Because of my lack of knowledge and things to type in a blog, I would continue my tradition of ranting about irrelevant topics. So, lately, I am reading two books and one of them is The Second Mountain by David Brooks. Just 3 pages into it, I am already disagreeing about everything written in that non-fiction book. The Second Mountain seeks to illustrate how human in our modern society go through two stages in life and that how these two stages differ from each other. He called these two stages each the first mountain, and the second mountain. The first mountain according to Brooks is one that people strive to meet their ego and ambition. He says people go into the world to earn money, to build and sustain their everyday necessities. Subsequently, the second mountain outlined by Brooks is the one that people realizes their selfishness or see that the world needs their help. They would go from working for their own good to bringing love to the world. One example he gave is that a manager of one company after the second mountain would no longer care that much about the overall efficiency of the company but instead focus on helping and teaching others what they know. The manager would understand the pain and troubles people are suffering and offer their available help. While this first and second mountain concept isn't mentioned that much throughout the story, I oppose strong disagreement upon it. The only reason that I forced myself to continue finishing the book is that I want to have the right to criticize it. I want to say that I gave it its chance.
And to why I do not agree with his argument is pretty straightforward. It is just that I do not think these two stages should not be separated as much as to two separate mountains. Although that might not be very significant at first glance, it matters a lot to me. People, a lot of people, start helping and giving their all from the start of their life. And though they do give out a lot, their giving is their ambition and is their first mountain. If that is the case, the second mountain would not be applicable. Not to mention, what if one person starts helping people before they forget it and seek their ambition. This first and second mountain could be non-applicable in so many situations that I do not think it should be classified as such. To my honest opinion, I do not think there is any way to classify and categorize people life to a general form. Each person's life is unique and from the similarities of being born and experiencing death, I do not think human's life would be able to be separated into bits. Even people's time of giving birth and marriage differs to such a degree that it is arbitrary, and an individual life should not be put into carts (whatever that means).
All in all, I think that The Second Mountain is not that bad of a book. It succeeds in giving people a realization of their selfishness or their over-ambitious goal of making money. It is also able to give people(me) that normally helps others a desire to be even more helpful. The only downfall to the whole book is that it is based on an idea that life is of two parts, one of ambition and another one of helpfulness.
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| This is how bad my art has become through the half a year of not drawing I drew this before the exam because I was bored to death, don't question about it |
In fact, the drawing is not too bad.
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