Jason's Reading (books by Matthew Crawford)

The ideas in this book really resonated with me. For a while now, my dissatisfaction with technology has been growing, and I sometimes dream of doing “real work,” something more concrete and physical like being an electrician. Crawford hit on many of the reasons why I find knowledge work unnatural at times and made a convincing case that the trades should not be a second-class career path. …

To be an individual – what we might call an “interesting” person, someone who makes one’s own choices, who has “real” interests and opinions and skills – requires that you pay attention to, understand, and even respect the objects and people around you – the world beyond your head. That’s my best attempt at capturing the thesis of The World Beyond Your Head. The book is full of interesting ideas, all orbiting around attention, individuality, and excellence, but I struggled to fit it together into a cohesive whole. The presented ideas don’t feel incompatible; they just seem a bit disjointed at times, hard to follow and connect smoothly. I suspect that’s partly a me problem – I’m not great at parsing Crawford’s philosophical writing – but it certainly dampened my enthusiasm for the book. …