First Lines of Arthur Brooks "Strength to Strength"

 "Who are the five greatest scientists who have ever lived? This is the kind of question people like to debate in nerdy corners of the internet that you probably don't visit, and I don't intend to take you there. But no matter how much or little you know about science, your list is sure to include Charles Darwin. He is remembered today as a man who changed our understanding of biology completely and permanently. So profound was his influence that his celebrity has never wavered since his death in 1882.

And yet Darwin died considering his career to be a disappointment."

- Arthur Brooks, Strength to Strength  

As I get older, I have an obvious interest in what success looks like as as an aging person in a society obsessed with youth. Brooks examines middle-aged and elderly satisfaction though many different lenses, and perhaps the most interesting to me was the idea of Fluid vs. Crystalized Intelligence. Put simply, Fluid Intelligence is reasoning and problem solving while Crystallized Intelligence is the combined use of past knowledge. Or as Brooks puts it: "When you are young, you have raw smarts; when you are old, you have wisdom."

Strength to Strength is essentially a survey of ideas. While not all of them resonated with me, I enjoyed the journey. The book certainly helped me (as someone who just turned 50) reframe my tendencies towards synthesis and common sense as a benefit, not a bug. 

Quote of the day

 "The last clear definite function of man - muscles aching to work, mind aching to create beyond the single need - this is man... For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments."

- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

First Lines of Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game"

 "I've watched though his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going to get."

"That's what you said about the brother."

- Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

First Lines of Richard Powers "The Overstory"

 "First there was nothing. Then there was everything.

Then, in a park above a western city after dusk, the air is raining messages. A woman sits on the ground, leaning against a pine. Its bark presses hard against her back, as hard as life. Its needles scent the air and a force hums in the heart of the wood. Her ears tune down to the lowest frequencies. The tree is saying things, in words before words."

- Richard Powers, "The Overstory"