Every other book...

I'm afraid of taking steps that are not on the map, 

but by taking those steps despite my fears, 

I have a much more interesting life.

- Paulo Coelho

Lisa and I had known each other for quite a few years.  We had met when I was in graduate school.  Subsequent to that, we joined the same church and saw each other several times a week for nearly three decades.  We played in the church band together – she a piano player…me rhythm guitar player – rhythm guitar…a euphemism for mediocre play. 

“I thought you might enjoy this book,” she said handing me a copy of Colin Powell’s autobiography.  I smiled and said with little attempt to hide the shallowness of my intellectual curiosity, “I really don’t read non-fiction.  You know, the ending is not a surprise.”

“Well,” she continued as if I had said nothing, “I think you would like it anyway.”  With a faint smile I took the book, knowing because I saw her regularly, I would be reading this book!

I have enjoyed reading most of my life, but up to that time, spent most of my time in fiction.  Outside of the scripture and my professional reading, I had greatly enjoyed Michael Connolly, Pat Conroy, Lee Childs, Danial Silva, and Ken Follett, among a fair number of other writers.  Mysteries and broad-brush stories of life, heroic battles against all odds, and love drew my attention.

Lisa’s recommendation turned out to be a surprisingly good, and much more entertaining than I had anticipated.  This book would alter my life.  Actually, it wasn’t the book.  It was the decision following the book that changed everything.

A tiny course change…

Powell’s book seemed enjoyable enough that I thought, “What if every other book I read for the next year is one I wouldn’t read under any circumstance?”  For surely, left to my own devices, I would not have read this one.  I’m not exactly sure how the idea emerged, but I figured with the demands of life, one year of alternating books like this couldn’t be that painful!

At first this new rhythm was awkward.  The initial book was the Lord Russell's, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, probably not the best first pick for length, but it turned out to be a real page-turner.  How Eichmann was eventually tracked down and captured in Brazil was as good as any spy novel I had read.  My incentive, however, was to get through the book so I could reward myself with my normal fare.

That first year went by out of shear discipline and duty.  I haven’t always kept my resolutions, but for some reason I slogged through the tall grass for the next 12 months. 

As the year ended, the friction of reading new things didn’t seem so bad, and I had, in fact, actually enjoyed a couple of the books.  I thought, maybe I would see if I could do it for another year.

Year two…

During the ‘…second year of planting…’ an interesting thing began to happen.  I found myself pushing my way through the novels a little more quickly, in anticipation of the landscape of the ‘…next unknown...’ world to be revealed.  The criterion for choosing each book was simple.  I would wander over to the nonfiction section of the library and glance at the titles, thinking to myself, “Who would read this kind of book?”  Over time, I found that more and more I was standing in front of history and philosophy, with a biography or two along the way.

In the years since that small decision everything has changed about the way I read and the things I am interested in.  Over that time, I have been unable to finish only three or four books I had chosen.  The first unfinished title was Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter.  I picked it from a best seller’s list, and gave it a pretty heroic effort, but some 200 pages in; I just could not bring myself to read any more.  I found the same thing in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.  I felt badly that I couldn’t ‘get them,’ but I just didn’t have what it took to finish them up…failure with Gatsby a particular disappointment, because it was considered an American classic by one of this country’s most celebrated writers.

Over the years nothing is the same. New, and formerly completely unknown, worlds have opened up.  I have found ‘friends’ from bygone eras who were so able to express the thoughts and feelings I had, but could not put into words.  I have traveled the seas, poked through jungles, and felt the fears as well as joys of men and women so able to paint canvases in brilliant and subtle shades of color.  I have found the kinds of writers that resonate with my soul like the harmonics of a cosmic harp in the universe, that when plucked, vibrate and touch my heart as if the author were in the room whispering intimately in my ear.

I have come to appreciate most everything I thought to be unique has happened again and again and again and again.  The intrigue, the political debate and vilification of one’s opponent, the love, the fidelity, the betrayal – whether today or in Empires past…it's all the same. 

Solomon was right, “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).  I have, however, come to appreciate purchasing tickets to become a ‘peeping Tom’ into the minds of thoughtful people has expanded almost everything about the way I think…maybe with foresight, minimize at least the mistakes of the past.

I would like to be able to say, this part of my life’s journey was the result of a deliberate effort to increase the quality of my life.  I would like to say that I had a burning and unquenchable intellectual curiosity.  I would like to say that I am insightful and take the broader view of things.  All of that, of course, would be utter nonsense!  My life perceptions changed because I didn’t want to disappoint my friend Lisa…it was by accident, and I might add, in retrospect, a happy accident indeed.

Wrapping around the edges…

In the end, it’s the one degree of change that makes the difference isn’t it?  You know how the story goes…two boats begin a journey together, with their courses just one degree different.  In the early going, it appears they are heading in the same direction, but over time, they drift further and further apart until eventually, they are completely out of sight of one another.   It was a one-degree of difference in my life, in this particular circumstance, which put this part of the trajectory of my life completely out of view from where it was headed.

This small course shift seemed to be nothing more than a minor adjustment in my peripheral vision.  I haven’t seen Lisa now for some time.  Life and circumstance has changed all of that.  However, every time I pick up another spyglass that allows me to peek into the mind of those men and women who have labored to share their thoughts and ideas with me, I think of her.

The next time you find yourself looking for a good read, why not try something YOU would never read under any circumstance...

Thanks Lisa…

- ted