Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat

Mo Gawdat, an executive and software engineer at Google, has been curious about happiness for years. When his son died suddenly, he took inspiration from the happy young man he lost to get his thought together on the subject and produce Solve for Happy.

To Gawdat, happiness isn’t something we gain, it’s something we lose or bury. Happiness his how we would normally feel, what he calls our “default state,” but we let all manner of thoughts make us unhappy.

What buries our native happiness? It’s the suffering we experience when the events of our life do not meet expectations. Gawdat illustrates this in his book with a balance with the events on one side and expectations on the other.

Donte be quick to blame unhappiness on the events of life. Gawdat points the finger at expectations.

Our expectations are often out of touch with reality. We suffer under misperceptions, illusions, blind spots and lies we tell ourselves. Gawdat identifies 13 such issues and challenges them. As long as you cling to beliefs and biases that lead to false expectations, you’ll suffer.

Experiencing the greatest joy involves embracing the truth. Gawdat describes five things he believes to be true that lead to joy.

I’m reminded of The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck. Dr. Peck calls for a devotion to truth. Like Gawdat, Peck believed that every life has some pain, but a lot of additional, unnecessary pain is caused when we refuse to deal with reality.

I think there is a lot to be said for Gawdat’s overall concept. I can see in myself and others a lot of pain and disappointment that has its roots in false expectations, refusal to deal with reality and the avoidance of the hard (but rewarding) work of living and growing as a person. I don’t agree with every detail of Gawdat’s book, but don’t think you have to in order to gain useful insights from it.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar

The Language of God by Francis S. Collins

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

Self Love by Robert H. Schuller

Gawdat, Mo. Solve for Happy: Engineering Your Path to Joy. New York: North Star Way, 2017.

Suggestible You by Erik Vance

Journalist Erik Vance grew up in a Christian Science home. Though he no longer adheres to the religion, he believed that he experienced and heard many true stories of seemingly miraculous healing. The not miraculous, but still amazing source of these improvements in health may be in the brain. Vance recounts his search for answers in Suggestible You.

Our brains are hard at work predicting what will happen next; we are constantly expecting. What we perceive, and how our brain reacts is powerfully affected by expectation. Our expectations are shaped by suggestion. Though suggestion has many forms, at the heart of each is a story. It doesn’t have to be an actually true story; it just needs to be plausible and resonant.

One area where the power of suggestion is apparent is the placebo effect. Our bodies produce chemicals that can make us feel better, and sometimes it just takes a good suggestion to get it to do so. A placebo is such a suggestion. Placeboes contain no drugs that should be effective and can take many forms such as a pill, a shot, a fake surgery or even the presence of a professional who seems competent and caring. Placeboes work so well that on certain type of diseases that they are better that many treatments.

The effectiveness of placeboes presents a problem for medical researchers. How do you sort out the effect of a treatment from the placebo effect? Modern medical research requires testing to show that a treatment is more effective that a placebo. In the United States, the law requiring such studies was introduced by Senator Estes Kefauver, who readers of this blog may know from his anti-comic book hearings.

There is also a nocebo effect, essentially the brains response to a suggestion that makes us sick. Noceboes are connected to fear, so they are in a sense supercharged in comparison to placeboes.

Vance looks into other ways suggestions can affection or brains, particularly hypnosis and false memories. Science provides some answers for how these things work. Placeboes seem to be tied to chemicals released by the brain, though there seem to be several at work and they may represent only a few of the ways placeboes my work in our incredibly complex brains. Hypnosis is not the same as placebo and its workings remain mysterious.

Suggesting affects us in ways outside of health. Marketers are particularly interested in our suggestibility. Our expectations can influence the way food tastes and our perceptions of value.

Vance finds hope in the still incomplete science of how expectation affects our health. Those who are susceptible to placebo or hypnosis (not necessarily the same people) may have a host of options for coaxing out the healing powers of their own bodies. Better understanding of how these things work may help us make better treatments for those who are less susceptible. He envisions a day when placeboes and hypnotism may be treatments medical professionals apply in much the way the use drugs or surgeries.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

Timeless Healing by Herbert Benson with Marg Stark

Vance, Erik. Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain’s Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal. Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2016.

