Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

NOTES ON A NERVOUS PLANET is another excellent work by Matt Haig (Reasons to Stay Alive).  He returns to the discussion of mental health, but focuses on stepping away from technology and the frenetic pace of modern life. He says “we have to remember:

          There is no shame in not watching news.

          There is no shame in not going on Twitter.

          There is no shame in disconnecting.”

Haig offers numerous suggestions and writes in a calm, comforting voice. He parallels much of the work on stress management and technology addiction that we have been discussing (such as Twenge’s iGen). I particularly liked his poignant observations about education: “we are being taught a kind of reverse mindfulness. A kind of Future Studies where – via the guise of mathematics, or literature, or history, or computer programming, or French – we are being taught to think of a time different to the time we are in.  Exam time. Job time. When-we-are-grown-up-time.”

Noting that “it sometimes feels as if we have temporarily solved the problem of scarcity and replaced it with the problem of excess,” he also echoes comments in the recent New York Times article from Cal Newport on “Steve Jobs Never Wanted Us to Use our iPhones like This.” Throughout, Haig is courageous in confronting his (and readers’) anxiety: “Worry is a small, sweet word that sounds like you could keep an eye on it.” NOTES ON A NERVOUS PLANET is a very accessible text which asks some tough questions (“How do you stay human in a world of change?”) which Kirkus described as an “often wise and inspiring self-help title.”