Math > Mayans: a Nate Silver Book Review

The Mayans came out with the bold prediction that the world would end two days ago.  For better or for worse, the Mayans were full of it, and we're all still here. But according to the hottest thing since sliced bread - Nate Silver - we shouldn't be surprised.  

If you've never heard of Silver - he hit it big for using math to predict the election.  Before that he developed one of the top major league baseball forecasting systems - PECOTA.  And before that he was a professional online poker hustler.  Silver's recent book The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail - But Some Don't is all about his specialty - predicting.  The thesis: predicting is hard, but some things are easier to predict.  For instance, Silver analyzes earthquake predictions and weather forecasts - while the computing industry has allowed weather forecasters to take leaps, earthquake hunters still have miles to go  

While Nate Silver is definitely a bonafied genius.. he's not quite an original, more like the remix. He's the same genius as Bill James and the Moneyball crew that first applied mathematical analysis to baseball.  He's the same genius as the guys who decided to infuse bioinformatic analysis to biomedical research.  Silver was simply the latest to add a splash of math to a field in desperate need of it.  

So my question is: how can we apply the same genius to medicine?

to be fair, it's not like airplanes
have advanced much either

Here's one of the main reasons I think med school education is outdated.  We need a clearer definition of a good doctor.  Since our current definition is utterly vague, med students are left with the same training program that educated doctors in the era of kitty hawk.  

In track - you have the goal of running as fast as possible.  In order to do this, you don't just run around in circles randomly.  You run according to a rigorous schedule, each day with a set purpose.  One day might be optimizing VO2 max, another increasing lactic acid tolerance, and yet others to train neuromuscular junctions to fire optimally.  It's a real science.  

We need to get med school education to that same point.  Once we have a scientific defintion of "a good doctor" it'll become a lot easier to figure out how to educate "a good doctor."

I bet you thought we were just
running around in circles

So this is where it gets hard - quantitatively defining a good doctor.  What sort of stats should we be keeping on doctors?  I don't have any good ideas, so instead here's a list of half-baked ideas Kevin Wildes-style.

1- (%age) times washed hands per opportunity

2- # of times yelled at a nurse per shift 

3- total amount of shit other doctors talk about you (respect of co-workers)

4- triathalon time (endurance is important)

5- miles walked per shift (shows commitment and effort..?)

Anyways, please send your half baked ideas my way.  I need to incubate some more ideas.  

See you on the other side,

from ken

now taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

House of God Book Review and thoughts on burnout

The House of God is a pseudo fictional memoir that takes a cynical look at the training of young doctors. The protagonist Roy Basch is a naive grad of BMS (best medical school) working as a first year intern at a hospital called the House of God.  The story chronicles Basch's year as his mental health spirals down due to poor working conditions, brutal superiors, long hours, and a severe lack of time to spend with friends and family outside the hospital.  

Shem drives home the point that internship takes up so much time and mental energy that doctors lose their humanity. They slowly get isolated from friends, family and even fellow interns- and when that isolation happens, they move from thinking this is crazy to I am crazy. One intern in the House of God commits suicide because he bottles up the madness of the hospital within himself, he eventually can't handle it, and has no other ways to release that stress.  

So the moral of the story - everyone needs to deconstruct all the craziness going on around them. Cope or perish.  

According to some quick some studies I pulled up on pubmed - 45% of physicians experience at least one form of burnout: emotional exhaustion, feeling unaccomplished, and losing empathy for humanity. Half of all doctors are feeling burned out!  That has to be terrible for healthcare?  On top of that, male physicians are 50% more likely to commit suicide than the general public, and female physicians are 200% more likely!  

Sidenote - Residency training may be when the stress of dealing with patients peaks, but what if the real root of the problem is earlier?  What if interns are arriving at their residencies already so burned out from med school that they're already on the highway to that depressed, burned out, suicidal hell?

white coat ceremony - the bright eyed days

Before I started med school someone told me to enjoy the first few weeks - everyone is bright eyed and happy to be there, still friendly, and tan from the summer.  Now, almost three months into school - no one's that tan, you can start to pick out the gunners, and the bright eyes are slowly fading to zzz.  

