Rapt: Attention the Focused Life

"Those who learn to control their inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy."

That pretty much explains the book in one sentence. The rest of the book elaborates on the theme over and over, coming back to it in different ways. It's the "Power of Positive Thinking" for the first decade of the Twenty first century. That doesn't make what Gallagher say any less true, but's its really just re-covering ground that been covered over and over before. It's one in a spate of new books that combines positive thinking with neuroscience and meditation, like The Happyness Hypothesis or Mindfulness or Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience. As Grayling writes in his review of Wisdom: "polysyllabic confirmation of what common sense and received wisdom knew long ago." While I want to believe in this literature and its insights, it leaves me unsatisfied and unconvinced in the long run. I've spent a lot of time working at meditation and visualization, thought stoppage, and mind control, and somehow it just doesn't really lead to a better life. I've tried reframing my negative emotions and replacing them with positive thoughts, but I'm still the same old putz that I always was--quick to anger, slow to forgive, slovenly in habit. Sometimes I've been able to direct my attention to goals over a relatively long period of time--like a couple of years ago when I had a really satisfying season riding brevets--but most of the time I stew that I'm not getting any closer to any of them.

That being said, Gallagher does have good advice about how we should lead our lives even if we can't follow it. "Optimal human experience" kicks in when we're completely focused on doing something that's both enjoyable and that's also challenging enough to be "just manageable."

Again, much of her advice brings on the "duh" response: "The first step toward any relationship is focusing on someone who returns the favor. If the bond is to become intimate, both parties must commit not only to paying rapt attention to each other, but also to the effort of seeing that person's often very different world which entails lots of communication."  "The antidote to leisure time ennui is to pay as much attention to scheduling a productive evening or weekend as you do to your workday." "Nothing is as important as I think it is when I'm focusing on it." "Aware of our limited focusing capacity, I take pains to ensure that electronic media and machines aren't in control of mine."

If nothing else, the book has pointed me back to William James where a lot of Gallagher's thinking is grounded. I want to go back to find out what he has to say. I do seem to go back to James, Emerson, and Thoreau a lot. That doesn't make me a shallow person, does it? Or does it?

Author: Galagher, Winifred

Date Published: 2009

Length: 244 pp & 7hr 45min

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Narrator: Merlington, Laurel

The Little Ice Age

Fagan argues that many of the important movements and events of modern Europe --and probably the rest of the world as well--can be traced back to changes in the climate that left the world colder and wetter than it had been in the late medieval ages or than it is today. The late medieval ages, known as the monde plein and called the "Medieval Warm Period" by Fagan, lasting from about 800 to 1300 CE, were fairly warm and conducive to cereal crops throughout Europe. This enabled the age of Viking exploration and raiding and population increases all around Europe, encourage mass migrations of peoples and the great cathedral construction going on. Around 1300--more specifically the winters of 1315 and 1316--the climate turned much colder, leading to massive crop failures. Since the vast majority of peasants lived on a subsistence level, starvation, disease and death remained the norm for quite some time. This marked the beginning of what Fagan calls "The Little Ice Age," a period of extreme fluctuation and climactic extremes that lasted until about 1850. While a few good harvest years might occur, many or most years had lower crop yields. Fagan explains a number of mechanisms for these variations, especially the NAO index or positioning of the normal high pressure/low pressure gradients, the movement of the Gulf Stream which normally warms Europe, and volcanic eruptions reducing the amount of sunlight striking the earth.

Fagan explores a number of historical trends and events that happened in reaction to the little Ice Age. Britain and the Netherlands adopted more efficient agricultural practices  that helped ease the burden of famine, if not poverty, in later times. He also traces the development of the Black Death during this time which may have reduced the population of Europe by a half to two-thirds. The British developed a large fishing fleet after the Pope approved the eating of fish during Lent. Consequently, the British gained widespread control of the seas and the Hanseatic League declined precipitously in economic importance. He also discusses the weather underlying the French Revolution and the Irish potato famine in a particularly bitter denunciation of the failure of the British government to relieve the suffering of the Irish. The final chapters close with the possibilities of global warming: "We can only imagine the potential death toll in an era when climactic swings may be faster, more extreme, and completely unpredictable because of human interference."

I really wanted to like this book since it had a lot of important things to say and it presented a lot of information in a new light. But I got the feeling that a lot of it was history channel lite. It covered a lot of information for a long period of time in a short amount of space. The narrative ties together a number of widely disparate events hence reducing the unity of the arguments and explanations. A lot of the narrative is also fairly recursive, repeating information that had been give earlier. So while the book did cover a lot of information, somehow it just wasn't all that satisfying.

Author: Fagan, Brian

Date Published: 2000

Length: 217 pp

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