Amis on Hitchens: Something's amiss and that's the hitch

Regardless of his sexuality and sexual orientation/ preferences (I neither know nor care what they are) Martin Amis's love for his friend Christopher Hitchens, as evident in his recent article about Hitchens in the Guardian, seems to consist more of eros than philia or storge. Why else would a grown man indulge in the literary equivalent of performing fellatio -- that other (and more literal) form of oral gratification -- on another grown man in full view of the whole world? And if this trope offends you, I am sorry. I can't think of any other metaphor that might more aptly describe such wanton idolatry as the kind found in this article, of which the following sentence is a sterling example.

 Everyone is unique – but Christopher is preternatural.

Preternatural? I mean, I do think Hitchens's wit is rare and at times outstanding, but preternatural?

Preternatural is the rationalist's supernatural. Amis might as well have gone all out and said "Christopher is supernatural" except that Hitchens might have frowned upon such absurdly banal characterization of his god-like non-godliness. (Being, as he is: a staunch 'antitheist', of serious scientific temper, a purveyor of rhetorical sound-bites to less articulate but equally impassioned atheists, of which "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" is an excellent example, as Amis proclaims.) The epithet preternatural, I am sure, gives Hitchens that warm fuzzy feeling deep down inside that we all long for -- an assurance that, after all this trouble we've taken to explain ourselves to the world, someone out there actually gets it. Someone out there actually understands us and appreciates our true worth. This is how we all long to immortalize ourselves; being called preternatural is the crowning glory of our lives.

What kind of obsequious sycophancy is this? And shouldn't the individual at the receiving end (who, we are told, shuns the human "desire to worship and obey") shudder with disgust at such cloying adulation and that too from a peer, a friend? Contrast that with us plebeians, who, when asked about a gifted friend with exceptional talent in some field, usually use 2 words to describe him: great guy. But perhaps professional writers -- especially professors of creative writing like Amis -- need to slavishly lavish in excess of 4000 words (and while they're at it, frequently quote from Nabokov) on their object of worship. When such writers draw on their love for a friend and whip out all the tools of their craft, it seems as though no other skill is more important than the one in which the exalted one excels, and no other person a better exponent of that art than the one being deified. In this case the skill deals with being the excoriating über-critic -- one whose métier is defined as the continuous perfection of the art of the extempore epigram, and mastery over its application to disparaging, deriding and insulting people. And in this case the deified one may be seen as a modern day Wilde-meets-Socrates, only meaner, ruder, but less profound, and with hubris oozing out of his ears. What basis such hubris, you might ask. At first glance it seems as though his hubris doesn't need a basis, since it appears to be more of a premise than a conclusion. It is suggestive of the possibility that it determines his existence, in a Cartesian sort of way: "I exude hubris, therefore I am." Or is his hubris somewhat closely linked to being a successful career contrarian (in terms of correlation if not causation)? But hold that thought. Amis goes through much trouble to clarify that Hitchens is better understood as a 'natural rebel' than as an 'autocontrarian'.

Christopher is bored by the epithet contrarian, which has been trailing him around for a quarter of a century. What he is, in any case, is an autocontrarian: he seeks, not only the most difficult position, but the most difficult position for Christopher Hitchens. Hardly anyone agrees with him on Iraq (yet hardly anyone is keen to debate him on it). We think also of his support for Ralph Nader, his collusion with the impeachment process of the loathed Bill Clinton (who, in Christopher's new book, The Quotable Hitchens, occupies more space than any other subject), and his support for Bush-Cheney in 2004. Christopher often suffers for his isolations; this is widely sensed, and strongly contributes to his magnetism. He is in his own person the drama, as we watch the lithe contortions of a self-shackling Houdini. Could this be the crux of his charisma – that Christopher, ultimately, is locked in argument with the Hitch? Still, "contrarian" is looking shopworn. And if there must be an epithet, or what the press likes to call a (single-word) "narrative", then I can suggest a refinement: Christopher is one of nature's rebels. By which I mean that he has no automatic respect for anybody or anything.