The Beethoven Factor by Paul Pearsall

Sometimes it seems like we’re all sick and crazy. This may stem from a focus on trying to find and fix what is wrong with us. Psychologist Paul Pearsall referred to this as a pathogenic focus. In his book The Beethoven Factor, he discusses the field of positive psychology, which focuses on what is right with people and what we can learn from those who are well adjusted, happy and healthy. In particular, Pearsall focuses on thriving.

Thriving is growth in the aftermath, and even in the midst of, stressful situations. The people he discusses and learns from in his book, some patients of his and many his fellow patients in a cancer ward, often suffered greatly from disease, war, poverty and other hardships. These people had there ups and downs, but they managed an emotional upward trend.

The heart of thriving is a flexible explanatory style. We’re all telling ourselves stories that interpret and evaluate our lives. People who thrive are adaptive and creative in the stories they tell themselves, which allows them to savor and find meaning in their lives even while suffering.

Thriving can be paradoxical, especially from a pathogenic outlook: someone is becoming stronger in a situation that is expected to make them weaker. Those who thrive can defy the expectations the traditional view of healthy thinking. They work on themselves, which can sometimes make them seem aloof or insensitive. They can be in denial, but they use it to give themselves a temporary escape for pain and time to think. They can be hard to like because of their intensity; when someone is getting the most out of life, they may have little patience for interruptions, naysayers and whiners. They are reflective, which can make them seem withdrawn. They can be depressed, down on themselves and loose hope as they make their journey. Thriving is a process of learning, so it can take a long time, though sometimes someone will catch on quickly.

Pearsall offers a lot of advice on how to thrive, especially in the second half of the book (the first half focuses on introducing positive psychology and defining thriving). This section focuses on four aspects of thriving: hardiness, happiness, healing and hope.

Hardiness comes from our beliefs. Hardy people have beliefs that help them commit to engaging in living, finding a sense of control—which includes knowing when to let go of control—and seeing the difficulties they face and challenges they can cope with if not overcome.

Happiness is rooted in flow. It is focus and engagement in life. Happy people push aside distractions, expectations and striving for things that don’t really bring them joy.

Healing is fundamentally learning. We all suffer to some extent in our lives, and these periods of sickness or other hardship are telling us to slow down and pay attention. Healing people learn to make sense of what happens (in their own ways),  cope with it, and find meaning in their experiences.

Hoping is what Pearsall calls “cautious optimism.” People who hope find a way to hold onto their dreams, or come up with new dreams, without expecting on depending on them. They imagine that the world, imperfect as it is, may be the best possible world, so they get on with seeking all they can enjoy in it.

Pearsall offers his readers a big dose of practical grace. If you’re really finding your own way to cope with adversity in a way the truly engages life as fully as you can, you’re on the path to thriving and it is okay that you may not be the upbeat, outgoing, positive, realistic person that your psychologists, physicians, self-help books and friends think you should be. Living is learning, especially in times of sickness and difficulty; learning is challenging, slow work that requires focus and imagination. If you’re learning, you will struggle and be worn out sometimes. You’ll also be engaged in life in a way that puts you in an uneven, but upward trend, instead of spiraling downward in despair.

Paul Pearsall also wrote

The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need

Toxic Success

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat

Pearsall, Paul. The Beethoven Factor: The New Positive Psychology of Hardiness, Happiness, Healing, and Hope.  Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads, 2003.

Write Naked by Jennifer Probst

Romance writer Jennifer Probst has written more than a score of published books. In Write Naked, she shares her experiences, both successes and mistakes, of building her career as a professional writer.

Probst was not an immediate success. She wrote six books before writing one that was published. One of the lessons of the book is that it takes persistence, time and effort to develop you skill and find a place for your work. Even after writing successful books, the book you’re working on can be a struggle; Probst confesses to finding challenges in writing her most recent books.

Success itself can be a challenge. When she finally made it, she made it big, with a large sale and a book that hit the bestseller lists. After that, the pressure was on. She felt the expectations of her editor and readers to produce another hit that they would love. The pressure to meet those expectations made the next book much harder. It was successful, but not as successful, which she found very disappointing. She points out the reality that you won’t hit a home run every time you step up to the plate, but a base hit is still a success.

