February | Cycling, Writing, Reading
Natalie Goldburg, Herman Hesse, Laurie Lee, Steven Pressfield, Ryan Holiday
I'm Hector. I'm cycling from the UK to Japan and sharing what I've learned about myself and the world every week. Books keep me occupied when my body is a bit tired. This (new) email is a list of the books I've read in the last month. Let me know what you've been reading—I love to hear. (Much of this list comes from kind recommendations from you.) You can read all my previous posts here, and if you'd like to unsubscribe, click the link at the bottom of this email. One-click, all done, goodbye.
Cycling
February was a month of falling in love with Sri Lanka. I'm now in the mountains of the interior. It looks increasingly likely that a boat from the north, to India, is impossible (I don't want to wait a further ten days, and the ferry has been delayed *40 years* already!), so I'll likely scoot around to Colombo and fly to southern India. Then I'll head north to Nepal, 3,200 km away.
Writing
Daily, I cycle past the beautiful and the puzzling/worrying (internally and externally…). I try to capture both in my writing. In Feb, I reflected that I couldn't (and still can't) surf — I think I may have fractured a rib when paddling lol. I shared that it’s essential to commit to a Start Date is when doing something relatively radical (a friend is starting a business, so this was for him). I was reminded that we can write our own stories, and in doing so change our life. On this, the woman who told me runs a consultancy where she helps people write their own stories, and subsequently change their lives. She has space for new clients, and you can book in a consultation here. Finally, last week I thought about how we can expand our horizons, both physically and spiritually, by reading and travelling.
Reading
Wild Mind by Natalie Goldburg. When I'm feeling frozen as to what to write, I pick up a book by Goldburg, who honestly explains the difficult journey of creation for any writer. With her, I feel it's a tremendous team effort. Reading just one page of a book of hers makes me enthusiastic, and rips open the right-hand side of my brain, revealing more creativity and intuition. A taste:
"It's okay to embark on writing because you think it will get you love. At least it gets you going, but it doesn't last. After a while you realise that no one cares that much. Then you find another reason: money. You can dream on that one while the bills pile up. Then you think: "Well, I'm the sensitive type. I have to express myself." Do me a favor. Don't be so sensitive. Be tough. It will get you further along when you get rejected."
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. This is a classic, excellent, Hesse philosophical novel about each of us having some wild, untameable beast inside us. Hesse answers the question, "How do we find salvation?" If you've read Siddharta and Demian, read this next. A quote:
"But it's a poor fellow who can't take his pleasure without asking other people's permission."
Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse. This book is another wonderful Hesse novel where he explores the dichotomy of our lives. A quote:
"We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something last longer than we do."
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee. In 1933, Patrick Leigh Fermor and Laurie Lee began their famous walks. Leigh Fermor walked to (then) Constantinople and Lee through Spain. Lee's writing inspires adventure—he wakes it up—and reading As I Walked Out put me into a daydream. Here are a couple of lines:
"And as I lay there listening, with the sun filtering across me, I thought this was how it should always be. To be charmed from sleep by a voice like this, eased softly back into life, rather than by the customary brutalities of shouts, knocking, and alarm-bells like blows on the head. The borders of consciousness are anxious enough, raw and desperate places; we shouldn't be dragged across them like struggling thieves as if sleep was a felony."
"Sometimes, leaving the road, I would walk into the sea and pull it voluptuously over my head and stand momentarily drowned in the cool blind silence, in a salt-stung neutral nowhere."
Beautiful.
Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t by Steven Pressfield. I did a bit of a deep dive into reading about writing—how, I wondered, can I improve. Pressfield wrote The War of Art and he is an Artist with a capital A: a true professional, earned by his thirty years of commitment without any success; now he's a best-selling author. He writes honestly about creativity:
"All of a sudden I understood why I was so moody, neurotic, simultaneously paranoid and megalomaniac, mistrustful, uneasy, driven by ambition but paralysed by guilt about my ambition, horny, obsessive, compulsive, obsessive-compulsive, not to mention shy, withdrawn, and dandruff-ridden. I was creative. All creative people were like that!" Increasingly, I feel it's essential to spend time with other people creating art — and in their physical absence, their company through books will suffice.
Put Your Ass (Where Your Heart Wants To Be) by Steven Pressfield. Pressfield writes of committing to creation:
"When I sit down to write in the morning, I literally have no expectations for myself or for the day's work. My only goal is to put in three or four hours with my fingers punching the keys. I don't judge myself on quality. I don't hold myself accountable for quantity. The only questions I ask are, Did I show up? Did I try my best?"
…and of the torture of resistance:
"What are you, crazy, Steve? Do you imagine anybody is gonna be interested in these lame-ass stories from your life? They are so ordinary! You are so ordinary. Readers are going to laugh you off the page. Whatever credibility you've built up over the years will go straight into the toilet. Stop right now before you totally humiliate yourself!"
Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday. I think this book was recommended by my friend Hector Hughes — but if it wasn't, Holiday as an author certainly was. Holiday has opened my eyes: I've realised that I should treat everything (this email, my cycle) as a project, and, as Holiday says,
"For any project, you must know what you are doing—and what you are not doing. You must also know who you are doing it for—and who you are not doing it for—to be able to say: THIS and for THESE PEOPLE."
On bad books: If I think a book is terrible, I almost never finish it, and it won't appear here. As such, the books here are good or great. A book is often good because it solves a problem for me at a particular time. For example, I loved Holiday's Perennial Seller this month, but if I had read it in December, it would not have resonated (and I might not have finished it). Therefore, for a sound/fair judgement, go for the GoodReads score (4+ is great, 4.2+ are excellent) which you can see via the link.
Live well,
Hector
PS. When you subscribed, I emailed to ask for the name of the book that’s impacted you the most. Many of you reply, and it's a fascinating crowdsourced list that’s growing daily. I'll pull together this list this month and share it on April 1st. If you haven't sent me your book recommendation yet, please do.