* 

This is the way to spot a rebel: they give no deference or even civility to their supposed superiors (that goes without saying); they also give no deference or even civility to their demonstrable inferiors. 

"No automatic respect for anybody or anything." That immediately puts Hitchens above and beyond most of humanity. These boys are so into exclusivity! Indeed, Amis awards himself, his father and his friend the dubious distinction of being the only rebels he's ever known, before going on to extol their finer points i.e. their lack of civility to everybody other than those they consider to be their peers (which, again, is a very small and exclusive band of brothers, it seems).

Oh, and I almost forgot. Apropos of the "epithet contrarian" there's this whole business about seeking difficult positions. "He seeks not only the most difficult position but the most difficult position for Christopher Hitchens." Bravo! This sentence reflects the sheer genius of Martin Amis, since it sums up the essence of Christopher Hitchens in a single line. So there are those who seek positions, those who seek difficult positions, and those (or perhaps only one, in that class) who seek the most difficult position -- not for any old polemicist, but for Christopher Hitchens, the gold standard.

Perhaps that's what really irks me about Hitchens. You see, where I come from, we don't go about "seeking" positions on matters. Our positions find us -- sometimes spontaneously, at other times after due soul-searching, and they reflect who we are. If we are unclear about something, we open our minds, we explore, we ask, we learn the facts, we ponder, we converse. And we await the visitation of the position that is ours, via some kind of epiphany. When facts change, we subject those positions to stringent review and if necessary change our minds, as advised by Keynes. OK, granted that not everyone has the cojones to do the latter. Many just stick to positions they've already taken even in the face of new facts that clearly contradict those positions.

Of course, there are several other ways in which people approach matters of import. Some  just adopt positions of their intellectual gurus, since they either can't or won't develop one for themselves, on their own. Some others just find it convenient to sync with their peers. And many others take the position dictated by political correctness or expedience. I am not unduly bothered by any of these attitudes though I believe honesty requires that we ourselves organically evolve our positions, aligned with the natural grain of our own weltanschauung and outlook to life.

But this "seeking" of a position is different. It is dishonest in a profoundly fundamental way and I regard it with disdain. The disdain gives way to sheer contempt when that seeking is driven by the need to maximize the "difficulty" of the position.  This, to me, is the quintessence of intellectual delinquency -- to refute everybody and everything, and when challenged to explain oneself, take the thin grassy trail left untrodden by the muddied boots of everybody else's pronouncements. (Think 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost.) There always is one; the trick is to find it and talk the walk, surprising or even shocking an unsuspecting audience with the succinct articulation of one's own unique, radically different point of view. This is exactly what seeking difficult positions entails. I know because when I was in my early teens, that's what I used to do. There was a kind of enigmatic heroism about doing it -- the kind of enigmatic heroism that would attract (or so I thought back then) the opposite sex or at least a mixed fan following. And the torment arising from the struggle within, of syncretic attempts to reconcile those varying difficult positions (over time contrarian positions are bound to result in contradictions and paradoxes, which rationalists hate as much as superstitious belief and blind faith) only served to enhance one's magnetism. But with Amis, Hitchens et al. it doesn't end there. There's the icing on the cake: the expression "the most difficult position for Christopher Hitchens" -- suggesting not only an unparalleled greatness but also the continuous effort to outdo that greatness every time. Ergo preternatural.

Sadly, it turns out that some juvenile intellectual delinquents just never grow up; on the contrary, they obsessively hone their compulsions to a fine art form, and then get fawned upon by fanboys. Perhaps this is because of their socially maladjusted adolescence and/ or major childhood insecurities that were never addressed. As happens with most nerds and others suffering from a sense of inadequacy or low self-esteem, they would then stick to small groups of their own kind -- a tight mutual admiration society of bright minds that are socially dysfunctional, to seek comfort in each others' miseries. Perhaps that, then, is whence the hubris develops, as a defensive mechanism against the mocking jeering social success of 'lesser' mortals.