I admit that I’m not a fan of romance. However, I am a bit in awe of the ability to many successful romance writers to produce. They turn out books and their books sell. This requires work—they have to get it done. Probst’s advice includes dealing with that aspect of writing. She treats it as her business. She writes every day. She sets goals. She creates deadlines (or gets them from her editor) and meets them. She sets aside time to promote her books and interact with readers. She also says no to things that don’t fit her life and career as a writer so her time and energy isn’t drained away from where it is needed.

Some might thing Probst’s revelation of her experience takes some of the romance out of writing. Of course, whether it is romantic or not, there are realities to making a career of writing. An aspiring writer will need to deal with it.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Finding Your Writer’s Voice by Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall

Just Write by Walter Dean Myers

Mastering Fiction Writing by Kit Reed

No Plot? Not Problem! A Low Stress-High Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty

The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

Shut Up & Write! by Judy Bridges

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

Probst, Jennifer. Write Naked: A Bestseller’s Guide to Writing Romance and Navigating the Path to Success. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2017.

The Grid by Gretchen Bakke

Anthropologist Gretchen Bakke has written about a system integral to the American lifestyle that we associate more with engineers: the electrical grid. The Grid describes how we arrived at the system we have, the forces that are operating on it and how they might shape its future.

The grid is more than a set of wires on poles. It is also a system of companies, markets, laws, regulations, government agencies, cultures and individual people. As an engineer, I feel it is important for me to be aware of the business, policy and cultural aspects of my work. Technology cannot be easily isolated from these things. An engineer who focuses completely on technology risks putting a lot of effort into a solution that fails for important non-technical reasons.

Having commented on engineering, I should mention that Bakke’s book is written for laymen.

She explains the science and technology of electricity in terms that I think most people can understand.

One of the reasons she doesn’t need to resort to deep technological or scientific explanations it that technology is not the biggest barrier to the grid of the future. Of course, technology is very important, but much of what we need to make our grid more resilient and wireless is already in our hands, or will be within our grasp in the near future.

The harder things to wrangle are the business and regulatory aspects of the grid. Renewable energy sources (especially variable sources like wind and solar), distributed generation (which is becoming increasingly affordable), increased efficiency, flat or declining demand, and regulatory reforms over the last three decades have put the squeeze on electric utilities. Our electric utilities, and the system of large, central generation plants they operate, were built for the business and regulatory setting of the early 20^th Century, when rapidly increasing demand meant that the consolidation of generation into large plants controlled by highly-regulated monopolies made sense as a way to provide ever cheaper power for an ever growing population of customers.

By the 1960s, this model of growth was failing putting upward pressure on electric prices. Regulatory reforms starting in the 1980s introduced competition to electric markets that put another squeeze on utility profits.

These historic changes are still in action and accelerating. Environmental regulation and customer expectations about the use of renewable energy are also a growing pressure on the system, especially because the variability of solar and wind energy make it difficult to balance demand and generation on the grid, which must be done constantly and almost instantaneously.

In addition to describing how our grid came to be and the troubling weaknesses it has in light of our changing environment and expectations, Bakke looks to the future. Of course, no one knows what the grid make look like, but current developments have the potential to scale up to shape the grid.

A future grid is likely to be a highly computerized system of integrated microgrids that can operate independently when the larger grid is out. It will include many generators distributed across the grid (large, central power plants are on the way out) that take advantage of alternative and renewable energy sources. New developments in energy storage, such as the batteries that will be in fleets of electric cars, and a host of smart meters, homes and appliances will help us balance the grid. We’ll need to develop standards that allow all this new technology to communicate and work together as it also controls the existing parts of the grid that continue to be useful. Continued regulatory reform will be needed to adapt to these changes and possibly to force openness into a market that existing power monopolies may be tempted to guard. Utilities will need to find new business models, and we all might need to be open to what they could be, because it is unlikely that they’ll be able to keep going by selling kilowatt-hours in the old fashioned way.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

The Big Roads by Earl Swift

Make a Joyful Sound by Helen Elmira Waite

Bakke, Gretchen. The Grid: The Fraying Wires between Americans and Our Energy Future. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016.

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

Card, Orson Scott. How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. Cincinnati, OH: Writers Digest Books, 1990.

Accomplished speculative fiction author Orson Scott Card focuses this manual on the particulars of writing science fiction and fantasy stories. It contains advice that may be useful to writers of any kind of fiction.

