Scan barcode
A review by findyourgoldenhour
Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamott
3.0
I’ve been a fan of St. Anne forever, so I was looking forward to reading this one. Her writing can be a balm to the soul.
The chapter on our current political reality really spoke to me; I needed to read about someone else struggling with not letting the other side win, and by that I mean not taking the bait and seeing them as the “other side” and therefore seeing them as other. It’s really, really hard these days.
”Empathy begins when we realize how much alike we all are. My focus on hate made me notice I’m too much like certain politicians. The main politician I’m thinking of and I are always right. I, too, can be a blowhard, a hoarder, needing constant approval and acknowledgment, needing to feel powerful...I don’t think he meant to grow up to be a racist who debased women. But he was raised afraid and came to believe that all he needed was a perfect woman, a lot of money, and maybe a few more atomic weapons. He must be the loneliest, emptiest man on earth.
This country has felt more stunned and doomed than at any time since the assassinations of the 1960s and the Vietnam War, and while a sense of foreboding may be appropriate, the hate is not. At some point, the hate becomes an elective. I was becoming insane, letting politicians get me whipped up into visions of revenge, perp walks, jail. And this was satisfying for a time. But it didn’t work as a drug, neither calming nor animating me. There is no beauty or safety in hatred. As a long-term strategy, based on craziness, it’s doomed.
...I don’t want my life’s ending to be that I was toxic and self-righteous, and I don’t know if my last day here will be next Thursday or in twenty years. Whenever that day comes, I want to be living, insofar as possible, in the Wendell Berry words ‘Be joyful though you have considered all the facts,’ and I want to have had dessert.”
I’m giving this three stars because the book itself felt disjointed and rambling. And I read parts of it already, almost word-for-word, on her Facebook feed. But it’s a quick read and overall I felt like it was worth my time.
The chapter on our current political reality really spoke to me; I needed to read about someone else struggling with not letting the other side win, and by that I mean not taking the bait and seeing them as the “other side” and therefore seeing them as other. It’s really, really hard these days.
”Empathy begins when we realize how much alike we all are. My focus on hate made me notice I’m too much like certain politicians. The main politician I’m thinking of and I are always right. I, too, can be a blowhard, a hoarder, needing constant approval and acknowledgment, needing to feel powerful...I don’t think he meant to grow up to be a racist who debased women. But he was raised afraid and came to believe that all he needed was a perfect woman, a lot of money, and maybe a few more atomic weapons. He must be the loneliest, emptiest man on earth.
This country has felt more stunned and doomed than at any time since the assassinations of the 1960s and the Vietnam War, and while a sense of foreboding may be appropriate, the hate is not. At some point, the hate becomes an elective. I was becoming insane, letting politicians get me whipped up into visions of revenge, perp walks, jail. And this was satisfying for a time. But it didn’t work as a drug, neither calming nor animating me. There is no beauty or safety in hatred. As a long-term strategy, based on craziness, it’s doomed.
...I don’t want my life’s ending to be that I was toxic and self-righteous, and I don’t know if my last day here will be next Thursday or in twenty years. Whenever that day comes, I want to be living, insofar as possible, in the Wendell Berry words ‘Be joyful though you have considered all the facts,’ and I want to have had dessert.”
I’m giving this three stars because the book itself felt disjointed and rambling. And I read parts of it already, almost word-for-word, on her Facebook feed. But it’s a quick read and overall I felt like it was worth my time.