If only that hubris were to be replaced by humility. If only that brilliant wit, that penchant for deliciously timed and executed riposte, that sharply articulated logic behind pithily framed cogent arguments, were put to constructive use in the service of humankind. Amis misses this angle completely, lost as he is in rapturous praise of 'the Hitch'. And that, then, is what's amiss in his glowing portrait of his buddy. And that, then, is the hitch in the maturing of a middle-aged terminally ill writer. The only redeeming point I see in his story is his ability to laugh at his condition. But that could also be because you least expect it of him. That's how contrarians are.

The Lesson from Seth Godin's Post

I read Seth Godin's blog quite often and over a period of time have come to expect that with each post I would learn something new, or gain fresh insights into stuff I was already aware of. I am usually not disappointed -- at worst, I might find a post or two to be about a business or a market or an industry that is far removed from mine or that I don't understand, and so less engaging. However, his last post (reproduced below in its entirety) was quite disappointing -- not in the sense that it was dull or uninteresting or lacking in gravitas, but in the sense that it was misleading, if not wrong.

The lesson from two lemonade stands

The first stand is run by two kids. They use Countrytime lemonade, paper cups and a bridge table. It's a decent lemonade stand, one in the long tradition of standard lemonade stands. It costs a dollar to buy a cup, which is a pretty good price, considering you get both the lemonade and the satisfaction of knowing you supported two kids.

The other stand is different. The lemonade is free, but there's a big tip jar. When you pull up, the owner of the stand beams as only a proud eleven year old girl can beam. She takes her time and reaches into a pail filled with ice and lemons. She pulls out a lemon. Slices it. Then she squeezes it with a clever little hand juicer.

The whole time that's she's squeezing, she's also talking to you, sharing her insights (and yes, her joy) about the power of lemonade to change your day. It's a beautiful day and she's in no real hurry. Lemonade doesn't hurry, she says. It gets made the right way or not at all. Then she urges you to take a bit less sugar, because it tastes better that way.

While you're talking, a dozen people who might have become customers drive on by because it appears to take too long. You don't mind, though, because you're engaged, almost entranced. A few people pull over and wait in line behind you.

Finally, once she's done, you put $5 in the jar, because your free lemonade was worth at least twice that. Well, maybe the lemonade itself was worth $3, but you'd happily pay again for the transaction. It touched you. In fact, it changed you.

Which entrepreneur do you think has a brighter future?

Like many other famous and popular bloggers, Seth Godin does not provide his readers with a window to comment on his posts, presumably because moderating and responding to a large number of comments can be too tedious and time consuming. Be that as it may, I found I had a couple of things to say with respect to this last post, and since there was no space for comments, I decided to come back to my own space where I am monarch of all that I type, as is my usual wont in such situations.

Let me tell you which entrepreneur I think has a brighter future: I think the kids behind the first stand have a brighter future. Now let me tell you why I think so. For one, they provide a reasonably good product at a reasonably good price, and deliver it fairly quickly through efficient processes -- all good and highly desirable business values in themselves. Secondly, because their entire delivery cycle moves fast, they are able to cater to more customers within a shorter time-frame. This gives them more throughput, higher volumes and a better top-line. The second stand delivers an experience that is described by Seth Godin over 4 paragraphs (as compared to the modest description of the experience at the first stand, within a single paragraph). Is such an elaborate and if I may use the word - enchanting - experience really something that a lemonade consumer is looking for? Well, perhaps 1 in 10 customers is (my guess). Now do the math, and while you're at it remember that a dozen people drove past the second stand because it was taking too long.

Lemonade is not a high-touch / high value-add product. It does not need an elaborate conversation with the consumer to understand their needs or their pain points. The scope for innovation is anywhere between zero to very little, even for a highly ingenious entrepreneur. Expectations are fairly well understood on both sides of the lemonade dispensing table. If the point being made is about user experience and the perception of value and stuff like that, then lemonade is not the best choice to write a customer delight story around. On the contrary, this could almost become the story of how not to hype-up a mass-market commodity product by building fluff around it.

