HOW WE ARE

Thoughts on the human condition from a cognitive psychologist–turned–armchair philosopher.

The thesis of Deary’s (Health Psychology/Northumbria Univ.) debut, the first book in the How to Live trilogy, is simple: As creatures of habit, we have arranged our physical, emotional and interpersonal environments to support these habits, a mindset that makes change especially difficult. The author takes this basic idea and runs with it in so many directions that the main message is intermittently lost amid the tangential evidence. Deary’s early examples of mankind’s penchant for treading the beaten path, even if a better route is clearly available, are clear: He writes about landscape designers whose artfully arranged pathways are ignored by the masses marching to and from the market in a straight line. There’s little chance that anyone will take Robert Frost’s celebrated road “less traveled.” The irony is that Deary himself asks us to walk on the waysides rather than stride efficiently from one point to another. Much of the text is given over to movie references of uncertain merit—Adam Sandler features largely here—and interesting, if strained, literary comparisons. Putting aside the question of whether Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and Stephen King’s The Shining have much in common, one leaves these discussions wondering what impact Deary’s observations actually have on his central question. Readers looking for an organized presentation of ideas and supporting studies will be disappointed in the relative lack of scientific support here, and the author footnotes some ideas but not others. How We Break and How We Mend are the next two books in the trilogy, for those who want to see where Deary’s stream-of-consciousness musings will lead.

A psychologist puts humanity on the client’s couch, but a cure seems unlikely.