I ‘ve always enjoyed living vicariously. It started when I was a child. I was surrounded by fascinating, almost magical people. Maybe all children see adults this way, but I felt a sense of excitement around my aunts and uncles. They were funny; they told exciting stories, and they -especially my aunts- had a way of making a little boy feel special. When they all got together I was spellbound listening to them reminisce and talk about who they had known and what they had done. One of my uncles was a lawyer and judge, another was a construction worker who had worked all over the world. And that was just my mother’s family. My dad didn’t talk much, but he actually told the best stories, about growing up on the farm, about his experiences as a tough kid, and as a high school and college athlete. After I retired I got to spend hours listening to my mother’s recollections about her life and her family, some of which I included in the book, Wenonah’s Story.
I’ve always sought out and valued friends that I admired: my wise cousin I’ve mentioned before, my best friend from childhood, my partner in medical practice.
I’ve always enjoyed reading,
and am usually in the middle of one book or several. I enjoy fantasizing about
fictional characters who are able to do amazing things, but also historical
figures. I know now that real events and real people are more amazing than
anything a fiction writer can imagine.
Reading a book by an amazing person makes you feel on a level with them, as if reading about their adventures and understanding their thoughts somehow allows you to share their experiences and possess in a small way their ideas.
I’ve recently been rereading a little book by one of my heroes, Eric Hoffer. His ideas are pretty universal, but they seem especially relevant in today’s political climate.
Hoffer spent much of his life as a tramp, riding on boxcars from one place to another doing odd jobs to make money to live. After being turned down for military service during WWII, he went to work as a longshoreman on the docks of San Francisco where he spent the next 20 years. Hoffer was self taught and was an avid reader and learner all his life. Every place he went, he got library cards and spent most of his time in libraries reading whatever interested him. He told the story that once he was working at a nursery repotting plants. He began to wonder why the roots grew down and the stems grew up, so he quit his job, hopped on a boxcar and headed for the nearest town with a library where he checked out a book on botany.
At one point Hoffer decided to mine for gold. He took with him a book by the French philosopher, Michel de Montaigne, which he read and reread. Later, when he returned to his itinerant lifestyle, he would frequently quote Montaigne in discussions with other vagrants, so much that they would often ask him, “what does Montaigne have to say about that?” He said, “I always believed that there must be several hundred hobos up and down San Joaquin Valley still quoting Montaigne.”
It was when he settled down near the docks in San Francisco that he began to write seriously. He would work on the docks for a few weeks and then write until he ran out of money. When he received a telegram from Harper’s accepting his first book, The True Believer, Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, he threw the little yellow paper away thinking it was an ad. He said, “I never had a telegram in my life.”
The True Believer was published in 1951 and became a best seller in 1956 when President Eisenhower mentioned Hoffer as his favorite author. Hoffer wrote ten books as well as numerous articles and memoirs. He was consulted by several presidents on national affairs; he received several honorary doctorates, was made an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley, and in 1983 was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.
Eric Hoffer was obviously a genius, but I think he stands out even among geniuses. How many great men are totally self taught, refuse wealth, and become recognized as one of the great thinkers of their time?
Like I said before, Eric
Hoffer is one of my heroes, and I thought I should give a little background
about him in case I want to refer to some of his ideas in future posts.
https://www.hoover.org/research/eric-hoffer-genius-and-enigma
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