I'm not saying the second stand is doomed to fail. I'm saying that the second stand caters to a niche market, and should locate itself in a neighbourhood where there are abundant target customers -- those 1 in 10 who: (a) have a lot of time on their hands (b) don't mind waiting in a queue to get what they want, rather than settle for something else which could be procured faster (c) prefer hand-made lemonade, which is made at the appropriate pace at which good lemonade should be made (d) attach a lot of importance to the beaming countenance, graceful bearing and joyful spirit of the individual behind the stand making the lemonade, and finally (e) like to pay, of their own volition, an amount of their own choice which is commensurate with their own assessment of the value they got from a transaction. I'm sure such customers exist, and in fact, other than Seth Godin who walked away 'touched' and changed by the experience, I could be one of them myself. But then where are the volumes? Even to generate the volumes needed to make this a viable business proposition, the second stand would have to have enough smarts to locate the right neighbourhoods where such niche markets exist and are as yet untapped. If I were a VC, I'd invest in the first model and not the second, though I may give my business to the second more often than the first, circumstances permitting. Not that I am betting on the failure of the second, but that I am betting on the success of the first. There are more people who are not like me (and Seth Godin), and the people who are like me (and Seth Godin) are in a hurry more often than I am (not sure about Seth Godin). C'mon - this is lemonade we're talking about, not high-end consulting or private banking or haute couture, where exactly the opposite argument would no doubt hold. Different horses for different courses!

There's a phenomenon that I'd like to call the comedian's momentum trap. When you are watching comedy your mind is already set to 'laugh' mode. You feel your mood lifting within the first few seconds, and a feeling of levity seems to come from nowhere and pervade through you. A few really good jokes are all it takes to build the momentum of laughter. Soon you're holding your sides, tears rolling down your cheeks ... all that. The momentum of this is so strong that even a weak joke will get more laughter out of you than it deserves. If someone else cracked the same joke in a stand-alone mode or in some other context, you'd have found it barely risible and it would have just fallen flat. I think Seth Godin's readers arrive at his blog with a similar 'momentum' -- a momentum of expectation, of the momentous. So just about anything that is posted there is seen as great insight and gets retweeted and delicioused and digged, just like all other posts.

I wonder whether Mr Godin would realize at some point that the real lesson from his blog post is a little different from the lesson he hopes readers will take away. Well, it was, for me. Ergo this post.

The Great Indian Con - Ideas vs. Myths

Some time back, when I heard that Shashi Tharoor was a candidate for UN Secretary General, I took great pride in the fact that a compatriot of mine had risen to a level where he was being considered for the post. I had neither read his books nor seen the impact of his work, but over the years formed an impression of him that could best be characterized by two parameters: erudition and achievement (and I may be right on both counts). However, I had by extension, also attributed to him additional qualities that should be natural corollaries, such as a keen and sharp mind (that wouldn't easily be fooled by clever sophistry), deep insights into the Indian socio-economic context, and above all the wisdom of a philosopher. In short, I used to think he was an intellectual and I was favorably disposed to accept his views, generally speaking. (Not his fault, really, that I developed this image of him - mea culpa.) And so, when I read his recent article "Looking to the future with Brand IIT" this last New Year's eve in the Times, it was an eye-opener. Check it out: http://www.shashitharoor.com/articles/timesofindia31dec06.html

His article is based on his address to a gathering of IIT alumni from the all over the world at the recent PanIIT 2006 global meet (http://www.paniit2006.org/). Either he felt obliged to say nice things to please his hosts, or he genuinely believes that the IITs are doing a great job. If he felt obliged but didn't have too many nice things to say, he ought to have declined the invitation altogether. But he didn't do that - he came, he talked and he submitted. This is a case of diplomacy over substance if not form over substance. It is one thing to believe that the IITs are doing a great job simply because it is generally believed by all to be true. It is altogether another thing to have dug out facts and figures, thought it through and placed it all together and then to assert firmly and with conviction that they are. And then go beyond that and assert that they hold a lot of promise for India's future. Mr Tharoor has done the latter, which in my opinion is inexcusably foolish for a man of his stature and station. According to me, the IITs have failed to deliver and it is not at all difficult to see why and how.

