The Learning Project, Rites of Passage

By Lincoln Stoller

My thoughts:

This is a very interesting and intense book that I personally found quite inspirational. I’ve always had a passion for gaining knowledge from other people, hearing other people’s life stories and learning lessons from them, so this book definitely kept my interest.

In The Learning Project, Rites of Passage over thirty different people of all different ages, histories, and circumstances are interviewed by the author about how their education began, how and what they learned, the decisions they’ve made in life, and how learning has changed them. Some even offer advice. The interviews reveal their personal transformations. What I loved most about the book was seeing how these people reflect on their choices and how they evolved after them, whether good or bad. One of the biggest takeaways from the book is to love yourself.

“There are things to be done, there’s danger, there’s excitement, there are errors, and there are people who get hurt, and there are people who don’t come back. But it’s in those ages that great things are built…” – George Plotkin

I really enjoyed the interview format which was easy to read, of considerable length, but never tedious. I found myself really wanting to delve even deeper into their stories and discover more on some of the interviews, particularly the people in a later stage of life. Who better to learn from than people who have already experienced full lives and learned many lessons along the way? 

The interviews in the book that kept my interest most were on the topics of healing the mind, medicine, reading, and writing. Also interviews with those who have suffered greatly with their health or problems from their past. These were the interviews that helped me personally. 

It’s obvious much research went into this project as this book is literally a treasure trove of helpful information. I found it fascinating at times and wish I would’ve had this book when I was in my 20s. Even though the book is written with a young audience in mind, I think it’s great for any age. This is definitely a book that I will re-reference in the future and I’d like to thank the author for sharing a copy of the book with me. I won this on a Goodread’s giveaway.

4****

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Find this book on Amazon and Goodreads:

• Paperback: 418 pages
• Publisher: Mind Strength Balance (January 5, 2019)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1775288005
• ISBN-13: 978-1775288008

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From Goodreads:

What’s it like to become fully human? In The Learning Project, people of all ages and backgrounds recount lives of ecstasy, tragedy, success, and despair. Welcome your rites of passage, because without them you are unchanged.

The Learning Project is a search for the kind of learning that is most important. It presents 35 in-depth interviews with people of all ages, interests, and walks of life coming from different economic backgrounds, races, cultures, and political perspectives. Each person answers the question of how learning changed their life. The interviews are separated into 11 areas of interest and three stages of life: youth, middle age, or elder.

Those interviewed include artists, athletes, tradesmen, soldiers, scientists, and politicians, some of whom you’ll know by name. They range from Nobel Laureate to street vandal, from physician to drug addict. Some have disabilities, many suffered trauma, all are survivors. They speak of learning through schooling, family, struggle, work, and hardship with stories that are personal, frustrating, and sometimes horrific. All are inspiring.

Some of these stories go back 15 years, others go back 150. They are stories of modern rites of passage echoing a mythology that goes back thousands of years. Locked in them is the secret to becoming human. I cannot give you the key, but you can find it.

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About the author:

Lincoln Stoller grew up around and was mentored directly by the colleagues of Frank Lloyd Wright, Alexander Calder, Buckminster Fuller, and Albert Einstein. As a teenager, he traveled the world climbing mountains and, in the process, fell 1,000 feet off the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies, swam across the arctic sea, crashed his airplane, collapsed his horse, stepped in quicksand, survived a major earthquake, was buried in an avalanche, and became a cultural ambassador to families in Central America, Mongolia, and the Caribbean. During this time he attended seven colleges, got a doctorate in Quantum Mechanics, and founded a software company specializing in business automation. Building on his interests in physics, neurophysiology, culture, education, and psychology, Lincoln is now a therapist and mentor living in British Columbia, Canada, where he works with clients remotely. He has two wonderful ex-wives, and two wonderful sons. Committed to supporting intuition and the feeling mind, he can be contacted through his web site at mindstrengthbalance.com – Amazon

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Thanks for reading my review. You can leave comments and suggestions below. Have a wonderful day!

♥️ Mischenko