I just finished the final book in Tana French's body of work (so far) and I don't think I've ever so voraciously enjoyed a bunch of novels before.

If you haven't read (or heard of) Tana French, she writes murder mysteries set in Ireland. At times they even flirt with horror. The mysteries are compelling, but her character writing is even better. She writes in the first person and is particularly skilled at writing an unreliable narrator. The book I saved for last, the Witch Elm, did this in a way I will be thinking about for a while. It was a takedown of white, male privilege that unfolds in a slow burn throughout the book. It had me questioning my own life at times in some real introspective ways.

The book confronts you with questions of whether or not you can trust your own memory on how certain events played out, especially when it comes to assumptions of how those events may have affected other people. My own adolescence is somewhat wrapped up in a haze of generalizations and a certain degree of distance or detachment. Like the narrator, at times a lot of my memories feel unmemorable. This book challenges the assumption that others, particularly people less inoculated by privilege, experienced things the same way.

"When my body feels good, my life feels good, and I want to keep going, and fight for my right to exist and love and grow and evolve." (Brown, Pleasure Activism)

This is something that I think about a fair bit. As someone who suffers with a degree of chronic pain/discomfort and anxiety, I find it to be a rare time that my body actually feels like it's in a good place. What I have found, however, is how to pursue those few times that it does. Walking, for instance makes me feel good. Being outside in the fresh air, moving at a brisk pace, puts both my body and mind at ease. Pain is reduced, my anxious thoughts are calmed, and life feels good. I'm more energized for relationships or creative things. Conversely, when I go for long periods of time without walking, my body and mood deteriorate. I become irritable and just want to lie down and be left alone. I'm a worse person all around when I'm not walking.

“Part of the reason so few of us have a healthy relationship with pleasure is because a small minority of our species hoards the excess of resources, creating a false scarcity and then trying to sell us joy, sell us back to ourselves.

On a broad level, white people, and men have been the primary recipients of this delusion, the belief that they deserve to have excess, while the majority of others don’t have enough… or further, that the majority of the world exists in some way to please them.” (Pleasure Activism)

Whew.

As someone who has benefitted from the system as it exists, I need to still understand (and disentangle) how my own relationship with pleasure has been broken as a result of this delusion. How have I bought into and perpetuated this system for my continued benefit? And how can I begin to seek a healthier approach to pleasure?

"We need to value the consequences of our actions more than the cleverness of our ideas." (Ruined by Design)

While this statement is written for designers, I think this is something that can—and should—be applied more broadly. Our economy runs on ideas. Business ideas that are tidied up just enough to find venture backing, seen to be a path profit for those doing the investing. Advertising ideas crafted to chase awards and notoriety. Marketing ideas that are praised on their ability to stand out amidst a rising tide of excessive content. The better the idea, the faster we move with it. Monteiro's point is a call to slow down and consider the potential consequences of these ideas before we put them into action.

Unfortunately, slow and deliberate thinking is rarely rewarded in our economy.

"Where we put our labour is a choice; a choice that we should be willing and able to make with our eyes wide open, fully aware of its repercussions. Who we work for and how we do that work are the only things that matter right now." (Ruined by Design)

I've often felt that where I worked mattered more to me than things like how much I make or even what it is I am doing. Of course those things are important, but the balance for me has always tilted slightly in favour of wanting to work somewhere that I feel aligned. That's not always an easy thing to find and I'm grateful for the times in my life when I have had it.

At the end of my life, I want my kids to know that I did what I could to not screw the planet up too bad and to make things better for other people. Even if that maybe cost them a few luxuries that their friends had.