Are We Growing?: Some Personal Experiences in Seeking Happiness - Hardcover

We all seek to be happy. More happy than yesterday, also, surely.

We seek to grow. How do we know we are growing? Are we imagining it?

The author presents some ideas on growing, from his own experiences, as well as those of his mother's side of the family, who are war refugees from eastern Europe, and were massively impacted by the Soviets when they entered his mother and grandmother's village, nine miles from Ukraine, and a mere ninety miles from Brest, Belarus.

He discusses concepts such as "Know Thyself" (Socrates); curiosity (said to be the kingpin trait of Einstein; his purchasing and reading the book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", when living in California, in his twenties; noting that Feynman also was keen on the asset of curiosity; he was a famed Nobel-Prize winning physicist, whose parents were from Poland. Bill Gates refers to Feynman as "The Best Teacher I Ever Had".

The book also discusses the difference between collecting facts ("Factoids"), vs Learning, and Gloria Steinem's view that we need to unlearn what we learned...

The book also covers the topic of data smog, and the need to seek what is most important in the sea of data, these days.

He discusses the life of Tenzin Palmo, a Buddhist nun, in this regard, to include her twelve years spent living in a cave.

Mention is also made of Henry David Thoreau.

The author took on his own Walden experiment, in 1997, traveling by bus, with two duffle bags of clothing, and one book, Walden, to a village of 800, near the Mississippi River in Illinois, for the next three years, living there with no car the entire time. He rented an apartment, there, for the grand sum of $100 a month. He knew no one, there, when he first arrived,

He also discusses education, in general. He has three close relatives who hold the degree of Ph.D., incidentally.

The author discusses the formative role of music in his life, too: specifically, the role of the Suzuki violin instructional methods, and Mr. Shinichi Suzuki. The author was taught Suzuki violin by Mr. Mark Bjork, at the MacPhail Center for Music, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for three years; (he remembers his mother's heroism in navigating the icy and even blizzard-covered roads, driving him to lessons twice a week.

A great many links to videos are provided, which will surely be of great interest.

The author believes that we must make our own educational experiences, rather than seek to download an education from the mouths of others.