I've been getting a lot of that frustration and burnout myself. I drafted out an entire post complaining about being burned out, then I decided it sucked and wasn't up to public consumption.  Then I hated myself for being terrible at writing, and then I hated myself again for procrastinating instead of studying.  Self-hate has to be one of the top signs of burnout.  

The last block definitely burned me out.  I was talking with my similarly overwhelmed and burned out classmates - and we literally couldn't figure out what to do to unburn out.  I try to study all day and fail - I watch recorded lectures in the corner while checking gmail, MUSC email, facebook, grantland, the NYTimes, really I'd rather look at anything than the syllabus. 

Last block we had a lecture on physiatry - the cushiest specialty in medicine, you play volleyball every weekend, and you get tons of $$. Physiatry is looking better and better everyday.  

I need to come up with some half-baked ideas to fix physician burnout.  

See you on the other side, 

from ken

physiatry life

Top 5 Medical Memoirs

I love all kinds of books, but I devour medical memoir.  It feels like talking life with my future peers, friends, and self.  So, I thought I’d compile a list of my top 5 medical memoirs :

Where I read in Wyoming

5) Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande, 288 pg

“People underestimate the importance of diligence as a virtue.  No doubt this has something to do with how supremely mundane it seems.”

One Sentence Summary – Intangibles that are important in medicine. 

Gawande is a believer in intangibles, and Better is about the intangibles crucial for medicine – including diligence, personableness, and honesty.  He tells anecdotes of historical medical accomplishments like the polio vaccine, and of current medical struggles like getting doctors to wash their hands.

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4) Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation by Sandeep Jauhar, 320 pg

“That guy on the boat, looking up at the hospital.  Do you know what that guy is thinking?  I should have been a doctor.”

One Sentence Summary – Sometimes hilarious/always honest account of internship.

"I should have been a doctor."

Jauhar, a former physics PhD student that changed paths to medicine, chronicles his internship year at a NYC hospital.  Rather than describing all his great doctoring moments, he takes an introspective look at his struggles with medicine.  It was refreshing to see that a real life doctor still has doubts.

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3) The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese, 368 pg

“Within your secrets lies your sickness.”

One Sentence Summary – A ode to a friendship between two struggling men. 

Verghese also wrote an NYT bestselling novel, Cutting for Stone,  and works at Stanford Med as an advocate of the doctor-patient relationship.  Previously, he worked in El Paso, where he bonded with his co-worker, David, over a shared love of tennis.  Verghese was going through a divorce and David was recovering from a drug addiction, so they both relied on their relationship to anchor their unstable lives.  Verghese’s sharp understanding of human emotions is impressive. 

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2) Walk on Water: Inside an Elite Pediatric Surgical Unit by Michael Ruhlman, 340 pg

“You cannot lie in this work.  There are so many people in this world who have no idea who the fuck they are.”

One Sentence Summary – Psychoanalysis of peds cardiac surgeons in the pursuit of greatness. 

Road to greatness?

Ruhlman, a journalist, spends a hectic year following a pediatric cardiac surgery team.  Peds cardiac surgeons fit the surgery stereotype to a T - they know nobody else can do what they do, and that lives depend on their hands.  He really studies the personalities that make up the team, and figures out what makes them tick.

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1) Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Paul Farmer/Tracy Kidder, 352 pg

“I’m going to build my own fucking hospital.  And there’ll be none of that there, thank you.”

One Sentence Summary – inspirational read of doctor in Haiti.

Farmer is a doctor bringing healthcare to rural Haiti.  I am forever indebted to Mountains, a book that gave me an idol. 

I struggle with the tensions of a Kobe-like competitive edge with my desire to help people, and in Farmer I saw an idol that balanced those tensions.  He’s painted as a selfless demigod, but I saw a cocky young doctor that fed off the rest of the world doubting him.  He believes it is his individual responsibility to save Haiti.  

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So anyways, that’s my top 5.  Let me know if you’ve read any good ones.  I’m currently reading Samuel Shem’s House of God. 

See you on the other side,

from ken

Awkward pre-M1 summer

Jonah Lehrer’s is the new Malcolm Gladwell - super trendy pop science writer. Basically, a writing version of Jad from Radiolab. His newest book is, Imagine: How Creativity Works. Lehrer tries to demystify creativity, and splits the book in half explaining personal and group creativity. I loved the personal creativity part, a lot of ideas about how to have better ideas. It didn’t have a whole lot of ideas that felt new, but it’s always fun to read something that reasserts your own beliefs. Overall, it’s a great lay science read – definitely recommend. 

