Finished: January 10, 2024
Why I read this
I’m not sure why this memory is so strong, but I remember seeing this book in a bookstore years ago and thinking that I should read it. It feels like such a small thing to remember vividly. The layout and decorations of a rural bookstore (because it was at a type of rural community center in North Carolina based around a critically acclaimed farm to table restaurant) stick in my mind still even 5-10 years later. So when I received a copy of Educated as a Christmas gift, it naturally floated to the top to be read next.
What I learned
Just from reading the cover I immediately fell back to thinking about Outliers that I had just finished. During the read I kept thinking about some of the principles from that read and how they might relate to the struggles and successes of Westover. In the first few chapters there were quotes like “All the decisions that go into making a life – the choices people make, together and on their own, that combine to produce any singular event. Grains of sand incalculable, pressing into sediment, then rock.” and “the skill I was learning was a crucial one, the patience to read things I could not yet understand.” echoed the idea that any success is the result of a mountain of factors (including opportunities) mixed with the hard work of an individual, and that those who succeed are those who are able to concentrate on a task to solve it long after others might have given up.
Secondly, here history of learning was incredible and a really interesting case about how learning things at different times can be impactful. The fact that she learned about the holocaust at such a late age may have actually increased the impact of it and made her more sensible to the ideas and problems. She understood a lot more about life and people that most 12 year olds that hear about it for the first time. Maybe she was able to relate better to the scale and tragedy of the holocaust than a younger person would. Moreover, the idea about words having power when discussing the N-word was super interesting. We see very often these days people being cancelled for things they have said or done from years or even decades before. However, when we are younger maybe we don’t really understand the impact of the words that we use or our actions. Can someone who is ignorant of the true meaning and impact of something like the N-word be blamed for using it? Their experiences, life, and education combine to show them what that means, and if their experiences differ from those of others who see the impact differently what responsibility do they have to others to act in a certain way? At the same time we have mantras in our society like “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” that we teach children. So when I look at my history growing up, how bad is it that when I was 10-15 with my friends I would say things like “gay” or “retarded” quite often? I understand better as an adult what saying things like that can do and I have stopped of course, but what responsibility to I hold for these past actions, and how can my current character be judged based on actions already passed? Lots of hard questions related to this, but for me the moral is that people evolve and context is important. It is not all forgiving, but I think if we all considered a bit more the context of others we would understand a bit more about when they do things we don’t agree with.
Next I really enjoyed some of the scholarly and philosophical points that were introduced closer to the end of the book. The ideas like negative freedom being freedom from physical constraints, but positive freedom being free from internal constraints resonated with me. Recently with lots of major changes in my life (in the past year, I’ve moved to a new apartment, started a process for changing my job, gotten engaged, adopted a cat), it is interesting to think about my negative freedom vs. positive freedom. For example with my job change (an internal mobility), contractually I was required to stay with any group for a certain amount of time or to do certain steps with my boss, but the internal constraints like company loyalty, or social etiquette in the office forced me to jump through many extra hoops and steps. Due to my internal code certain things were wrong and I couldn’t do that to my boss/group although I had many external people saying “of course you can do that”. It’s interesting to think how peoples internal codes and requirements affect a lot of their decision making.
Finally, I found Westover’s transition from the rural Mormon life to the academic scholar relatively relatable. I of course do not have anywhere near the same constraints as she does in my daily life, but I have experienced some of the similar emotions of not being sure where I belong or like my worlds are conflicting with each other. Often when I return to the US it is a bit challenging to see many of the great things about living their (my family, my friends, nice restaurants, familiar locations, the freedom of movement with a car, etc.) and at the same time understand that it is a life I chose to leave behind. At the same time I love my life in Europe and am so happy with the things I’ve become as an expat, but knowing that to achieve these things it had to come at the expense of another life that may have been equally rewarding or interesting. One thing I know is that I am infinitely blessed to have a family that accepts the choices that I have made and does not hold them against me. I am able to live both lives in that regard, and I cannot imagine the difficulties Westover faced when her family did not accept her as the way she chose to be since it was in conflict with the life they had chosen.
What I didn’t like
I think my main complaint for the book was that it did not include some type of current update on the life of the author. It was released in 2015, and an update of 5-10 years later would have been extremely interesting. However, I’m not sure what the etiquette is for writing memoirs. I feel that it is not very common that people share their memoirs at such an early age, so it is not so common that there is so much more of the story left to hear. I’d love to know if things have changed since the book was released, or some more of here challenges with integrating with the world outside of rural Mormon America.
Questions I asked
Are events more impactful if learned at the right time in our lives? I wonder if learning out the holocaust for the first time now at 27 would feel different that how I learned about it when I was 12 or 13.
How do you balance conflicting obligations between yourself and others? How can you be sure that you choose correctly, or make a system of priorities?
How many of our earliest memories (or later memories for that matter), are just our imagination, or things we have convinced ourselves happened differently than they really did? How can we put a critical lens to our memories?
My Favorite Quote
“All my studying, reading, thinking, travelling, had it transformed me into someone who no longer belonged anywhere?”
Tara Westover
Books I liked like this one
Outliers: Malcolm Gladwell (For what makes someone successful, and related themes to how Westover changed the course of her life) Also thinking back it’s interesting to see how I almost always choose more recent books to compare with the current one. Reminder of the availability bias from Thinking Fast and Slow.
Life of Pi : Yann Martel (for the heavy questions about religion)
Book Reviews for Mom 