Braving the Wilderness

Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown           Audio Book: 4 hours,   Hardback Book:  208 pages                    

Brene Brown, social scientist, teacher, activist, discusses how humans are becoming isolationists, hiding behind computers rather than confronting other human beings to exchange ideas,   build friendships, explore human diversity, and to bridge communication and hold dialogue with others who hold different views, opiniions and beliefs.   She feels this isolationism programmed into our lifestyles helped by the Internet is what continues to separate and exaserbate volatile topics that should be addressed by coming together sitting across from one another- face to face- to come together to reason in person not via email which can easily be misinterpreted.   She feels things can be settled or at least compromises arrived at more easily when everyone can see and hear each other and read the cues of body language, voice tone and inflection.   Social media while it has its place and is wonderful at bringing long lost friends and relatives together doesn’t take the place of eye contact.   Her strong social work background shows in her psychological breakdowns.  She likens life to being a wilderness that we humans are afraid to leave ourselves open to.     Our fear of being humiliated, of not being accepted, of getting our hearts broken keeps us hidden behind technology to keep society at arm’s length from us so we can cocoon ourselves inside our insulation against pain hence why so many people self-medicate with food, drugs, shopping etc rather than putting themselves our to develop viable relationships that could give us the dopamine fix that those things do, creating real not synthetic happiness in our lives.  She notes that once we take the step and brave the wilderness of all those unknowns in life we must risk in order to find fulfillment and satisfaction we have to get to the place that Maya Angelou describes when she says, “You only are free when you realize you belong no place – you belong every place – no place at all.”   May we all belong no place so that we can belong every place-no place at all.    I like that.   Good book.   Quick read.