One point that touched close to home was the impact of moving on creativity. He highlighted David Byrne of the Talking Heads, who loved New York City because he could bike from Latin jazz club, to Nigerian music hall, to punk rock show. He eventually fused all of it to create the unique sound of the Talking Heads. New places give you a different taste of life.

Each stop I’ve made has introduced me to new people and challenged my endless philosophizing. But then, why don’t more people move? Why do Williams alums flock to Boston? Why is there a Kenyon bar in DC? 

Well, the awkward pre-M1 MD/PhD summer is a great example of why most people stay put. Sidenote – M1 stands for med school year 1, M3 is med school year 3, etc. 

As an MD/PhD student, I have the privilege? responsibility? of arriving early to start a summer rotation in a possible PhD lab. It would’ve been great to spend one last beautiful Portland summer with my friends, but here I am in the Charleston library. None of my classmates are here yet. The other MD/PhD students will be here in June or July, and my MD classmates won’t be here until August. I’m counting on school for about 80 - 90% of my community, so until then, I’m mostly hanging out with me. 

During the days, the lab keeps me busy. I'm in f-you-mode trying to carve out a potential PhD project. My goal is to get out in 6 years, below the average of 7.7 years, so I’m not planning on spending too much time at the bottom half of the learning curve. 

As an introvert it’s nice to have nights to myself, but it also gets boring. The time I would have spent at happy hour with my friends or chatting with my wife is now spent watching Scrubs or surfing the internet. I should probably read or write.. but I just don’t have the mental energy. 

Times like these I get why you wouldn’t leave your comfort zone – your old friends and routines. I know it’s just a temporary summer, so I’m ignoring it and forging through, but still.. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

A Giant of Introspection - Herman Hesse Book Review

"It was never about the grapes or the lettuce, it was always about the people."

I’ve read two books by Herman Hesse (he wrote Siddhartha), Demian and Strange News from Another Star. Hesse’s main focus is on an individual’s search of self-knowledge and enlightenment. 

Demian is a pseudo-autobiography of Hesse’s youth as he learns how to understand his own unconsciousness. Hesse is initially lead into his unconscious by a classmate, Demian, who brings forth a counter-cultural understanding of the bible story of Cain and Abel. 

In this story, Cain and Abel are two brothers that work on a farm. Abel is much more successful, so Cain grows jealous and murders Abel. God punishes Cain by forcing him to be a lonely wanderer, and Cain walks around with a mark on his forehead for the rest of his life. Society’s understanding is that Cain is evil and Abel is a martyr. 

Demian suggests an alternate interpretation of this story. Cain’s mark was not an actual mark, but a personality trait that caused him to be exiled. People misunderstood Cain because he was so different, and automatically labeled him as evil. Sidenote - Isn’t it funny how quickly people label different = bad? 

Demian challenges society’s view that Cain was the bad guy, and further, that people should decide for themselves who is evil, what is the truth. After Hesse is exposed to such radical thoughts, he can’t take school or his parents seriously, and has to leave his home to discover the truths of the world for himself. Essentially, Demian is the story that follows. 

Cain represents Hesse's main focus, that certain individuals stand out as weird, and represent a different subset of humanity. Hesse and Demian are both such individuals, described as: 

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world.” 

Basically, Hesse believes only these hyper-introspective types are really alive. Sidenote - I've come to disagree with this, I’ve met plenty of excellent non-introspective people. That said, I’ve also chatted at length about these marked individuals, referring to them as being on the plane. 

I’ve been trying to understand the plane for a long time. 

I’ve read several authors on the plane, three off the top of my head: Herman Hesse, David Foster Wallace, and Bill Simmons. All of these authors share the common trait that they are involved in the intense pursuit of truth. 

I’ve also met several people on the plane, and the unique thing I’ve experienced is that it’s a pretty immediate and mutual understanding that we’re both on the plane. Conversations blossoms more smoothly, maybe based on the mutual recognition that we both empathize and share a strange life on the plane. Most recently, when I went to interview at Wash U med school, I met a professor with whom I had a heartfelt conversation about solving the great problems of mankind. 

