Amazon.com: "how to live". I'm a fan of etiquette books - I like books that tell me what I ought to do. It's comforting to know that something is correct, and something else is not correct. And in a very similar way, I like the highly regimented and somewhat idiosyncratic recipes of Cook's Illustrated. When there's any suggestion about what to do, it makes things easier. You can follow the directions or not, but either way you are doing something, anything. There's sort of default suggestions along the way at various points in life - go to college, get a job, etc. At some point, they stop coming and you kind of have to figure stuff out on your own. Or look for new suggestions that you can agree with or not. But generally the shapelessness of everything is overwhelming and I think that explains the success of certain TV shows.
I don't really know where I'm going with this. Maybe there should be something that gives you a suggestion every once in a while when you are grown up. A phone call or a letter comes and says "Move to Nicaragua and just go fishing everyday" or "Play the sitar" or "Paint flames on your car" or "Get a tattoo of a swear word". Like a fortune cookie, but different.
