Book review : "The Continuum Concept - in Search of the Happiness Lost", by Jean Liedloff

"For some two million years, despite being the same species of animal as ourselves, man was a success. He had evolved from apehood to manhood as a hunter-gatherer with an efficient lifestyle which, had it continued, might have seen him through many a million-year anniversary. As it is, most ecologists agree, his chances of surviving even another century are diminished with each day's activities".

This is, essentially, how Jean Liedloff, an eminent psychiatrist, psychotherapist and writer, summarises the problem which gave rise to her book.

In her youth, Jean had spent a substantial amount of time living amongst the Stone Age Indians in South America, and gained fascinating insights into how their society, which we might call primitive, actually supports its members' well being and happiness much better and more effectively than our 'civilised' one(s).

The continuum referred to in the title is the evolutionary continuum - the ancient continuum of our species containing the experiences of the hundreds of thousands of generations of our ancestors. These experiences have resulted in certain implicit expectations, on a genetic and instinctive level, which each of us have from the moment we are conceived in the womb. The ways and manners in which modern life has interrupted this continuum and these expectations, leaving us deprived of essential developmental experiences, is the ultimate focus of this book.

Jean is particularly interested in what these expectations might be in a newborn baby or a very young infant. Observation of Stone Age tribes confirms that a continuum baby enjoys a very different existence from our civilised one - the continuum baby is constantly in contact with its mother's body as she carries him while going about her day's work; he is also next to her at night, in the same bed, still enjoying the safety and pleasure that come from being in her close proximity; the continuum baby is a passive observer of a busy, active life from an earliest age, but experiences no longings as they are instantly met by the mother, and the baby is never left alone, never left to cry, never put in a cot in a separate room, never denied their mother during the night time hours, never put on a feeding schedule, never over-protected and under-stimulated, and so forth.

The result of this fundamentally different start to life is a human creature who is deeply content within itself, and this manifests itself in adults who live in a state of what to a Western observer appears to be a bizarre and inexplicable joy.

Jean is a firm believer that this joy is our birth-right and that it is the horrific interruption of the continuum which is to blame for the modern humanity's problems of dissatisfaction, mass-depression and anxiety evident particularly in the highly developed societies, low self esteem and that permanent feeling of looking for something, outside of ourselves, which will make us happy one day when we manage to attain it (but that day never comes).

Jean puts forward an extremely convincing argument and we might even say that popular thought on child rearing, especially in the UK, is starting to shift this way. Midwives now strongly emphasise the importance of immediate skin to skin contact between a mother and her newborn, breastfeeding, many mothers are choosing to wear their babies in a sling and so forth. While we cannot simply reverse civilisation and start to live in total harmony with nature the way these tribes still do, there are many things each of us can do to bring us back closer to the continuum and closer to the 'lost happiness' of the book's title. This is the focus of the final section of the book.

I found this book enjoyable and painful to read in equal measures, as I considered the inevitable suffering of so many babies in our culture. I have also found it immensely inspirational in terms of what more I could do for my own children, going forward. While some of the ideas are probably a step too far for me, anything that involves safety for example - I still consider myself the ultimate guardian of my children's safety and I'm not convinced by the suggestion that they would have sufficient self-preservation instincts if left to their own devices - other ideas will definitely be implemented in our family (if we have any more children, I will use a sling full time, for example).

If you are interested in a new (but old!) approach to parenting that is more in harmony with what nature had in mind for us, this is a highly recommended read.

Book review, "The Girl with all the Gifts" by M. R. Carey (warning, contains some spoilers)

Melanie is ten and she lives in a prison. Every day she has lessons with various teachers, Miss Justineau being her favourite. During the class and when she is taken to and from her cell, Melanie is strapped into a chair and every part of her is rendered immobile.  Otherwise, Melanie might eat the people around her.

This is the set up of the book I have just finished reading, "The Girl with all the Gifts" by J.C. Carey.

It is a novel about a world on the brink of extinction because of an epidemic of a zombie-inducing disease. So far so familiar as a post-apocalyptic horror, you might think. There have been lots of books and movies with a similar premise, from "I am Legend" to "The Passage", "World War Z" and so forth. But this book is not really horror and it is a cut above a simple zombie-chase thrill. It contains some great characters, a convincing plot, very satisfying writing and it ponders some philosophical questions similar books often fail to address: how, exactly, do you define humanity? It may seem simple enough, but, if you capture for research some of the zombies who are in fact completely normal looking children and who can also learn to talk and behave like ordinary human beings, where do you draw the line between them being just test subjects and actual real, human offspring? If they show intelligence, compassion, love and self-restraint, can you still consider them to be nothing more than just zombie animals? How do you, ultimately, define being human? Species change and evolve to survive, and that idea is at the heart of this book.