From these books, and these people I’ve met, I’ve learned a little bit. In Hesse’s novel, Demian is clearly on the plane, and he helps Hesse on to the plane by instilling the confidence to believe in his inner voice, and to see the importance of introspection as a way to listen to the voice inside. So, part of it is about the confidence in believing in yourself. 

But there’s more than just being a deep thinker. It’s also about taking your own life, and the world way too seriously. It’s about feeling the weight of every single moment, and understanding the unbelievable significance of life. 

If you think you know what I’m talking about, please feel welcome to shed some light on my confusion.

See you on the other side. 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

Will the real John Galt, please stand up?

Atlas Shrugged spoiler alert

“In fiction you can pose a question, but you dare not answer it.”
- Anton Chekhov

I finally finished Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which is over 1000 pages. I started reading it back in February, and I’ve spent roughly three to four full days reading it. It was a serious hinderance to my goal of reading 50 books in a year, and my new plan is never to read another book over 300 pages. That said, Atlas Shrugged was truly a beautifully crafted novel.

There are several writers that I highly admire, including: Christian author Donald Miller, sports columnist Bill Simmons, pop psychologist Malcolm Gladwell, author of Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert. Reading them makes you feel like you’re having a chat with your buddy, thinking, “Hey someone else feels just like me!”

When I read Malcolm Gladwell or Bill Simmons, I think, yeah these guys are hilarious and amazing, but I could dream about doing what they do. Accordingly, I’ve crafted my writing after these guys. The pop culture laced title to this post screams Bill Simmons. However, Ayn Rand is just on a whole different plane of writing that I can’t even wrap my head around.

She develops several complex characters through a thousand page journey, and creates an incredible page-turning sensation that I have never felt before. Having read about three novels in the past year, I am comfortable calling Atlas Shrugged a literary stalwart.

Anyways, as Chekov’s quote explains, fiction is meant to raise questions and conversation, not answers. So what is the most relevant conversation raised by Ayn Rand?

First, some background on Atlas. Rand’s words:

“This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world – and did… It is a mystery story, not about the murder of a man’s body, but about the murder – and rebirth – of man’s spirit.”

Atlas is set in an industrial era when the government is worried about business giants getting too rich. They try to place restrictions on these businesses, but in an act of rebellion, the business leaders leave the world to create their own Atlantis-like community. There, they build a pursuit-of-greatness utopia with only the greatest minds. The world is left without these intellectuals and goes in a tailspin.

John Galt is the man who started the Atlantis-like community and stops the motor of the world by depriving the world of all the great business leaders.

I could easily write five blog posts on ideas I had about Atlas, but here I’ll talk about Galt’s victory.

In my eyes, the greatest accomplishment of Galt and his followers is that they break free of societal constraints. They have no qualms stating that they are out for their own greatness, and they will not stand for a government that limits them in any way.

I can see the left wing/humanitarian argument building against this: life is about sacrificing for the whole, the rich shouldn’t be greedy. Arguments I’ve tried to make on this blog.

From the one who has been entrusted with much,

But Galt had it right. Life is about being real.

Last winter I read a book by self-help/addiction expert Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection. The short summary: Brown has found that the most satisfied people are not afraid to be themselves, and believe that they will be worthy of other people’s acceptance despite their flaws. Ie – drug addicts are not defined by their addiction, friends are not defined by their selfishness, etc.

So, who is John Galt? Galt is a man who stood in front of the world, and asked them not to be ashamed of themselves. Society might say drug addicts are uselss, or that it’s wrong to be out for yourself. Society might be right, but I don’t think I am at any point to judge what is and is not wrong. I think Galt and Brown are in the right camp. They just want people not care so much about what other people think, they just want people to be themselves.

from ken

Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

No one laughs at God in a hospital

This is a double Book Review for Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup and Love Wins by Rob Bell AND a theological debate.

Here If You Need Me is an easy to read and laughable memoir about a minister that serves search-and-rescue workers. I highly suggest this book. Braestrup has an incredible story of encountering religion on the frontlines of life and death.

Love Wins is the latest by New York Times Bestselling author Rob Bell. He discusses the confusing co-existence of an all-loving God with suffering. It raises some interesting conversation points, but it’s kind of scattered. I feel like he was pushed to get this book out to make some cash. Not highly recommended.

