Tapestries-42 | I'm writing a book, man.
Here's why, what it's about, and why I want your input.
It’s been a while since I published my last post. I’ve been on the road, and it’s been a little chaotic. But while I haven’t been publishing, I have been writing. And I’m excited to share something with you, both because I’m excited about the project, but also because I’d love your help. So here we go.
I’ve decided I’m going to write a book. I’ve previously written about the importance of affirmatively stating what I believe, and why, and a book feels like the right format for this type of exploration. I think it’s an important statement to make, both for the current and future versions of myself. I want to invest time in something I’ll be proud of, and this is a project I’m really excited about.
My writing journey has been one of exploration and curiosity, and it started with these monthly Tapestry pieces over two years ago. So it feels appropriate to share the project here, and in keeping with the openness I hope my writing conveys, I want to run you through the book’s background, outline and process. This piece is therefore designed to achieve a few things: explain why I’m writing a book, describe what the book is about, and ask for your feedback to help me progress.
I’ll start by explaining why I want to write a book, and to frame that discussion, here’s a short summary of what the book is about:
We are living through a period of disorientation. The world appears to be changing around us at breakneck speed, with the change occurring along many different vectors all at once: cultural, technological, geopolitical and spiritual. And to compound the sense of radical change, the observer in all of this—me and you—is undergoing our own changes as we grow, age and evolve. We are therefore confronted with two parallel, fundamental questions: what is the state of the world, and how should we conduct ourselves within it? And to answer them, we need new models and approaches.
My aim is to write a book addressing these two questions, with the ultimate contention that our paths forward as individuals and as a community must include a rediscovery of spirituality and virtue; my challenge is to describe the world as it is, and to articulate what a life of “spirituality” or “virtue” actually entails. Writing the book will be a personal journey, and it’s one I want to go on alongside you, readers and friends. I’ll expand on the book’s outline later on, and for now, I want to explain why I’m writing it.
Why now, and why me?
Friends who have written books before advised me to draft a “book proposal.” It’s a template authors complete that amongst other things, describes the book’s background, and its outline, structure and contention. One of the versions I’ve been using also asks what prompted you to write the book, and why are you the author? I found these two questions particularly helpful, and if I’m asking for your help, I better explain the why now and why me. Here’s my answer to both questions.
What prompted you to write the book?
The first prompt for writing this book is the feeling that it’s a logical next step for my writing. I have published an essay on a monthly basis for over two years. I have found over time that many of these essays have been explorations of a particular trend or event or conversation through a lens crafted using a particular worldview and set of values. On reflection, the essay format has its limitations in addressing these questions or topics. First, purporting to interpret events or conversations through a consistent lens requires an articulation of what that lens is, and where it derives from. And second, using specific events or conversations to reveal a particular worldview uses a type of logic that has diminishing returns; at some point, one must use the learnings derived from investigating specific questions to build a more general view of the world. I believe I am at the point now where I must make an affirmative statement on how I believe the world to be, and why (as much for myself as anyone else).
The second prompt for writing this book is more personal. I'm living through an introspective period in my own life; I'm asking myself where I want to be, where I should focus my attention, and critically, what legacy I ultimately want to leave behind. My answers to these questions will be relative to this particular period in my life: recently married, somewhat focused on myself, with developing thoughts about what type of life I want to build. But while my answers to these questions will likely be different in the future, it doesn’t detract from the importance of making an affirmative statement about what it is I value and hold true right now. I want to make it clear to myself and those that come after me, what it is that I believed and thought as a newly married 31-year-old making his way in the world, with the start of a family hopefully around the corner. In a nice bit of circularity, it’s a continuation of the first piece I ever published, “Things I’d tell my 50-year-old self.”
Why are you the author?
The first reason I am the author is precisely because I am not meant to be the author of a book like this. I am not particularly special. I have never written a book before. I do not have a grounding in any discipline designed to explain the world. I am no philosopher, psychologist, sociologist or historian. I'm just some schmuck living at a particular time, in a particular place, looking to develop a toolkit to help me live a life I can be proud of. Writing the book is a direct expression of the desire to lead an “examined life,” and I think a lack of specific domain expertise is actually an asset in the exploration, not a hindrance. The only qualification one needs to address these questions is good faith, and I hope you’d agree I bring a good faith approach to all my enquiries. So while the questions I’m asking have been asked for thousands of years before me, and have been answered by those more qualified, more wise and more articulate, I believe I have something useful to add to the question how can one live a life to be proud of today. Despite my lack of “qualifications,” it’s a question I feel qualified to explore.
