Recently I finished Donald Miller’s new book “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”. Another Miller book “Blue Like Jazz” has been sitting on my shelf for years and I’ve never gotten around to it, but I picked up A Million Miles and once I started reading it was hard to put down.
Miller knows how to craft a story, and I wanting to keep reading to find out where it would go next. Not sure if it was because I read it so fast (maybe 3-5 days) but occasionally the story metaphor got a little redundant, and I thought perhaps the end of the book was quite as engaging as the first, but all in all it was a really enjoyable book.
Now with my new handy-dandy kindle it’s pretty easy for me to mark passages I like, and so I thought I’d share one I enjoyed:
I asked Bob what was the key to living such a great story, and Bob seemed uncomfortable with the idea he was anything special. But he wanted to answer my question, so he thought about it and said he didn’t think we should be afraid to embrace whimsy. I asked him what he meant by whimsy, and he struggled to define it. He said it’s that nagging idea that life could be magical; it could be special if we were only willing to take a few risks.I asked Bob what was the key to living such a great story, and Bob seemed uncomfortable with the idea he was anything special. But he wanted to answer my question, so he thought about it and said he didn’t think we should be afraid to embrace whimsy. I asked him what he meant by whimsy, and he struggled to define it. He said it’s that nagging idea that life could be magical; it could be special if we were only willing to take a few risks.
I think for some people a magical life or the idea of whimsy in the world is completely foreign. For me, however, I not only believe in this stuff, but I feel a longing, a desire for it somewhere deep inside. It’s probably what keeps me looking for worlds inside wardrobes, and dreaming of romantic quests involving rings and wizards. In any case check out the book and include a little spontaneous whimsy in your day.