Sidenote: I’m on a quest to read 50 books during the calendar year, and I recently finished books 18 and 19. I usually read 5 – 10 books at a time, a product of modern day attention spans, so I’ll occasionally have awesome weeks when I finish a ton of books at once, and I’m in the middle of such a week now.

Anyways, it was interesting to read these books at the same time. Both the books apexed to the same major point.

In one story from Here If You Need Me, Braestrup writes about a day when she accompanied the wardens as they searched through snowy woods and freezing cold lakes for a missing five year old, only to find the missing victim under a thick sheet of ice. The girl was long dead and there was nothing they could do for the family.

This raises the question, and the major point from both books. In any god believing paradigm, how can a god be just, and stand by as five year old girls drown to their deaths? How can gods allow war? Why does suffering exist?

Braestrup suggests that this question, “Why does evil exist?,” is the ultimate theological question.

The answer she gives, is by far the best answer I have come across (slightly paraphrased):

“I am willing to have that theological conversation with a cop, any cop – faithful or faithfree, not because he arrives at my answer, but because he has had to look suffering right in the face. Whatever words he uses for God, he is still the one who had to take the little girl’s body out of the water and see her face and hear her mother crying.

Here is my answer: that cop took the child out from under the ice with his own hands, tried to give her his own breath, and his own heart broke when he could not save her life. He is the answer.”

I believe church is a valuable component to life. A lot of my friends now come from church, and it’s a great place for community, but I think religion/spirituality/God/etc, is found outside of Sunday. This is why I believe God has been walking with me long before I became a Christian a few years ago. This is why I believe God walks with lots of people that wouldn’t be caught dead in a church.

I guess I wasn’t able to answer why a just God would allow five year old daughters to drown. But I will say that God works despite five year old daughters drowning.

I believe God exists in the rescue workers, who hold no conception of working overtime, who are out there in the bitterly cold Maine winters searching for lost five year old daughters.

I believe God exists in teachers forgoing fancy schools and big paychecks to work with disadvantaged youth.

I believe God exists in hospitals where nurses look after patients and scientists hope to find cures to uncontrollable cancers.

I believe God exists in a good friend that will sacrifice their free time to help another friend.

Anyways, I’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts on this.

from ken

Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

Stuff White People Like, Book Review

I just finished Christian Lander’s Stuff White People Like. It was hilarious. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Lander makes fun of white people, particularly the kind living in Portland. He goes ahead and lists out 150 topics and writes about a one page summary of why people like it. Some of Lander’s targets include Farmer’s Markets, hating corporations, gentrification, knowing what’s best for poor people, etc.

Anyways, as I neared the end of the book, I didn’t feel like the book got me that badly, and I was thinking high and mighty of myself. Psh Christian Lander thinks he can nail all young people, he can’t get me, but he did get x, y, and z white people that I know. They are such stereotypes. But not me, I’m totally original. And of course, the second to last topic was “Self-Importance/blogging.”

To paraphrase, he explains how this topic epitomizes white people, and actually provides the explanation behind every other topic in the book. White people like farmers markets and scarves, not because they like vegetables and being warm, but because it makes them feel important and cool. Through blogging, white people have taken the thoughts that they previously recorded in personal diaries, to a public platform, and concurrently taken self-importance to a whole new level.

All that to say, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past ten months. I specialize in concerns about the future, over-analyzing insignificant events, and thinking about myself. And I’m ok with it. I think telling stories, relating with others, and helping lift the weight of others is the point of life. And maybe my story can tell others, “Yeah, it’s ok to think about yourself sometimes, and yeah, it’s ok to think about life sometimes.”

It’s like David Foster Wallace’s famed commencement speech at Kenyon College a few years back. It starts with a story of two young fish swimming through the river, and they see an older fish that greets them, “Howdy boys, how’s the water?” and goes by. Later, one of the young fish says to the other, “What’s water?”

Maybe it’s not necessary for everyone to keep an online running commentary of their thoughts, as here. But I think it’s good for everyone to think about life sometimes, and now I’ll defer to the wisdom of a story-teller far superior to myself:

“Our business is to give our world and ourselves tools to imagine and create and heal. Stories that cherish the quiet moments. Stories of a world that works for everyone. Stories about a world worth saving.”
- Brian Andreas

from ken

Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

Paulo Coelho book review

I recently read a couple books by the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist.

