A collection of well-written, perceptive, and quietly powerful essays, meant to be savored.
Linden, in his debut nonfiction work, shares insights gleaned from his years of reflection on the nature of the soul.
The book begins with a fable that serves as a metaphor for awakening. In it, a human named Turtle Wolf, using patience and stealth, moves through the jungle to the “‘living water’” that comes from freeing oneself from the ego (“the ultimate tyrant”). Numerous short chapters follow, containing brief essays on the nature of ego, “Mind,” “Soul,” and “the Source.” Among other things, the book touches on reality and unreality, and says that unrealities arise only when one isn’t truly present in the moment. However, it cites the ego as “a necessary and important unreality,” which can lead to awakening; when one ceases to identify with the ego-based view, it says, the Mind can finally merge with the Source. Linden notes that the ego seeks problems, and that the solutions to those problems only reinforce the ego; he also says that thinking and analysis are ego-based processes that are “fundamentally forms of competition.” As a result, he says, ego-directed creations are likely to be mediocre, while Soul-directed creations are great works of art. He goes on to say that the disintegration of the ego is a necessary, significant passage in human development, often called “the Dark Night of the Soul”: “The Soul is at peace when the Mind and the Source are one in and of the present.” In this book, Linden effectively shows that even unrealities have a purpose, as they serve as tools for abandoning illusion. His primary sentiment, however, is that people should be present without judgment and without resistance—one that’s also espoused by Eckhart Tolle (author of the 1997 spiritual self-help guide The Power of Now) and fellow author Esther Hicks. Ultimately, his book gets across the message that reality is the experience of “living life awake.” Although Linden’s text sometimes echoes the teachings of the aforementioned Tolle, its message organically arises from the author’s personal experience and process—a clear, simple approach to life that uses straightforward language throughout. However, it’s not a quick, easy read; instead, its weighty statements invite readers to pause and ponder, and ideally, to be present.
A collection of well-written, perceptive, and quietly powerful essays, meant to be savored.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1618520883
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Turning Stone Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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