The End of Your Life Book Club

The End of Your Life Book Club

By Will Schwalbe

I'd like to recommend a book. 'The End of Your Life Book Club' by Will Schwalbe. This book has many things going for it. 

1. It's about the pleasures and rewards of reading and a reader's life.
2. It's about how reading can sustain us in times of turmoil.
3. It's in the same vain as 'When Breath Becomes Air', 'Being Mortal', 'Brain on Fire' and 'Stir'
4. It's a story of a son's relationship with his mother. Positive as I wish mine was.
5. It chronicles many books as they read together from 'Crossing to Safety' by Wallace Stegner to Jon Kabat-Zinn’s 'Full Catastrophe Living' to 'The Price of Salt' by Patricia Highsmith and about 40 more.
6. They point out the nuggets in the fiction that help build mental models of the world. In a way I hadn't considered in the past. Hard to explain. Rather than explicitly saying an action is a bias, these stories put people with biases into action and tells the outcome rather they overcome and discover or fall into the pits. This takes more work to see the lessons.
7. Their love of the reading is infectious.  
8. A well told story ultimately about the courage to face life.
9. It choked me up and brought tears to my eyes as a only a good story can.

Small changes ripple outward

“Do as Socrates did, never replying to the question of where he was from with, ‘I am Athenian,’ or ‘I am from Corinth,’ but always, ‘I am a citizen of the world.’”

— Epictetus - Discourses, I, 9.1

Small changes ripple outward. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I like you. We can never know what a difference a smile or a few kind words impacts others. Stories of the simple kindness of strangers are filled with positive impact. We are so interconnected. These small acts of kindness are so low cost that I wonder why I don’t continuously spew kindness. Am I afraid to be considered an overly kind person? (Silly!) Is there such a thing as being overly kind? 

Showing up

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Snake River Drawbridge connecting Clarkston with Lewiston, Washington with Idaho.

“Set yourself in motion, if it is in your power, and do not look about you to see if anyone will observe it; nor yet expect Plato’s Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter.”

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, IX.29

Enthusiasm develops with interest, interest develops through investigation, investigation is facilitated by showing up.

Showing up is the beginning and the easiest yet most important step. This is a technique I’m working with in concert with my woodworking. Showing up in the shop. Soaking in the atmosphere. Fretting from here to there. Cleaning, organizing, taking inventory. Sparks will happen, enthusiasm will come, be patient. I keep telling myself to "be patient” and keep showing up. 

Developing within a gap.

There is a gap between what I want and what I am now. This gap is where the excuses live and where the opportunity is. This is the same gap between my taste and the execution of my craft. The gap is where the real work is, the work of living life. Alasdair MacIntyre said “The good life is the life spent seeking the good life.”

Paraphrased: A good life is found while doing the stuff the makes a good life. Cyclical, isn't it?

Working in the gap is a good investment. Good thoughts lead to good actions. Repeated, this becomes a habit. Let’s study this gap more. There is a gap in my taste of woodworking - spoon making specifically, there is a gap in my abilities to weld, there is a gap in where I want my web presence to be and where it is, there is a gap in my health, there is a gap in my social life, there is a gapping gap in my photography.

In this gap are all my excuses. Reasons I tell myself why I can’t perform. I don’t have the money excuses. Excuses include:

•  Time
•  Energy
•  Fear of ostracization
•  Wrong group of friends
•  Poor thinking 

Becoming successful at the wrong thing.

I worry that I’m wasting time becoming successful at the wrong thing. This is a general feeling. Like I could be focusing on something other than I am currently focused on that would further my life project. But is this true or helpful? I am a reader. I spend time reading and also time reading about reading. Looking at the mechanics of the art. I realize that I read like I was taught to read early in grade school. A reactively immature process. I’ve been spending more time reading inspectionally and analytically. This doesn’t seem a waste of time but there is an opportunity cost. All this time comes out of the life bucket. And this bucket is metaphorically getting smaller and smaller. The time has so far come from the woodworking project which is languishing.

The Pull of Trivia

How much time do we spend on what is the most important priority in our lives? Our life is filled with projects, relationships projects, the home project, work projects, the fitness project, the reading/learning project. These all have important aspects that want attention. Yet so much of my/our attention is syphoned off and stolen by trivia. How do we let this happen? Even knowing that we are susceptible to this, we are not immune and we continue. Why is the pull towards the trivia so strong? Take action to align your life with what matters.

12 Intimate Acts

“A brief existence is common to all things, and yet you avoid and pursue all things as if they would be eternal.”

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, X.34

Can I apply these "12 Intimate Acts" to my death? No I’m not aware of the timing of my death. Like everyone, always, the timing is unknown. I’m aware that if we don’t actualize these “12 Intimate Acts” in all we do then when death arrives we’ll have regrets. Will I have the strength and courage to face these challenges when my body fails? Will I be able to see through the pain, confused and being alone? I hope so but we’ll see. 

1. Be Will
2. Act the way I want to feel
3. Do it now
4. Enjoy the process
5. Make stuff
6. Spread Love
7. Talk to strangers
8. Stay in touch
9. Make haste to be kind
10. Dig deep
11. Want less
12. Breathe