This Book Changed My Life

Not too long ago, I was in a conversation, and the topic strayed into books. I was, of course, delighted by this. And it wasn’t so much the content of the books that we were discussing, but rather the way in which people, broadly speaking, talk about books.

Yes, very meta. Anyway.

But the general consensus of that little group was a distaste for the gushing review of “this book changed my life.” And while I tend to agree that the claim that a singular work, by itself and the reader’s experience of it, radically altered the trajectory of that reader’s life is, by and large, hyperbolic, I do agree that books can and do change lives. 

It’s just that, like, all of them do. Just a little bit. And not usually so much that you’d notice.

So yes, this book changed my life. But “this book” is every book. All of them. 

I have never read a book so poorly written or vapid in nature that I didn’t learn something from it. Maybe what I learned was only “I don’t like that” or “I have a low opinion of this writer’s skills.” But that’s still something. And learning things, by either fractional degrees or wide arcs, changes your life. Just probably not in the way people usually take that adage to mean. I’m not saying that a single learned lesson can’t cause a Saul on the Road to Damascus Moment. I’m saying it’s vanishingly rare.

Because humans don’t change radically overnight. Philosophical inertia sets in. Or, from a biological standpoint, our brains build neural roads for the routes our thoughts usually travel, making it faster and easier to think those thoughts (and, therefore, exhibit those behaviors) than others. Think of them like freeways. Sure, you could take backroads to get where you’re going, but this way is faster, easier, and passes by your favorite coffee shop.

So to make a change in the way you think and act — to change your life — not only do you need to find a new neural route, you need to travel that route often enough that your brain builds a road for it. This is basically how habit formation works, and you can go listen to/read other people if you want more about that.

Anyway. To continue with my road analogy, learning things, even little things, opens areas of the map, as it were. It expands the available options to which, and through which, your brain-roads can go. It illuminates other options, from side streets and access roads all the way down to footpaths and game trails.

So when a reviewer gushes about the transcendent, revelatory experience of Book X, what is far more likely is that it simply unlocked the portion of the map that reveals the connecting path to the locations revealed by Books and Experiences A through W.

Now let’s bring in another idea. A friend of mine recently explained an interesting bit of personal philosophy to me that I think contributes a lot to this sort of pondering. Think of something important to you. It can be something physical, like an object or activity, or something abstract, like a belief or an idea.

We all have things that are important to us. Even the most devoted ascetic who has shed all concern for worldly goods has done so because the shedding — or the goal the shedding was in service to — is important to them. 

But what makes something important? It’s important because we have ascribed meaning to it. That’s it. That’s the only reason. Value (because I am fundamentally incapable of going more than a couple of months without making a reference to economics) is subjective. My tier list of important stuff is never going to exactly match yours.

But meaning doesn’t matter unless it is attached, in some way, to the material. And I don’t mean literal items or people. I mean actions. Meaning isn’t meaning if it isn’t acted upon in some way. And because only individuals act (again, economics, I’m so sorry), the conjunction between the Material and Meaning, that nexus of connection, is the individual Being.

Basically, you are what you do. And what you do is because of what it means to you.

So, coming back to books and how they change lives. Books — stories — reveal. They say, Behold, and understand. And in understanding, we ascribe meaning. What that meaning is is entirely up to the individual. That meaning combines within the individual with the material world through action, no matter how minor. Those combinations and connections form the gestalt that is the Being.

And that’s it. That’s the show. That’s our entire lives. Nudged along by the things we do (or don’t do), which are informed by the value — the meaning — we place on the items and people and ideas we encounter along the way. The more we experience, whether literally or vicariously through a story, the larger and more robust our Being becomes.

We are what we do. 

And there are far worse things to be than a teller of stories.