The Mount Of Olives

This book was a very quick read and reminded me of the book The Alchemist. The book details the transformation of an orphan named Felix who was born into the Roman empire during the Pax Romana. Felix is a mute and feels cursed by the gods, fate, and the powers that be. He continues to fail in realizing himself and cannot conceive of how to escape his perceived prison of fate. He surmises that he is destined to become a beggar and will never come to realize his dream of owning orchards of olive trees. His childhood dream is a shadow that incessantly mocks him. Unable to join the Roman army he resolves to flee the land of his upbringing. He finds himself on a dock willing to go wherever fortune may take him. A mysterious merchant who catches a glimpse of the destitute Felix is compelled by some intimation that this sulking boy has a destiny that is intertwined with his. He has a penetrating insight that cuts through Felix’s defenses, insecurities and excuses and brings him on a voyage to Jerusalem.

Throughout the journey the man comes to teach Felix various lessons in life reflecting the wisdom and experience that he has gained through his journeys. Felix commences to write down these lessons in a new technology of the time called a book in which he records all that he has learned. These lessons are insufficient so long as they remain to be only words. He integrates these lessons such that they penetrate his soul and manifest as action. His confidence grows, he is forced to confront his fears and excuses. His dream of owning olive orchards becomes reinvigorated.

A series of mystical encounters occur in the holy land culminating in a mission that Felix undertakes. This mission will help him reframe his entire lens by which he views his life. The book is organized such that each chapter corresponds with Felix’s learning and integration of one of eleven principles. These principles are largely derived from sources of colloquial wisdom and imbued with Christian theology. The book can largely be characterized as religious in nature.

One insight I thought was particularly compelling occurs in a scene in which Felix loses all of his writings that he has collected throughout his journeys. He is distraught that his insights and hard work have been lost. He is challenged to rewrite all that he has learned in his journeys by a local publisher in Jerusalem who sees greatness in Felix. The publisher is not impressed by Felix’s distress over his lost writings. He causally observes that one has never lost what they have written if what they have written has truly animated their soul and become their habit and way of operation in the world. One analogy that was presented in the book I found quite apt for describing the sort of fractioned perspective and sense of reality we have in spite of all our philosophies, sciences, and other means of analyzing the world. The analogy goes something like this, suppose three blind men were challenged to describe an elephant. One blind man grasps the elephant’s tail and surmises without a doubt that the elephant has properties analogous to a cord and is a rope-shaped creature. Another of the blind men grasps the elephant’s trunk and is convinced that the elephant is a thick and muscular creature. The third blind man grasps the elephant’s ear and perceives its flatness. He proposes that an elephant is a creature of similar design to that of a stingray. It is worthwhile cultivating the realization that we all have our blind spots and may be glimpsing but a fraction of reality. Who knows what the discrepancy is between what the whole of reality is and our perception of it is? Indeed, we are limited in our ability to ascertain much of the world. More of the world is and remains opaque to us rather than being automatically accessible. Thematically speaking, this book largely focuses on principles that have utility in promoting a richer life in spite of individual differences in temperament, personality, and other variable traits. Perhaps these principles could be conceived of as heuristics to operate in an opaque world.