[WITI No. 58] Reflection on 2021, Part 1.
What should you add to book review that hasn't been said, advice from M. Night Shymalan, 2021 reflected in photos
Hi, I’m George. You’re here because you bumped into me on Twitter or we know each other IRL. I started writing this newsletter as a meditation on a quote from David Brooks’ book, The Social Animal.
The truth is, starting even before we are born, we inherit a great river of knowledge, a great flow of patterns coming from many ages and many sources. The information that comes from deep in the evolutionary past, we call genetics. The information revealed thousands of years ago, we call religion. The information passed along from hundreds of years ago, we call culture. The information passed along decades ago, we call family, and the information offered years, months, days or hours ago, we call education and advice.
The quote is so rich and touches on nearly every aspect of living, I’m trying to make sense of it by writing What is the Information? my weekly newsletter where I try and share information from what I’m reading, thinking or writing about. Thanks for reading and leave a comment, if you’d like. I would love to chat with you about what you read here.
As I approach the end of the year I want to take a moment to reflect on a year that cannot be summarized by thinking about it for a few hours, so I’m dissecting some of the writing I did.
I thought I might make a list of books I finished and I got stuck on the first quarter. So here’s some reflections on the The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.
If you asked me if I would be interested in reading about someone who tried to kill themself, my unequivocal answer would be no. Yet, here I was reading about Nora Seed who tries to end her own life. Nora wakes up in the midnight library, a library that houses the infinite possibilities of her life. She experiences what life might have been if she married her boyfriend instead of walking out on him, or if she continued competitive swimming, or if she became a glaciologist.
She finally learns that every life has its own set of challenges - and learns to appreciate the life she has. She’s survives her suicide attempt and sees her life anew - even though there’s nothing new about it, though this time she has a bit of perspective.
Here’s a not so kind review from NPR and one that is gentler from NYT.
What can I add that hasn’t been said?
I know people who have harmed themselves. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Cuts on a friend’s wrists and the terrifying thought of what if they went deeper. I have heard it from the mouth of babes. I hope all of that is a call for help - to have someone slap them into the understanding that living, no matter how difficult it seems, is so much better than the alternative. My son pointed out the popularity of this song, 1-800-273-8255. If you don’t recognize the phone number, it’s the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. The song is an abrebviated version of Haig’s The Midnight Library.
Haig writes about mental health in other books too. Reasons to Stay Alive and The Humans.
It’s taken a long time for me to learn that we weather the storms of our life - things get bad, things eventually get better.
Sharing my weird
Looking back at something else I wrote in the first quarter of 2021, I’m also reminded of advice about being creative from M. Night Shymalan about “sharing my weird” with you.
My buddy sent me a pic of Ultra Man figurines.
Without looking too closely at it, I guessed it was Spectreman - a Japanese show dubbed into English that played on the UHF channel that I watched as a kid. The pic shows Ultraman but I am not a fan of Ultraman. I am a Spectreman fan. The show is like a WWF wrestling match against a Kaiju, one of the most famous being Godzilla, that is controlled by two Planet of Apes type of characters in a flying saucer.
I hadn’t thought about Spectreman for a long time. This picture reminded me of the seeds of Japanese culture planted into my brain around age 10. Looking back at it today, I’m surprised at how accurate the predictions about environmental catastrophe were even in 1977. The Japanese figured out human were on a collision course with the environment forty-four years ago.
Word of the week: Seigneur, a feudal lord, lord of manor
I kicked myself for looking up this word after I saw the meaning. It’s similar to the Spanish word, Señor, but with an older connotation.
Find of the week
This week I encourage you to click deep into the link below. There are some amazing photos. Some of them, are a reflection of 2021 captured in a photograph.
Skokie, Illinois.
I’m patiently waiting in line to receive my Covid-19 booster. It takes 20 minutes but they sort me out. I sit and wait. Two others join me in the waiting area. One of them is called to the counter. “I’m sorry. Our computers are down and we can’t administer your shot.”
The second gentleman is called to the counter and told that his appointment is no longer valid. “Please come back in a couple hours, we should be able to honor your appointment.”
My name gets called, I get my shot. Things worked out for me this time.
What is your frustration limit? Would you start screaming at a computer problem? I’ve flipped my computer off in the past. Comment above.
Feel like sharing What is the Information? Click below:
That’s all for this week,
To be continued…
-George
You said you were going to talk about your writing at the top of the blog, but then you just talked about your reading. I want to hear about your writing, not someone else’s.