The second reason I am the author of this book is because a consistent bit of feedback I receive is that my style and approach resonate strongly with readers. The questions I ask, and the challenges I describe, are ones that many in my cohort either ask themselves, or aren’t aware they are asking themselves until they’ve read them in my writing. I have learned that my readers consider my writing a joint exploration; they feel that in reading my writing, they are going on a journey with me driven by curiosity and humility, not pretense or over-intellectualization. I am the author of this book because I am asking hard, important questions, but doing so in a way that hopefully resonates with readers and invites them along for the experience, instead of making it feel like there is a body of theory or work inaccessible to them by virtue of a lack of sufficient background reading. We must address these questions together, and to do so, we must speak and write in a way that’s accessible to all. The feedback I receive therefore suggests my style is a good fit for the challenge.
So what’s the book actually about?
The background and the context
Now that we’ve covered the why now and why me, I’ll walk you through what the book is actually about. At its core, the book is a personal exploration designed to answer two ultimate questions: what is the nature of the world today, and how should we conduct ourselves within it? The circumstances in which I’m writing the book, and why I believe it covers important content in today’s climate, were articulated really beautifully by Rich Roll a few months ago. He described our current moment like this:
“We live in a time that I would define as a crisis of consciousness and spiritual connection. We're in this sort of competitive, predatory relationship with other people, with ourselves, with the world; it's a zero sum approach to basically everything. We’re materialists seeking answers in ego, status, money, power, consumption, accumulation. And it's also a culture in which it's considered a lower order naivete to seek reconciliation or answers in the mystical and the unknown, right? It's almost perceived as a weakness in this age of science. And yet when you look around you see depression rates and suicide rates at unprecedented levels; we're seeing this breakdown in our ability to civilly communicate with each other. The seeds of social destruction have been sewn. And from my perspective, the only way forward, the only salvation, is in spiritual practice and learning to more deeply connect with who we are to find our innate humanity that allows us to connect to others and live more symbiotically on this planet that supports us. And yet I despair at times because I don't see that as a cultural priority.”
I found this to be a particularly poignant description of our current moment, as it articulated the conditions that have led to a general feeling of imbalance.
Today we spend much of our time in the digital expanse of global “communities,” which we explore from the confines of an increasingly solitary physical existence; we are globally conscious but “imperially alone.” Our lives play out in view of so many, while being touched by so few. We constantly search, without a clear view of what we seek. We trust algorithms and obscure theories, while undermining institutions and intuitions that for better or worse, have guided us for as long as we can remember. We are far-flung members of a global audience spending our waking hours figuring out which “performance” we want to attend; and when we’re not browsing the world’s infinite playbill, we’re shuffling in and out of frame as protagonists in our own movies, incessantly generating content for the insatiable audience we believe is “waiting” on the other side of our phones.
My sense is the answer to the book’s questions, and therefore our hope for moving out of our malaise, lies in reacquainting ourselves with our own personal sense of virtue and spirituality, and elevating them once again, to use Rich’s phrasing, as cultural priorities. This is the background and context to the book.
The structure and the content
With the background in mind, the book is structured to cover the following questions: (1) what is the nature of the world we live in today, and how did we get here; (2) where are we headed; (3) what do we mean when we say rediscovering “virtue” and “spirituality” represents our path forward; and (4) how can we cultivate a life of virtue and spirituality within our current conditions? It aims to bring together a view of the world, and a plan for living in it. It is personal and subjective, while also addressing certain universal questions with humility, empathy and exploration as its guiding principles. Here’s a summary of what the book’s draft structure currently looks like:
Part 1: This part will attempt to answer the first question (what is the nature of the world we live in today?) by looking at (a) the way we interact with the world, (b) the nature of information and how we communicate, and (c) what it is that we believe.
Part 2: Here the book will address the second question (where are we headed?) and consolidate what was revealed in answering the first question, adding a practical dimension that flows into Part 3.
Part 3: This section will seek to articulate what we mean when we say “virtue” or “spirituality,” and why they are relevant today.
Part 4: The book will conclude by articulating an approach for living a life of true virtue and spirituality (supported by the exploration of Parts 1 and 2 and the thesis of Part 3) that fits the world in which we currently find ourselves.
