- Care, by Brooke McAlary. Allen and Unwin. $32.99.
At a time when our leaders exhort us, and as COVID compels us, to look after each other, a book devoted to permutations of care may seem timely.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Brooke McAlary, who lives in the southern highlands and has previously written Slow, has organised her work around nine "core ideas", "nine seeds you can plant in yourself". Her list comprises: connection; kindness; awe; nature; making; movement; play; rest; and healing.
Where, a reader might ask, are words like empathy, grace, altruism and generosity? The fair answer would be that those traits are meant to be inculcated and encouraged through work in many of the nine fields occupying McAlary's attention.
McAlary's focus is on small, humble, modest steps, ones which are achievable and accessible. In a sense, her prescriptions amount to de-cluttering, but in a wider context than Marie Kondo suggests.
Similarly, McAlary's arguments are more expansive than Daniel Kahneman's in Thinking Fast and Slow. McAlary's emphasis is centred on both thinking and feeling - carefully, attentively, slowly.
Critics of McAlary might dispute the balance in her analysis between self-care and caring for others. Some readers might find a few recommendations unduly woke, even mawkish.
Others might have sought more attention to religion and spirituality as sources of solace.
Not every reader might want to leave handwritten notes for strangers or jog in place while waiting for documents to print.
Nor is everyone going to be tempted to visit a cemetery, make some goopy slime or doodle on the train.
"Touch is powerful", McAlary contends, while "our brains are truly incredible". Sceptics might query whether "this capacity of ours to care is the superpower that will help us change the world".
Those seeking a brisker treatment of caring might turn to Elif Shafak's recent little essay, How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division.
Approaching the problems in caring from a different, sharper tangent, Shafak rails against our tendency to judge and shame ourselves, counselling caring as one remedy for disillusioned, bewildered people suffering from "contagious anxiety".
On the downside, Shafak has far fewer specific suggestions than does McAlary, who includes "real-life" suggestions for action at the end of each chapter. Obvious points might still be obviously important. As McAlary suggests, care remains "a quite complicated four-letter word".
Rather than espousing self-indulgent, purposeless narcissism, McAlary commends "the pepper to self-care's salt".