my mind on books

Noted educator Herbert Kohl writes a short, sweet memoir about his study of Chinese painting in Painting Chinese: A Lifelong Teacher Gains the Wisdom of Youth.
Nearing the age of seventy, during a time of transition in his life, Kohl decides to take up the study of Chinese painting, seemingly on a whim, and finds himself in a class at the Joseph Fine Arts School working alongside five- to seven-year-old Chinese and Chinese American children. Kohl’s background as an educator informs his observations of himself as a pupil as well as his appreciation of the traditional pedagogical method of the school, based on “creative copying” of classical paintings. The students work individually, all copying different paintings under the guidance of the teacher, so there is no sense of competition. Kohl observes:

As my lessons went on and I had a chance to observe the children over time, I could see that they were developing self-discipline, confidence, pleasure in their own achievements, and, most of all, patience with their own learning. Ironically, by abandoning competition in this gentle and encouraging environment, they were acquiring strengths and skills that would serve them well in a competitive learning environment, where self-discipline and focused work are the essence of academic success. It even occurred to me that Joseph’s way of teaching, if was widespread through informal learning experiences in the Chinese community, might partially account for the amazing success of Chinese and Chinese American students in schools. (p. 30)

Kohl’s painting lessons also prompt some forays into Chinese culture, as he explores legends of the Monkey King and the meaning of bamboo. Later he discovers “…how much my perception of nature had been transformed by painting Chinese. I looked at the ocean as a force, alive and active. Trees had become individual beings…. I let the environment take hold of me rather than just walk through it.” (p. 143)

Adjusting to old age by “growing up again” is a frequent theme, as Kohl reflects on the experience:

Painting Chinese provided me with a condensed second childhood, one I could grow through painlessly, stage by stage… to become settled into old age. Traveling from monkeys to hermit landscapes led me to understand the contradictions that drove my life…. The sensibility of the Chinese painting and poetry that moves me enhances those contradictions: water versus rock, storm versus calm, war versus tranquility, solitude versus companionship, love versus enmity. One landscape can hold all those opposites in tension, explicitly or by implication. … Painting Chinese and my brush with the Tao has taught me that these contradictions are necessary and welcome. There is no final resolution to the contradictions, to the balance between the positive and the negative and the striving toward wholeness. As Monkey King said, the holy books and all the sacred documents are and will forever remain incomplete. (p. 158)

A donkey doesn’t so much accept its cruel fate as bears it, lets it pass over them. They’re the most philosophical of all animals, much more philosophical about their fate than human beings. And it’s an instinctive philosophy, a stoic acceptance, a kind of beautiful strength, passive rather than aggressive, not an ugly violent power. Needless to say, their philosophy isn’t academic, isn’t read in books or taught in a privileged classroom: it’s everyday, a simple disposition that’s lived out and practised, in an open field. We might say, if we used philosophical-speak, that a donkey’s philosophy is ontological, that it’s all about Being, the philosophy of permanent reverie, of daydreaming in the open air.

That’s a snippet from a longish book excerpt included in The Times article on The Wisdom of Donkeys: Finding Tranquility in a Chaotic World by Andy Merrifield (Walker and Co., 2008).

See also “Donkeys and wisdom” at hermit’s thatch.

Sue M. Halpern reviews several recent books on happiness for the New York Review of Books (4/3/08), concluding:

And so it comes back to the problem of relying on overly broad, categorical, static words like fear and happiness to describe, diagnose, predict, and expound, words that don’t get us very far, as patients, as subjects, as readers. This problem with language may explain why, though we all say we’re happy, the library of how-to-get-happy books and why-we’re-not-happy books is expanding. Anyone who spends time in that section of the stacks is likely to cheer Jerome Kagan’s transcendent (hopeful, gracious) and courageous (brave, valiant, courteous) request:

Let us agree to a moratorium on the use of single words, such as fear, anger, joy, and sad, and write about emotional processes with full sentences rather than ambiguous, naked concepts that burden readers with the task of deciding who, whom, why, and especially what.

Links for the books reviewed:

The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Sonja Lyubomirsky
Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment by Tal Ben-Shahar
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy by Eric Wilson
What Is Emotion?: History, Measures, and Meanings by Jerome Kagan

“Honorable Mention”: Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman.

Sue Halpern’s forthcoming book is Can’t Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research.

Link to the review

author (of the book) Gregg Easterbrook’s webpage

In ‘Comment is free’ at The Guardian (UK) ‘Happy talk’ summarizes a recent lecture by Richard Schoch (author of ‘The Secrets of Happiness: Three Thousand Years of Searching for the Good Life‘); here’s an excerpt:

The fundamental error of the science [of happiness] – and the reason why so many of its recommendations sound trivial or just confused – is the assumption that happiness is the same as positive emotion. Researchers are continuously drawn back to this idea since it makes happiness measurable. In fact, that is in itself debatable. But if you do take happiness to be tantamount to pleasure you are left with a woefully insufficient model of felicity.

In a similar vein philosopher Colin McGinn has recently been wondering “whether utilitarianism might have neglected the fact that melancholy can sometimes be a good thing” (in response to the recent book Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy by Eric G. Wilson).

Happiness: How the World Keeps Smiling
is a beautiful travel diary/photo book with a happiness theme.

Link to New releases in happiness at Amazon.com