The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

So, this was an amazing read. Especially considering it was non-fiction which I've been trying to avoid as much as possible post-grad-school. Bleh. The book was recommended to me by a friend from the local music scene and all-around rad chick Anamieke (check out her band Treasurefruit here). The "tipping point" refers to that mystical, magical place where an idea or trend takes hold and blows up... like an epidemic, but a social epidemic rather than medical. I think just about everyone would find this book interesting. The Tipping Point is a terrifically fertile place for new ideas and new ways of thinking about the world around you.

I , for one example, was taken in by the description of children's understanding of narrative structure, more specifically, of how reliant children are on narrative structure for organizing the world around them in the chapter titled "The Stickiness Factor". Somehow, it offered me hope in the grand sense. I think I have an easier time conceiving of life as something souls would opt into if our lives really are simply narratives at their core, as opposed to random onslaughts of suffering in a sea of just-getting-by... but that might just be me.

Here's a great quote from the book that captures its essence...

"To appreciate the power of epidemics, we have to abandon this expectation about proportionality. We need to prepare ourselves for the possibility that sometimes big changes follow from small events, and that sometimes these changes can happen very quickly."