The majority of this post was written by my friend Doug shortly after he finished reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.
“I thought his use of the metaphor of story as a guide to looking at one’s own life was good, but I thought that he had to stretch the metaphor a little too much in order to reach his message. One thing I thought that Don was implying that the only interesting stories, aka lives, are those where the character’s are doing community service or helping others. To be more clear, interesting stories are only those involving “doing” things and not “feeling” things.
If you look at the Don’s character in the book, he really only made strides in his character, in the personal trait sense, when he was feeling things like dealing with the emotions surrounding meeting his father, the loss of his uncle, the loss of his girlfriend. Riding across America, Climbing the Inca trail, starting a mentoring programs, these “doing” things were merely manifestations of his new found enlightenment after Don felt things and learned about himself. He could have never accomplished the latter with out first accomplishing the former.
What I took away from this book is not that we should all go out and build an orphanage some where in order for us to have a good story. Conversely, we should look at those parts of ourselves that our holding us back from realizing our full potential. I think someone who has worked through a difficult issue about themselves, has done more meaningful work than any person who builds an orphanage.
I think in a round about way, Don may believe my former proposition. The last few chapters of the book, where Don talks about how we must seek to know ourselves and that no one on earth is going to fulfill all of our needs. Not even God. I agree with that in many respects. I think we have to do our own work here on earth to get what we need.”
I think Doug makes some really good points. He took some things away from the book that I didn’t notice at first.
I think the chapter where Don talks about growing up in a church where Jesus was the answer to all of life’s issues and the problem with that theology explains why he may have focused more on the “doing” side of living a good story. Many people who will read this book, will come from the perspective of “Westernized Christianity.” They will have grown up a church where they were told in order to get to heaven when they die, they have to “believe” the “right” things. It didn’t matter how you were actually living your life, or if you actions reflected these “beliefs,” just as long as you believe in the “right” doctrine.
But that’s another issue for a different discussion.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book. For anyone who has read and enjoyed Miller’s first successful book, Blue Like Jazz, A Million Miles in a Thousand Year will pick up right where you left off.
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