A little book review today. 

I finished reading “The Art of Interesting” by Lorraine Besser this weekend. The premise of the book is that to live a good life, happiness is not enough because it is fleeting, and not in our control. Instead we need to be open to interesting experiences, be curious, and let life be driven from these points of openness and diversions into the unknown but exciting.

This book, in a way, is articulating what I believe I have always followed in my life without knowing it as a concept. Of course, I have a lot to learn in terms of being more open to the interesting. But the spark for the idea is already very present in my life. To see research about it, to see how it helps, and what we can do to enhance our lives with the interesting, and how to go about it were all eye opening. 

The first half of the book seemed to drag for me, and it took me for ever to get through it when the author was dismissing happiness as the prime ingredient for a good life. I understand that she was making a case for why we need to have interesting, or psychologically rich experiences, as the main ingredient in our dish of a good life, but I picked this book up because I already understood that. And I was eager to get to the meat of the topic: using the art of the interesting and stories related to that. 

There are some very impactful quotes in the book that got me thinking (and I had to transcribe them in my notebook). Here is one of them:

While pleasure has its basis in the body, the interesting has its basis in the mind.

And here is one of the best paragraphs (in my humble opinion!) in the whole book:

The more we build up our creativity, the more prone our minds become to having interesting experiences, especially when we layer it onto Mindfulness 2.0 and curiosity. The mindfulness gets us to notice detains and gives our minds something to work with. Curiosity and creativity prime our minds to take off from this point. Curiosity gives us a trajectory to explore, while creativity pushes us to go beyond what we’re given. Both encourage our minds to engage, rather than to digest, and all three are parts of a mindset that, quite simply, will bring more interesting to our lives.

The book also talks about taking risks (not the dangerous kinds), enjoying novel experiences, and turning obstacles into challenges to overcome with stories and experiences. All of these could be used in our lives to make for more psychologically richer experiences and an interesting good life. And lastly, she talks about the richness that a community and friends bring to any life. As humans we are in absolute need for people around us, and they can even lead us to live rich lives whether or not we agree with them on everything. The point is to have people to share our lives’ ups and downs with, and for them to bring their experiences and thoughts to our lives to add diversity to our lives.

The book makes total sense to me with the overarching idea. I am all for interesting ideas. Any spark of new ideas, stories or experiences that come my way, I go all out reading and researching and using them in my life. I find it hard to rest till I’ve gotten behind that idea and found more about it.

Could the book have been a more interesting read? I believe so. The stories and writing could have been more captivating. But, it’s a good read nonetheless. 

And if you are interested in this topic to make a better, more enriching life for yourself…give it a read 🙂