A.J. Jacobs: An Important Tonic Against Nihilism

It says on my LinkedIn account that I’m an author, lecturer and human guinea pig. I don’t want to argue with LinkedIn.

A typical day starts with a cup of coffee at my local coffee shop (I wrote a whole book about that one). Then I go to a shared workspace and type on my laptop at a table with a bunch of strangers. It gives me accountability. That way I’m too embarrassed to watch Netflix all day and actually have to be somewhat productive.

I’m reading a book called The Book of Why by Judea Pearl about theories of causation. Why did I choose that? Well, as I’ve learned, causation is complicated. The easiest answer is that my friend, an epidemiologist recommended it.

I’m not sure, but it could have been The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. Which is a very disturbing book in retrospect. They should not have let a stranger into the house. The fish is the only rational character in that book. An unsung hero.

I’m not monogamous. I switch between both.

When I had no friends and realized books couldn’t say “Sorry, we’re busy the rest of the year.” I know! Sad!

The real answer? Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman. I am very good at being a pessimist. I was born with that talent. But I had to learn how to retrain myself to have just a touch of optimism.

Anything but lying down. Because that leads to sleep within five minutes.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is a good motivational one for writers. Statistics for Dummies by Deborah J. Rumsey, because I think non-fiction writers and journalists need to be much smarter about statistics (including me). And maybe a Tom Wolfe book (e.g. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) because he’s so good at description and details.

I guess I’d try to make it spicy. Mix it up. So Richard Dawkins (noted atheist) next to King Solomon (author of the Psalms). And then Karl Marx next to Adam Smith. And for the fifth, my friend Stuart Gibbs, a brilliant children’s writer, just because I don’t get to see him enough.

I bought a book called How Art Works by Ellen Winner. It’s a scientific/psychological look at how we appreciate art. I love that genre – when writers apply to try to apply science to things like love, art and morality (with varying degrees of success).

One of my favorite things about reading is running across wacky British spelling like “theatre” and “favourite.” You folks are daft! (Is that a British word?) But actually, it’s sort of similar to that. I love to be exposed to different cultures an ideas and new ways of looking at the world.

I’m actually not a fan of superlatives. Superlatives are the worst!!! I always tell my kids, things are good for different reasons – there’s often no best X. That said, I read the Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury to my sons. I hadn’t read it since I was a kid, and I loved Bradbury’s imagination and gorgeous prose.

Wow, that’s a tough one. I’d like to be in the Bible to fact-check the parting of the Red Sea. If you’d ask me this when I was an adolescent, I’d choose to be inserted into the dirty parts of Wifey by Judy Blume, the book that first taught me the facts of life.

I think we should all read Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker. The thesis is that, despite the daily flood of negative news, the world is actually improving over the long term (less poverty, longer lives, etc.) I don’t agree with everything, but it’s an important tonic against nihilism and despair.

Probably the Encyclopedia Britannica. I read it for my first book, The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. I don’t remember a lot of the history I learned in that, but I do remember one thing: The good old days were not good. They were disease-ridden, violent, racist, sexist and very smelly. When I get depressed about my own life, I have a three-word mantra to give myself some perspective: Surgery without anaesthesia. I say it to myself over and over again. I read about it in the encyclopedia, and it has haunted me ever since.

Right now, I’m reading Educated by Tara Westover. It’s about a woman who grew up off the grid with an extremist Christian family. I’m reading it because I share a Kindle account with my wife, and she bought it for her book club. I know electronic books have their downsides, but one upside is that books just show up there and look interesting.

My friend Ryan Holiday (see Ryan Holiday’s interview) wrote The Daily Stoic. Can’t wait to read it. I think the stoic philosophy (and its intellectual cousin, Buddhist mindfulness) are excellent ways to go through life.

Image credit: Lem Lattimer