Lessons in Coming and Going is a deeply reflective and eloquent travel memoir that traces Rusty Glicksman's spiritual and personal odyssey from the 1950s American suburbs through the protests of the Vietnam era and onward to ashrams and monasteries in India and Tibet. Beginning with his restless youth, the book follows his journey through Europe, the Middle East, India, Nepal, and Tibet - encounters that blur the lines between pilgrimage and escape. Along the way, Glicksman wrestles with Jewish identity, parental expectations, the Vietnam era's moral upheaval, and the pull of Eastern mysticism.
Structured through vividly titled chapters that chart specific times and places - Tabriz, Varanasi, Manali, Lhasa, Jaipur - the book is both a physical and inner travelogue. Its subtitle, Neti-Neti ("Not This, Not That"), captures the author's ongoing quest for meaning through negation and discovery: learning not what he is, but what he is not.
Written in a meditative, candid voice that evokes the works of Pico Iyer and Peter Matthiessen, this memoir explores faith, rebellion, love, and loss, ultimately suggesting that the real journey is toward self-knowledge - a lesson in both coming and going.