Field Notes #8: Two books I loved: "Four Thousand Weeks" by Oliver Burkeman & “Iceberg," an exquisite memoir by Marion Coutts

Hello! Welcome to Field Notes #8— collections from recent treks on this Odyssey of the Body, sharing favorite glimpses of wisdom, nourishing recipes, guidance to movement, art and exercises, and other tips. If you have a Field Note to share, please send it to brianne@odysseyofthebody.com. Thanks!

Today, I have two books to share, two of my favorite reads of this season.

1} Four Thousand Weeks and its “Cosmic Insignificance Therapy”

Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman is an unconventional, thoughtful look at how we use our time. (4,000 weeks refers to the approximate amount of time an average human today will live.) It’s a popular read, so you may already have read it! But if you haven’t, let me add to the chorus that it is both practical and philosophical, reassuring and inspiring.

Oliver argues that while we normally try to avoid the painful truth that we can’t get everything done (and continue this denial through productivity tips and apps and to-do lists all the modern contortions of schedules), if we simply accept this fact, we can then turn to being more deliberate about what we choose to do and, importantly, choose not to do. His insights feel unexpected, rueful and then freeing, and more deeply centered on the meanings of our lives than the usual productivity-centric hustle-hype book.

One of the chapters, titled “Cosmic Insignificance Therapy,” offers a refreshing counter-argument to the modern fretting about what to do with our lives and how to optimize every minute.

Well, Oliver points out, actually, what we do doesn’t really matter at all in the grand scheme. Look at the scale of time. Look at the scale of the universe. Our lives are teeny specks. All contributions, revolutionary or intimate, will all be wiped away in time. He elaborates:

“To contemplate ‘the massive indifference of the universe,’ writes Richard Holloway, the former bishop of Edinburgh, can feel ‘as disorienting as being lost in a dense wood or as frightening as falling overboard into the sea with no-one to know we have gone.’ But there’s another angle from which it’s oddly consoling. You might think of it as ‘cosmic insignificance therapy’: When things all seem too much, what better solace than a reminder that they are, provided you’re willing to zoom out a bit, indistinguishable from nothing at all? The anxieties that clutter the average life—relationship troubles, status rivalries, money worries—shrink instantly down to irrelevance. So do pandemics and presidencies, for that matter: the cosmos carries on regardless, calm and imperturbable. Or to quote the title of a book I once reviewed: The Universe Doesn’t Give a Flying F*ck About You. To remember how little you matter, on a cosmic timescale, can feel like putting down a heavy burden that most of us didn’t realize we were carrying in the first place.”

When we give up this burden, we are free to enjoy our life more fully, to really see it, to realize that that giggle or bite of cookie or ray of sunshine is just as lovely as anything else that you may experience in life. It refocuses our lives on what matters, and allows all the usual trappings of what supposedly matters to fall away.

Tim Ferriss found the Cosmic Insignificance Therapy chapter so helpful that he asked Oliver if he could republish it on his blog and podcast. So now this chapter is available free, both in written and audio form, for all of us to absorb again and again. (Thanks, Oliver and Tim!) (And the full book is worth the read, too.)

Read the full chapter or listen to the audio chapter on the Tim Ferriss Show.

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2} The Iceberg by Marion Coutts

In Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver quotes very briefly a memoir called The Iceberg when discussing impact of a diagnosis. I was curious and requested it from the library. (Public service announcement: If you haven’t been to a library since your mom took you at age 9, public libraries have changed! There are library-connected apps now that allow you to request a book for pickup at your local library, read ebooks on your phone, Kindle or other device, listen to audiobooks, even stream videos, and more — all for free!)

The Iceberg is a memoir from artist Marion Coutts’ experience chronicling the years her husband, Tom Lubbock, faced a terminal illness, a brain tumor that brought unpredictable changes to his language and his life. As an acclaimed art critic in the U.K., Tom built his life on the scaffolding of language, on picking the precise word for his column in The Independent and his books. In gorgeous, fresh prose, Marion details the evolution of his disease and her own processing and experience in this tumultuous yet happy time.

I realize memoirs about illness, about death, about a terminal journey (though we all are ultimately on one) are not for everyone. I found this book exquisite, more about the experience, the emotional and mental turmoil, all carved in new terms, nearly poetic. Marion chronicles the disorienting internal life around illness and the relentless minor and major efforts demanded of a caregiver from a perspective we rarely see.

Here is a single paragraph, one of dozens I marked, wrapping up both a tiny human experience and the galactic kaleidoscope of meaning.

“At a party someone takes my arm and whispers to me, Strong Woman. Dear God. My magic vanishes. My power dissolves like powder in water. Weakness is in those nattering companionably all around me. I want please to be one of the weak. The weak are held close and given tea. They are hugged and warmed by the fire. The strong are revered but kept at a distance. They live outside the village.”

I am still thinking about this book.

What have you been reading lately? What are your favorite books that help you live better? You can leave a note in the comments or reply to this email. I’d love to hear from you.

To our journey and healthy days ahead,

Brianne