn, as the dark of Winter started to envelope us. The weather reflected Nietzsche’s visions, which made it difficult to mentally absorb the words. I finished the book in late April, my perspective became more enlightened and my mental state became less dark and the messages from the book became more absorbed as I made my way through it. It may also be that the initial chapters of the book reflected the dark weather, which I allowed to affect my mental moods.

In the end, I loved the book, I will be re-reading it later, in sequence with Kaag’s earlier book so that I may pursue his thought process completely.  It wasn’t just the change in weather that turned it, it was also the author’s patient and expert explanation and interpretation of Nietzsche’s ideas, his erudite unraveling of the complicated original writing and the inclusion of many other stories, those of his family and of other historical characters that ably illustrated his points and served as supporting narratives to the main ones.

The author’s inclusion of Hesse in the last portion of the book was particularly welcomed to me as I adored Hesse’s books as a young man. Explaining Nietzsche through the conduit of Hesse’ writing was meaningful to me personally and I believe that Hesse had the foresight and story telling ability to interpret Nietzsche without diminishing the impact of Nietzsche’s thoughts.

This last part of the book made clear the intent of the author’s thesis, and the second part of the book title: On Becoming Who You Are. It was inspiring and enlightening to get to the unifying thought which binds the philosophy to the narrative. The author did a magnificent job of tying up his thoughts about Nietzsche, his own life, and Nietzsche’s philosophy, it made the difficult journey worthwhile for me, even though I suspect I made the journey difficult on my own. But no matter, I understood the point and enjoyed the book in the end.

Book Review-A Guide to the Good Life by William Irvine

I came upon this book in a somewhat unusual manner. I had read How to Be A Stoic by Massimo Pigliucci and he not only referenced Irvine’s book profusely but he recommended that his readers read this book as well. The kudos worked its magic with me and I bought this book on line. I eagerly attacked this book as soon as I finished Pigliucci’s book, and I am very glad that I did.

Irvine’s tone is different than Pigliucci’s not better, not worse, but different. He is more laid back and truly lived up to the Stoic goal of tranquility. The descriptions and arguments has a very tranquil quality to them, even as he discusses difficult questions like dealing with anger, death, grief, et. al. His voice is that of a gentle guide through the various knotty arguments that is so typical of anything philosophical.

The book starts with a good historical background of Stoicism, we meet the philosophers who make up the bulk of what we are about to read, and we are introduced to both the Greek and Roman Stoics. The second part of the book is devoted to the psychological tools used by the Stoics in order to practice Stoicism. This can be considered as teaching the reader to use the tools and to becoming comfortable wielding the weapons of great import.

The third part of the book is devoted to specific topics which have proven to be difficult for people to navigate as they attempt to live a Stoic life.  The aforementioned topics of anger, death, grief, insults, social relations, etc. were covered in short compact chapters detailing the ways a philosopher could approach the discussion and ensuing argument.  This section was a touch pedantic but it was a necessary exercise because it allowed us into the mind of a practicing Stoic and gave us a glimpse of what practicing philosophers do: state problems, formulate arguments and most importantly guide us through his reasoning.

The most impressive and important section of this book to me is the last section: Stoicism for Modern Lives. Three excellent chapters proceed from the description of the fall of Stoicism in the public eye and throughout history, to reasons why we should reconsider Stoicism as a personal philosophy, the meaning of having a personal philosophy, and finally he describes his own journey through making Stoicism his own personal philosophy. The last two chapters made the most impact on me personally as Dr. Irvine drew us into his personal experience and allowed us to look behind the curtain into how he was able to explore Stoicism in his own way. His chapter on reconsidering Stoicism is particularly impactful as he made some very salient arguments for taking the personal journey into investigating the practice. 

Even though I had committed myself to practicing Stoicism on my own, this book made the act seem much less dramatic and much more matter of fact for someone to partake in this most personal of journeys. I am at a beginning stage obviously, but I feel reassured and comfortable in knowing that I can always reach back and gain wisdom from this remarkable book.

Book Review-How To Be A Stoic

I came upon this book when I read Stuart Firestein’s interview with Annie Duke in Nautilus magazine. The interview got me curious about the ideas in this book and I was fascinated by Annie Duke’s unusual background: being both a psychology graduate student at one time and a successful poker player. Graduate studies I know about, professional poker playing I did not. So the unique combination piqued my interest.

