An eclectic, spicy smorgasbord of philosophical food for thought.
Survival, love, and spiritual enlightenment are among the prizes we must seek, according to this lively treatise on the human predicament.
Smoley, the author of Inner Christianity (2002) and editor of Quest: Journal of the Theosophical Society of America, posits seven metaphorical “games” that depict prominent aspects of existence. The survival game is won by procuring basic needs, but these can be quite different, he notes, depending on whether you’re an English aristocrat or a homeless tunnel dweller in Las Vegas. Love is a game that’s usually transactional, Smoley contends, with lovers judging each other by “the Equation” of desirability, but the secret to love is “the perception of the unity of all being.” The power game can involve Machiavellian cunning—“it is never wise to underestimate the extent to which your subordinates can sabotage you”—or a numinous “power-from-within” that draws on a universal “life force.” The pleasure game motivates us in everything from oral sex to champagne connoisseurship, while the creativity game is an interplay between form and innovation in everything from classical architecture to the absurdly standardized rules of movie scripts, which requires that the big plot break occurs on page 25. Smoley celebrates the courage game through the deeds of warriors like Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson—an example whom some readers will find problematic—and he proposes “death in battle is like a famous ride in an amusement park—something not to be missed at one point or another in a sequence of earthly lifetimes.” Finally, the master game is the realm of rare souls who awaken to deeper wisdom, often through meditative exercises. Smoley’s pensées mix an acerbic realism, complete with advice on office politics, with a mystical and even occult sensibility; he is influenced by spiritualist G.I. Gurdjieff, cites astrology as a useful means of assessing romantic compatibility, and mentions a “strikingly and unexpectedly accurate” palm reading he received. The book has a free-wheeling curiosity and erudition, and it approaches profound questions in prose that’s lucid and entertainingly tart: “The lifelessness and superficiality of the current American literary novel cannot be because it has reached the technical limits of what is a very broad and accepting genre, but because, one senses, of some larger social vitiation: a masturbatory self-obsession has supplanted great themes and vistas.” The result is a stimulating read.
An eclectic, spicy smorgasbord of philosophical food for thought.Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9781722506247
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Gildan Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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