Taking it up a notch

Ok loyal readers, it's a serious blog today.

I ran errands this morning and have been working this evening, but the most interesting part of my day came in late afternoon.  We finally went to get our work permits completed, which meant going to a government office, signing forms, getting fingerprinted and waiting in line.  I had two very moving experiences during the waiting part.

The first was this video, which was playing silently on one of the screens in the waiting room.  It's from MTV's Exit program about raising awareness to stop human trafficking.  It took me a minute to figure out what it was about, but it's really powerful, especially now that I'm teaching.  I encourage you to watch it and find out what you can do to help.  This includes thinking a little more about what you buy and where it comes from and considering why it may be such a good deal. 


Radiohead and MTV EXIT: All I Need (2008) from MTV EXIT on Vimeo.

Here's the website if you'd like to learn more.
http://www.mtvexit.org/



The second thing that happened while I was waiting in line was that I finally finished my book.  It's called The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement by David Brooks.  It was really interesting, well-written and moving - I cannot recommend it highly enough.  Thanks, Mom, for telling me about it, and Anne, for giving me a Kindle to read it on.  I'm going to include some information about it below for anyone that's interested.  If you have a Kindle too, I'd be happy to lend you a digital copy.  :) 
 

Author David Brooks writes an op-ed column for the New York Times and is a regular contributor on NPR's All Things Considered, which is where Mom heard about it.  Below is a descriptive quote about the book from Amazon:


"David Brooks has written an absolutely fascinating book about how we form our emotions and character. Standing at the intersection of brain science and sociology, and writing with the wry wit of a James Thurber, he explores the unconscious mind and how it shapes the way we eat, love, live, vacation, and relate to other people. In The Social Animal, he makes the recent revolution in neuroscience understandable, and he applies it to those things we have the most trouble knowing how to teach: What is the best way to build true relationships? How do we instill imaginative thinking? How do we develop our moral intuitions and wisdom and character? Brooks has always been a keen observer of the way we live. Now he takes us one layer down, to why we live that way."
--Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute, past chairman of CNN and managing editor of Time magazine.

It's difficult for me to explain why I loved this book so much.  I think it's the same reason I liked In Defense of Food, because I felt the author was putting into words something I had already known for a long time, but had never been able to articulate.  It somehow gracefully merges the realms of teaching, politics, decision-making, love, relationships, science, spirituality, failure, achievement, and above all, illustrates the power and importance of the unconscious.

Here is a link to the NPR site if you'd like to learn more about the book, and you can listen to the author interview podcast here as well. 
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/07/134329412/david-brooks-defines-the-new-social-animal