To start, Card tries to define the realm of science fiction and fantasy. This is difficult. Once identified as a writer of speculative fiction, you may find it difficult to get your books marketed in any other category. On the up side, within the realm of science fiction of fantasy, you can write almost any kind of story. Science fiction and fantasy is defined by a mix of marketing, reader expectation and what writers produce; something readers of these books will have a feel for, but as a new writer, or someone new to the field, its useful to know what is expected.

Something unique to speculative fiction that Card gives much attention is world creation. All fiction creates a world of sorts, but a characteristic of speculative fiction is that the world of the story is significantly different from the world we live in. A writer of science fiction or fantasy stories must have a well thought out vision for his world and how it works; he need an understanding larger than what is minimally necessary for the story. This chapter contains practical advice on what works and doesn’t in world creation.

Something that sticks out to me is found in the chapter on story construction. Card writes about where a story should begin and end, depending on what kind of story it is: milieu, idea, character or event. All stories have all of these elements to some degree, but most focus on one. By understanding what kind of story you’re trying to write, you can know where to begin and end your story and how to set up and meet reader expectations. Reading this chapter I thought of several short stories and novels that I thought were very good and saw how they fit in these categories and how the authors made fitting decisions about where they started and stopped their stories.



Card’s advice on story construction is applicable to any kind of fiction. He draws examples from speculative fiction, and has writers of it in mind as his audience, but all kind of stories could be improved with this counsel.

Deal with It! by Paula White

White, Paula. Deal with It! Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

When Paula White says Deal with It! she doesn’t mean “suck it up.” In this book, she urges readers, particularly women, to acknowledge and confront their problems, that is, really deal with it. Fortunately, believers are not left to their own devices to overcome problems. God is ready and able to help His own.

Each chapter is built around a woman from the Bible and White’s view of her central problems. Some are well known names like Ruth, Esther, and Mary Magdalene . Some are not as well known: the Shunammite who welcomed Elisha into her home and Zelophehad’s daughters.



As much as things have changed over thousands of years, people are still people, and the problems these women faced have parallels today. Through God’s help, the women in White’s example overcame bad histories, weak men, lifestyle changes, excessive demands, deep hurt, competition, poor reputations, disappointments, injustices, and overwhelming expectations.

God came through for these women. Of course, as with us, God did not always choose to act immediately or in the ways they might have wanted. However, they trusted Him and persevered faithfully. God will come through, but it is important how we think and act in the meantime. We are called to do what is right, obey proper authority, stand up for justice, and hold onto faith in God all the time, especially in tough times.

White’s style is much like speech. Since she is mainly a speaker and preacher, you might expect it. In some ways, the book reads like a collection of sermons, though the chapters are tightly linked by a central theme.

As in her preaching and other books, White draws on her personal experience. She presents herself as having been a messed up young woman who made many bad decisions, had a head full of bad ideas, and beset with hang-ups. If you’d lived her life, maybe you’d have fallen into the same errors. She’s not complaining, though. She uses these examples to show how God has turned things around for her, just as he did for the Biblical women she writes about.

That is the central issue of the book. Things don’t have to remain as they are. God has the power to change them. However, we must face our problems and deal with them. We can’t let ourselves be derailed by time or difficulties, but trusting and obeying God we can see our lives renewed into something even better than we might have imagined.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Acts
The Emotional Energy Factor by Mira Kirshenbaum
Genesis
The Gospel of John
The Joy of Supernatural Thinking by Bill Bright
Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs

Follow Your Heart by Andrew Matthews

Matthews, Andrew. Follow Your Heart. New York: Price Stern Sloan, 1997.
ISBN 0-8431-7491-9

Follow Your Heart is like a short course in the major concepts of happy living. That Andrew Matthews wrote it in a light, simple style gives it and advantage over many similar self-help books.

Matthews sees life as series of lessons. Our job is to learn, change and improve. Instead of fighting against and imperfect world, we learn to be better people and make the world a little better in the process. We’re not here to change the world, but to change ourselves.

In this light, success is more about being happy and having peace than about having money and the trappings of wealth. A person who does what he loves to do often finds he doesn’t need much. A person who develops his talents into excellent skills often finds himself equipped to make plenty of money.

This kind of success is available to everyone. Matthews says, “The universe has no favorites.” The universe is governed by natural laws and we can all understand and use them. Matthews discusses some of these laws. The laws aren't easy ways to get what you want. The laws require patience and effort. This relates to another of Matthews’ precepts, “When you fight life, life always wins.”

