6 Books that Will Change the Way You Look at the World

Most of these books I read many years ago. I have benefited from them in innumerable and immeasurable ways. I would like to think that others have benefited from me having read them. If for no other reason than I became a more likable fellow.

A couple of these books, On Bullshit and Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, I read fairly recently. I only wished I had read them as a young man.

“Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”, Betty Edwards

After reading it I am still not much of a artist (sorry Betty) but I look at things differently. I learned from Betty that drawings are defined as much by the absence of lines as the presence of lines. One exercise in the book is to copy a drawing that is upside down. Upside down your left side brain cannot interfere with what it thinks the drawing should be. All you can do is copy the lines. When you turn your drawing up side down, voila’, a very nice drawing of a horse. A much better drawing than I would have ever dreamed I could do. That's a great metaphor for life. What is absent defines us as much as what is present.

“On Bullshit”, Harry G. Frankfurt

What is the a difference between a liar and a bullshitter? A liar can be found out but it is hard to trap a bullshitter. That's what makes bullshitters far more pernicious than liars. A liar will tell you he has $2 in his pocket knowing he has $1 in his pocket. A bullshitter will tell you he has $2 in his pocket having no idea what is in his pocket. This book was written before the age of social media. Now with all these outlets and nothing to stop them, one idiot can forward something on the Internet with no regard to is veracity and no repercussion for being wrong. The bullshit level is rising faster than the sea levels. I have purchased and shared many copies of this book over the years. Tiny hammer strikes against the Matterhorn of bullshit.

“Innumeracy”, John Allen Paulos

I suppose I should have paid better attention in my calculus class. When I read Innumeracy, it opened my eyes to how many things can actually be measured and how this measurement is integral to everyday life. I began to see how many things are passed off as facts by using numbers. When really all they are is one integer in a bigger calculation. What? For example, you see an ad on TV saying that you have a 100 times greater risk of getting cancer from licking red lollipops than if you lick blue lollipops. You will never lick another red lollypop again, right? But what the ad does not tell you is what your chance of getting cancer from any lollypop is .0000008. So 100 times .0000008 is still a significantly small number.

“Six Great Ideas”, Mortimer J. Adler

Sure this is an entry level philosophy book written for us laymen. It was a bolt of lightning for me all those years ago when I first read it. Words matter. They matter because we live as much in a world of ideas as we do a world of things. You cannot point to an idea. You cannot hold an idea in your hands. Yet ideas are powerful as any rushing river, bigger than any mountain. Without words and the effort to accurately use them, ideas don't exists. Playing fast and loose with definitions is dangerous. Done right, the forming of those words and ideas are just as real and palpable as anything in this world.

“The Fifth Discipline”, Dr. Peter Senge

More than any other book I have read this book taught me the value of looking at everything as a system. All systems are perfect. Perfect in the sense that systems produce exactly the product/result they are designed to produce. If you are getting the wrong product, you have the wrong system. You seldom make improvements by tweaking one part of the system. The approach to all problem solving, and I mean ALL, is best served by understanding the system.

“Emotional Intelligence”, Daniel Goleman

I read this book and looked at me differently. I realized my amygdala was hijacking my emotions and therefore my actions. I learned to better control my emotions which let me get control of my actions. Understanding emotions in others was like learning a new language. It was a new way of understanding others. It changed everything.

I never stop looking for the next book that changes the way I look at things.