The Second Mountain

Chapter 9, the first chapter of Part 2, is an analysis of what a vocation looks like in practice. Brooks opens with a discussion of George Orwell, the acclaimed British author, and discusses his arrival at his “calling” (89). Brooks believes everyone who is called to and subsequently finds their vocation realizes it is not synonymous with finding a career. Brooks uses 20th-century psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s ideas to outline the relationship between a calling and a vocation. For Jung, there is an inner self that calls a person to his vocation (90). Brooks also makes use of Viktor Frankl and William Wordsworth to flesh out his description of the phenomenon of a calling, the central concept of the chapter. Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and psychologist (known for the development of logotherapy and his bestseller Man’s Search for Meaning), describes responding to the summons of his life instead of dictating to life what he wants of it. Wordsworth recounts an epiphany during which it was made clear to him that he ought to be a poet. Brooks notes that though the call to a vocation is a very spiritual moment (and