Review: The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli vs. First we make the beast beautiful by Sarah Wilson
Slightly off track from AOL essays... I picked up a book yesterday called 'The Art of Thinking Clearly' in a little bookshop on the high road. I hoped it would help me with my terrible lack of decision making I usually have; 'which coat shall I wear?', 'do I need a coat?', 'should I accept this invitation to meet a friend or stay in and work?', 'is my work going to suffer or be better if I have a social life?'...... my poor little mind gets very confused with decision making.
I read the first few chapters and felt like Dobelli was being clear cut and blunt with the readers, he took control of the situations and told the reader everything was nonsense. All the links we create with our brains about events, reasons why we meet people or have experiences, its all unlinked, its just our brains trying to create patterns and it makes us feel more comfortable.
I started to feel a little uneasy reading, but I carried on because its good for my beliefs and values to be challenged. He continued with a section about optimists and pessimists. Stating that optimists are born happy people, pessimists aren't. There were some other bold statements; for example the idea that pessimists or depressed people wouldn't write self help books. Along other lines stating self help books don't really work unless people want them to work.
These statements started making me question the writer and how his experience has informed his knowledge, and how he is forcing his experience/knowledge onto the reader.
First of all, most self help books are written by people who have gone through a period of darkness in their lives, otherwise they wouldn't necessarily have much to write about. And to say that depressed people wouldn't write self help books... one of the most helpful books written on anxiety I have ever read comes from a writer who declared that throughout writing the book she had manic and anxious states. Its real, it makes me feel like its normal, and I appreciate her honesty.
Secondly... the idea of pessimists and optimists. Being a pessimist or an optimist can depend on a huge amount of variables; who you surround yourself with and the conversations you have with those people, family, financial stability, job satisfaction, mental health and many other things. To say someone was born an optimist is largely stereotyping and not accounting for experiences people go through in life which ultimately can change their outlook on things. He also explains how optimists write self help books..... now this writer himself has written a self help book. He may call it a no nonsense guide to success or clear thinking or whatever he wraps it up to be, but when I picked it up at the book store I immediately thought.. this book is going to help me. It's a self help book.
It's a self help book for the pessimists. He states that optimists make these patterns and look for links in experiences to explain things and reason things and make meaning out of things. His idea is that there is no link, no rhyme or reason for anyone. We don't have to make these patterns.... its self help for the pessimist.
Don't get me wrong, there were some really great things in the book too, some things I really enjoyed reading about. However I feel the writer has fallen into the trap of his own doing with the pessimist and optimist.
'First we make the beast beautiful' doesn't try and find patterns and reasons for anxiety. The book is about accepting anxiety for what it is and (here's the best part) to make it work for you, not against you. The title is a Chinese proverb; before we fight a beast we make it beautiful, and Wilson wants us to do that with our anxieties too. She's not interested in why we got anxiety, whether we are pessimist or optimist. But she looks forward instead at how we can use this knowledge for our own good. Can we use the adrenaline of anxiety to get an essay done? Can we use our worry to ensure we've picked the right restaurant for a dinner with friends who all have different dietary requirements that only the anxious person remembers because they care about everything?
Sometimes I have my head in the clouds and I need practical, sound advice on how to come back down to earth and move forward. But in those cases if I'm honest, I would rather be advised on how to move forward using my anxious traits in a positive way, than be advised my anxiety means nothing, my experience means nothing, its all a coincidence.
I am an optimist, so sometimes when things look rather bleak I would much prefer to look at all the positives than sink down into the slumps of pessimism. And I think the world is better for this (but of course I would, I'm an optimist) than if everyone looked at the negatives all the time.
Have any of you read any good books lately relating to thinking? If so let me know x
I read the first few chapters and felt like Dobelli was being clear cut and blunt with the readers, he took control of the situations and told the reader everything was nonsense. All the links we create with our brains about events, reasons why we meet people or have experiences, its all unlinked, its just our brains trying to create patterns and it makes us feel more comfortable.
