This week I finished:

Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control, by Ryan Holiday: Like Courage is Calling, Holiday recalls virtues largely abandoned these days with diverse historical examples. It makes sense to practice them, yet we don’t.

I don’t think I’m flattering myself to say I believe I practice discipline, approaching a quarter-million burpees without missing a day in over a decade among other sidchas. I think I also practice courage as he describes it, going against global culture by practicing values like those expressed by do unto others as you would have them do unto you, live and let live, leave it better than you found it, and love your neighbor as yourself. It’s hard and takes courage and discipline to practice those values in the United States.

It feels good to hear those values reinforced. I look forward to his next book in this serious. I recommend the two I’ve read.

Hope Dies Last: Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future, by podcast guest Alan Weisman: Weisman’s book Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? influenced me and inspired me to talk about population. In that book he wrote about places that were overpopulated, cultures that drove overpopulation, and, most of all, about people who helped reduce overpopulation, especially podcast guest Mechai Viravaidya in Thailand.

This book covered people acting on mitigate climate change results. He didn’t write about population, reducing pollution, reducing depletion, or changing culture. I won’t stop people from working on growing more food or protecting land, and I value them doing what they do, but I see those plans not as stopping the problem but decreasing the effects.

People keep going to the people and places feeling the problems. I want to help them as much as anyone, but I want to stop the people causing the problems, as I describe in my Short Course on Sustainability Leadership. Lincoln helped slaves more by going to Washington DC than to the plantations to heal their wounds.

I’m Glad My Mom Died, by Jennette McCurdy: My writing coach/instructor mentioned this book in her podcast and I couldn’t resist the title. I was too curious not to finish it.

I’d never heard of McCurdy, nor the shows she was on, nor most of the celebrities she mentions in the book, but I enjoyed her writing. I enjoyed it from the level of sentence to story to book composition. She shares openly her vulnerabilities that keep you engaged. She has a flair for details that bring you into the scene. Most of all, overall she communicates a challenging life story that, despite being hers, not mine, made me feel connected.

Who doesn’t have problems with their parents, even if not as serious as hers? Therefore, who doesn’t appreciate hearing someone else share those problems to give us perspective on our own?

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• America has acclimatized to overwhelming garbage. It will increase until we change culture to restore the values we’ve jettisoned. →