Why a Bear Can Rest at Ease
So I’ve finally read the long-awaited (and equally long-titled) book “Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness” by Marc Ian Barasch.
In a former LJ posting, I mentioned that I first discovered this book through an excerpt (actually, the entire first chapter) which appeared in the May 2005 issue of Shambala Sun magazine. That article really seemed to get to the heart of the matter: the struggle to recognize the value of compassion and the difficulty of embodying it in this jaded, selfish postmodern society.
Looking back on it, I guess there were two expectations that I had formulated about the book. I hoped that it would give me a compelling argument to give to my fellow educated pessimists about the long-overdue transformation that increased compassion could make in our lives and our society. And I hoped that Barasch would give me some very practical advice about how to actually model more compassionate behavior in the real world.
Even after reading the book, I’m not sure whether it succeeds in addressing either question. Barasch spends a lot of time establishing the idea that compassion is an essential part of human nature, that it is a Darwinian “nice to have” that provides a species with an evolutionary advantage over the competition. He travels the globe, seeking out people who epitomize compassion, examining their motives, and trying to figure out what makes them different from the rest of us.
He does provide numerous insights into how radically a more compassionate society might look, and how self-destructive selfishness is, both on an individual as well as a societal level. And his exemplars all answer the question “How do you do it?” the same way: by caring about everyone and just acting on it. But can that really be all there is to it? The author provides a few illustrations of his own struggle to become more empathic, but he sets himself up as the struggling, all-too-human practitioner, never relating anecdotes of techniques that have worked for him in the past.
So in that sense, the book didn’t quite meet my expectations. It doesn’t really set itself up as a silver bullet for society’s problems, nor does it claim to be a step-by-step guide for those seeking advice on how to replace their selfishness with more compassionate behaviors.
On the other hand, it’s still an intriguing, well-researched book on what could very well be one of the most important topics of our time. It provides a scientific, sociological, and anecdotal basis for leading a more kindhearted life. In that sense, Barasch has provided an underpinning for a modern body of ethics that is infinitely more fulfilling than the purely selfish secularism that passes for wisdom in these otherwise ethically bankrupt times.