A couple of days after my Open Circle presentation on November 10, 2019, Lest We Forget, I received an email from Peter Lawrence, someone whom I did not know. He had a couple of questions for me and he shared a link to a book he had written, For The Thinking Sapiens: Short Takes On Life. In my talk I mentioned my interest in nonfiction books and Lawrence thought I might be interested in reviewing his book.
I replied to his questions and proposed meeting at a later date when I was not quite so busy. We arranged to meet for coffee on November 21st. Prior to meeting I did about ten minutes of research into Peter Lawrence. I quickly looked at his three books on Amazon.com and scrolled through some of his personal website. As I walked to our meeting, some thoughts crossed my mind. Would he be someone pushing his book and his own ideas?
My first surprise was his appearance. With a name like Peter Lawrence I was expecting a Caucasion. Instead he looked like someone from India and I had learned from my research that he was from Singapore. Early in our conversation he indicated that he had been born in Sri Lanka. He lived most of his life in Singapore until he moved to California.
Peter was very friendly from the start but I proceeded cautiously. I was waiting for him to turn the conversation towards his book, but he didn’t. I quickly became more relaxed and we had a great conversation that lasted ninety minutes. He is both a good talker and a good listener. We moved easily from topic to topic.
What I learned was an interesting story. Peter is 55 years old. He left Singapore at age 33 and moved to California where he lived until age 44. Then he retired, yes, at that young age! I have no details as to how he achieved that feat but on Amazon.com is another one of his books, The Happy Minimalist: Financial independence, Good health, and a better planet for us all. Peter shared with me that he can live well on one meal a day, eaten at an all you can eat buffet in Guadalajara at a price of 15 pesos!
I learned that his mother still lives in Singapore. I learned that he is now an American citizen and has lost his citizenship of Singapore. I learned that he had a twin brother who recently died of a heart attack.
Peter travels chasing the eternal spring. It was in Columbia that he first heard about Lakeside. If I remember correctly, this is his second time here.
Being favourably impressed by Peter Lawrence, the day after our meeting I bought his book, $2.99 for the Kindle Edition. It is not a long book and I finished it in three days. And, yes, I am interested in reviewing it.
In the Preface, Lawrence writes,
DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK if you don’t sample a book when given the chance, but purchase it and later complain that it was a waste of your time and money.
For The Thinking Sapiens: Short Takes On Life was not a waste of my time or money.
Although Lawrence and I have lived very different lives, we have come to some similar conclusions. Below is a list of these areas of agreement. This list is far from exhaustive.
...your soul’s cravings cannot be satisfied by material stuff…
Clearly, knowledge itself is not sufficient.
Not all aphorisms are true. Money is not the root of all evil.
Human progress is… two steps forward, one step backward.
The questions we ask are important.
It is possible that diametrically opposed views on a subject could both be right.
More is unknown than known.
The book is full of short vignettes, some were familiar to me and some were new to me. Lawrence touched on many subjects also of interest to me, for example, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the Stanford Prison Study, Thomas Kuhn, biases and truth. In his section, Lessons from travelling, Lawrence tells several stories from his travels in Guadalajara, Ajijic and other parts of Mexico which were of interest to me as a Lakeside resident.
The section of the least interest to me was Lessons from the screens. Although I was impressed that everything in his life seems to be a learning opportunity, I recognized only a few of the movies and television programs referred to. Someone familiar with the works discussed would probably enjoy Lawrence’s insights.
As a bonus, Peter has a sense of humor. I am a serious person but his writing often made me smile and twice I laughed out loud. But for a book that is enjoyable to read, there is considerable substance.
Peter Lawrence seems to me to be both wise and street smart. At $2.99 his book is a bargain. And although it is a short book, it is longer than my book of wisdom would be.
CORRECTIONS
After sharing my review with Peter Lawrence, he informed me of some factual errors I made about him. This is a good example of how easy it is to not fully absorb information received verbally. The correct information is as follows.
Peter Lawrence was born in Singapore and his mother was born in Sri Lanka. He continues to be a citizen of Singapore. He did not leave California until 2015. And, regretably, that buffet in Guadalajara is 75 pesos. Peter and I are making plans to meet again in a couple of weeks.