The Second

Mountain: The Quest

for a Moral
Life Hardcover – April
16, 2019
Book by David Brooks (Author)

Once I started reading the book, I had a hard time putting it down. The book was of great
importance in understanding the phases of life, giving me a clear direction toward the second
mountain. I decided to share a summary of the book to help you draw a more accurate
opinion of the content.

Let me break the review down in 2 parts. First, I’ll share why I chose to read the book and
some personal thoughts about the reading. Next, I hope to put together a brief summary from
each chapter, including short excerpts highlighted while taking notes.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

We know that following a natural eating plan, having restful nights of sleep, moving our
physical bodies frequently, and even engaging on spiritual practices are all good ways to
preserve our health. In addition to these aspects, a committed life to our vocation, family, and
community is equally important to our overall wellbeing. I pre-ordered the book because I
wanted to explore these commitments in greater detail so I can better contribute to our
society.

Some of my favorite takeaways were: [1] an individualistic mindset can offer a series of
experiences but they won’t fulfill us because these experiences aren’t serving a large cause;
[2] the uncommitted person is the unremembered person; [3] when we reach out and build
community, we nourish ourselves; [4] the completeness of a couple who have been together
for years defines a happy marriage; [5] being alone in the wilderness brings an array of
possibilities; and [6] the second mountain is a more generous and satisfying phase of life.
Having said that, I decided to read it one more time before implementing some of the
learnings.

SUMMARY

[Introduction] Right in the beginning we learn how to differentiate the mountains we are
meant to climb in life. David starts off by saying that “if the first mountain is about building
up the ego and defining the self, the second mountain is about shedding the ego and losing
the self. If the first mountain is about acquisition, the second mountain is about contribution.
If the first mountain is elitist—moving up—the second mountain is egalitarian—planting
yourself amid those who need, and walking arm in arm with them.” He decided to study
commitment on a continual effort to write his own way to a better life after having failed at
significant commitments during his life. At the end of the introduction we explore the
meaning of joy, the layers of joy, and the highest form of joy, which he calls the moral joy.

[Part I : The Two Mountains]

[Chapter 1] Our old moral ecology had a lot of virtues—emphasized by humility and
reticence. However, as David explains, it had also failings, such as tolerance for racism and
barriers against professional women, which ultimately made it intolerable. In the early 60s a
more individualistic culture emerged, breaking through many of the chains that held down
women and oppressed minorities. Despite that, “when individualism becomes the absolutely
dominant ethos of a civilization—when it isn’t counterbalanced with any competing ethos—
then the individuals within it may have maximum freedom, but the links between the
individuals slowly begin to dissolve.”

[Chapter 2] Here we take a look at the ambiguity of freedom. The main message is that
political freedom is great, but personal, social, and emotional freedom can be detrimental
when they become the end goal. David says, “freedom is a river you want to get across so
you can plant yourself on the other side—and fully commit to something.”

[Chapter 3] Now we shift gears toward workaholism, which can be surprisingly easy to
become emotionally avoidant and morally decoupled, to gradually tamp down the highs and
lows and simply live in neutral. The insecure overachiever, David writes, “never fully wills
anything and thus is never fully satisfied.” Although his status is rising, the heart and the soul
of an insecure overachiever are never fully engaged.

[Chapter 4] Using Leo Tolstoy as an example, who at some point felt sick of life and saw no
point in it, David affirms that “wealth and fame and accomplishment don’t spare anybody
from the valley.” Although there are people who go through life without ever stumbling into
the valley, most of us have had to endure some season of suffering when we had to ask
ourselves the fundamental questions. Suffering, according to David, comes in many forms—
some may feel a gradual loss of enthusiasm in what they are doing, whereas others
experience a dramatic crisis. Hyper-individualism, he continues, “has led to a society where
people live further and further apart from one another—socially, emotionally, and even
physically.” And that has produced 4 interrelated social crises. One by one, each crisis is
explained in detail: [1] the loneliness crisis; [2] distrust; [3] the crisis of meaning; and [4]
tribalism.

[Chapter 5] The right thing to do when we are in moments of suffering is to stand erect in
the suffering. It is about understanding that our suffering is a task that, if handled correctly,
will lead to enlargement, not diminishment. When we listen to our lives, according to David,
we shed the old self so the new self can emerge. Going out alone into the wilderness is one of
the smartest bet to change our experience of time because it teaches us “the ability to rest in
the uncertainty, to not jump to premature conclusions.”

