the outlier №285
racing to happiness and permissionless
I’m Ben Mercer and welcome to The Outlier. This letter covers a lot of ground — taking in my move from pro rugby player to author and online man of letters — with reflections on books, interesting individuals, cross-cultural connections and the odd detour.
It’s absolutely baking hot here in London so soon I will seek refreshment. Right now, a quick reminder to start reading our the boys book club pick, Heart The Lover by Lily King. You’ve got just over 2 weeks left to read it and not only is it not long, it’s so fun and readable that it won’t take you long. amazon / independents
the books📖
Like a swan in a pond, I may look serene on the surface (I don’t), but underneath it I feel like I’m furiously paddling.
I’ve got a pretty much finalised fundraising document for the Boys Literacy Project I’ve been working on and soon will be sending it out to people and places who may be able to fund its expansion. If there is no answer then that’s ok – at least I’ll have tried – and I can rethink that sort of work.
If you are a person who knows a person or an institution who might fund an educational program for boys, let me know and I’ll share the doc with you.
Regardless I do retain an interest in the future of education. It feels like school is increasingly unfit for purpose but we if we entirely discard the conventions of the past we do so at our peril. There has to be a middle ground between tradition and innovation.
It’s where I find myself right now too. What have I done well to get here and what must I learn or shed to get to wherever I’m going next? Whatever the answers, it’ll have to be fun.
for your interest
racing to happiness
‘So what?’ I’m not going to try and find a reason not to be happy.’
Here, author Leila Slimani is responding to questions of whether she only won France’s highest literary honour, the Prix Goncourt, ‘because you’re a woman and you’re an Arab’.
It’s such an interesting question. In the wake of success, for ourselves and others, a diminution is not an uncommon response. I’m sure we’ve all had someone try and do us down like this and for my part, I have one thing to offer.
Why should I be less happy? I’ve been happy with less.
Perhaps we live in suspicious times but sometimes, it probably behoves to be a little wary. A follower messaged me this week, asking,
I took no offence at this question, particularly given that it was asked politely! There are plenty of people online who are far too effusive about whatever it is they’re talking about (this can include books).
My response to this was twofold.
Firstly, if there’s something I really like and I want to see it win, like Josh Silver’s Fruit Fly or Henry Hoke’s Open Throat or Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, Kick The Latch by Kathryn Scanlan or Assembly by Natasha Brown, then I’m very happy to post about it multiple times. Not all of these books are necessarily niche but they’re also not whatever is being adapted for Netflix this exact minute or the obvious romantasy hits like many others post.
I’m sure I do less well because of this stance. I’m sure I miss out on brand deals and opportunities. I’d rather not be a disingenuous dickhead.
And that’s because secondly, all I have in this sphere of endeavours is the integrity of my recommendation. If I compromised this, it would render the entire thing totally pointless, to me at least.
Perhaps not doing these things is foolish and it can feel a little lonely to not be invited to whichever brand dinner or film premiere it is but I’ll go back to Slimani here:
‘I knew freedom would come with solitude, but I was, and remain, convinced that it’s worth it.’
When I wrote a book about Olympic 100m sprinters, I realised that even though they’re racing, they’re not in competition. They’re trying to give their own best effort while doing their best to tune out the noise. People who try to pull you into comparisons are not people with your best interests in mind and just because everyone else is doing something doesn’t mean you should also do that thing. In fact, it might be best that you do something else.
To pretend that you can be free of any constraint is another kind of foolishness. Slimani adds,
‘Freedom is always partial. I’ve never met someone who is totally free. If they are, it means they have nothing to lose.’
I certainly have something to lose, not least my good name, but while a writer must cultivate a level of detachment in order to say anything actually honest, there isn’t a race for them to win.
Races rely on dissatisfaction and you can just choose to be happy instead. In the face of so much striving, that’s actually quite a radical choice to make.
a read
I read a fascinating and well-timed book called Permissionless by Joan Westenberg (free download here). Westerberg appears to be some kind of techie online writer and her short nonfiction book is full of fascinating historical examples of people who didn’t wait for permission to do great work. I learned that Walt Whitman was self-published and that on publishing Origin of the Species as a private gentleman, Charles Darwin was met with cries of ‘but where are your qualifications’. It’s very well-researched, cogently written and doesn’t outstay its welcome. Worth a look for sure.
a listen
a quote
‘Get the credentials the work asks for, hold them at arm’s length, and don’t let them become you. The door opens once; after that, it’s another piece of architecture. People who walked through and stopped looking at it wrote the books worth reading. The ones who turned around to admire it didn’t write anything.’
― from Permissionless by Joan Westenberg
lastly
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I’ll see you next time.
Great stuff. I hope the funding comes through for your initiative – it's something close to my heart too.