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There's something very resonant in Brooks' premise of the book, that there's a deep reward to know another person, "to let them feel valued, heard and understood, {and that is} at the heart of being a good person, the ultimate gift {we} can give to others and {ourselves}".

The reward of human connection is something that has become more present in my life as I grow older, something less quantifiable perhaps than the conventional measures of success that society places, but something that feels genuinely centering and enlarging when experienced. What I really appreciated in this book is Brook's vocabulary for describing this phenomenon, both the reality of how our modern society has relegated the importance of human connection in the face of efficiency and progress, and how to reclaim this intrinsic and natural part of of human life. Particular chapters that I enjoyed include "Life Tasks" (framework for thinking what a person's current phase of life is "tasked" around) and "What is a person" (the thesis that a person is a point-of-ivew, a way of seeing the world based on their own histories and context).

As I've found in other books by Brooks, the premise and framework starts strong, but Brooks lean increasingly heavily into isolated anecdotes and out-there narratives which chips away from the persuasiveness of his thesis. But I do think this book is an easy recommendation, especially for people who are caught in the spinwheel of our achievement culture and have never seen, or lingered on the power of the human connection.

I do wish that Brooks structured this book more as a practical handbook with exercises and to-dos. There's a lot of value in the resonance and awareness this book builds, but human connection takes effort and taking the first step in that journey is not always easy. While the book is peppered with things to do and Brooks' own journey, one doesn't leave concretely with how to implement it in their own lives. Other reviewers have attempted to consolidate and come up with a to-do list though, so I think this is a book that readers do have to do some work to actually plan and do in order to take away more from the book --> this is certainly a to-do item for myself.