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Wow! I realized, while scrolling through my blog, that I had left Outliers (an outstanding book) by Malcolm Gladwell unaddressed and simply noted with a supposed “midway check.” I am a little lazy at the moment to write a detailed blog-ly response to the book in my tone and my writing, but I am happy to provide you a book response I have written on GoodReads and also submitted as a Piece Of Writing to my own English teacher at school (haha).

Here it is. You can also find it here on Goodreads.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is a book taking a second and closer look at success in a different way than we usually dismiss it: why do people succeed? What makes people succeed? And is it really just hard work and grit that gets you to the top? In his bestselling book, Outliers, Gladwell takes a closer look at what really matters when it comes to success, and why it matters. The lives of successful men and women, whom he calls outliers—Steve Jobs, Robert Oppenheimer, Olympic class hockey players—are all dissected in this book in a way that you will look at success again at a different angle. He tells us why Asians seem to be better at math, why your culture matters when it comes to how likely a plane will crash, and why a man with an IQ higher than Einstein’s known IQ is working on a farm out in the country without a college degree. What is the real key to success, and what governs it? Gladwell makes an attempt at cracking the code, or at least figuring out a pattern to the infinite variety of success stories.
In the past, I have read one of Gladwell’s other bestselling novels, titled Blink. It is a book about snap judgments and first impressions, another quite interesting book researching the psychology of human behavior. In comparison with Outliers, however, it seems that Outliers rises above Blink in a way that it is much more applicable to our lives.
Outliers—and I hesitate to specify on the statistics or the ‘discoveries’ uncovered in this book to save your reading experience for later—is about success. It is something we all strive for, at least to some degree, and it is something that we have always thought of as that “thing” we get when we work hard, we spend time on it, and we ‘never give up.’ There is nothing morally wrong with this idea. In fact, it is a great motto to follow throughout your life. However, what lies between this idea of “incessant hard work” and real success is that evidence, lives, and research shows that it has never been only hard work that have gotten the people in the newspapers or TV where they are today. It is a combination of luck, of—yes—hard work, of cultural background, of your parents, of your childhood, and an infinite number of variables all entwined in such a way that in reality, success is neither predictable nor moldable. It is something that you might wish for but cannot create deliberately.
Many of the points Gladwell makes in this book, such as the 10,000 hour rule (stating that to become a professional, a true ‘master’ at a certain art or profession, you must have spent at least 10,000 hours doing that art or profession), have made a pretty deep impression on me as a reader. It really opened my eyes to the mystic monstrosity of the world and the forces of nature. Though that sounds quite cliché and otherworldy, reading Outliers really gives you an idea of how uncontrollable one’s future is and how much people have put behind a success story. Whoever you think of as successful—whether you take them for granted or not—have all had a difficult and arduous journey before it lasting for years longer than you might expect. Not only this, but Gladwell proves that luck plays a significant role in success. When you are born, such as what year and what month, are very crucial to your potential to reach success. (Reading about this the first time really astounded me. Olympic class hockey players, to give you an idea, are mostly born in January by a very disproportionate degree. Not only this, but successful men of the Silicon Valley have all been born somewhere around or between 1952 and 1958. It is an extremely interesting idea.) But what Gladwell also proves is that your luck isn’t sometimes just something of fate that you pray for, but rather a passing opportunity that one must be prepared to catch upon discovery. We can take away from this book the idea that by understanding your culture, spending time on your passions, and remembering to be persistent in what you do will help you get farther down the road towards success. In the end, it is passion, dedication, luck, grit, background, and persistence that takes you far enough to know that you are an outlier.

I have found that I have a liking for books that question the morality of man and such. Books that question what is taken for granted? They are quite mind-stimulating, to put it in a very odd phrase. It gets me thinking. I like that.

But putting all formal book reviews and wordy explanations aside, what I mean to say is READ OUTLIERS.

It is simply an amazing book that gives you a completely different angle on success and the road to it.

I will leave you there. Adieu.

Greetings, readers and writers of the world. I welcome you to my undernourished and famished blog.

Recently (today) I started reading Anthem by Ayn Rand, which I assure you is a very very interesting book, to say the very very least of it. It… hm… I have not quite finished formulating my thoughts on the book, due to the fact that I have only reached the halfway mark of the book. It, however, got me thinking even when I was traversing the first few pages. I think that reading the book will give me decisive opinions about the book and its content, but for now I will leave it with a question mark ?

Here is a writing response I wrote on a lonely blank Microsoft Word document once I got home (I was reading this book whilst waiting for my mother to finish doing her religious duties). I read it over and realized that it quite nicely summarizes what I have gotten out of the book so far.

I encourage you all to attempt to read at least the first page of this book (excluding the Author’s forward and Editor’s note because neither the Author’s forward nor the Editor’s note will get anybody remotely interested in reading the book. Though I must say, the Author’s forward was interesting considering it being an Author’s forward. But nevertheless what I mean to say is that you should read the first page of the actual book, Chapter One of Equality 7-2521).

A man once said, “Every man for himself.” But today, no man is for himself. No man is for the self. Man is for the society. Man is for others. Man is to do what other man is to do. Man is to smile, man is to laugh, but man is not to smile and laugh at what society thinks man should not smile and laugh at. Man is to do what man’s neighbor does, as long as man’s neighbor does what his neighbor does. Man is to think about his role in society. Man is to give up some ideals for the good of the other man, and man is to wonder if man should pursue his dreams or pursue money. Man is to think that he is living a life full of freedom and liberty and choice. Man is to live happy, man is to live free, and man is to live content. Man is not to think about why society is created. Man is not to question the rules in which all man follow. Man is allowed to dream big, but not dream far. Man is to assimilate into the crowd, and man is to stay that way, blending into the sea of monotonous unicolor revealing no personality and no opinion. Man is to think about what others might think of him, and man is to resist from doing his own wants which lay outside of the social norm. Man is to be social, but in the way society wants man to be. Man is to do what he thinks will make other like him. Man is to do what he thinks is thought of as normal. Man is to be normal. Man is to obey.

A man once asked a crowd, a crowd of supposed diversity, a crowd of many men, a crowd of individuals, a question. And such a question held not one answer, but many. Yet it was a question which required knowledge of the social norm, which required an answer which was open to many but accepting to one. It was a question which tested the very essence of Man, is Man for himself, or is Man for society? Is man for his own opinion, or is man for pleasing others?
A man once asked a crowd, a crowd of supposed diversity, a crowd of many men, a crowd of individuals, a question. The man blinked once and soon he was simply asking one man a question, and he replied with one answer. It was not any man, but Man. Man did not hesitate and Man did not think.
A man once asked a crowd, a crowd of supposed diversity, a crowd of many men, a crowd of individuals, a question—only to realize he was mistaken, for he was simply asking one question to one Man for one answer.

(Note: the Man and Society mentioned in my writing above do not correspond with the Man and Society in the book Anthem by Ayn Rand. Though it very closely relays the ideas of the society in the book, this writing is actually my thoughts and opinions on our society that we live in today.)

Long has it been since I last typed words into this text box that would print itself onto my blog.