David Brooks is the rarest of geniuses - an author who is not only extremely good at his job but is also constantly seeing the minutiae of everything when it comes to writing great books, even if it means writing in a way to bring them down to laymen terms. His recent opus The Second Mountain is a moral mission; a course correction - a timely exploration of what it really means to live larger than life.
The book does a lot of the soul-searching lately, about life, about purpose, about what we are all doing here on this big blue marble. With a deep understanding of the mores and manners of a society on the cusp of radical change, Brooks invites us to consider the journey beyond this mountaintop of societal shifts and personal ambitions, towards a higher calling of service and community. And the more we keep making that life-balancing journey, the more we keep piling up a fixed deposit, and the more we add a thread to the rope that weaves the world together.
This book is like climbing your own personal Everest of self-knowledge. Each and every chapter is a fountain of goodness. And it keeps bubbling up and helps readers reach a higher spiritual peak - one that he calls the second mountain. So let's dive into some of the highlights and lowlights of the lessons I learned from this book that sort of stack up to feel more like a fine-grained analysis.
Firstly, the metaphor of the "Second Mountain" is a powerful one. It is a kind of moral code that gives a person a focus, a basis on which to conduct himself. But the first mountain, Brooks points out, is the one we typically climb in the beginning: you know, when we go out into the world of work, chase the promotion, buy the big house, book the best car. It is a mountain many of us climb, often with life's hard chapters. We keep running on that professional treadmill of keeping up with the rest of the world, in the process, causing enough family friction.
At face value, this first mountain is all about us, about hitting the bull's-eye - our careers, our success, meeting our growth goals, making the big bucks. It's the mountain we climb to take ourselves out from zero to hero, to be somebody. Yet, as we hit the peak, we may find ourselves looking down at a world that feels like an inescapable circle of emptiness. On top of this peak, life doesn't feel full circle or well written.
This is where the secret sauce: the second mountain comes in and makes you feel as right as rain. Brooks pieces the picture together and shows us the way that there is something better on the far side of the first mountain. He even recounts some amazing stories about real people who climbed their Second Mountain. The heart of the book lies in its full dive exploration into this peace-seeking, moral-code-giving "Second Mountain." This is the ascent towards a life defined not by personal success or careerist ambition, but by contributions to others. It is a journey marked by humility, fellow feeling, Good Samaritan and a deep-seated desire to make a difference. It is a mountain about giving back, about going the extra mile, about serving something bigger than you. It's about finding meaning and purpose in helping people and convincing them to help even more to keep that chain going, because on this mountain, all acts are directed to a social end, and it's about climbing higher for a reason bigger than you.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its ability to fill in the blanks between the personal and the societal. At its core, this towering second mountain thing really hits you hard. It's like a little mission impossible. Everything the first mountain does poorly is what the second mountain excels at. So, Brooks challenges his readers to examine their own lives and consider the extent to which they are scaling their own elusive second mountain. Once that meta-idea takes hold, it's hard to dislodge.
Just as expected, some people radically change their lives when this happens. They quit their well-paid jobs and sign on to the idea of becoming volunteer teachers in inner-city schools, nurses in health centres, and social workers in community centres. Ideally, they are on their second mountain fair and square. This mountain is so great. It ripples out into the world of predatory capitalism and consumerism. To make sense of this, Brooks invites us to strike out on this very same journey to find out the tippy-top of the coveted second mountain. From the get-go, it is quite a journey to get all the way up there, but the emotional pay-off is one almost guaranteed to fill you with joy and a balancing point that brings a sense of inner peace.
At its highest point, the book is a big moral call; a call to action and each action is like a bright torch that hollows out the dark. As labour movement leads to a fight for fair wages - one torch lighting another - the fight for fair wages leads to equality and that alone creates a great economic leveller. The book challenges us to re-evaluate our priorities and to consider how we can tackle every rocky road head on - literally to live for others, and not for ourselves, and create a sunlit path to a better and brighter world. It is not merely a book bound in stiff covers; it is a compass for the soul; a life-changing maxim. It is a generation-defining work that will resonate with readers of all ages, and inspire every one of them to find their own way to this peacemaking, secretive Second Mountain and also help them get a chance to make that uphill climb.
