Eruption! Volcanoes and the
Science of Saving Lives. By Elizabeth Rusch. Photographs by Tom Uhlman.
Houghton Mifflin. $18.99.
Finding Your Element: How to
Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life. By Ken Robinson
with Lou Aronica. Viking. $27.95.
One of the most fascinating
and dramatic entries in the excellent “Scientists in the Field” series, Eruption! is the story of the world’s
only international volcano crisis team, the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program
(VDAP). Founded the year after the disastrous 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz
in Colombia killed more than 23,000 people, VDAP – a group of scientists from
the U.S. Geological Survey – has studied volcanoes, refining measurement and
predictive techniques and responding to calls for help from anywhere in the
world. Elizabeth Rusch’s story of these volcanologists is filled with all the
drama of a novel: “‘LET’S GO!’ Rick hollered from upstairs. Geez, Andy thought. What’s up with him? Rick raced down the stairs, taking two at a
time, just as Andy opened the front door. A huge black ash column pumped out of
the volcano, filling the sky. ‘OH MY GOD!’ Andy shouted. The column rose up
higher and higher. Rick and Andy jumped into their truck and raced off.” Not
everything is this dramatic, but much of this book is. The scientists clearly
revel in what they are doing – and, of necessity, take it extremely seriously
even when they make lighthearted remarks, since volcanic eruptions can be
devastating and remain only imperfectly predictable. That fact makes the
successes of VDAP all the more notable – for example, the evacuation of Clark
Air Force Base in the Philippines in June 1991, just days before Mount Pinatubo
exploded in the second-largest eruption of the 20th century. However
brilliant, involved and committed these scientists are, they are well aware
that they could face death anytime: “This time the scientists knew they had no
time to evacuate. They raced for the back of the building, the farthest they
could get from the erupting monster. They waited, panting, sweating. Andy could
stand it no longer. He went back to the front door. All he saw was black –
complete black – from the rain, the dark clouds, the ash fall. The sound was
terrifying – like a wall of rock a mile high racing down at breakneck speeds. I could die, Andy thought. All my friends could die.”
Balancing these scenes of
high drama with informational segments is not easy, but Rusch does so very
effectively, for example explaining the “Ring of Fire” around the Pacific Plate
by comparing Earth’s structure to peanut M&M candies: “The crust, like the
crunchy candy coating of the M&M, is a shell of solid rock. The mantle is
like the soft chocolate, with rock so hot that it melts into thick paste. The
core is like the peanut, solid metal in the center of the earth. …[But] the
crust is not all in one piece. It’s broken up into huge slabs, called plates,
that cover the planet like a jigsaw puzzle.” And while Rusch is explaining,
narrating and portraying, readers will be captured and captivated by Tom
Uhlman’s spectacular photos, which not only show the scientists at work and the
volcanoes looming picturesquely or menacingly above nearby settlements but also
focus on the people who live in volcanoes’ shadows – and the astonishing sights
during actual eruptions. Photos of barely visible, motorcycle-riding residents
during an ash storm, and of a lone vehicle fleeing on a dirt road as gigantic
pyroclastic flows close in on it, are unforgettable. So are pictures of the
devastation left behind after eruptions, with a photo of two children holding
hands at the graves of volcano victims being the most affecting of all. Eruption! is an amazing book on many
levels, not the least of which is the realization that the scientists traveling
the world from danger to danger, taking samples, doing laboratory work and
reading instruments, give every impression of being exactly where they want to
be, doing exactly what they want to do – being perfectly in their element.
Not many people in everyday
21st-century life feel their lives are so in tune with what matters
most deeply to them, and that is the situation addressed by Ken Robinson and
Lou Aronica in The Element and its
just-released successor, Finding Your
Element. There is not really anything very new in what Robinson and Aronica
say – it is a longstanding cliché that the best work you can have is a job
where you are paid for doing what you would gladly do for free, and the whole capital-E
“Element” notion simply expands on that. What the authors do is dress it up in
research, analysis and self-help terminology. Their “Element” structure is
basically a version of Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy, which they mention in Finding Your Element as a foundation:
“Whatever your circumstances may be, in many ways finding your Element is,
above anything else, about finding meaning and purpose in your life.” But of
course that single observation is not enough to make a whole book (or two
books), so what Robinson and Aronica do is flesh it out with ideas, questions,
and anecdotes about people who discovered their Element either by searching
actively for it or by stumbling upon it and realizing that it was what they
were “meant to do.” The questions in Finding
Your Element are the main thing Robinson and Aronica have to offer. “Is
there something you do that consistently elevates your spirits? When do you
experience stretches of real joy?” “How much do you want to be in your Element?
How hard are you willing to work to get there?” “What are the biggest hurdles?
What would it take to get over them?” “What sorts of people do you associate
with your Element? Do they interest and attract you or not? Do you know why?” And
so on and so forth. Coupling these questions with comments such as, “You may
not know what all your aptitudes are because you may never have called on some
of them,” Robinson and Aronica urge readers to think through – and feel through
– their interests, abilities, experiences, knowledge and passions to come up
with whatever is most meaningful to them, then take steps to synchronize their
lives and Elements. They provide a series of exercises that range from the
wholly mundane (develop an action plan) to the somewhat intriguing (write a
letter to an imaginary supporter of your future plans, describing your
interests and personal qualities and trying “to see yourself fresh as someone
else might”). The eventual objective of finding your Element is neatly summed
up in the title of the book’s final chapter, “Living a Life of Passion and
Purpose.”
Finding Your Element is a (+++) book
that will appeal to the many people who consider themselves unfulfilled, out of
sync with what they really want in life – people who have likely bought similar
books before this one and will likely buy others afterwards. The ultimate
problem with the book is not its comparatively uninventive premise but its
unwillingness to tackle elements of the real world, even when it acknowledges
them. For example, Robinson and Aronica cite a Gallup survey of people in more
than 150 countries that breaks down well-being into five broad categories:
career, social, financial, physical and community. They mention Gallup’s
conclusion that 66% of people surveyed were doing well in at least one area,
but only 7% were doing well in all of them (a finding that should not have been
a big surprise to anyone). But although Robinson and Aronica pay lip service to
“balance and fulfillment across each of these areas,” Finding Your Element does not take the social/familial ones into
account except in the sense that some people may believe their Element is, say,
being a parent. There is an underlying selfishness to the whole Element concept
that is belied by the authors’ mentions of Gandhi and others whose Element
involved reaching out and helping others. Self-fulfillment need not come at
others’ expense, and Robinson and Aronica do not say that it should; but most
people do indeed live within the five Gallup categories (or within Abraham Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs, which the authors never mention). There is nothing here to
connect one’s Element with the circumstances of one’s everyday life as they
involve relationships with other people – except coincidentally, as in the case
of the VDAP volcanologists, so clearly in their Element with their fellow
highly committed scientists.
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