After Reading "Greenlights"

Promotional material for Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. Greenlights.com

Greenlight may be the first biography/memoir book that I have read until the end. Truth be told, I don't have many of them. However, Jenson Button's Life to the Limit has been on my bedside table for more than two years now, and I'm still stuck somewhere halfway through.

Is it because Matthew McConaughey has written Greenlights by himself, without a ghostwriter, thus making the book far more personal? Or because he's a storyteller by nature, and you can feel it on the page? Or is it simply because I approach life in a similar manner?

I wanted to write a review for Greenlights, but I'm stuck.

How can you even try to approach in a more or less objective manner something that's so inherently subjective in its nature?

Greenlights is upfront about it not being a typical autobiography. It's not a book about Hollywood, movie business, and not even about love for movies as such. It's not a collection of facts and events from a life of an actor. It's simply a look into one person's heart and mind. Although Matthew McConaughey tries to address us as readers from time to time, the book still feels far more like a 291 pages long conversation he's having with himself. For better and for worse.

An honest man's pillow is his peace of mind, and when we lie down on ours at night, no matter who's in our bed, we ALL sleep alone. p. 259

Narratively Greenlights is often messy and all over the place. It's not a book of answers, and it's not a book of questions either. It could be best described as a retrospective of one person's search for meaning. Emphasis on search. But just as our thought process is often chaotic and illogical, so is Greenlights. In our inner dialogs, we can stop mid-sentence, switch to another completely unrelated subject, or try to connect two seemingly unrelated things because our intuition is pushing us to. It's perfectly normal when it's happening in our heads. On paper, Greenlights may have benefited from being a bit clearer in its form and language. That's, of course, if you consider the goal of this type of writing to be the expression of a certain message.

In this case, in Matthew McConaughey's own words, it's about how to get relative with the inevitable. Yet I'm left uncertain whether the keys to how are actually there in the book. I'm skeptical whether anyone without a prior disposition to this kind of worldview would find enough in Greenlights to turn his or her life around. As I said, I don't believe that this is a book of answers.

Nevertheless, it's a beautiful thing. A story of a man courageous enough not only to look at himself in the mirror but also live with himself every moment of every day. We often fail to forgive ourselves for our past mistakes, we get critical of ourselves and, therefore, refuse to look at the reflection in the mirror. Eventually, guilt can infest all aspects of our life. In various interviews, McConaughey has admitted he feared facing his old self too. Yet when you read Greenlights, there's no shame. This ability to forgive oneself without losing one's self-awareness is astonishing. Sadly, same as with the art of being relative in the face of inevitable, I don't believe that a recipe for acquiring such skill can possibly be put in words.

At the end of the day, the greatest value of Greenlights in my opinion lies in the fact that its existence alone is proof of how much bigger and intense our inner worlds are, and how insignificant everything else is in comparison to it. Heck, maybe this is where the key to getting relative actually lies?

Still, Greenlights is not for everyone.

I doubt that Greenlights will work for anyone who's at least slightly allergic to spirituality. McConaughey is a storyteller not so much because he's good at constructing a narrative, but rather because of how he tends to invent stories to explain reality. He's deeply allegorical in the way that he tries to navigate the world, not shy to turn to non-scientific practices, religion, and predetermination. I'm sure that there will be a significant number of readers who will find the stories about chasing wet dreams ridiculous and a sign of detachment from reality. Nevertheless, this strategy to address life has definitely worked for him. And if it did, does it really matter how logical, pragmatical, or scientifically acceptable it is?

the INTELLECT is not meant to surpass the apparent so far as to conceal it or make it more confusing. It is meant to expose the truth more clearly and reveal more of the obvious from more lines of sight. It should simplify things, not make them more cerebral. p. 134

It's obvious that Matthew McConaughey believes that mere logic isn't enough to make sense of reality. It's open to debate, though, whether his intuitive, primal and somewhat mythical approach is simplifying things or just making them more confusing.

I consider myself open-minded towards such practices and, therefore, enjoyed Greenlights immensely. However, if you know that such things irritate you, I suggest you consider skipping this book, as it will most likely anger you on several occasions.

For me, though, reading Greenlights was a treat.

Beyond anything else, I enjoyed how upfront Matthew McConaughey was about his thought process. And I guess for me personally that's the most interesting thing there is about other people. Not what they achieved, what places they visited, what things they did, or even what kind of opinions they hold. For me, the most exciting thing is to be able to see how they came to these opinions, and how they feel about them.

The desire to self-reflect is a beautiful thing.

Here's to having more of that in the world!