(I actually read these books out of order— How to Be Alive first and No Impact Man second, even though the latter takes place before the former. I’d recommend reading them chronologically.)
No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process follows author Colin Beavan’s one-year experiment to live, along with his wife and toddler daughter, completely carbon-neutral in the heart of New York City. Through his somewhat snarky narrative of the trials, challenges, and great rewards of the year, he gives a great introduction to the basic concepts of low-impact living: muscle over motors, plastic-free alternatives, secondhand shopping, local foodshed support, and doing good to outweigh the environmental harm that we inevitably cause.
Although his descriptions of his wife sometimes felt passive-aggressive, he narrates overall with a lot of genuine vulnerability, talking about the compromises he made, the guilt he felt, and how his attitude toward himself, other people, and the world in general changed over the course of the year. The growing sense of joy and community that they experienced is truly inspiring. If you’re interested in what environmentally-friendly living looks like in a city, this is a great place to start.
His next book, How to Be Alive: A Guide to the Kind of Happiness that Helps the World, is a philosophical treatise rather than a memoir, and his tone is distinctly less biting and more Buddhist. He describes life as being a series of relationships— with ourselves, with other people, with our minds, with our physical possessions, with our food, etc.— and that we can be truly happy when we align each of these relationships with our true, authentic Selves.
Although I don’t agree with everything about the premise, I do love the image of going through life in tune with a complex web of relationships. I’ve seen this interconnectedness firsthand in my learning journey over the past few years: I first learned about the problems with plastic consumption, which led me to use less plastic, which affected my diet to veer away from fast food, which brought me into food justice issues, which circled back to environmental issues, which brought up human rights issues, which got into politics, industrial agriculture, and theological perspectives on farming. Everything is one giant tangled beautiful mess.
All in all, I enjoyed How to Be Alive more than his first book because it challenged my perspective, told interesting stories from several perspectives, and included a lot of writing exercises, some of which helped me gain greater clarity in several areas of my life. (I’ll probably post more about that later.) If you’re looking for a thought-provoking book about the nature of happiness, definitely check this one out.
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