Summary

Part II opens with Chapter 9, “What Vocation Looks Like,” which describes George Orwell’s discovering his vocation as a writer, after “avoiding writing … with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature” (90). A vocation is a calling, Brooks explains, not a market calculation about returns and success. While the career question is “What do I want from life?” The vocation question is “What is life asking of me?” (91). In fact, vocation is less a choice and more a destiny, which can announce itself, as Chapter 10, “The Annunciation Moment,” explains in describing the naturalist E.O. Wilson when he discovered his love of Florida sea life at age 7. Chapter 11, called Mentors, explains how this moment requires guidance and cultivation; Wilson’s teacher, Michael Oakeshott, for example, continued studying life specimens even after a grisly crocodile attack. Brooks quotes Wordsworth when describing Oakeshott’s...