The book first sets out the circumstances of Melanie's life, and that of the other children in the prison's care. We meet the main characters - Miss Justineau, the favourite teacher. Sargeant Sparks, the tough old soldier in charge of the prison. Caroline Caldwell, the ruthless doctor on a mission to save humanity. We learn what the children's daily life is like, and what threat they pose to the grown ups around them. The trigger for action is an outside attack on the prison, which ends up with the main characters escaping and starting a difficult journey towards "Beacon", the only city remaining as a home to non-infected people. In the course of the road trip, of course, various hazards whittle down our main characters to just Melanie and Miss Justineau, with a shocking end which justifies the book's title ("The Girl with all the Gifts" referring to the meaning of the Greek name Pandora).

The book has a gripping plot which made me count hours until Ana & Sacha were asleep so I could get back to it (I confess with a blush!), and I read it in record time. It is also written really well, edge-of-the-seat stuff but without cliches and stereotypes which, for me, ruin so many otherwise good thrillers. If I had to compare it to Justin Cronin's "The Passage", for example, I would say that this book relies on strong action and atmospheric prose while his contained a painful number of poorly written paragraphs.

I enjoyed it hugely, if you can say that about a book which makes you think about the end of the world a great deal. When I finished it, it took me a while to process and accept the ending, shocking as it is, and while I was sorry to say goodbye to the characters, it was also a relief to go back to my normal, non-zombie-containing life.

Read and enjoy.

'How to Stop Worrying and Start Living' by Dale Carnegie

All my adult life I have been a worrier.

I worried about things which I might have some control over, like how I would perform in exams and what grades I would get. I worried about things which I was unlikely to have control over, like whether my boyfriend would cheat on me and whether I'd be alone for the rest of my life. I worried about things which absolutely no one has any control over, like will it rain on my daughter's birthday, will there be a global pandemic of bird flu and will a meteor hit Earth any time soon.

It's hard to explain it, really (but most of us get caught in the net of worry at some time or another - it is such a common human predicament). Worry defies all rational explanations, because it is not rational. Worry does not prevent bad things from happening (although that is its symbolic purpose - you worry in advance, as if you could somehow affect the outcome) - on the contrary, it makes us think about the bad possibilities so much that it brings them into the present life, as it they had already happened. Worrying is a habit, an addiction, a way of living. It can be mild and irritating, or obsessive and torturous. Over the years I have experienced both of these extremes and pretty much everything in between.

So when I came across Dale Carnegie's book 'How to Stop Worrying and Start Living', I thought I'd give it a go.

Of course, it is not a new book so when I say 'I came across it' I mean that it somehow popped up on my Amazon, being offered to me as something that might interest me (clearly Amazon knows me too well). Dale starts off by explaining the background to this book and how it came into existence (it was actually written for an adult night school class he was teaching). He often refers to his own life and anecdotes from it which makes everything he says very believable, very authentic. In each chapter he presents you with a new strategy on how to banish worry from your life forever, fortified with stories of real people who have grappled with it and won. Every chapter ends with a one-sentence summary of this strategy, for example 'Co-operate with the Inevitable' or 'Put a stop-loss order on your worry'. He covers every angle, from analysing how likely it is that your perceived disaster will ever happen (often not at all) to how to make peace with bad things which did happen, and everything in between.

My favourite by far is the advice to live in 'day-tight compartments'. What this means is letting go of the past, which is no longer here (not even yesterday, although it is so close!), forgetting about the future which isn't here yet, and simply focusing with all our power and skill on today. It means doing everything the best we can right now, today, just until bed time - without worrying about the future. It is essentially a very Buddhist approach of 'Be here, now'.

Lead, kindly light...
Keep though my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I have to say I think that his approach is amazing. While I don't normally believe in quick fixes for complex problems that arise from our pshyche, I have actually caught myself thinking that I will never again waste my time and energy by worrying, that least productive and useful of all human preoccupations, because I now simply understand how worry works, and I can exclude it from my life and my thoughts. There is nothing to be gained by it and a lot to be lost, missed or downright ruined.

If, like me, you are a person of anxious nature and you think you might benefit from something to stop your mind churning over those 'worst case scenarios' all the time, then I can't recommend this book highly enough.

What books have you read which have helped you with a personal challenge?