Braving the Wilderness - Brown

Brene Brown is a force of nature.  I didn't know who she was until reading her latest book, Braving the Wilderness.  Perhaps a bit off topic, for who she really is, but a necessary book in these trying times.  Her skill set is perhaps what the world needs right now as we struggle with so much divisiveness which, while appearing to be human nature, it is not. We live in society for a reason.  We need one another.  And generally speaking, humans have prospered in societies.  She boils it all down into a recipe based on the acronym BRAVING.  Each letter represents a word that we, as human's, should adopt in our lives.  I'm not going to repeat the acronym, you can read the book.  Generally speaking, it's too much of an acronym.  If I have to look up the meaning of each word, it doesn't even work as a mnemonic.  So boo to the over use of bad acronyms in general and her specific use of a particularly bad one in this book..  Forget BRAVING and focus on her greater message.

It's a good book.  Her insight into human nature, backed by a ton of social research and conversations with 1000's of people, she has a solid foundation to assert why we people are such idiots when it comes to attempting to be decent to one another.   It's all about our fear...which inhibits us from truly connecting with one another. We need to show our vulnerability, like a doggo would roll over to have it's belly rubbed. Then we can confront the fear that really inhibits us.   Human connection is at the heart of it.  We all know how to do it.  We just don't.  Or insist on connecting in dysfunctional ways with other dysfunctional, though like minded, people.  The echo chamber is not the way to make meaningful relationships.  Sure, you will enjoy having a beer with a like minded person, but you can't grow and heal divisiveness in that way.  You only become entrenched in what you already think..  So if your thinking is wrong, you're screwed.  And so is the world.  Extremism begets extremism. The world is full of societies gone bad when they enter the echo chamber of extremism.  My words not hers.  Her more pertinent rules, not the acronym, I will repeat here.  They don't require much more defining.

1)  People are hard to hate, move  closer to them.  Essentially have that beer with someone who isn't of like mind.  You might find common ground. Rub each other's belly.

2) Speak truth to bullshit.  Here you must identify what is fact based, and what is a complete fabrication.  Lies are counterfactual.  Bullshit ignores false facts and goes straight for fantasy land.

3) Hold hands with strangers.  Kinda the same as bullet 2.  You just don't know it yet.

4) Have a strong back, but a soft front.  She adds have a wild heart.  I'll be honest, I have no idea what she means by wild heart.  It has something to do with her premise of wilderness. The soft belly  seems repetitive--see above.

Wrapped up in her notion of the wilderness, however, is her introduction of the Junian definition of the paradox.  We live in a paradox. We must be able to process conflicting thoughts at the same time.  I don't like that to understand her premise we have to also understand the Jungian concept of paradox.  It's not wrong, it's just too obscure.   I greatly prefer the Nietzschian notion of eternal returns.  More to the point, Henry David Henry David Thoreau said, "In Wildness is the preservation of the World."  Both concepts drive to her point about connectedness and the return.  Meaning is connectedness.  Even Victor Frankel will agree, in his Logotherapy, that meaning is derived at that moment we connect, not with other humans specifically, but with the universe in general.  That can be achieved simply by connecting with anything.  To a pet. To nature.  To the forces of energy that surround us.  Or more simply to your own thoughts.  It simply means waking up.  We can start, to Brene's most salient point, by truly connecting with the human's around us.  We speak, euphemistically, the same language. It's easier than you think.  You don't have to hold a stranger's hand, literally, but if they are in line at the grocery store, and annoying the crap out of you because they insist on writing a check, give them a pass.  Walk a mile in their shoes and try to understand why they have eschewed the bank card in favor of this arcane activity.  So what does it all boil down too?  Do not bullshit, nor allow yourself to be swayed by bullshit.  And treat each other like puppies.   Rub each other's belly.  Be willing to have yours rubbed too.  Not literally.  Or at least don't try it at the line at the supermarket.