One of the ultimate things we can do to be better and help others be better is to love others. According to Matthews, the great expressions of love are forgiveness and acceptance. People aren’t going to be perfect and aren’t going to follow all the rules me make up for them. When we free others from our hurts and expectations, we free ourselves from self-imposed misery, too.

Follow Your Heart isn’t especially original in its message and methods, but neither are many other self-help books. Where it stands out is in a style that is straightforward, lighthearted, humorous and brief.



If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Attitude is Everything by Jeff Keller
Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar

Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar

Ben-Shahar, Tal. Happier: Learn the Secrets of Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

Happier is based on a popular class Dr. Ben-Shahar teaches at Harvard University. The author refers to happiness as the ultimate currency, and in that light, it is not surprising that so many people are seeking more of it.

Ben-Shahar frames happiness as a balance of present and future benefits. Many people sacrifice present pleasure for hopes of a more desirable future; they’re rat-racers. Hedonists seek momentary pleasures without regard for the future. Those who’ve given up on finding happiness in both the present and future are nihilists. Happiness is found in a life that has future benefits that is enjoyable along the way.

Happiness is about more that just pleasure, which is hollow by itself. Happy people lead lives they find meaningful. In a sense, a meaningful life provides the ultimate future benefit. Pairing meaning with enjoyment along the way, present pleasure, leads to happiness. This doesn’t lead to a life free of negative emotions or perpetual positivity; Ben-Shahar thinks that is unrealistic and probably unfulfilling and throughout the book reminds readers of the balanced definition of happiness.

The middle section of the book tackles some of the practical matters of happiness in education, work and relationships. School is all about present sacrifice for future payoff. That mindset can send people in to careers they find to be meaningless drudgery. The same attitudes can come into relationships. Happiness in the real world sometimes means setting aside the expectations of others and society and acting on what you personally find meaningful and pleasurable. Not everyone has the luxury of putting off all obligations and doing their own thing, but nearly everyone can do something to introduce more happiness into their lives.



In closing, Ben-Shahar offers a number of “meditations.” These chapters offer exercises, of both practice and thought, for building happiness on our lives.

Reading Comics by Douglas Wolk

Douglas Wolk’s book Reading Comics has two major sections. In the first section, outlines a framework for comic book criticism. First, he makes it clear that the comic book (or graphic novel) is a distinct medium. Comics are not half-assed attempts at some other media such as film or prose.

Next he draws a distinction between mainstream comics and art comics. Mainstream comics have always been an corporate effort. It is corporate in the sense that it has been controlled by publishers. It is also corporate because most mainstream comics are the product of a team (a writer, an artist—sometimes separate penciller and inker—a colorist, and a letterer). Both of these types of corporate authorship give rise to a house style.

This gives rise to one of the major points of distinction between mainstream and art comics. Mainstream comics are dominated by a house style. Art comics are an expression of the style of the cartoonist. There is an element of auteurism in this understanding of art comics. An art comic, to a much greater degree than a mainstream comic, is a single artist’s interpretation of what he sees or envisions. Art comics are valued as an expression of their creators’ visions. The more skillful the cartoonist, the more likely he is to produce good comics.

There is more to Wolk’s framework of comics criticism than this, but it seems to me to be the central element. Wolk does not claim to be making a comprehensive system of criticism. Comic books are too new a medium for that, especially because comics criticisms is necessarily younger.

In the second section of the book, Wolk discusses the works of particular cartoonists. Some of these work heavily or mostly in mainstream comics, but the focus remains on how the artist interprets and expresses his vision in comics, with or without the expectations of mainstream comics.

One of the great examples of this is Alan Moore. Moore’s work for mainstream publishers had turned the mainstream, and especially the superhero genre, on its head while still producing comics that work excellently as mainstream comics. Moore bucks the trend of artsy cartoonists by being a writer only; all of his comics are mainstream-style collaborations with an artist. Wolk mentions several works of Moore, but the grand example is Watchmen. Moore, and especially Watchmen, has cost a long shadow on mainstream comics. He has pushed the mainstream to be much better, and eager imitators have unfortunately produced some horrible comics by learning all the wrong lessons.

