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Apparently, I have now become one of those women who, upon reaching "a certain age", turns to self-help books.
This is a bit of a joke, of course: while I've always eschewed that section of the book store, I recently picked up Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman, a professor at my alma mater. I thought that one of the more interesting chapters discussed the biological argument for optimism:
In his acute, speculative book Optimism: The Biology of Hope Lionel Tiger argues that the human species has been selected by evolution because of its optimistic illusions about reality. How else could a species have evolved that plants seeds in April and holds on through drought and famine until October, that stands up alone before charging mastodons and waves small sticks, that commences to build cathedrals that will take several lifetimes to complete? The capacity to act on the hope that reality will turn out better than it usually does is behind such courageous, or foolhardy, behavior.
I had lunch with a friend from London today: it was the perfect antidote to the grey, gloomy weather that's pervaded New York of late, a lunch full of laughter and good conversation. We were teasing one another about our respective OCD-like tendencies, when he brought up the subject of 'kindred spirits.' It's been years since I've thought of the phrase, but it's been etched in my memory ever since reading Anne of Green Gables as a young child.
It's impossible to describe what makes someone a kindred spirit. The dictionary describes it as "a person who shares beliefs, attitudes, feelings, or features with another," but it's more than that. Perhaps it's easiest to just say that you know one when you see one. Still, on the eve of my third decade, I consider myself lucky to have so many kindred spirits in my life:
"Miss Barry was a kindred spirit, after all," Anne confided to Marilla. "You wouldn't think so to look at her, but she is. You don't find it right out at first, as in Matthew's case, but after a while you come to see it. Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world."