It was a fortuitous digression from my usual list of topics. Ms. Duke has a clear and eloquent voice and she has a way of explaining the same points in various ways so that she conveys the essential points which translates to understanding without seeming pedantic. She obviously knows the poker world, but it is remarkable how comfortably she steps into the academic mode without any noticeable change of pace. The book is loaded with references, other sources, and it is very well notated, no doubt a remnant of Ms. Duke’s academic training.

The tone of the book is very practical, it is a business book on decision making without reading like a business book, and I mean that as a foremost compliment.

The theme of the book is obviously noted in the subtitle: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All The Facts. Ms Duke lays out her case in six succinct and information filled factors. The first two chapters are her problem statement and her light primer on the poker worls, she never gets bogged down in the intricacies of playing poker professionally, as she states in her introduction: This Is Not A Poker Book. She does yeoman work in trying to convince the reader that this poker player point of view is a valid one for all decision makers to adopt and apply regardless of our lot in life. In fact she does this throughout the book in unobtrusive but obvious ways. The next four chapters are a combination of how the betting mindset and probability frame of reference help the decision maker and how to go about adopting that frame of reference. In these four chapters she makes a cogent argument about the benefits of thinking in bets. Much of the reason for adopting this mental tool comes from the fact that we humans are disastrously biased in our decision making. We fool ourselves into believing our beliefs whether they are worthy of our trust of not. This, of course, is not anything new. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky has laid the ground work for that work, Ms Duke makes use of their argument to support her case, but the uniqueness of her attack is that she is able to lay out a “how” component to the discussion on decision making.

Ms Duke uses her professional poker player circle of support network and what they do in order to check their own egos and false conclusions as an example and gives us a look at what they do to make sure their decision making is objective and accurate.  She delves into how our inability and unwillingness to deal with uncertainty sends our thinking into erroneous conclusions and our own egos forces us into drawing wrong conclusions about the real reason for our own successes and failures. We will always attribute our success to our skills and our failures to bad fortune. She lays out the tools necessary for a decision maker to call themselves out when they start thinking in this ways.

Remarkably, the process that Ms Duke lays out aligns nicely with the Stoic philosophy, particularly with regard to dealing with uncertainty and the dichotomy of control which Stoics espouses. That exact point is notable in Ms Duke’s narrative.

The final chapter: An Adventure in Time Travel was especially entertaining and educational as she lays out the framework for an open-minded process of examining our problems and decision making regarding those problems. I am quite eager to apply this process in my own life now, as Ms Duke is quite convincing in her argument.

One point I need to make is that as I looked over my notes from the book, I realize that Ms Duke had repeated quite a few of her points. Usually I would attribute that practice to an author who had run out of things to say, as that is something that is easily discernable. In this case however, the repetition is written in such a way to reinforce the previous accounting of the concept and it manifests itself naturally and unobtrusively in the narrative. In fact, I would not have noticed until I saw that I had the same point written down multiple times, which means that I had noted the importance of those points multiple times, which in hindsight meant that the repetition was not only necessary but critical.

I am hoping that Ms Duke would follow this book with a deeper dive into the dynamics of her process and the intimate social dynamics of her CUDOS group. She already did a very succinct description of her group but I think an examination of the CUDOS group method as applied to different groups focused on different types of problems and existing in different milieus would be very good.

I obviously liked the book.   

Book Review: How To Be Alone-By Sara Maitland

I had read a short piece by Maria Popova on her Brain Pickings web site and I was intrigued by the content that Maria had posted, so I decided to read the book itself. I had known of the School of Life books from my acquaintance with Alain de Botton’s work and I had very high expectations.

This title more than met my expectations but in different ways. I had expected the tome to be much heavier, more philosophical and questioning. It was all of that and more. Maitland researched her topic thoroughly. She split the topic into three sections: Being Alone in the Twentieth Century, Rebalancing Attitude to Solitude, and The Joys of Solitude. So she proposes a problem, goes into the history of our civilization’s take on solitude and all the social and cultural constraints that we have imposed on those that seek solitude. She talks about the alternative ways to think of solitude and being alone, ways that debunk the cultural taboos that was imposed by a culture that is dominated by extraverts. Finally, she talks about the joys and satisfaction that comes with spending time only with yourself.

This is a remarkable book, one that lays out a history of a social act which is both beloved and mistrusted by the mass culture.

Maitland writes in a leisurely rhythm, the pace of the information flow is fast enough to keep the reader’s attention yet exciting enough to be interesting. Her prose is lovely and loving, giving the readers a gentle introduction to the topic; she is rigorous as well, presenting her facts with convincing details. It was a lesson in the school of life; indeed, this is a very engrossing and also a very educational one, perfect for the introverted autodidact such as myself.