Anne Lamott: “12 truths I learned from life and writing”
Please answer the following questions in complete sentences. In some questions, you will be writing more than one sentence in order to fully respond.
Click on the Speaker Profile or Google Anne Lamott. Then write a few sentences about her bona fides, her background, her ethos. In other words, why is she qualified to give this talk?
Lamott tells an anecdote about her 7-year old grandson. She uses his story to make a point to the reader. What point is she making about most people?
Why did Lamott write these “truths.” What is the occasion and what is her purpose? How do you know?
Lamott says that she is no longer 47 although this is the age that she feels and that she thinks of herself as being. Have you had this experience? How old do you feel right now? When you look in the mirror, how old is the person you see? How old is your “inside self?”
What are the “skin care rules of the 60’s” and why is this point both funny and sad at the same time, what we call in English bittersweet?
Why does she feel that people are overwhelmed nowadays? What does she offer for anyone feeling overwhelmed or beleaguered? Do you think these truths are appropriate for you?
According to Lamott, why is all truth a paradox? Can everything be true and not true at the same time? Do you agree that life here on earth is not “an ideal system? If so, why?
What is Lamott’s second truth? And do you agree with this? How can a person “unplug” him or herself for a while?
“Nothing outside of you will help in any kind of lasting way.” And Lamott says, “..it’s an inside job.” What is the point that Lamott is making? Why does she say, “…don’t get your help and goodness all over everybody?”
The fourth truth that Lamott share is: “…everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy and scared, even the people who seem to have it most together. They are much more like you than you would believe…” How does this point relate to social media?
Lamott states, “…radical self-care is quantum, and it radiates out from you into the atmosphere like a little fresh air. It’s a huge gift to the world. When people respond by saying, “Well, isn’t she full of herself,” just smile obliquely like Mona Lisa and make both of you a nice cup of tea.” What simile does Lamott use? What do you know about the Mona Lisa? What allusion is Lamott making here? And what is her point about self-care?
How can you use this advice from Lamott to persist in your studies at Mt. SAC? She states, “Every writer you know writes really terrible first drafts, but they keep their butt in the chair. That’s the secret of life.” What does this mean?
Lamott’s father helped her brother when he procrastinated on his bird term paper. His advice was, “Just take it bird by bird, buddy. Just read about pelicans and then write about pelicans in your own voice. And then find out about chickadees, and tell us about them in your own voice. And then geese.” What is the “voice” that the father is referring to? How does that relate to this week’s lesson?
What message is Lamott telling you, the listener, when she says, “You’re going to feel like hell if you wake up someday and you never wrote the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart: your stories, memories, visions and songs — your truth, your version of things — in your own voice.” What is she advising you to do?
Anne Lamott suggests, “But writing can. So can singing in a choir or a bluegrass band. So can painting community murals or birding or fostering old dogs that no one else will.” What is she suggesting these things can help you with? And do you do them? Why or why not?
What point does Lamott make about family? Why does she repeat the word, “hard, hard, hard” (which is a triple, by the way!)? What is your family like — anything like Lamott describes?
What is her 9th truth? And why does she say so little about it?
What is grace? Do you agree with Lamott’s points about grace? Why?
What point is Lamott making when she says, “Go outside. Look up. Secret of life.”
What does Lamott say about death? What does she say about our loved ones who have died? Do you agree with her points? Why or why not?
Lamott says, “Grief and friends, time and tears will heal you to some extent. Tears will bathe and baptize and hydrate and moisturize you and the ground on which you walk.” Lamott uses personification for the tears. Explain.
At the end of her talk, her last truth is about death. What point is she making about it? How does she think people should frame it? And what does this sentence mean: “As Ram Dass said, “When all is said and done, we’re really just all walking each other home.” What is home a metaphor for in this instance?