Several cartoonists receive attention: the dark, strange visions of Steve Ditko (cocreator of Spider-Man), the epically deep world-building and beautiful drawing of Jaime Hernandez, the epic opus of Cerebus comics by Dave Sim, the artistry of Will Eisner, the power of Frank Miller (sometimes overpowering), and the consciousness-expanding ouvre of Grant Morrison (another writer, but not artist).

Even though the book is not new, it introduced me to cartoonists and comics that were new to me. It was worth the read for that, though Wolk’s perspective on the development of mainstream and art comics is interesting, too.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

American Splendor (Film)

Comic Book Nation by Bradford W. Wright

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil

How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

Maus by Art Spiegelman

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

Writing for Comics with Peter David

Douglas Wolk. Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2007.

You Can Write a Column by Monica McCabe Cardoza

Cardoza, Monica McCabe. You Can Write a Column. Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books, 2000.

Cardoza offers no false hope for aspiring columnist. Writing a good column, repeatedly, is hard work. Selling a column, and making a living at it, is very hard work. You may have reasons to write a column, and work to get it in print, even if you don’t intend to make money directly from it.

You Can Write a Column is a short book of practical advice. It covers the how to of both writing and selling columns.

Though writing a good column can be difficult, if you have a lot of enthusiasm for your subject and appropriate knowledge of it, column writing could be a lot of fun. If you have a compelling perspective, a strong voice and credentials of the practical sort, you may also have the making of a successful column.

Cardoza points out that many columnists write for reasons other than making money from it. They may wish to express their opinions, build their professional reputations, see their names in the paper or make a living from parallel efforts.

Even so, selling and writing seem to never be far separated. Selling a column starts with writing the kind of column that well sell. Writing starts with and idea of the kind column you want to write refined with an understanding of the potential market for it.

Cardoza presents practical advice in all these areas. The book includes a few exercises, particularly in those chapters relating to developing the column. The exercises don’t constitute a step-by-step process to creating a successful column. Cardoza points out that if such a process existed, newspaper editors would be using it.

There is a lot in this little book for readers with realistic expectations. You won’t reduce your work by reading book. However, the clear direction, sharper ideas and useful information you may gain can make your work much more effective.



If your interested in this book, you may also be interested in You Can Write for Magazines by Greg Daugherty.

How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson

The prevailing myth of invention is that it is the product of a solitary genius. Steven Johnson takes on this myth in How We Got to Now.

Johnson’s book is a history of invention with a focus on six particular innovations. He demonstrates that simultaneous invention is common, suggesting that societal knowledge, norms and expectations play a part in invention—at least in providing an environment in which certain types of inventions can be created and flourish.

Thomas Edison and the light bulb is the classic myth challenged by simultaneous invention. Humphrey Davy demonstrated an incandescent electric light in 1802 and Frederick de Moleyns received the first patent for a light bulb in 1841. By the time Edison got involve, people had been working on light bulbs for 30 years, and the potential for electric light had been now for 70 years. Edison and his team of collaborators deserve a lot of credit for creating a commercially successful electric lighting system, inventing solutions to many problems along the way, but is a story of systematic hard work.

Edison’s electric lighting system depended on a lot of prior technology, which relates to another of Johnson’s points: clusters of inventions. An invention can illuminate a previously unnoticed problem (or create a new one). For instance, the availability of affordable books that follow Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press revealed that many people were farsighted. This sparked a demand for reading glasses. The tinkering with lenses led to the invention of telescopes and microscopes. Galileo took up the telescope and made discoveries in astronomy that reshaped how people saw the world. Robert Hooke used the microscope to explore a seemingly alien world of the very tiny thing all around us, though the revolution he inspired took longer to bloom.

Johnson explores other aspects of invention and society. I think it is fair to say that his view of how invention works is a lot messier than the myth. Inventors are at the right place at the right time, with open minds that are prepared (likely by accident) to make a connection and a willingness to do the work of thinking, testing and making something new. They probe the boundaries of their fields, tinker and throw themselves into hobbies that bring them, often with companions, to crossroads that challenge their notions of where they can go and how they can get there.