[Chapter 6] This chapter is about discovering the role of our heart and soul. Although we are
taught by our culture that we are primarily thinking beings, when we are in the valley our
view of what is important is transformed. As David puts, “we begin to realize that the
reasoning brain is actually the third most important part of the consciousness.” The first and
most important part is the desiring heart, and the second is the soul. We learn that our
emotions aren’t the opposite of reason; they are the fountain of reason and often contain a
wisdom the analytic brain can’t reach. In the valley, we “learn we aren’t just a brain and a set
of talents to impress the world, but a heart and soul.”

[Chapter 7] Whereas earlier we explored the first mountain and the valley, now we focus on
how a committed life will take us to the second mountain climb. David explains that
commitments begin with some movement of the heart and soul, we “fall in love with a person
or a cause or an idea, and if that love is deep enough, we decide to dedicate a significant
chunk of our lives to it.” He adds that a commitment is making a promise to something
without expecting a return. There may be a positive return from a commitment, but that isn’t
why we make it.

[Chapter 8] Although there are many kinds of second-mountain people, they tend to share a
lot of common values. David explains in detail that people living the second mountain: [1]
have had a motivational shift in their lives; [2] have a desire to live in intimate relation with
others to make a difference in the world; [3] are driven by a desire for belonging and
generosity; [4] are attached to a particular place to devote themselves; [5] assume
responsibility; [6] devote to radical hospitality; and [7] are extremely relational.

[Part II : Vocation]

[Chapter 9] In the vocation mentality, David explains, “you aren’t living on the ego level of
your consciousness—working because the job pays well or makes life convenient. You are
down in the substrate.” It is interesting to note that vocations have testing periods—periods
when the costs outweigh the benefits—which we must go through to reach another level of
intensity. At these moments, if we were driven by a career mentality we would quit.
However, “a person who has found a vocation doesn’t feel she has a choice. It would be a
violation of her own nature. So she pushes through when it doesn’t seem to make sense.”
[Chapter 10] Through a genuine example of how E. O. Wilson found nature at age 7 to
become one of the most prominent naturalists, David explains that the annunciation moment
happens when “something sparks an interest, or casts a spell, and arouses a desire that
somehow prefigures much of what comes after in a life, both the delights and the challenges.”
Although childhood annunciation moments are common, they also happen often in
adulthood. The tricky part of an annunciation moment is not having it, but realizing we are
having it. He says, “the best thing about an annunciation moment is that it gives you an early
hint of where your purpose lies.”

[Chapter 11] This chapter focuses on the value of having good mentors. Good mentors,
according to David, teach us the tactic wisdom embedded in any craft, how to deal with error,
how to embrace the struggle , send us into the world and, in some sense, cut us off.

[Chapter 12] Here we take a close look at making transformational choices—the big
commitments in life. All decisions involve a large measure of uncertainty about the future,
but “what makes transformational choices especially tough is that you don’t know what your
transformed self will be like or will want, after the vagaries of life begin to have their
effects.” David explains that since every choice is a renunciation, or an infinity of
renunciations, some of us are so paralyzed by big choices that we skip them. Through
examples and advices, he shares ways to counterbalance these fears in order to make
meaningful vocation decisions.

[Chapter 13] David starts by drawing a useful distinction, “a job is a way of making a living,
but work is a particular way of being needed, of fulfilling the responsibility that life has
placed before you.” All vocational work, no matter how deeply it touches us, involves those
moments when are confronted by the laborious task. All real work, he adds, “requires a
dedication to engage in deliberate practice, the willingness to do the boring things over and
over again, just to master a skill.” He says that if we know what we want to do, just start
doing it, “don’t delay because you think this job or that degree would be good preparation for
doing what you eventually want to do.”

[Part III : Marriage]

[Chapter 14] Who we marry is one of the most important decisions we will ever make.
David says that “passion peaks among the young, but marriage is the thing that peaks in old
age.” One of the problems of the individualistic view, he points, is that “if you go into
marriage seeking self-actualization, you will always feel frustrated because marriage, and
specially parenting, will constantly be dragging you away from the goals of self.” Another
problem is that the heart yearns to fuse with others, and it can only happen by transcending
the self in order to serve the marriage. Although we see a general effort to scale marriage
back and shrink it down to manageable size, David by no means forgets to discuss that
“marriage works best when it is maximal.”

[Chapter 15] Here we explore the first stages of intimacy. David explains that it all starts
with a single glance, which sparks the desire to know the other person, encouraging us to
engage in a dialogue. He ends the chapter by affirming that “when you choose to marry
someone, you better choose someone you will enjoy talking with for the rest of your life.”

