Bag O' Books: 'Freedom,' by Sebastian Junger

The central tale of this short book involves a long hiking trip -- a series of trips, actually, as we find out in the afterword -- that Junger took with some combat friends, along the railroad tracks of Pennsylvania, camping along the way, darting into towns for quick meals at diners. Along the way, some ruminations about freedom, which in some cases literally means "unencumbered": Junger has a lot to say how mobile hunter-gatherer tribes are more free -- and freer from hierarchies of wealth and rank -- than the place-bound farmer-city society that we call society. (He also notes that such freedom has its limits: Even the "most free man in the world" ultimately needed to connect to society.) There are detours into the relationship between testosterone and dominance, the similarities between the Taliban, the Irish of the Easter Uprising and the steel mill strikes of the Industrial Era. A short book with an even simpler message: "If you can't run a mile with all your gear, you've got too much gear."

* Book 1 of 2022.

My bucket list for 2022

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

No resolutions. But a few things I'd like to do.

* Finally read Robert Caro's "The Power Broker.": Kind of astonishing I've made it this far into my career without checking that box. I've read and loved literally every other book that Caro has published. This one intimidated me, though. I've already ordered a paperback version through the local bookstore, and ergonomically I wish to hell there was an e-version. But there isn't. 

* Travel. I've barely left the state of Kansas the last two years, except to go to Arkansas to visit my wife's parents. I'd like to go someplace that's not where I usually am. One possibility: Getting on Amtrak's Southwest Chief and head west. Never been to Albuquerque. But I'd also really like to return (home?) to Philadelphia, which we'd planned to do the summer of 2020. You know how that went.

* Find my "thick community." Nuff said.