I decided to write my review prematurely because I think that when there is no more of this book I shall get depressed and not do the author justice. So, perhaps I will miss saying something inspired by what I have yet to read.
I, however, read all the reviews and one said that you left the book not depressed that it is over, but, just in case, I write my glowing review now and thank Buzz Aldrin for noting my "far out web pages" and thinking I "might" be interested in this book. The invitation came fortuitously at the time I and my dog were about to automobile road trip through the New Mexico and California deserts to Kip Thorne's birthday party and I had thought would feel like ducks out of the waters of Dallas. The invitation came and I wept.
I have spent the working part of my life in aerospace, a large part of my life in graduate school and, now that I finally have my Ph.D. in theoretical physics and wonder what to do with the rest of my life, I find this book affirms what Maslow calls my "being needs".
Konrad Lorenz, you know the guy with the imprinted ducks following him, is quoted p.192 "Human explanatory inquisitive behavior-restricted in animals to a brief developmental phase-is extended to persist until the onset of senility". Wow, this from a guy who studied ducks or worse imprinting to follow a mother surrogate. I now see his deeper concern!
Further, p.138, emerges something I believe paraphrasing Psychologist Abraham Maslow, "This condition can develop when an overanxious parent or repressive culture leads a child to distrust the world, instilling a feeling of impotence and fear of novelty that curbs exploratory behavior".
There is a danger in baby boomers imprinting on and following senile mothers, becoming a duck when one should be a swan. Supposedly, the baby boomers have come to distrust the old business paradymes, but the text suggests they have yet to dream new ones. So have I!
This book is very moving. It is a very heavy read, not for one sitdown dose, but worth it. I had done "Storyteller's Companion to the Bible" volumes in my morning meditations, but they have the historical part of each section "improved" by a storytellers version. Wyn Wochhorst, a storytelling historian, doesn't need this format to sell a book!
After I get my brain going in the early morning, I read this as the "new old testament". Wow.
The scholarly references, though supporting my scientific existential position, show me how little I know of supportive literature and maybe even a bit how to interest women in Dallas about scientists (like me) "poor in spirit". May the will to explore survive the Phillistine pits of power, to paraphrase p.146, and inherit the stars.
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