Mindfulness

Premature cognitive commitments lead us to close ourselves off to the possibilities of the moment and thus to live in a state of mindlessness that at the very least prevents us from living as fully and creatively as possible and has innumerable negative consequences for our lives. "Repetition, premature cognitive commitment, belief in limited resources, the notion of linear time, education for outcome, and the powerful influence of context-influence each day of our lives."

That's kind of it in a nutshell. If we strive to live more mindfully--to be open to new perspectives and orientations and categories--then we can live more creatively, healthfully, and fully present in the moment. Langer then takes 250 pages to explain what this means, giving a lot of examples from her research in social psychology and explaining primarily the effects of mindlessness. The most famous examples probably comes from her work with the elderly, whether in nursing homes or in putting people into new contexts. Elderly in nursing homes are more satisfied and actually live longer, according to her research, when then have more responsibility and control over their lives and are treated less like patients by staff. Men who were asked to imagine themselves as 20 years younger actually looked and acted younger at the end of a week when their contextual thinking was changed to the environment of their earlier lives. -- irreversible" signs of aging were altered as a result of psychological intervention."

I was lead to Langer's book by Gallagher's book, Rapt, and it underlies many of the assumptions in Rapt. Again, I want to believe that I can continue to function fully in my life by remaining open to possibilities, but I'm not really sure that it's not a lot more complicated than that. I was also hoping for something a little more practical, something with more useful suggestions. Also, Langer makes careful to make distinctions between her concept of Mindfulness and that of Buddhist meditation or vipassana, and I was looking more for similarities and comparisons.

Author: Langer, Ellen

Date Published: 1989

Length: 256 pp

electronic print

Cannery Row

This was my second "reading" of the book and reminded me yet again that Steinbeck is the great American novelist. While the plot isn't much, Steinbeck's descriptions always blow me away. The opening line really says it all: "Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream." It is a poem written in prose, a celebration of a time and a place, even with all the rough edges of homelessness, poverty, drunkenness.

Mack and the boys living at the Palace Flophouse provide whatever plot there is to the story, of course, with their scheming and planning for the two parties, which inevitably go bad. As Mack says, "Ever'thing I done turned sour...If I done a good thing, it got poisoned up some way." And that's as close to pathos or pity as the book really comes, even though most of the characters are really down and out, living on the edge of destitution. At the same time, Doc somewhat envies Mack and the boys "There are your true philosophers...Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen...In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed."

And this appreciation of the down and out characters of Cannery Row, from the whores of Dora's Bear Flag Restaurant to the artist Henri and even Lee Chong underlies the poem that is Cannery Row. Steinbeck fits in short descriptive chapters, like the sailors leaving the bar and dawn or Mary Talbot's discovery of Kitty Cassini killing the mouse or the dog eating the entrails thrown out by doctor who had embalmed the writer Josh Billings. It's written with humor and a tenderness that bring out the nostalgia and the dream. Parts of it are laugh out loud funny. Parts of it are just sheer beauty and wonder.

And then the old Chinaman with the loose sole on his shoe flip flapped up the street every evening and every morning in the eternal round of the day, so that the story plays out as a small vignette against the ongoing tide of sea and humanity. (and wouldn't Steinbeck be appalled by what they have made of Cannery Row with it's tourist shops and restaurants, now?) No wonder Cannery Row is one of my all time favorite novels.

Author: Steinbeck, John

Date Published: 1945

Length: 6 hr 1 min

Narrator: Farden, Jerry

The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo

I don't have much to say about this book. Sara and I listened to it on a couple of trips to and from Durango, and it filled the time quite nicely. I don't normally care for crime or mystery novels, but it fit the bill as a book that both of us might enjoy, and it worked that way, much as a Dan Brown novel. It reminded me a lot of Brown, as a matter of fact, and had some interesting plot twists as Mikael and Salander uncover the mysterious disappearance of Harriet Vanger 40 years ago.

There are a number of interesting characters that play throughout the book, especially as Mikael uncovers the Vanger family past and some of its ties with Nazism. Lisbeth Salander was undoubtedly my favorite character in the book as she continually stands up to her abusers--the scenes with the sadistic Bjurman would border on funny if they weren't so brutal and graphic in their depiction of his sadism and her revenge--and I was pretty disappointed at the very end of the book when she looks forward to hooking up with Mikael only to see him walking away with Erika Berger, his longtime lover.

But in the end, the book wraps up a little too neatly, too tidily, and outside of Salander's disappointment, too happily, I guess. It's also kind of amazing how prominently computer hacking skills play into the plot of the novel and in solving the crimes of the book, kind of the same phenomenon on current television crime shows like NCIS or Criminal Minds where computer specialists--also somewhat social outcasts--play major roles.

Author: Larsson, Steig

Date Published: 2005

Length: 16 hr 20 min

Narrator: Vance, Simon

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

No doubt that Shirer is dated. His language is loaded, and it continues right through the end of the book. How many times do we have to hear about the fat and corrupt Goerring or megalomaniacal Hitler or the sycophantic Ribbentrop or misguided Chamberlain? It really does get to be a bit much.

And, even at 1150 pages, the book if far, far too short to do justice to the material. It felt like Shirer raced through the events, especially after the Germans overran the Maginot line and damn near captured the British at Dunkirk. Also, a lot of background knowledge is assumed as the story is told as much as possible from within the viewpoint of the Third Reich, as much as this is possible for an outsider who is not very objective. The Japanese, for instance, appear very quickly on the scene with the signing of the Tripartite  Agreement and then drags Germany into war with the US with a last minute treaty coming the same day after the first major German defeat at Moscow. And where was any mention of the Yalta pact?

But Shirer has given me a firmer grasp on the order and cause of events that lead to the rise of Hitler and National Socialism. And, especially in retrospect, it all seems so nuts. How did Hitler rise from not even having a majority of seats in the Reichstag in 1933 to having full dictatorial powers just a few short months later? It was such a cynical manipulation of events and people for the Nazis to gain power and to keep it--especially with the claptrap about lebensraum and jewish conspiracies and Hitler's personal destiny to lead Germany to greatness--but the German people bought into it. They were willing to trade civil and individual liberties away for prosperity.

Shirer makes it clear that the Germany professional army corps shoulders a lot of tehe blame. While political institutions borke down under the stress of economic conditions in post WWI Germany, the army was still able to maintain control, especially over the politics of the time, as needed. (Can't help but see parallels with the riots in Egypt right now) But the army seemed to blithely and willingly concede to Hitler's initiatives until it was too late to control his rise to power. Finally, the officers' corp was unwilling to break the oaths of personal loyalty that they took to Hitler, rather than the state, shortly after he declare martial law. None of them had to the balls to stand up for what they thought was right at the time that it mattered. And the assassination attempts that were made read more like comedies of errors than like real events.

Hitler damn near came close to pulling it off--his domination of Europe and eventually the world--losing in the end to a couple of his own misguided decisions--to break off the Battle of Britain prematurely when the Germans had the RAF on the ropes, and the decision to delay Operation Barbarossa for six weeks to exact revenge on the Yugoslavs.

In all, it really is such a sad tale of human nature and human history gone wrong, and that's the way that Shirer tells the tale. His book may not be the most straightforward or objective account of the Third Reich, but it did a good job of pulling it all together for me in a single narrative line and giving me a better grasp on the events.

Author: Shirer, William

Date Published: 1960

Length: 1147 pp & 57 hr 14 min

print & audio

Narrator: Gardner, Grover