Book Name : The Utopia Experiment
What is it about : The real life story of our forty-something Dylan, a graduate who specialised in robotics, the proud owner of a cottage in the Cotswalds and seemingly enjoying life with Socrates the pet cat. During a trip to Central America, deep anxiety surfaced about how he might be contributing to the end of human race as "machines" would take over and apocalypse followed. Upon returning to England, he sold the cottage to fund for his Utopia Experiment in remote northern Scotland to test what life would be like if all civilisation had been wiped out - no instant noodles, oven-ready pizza and definitely no toilet paper. Dylan would become gaunt and depressed out of guilt, sense of failure and poor diet and ended up in a psychiatric ward to recall better days.
Some thoughts after having read the book : I enjoyed the candid style, with no dramatic scenes, just the way he felt about the world and how he would want to get away and experiment with an alternative. I was somewhat shocked at how such an intelligent person went about destroying his world so wholeheartedly and seemingly not leaving himself a backdoor to escape or even a pot of money for his post-Utopian life or more sensibly starting with a "mini" version of the Utopia Experiment to test the waters - why not first go about life (in his cottage) without toothpaste, soap and electricity for a month and see how he would cope. But no ! Our man Dylan dived right in to the deep deep end by first setting up a leaky yurt in windswept Scotland, then he witnessed the comings and goings of fellow like-minded thinkers, some weird, some committed, some for a few joyful weeks and others left after taking a look at the mess that was the Utopia encampment. Dylan was definitely taking on too much too quickly, without a clue on the ins' and outs' of vegetable growing, leadership inspiration and relationship management.
Would I recommend this book to you : I would recommend this book to all those going through a mid-life crisis and thus itching to start afresh and create a brand new life - take note, if your ambitions and effort went too far, well beyond your comfort zone, you might just end up like our man, Dylan. An insightful real life story to appreciate how far we, the human race, had gone down the road to get "civilised". Reading Dylan's odyssey was like catching up with an old friend who really had a Story to tell.
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