When Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle moved to Kansas in search of a quieter life, he discovered his century-old neighborwashing the car in front of the door of his house dressed exclusively in a old swimsuit. Your sense of smell … As a writer – he is the author of several bestsellers in the United States – he told her there was a good story there and he decided to follow the trail. Charlie White did not disappoint. “What I learned about happiness” (Maeva) is the result.
Von Drehle met White in 2007, when he was 102 years old. He died in 2014. During this time, he realized that Charlie was not a survivor. He didn’t just live. He lived in joy. He wanted to know the why and the how; He felt that his attitude contained something essential and that he wanted to pass it on to his children. In the middle of uncertainty and bad omens which darken the future of new generations, what could be better than to show them the journey of a man through a century of changes to which he knew how to adapt.
Charlie was one of the last Americans who could describe what it was like to drive a car before roads existed, one of the last to marvel as images first moved across a screen. was born before the creation of radiobut he learned to use the cell phone; He trained in medicine when antibiotics did not exist but improvised techniques for early open-heart operations. She saw how women went from not being able to vote to leading businesses and governments; Theodore’s life story Roosevelt to Barack Obama.
Although he witnessed the politics of the 1920s and 1930s, marked by extreme divisions and a general sense of demoralization, he did not see how Donald Trump occupied the Oval Office or how the foundations of global geostrategy began to shake since then. “He was a kind and gentle man, so I think he would have been disappointed by the tone of current politics. At the same time, his vast experience gave him a serenity in the face of events that many of us don’t have. “I think he would have been saddened, but it wouldn’t have surprised him,” the journalist told ABC.
Accepting what you cannot control and focusing on your own actions is the Lord’s Prayer of Stoicism. For this reason, although Charlie always denied having a life philosophy, Von Drehle describes him as an excellent example, despite the bad reputation that follows this trend. “People think it implies emotional distance, indifference, coldness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Stoicism is the philosophy of freedom, and freedom can be a source of great happinesswarmth and personal expression. It frees us from anxiety (which is the desire to control the future) and depression (which is the desire to undo the past). We focus on present momentthis is the only moment we can influence,” says the writer.
In an era marked by a sense of lack of control, White’s patient attitude toward change is a good guide.
Von Drehle says in “What I Learned About Happiness” that White acquired this insight from the age of eight, when his father died in tragic circumstances. Coming from a large family and with few resources, it is not surprising that he declared to the chronicler: “We didn’t have time to be sad”. His mother forced him to get involved in household chores, and soon after, he began earning his first dollars, eventually training to be a doctor.
Adversity was no exception for him. It is no coincidence that Viktor Frankl and “The Quest for Meaning,” his testimony as a prisoner in several Nazi concentration camps, appear several times throughout the book. “Frankl discovered that there is one thing that cruel fate and evil people cannot take away from us: our thoughts, our willingness to love, to be kindto elevate our own behavior, to choose the type of person we will be. “Charlie, in much easier circumstances, had a similar understanding,” he says.
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“What I learned about happiness”
David von Drehle
232 pages. 19.90 euros
This is perhaps why what surprised Von Drehle the most in the reception given to his book, published two years ago in the United States, is that it found an unexpected resonance with young readers. In a historical moment marked by feeling of lack of controlWith his patient attitude toward change, White is a good guide.
Transcendence
But he had something else: “He took advantage of the opportunities and held on to what was important. “I was also used to something even more difficult like few people: doing without everything else,” he emphasizes in the book. But this attitude and this determination seemed innate to him, can they be cultivated into adulthood? “I agree that they are more natural in some people than others. I can say this as someone who has suffered from depression from time to time. But they can certainly be cultivated. In fact, those of us who are not naturally optimistic are precisely the ones who need strive to find hope“, answers Von Drehle.
If anything was clear to the author from his encounters with Charlie, it was that he did not aspire to leave a mark or become an example, but told stories and he loved sharing them. And it was a reflection of his own sense of transcendence, according to the author. “He didn’t expect me, or anyone else, to write his life story. Honestly, I didn’t intend to do it until after he died. Our conversations were always friend to friend, not interviewer to interviewee. However, on a deeper level, I think Charlie understood that, for most of us, the best way to transcend our own lives is to establish meaningful connections with other people and we do this, in part, by sharing our stories. Luckily for me, Charlie was very generous about this.
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