Emptyeye

(NOTE: I provide the Amazon links in this post so you have a starting point to learn more about the linked books, not because I necessarily recommend that you read them. Indeed, I highly recommend staying far, far away from The Magic of Dialogue.)

Those of you who know me will no doubt wonder why I decided to read Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret. It really comes down to “know your enemy”–I had heard about the supposed thesis of the book–essentially, taking the convention of “Positive thinking is a powerful tool in your arsenal” (Which isn’t that heretical an idea in and of itself–professional athletes, among others, have stated the benefits of visualizing themselves making the big, game-winning shot/pass/kick.etc) and distorting it into “Positive thinking is the ONLY tool you’ll ever need”–and bought it, having to see this for myself and intending to write a sarcastic, Bad Religion-style song about it.

Then I actually read it.

The short version of my verdict: There is something to be said for changing the way you think about life. Changing the way you think to specifically match what Byrne describes in the book will only lead to misery and nothing getting done.

Essentially, the book ranges from thought-provoking (So long as you think about the change-your-perception concept in a general sense, and don’t try to apply the exact method of “Sit back, relax, and let the good times flow in”) to downright offensive (Hitting this point when it says that the reason people are fat is that they “think ‘fat’ thoughts”. Yes, really.), to at times sounding like the scam some decry it as (At one point, the book claims “[...]it has been scientifically proven that an affirmative thought is hundreds of times more powerful than a negative thought[...]” and expects you to just believe it, without actually providing the scientific proof, or even a reference to any sort of study about said proof, in question).

Really, the book, to me, represents an excellent example of The Placebo Effect. Its thesis is really something along the lines of, as I said, “sit back, think positive thoughts, and let the good flow into your life”. But there’s really more to it than that, that isn’t stated, and which I think it dangerous to omit. No, I don’t have a problem with changing one’s perception of life, setting goals, etc. But that’s only one step–you still have to actually do the work associated with achieving whatever new goal it is that you set for yourself in order to make it happen. The book doesn’t mention this at all–indeed, one could argue that the book goes out of its way not to say this, saying effectively “Just do it. Don’t worry about how you’re going to do it, just trust that it will all work out for you in the end.” This line of thought is really very similar to the concept of faith in religion, which I don’t place a lot of, well, faith in. But back to The Placebo Effect–I can see the concept of changing your perception also changing your outlook life, not because anything has actually happened, but merely because you think it has, because you’ve changed your outlook on life. This is a positive thing, I suppose, but it’s not something you can learn only by reading this book.

My personal thoughts on the philosophy of the book aside, from a writing perspective, it suffers the same problem of a book I once had to read for college called The Magic of Dialogue. That is, there is about 20 pages of material, certainly written well enough, but rephrased in slightly different ways using slightly different examples to create a 200-or-so page book. I hated the technique in The Magic of Dialogue; I don’t hate it quite so much here, perhaps because the material itself is slightly stronger (And I’m not reading it under duress).

All in all, the book wasn’t entirely a waste of my reading time, but it did, I think, provide me enough material for that song I mentioned earlier. Given that, I can’t recommend the book as the life-changing tome of wisdom it claims to be–indeed, following it to the letter would, I think, be counter-productive.

-EE

Generally speaking, I’m a sucker for band biographies. Oftentimes, reading them opens the door to a world that rivals anything you’d find in the classic movie This Is Spinal Tap (Indeed, I have heard more than once that as a musician or band gains experience with their chosen career, “…Spinal Tap” becomes less and less funny as it becomes more and more real [Think of it as the musician's equivalent of Dilbert]).

So it was that a month or two ago, I picked up the deadly weapon…err, sorry, book, The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t call it a deadly weapon because of its writing by any means, but rather due to its sheer size–the book is huge, with roughly 850 pages of narrative, another one hundred or so of cites, a U.S. discography, etc. and, oh yeah, some pictures thrown in there for good measure.

The book spends a good hundred to two hundred pages discussing the Fab Four’s early, pre-Beatles lives, focusing in particular on John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Reading about the early days is fun enough–the glorified strip clubs, the dropping out of art school, the unsafe-as-all-get-out stage that, unable to take it anymore, the boys actually deliberately smashed, hoping to force the club owner’s hand into repairing it (It didn’t work–the owner patched it together in the most piecemeal way possible, making it even less safe than it had been prior to the temper tantrum)–but the book really picks up after the Beatles start to hit it big.

Now, understand this. I was born in 1983–in other words, the Beatles had been officially broken up for over 13 years by the time I was born (And reading the book, it’s clear that the band was unofficially “broken up” about six months before the news hit the press, making it closer to 14 years). As such, while I knew the general history of the band–from lovable moptops to the Sargent Pepper’s period and beyond–I (And I suspect a lot of others my age) knew nothing of the behind the scenes stuff that went on during those six-to-seven years. Just a brief list of the highlights:

• Beatlemania was a very accurate term–indeed, it may have been an understatement. Part of the Beatles’ ultimate disillusionment with playing live was that they could never hear themselves–they were consistently drowned out by throngs of screaming teenage girls.
• John Lennon, on more than one occasion, would throw up the Nazi salute to shrieking throngs in a foreign country–who would roar their approval.
• The Beatles unintentionally snubbing Imelda Marcos, then-First Lady of the Philippines, and almost getting themselves killed in the process (More correctly, their management unintentionally-intentionally snubbed her–the Beatles themselves had never even been told of the obligation until it was too late).
• The drugs, which coincided with–and let’s be honest, probably contributed to–their groundbreaking late-period material
• The various subsets of their Apple Industries, where the Beatles, Paul in particular, were seemingly determined to hemorrhage money as quickly as they could
• Yoko Ono’s emergence. Some blame her even today for the Beatles’ breakup; reading the book, my own estimation is that while she accelerated the process, the breakup itself was probably inevitable–John and Paul simply had egos too big to continue to coexist in the same band indefinitely (John’s drug-addled state didn’t help matters).

In short, the book was utterly captivating. I highly recommend it to even the casual Beatles fan despite–indeed, even because of–its length.
-EE