Younger Next Year - Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge M.D.

Younger Next Year is a book that says getting old doesn't mean becoming decrepit and out of touch, but rather, through rigorous exercise and proper diet, one can remain young and active well into later life.... 80s to upper 90s, maybe beyond. On this point I absolutely agree with the book. It is a complete myth that your body wears down as you get old, your body wears down when you just sit around, your muscles die when you don't use them, so get out there already!

One thing that does kind of bug me about the book is that Lodge (the M.D.) keeps drawing parallels to evolution that are not proven, and are sometimes, just plain wrong. I suppose in the end he just wants to try give people a way to reason themselves into exercise, and so it goes.

Anyway, again, the core message of the book can be seen as exercise, exercise, and exercise. Though there are a lot of other good messages in there like: make friends, find a cause, involve yourself with your family, and start movements. Then there are other things that are questionable like: consider plastic surgery. Well maybe that is the only thing, and maybe that is just something with me, but hey, I suppose plastic surgery is a part of being younger next year, and it hasn't killed Michael Jackson...yet....hahahahahaha

Get Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy—Until You're 80 and Beyond from Amazon.com

The Old Man and the Sea - by Ernest Hemingway

The Old Man and The Sea is one of those books that tells a simple story, draws in your emotions, and leaves you to reflect on a thousand metaphors. The novella centers around an old man's battle against a fish that is larger than his simple boat. For four days the man is alone at sea and reflects on his age, his loneliness, his determination, and his resolution.

To me the main theme of the book is how all our battles end the same, whether they are victories or defeats...in the end, both are fated not to last. The old man does catch the fish after days of pain and struggle, only to find it impossible to defend its carcass against the sharks. Only once the carcass has been completely eaten does the old man find peace. No sins to justify, no pains to reason with, no future to hope for, just peace in a world of beauty, and as Hemingway puts it so well: "He dreams of lions on a white sand beach".

Get The Old Man and The Sea from Amazon.

Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman

All these years Dan Millman had grown up struggling to "be a somebody". Talk about backwards! He had been a somebody locked into a fearful mind and a mortal body.

Way of the Peaceful Warrior is a book about identity beyond that of our own desires. The story of Dan Millman is that of a successful gymnast who found that succeding at all he had been striving for left him more disappointed than if he had failed.

All These years I had been sustained by an illusion -- happiness through victory -- and now that illusion was burned to ashes. I was no happier, no more fulfilled, for all my achievements. Finally I saw through the clouds. I saw that I had never learned how to enjoy life, only how to achieve. All my life I had been busy seeking happiness, but never finding or sustaining it.

Millman contrasts the calm we should all feel in our life with the rushed pace that we eat, the impatience we feel for answers when we ask questions, and the undue importance we place on tasks that cause us to feel frustration and anger towards ourselves and others.

I’ve been battling illusions my whole life preoccupied with every petty personal problem, I’ve dedicated my life to self improvement without grasping the one problem that sent me seeking in the first place. While trying to make everything in the world work out for me, I always succumbed to my own mind, always preoccupied with me me me…my only real problem in life is my mind.

What should replace our frantic lifestyle and personal pain is a kind of peace and calm, an appreciation of beauty, taste, and life that only a calm mind can feel.

No need to resist life just do your best. Open your eyes and see that you are far more than you imagine... You are yourself and everyone else too!...You are already free!


Get the book from Amazon: Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives

fooberdoob

Fooberdoob is in fact Matt Gurley, a young artist out of Oklahoma who does excellent layered covers of the shoegaze subgenre and reminds me what it is like to listen to music and drift through clouds.

Listen to his cover of The Sunday's song Skin and Bones:


and visit

http://www.youtube.com/user/fooberdoobs

for more.