Happy homework: my Winter 2023 reading list.
Also, addenda to my past two Tuesday posts for THE BODY IS THE SOUL.
It’s bewildering to note that January is already over and 2023 has sprinted out of the gate. Under the Tuesday banner of THE BODY IS THE SOUL, there are so many things I’d like to talk about with respect to the biology/neuroscience of our emotions—the unchecked rage of mass shooters and killer cops among the most horrifically timely subjects worth discussing. But today I need to catch my breath. This post will be brief. (Paying subscribers should note there won’t be an audio version).
Things missed and things to catch up with.
A quick description of my writing process may shed some light on why and how these twice-a-week essays turn out the way they do. Just as I learned to do first when I was a columnist for an alt-weekly newspaper (and then indirectly practiced as a jazz pianist), I always start with some solid concept or anecdote or line (the melodic opening, if you will), then form a few sentences or an opening paragraph in my head before I sit down at the computer keyboard, and then extemporize from there, editing as I go. I almost never know exactly where I’ll end up, but when I find a way to conclude by tying a bunch of disparate ideas together in an unexpected manner, that’s the great joy of the enterprise.
The downside of this jazzy method is that I often end up chasing one set of implications—melodic developments, if you will—but have to leave other variations unexplored or unsaid.
Two weeks ago on the Tuesday after MLK Day, I began a discussion of climate change as collective trauma by quoting Robert Reich’s observations about the terrible California floods that week, but I missed an opportunity to highlight his most important point: that it’s poorer people and people of color who disproportionately suffer the effects of severe weather events. This is true on a local level but also in terms of (using a broad brush) the wealthier, whiter global North and the poorer, browner global South. So here I’ll pledge eventually to delve into the broader issues of climate justice at various points during 2023—taking my cue from Reich who took his cue from Martin Luther King Jr. Meanwhile, here’s one relevant organization worth that might be worth checking out: Climate Justice Alliance. If you know anything about them or have time to delve into their activities—or if you know of other similar efforts you’d like to hip us all to—feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Then last Tuesday I mounted an argument about greed as a form of money addiction. Later in the same day, I found myself logging into my retirement investment account and picking up a few shares of Costco stock that were trading low. The juxtaposition made me want to pipe up again a little bit. It’s not that I felt hypocritical, exactly, but I did want to add a bit of nuance and proportion to my previous thoughts.
I’m a small-c capitalist in that I believe wholeheartedly in the concept and practice of using market mechanisms to invest in worthy businesses so they can grow. I’m also certain that capitalist activities need to be tightly reined to humanist social goals, and that finance as a segment of our economy should be rendered less important than it has become. (Mind you, I don’t expect these things will improve greatly in my lifetime, but it’s a hope.) I’m also not against luxury items or services on principle, or paying one’s dues as an apprentice in a tough work environment like a professional kitchen—nor do I believe we can turn back the clock to pre-industrial mercantilism or pre-agrarian “classless” societies. But I most definitely am against the current situation in which “some 10 percent of the world’s population owns 76 percent of the wealth, takes in 52 percent of the income, and accounts for 48 percent of global carbon emissions,” as the International Monetary Fund reported in March 2022.1
Almost all of us benefit from the fact that there are people poorer than us willing to do work we won’t do; but at the top end of the serve-or-be-served chain, we can’t keep allowing the most deeply warped, profit-addicted, damaged/damaging, and ultimately sociopathic individuals to amass and horde vast generational fortunes, let alone worship them as world-historical geniuses and do-no-wrong celebrities. It’s like giving an already drunk driver another shot of grain alcohol while they’re on the road. We are all in this car that’s heading over a cliff unless we stop indulging the maniac behind the wheel.
What I’m reading or planning to read Jan-Feb-March.
I’ve threatened plans for a virtual book club in the spring, and I’m still trying to figure out how best to accomplish that. For now, I thought I’d share my planned personal reading for the rest of the winter. Again, if you have thoughts to share about any of these titles, please leave a comment!
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976) by Julian Jaynes. I am still working my way through this quirky, disruptive minor classic for the second time and am considering making this my first book club selection. It’s a doozy—yes, that’s the technical term—full of startling insights and possibly crackpot conclusions, but persuasively written. That said, Jaynes’ ebullient voice on the page is a lot of fun, whether or not you end up persuaded by his argument. I am reading it in bits and pieces and taking copious notes with a plan to see how many of his ideas have been confirmed/disconfirmed by later researchers and theorists.
Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey (2022) by Florence Williams. I’m enjoying this book a lot and learning some important things about the mind/body experience of heartbreak—but I have gotten bogged down at the two-thirds mark. The author’s personal divorce narrative isn’t as compelling as advertised—her interviews with various scientists and experts are what’s strong here. So I’ll push myself through to the end. Here’s the description of the book at Goodreads. “When her twenty-five-year marriage unexpectedly falls apart, journalist Florence Williams expects the loss to hurt. What she doesn’t expect is that she’ll end up in the hospital, examining close-up the way our cells listen to loneliness. She travels to the frontiers of the science of “social pain” to learn why heartbreak hurts so much and why so much of the conventional wisdom about it is wrong.”
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014) by Bessel van der Kolk. Don’t ask me how I managed to know nothing about this New York Times bestseller until after I’d already experienced the phenomenon I described in my three-part narrative “An atheist gins up some Grace”2 and also after I’d decided to explore the neuroscience of emotions under the banner of Tuesday’s THE BODY IS THE SOUL entries. From the title alone, it’s clear I need to find out what this expert clinician has to say about rewiring one’s neural pathways as a way out of one’s traumatic responses to past events.
Amy Among the Serial Killers (2022) by Jincy Willett. I’m halfway through this one and I’ll finish it off soon. Willett, for those who don’t know her work, is one of the funniest and wisest novelists out there, but also one of the wise-ass-est, as well—which, as her friend in real life, I know she’ll know to take as a compliment. Here’s the précis. “Amy Gallup, retired after decades as a writing instructor, is surprised to hear from her former student Carla out of the blue, three years since they last spoke. She’s even more shocked when she finds out the reason for Carla's call. Suddenly, she finds herself swept up in a murder investigation that soon brings her old writing group back together. But they’ll need all the help they can get, as one murder leads to another, and suspicions of a serial killer mount across San Diego.”
Capitalism 3.0: A Guide To Reclaiming The Commons (2006) by Peter Barnes. This has been on my bookshelf for years and, especially given what I’ve said above regarding climate change, wealth inequality, and concerns for the future, it feels like the right time for me to dive into it. Here’s the blurb from environmentalist Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and several other important works. “Barnes makes the case for the commons in a straightforward and unsentimental way. It’s an indispensable book on a critical topic.”
Wish me luck in staying focused. I will admit that I’m a visual narrative junkie and often get distracted from my reading priorities by all the truly terrific streaming options out there NONE OF WHICH WILL I MENTION HERE NOT EVEN THE SERVANT ON APPLE TV WHICH IS TERRIFIC FUN STARRING THE AWESOME LAUREN AMBROSE FROM SIX FEET UNDER AND IS ABSOLUTELY THE BEST THING M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN HAS EVER MADE AND WHO KNEW RUPERT GRINT aka RON WEASLEY WOULD GROW UP TO BE SUCH A FANTASTIC COMIC ACTOR? AND NO YOU DIDN’T HEAR ANY OF THIS FROM ME….
Happy February to you all.
“An atheist gins up some Grace” Part One (video with captions, sorry no transcript), Part Two (written but with a captioned video intro), and Part Three (video, captioned, and with full transcript).