The Book of Charlie with David Von Drehle

8 Aug 2023 · 0 min

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0:04

Short excerpt from a YouTube interview about David Von Drehle's book The Book of Charlie. In this exchange the speaker reflects that while adulthood reveals the world's complexity, the right response is simple: practice kindness, generosity, and spread joy — lessons attributed to a character named Charlie.

What was it about your world perspective that Charlie challenged?
You know, I say in the book that as young people, we are complexifiers. We take this simple world of childhood and we discover all the complexity to it. And the world is not as easy or as just or as kind as we thought or were told. If you live long enough, certainly in Charlie's case, what you do is you realize that, yeah, the world's complicated, but what you do about it is pretty simple. You'll practice kindness, practice generosity, spread joy. All these simple things Charlie helped remind me the reason they're so familiar. Because they're true. This is what works.