Navigating the Path

2022 so far has been an interesting tale for me.  I'll spare you readers its downside and will instead focus on some things that have been particularly enlightening as I've navigated its path.  First, the books that I've read this year have all contributed well toward expanding my vision to see what life is about from many different perspectives, though there is a common theme here as you will see:

Doerr, Anthony. Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel. Simon & Schuster, 2021.

  • We see the world from ancient Greek times all the way into the postapocalyptic future.  The characters' struggles all form links from one story to the next through this epic thread as they learn things that bring them great wisdom toward understanding that their world views have been greatly mistaken or greatly misguided but ultimately transcendent.

Simon & Schuster's editor endorses Cloud Cuckoo Land

Cameron, Peter. What Happens at Night. Catapult Books, 2020. https://books.catapult.co/books/what-happens-at-night/

  • Another series of episodes in which the characters' world view changes profoundly as they find themselves in a strange land in the middle of a snowstorm, and their bearings never quite arrive.  What they think they want, what they find, and what they learn define their destination.
Clegg, Bill. Did You Ever Have a Family. Simon & Schuster, 2015. 

The cover of Clegg's book, very mysterious...
  • Characters navigate through the unexpected and find a way to create new families that they never would have imagined.  They find what truly matters when all is upended and reforms.
Hawley, Jack. The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners. New World Library, 2001.
  • The ultimate version of a character whose entire worldview is changed as he encounters the vast possibilities and the illusions of the material world upended in his path toward enlightenment, meeting a most unexpected Guide.  A life primer for a great many, including Gandhi.
The last of these books formed the cornerstone for a class I took this year about Eastern philosophies, which also led to this blog.  It also informed my class project/presentation about how humanitarianism had an impact in the course of Eastern philosophy through history.  What I liked best about the project is that it reinforced my perspective to consider how the cultures in the East worked toward the greater good of humankind, and what sorts of setbacks and leaps forward occurred along the way, and why.  I spent at least a good ten hours on this project since it required me to build a technical proficiency that I didn't have before.

The class for me was a big book that I'd never opened and never gained an impression of before.  My expectations were almost entirely unformed other than a few movies I'd seen and one visit to a Zen monastery.  What I wanted out of the course is what I gained, which is a grounding in the basics as a foundation to learn more and have some good points of reference as I discover more. I enjoyed this class quite a bit and learned a lot about the Eastern history and cultures as well as its philosophies. Especially enjoyable to me were the treasure hunts and museum visits with a huge inventory of artworks and architecture and other points of reference to illustrate the East and its history from a philosophical lens. I also learned the basics about putting together blogs, slide shows, and reference sources from JSTOR and summarizing them in the MLA format.  I'm quite grateful to have taken this class, though I wish that I'd had more time to spend to learn more about its subjects.  It has definitely increased my interest in these areas that I intend to explore much more.

WORKS CITED

Cameron, Peter. What Happens at Night. Catapult Books, 2020.

Clegg, Bill. Did You Ever Have a Family. Simon & Schuster, 2015. 

Doerr, Anthony. Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel. Simon & Schuster, 2021

Hawley, Jack. The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners. New World Library, 2001.

Simon & Schuster Books. "Nan Graham on CLOUD CUCKOO LAND: Why We Love It" YouTube, September 13, 2021. Accessed 17 May. 2022.


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