Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens

Ok. So I've been delinquent in all of my self-assigned tasks. I am terrible at waiting and there is nothing new happening. So I've been stewing in nothingness instead of moving forward with anything. This is a dangerous head space for me.

I'm playing catch-up with my writing because I just can't read my current book in large amounts. Its too slow and I start wandering mentally while skimming the pages.

Christopher Hitchens' book was denser than I thought. It's a mere 141 pages. I thought it would be a breeze!

Hitchens instructs his readers on how to be a free thinker, a dissident. He also explores the cyclical nature of the concept of a dissident. A dissident is often unappreciated in their own time and then as their ideas become popular, a new batch of dissidents arise. This is the nature of being contrary. Hitchens warns that is a life full of unpopularity. He covers politics, religion, and the meaning of life - in 141 pages!

In my own contrary way, I find people who do so much talking to be in need of more living. Why do we have to examine every single moment as if it were momentous? Why? He must have been tired all the time.

In the end, I gave myself time to digest his words - not chapter by chapter but as a whole. Here's what I found: Hitchens wants his reader to rage, rage against the dying of the light. To question, to observe, to dive in with both feet. To see that conviction and time will give you small victories or big ones and that is what it means to be human.

So for us 20-somethings...rage! Rage against the dying of the light! Rage for body cams on police. On marriage equality. Pick a small battle and win it. Then pick another and another. Be passionate. Once, on a walk with my dog through my parents quiet but not quite suburban neighborhood a woman passing me told me she liked my shirt. Then she immediately asked if I was ever afraid to wear it out in public. I looked at her blankly and said why should I be. I was wearing a Planned Parenthood t-shirt. I guess I'm not afraid of being unpopular just yet.

Favorite quotes:
"All human achievement must also be accomplished by mammals and this realization (interesting negated by sexless plaster saints and representations of angels) puts us in a useful spot. It strongly suggests that anyone can do what the heroes have done." p. 93

"In some ways, I feel sorry for racists and for religious fanatics, because they so much miss the point of being human, and deserve a sort of pity. But then I harden my heart, and decide to hate them all the more, because of the misery they inflict and because of the contemptible excuses they advance for doing so." p. 109

"The high ambition, therefore, seem to me to be this: That one should strive to combine the maximum of impatience with the maximum of skepticism, the maximum of the hatred of injustice and irrationality with the maximum of ironic self-criticism. This would mean really deciding to learn from history rather than invoking or sloganising it." p. 138

Half-Broke Horses: A True Life Novel by Jeannette Walls

Wow - this book was one of those that I slowed down towards the end. Because I really wanted to keep hearing about Lily Casey's life.

Walls wrote Half-Broke Horses about her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. She notes in the end that she was able to confirm most of the details of her grandmother's life even after her death. 

The story starts out a lot like Laura Ingalls Wilder for grown-ups. The life is hard but the writing is simple, a recounting of events. The voice is a little idealized - the way kids remember events so differently from their parents. 

By the time Lily is my age, she has: been a teacher, moved to Chicago, been married, had the marriage annulled, worked as a maid, dealt with the death of a friend, and says she is still figuring out what she wants out of life. She never seems to be afraid to be herself. She learns to drive and eventually to fly a plane. She isn't afraid of hard work. She plays poker. It's not until after her sister Helen dies that she decides to "settle down" and marries Jim Smith.

This must be a book for twenty-somethings because the lesson is to keep going. Don't forget your dreams - like learning to fly an airplane - but save them for the right time.

Favorite quotes:
"I realized that in the months since Helen had died, I hadn't been paying much attention to things like the sunrise, but that old sun had been coming up anyway. It didn't really care how I felt, it was going to rise and set regardless of whether I noticed it, and if I was going to enjoy it that was up to me." p. 113

"There was a big difference between needing things and wanting things - though a lot of people had trouble telling the two apart - and at the ranch, I could see, we'd have pretty much everything we'd need but precious little else." p. 134

"Life came with as much adventure and danger as any one body needed. You didn't have to go chasing after them." p. 257