To Blink or Not to Blink

 

 

 

Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Trying, attempts to do a very difficult task.  Gladwell wants to show when it is most efficacious to make snap decisions without gathering very much knowledge and information, and when it is best to make very deliberate decisions.

Of course, many times we don’t have a choice.  We must make quick decisions without complete information, and under extreme stress.  Gladwell gives numerous examples of how snap decisions can often be the best decisions we can make.  He also gives a wealth of examples on how they can lead to our doom. 

But equally, gathering too much information can foul up decision making.  Gladwell gives examples of such occurrences, and also positive examples of fully informed decisions.

So, Gladwell walks the tight rope in Blink.  He wants to prove a point: that very often, our first impressions about people, events, ideas, are the correct one.  Gathering more information only fouls up that initial, correct assessment.  Yet this can go wrong as well, and he gives a wealth examples of how we carry our prejudices with us during our quick, uninformed decisions.

This will leave a casual reader a bit confused about Gladwell’s point, because his point his subtle.  Sometimes deliberation is in order; sometimes we must make decisions in the blink of any eye.  A great deal depends upon context.

Into the Silent Land

Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, by Father Martin Laird, explores the basics of meditation, concentrating on the silent repetition of a single word. For Martin, it is the Jesus Prayer, but this kind of silent practice, this stilling of the mind with the aid of a repetitive word, can be found in nearly every faith tradition.

Laird stressed the stillness, the quietness of the mind as the way to enter the silent land, the place where God dwells.  The simplicity of his practice points in all sorts of interesting directions (directions shared by many other contemplative traditions) that God and the divine are very near, even within us; that there really is no work to do to find this God-ness within and around us.   

We are really simply remembering, or re-remembering, our never severed connection with God when we practice silence.

The Seven Pillars of Faith and A Day in the Life of a Breslover Hasid

The Seven Pillars of Faith and A Day in the Life of a Breslover Hasid are very early basic introductions to Bratslav thinking and practice.  They were written by Yitzchok Breiter, who was born in 1886 and died in the Shoah sometime in 1943 in Treblinka.

Both books cover a great deal of ground, both summarizing and quoting Rabbi Nachman and his chief follower, Rabbi Nathan.  They both read surprisingly like works one would find today in the Jewish Renewal movement; they stress the “big-hearted” element of Bratslav, the joy of worship and living and doing for others that is such a wonderful mark of the movement.

This is a fine book to get your feet wet in Rebbe Nachman’s teachings.  It also bears a stamp of authenticity, as if was written by a card carrying Bresolver, in the days just before most of European Jewry was annihilated.
 

  

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference offers a provocative model of how change occurs in human systems.  He posits the idea of the tipping point, first used in the study of how infectious diseases spread, and uses that model to explain how certain behaviors spread across human populations.

It is an exciting idea, as most of us think of change as incremental, and also imagine that change must be systemic to work.  Gladwell makes a convincing case that little changes, when applied correctly, can create a tipping point to set in motion lasting change.

Gladwell’s book has a wealth of examples of how this works, perhaps too many.  The reader may get bogged down in the details and forget the point that Gladwell is trying to make.  Luckily, his summary ties everything together.

Whether his ideas about change in society are wholly correct I am not qualified to answer.  Certainly the book makes a great deal of sense across a wide range of phenomenon.  Whether it holds for all, I am skeptical.

Rebbbe Nachman and You

Rebbe Nachman and You, by Chaim Kramer, is an exploration of Bratslav Hasidic thought from a very orthodox view.  This publication is provided by the Bratslav Research Center, and is not afraid to display a very conservative view of the Rebbe’s thought, life and writing.

What amazes me is that even in the hands of very conservative handlers, the revolutionary nature of Rebbe Nachman’s ideas still shine through.  Aspects of Rebbe Nachman’s ideas and practices have the real potential to revitalize unaffiliated Jews, or those religious Jews who are faltering in their practice.

Varicose Brains

Varicose brains
In muffled speculation
Calling from the pit
Kicking a can of lipid like gossip
Inviting speculation and pain
 
Soon a sound
Up the rivulet of your notice
Seepage all around
Something awful, lifeless
Mice and worms and varmints
All curled in your glycerine
Not in here, no, not light or joy

Dead Souls, by Gogol

Gogol’s Dead Souls is a curious read for a westerner.  It is chock full of detailed information about country life in Russian in the nineteenth century.  Without a set of notes some of the information detailed will be lost, since the story involves the time and place bound manor life, serf relations, and Russian Imperial bureaucracy.  

The central theme of the novel, of buying ‘dead souls’ carries the story for the first half of the book; the second half, never completed by Gogol, is almost unreadable, and does nothing to compliment the first.

So, reading Dead Souls is like picking from a grab bag.  You get a great deal of humorous, heavy duty irony, as well as boldly drawn, satirical characters.  But the novel does not go anywhere specifically.  You pick up useless pieces as well.  Oddly, one of Russia’s greatest novels is unfinished and incomplete.