Sunday, February 6, 2011

The real 'secret'

If one were to look at any list of bestselling books of the last ten years, one can see that a good portion of the ones noted are what are known as 'self-help' books. One thing that's common to these books is their purported nature of showing the reader how to make the 'best use' of his/her life and turn out 'successful'.Some of the more recent ones even go as far as saying that it's possible to obtain anything that one wants by merely wishing for it.Another common feature of these books is the usage of pseudo-scientific terms such as 'Quantum consciousness','Collective subconscious' etc and the usage of non-existent phenomena to highlight the author's attempt at explaining what according to him/her is the nature of the working of the world.The blurbs on these books all seem to claim that the ideas espoused by the book in question is mankind's key to understanding the universe.
The authors of all these books want to point out that our lives so far has been empty and meaningless and that they are the ones who will rescue us from the mundaneness that we have created,and turn us into 'highly successful people',who know 'the secret' of being good at everything.

If the books have helped anyone become succesful at what they do,it is the authors themselves,no doubt having got considerably richer with the sales of the books.
It leaves one to wonder if people have become so insecure about themselves,that they need someone else to tell them how to go about their lives.

One just needs to pause and think to know that the world around is beautiful in its own regard. Surely,the stars in the sky are enchanting,even without a 'God' to hold them up.The way nature works is a marvel,even without a 'spirit' to drive it.And it surely is common-sense to know that one can have what one wants/needs,by suitably working at getting it.

Our ability to reason and understand is what drove our species to have considerable mastery over much of the world,and ignoring our voice of reason will not be a good thing at all.

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