Greenlights - Matthew McConaughey

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges—how to get relative with the inevitable—you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights—and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck. (link)

Review: 4/5

This memoir took me less than 24 hours to read, and it was pretty good! I personally love reading memoirs now, because I love to go through someone’s thoughts while a real thing is happening. I’d read a diary if given a chance; and this was as close as it gets. I really liked the simplicity of the writing, but I also appreciated McConaughey’s philosophical intricacy and blunt honesty combined.

The first thing I want to note is his view of the abuse he encountered by his family. I think this book can be really triggering for people who have been emotionally or physically abused or taken advantage of because of his philosophy of it. He glossed over his own abuse pretty quickly and not in depth, which didn’t frustrate me. What did frustrate me was how he painted his abuse as not abusive. He said, multiple times, the lines of “that’s just how my family loved” and that frustrated me. I know love is different for everyone, and not everyone is going to gentle parent and make family allotted time with their kids like my parents did; but getting your kids to physically fight for you, or getting them drunk when their in their early teens, or threatening to kill your partner with a knife in the kitchen being COMMON occurrences… is disturbing, but necessary to highlight.

However, I have to get my biases in check as a reader as well. I was finding myself being very judgmental towards his family for viewing this as normal, and even being proud of it. McConaughey has displayed in his writing that he believes this type of nurturing is what made him the man he is, and I can appreciate his growth from it. I also had to take into account that he grew up in the deep south during the late 70’s/early 80’s in this family, and I had to take note of the cultural movements I may not have been in tune to.

The wet dreams he described? I couldn’t imagine having a wet dream like he describes. Floating down the Amazon River, being surrounded by African Tribesmen, and achieving climax as you’re being wrapped by a water boa or something… is something… yeah. I have not many words for that. I just wanted to point that out. Then, the fact that he does exactly what happened in his dream(minus the snake), as if it were a sign from the universe or a premonition from God was very interesting to me too.

His view on fatherhood and marriage was EXTREMELY interesting to me, because I feel a similar way on motherhood and marriage. Is he a water sign??? Hold on, I’ll be right back…

HAHAHAHAHA HE IS A WATER SIGN!! He’s a scorpio, which is my rising and moon sign. THAT’S why I was like “hell yeah” on the fatherhood and premonition stuff. Gah, don’t you love it when stuff happens like that? Anyways, he knew his most important thing in life was to be a father, and if he got married in the process then cool, but if not, no stress. I thought his third dream being really important to his marriage and view on it was crazy to be honest, he was fine having a Nick Cannon moment and having 38 baby mommas and 1230208 kids by them? Interesting… But obviously, that’s not how it worked out for him.

His view on religion was cool to read, because I was raised Catholic, and practiced Christianity until I realized I’m agnostic (for now). The way he viewed his dreams as premonitions and messages from the divine was interesting to me, because I think the same thing.

His overall philosophy of greenlights was especially cool to be led through, because I view things similarly as well in this regard. I agree with his thinking that things happening to make you stronger. For the last year or so, I have had the strong thought process that “every thing that’s ever happened to you is a learning lesson” but not in a victim-blaming way. I think this can be a coping mechanism in some ways regarding hopelessly optimistic people, but I also think it can work well if applied and used correctly.

For this book, I read it in Mr. McConaughey’s deep Texan accent, and it brought it to life. I thought of the Eagles, America, Steve Miller Band, and even some Chicago when reading. I think the groovy retro music really fits when reading about his acid trips, trans-continental adventures, and lessons learned. Basically, this is a Christian hippie retro playlist for your next big adventure. I hope you enjoy it!

Spotify: LINK