You should fly like a bird towards your mountain.

Author: Tara Westover

Synopsis

"Educated: A Memoir"
A debut novel that topped the New York Times bestseller list in its first week on the market and has remained there for 80 weeks, with over a million copies sold in the US. The author was named one of Time magazine's "Most Influential People" of the year. How did a girl who never went to school before the age of 17 become a Cambridge University PhD? How much betrayal of the past do we need to find our true selves?

This book, like "Hillbilly Elegy," tells the story of that mountain, that person, and the transformation from an incomplete family to the author's ultimate self-realization. Although the road was difficult and may seem enviable to others, as ordinary and ordinary people, how do we determine our own self-worth in the face of reality's blows?

When we were young, that mountain blocked our way, and we always wanted to climb over the mountain to see the other side of the world. But when we grew up and could finally cross that mountain, we realized that the mountain was still a mountain, but we were no longer the same person. You should fly like a bird towards your own mountain. Tara left her father to find her own mountain, leaving behind the mountain that had oppressed her.

I still like this kind of inner monologue content, using other people's eyes to see the world, can get a different life, just like the book "I Deliver Packages in Beijing," which is mostly about the author's visual perspective of the world, expressing the author's inner thoughts vividly, and it is very satisfying to read.

From a small family to a whole country, the power of the group can sometimes overwhelm the individual. So when the group is wrong, how do you correct that mistake? Perhaps only time can prove it.

Preface#

The snow that falls in winter always melts in spring.

Choosing Goodness#

The relationship between my father and his mother is like two cats with their tails tied together. They can talk for a week, but they can't agree on anything. But what keeps them closely connected is their love for the mountain.

Cream-Colored Shoes#

Living on the mountain gives people a sense of supreme power, a sense of being independent from the world, and even a sense of domination.

Honest Dirt#

In our family, learning is completely self-guided: as long as you finish your own work, you can learn whatever you want.

Shields Large and Small#

She said to me, "If you can bring them hope and make them believe that they are improving, they will believe anything and eat anything. But there is no magic in the world. Nutrition, exercise, and studying the properties of herbs, that's all."
The skill I am learning is crucial, which is to read patiently when I don't understand something.

The Harlot#

Time flies fast, the more you fear something, the faster time passes.

Intuition#

Throughout my life, these intuitions have always taught me one thing - that relying on myself increases the chances of success.

The Silent Church#

What is truly valuable is not me, but the surface constraints and rituals that make me lose my identity.
Tyler stood up to leave. "There's a world out there, Tara," he said, "and once Dad's voice is no longer whispering in your ear, the world will look very different."

Blood and Feathers#

I don't understand why I was not allowed to receive a good education when I was young.

Back to Square One#

After spending a month at the junkyard, Brigham Young University seemed like a dream, something I had imagined. Now, the dream is over.
I believed - and a part of me will always believe - that my father's words should also be my own.

The Recitation of the Fathers#

Every time he said, "Hey, nigger, pass me the wrench," or "Get me a level, nigger," I felt like I was back in college, back in that auditorium - the place where I caught a glimpse of human history and pondered my place in it.
That summer, I saw their faces appear on every beam Sean welded, and in the end, I finally understood an obvious fact: some people oppose the tide of equality; some people must take freedom from certain people.
I have realized how we are shaped by the traditions that others have given us, traditions that we consciously or unconsciously ignore. I began to understand that we speak for a discourse that is only intended to dehumanize and cruelly treat others - because cultivating this discourse is easier, because holding power always makes people feel like they are moving forward.
I have been called a nigger a thousand times, and I used to laugh, but now I can't. The word hasn't changed, and the way Sean says it hasn't changed, but my ears have. They no longer hear the jokes in it. They hear a signal, a call that transcends time, and the response is a growing conviction: I will no longer allow myself to be at the forefront of a conflict that I do not understand.

Our Whispers, Our Screams#

His happiness comes from humiliating me. Humiliating me is not accidental or incidental. It is his purpose.
Believing in living in my own thoughts, not in the thoughts of others. I often wonder if the most powerful words I wrote that night were not born out of anger, but out of doubt: I don't know. I just don't know.
I have never allowed myself the privilege of uncertainty, but I refuse to yield to those who claim certainty. My whole life has been lived in the narratives of others. Their voices are strong, authoritarian, and absolute. It was only then that I realized that my voice could be as powerful as theirs.