The book’s launching off point will address the feeling of disorientation many of us are experiencing. Noise, confusion and turbulence are now features of our existence, and they are contributing to a loss of certitude for what is right and good. We have an internal sense for what is true, but our intuition has been undermined by what we’re told and what we’re compelled to feel by a rapidly evolving culture and its associated conflicts. We need new models to understand a world that’s having its interface with reality re-wired in real-time, and we need to talk about these models honestly, without judgment or pretense, and in a language anybody can understand.
The first half of the book will therefore seek to reduce the feeling of disorientation by exploring and naming the core features of our existence today, by considering how we got here, and by making some concise predictions about how these trends may evolve into the near-future. Part 1 will try to make sense of the change we’re living through by asking three questions: (a) how do we interact with the world, (b) what is the nature of information flow and how do we communicate, and (c) what do we believe? It is designed to flow neatly into Part 2, which will express a view on where we’re headed. It is broadly intended to set the scene for the discussion about spirituality and virtue in the second half of the book. And that’s where I need your input.
Parts 3 and 4: Enlighten me, dear readers
This is where the exploration truly begins, and the process of writing these sections is the real work of the book. That’s where I find the beauty in writing; the process itself is what reveals the ultimate position or opinion or viewpoint. If writing was simply the act of transcribing fully-formed, coherent thoughts, it wouldn’t be much fun; it’d be an elaborate form of dictation. So while I have a plan and thesis in mind, I won’t have a clear position on this part of the book until I actually write it. And to do so, I’d love your help.
My thesis is that our path forward involves living with a humble form of spirituality and an emphasis on virtue. But what does that mean? When I say spirituality am I referring to a form of meditation or mindfulness, or a regular and dedicated yoga practice? Or am I referring to actively incorporating Buddhism’s teachings into our daily lives? Or perhaps observing the Sabbath and continuing Jewish traditions is the source of one’s spirituality. And when I talk of “virtue,” what am I referring to? Is it a return to chivalry, greater tolerance and acceptance, or the rediscovery of courage? What do we consider “virtue,” and where do we distill it from? These questions are central to the book and the exploration, and they need some proverbial meat on the bone.
I have a sense of where the discussion about spirituality and virtue will head, but I want to ask you: how do spirituality and virtue present in your lives today? Are they things you intentionally cultivate, or do they perhaps result from practices you call by other names? The book is covering content everyone has a view on, whether they actively consider the questions or not. How we choose to live our lives, and what we decide to stand for, are responses to the book’s core questions, and we all take a position on them one way or another. So there are no answers per se; the book will simply be my expression of a worldview and approach to living a life worth being proud of. But the wisdom required to address these questions lives within all of us, and I’m keen to dig deeper to find it, both in myself and from those around me.
Bringing it together
So yeh, I’m going to write a book. I think it’ll be fun. I don’t know what I’m getting myself into, and I’m sure I’ll look back one day on the structure described above and laugh as the process will inevitably drag me to unforeseen places, structures and views. But now feels like the time to be asking these questions, and in the spirit of openness and transparency, I’d love your help as I set off on the journey.
Success to me will be holding a physical copy of the book one day. To the extent it’s helpful and interesting to others, that would be fantastic, but I do not envision this project being commercial in nature. I thought about naming the book “I Couldn’t Not” by Daniel Bookman, and I still think it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever had. But while it may not be a great name for a book (despite the wonderful alignment with my surname), it does accurately capture the sentiment; I want to be accountable to what I think and believe, and I love the process of writing, so in reality, I couldn’t not try and write a book.
Thanking you readers feels a little trite. But I do feel incredibly grateful that many of you have subscribed to Tapestry, and that some of you actively engage with me on my writing in really deep, thoughtful and constructive ways. Time will tell if I’m a competent author, but knowing I’ve got something useful to say from time to time has given me enough belief to attempt a project like this. So I guess I do owe you thanks, especially on the eve of Thanksgiving here in the US.
I’ll keep up the monthly writing as a way to test and iterate on certain chapters in the book, so you’ll hopefully see the project evolve in real-time. And in the meantime, you’ve got some homework: let me know (via return email, Whatsapp or wherever else you find me) how virtue and spirituality manifest in your lives today, and I hope you’ll come with me on what will hopefully be a journey of growth and exploration for all of us. LFG.
Photo by ali syaaban on Unsplash