I started to feel a little uneasy reading, but I carried on because its good for my beliefs and values to be challenged. He continued with a section about optimists and pessimists. Stating that optimists are born happy people, pessimists aren't. There were some other bold statements; for example the idea that pessimists or depressed people wouldn't write self help books. Along other lines stating self help books don't really work unless people want them to work.
These statements started making me question the writer and how his experience has informed his knowledge, and how he is forcing his experience/knowledge onto the reader.
First of all, most self help books are written by people who have gone through a period of darkness in their lives, otherwise they wouldn't necessarily have much to write about. And to say that depressed people wouldn't write self help books... one of the most helpful books written on anxiety I have ever read comes from a writer who declared that throughout writing the book she had manic and anxious states. Its real, it makes me feel like its normal, and I appreciate her honesty.
Secondly... the idea of pessimists and optimists. Being a pessimist or an optimist can depend on a huge amount of variables; who you surround yourself with and the conversations you have with those people, family, financial stability, job satisfaction, mental health and many other things. To say someone was born an optimist is largely stereotyping and not accounting for experiences people go through in life which ultimately can change their outlook on things. He also explains how optimists write self help books..... now this writer himself has written a self help book. He may call it a no nonsense guide to success or clear thinking or whatever he wraps it up to be, but when I picked it up at the book store I immediately thought.. this book is going to help me. It's a self help book.
It's a self help book for the pessimists. He states that optimists make these patterns and look for links in experiences to explain things and reason things and make meaning out of things. His idea is that there is no link, no rhyme or reason for anyone. We don't have to make these patterns.... its self help for the pessimist.
Don't get me wrong, there were some really great things in the book too, some things I really enjoyed reading about. However I feel the writer has fallen into the trap of his own doing with the pessimist and optimist.
'First we make the beast beautiful' doesn't try and find patterns and reasons for anxiety. The book is about accepting anxiety for what it is and (here's the best part) to make it work for you, not against you. The title is a Chinese proverb; before we fight a beast we make it beautiful, and Wilson wants us to do that with our anxieties too. She's not interested in why we got anxiety, whether we are pessimist or optimist. But she looks forward instead at how we can use this knowledge for our own good. Can we use the adrenaline of anxiety to get an essay done? Can we use our worry to ensure we've picked the right restaurant for a dinner with friends who all have different dietary requirements that only the anxious person remembers because they care about everything?
Sometimes I have my head in the clouds and I need practical, sound advice on how to come back down to earth and move forward. But in those cases if I'm honest, I would rather be advised on how to move forward using my anxious traits in a positive way, than be advised my anxiety means nothing, my experience means nothing, its all a coincidence.
I am an optimist, so sometimes when things look rather bleak I would much prefer to look at all the positives than sink down into the slumps of pessimism. And I think the world is better for this (but of course I would, I'm an optimist) than if everyone looked at the negatives all the time.
Have any of you read any good books lately relating to thinking? If so let me know x
ohhh I have read that book too! I have to admit that when I started reading it I felt a little bit uncomfortable and I found the way of writing different to what I was used to. But still, it is a nice book.
ReplyDeleteHi Chrissie, Im intrigued to look up the books you have described above. I've just come across some writings and interviews by Alva Noe, a philosopher and neuroscientist, I'm still exploring (haven't read the whole book yet), but there are some interesting things he writes about consciousness and experience. Its not explicitly about thinking, but related to it... and he often uses dance as an example to support his views. In case you want to have a look:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.alvanoe.com/out-of-our-heads/
Hi Agata, thank you for this - I've just taken a quick look and it sounds really interesting. Sometimes I feel like I have a certain level of consciousness and then I'm looking for the next step up to reach the higher level and my brain just stops working - it work be great to look at how consciousness works and why we get subjectivity within subjects from different people! Thank you for sharing. x
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