Mitch Olson
There was the seed of a really really great idea in this book about the meeting of humans from 2 different cultures; one based in the culture we know & another based in culture we might hope for. I spent the first half of the book excited to see how the inevitable clash would be resolved. Unfortunately it was relatively clumsily done with any possible philosophical nourishment left on the floor replaced instead with generic action.
Sigh :-). When judging this book look no further than the immense incalculable complexity of the human psyche boiled down into Phil & Barry one one hand, and “Part X” (aka “The Devil”) on the other. The floatier than a really floaty thing new age visualisations combined with the naive simplicity of “You vs Part X” makes for a book that verges on dumb. They mean well & this sounds as condescending as f–k, but look past these guys.
The formula of this book is (1) place your attention here & (2) have faith in a higher force. For those people with an existing faith in “higher forces” I think this relatively simple book could be helpful. If you don't believe that higher forces will save you from the limits of your own capability and responsibility then not so helpful. The cosmology of this book is relatively old school, combined with a light smattering of psychology. After seeing Stutz on Netflix I hoped for more. In short I think it's a bit simplistic and relies too much on faith (& not in one's own potential - which I personally believe more helpful - but in a “hand up” from higher powers), which is important but not enough by itself. I do think though that they did a reasonable job in explaining each of the “tools”. Not helpful for me, but I'm sure there are people who could extract more nourishment from it than me.
As a compendium of Wilson's writing this is a great way to get an overview of his thinking. It might have been a little better edited cos the exact same examples and ideas get repeated too frequently. Could have been half the length with no loss of information.
I first came across Wilson 25 - 30 years ago & I loved his articulation of some of Gurdlieff's ideas around habitually via his concept of the Robot. I think CW actually does a better job of articulating this notion of humans as living on a kind of autopilot.
But he was a slightly sloppy thinker & for example didn't seem to recognise that Maslow's idea of “Peak Experiences” & the Gurdjieffs idea of human's as living in a kind of sleep were both connected by the notion of habitually. It is habituality that dilutes the vividness of experience. I won't bother reading any more Colin Wilson after reading this but glad for this book to have discovered that.
David Goggins has a mountain-sized will. His capacity to push through & beyond discomfort is an inspiration. I found that reading his first book inspired me to challenge my own capacity for discomfort.
This book is more of the same; pretty much exactly the same but with extra dozes of macho. But whereas the first book chronicled some transformation in who he was, this book just reveals a man who seems disgusted by himself & this fuels an anger that manifests as mighty will.
I wouldn't want my kids turning out like David Goggins although I hope he might inspire them with challenging their own self-imposed boundaries of what they can endure as surely the capacity to forbear discomfort is an essential ability of growth. And there are several others that you won't find here. If you haven't read either of his books I would recommend the first, & this one has entertainment value but is not a healthy model to live by.
Johann Johann Johann. Where was our focus when you wrote this book? For a start, don't bother reading this book if you want to understand how to improve your focus. Most of it is devoted to social system scale factors that the author thinks impede on focus. But he increasingly veers off course eventually ending up at the whole economy. His editor should be fired because s/he was AWOL on this book. His hypothesis is that focus is mostly something that happens to you. Guess what, you're a victim. F-off. His only “Self-help” approach to improving focus is to deny yourself of technology. He hasn't heard of self discipline or the idea that it's something that can be built. That's the only fundamental solution to focus and he doesn't even mention it once. What an idiot, what a poor victim. Yes, the system scale factors can make focus more difficult, & in conjunction with how “Big tech” (eg. Facebook) manipulates not only the capture of our attention but more sinisterly, what it is pointed towards, is something that needs more social attention.
A review speaks not directly to that which is reviewed but rather to the relationship between reviewer and the reviewer. When we give a rating to a book we are not so much rating the book as we are rating the “fit” of the the relationship we have with the book. This makes the average star rating of anything a much less significant measure than it might seem.
The measure of the “fit” or fitness of a relationship with something or someone is partially a measure of how well our needs were met. How nourished we felt by it or them. And everyone has different tastes and everyone has a different capability to extract the inherent potential nourishment of the specific something or someone.
I rate this book 6 stars. That is to say that if I could take a single book with me on a one-way trip anywhere in the universe, this is the book I would take. Its my soul mate :-). It is my taste. Yum! I'll come back to that in a sec. But having said that I know that I extracted only a portion of the nourishment this book has to give. It is a feast. But to understand requires capability, and the full wisdom of this book is beyond my current capability. I left much more on the table than I was able to digest. And I am so satisfied.
If you are curious about the world, your life, the cosmos, reality, our place in the universe and you've spent a lot of time thinking about that then this is the book for you. John Bennett is a genius. He is the most masterful philosopher you've never heard of. Indeed as a philosopher he makes every other philosopher that has ever existed look like a f-ing amateur. Really. The fact that he is not more well-known is such a shame because what he has to so is so much more useful than any other philosopher ever. He takes us on a journey from a single number (1) to the edges of reality, and connects that in a series of explicit logical steps.
I generally buy and read (or listen) to digital books these days almost exclusively. Most of the books on my bookshelf are a decade or more older. But this is one which I want to touch and really have a sense of ownership. I love this book. Yesterday I received Volume 2 in the mail. I start on it tomorrow. Yay
Some (non-fiction) books are written by people who have devoted themselves to a field of study & immersed their lives in it; these people are “domain specialists” who write. Other books are written by people who who will write about anything; these people are “writers”. If you are looking for entertainment then “writers” are good, but if you want to develop your understanding then you want a book written by a domain specialist. This is obviously a spectrum so different books are written by people who lie along this spectrum. I read fiction for entertainment but for non-fiction I want a book written by a domain specialist who has something original to say. Unfortunately this book is not one of those. Its light & puffy but has no nourishment.
I think Rupert Sheldrake is a scientist who has something important to say about the dogmas of scientism. Most of these are based in reductionist materialism, combined with a lack of humility & self awareness. This book however is mainly here to retout his theory of morphic resonance, which I am sympathetic to, but if you are familiar with his thinking then there is not much new here.
Gurdjieff Gurdjieff Gurdjieff! Such a profound thinker, but such a boring & rambling writer. Luckily for him he had lots of people around him who recognised his genius and were better writers; the best amongst these in my experience being John G Bennett. But for a man with such penetrating & original insights into humanity & our purpose here on earth he was strangely oblivious on how to engage people with his writing.
I think 3 stars is generous. This is another one of those books that could be explained in a paragraph or even an essay but at most a chapter. To turn it into a book is ridiculous. What is even more frustrating is that the lazy author doesn't even bother to unpack the idea of what a growth mindset is and how to build one. Seriously whatever your name is.
- OMG! What a load of verbiage! It looks like English but there is no sense in any sentence of the 3x-too-long sentences.
2. Disappointing. Gurdjieff was a profound man, but there is zero profundity in this book.
3. Its not a book. Its like a letter written to someone who he imagined presumably cared about what he had to say
4. It's slightly self-obsessed, and without any utility.
5. If this was your first exposure to Gurdjieff then you'd never bother reading anything else he had to say. Which is a massive shame as he an important contributor to understanding and mastering the human experience.
6. Don't bother reading this book. I don't understand why he bothered writing it. Dick book Gurdjieff!
3.5/5.
Speaks to building a life out of your own sense of what is important and your capacity to contribute towards that. Implicit in this is the notion of “native authority”; the idea that we each define for ourselves what is important, and what is helpful in serving that. Funny enough is the idea of authority, which is at the core of the book, is not mentioned once by the authors.