Let me step back for just one moment, to present the background to my own assertion that the IITs have failed. This is not directly connected with Mr Tharoor and his views, but more of a quick recap of the genesis of the IITs and their original raison d'être. Back in those days, Nehru and his team had a vision of India as a self-sufficient economy. The key to real freedom, they realized, was economic independence, and this could only come about if we were self-reliant as a nation. I have no quarrel with this thesis, in very broad and general terms. Some highlights of this school of thought include the "non-aligned" policy, "mixed economics" (our own brand of socialism), etc., all of which, incidentally, I am certain that Mr Tharoor has studied in far more detail than I have (he's written books about it). The establishment of the IITs needs to be seen in this context: they were created so that India could build our own cadre of engineers who should engage in the noble task of nation building, thus making us self-reliant through not only indigenous technological development but also development of indigenous technologies. These institutions were funded partly through international aid (initially) and on a more sustained basis by Indian tax payers - it seemed logical that tax payers should pay towards building a bigger brighter better India, a stronger India, a richer India. And all this, by achieving self-reliance - particularly in technology, which was clearly the weapon of the future: not mastered, it would threaten India for ever, through the prospect of economic and/or military domination by technologically superior foreign powers.

However over the years, this vision has blurred, become foggy and vanished altogether. Perhaps it is obsolete? In that case we must change it and have the right vision in place for the IITs. Perhaps it is still relevant? In that case we must ensure that everything we do continues to be aligned with it. Alas, we seem to be doing neither. Again, this is Failure. The first failure of the IITs was that of not meeting the objectives they were set up for. The second, of not recognizing and correcting the first failure. And Mr Tharoor's failure? Of missing both! Or perhaps, like I said earlier, he was being the eternal diplomat or the natural yea-sayer (see my post "What part of No don't you understand?" in the archives of this blog), conveniently brushing the bad news under the carpet.

Consider an analysis along the following lines. To keep it simple, let me select one area - let's say, Civil Engineering. First take the Life-To-Date number of IIT graduates in Civil Engineering - the grand total number of Civil Engineers which all the IITs put together have ever produced. Of these, let x be the number of Civil Engineers who, after graduating from an IIT, have continued to live in India to work as Civil Engineers. Let y be the number of Civil Engineers who, after graduation, have continued to live in India, but did not / do not work as Civil Engineers. And lastly, let z be the number of Civil Engineering graduates who left India for greener pastures in foreign lands (of this number there could be three components: z1 - those who are still overseas, z2 - those who have returned to India but are not working here as Civil Engineers, and z3 - those who have returned to India and work here as Civil Engineers). I am willing to bet that of all these numbers, x would be far lower than y which would be far lower than z, to the extent that z would come close to equaling the sum of x and y. Further, I would wager that z3 would be lower than z2, which would be lower than z1, and that z1 would be greater than or equal to z2 plus z3. If instead of Life-to-Date one were to take a base of the last, say, 20 years, the results would be even more skewed in favour of the point I am trying to make. Which means the deviation of the outcome from the intent is even more in the last few years. From another perspective, there could be departments where the trend is more pronounced one way or another. However, my point is not about departments; it is about the institution as a whole. If someone has actual real data on this, I would LOVE to see it. I would also LOVE to be proved wrong about this. Quite simply put, the IITs have been contributing more to the technological and economic progress of other countries (such as the US, for which they have been formally recognized - read on) than to India. This is like a poor man who sets out to cook food for himself but because he is such a good cook, ends up cooking for the rich man, only to be left with a few crumbs for himself. If it happens once, it's happenstance, and if it happens twice it's coincidence. But to allow this to happen on a sustained basis, over several years, without doing anything about it and in fact not even recognizing it is as a problem, is downright foolish. And it is outrageously foolish on the part of the poor man's friend, to compliment such behavior with a pat on the back for earning the beneficence and goodwill of the rich man while starving himself to death, almost.

