A Life of One's Own is a great book, far ahead of its time (she was using the word 'mindfulness' 90 years ago), and a classic in 'thinking for oneself', something that used to be popular to recommend but has never been easy to do.
Joanna Field was the pen name of Marion Milner. I have a quote from her in my profile. It took me a long time to track down the paper but that quote was the only interesting thing in it.
If only a quote like that could be taken to heart and applied to ones own life, I'm pretty sure that would be life changing. If everyone did it, it would be world changing.
This is one of those rare times when I'm seeing Dang comment on a post directly!
And thanks for that quote. I've read it earlier, of course. But it's good to read it again and again. For some reason, reading that quote always makes me introspect and think whether I've become better human over the years.
Anything by Hilary Mantel is extraordinary and worth your reading time. Wolf Hall trilogy threw me into a decade-long search into who really was Thomas Cromwell, A Place of Greater Safety finally made me feel like I understand the French Revolution (I enjoyed this as an audio book on a very long drive) . Thanks to her, complex history has made sense, and how today's machinations are not much different.
I read Wolf Hall after I finished Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver, which takes place in late 17 century post Cromwell England. You might enjoy it as well! It’s packed with history.
The audiobooks of the Wolf Hall trilogy are fantastic as well. They're read by Ben Miles, who played Cromwell in the RSC adaptations of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, and collaborated directly with Mantel on the stage adaptation of the Mirror & The Light. His take on the character is excellent, far superior to Mark Rylance in the TV version, who I thought was badly miscast.
Very off-topic, but has anyone ever read a book that someone else credited with changing their life and felt like their own life was changed?
Anecdotally I haven't despite having read at least a dozen such books. Assuming I'm not an outlier, I think it's a bit like the "monad tutorial fallacy[1]" where the book crystalizes things that have already been bouncing around in one's head, rather than being the original source of the change.
don't know if additional vocabulary might help you turn up anything more useful, but the "narrow attention"/"wide attention" dichotomy you point out is something I've mostly heard talked about in metaphorical terms: a "hard eyes"/"soft eyes" dichotomy.
[+] [-] dang|1 year ago|reply
Joanna Field was the pen name of Marion Milner. I have a quote from her in my profile. It took me a long time to track down the paper but that quote was the only interesting thing in it.
[+] [-] globalnode|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] thunderbong|1 year ago|reply
And thanks for that quote. I've read it earlier, of course. But it's good to read it again and again. For some reason, reading that quote always makes me introspect and think whether I've become better human over the years.
[+] [-] superb-owl|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] telesilla|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] francogt|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nayroclade|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] superb-owl|1 year ago|reply
I reviewed it partially here: https://superbowl.substack.com/p/how-to-enjoy-things
[+] [-] aidenn0|1 year ago|reply
Anecdotally I haven't despite having read at least a dozen such books. Assuming I'm not an outlier, I think it's a bit like the "monad tutorial fallacy[1]" where the book crystalizes things that have already been bouncing around in one's head, rather than being the original source of the change.
1: https://byorgey.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/abstraction-intuiti...
[+] [-] 082349872349872|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] calstad|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] blueridge|1 year ago|reply
Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper
https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/08/10/leisure-the-basis-...
[+] [-] rramadass|1 year ago|reply
In Praise of Idleness and The Conquest of Happiness both by Bertrand Russell.
On Doing Nothing by J.B.Priestly