By Robertson Davies
2nd book in the Depford trilogy, following the Fifth Business.
A satisfying book, though it has a lot to say about Jungian psychology. Perhaps the book hasn't aged well since Jung is no longer as influential.
We often see or interpret the world through simplifications and archetypes. Health comes from seeing beyond that, from seeing the truth, seeing people for who they really are.
By George Saunders
I want to enjoy great literature, yet I struggle to maintain interest in great books and great authors. This was a great book to help me explore more.
Saunders discusses six short stories written buy the Russian greats. I appreciated the depths, this history, the callbacks, along the way he discuss the hard work of writing.
"It's seams that much of the time we spend worrying would be better spent working though the problems. Don't worry, work."
By Foucault
How did we get from being a society that publicly punishes, hangs, flogs its criminals, to a society that quietly hides them away? We become more efficient. The tools of that efficiency can be used to guide society as a whole.
Now we all live in a Carceral society where control is exercised, not through the threat of punishment, but through surveillance, ranking and the gentle pervasive insistence of the norm. Society has became more effective at standardizing its values.
"Power and knowledge directly imply one another. "
By Matthew J Sullivan
A fun read. A thriller/mystery about a decades long conspiracy/organized-crimes in Soap Lake.
I've been to Soap Lake. It's an interesting place to stop over if you are doing a road trip around easter Washington.
The novel has two story lines, the story of the victim and the story of the detective.
I've been reading Agatha Christie of late. Her characters are decidedly upper class. Sullivan populates his mysteries with junkies, ag workers, the poor and others living their lives of the margins. This is a refreshing change.
By William J Bernstein
Covers the theory, history, psychology and business of investing.
No one can reliably predict or time the market. Invest with Index funds. Broadly diversify, including bonds, U.S Stocks, International Stock, small and large caps. Keep your expenses and taxes low Your stock mix depends on your risk tolerance.
By Robertson Davis
I grew up in Ontario and get back to it regularly, A high school friend of mine described this book as the most Ontario book ever.
I agree. The village where the book begins could be the village where I grew up, with too many churches, disrespect between their members, the gravel pit where all the parties happened, and the children who had no exceptional future unless they left for the big cities.
The book is very readable and enjoyable. There are other books in the series. I'll go through them all.
Some other things for me to take away...
Even though the book was published in the early 70's, The author makes jokes about yet another business-man turned politician who runs on the platform of bringing sound business principles to government, yet finds once he's elected, that that is not the way a government can be run.
There is also the mention of that low-level insecurity in the back of many Canadian heads, that they are not good enough, that they don't compare well to other citizens and other countries.
By Michel Foucault
This book, focused on the Hellenistic and early Roman world, is not about comfort. It’s about craft.
The famous command is, of course, "Know Thyself." From Socrates or the oracle.
Foucault shows there was an older, deeper urgency. "Take Care of Thyself." Epimeleia heautou.
This wasn't just preparatory work. It was the essential moral act. It had to be continuous. Lifelong.
The care was the knowledge.
We tend to think of ethics as a list of rules. Or a moment of choice.
Foucault excavates the forgotten technology: the daily, quiet, repeatable tasks that shape the self.
The Stoics weren't interested in confession. They wanted mastery. Not over others, but over the self. The passionate, reactive, impulsive self.
How?
Through the Hypomnēmata. The spiritual notebook. A journal that wasn't for expression, but for weapons.
You record maxims. You copy wisdom. You write down the unexpected thing that happened, and then you rehearse the ethical response for next time. A sudden outburst of anger. A flash of fear. You write it down not to understand its root (that’s modern psychology), but to nullify its power in the future.
Writing and reflecting is essential.
The care of the self, for the Stoics, was a practice of freedom. Not the large, dramatic freedom of revolution or political choice, but the smaller, more immediate freedom:
Freedom from impulse. Freedom from chance. Freedom from being a slave to your own worst reaction.
It’s a deliberate art of not letting the self be merely a result of history, habit, or desire.
It’s an exercise in self-making. A quiet refusal to be finished.
This lines up with Goldsmith’s daily self review. I have also failed to do that.
“ to love is a greater boon than to be loved.”
“ Love rescues us from all errors that wreck or impaired wedlock.”
