Chapter 92: Edward Packard on amplifying awareness with awe and adventure

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Were you one of the 500 million people who read Choose Your Own Adventure books?

When I was growing up in the 80s these books were at the front of every library in every elementary school. Or, at least, in mine! I know for sure the kids at Sunset Heights Public School in Oshawa, Canada all went gonzo for them.

If you don’t know Choose Your Own Adventure, the books are written in the second person. The protagonist is … you! Who are you? Well, you might be a private investigator, mountain climber, race car driver, doctor, or spy. The stories are gender and race neutral and written so that after a couple of pages, you face a couple of options: do you want to go deeper into the jungle or head back to shore? Do you want to follow the guide up the mountain or retreat to the village? You zig and you zag and each book features dozens of endings. With no clear pattern around number of pages per ending, ratio of good to bad endings, or the reader’s progression backwards and forwards, there is a vertiginous sense of unpredictability which leads to (yes) reading them again and again.

Cover to Cover Club members will have heard us talk about these books already. Do you remember back in Chapter 42 when Molly Bloom told us the books were hugely formative to how she views her life as an adventure? Or just a few moons ago in Chapter 87 when Jason Shiga picked Sugar Cane Island by Edward Packard — a precursor to CYOA — as one of his most formative books?

Well, it’s with that lead-up that I’m so excited to share our conversation with the creator of second-person fiction and co-creator of Choose Your Own Adventure today —- Mr. Edward Packard. Edward is 90 years old and writing, blogging, swimming, hiking, and continuing the adventure that is life from his home in Durango, Colorado.

Get comfy and let’s talk about what the word formative really means, whether our self stays constant throughout our life, how the advent of chronology affected human development, where the best place to get a lot of reading done is, how should we take in the news, how can we maintain a sense of contentment as we age, how do we transcend ourselves, what is an unhappy versus a happy brain, what is quality decision making, how do we process past success in our current state, and, of course, what are Edward Packard’s 3 most formative books.

Are you ready to dive in on today’s new moon?

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 92 now…

What You'll Learn:

  • How does 3 Books deal with guests picking the same formative book?

  • What does the word “formative” really mean?

  • What does it mean to live life in a narrative vs. non narrative fashion?

  • Does our self stay constant or change throughout our life?

  • How has the advent of chronology and the measure of time affected human development?

  • Where is the best place to get a lot of reading done?

  • How should we best take in the news?

  • How can we maintain a sense of contentment as we age?

  • How do we transcend ourselves?

  • What is an unhappy brain?

  • What is a happy brain?

  • What is quality decision making?

  • How do we process past success in our current state?

Notable quotes from edward packard

“Some books are formative the wrong way.” Edward Packard #3bookspodcast

“I like the idea that you’re not one self after another but you’re the same self and you also function on a higher plane in which you are beyond yourself and in which you see things from a more cosmic perspective.” Edward Packard #3bookspodcast

“We should consume the news to save democracy, to participate, be informed and be activists.” Edward Packard #3bookspodcast

We shouldn’t be obsessed by the news without doing anything about it; we shouldn’t walk away from it.” Edward Packard #3bookspodcast

“If you try to live well, live a good life, one that you don’t feel remorseful about when you are very old then you’ll be more settled in your thinking, more content in your older age knowing that you tried to be a good person and have lived life to the full.” Edward Packard #3bookspodcast

“I don’t want to be bitter, or remorseful, or have regret, or sink into some sort of stupor about my mistakes but rather draw some kind of energy from having had insight and getting to a new place.” Edward Packard #3bookspodcast

“The term self transcendence is basically a metaphor for a process in which you are able to see things from a larger perspective than your own egotistical striving.” Edward Packard #3bookspodcast

“On major things, the analysis may be quite simple but whether you make the right decision or not will depend upon your state of mind, on whether you’re fully self constituted and you have a moral compass that is true and good.” Edward Packard #3bookspodcast

“I made it a policy in the Choose Your Own Adventure books that although you might be given the choice of a stupid decision, you’d never be given the choice of a cruel decision, or one that would be harmful to others. I assumed that you the reader are a good person.” Edward Packard #3bookspodcast

Connect with edward:

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