On the whole, Johnson presents a vision of hope in our history. We are not dependent on genius or serendipity; human creativity is both a social and an individual process in which the collision of ideas leads to new ideas. We live in an era where the collision of ideas may be more possible than ever.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Ada's Algorithm by James Essinger

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

The Big Necessity by Rose George

The Big Roads by Earl Swift

The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman

Bottled Lightning by Seth Fletcher

Circles by James Burke

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes

The Great Stink by Clare Clark

Hedy's Folly by Richard Rhodes

Make a Joyful Sound by Helen Elmira Waite

The Pinball Effect by James Burke

The Powerhouse by Steve Levine

Rust by Jonathan Waldman

Steven Johnson also wrote

The Ghost Map

The Invention of Air

Johnson, Steven. How We Got To Now: Six Innovations that Make the Modern World. New York: Riverhead, 2014.

The Gospels

The Bible has four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. “Gospel” comes from an Old English word meaning “good news.” The gospels are the good news of the incarnation of Christ, the coming of God to save us from sin and death, to redeem us to Himself, and give us a new, eternal life. They are also biographies of Jesus, summarizing his deeds and sayings.

It may seem redundant to have four biographies of Jesus. Each Gospel emphasizes different aspects of Jesus, and together they give the reader a fuller picture of Him.

-Matthew, traditionally recognized as being written by that apostle, gives particular attention to demonstrations that Jesus is the Messiah, frequently referring to the Old Testament. Jesus had a masterful understanding of the Old Testament, as shown in Matthew’s record of the Sermon on the Mount.

-Mark focuses on Jesus’ miraculous deeds, proofs of His deity. It is the shortest of the four books.

-Luke pays particular attention to Jesus’ character and teaching ministry. It is thought to have been written with a Greek audience in mind, and that may make it more accessible to modern readers than the other gospels.

-John expresses a high Christology, showing Jesus’ claims to deity in His teaching and actions. John devotes more attention to the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion than the other gospels.

The gospels corroborate each other. In theological terms, this is referred to as the harmony of the gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke, collectively called the Synoptic Gospels, track together particularly well.

Some have supposed that Matthew and Luke draw from Mark as a source, or that all have a common source in some unfound book. The more straightforward explanation is that found within the Bible that witnesses of Jesus’ life or their close associates authored the gospels. Matthew and John were followers of Jesus during his earthly ministry. Mark was a member of the early church and new the apostles and others who personally new Jesus. Luke claims to have been closely associated with the apostles and to draw on eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus. Luke indicates that there were many written accounts of the life of Christ. History (supervised by God) preserved four books that were as authoritative very early by the church.

Calling the gospels biographies of Jesus may set up some false expectations for readers of modern biographies. Ancient biographies were often collections of a famous person’s sayings or a summary of their deeds (Mark is a good example of this); they were not necessarily chronological accounts of a person’s life. The gospels are somewhat chronological, but their middle parts may also be organized along other lines: teachings, miracles, deeds of high character, and other concepts.


If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Genesis
The Holy Bible
John
Luke
Mark
Matthew
Proverbs

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

David Shenk has good news. Geniuses aren’t born, and very few of us have genetic limitation on our capacities.  Just to make sure you get it, his book is entitled The Genius in All of Us.

Shenk challenges the notion that genius, talent, and the potential to excel in a field is something a few people are born with, lucky people who hit the jackpot in the genetic lottery.  He is not entirely an advocate of nurture in the nature-versus-nurture debate.  He looks at new science that suggests that that is a false notion to begin with.  Traits, including intelligence, develop form the interaction of genes and the environment.

Genes are not a blueprint that determine out traits.  Genes influence our reaction to the environment.   The environment influences the expression of our genes.  It’s complex.  Shenk devote a chapter to epigenetics.  This is material in our cells that protect and support the function of our genes.  Our epigenes influence the expression of our genes, are influenced by the environment, and most astounding are hereditable.  Environmental and behavioral factors can change the epigenes in ways that are passed on to offspring for generations and affect the expression of genes in those offspring.

Unless we have some unusual genetic disorder, the lesson of this book is that our genes are just one card in the hand we are dealt, and genes are not necessarily the most important card.  Genes are important, but so are a lot of other things.  Our traits are malleable, shaped by genes, environment, and behavior, and to the degree that we can influence those things we can change our traits.  We can become geniuses.

