Exuberance : The Passion for Life

Rating:
Summary: earnestly but not rigorously written
Review: Kay Redfield Jamison, who has written with grit and integrity about her battle with bipolar disorder, has authored a new book about joy, passion, and playfulness in life and work. She's done her research, and in these pages many people speak about what makes them spring from their beds in the morning.

Her interviews with scientists in various fields, from astronomers to physicists to zoologists, are especially enlightening and give the reader a notion of how many scientists view their work as a kind of play. My husband, a cloud physicist, could strongly identify with descriptions of the joy that fuels their long hours in the observatory, lab, or field.

Jamison earnestly discusses exuberance, confidence, optimism, and energy, and relates how, from the earliest age, it's fairly easy for an observer to identify the temperament of a child. She correlates exuberance with the extroverted temperaments. (Introverted, sensitive types reading this book are liable to become saddened as they realize it's harder for them to join the party!)

Jamison, taken in by the high-spirited ones among us, fails to recognize the "downside". For example, in some cases, there is a predilection for short-lived and ultimately, unproductive interests; in others, impatience, zealousness, and a kind of imperialism that runs roughshod over other people.

Each temperament has its own set of strengths and weaknesses. While living "exuberantly" may be a wonderful goal, those who are naturally energetic, strong, and confident, have flaws like those described above. Ask my husband or children!

In a previous work, Jamison has described the awe she felt when she looked at computer-generated pictures of her own brain, lighting up and darkening in affected areas. Revealing the circuitry of the brain has aided the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. It is within the range of possibility that someday, a person's temperament will be revealed in the same manner, and the
heritability of temperament will be scientifically established.
(Mothers through the ages have been aware that their children's natures differed, even in the womb. Some are active and strongly kicking; others are placid and slower-moving.)

St. Irenaeus wrote many centuries ago, "God's glory is man fully alive." Living passionately, with joy and with wonder, is certainly a goal for all of us. How that passion, joy, and wonder will be manifested, will vary as do people's natures. As a Catholic, I am amazed at the enormous variations in the lives and personalities of the saints. Exuberance belongs to all God's children, not just the extroverted, active ones. Jamison's book gets only four stars from this reviewer because she failed to appreciate this simple truth.

Rating:
Summary: Very disappointed
Review: I have read two other Jamison books and they were not bad, even though her circle of friends is difficult to relate to for the average person. This book, however, was a terrible disappointment. I am bipolar and I ache for exuberance, I search for it around every corner, I awake every morning hoping to find it, and I talk to exuberant people to see how they got it. As a bipolar person reading a bipolar person's book on exuberance and knowing that most bipolar would love to have a pure, not manic, exuberance, I assumed (my mistake) that this book would be about bipolars finding exuberance, a how-to, in a way. How to climb that mountain from the depths to find exuberance. Instead, I read about a litany of people not at all like me, such as politicians and scientists. She wrote about mostly greatly admired and reknowned exuberant people. Not how they became exuberant, just that they are and examples of their exuberance. To that I say, so what? She also insinuated that extreme exuberance borders on madness. Great, just what I need, more madness.

She also insinuates more than once that exuberance is just a form of mania. That was not inspiring at all, in fact I was devastated, even though I know she's not the ultimate authority on what exuberance is. Just a form of mania? Well shall I just go off my meds so that I can have an exuberant manic state? I thought exuberance was something more pure and more real than mania. I was let down and disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: A Little Less Exuberance, If You Please
Review: I have reservations about this book. The author is a wonderful writer, and her vignettes of Teddy Roosevelt, Snowflake Bentley and John Muir are marvelously realized. But her praises of exuberance need to be tempered. A well-rounded personality is one that is aware of human limitation and balances utopian idealism with realism. All too often the exuberant personality will act impulsively without figuring out a strategy or giving thought to the long term. Those among us who think twice live no less passionately than the naturally exuberant; we just allow experience to leaven the mix.

Rating:
Summary: Exuberance for the living
Review: This is a brilliant woman who has written another brilliant book. If you have come to the conclusion that I like this book you are right.

First, even the idea to study exuberance took courage. The author has previously written about her own fierce battles with manic depression. She is a serious scientist that risked her reputation to expose that side of herself before and now she has written a book that explores emotions perilously close to the up side of her illness. Admitting that she admires the emotion, given her prior disclosure of manic depression, is fraught with special risk for Dr. Jamison. While the positive emotions are understudied, this provides an admitted manic depressive with little cover. Many a depressive has gone off of their medication because of the claimed attractiveness of the manic state.

Dr, Jamison neatly traverses this difficult terrain by keeping her attention focused on others. Early in the book she concentrates her energy on President Theodore Roosevelt. Exuberance is probably the word most used to describe his personality, but still she probes deeper and uncovers insights that have eluded even gifted biographers of this fascinating man. If you are interested in what made TR tick you should read this book.

If you have read Dr. Jamison before you expect such penetrating insights, but even though I have read all of her general works I was unprepared for the beauty of expression, both hers and of many quotations both shrewd and charming that adorn the text and advance her thought.

One of each: "Joy lacks the gravitas that suffering so effortlessly commands." Jamison at 5; "The Greeks understood the mysterious power of the hidden side of things. They bequeathed to us one of the most beautiful words in our language - the word `enthusiasm' - en theos - a god within. The grandeur of human actions is measured by the inspiration from which they spring. Happy is he who hears a god within, and who obeys it." Louis Pasteur, same page. It is rare indeed to be reading a serious work and find yourself saying, "Wow."

I will close this review of a serious work that has offered me insights into a favorite historical figure as well as my children by another quote only slightly changed: (Kay Jamison Jamison's book on exuberance recounts) "a magnificent obsession, plumb-line true and enduring." at 39. When you finish reading this wonderful book you will wonder as I did how it could have been researched and written as her beloved husband lay dying. Only a woman who realized to her core that life is a savage beauty could bear such witness to joy in the midst of such pain. Read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Exuberant a Little
Review: This was an ok book. On reading it, I was reminded of a "Seinfeld" episode where Elaine interviews for an editing position with Knopf. The hiring manager digresses during the interview into comments about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and grace, particularly how Jacqueline Onassis has grace. Commenting on her own perception of grace, Elaine states that she has some grace. The hiring manager quickly dismisses her by stating that one has grace or no grace at all. Elaine then slumps into her chair, realizing she has no grace. I feel pretty much the same way about exuberance. Either you have it or you don't. I don't think I do. The author tries to define exuberance through the lives of noted polticians, scientists, authors, and other famous individuals. Some of these individuals, such as Theodore Roosevelt, overcame obstacles in their pursuit of exuberance. Interestingly, the author does not mention that Roosevelt was not expected to live to adulthood. The author herself claims that she grew up among exuberant individuals. I suppose the author herself is exuberant. The book would have had more of an impact had the author used case studies or "ordinary" individuals who overcame adversity to become exuberant.