Book Club: Deeper

In the first chapter of our reading from David Brooks’ The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement this week we read about Erica’s successful rise to CEO of the company she once disdained. But the next two chapters tell more of the story of Harold and Erica.

In Chapter 17, Getting Older, we read:

…For the next ten years they spent more time absorbed in their jobs than really being married to each other. They each spent a lot of time at work, they each had their philanthropic causes, and most other parts of their lives faded away, including their ability to communicate with each other…They just drifted into different interests and different spheres.

Brooks does a good job of exploring the sadness and loneliness that each party feels in such a drifting. We watch as Harold spirals into alcoholism, and in chapter 18, Morality, we read about an episode of infidelity between Erica and a colleague.

Brooks uses Erica’s self-loathing after committing adultery as an opportunity to launch into a discussion of the effects of the unconscious on our moral decisions. He ends up at a place of story—a discussion of how, even though the mind has automatic moral concerns, we can choose narratives in which we use even the worst circumstances to achieve spiritual growth. Erica begins to see the value of just such a tool.

She told herself a story about herself. It was the story of drift and redemption—of a woman who’d slid off her path inadvertently and who needed anchors to connect her to what was true and admirable. She needed to change her life, to find a church, to find some community group and a cause, and above all, to improve her marriage…

In the meantime, Harold decides to start attending AA and finds authenticity in the deep fellowship among a seemingly mismatched group of addicts. During this same time he discovers the Incarnation Camp—a camp for children that he begins to volunteer for and in which he finds some meaning. One night while on a canoe trip with some of the kids and counselors, Harold has a sort of epiphany.

…Harold had brought no booze on the trip, and retired late that night to his tent sober and happy. He lay in his sleeping bag, feeling exhausted and lucky. It’s interesting how fast a mood can change. In an instant something turned inside him. Suddenly, he felt like weeping…He thought about the life he had constructed and the life he would have constructed, if he had been a little more open and possessed a little more emotional courage. Eventually, he fell asleep.

Harold and Erica are learning the hard way what we learned back in chapter 12—that is, what makes people happy. It seems like a no-brainer, but why is it something we take for granted? The deeper the relationships a person has, the happier he or she will be. What we see in the resolution of this season of Harold and Erica’s life together is a picture of two people who make deliberate decisions to invest themselves in relationships.

I wonder what their story would have looked like had they done this all along. And I wonder how my story might change if I make a conscious choice to give myself over to deep relationships.

What do you think? Link up below with a post at your blog or simply leave us a thought in the comment section. We tackle two more chapters next week: The Leader and The Soft Side.

Image by Neil Moralee. Used with permission. Sourced via Flickr. Post by Laura J. Boggess.