BOOK Review: The Wilder Way

Eva excels at personal reflection and introspection. That’s what I found best about this book. I follow her Youtube channel so I was not looking forward to a retelling of adventures I already know. Some of her adventures, such as the trek in the Arctic, seem too extreme to be any fun, and in fact even reading about it was not any fun. Why would a normal person put herself through that? That’s because Eva is not a normal person. She is an eccentric, but in a good way. She doesn’t feel fear as much as a normal person, and she has cultivated her sense of courage. This makes her happy; pushing herself is what it’s all about. Her life is unusual, not like most of ours, but we are the ones reading about hers, and she is not reading about ours! In other words, she is leading a special life.

I like how she thinks; she analyzes people and places in a way that I find insightful. Eva teaches us about the world, which is a universal desire. Many of us want to travel to far flung places, and meet far flung peoples, but we just can’t. We have obligations, jobs, or other obstacles. Well, this book brings the world to you. Not the big Euro cities; for that go to Rick Steves. Eva hates big cities. Read this book if you want to learn of places you never even heard of. I particularly enjoyed her misadventure in Socotra, a small isle of the African coast. It seemed like a romantic adventure of four castaways, who were lost, and culminated in a totally preposterous marriage proposal, where a 19 year old kid asked Eva at 27 for her hand in marriage. We thought he was good! There she also ran a bad buy who tried to make out with her … And she endured an online mob fueled by their own boredom. This book was quite a read, particularly for Eva’s Youtube followers. Bravo Eva!

Motivational Quotes 8/7/26

Don’t delay and give bad luck a chance to catch up to you; fate favors swiftness.

The advantage of time is no match for the advantage of timing.

Don’t you think fate knows the future long before you and I do? Of course! Fate is in the know; only you and I are in the dark.

If you don’t remember your bad memories, you wouldn’t have to suffer them.

More is lost by indecision, than by wrong decision. (folk)

No exertion, no reward

Don’t let the bugs bug you

It is pursuing goals that we find happiness.

Allow chance to run its course and it always arrives at fate.

The less they have, the more they give. (anonymous)

Book Review: Poems by Alexander Pope

Pope has written the best poem in the English language “Essay on Man.” Sorry Shakespeare, Pope’s got you beat. Though Pope wrote no plays, unlike Shakespeare who made his name writing plays. And not all his poems are equally good, but the subject matter of Essay on Man, cosmology and philosophy, makes this a big poem in size and scope. There is a lot of wisdom there. This was the philosopher poet, more any other I have come across. Though I can’t say that I am well read in poetry, but you know it when you see it. You don’t need to be well read to know when something cannot be outdone.


That being said Pope has his defects. He has not aged well. It can get boring. It’s hard to apprehend. The language is too antiquated and doesn’t seem to relate to us today. Much of the poetry is stuff you have to force yourself to read; sincerely, it feels like work, not like reading for pleasure. Some poems were unreadable. I did not like the Rape of the Lock or the Dunciad. So I’m not about to put in all this work to apprehend antiquated language, in difficult poetic form, to get an ounce of pleasure. The cost benefit ratio to Pope’s poetry is sometimes too low to be worth it. This is true for a lot of old poetry, and even of Shakespeare’s plays. Maybe this is why old work loses popularity.

Motivational Quotes 7/9/26

We are the main character and the audience of our life.

There is enough time to achieve all your goals, but only if you work every day.

Distance makes the ordinary special.

To live is to keep up with your daily schedule.

The flip side of discomfort is excitement; the flip side of comfort is dullness.

We keep each other going.

Don’t trigger it. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot.

In the face of defeat, defiance!

Often times, pain is invisible and no one can know its nature or depth but us.