The bad news is the road to genius is not an easy one.  Mozart and Michael Jordon have in common that they put in a lot of time over a many years deliberately practicing and improving their skills.  Beethoven and Yo-Yo Ma may seem like born prodigies, but they were surrounded my music, music teachers, encouragement, challenges, competition, high expectations, and opportunities from birth.  Abundant practice and continuing improvement from early childhood helped them become very competent musicians as children, and many more years of deliberate practice, commitment, and mentoring resulted in the genius they exhibited as adults.

Based on this, Shenk presents a chapter on how to become a genius.  Genius may not be quite the right word, especially if you starting something later in life after years of thinking you had little ability.  However, I think his advice is likely to lead to great improvement, even above normal success and excellence.  The first piece of advice is to find your motivation.  If you have the motivation to devote a lot of time to practice, and the commitment push yourself to always seek improvement, you will get better and with time will be excellent.  Shenk also has a lot to say about how this information can help parents and educators see the potential in children and contribute to the development of their traits and their success in any field.

I was very impressed with this surprisingly short book.  Actually, if you include the extensive notes, which are worth reading, it is not a short book.  It opened my eyes to a new, and I think more fruitful, way of looking at the way people develop.

Shenk, David.  The Genius in All of Us:  Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetic, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong.  New York: Doubleday, 2010.

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Cure by Jo Marchant

Over my lifetime, I’ve observed an increasing interest in the connection between mind and body. It is not a new concept, but it has gained ground and the Cartesian distinction between mind and body has eroded. However, how we are still learning how it works and the extent to which it is effective in the treatment of disease. Geneticist and science writer Jo Marchant explores these issues in Cure.

Marchant considers three areas in which there appears to be mind-body connections that have promise for use in medical settings. First is the placebo effect. Next, she looks at meditation, biofeedback and hypnosis. Finally, she discusses the effects of our viewpoint, especially how increase or reduce stress.

We are equipped with an internal pharmacy that can reduce or aggravate pain, and it can be triggered by something as vague as our expectations. This placebo affect can be as powerful as drugs at reducing pain and some other symptoms of disease, which can make it difficult to test the effectiveness of drugs. Some physicians are starting to change their minds about the placebo effect. Instead of seeing it as a problem that gets in the way of testing drugs, they are seeing it a potential substitute for drugs. The placebo effect has limitations; it can reduce pain and symptoms, but it does not cure the underlying disease or injury. There is also a nocebo effect, which causes pain and fatigue.

Another interesting effect discussed by Marchant is conditioning of the immune system. In some cases, we can prompt the immune system to have a conditioned response; we can train it. After taking a drug, the immune system can reproduce the response to the drug at lower doses. We can strengthen the conditioning by accompanying the drug with strong rituals; repeating the rituals can produce the response to some degree. This holds some promise for improving the effectiveness of drugs and reducing the dose needed to be effective, especially when a drug as serious side effects. I thought this was fascinating.

Our brain is more connected, and in control, of our bodily functions that we previously realized. Meditation, hypnosis and biofeedback can allow people to exercise control over operations of the body that were previously thought to be automatic or even independent of the brain. This includes pain, blood flow, stress response, heart rate variability and vagal tone.

Relationships also have a profound effect on our health. Strong social connections keep us young, and lack of relationships is harmful to our health. Our own compassion for others can reduce stress hormones and inflammation. When physicians, surgeons, nurses and other health care professionals care for their patients as people, those patients receiving the emotional support experience less pain and longer lives.

Marchant shows there is potential for a new way of doing medicine, or room to reintroduce older practices. By slowing down and showing genuine concern for patients, doctors can multiply the effect of their treatment. Teaching people to slow down and pay attention to their bodies, the people they love and the good things in their lives, we can take advantage of the healing capacities of the mind and body. Medicine can be less about dispensing drugs and more about lifestyle and relationship.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Beethoven Factor by Paul Pearsall

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

Descarte’s Secret Notebook by Amir D. Aczel

Ecclesiastes

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

I Can Make You Happy by Paul McKenna

I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna

Instant Self-Hypnosis by Forbes Robbins Blair

Job

The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need by Paul Pearsall

Overwhelmed by Brigid Schulte

Psalms

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

The Solution by Lucinda Bassett

Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat

Suggestible You by Erik Vance

Switch on Your Brain by Caroline Leaf

Take the Leap by Heather McCloskey Beck

Timeless Healing by Herbert Benson with Marg Stark

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

Marchant, Jo. Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind over Body. New York: Crown, 2016.