I Come from Idaho#

I have been taught all my life that marriage is God's will, and refusing marriage is a sin. I am defying God, but I don't want to. I want children and a family of my own, but even though I long for all of this, I know I can never have it. I don't have the ability. I despise myself whenever I get close to the opposite sex.

The Lost Knight#

We have always lived in a state of vigilance and constant fear, with our brains flooded with cortisol because we know that those things can happen at any time. Because Dad always puts his beliefs before safety. Because he believes he is right, even after the first car accident, the second car accident, the dumpster injury, the fire, and the tray falling. We are the ones who pay the price.

The Flower Girl#

I was prepared for insults, but I was not prepared to accept this answer.
"Don't think that way," Dr. Kerry raised his voice, "You are not Fool's Gold, shining only under a particular light. You are gold. And returning to Brigham Young University, or even to the mountain in your hometown, will not change who you are. It may change how others see you, and it may even change how you see yourself - even gold, in certain lights, can appear dull - but that's an illusion. Gold is always gold."
I can go to school, I can buy new clothes, but I will always be Tara Westover. None of the jobs I have done would be done by a Cambridge student. No matter how I dress, we are always different.
She was just a Londoner in nice clothes. Until she believed in herself. Then, it didn't matter what she wore.

Graduation#

In the past, I always believed everything, without any doubt, which is surprising. I wrote that the whole world is wrong; only Dad is right.
I remembered what Taylor's wife, Stephanie, said to me on the phone a few days ago. She said it took her years to convince Taylor to allow her to vaccinate their children because he still believed that vaccines were a conspiracy by the medical establishment.
Somehow, I never realized that everything I have experienced, my sister may have experienced before me.
You are my child, and I should have protected you.
When I told them all this, I felt no shame. That was when I realized the source of shame: it was not because I had not studied at a marble music school, or because I did not have a diplomat father; it was not because my father was half-crazy, or because my mother followed him. My shame came from having a pair of scissors that squeaked when I pushed them away, instead of having a father who pulled me away from them; my shame came from those moments when I lay on the ground, knowing that my mother was in the next room, closing her eyes and ears, without any choice to fulfill her duty as a mother.
I think I can finally face my past life with peace of mind.

The Sorcery of Physics#

I prefer the family I choose rather than the family I am given, so the happier I am in Cambridge, the more I emit a stench of betrayal towards Buck's Peak. This feeling has become a part of my body, something I can taste on my tongue and smell in my breath.

The Essence of Things#

My mother never confronted my father, and my father never confronted Sean. My father never promised to help me and Audrey. My mother lied.

West of the Sun#

When I lost my sister, I lost my entire family.
That doesn't mean I completely trust my own memories, but I trust them as much as I trust other people's memories, and even more than I trust some people's memories.

Two Waving Arms#

When life itself is so absurd, who knows what counts as madness?
I convinced myself that what I planned to do was admirable, and in order to win my parents' love, I was willing to give up my own views of right and wrong, reality, and reason. For them, I believed that even if all I saw were windmills, I would be willing to put on armor and charge at the giants.
Blessing is a kind of kindness. The conditions he offered me were the same as those he offered my sister. I can imagine the relief she felt when she realized that she could exchange her reality and his for her children, and she could be grateful for so little. I can't blame her for her choice, but at that moment, I knew I wouldn't make that choice. All my struggles, my years of study, have been to give myself the privilege of witnessing and experiencing more truths than my father has given me, and using these truths to construct my own thoughts.

The Gamble of Redemption#

The problem with a mental breakdown is that no matter how obvious it is, you will take it for granted.
If the first fall is God's will, then whose will is the second?
A mystery that I can never understand its rules, because those are not rules, but a cage intended to trap me. I can stay and look for my former home; I can also leave now, before the walls move and the exit closes.

Family#

When a person's responsibility to the family conflicts with his responsibility to friends, society, and himself, what should he do?

Education#

Now I can only remember the past, and we are separated by thousands of mountains and rivers, and time never returns.
I am no longer the child raised by my father, but he is still the father who raised me.
You can call this self in many ways: transformation, metamorphosis, hypocrisy, betrayal. I call it: education.