An engagingly written call to overcome stress and embrace a life of awareness and simplicity.
A nuts-and-bolts guidebook to raising the quality of one’s life through mindfulness.
This nonfiction debut from Indian author Pathik describes the extent of the psychological, social, and spiritual problems afflicting the modern technological age—and especially the children of the current era. In the United States, he writes, one out of five children experiences mental health problems, which translates to millions of kids. Many adults are similarly oppressed, according to Pathik—overworked and overly stressed by omnipresent technology: “We have become so absorbed in the materialistic world,” he writes, “that we have forgotten how to be human.” The author warns readers that, despite his book’s title, his response to these pervasive societal maladies is not a “quick-fix”; rather, it more closely resembles a journey that one may take alongside the author. In clear prose, Pathik lays out his key concept: that readers should make a clear distinction between their “Inner” and “Outer Minds.” The Outer Mind is the “Subjective Mind,” he says, which deals with thoughts and actions and can blunt the sensitivity that one needs to be content. The Inner Mind, by contrast, is the “Intuitive Mind,” which he defines as the sacred, spiritual inner core of one’s personality. And according to Pathik, modern life is characterized by the tension between these aspects of every person’s brain: “There is a war going on inside our minds,” he writes. Although this is a fairly standard real-world/inner-spirit dichotomy, Pathik effectively outlines major steps to achieving a balance between the two over the course of his book. The key, he says, is to “silence the Outer Mind for even short intervals” in order to better access one’s more spiritual Inner Mind. He gives readers a straightforward and practical path to reaching this goal, through the use of breathing exercises (“This mindful breath flow creates a natural quietness of the mind”) and other mindfulness techniques.
An engagingly written call to overcome stress and embrace a life of awareness and simplicity.Pub Date: May 19, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5043-3062-6
Page Count: 222
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
