Crenshaw's Books & Decks

Braving the Wilderness is an engaging, passionate, and well structured book that took me by surprise. I didn't know anything about this book or the author when I grabbed this. It was one of those on-the-spur-of-the-moment purchases not to lose my audible credit, chosen basically be cause it was at the top of the non-fiction books rankings.

The expression Braving the Wilderness immediately transported me to the middle of an inhospitable isolated place where we have to learn to survive on our own and surrounded by dangerous beasts. In a way, this is a  metaphor for what braving the wilderness really is, it is just that is not Alaska or the Amazon that we have to face and survive, but our modern day society, and our social and political environment.

The book departs from a quote from Maya Angelou:

"You are only free when you realize you belong no place, you belong every place, no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great."

In Braving the Wilderness, Brown discusses spirituality, loneliness, aloneness, solitude, conflict, true belonging, stereotyping, compassion, connection, fear, hatred, pain, anger, BS, civility, boundaries, the difference between what we are and what we believe, and between fitting and belonging. And the good thing is that she does it with a lot of soul and in a very understandable engaging way.

I enjoyed her comments on stereotyping and BStting, as I have suffered those myself, and on bringing civility back into fashion. However, one of the things that resonated the most with me was the  BRAVING system, or seven rules to trust people, ourselves, and be trusted: 1/ Boundaries; to keep and set strong boundaries and be clear about them, and to respect other people's boundaries. 2/ Reliability; to  do what we say we say are going to do, not to use what I call "constant I'm-going-to" to please your own hear or to create commitments that you cannot comply with. 3/ Accountability; own your mistakes, acknowledge them, take responsibility for them and apologise if necessary. 4/ Vault; be like a vault so that, what it is told to you confidentially does not leave our lips and is not shared with anybody with whom was never meant to be shared. A kinda of my lips are sealed. 5/ Integrity. 6/ Non Judgement. 7/ Generosity;  assume that everybody's words and intentions meant to be good even if they turned out otherwise. 

I also liked her quest to be clear about what she means by what she says. Some of the most important definitions she offers in the book are the following:

>  Spirituality = Recognising and celebrating that we are inextricably connected to each other by a power and a connection to that power and one's another that is grounded on love and compassion.
My shortcut = We are all interconnected (I add, even when you aren't spiritual or religious).

> Wilderness = Belonging fully to ourselves so much so that we are willing to stand alone, and also an untamed unpredictable place of solitude and searching.
My shortcut = Know who you are and dare to own it.  

> Braving = Speaking truth to BS and practising civility; it starts with knowing ourselves and the behaviours and issues that both push us into our own BS or get in the way to be civil.
My shortcut = Have the balls to say what you believe. 

> True Belonging =  The spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world  and find a sacredness in both  being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness.
My shortcut = Let your inner light shine and go out even when when others don't really like it. 

> Civility, as that defined by the Institute for Civility and Government: claiming and caring for one's identity needs and beliefs without degrading some else's in the process.   
My shortcut = Treat others the way you want to be treated even when you strongly disagree with them.

THE DOWNSIDES

1/ Extroversion bias.
The quest to belong is common to all humans, no matter our culture, nationality, ideology and religion, but the way people connect are not the same. Personally, the main downside of the book is that Brown has a strong extroversion bias, and she projects her extroversion as an equivalent of connection. Any introvert reading the book will find that there are too many groups, too many get-together, and some large gatherings that are not ''natural' ways of connecting to us. A concert at a big arena, a football match in a large stadium, sound more like places where one see mobs and conformity trends in action; we can enjoy the show, but not really connect unless you are there with somebody you  have already connected. I also know introverts that love the sound of silence, despise sport, don't usually go to big demonstrations, and yet, they have meaningful connections with other human beings and empathy with humanity in general. Of course, when we attend a wedding or funeral, or march in the streets to express our views on social or political issues we are sharing important things with strangers, we are part of something larger than ourselves, but to introverts that is not real connection. I can simply say that most introverts would not join large gatherings, not even family ones, or would do so against their will and would not consider that enjoyable or a way of connecting. I would like that some writers thought about us, a high number of very functional human beings, who are not extroverts and don't relate to other people as extroverts do. I am not saying that Brown doesn't get that, I am saying that the book doesn't reflect that.

2/ Braving the wilderness is not enough.

Although I basically agree with much of what Brown states, believes in, and speaks about in the book, braving the wilderness is not enough to change the attitudes and social trouble that our modern Western society lives in and is affected by. We can brave the wilderness, but for society to be better, to step up, to change as a whole, more is needed. I don't deny the power of one or a few to transform society, but a large shift is needed to do that, and that involves more that a good heart, belonging to ourselves, or loving our neighbour. The  power of education, social justice, eradication of poverty and equal opportunities are immense to eradicate ignorance, fear, hatred and swallowing the news as they were Bible's material, so people aren't manipulated, and hatred and antagonism don't spread so easily and virulently.

3/ Data per se is not serious research.
I understand that this is a book addressed to the general public, and Brown couldn't mention her research's methodology and findings in detail. However, the book sounded as if she was reducing research to data, which is something simplistic and dangerous. Data alone is easily manipulable and data is not a poll in which x percent of a group says yes, no, or this is what I think about this issue. Brown is an academic and knows that perfectly well. However, at times, it sounded as if the data was just  the result of a poll taken among the people taken part in her research, and that is dangerous. As I did read this book in audible format, there might be some explanations or footnotes in the hard-copy; if that is the case, my apologies in advance. 

4/ It might age soon.
 Although I agree with what she says about the current political environment in the US, I would have rather focused on other examples, which are equally valid, but won't age the book. On the other hand, she is braving the wilderness and speaking her truth, so bravo.

5/ The first chapter.
The start of the book got me worried. It is a sort of memoir in which Brown links her personal experiences to the core of the book, but until that becomes clear, it felt as another self-improvement self-centred guru wanting to talk about her without stop and dropping Oprah's name to major impact.