Coelho has an interesting story. As a child, he longed to be a writer, but his parents disapproved, so he instead ended up in law school. He dropped out after a year and quickly picked up a career as a songwriter. About ten years past, and he had a spiritual awakening while walking a Christian pilgrimage route in Northern Spain. He realized that he was living a satisfactory life, but not living out his true dream of becoming a writer. Within a year, The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist followed.

The Pilgrimage is an autobiography/novel about Coelho’s Northern Spain pilgrimage. He meets a guide that takes him on the treacherous journey as he learns reflective life practices along the way.

The Alchemist is by far his best-selling book, attaining a Guiness World Record mark of most translated book by a living author. It's a fable about a young shepherd who leaves his comfortable life behind to search for treasures hidden in the pyramids of Egypt. Only about 150 pgs, it’s an easy read, and it definitely left me feeling uplifted. I highly, highly recommend The Alchemist.

There are so many ideas I want to touch on from these books, but I’ll focus on just one for now. I wanted to talk about something that relates to the whole basis of The Alchemist, which starts from a young shepherd’s recurring dream. The shepherd can’t shake this deep-down desire that he’s supposed to chase down some distant treasure, and even though it sounds crazy, he finally builds up the courage to depart on the journey.

As for my "journey" of becoming a doctor, I have a similar scene that scrolls through my head every once in a while. I wouldn’t say it’s why I want to be a doctor nor would I call it a recurring dream, but it’s just an image that’s been stuck in my head for a while. I’ll explain:

I imagine myself walking the halls of my Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in the late hours of the night, maybe 1 or 2 AM. The rooms are dark, except for the dimmed hall lights. I run into a dad struggling with the loss of his only daughter. For the fifth time that day, I go over the ever worsening white blood cell counts of his daughter, and we get to talking about his life. We sit down, I pour us a glass of gin, or coffee, whichever is more available. He talks about his life, and I sit there listening. He might not decide to do a complete 180 with his life, but he thinks about it. And maybe the seed is planted for future change.

If you’re wasting the time to read this blog, odds are probably good that we’ve had a chat like this. It’s probably my favorite thing, speculating about life. I've seen hospitals, with emotions running high, as a place that opens the door for such thoughts. I want the opportunity to work somewhere that I can support people confronting these struggles, literally life and death. That would definitely be my dream job.

When I explain why I want to go into medicine, I don’t really talk about this scene because it doesn’t make a lot of sense. But the image is always in the back of my head. And I can’t help but be struck by the last line from The Pilgrimage:

“I guess it is true that people always arrive at the right moment at the place where someone awaits them.”

Hopefully one day in my future, I’ll be at the clinic at the right time.

from ken

Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

Miracle in the Andes

I just finished reading Miracle in the Andes by Nando Parrado and Vince Rause, a true story about the 1972 plane crash that left an Uruguayan rugby team stranded in the Andes for more than two months. The story has been told before, but Parrado, one of the heroes of the trip, offers some very insightful thoughts about what he learned during this unimaginable ordeal.

I don't want to give too much away because I think every reader should encounter this book with their own perspective and with their own lives in mind, but one of my favorite ideas is summarized in the following quote:

"Death has an opposite, but the opposite is not mere living. It is not courage or faith or human will. The opposite of death is love."

This book definitely touches on many issues of faith and philosophy, but at its core it is a story about the incredible power of love.

Caution: This book frequently brought me on the verge of tears, so if you're reading it in a public place or are particularly emotional, you have been warned.




Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

Sherman Alexie

“There is another world, but it is in this one.”
- W. B. Yeats

A fitting quote for a journey of change. More importantly, this quote is the beginning to an awesome book I just read called, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. It was one of those books that reminded how much I love reading. It’s a novel/autobiography about a boy, Junior, who grows up on the reservation (the Rez), but leaves to go to a white high school. The story goes on about his challenges ranging from trying out for the basketball team, mourning deaths in his family, to chasing a pretty white girl. For me, the most powerful part of the story is the relationship between Junior and Rowdy, his ex-best friend from the Rez. Rowdy intensely resents Junior for leaving behind his Indian community. One of the things I think a lot about is what real love is, and their relationship really reminds me of what it might look like. If you’re looking for a quick summer read, it’s probably one of the best books I’ve ever read.

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? Tell me about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com