[Chapter 16] Now we advance toward the next stages of intimacy. David describes it as the
combustion of the relationship, “we are at the sunniest and most carefree stage of intimacy,
the bright springtime when delight is at its peak without any of the urgent stakes that will
come later.” It is the phase of peak idealization. At some point of the journey toward
intimacy, we will eventually have a relationship-defining talk. This new layer of intimacy—
that comes with responsibilities—is about unselfish actions. Forgiveness is key at any crisis
that will occur after being around long enough to reveal our natural selves.

[Chapter 17] This chapter is dedicated to the marriage decision. David acknowledges that
before making such a decision, we should step back and make an appraisal. He makes it clear
that “everybody spends too much time appraising the other person when making marriage
decisions, but the person who can really screw things up is you.” Based on that assumption,
he shares questions for personal reflection. Once these questions are answered, he discusses
the 3 lenses we may apply when making the rest of the marriage decision: [1] the
psychological lens; [2] the emotional lens; and [3] the moral lens.

[Chapter 18] As a part of the marriage, David explains, “the only way to thrive is to become
a better person—more patient, wise, compassionate, persevering, communicative, and
humble.” Based on a wealth of knowledge supported by figures such as John Gottman, Gary
Chapman, Alain de Botton, and Ayala Malach Pines, David explores a series of aspects to
help us navigate through the ups and downs of our love relationships.

[Part IV : Philosophy And Faith]

[Chapter 19] David shares that his intellectual commitment was shaped during college days.
He then explores how universities became diverse and pluralistic over the years, shifting from
the more humanistic ideal to the research ideal. He argues that, “students are taught to engage
in critical thinking, to doubt, distance, and take things apart, but they are given almost no
instruction on how to attach to things, how to admire, to swear loyalty to, to copy and serve.”
Last, David shares 6 intellectual virtues his professors taught him: [1] they welcomed the
students into the tradition of long conversation; [2] they introduced a range of history’s moral
ecologies to the students; [3] they taught them to see well to the thing they were looking at as
itself, not just as a mirror of their own interests; [4] they taught them intellectual courage; [5]
they gave them emotional knowledge to refine the feelings in certain situations; and [6] the
professors gave students new things to love by exposing them to great masterpieces.

[Chapter 20] Mystical experiences, as David explains, “are moments when the shell of
normal reality cracks, and people perceive some light from someplace beyond shining
though.” Although these experiences often happen in nature, many history’s great figures had
mystical experiences while in prison because “being imprisoned takes away everything else
—material striving, external freedom, and busy schedules.” David shares Viktor Frankl’s
dramatic experience in the Nazi concentration, where he concluded that the prisoners who
survived of diseases or some breakdown were generally the ones that had some external
commitment that they desired and pushed toward.

[Chapter 21] This is a long chapter, yet interesting. David walks us through his religious
journey from childhood all the way to adulthood. He shows that our faiths, feelings, and
struggles evolve over time. During the process of inner transformation, according to him, we
don’t “really notice it day by day, but when I look back at who I was 5 years ago it is kind of
amazing, as I bet it is for you in your journey. It is a change in the quality of awareness. It is a
gradual process of acquiring a new body of knowledge that slowly, slowly gets stored in the
center of your being.”

[Chapter 22] During his journey, he found out along the way that “religious people and
institutions sometimes built ramps that made it easier to continue my journey, or they built
walls, making the journey harder.” Based on that, he explores details of common ramps and
walls we may encounter during our journey.

[Part V : Community]

[Chapter 23] Now we shift gears toward healthy communities. To better understand what a
healthy community looks like, we first learn how social isolation can be detrimental to our
communities and, at the end, to ourselves. David explains that community is “restored by
people who are living on the second mountain, people whose ultimate loyalty is to others and
not themselves.” Although building a community is a slow and complex process, David
walks us though the first stages of community creation. Community renewal begins with
commitment. Then, we have to fix the neighborhood as a whole instead of focusing on
individuals one by one. From the diagnosis, we work on finding ways to bring the
neighborhood together—“to replace distance with intimacy and connection.” Once people are
gathered together, in some way or another, storytelling begins—“vulnerability is shared,
emotions are aroused, combustion happens.”

[Chapter 24] David explains that a community is formed by a group of people organized
around a common story. In addition to sharing a story, communities thrive through a set of
local codes such as: [1] being proactive toward internal needs; [2] offering radical hospitality;
[3] having a long-term commitment; and [4] sharing common norms and behaviors.

[Chapter 25] The last chapter is one of the best book conclusions I have ever read. To find
belonging, meaning, and purpose we are encourage to “go deep into ourselves and find there
our illimitable ability to care, and then spread outward in commitment to others.” David puts
together the different elements of his argument in a manifesto form, divided in hyper-
individualism, relationalism, the process of becoming a person, the good life, the good
society, and a declaration of interdependence.

Take care,