Apparently an IIT alumnus is writing a book on 101 IITians who've made it big, globally. Why doesn't someone make a list of 101 IITians who've made it big in India? A few years ago, someone mailed me a copy of House Resolution 227 of the 1st session of the 109th Congress of the United States of Amercia, which formally acknowledged the role of IITians in building a more robust US economy. Why has nothing like that happened here? We can put it down to the apathy of Indian administrators / bureaucrats / politicians etc. (as we usually do in the case of Indians who become stars abroad and get no recognition at home). But hey .. could the problem be somewhere else? Could it be that someone compiling a list of 101 great IITians who have contributed to the Indian economy may not find more than a dozen or so entries of merit? Could it be that the Indian govt. has not formally recognised the contribution of IITians simply because there hasnt been anything significant that IITians have done for the Indian economy?

Mr Tharoor's point seems to be that IITians have spread their wings, gone all over the world and achieved a lot, and in doing so have acted as brand ambassadors for India. But I ask: was that what the IITs were set-up for - to create brand ambassadors? Here's something Mr Tharoor says in his article: "Nehru's establishment of the IITs (and the spur they provided to other institutions like Birla Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management) have produced many of the finest minds in America's Silicon Valley and Fortune-1000 Corporations." Tell me again, Mr Tharoor, was this Nehru's vision? To create institutions that feed Silicon Valley and Fortune 1000 Corporations? Was that the idea? No, my dear sir - it's a myth. Worse still, a con. I am disappointed that someone like you cannot see it. Someone like you, who is best placed to call the bluff; to let everyone know the truth about the Emperor's new clothes.

The Unbearable Lightness of Paperback Gravitas

Birthdays are great fun and I really enjoy celebrating mine. For two reasons – first, I like celebrations in general (read parties) involving any or all of: good food / fine wine / nice music / interesting conversations with interesting people etc., and second, I like my life and so I like celebrating the day I was given it; I like who and what I am, I like what I have grown to become and am evolving towards. I am truly grateful that there are people out there who wish me well, come over to my home when I throw a party and bring me gifts on my birthday. I got some wonderful gifts this year, and one of them was this book called ‘The Power of Now’ written by a gentle and benign looking gentleman called Eckhart Tolle. And you may treat this blog post as a kind of a book review.

If your life is troubled you should read this book. Let me rephrase that (everybody's life is troubled, to some extent) – if there’s a lot of sturm und drang in your life, you should read this book. You will know if this book is working for you, if you are able to purge all negative thoughts and feelings about the past and the future that might be tormenting you. And post this cathartic deep-pore cleansing, you are able to live in the 'Now' – a state of joy (a.k.a. bliss) that transcends the duality and cyclicality of pleasure and pain that we experience through all the trappings of a worldly life. The Now is the only real thing … all else is just something in your Mind that your Mind has created because it needs to create those things to feed itself on. Badd Mind!

This book is ideal for the new age 'liberati' (a word I’ve just coined as a play on ‘literati’, to describe those who seek liberation by reading books). Maybe they should make a new category called spirit-lit and put this book there. Don’t get me wrong - there’s tons of useful stuff in here: sound advice to people who get all knotted up with regrets about their past and/or bent out of shape with worries about their future. It tells such people in such situations to take a deep breath and let go. To not let their mind get the better of them by running away with self-flagellation for misdeeds or with its own doomsday forecasts, but instead to focus on the moment and recognise the beauty in the present and the joy in just being. And I would fully agree with such advice. Kind of suggestive of the Latin expression 'Carpe Diem', but I didn't actually see that written in so many words anywhere in the book. But then I must confess I haven't actually read the whole book - only browsed through it and that too not sequentially. The Question/Answer format makes it easy to read at random, a few pages at a time. Plus there's a lot of repetition of ideas and themes (by the author's own admission), so if you missed something it will probably pop-up again later. And the language is simple and lucid so it can be speed read too. It may not have the lyrical lilt of a Khalil Gibran or the picturesque imagery of a Richard Bach, but P-of-N is prophetic all the same.

Why then, do I sound disdainful? Well, for one there’s this kind of Nirvana-in-ten-easy-steps feel about this whole thing. Einstein once said “Make things as simple as possible but not simpler”. To people who live in Euclidean space on a Newtonian planet, it's easy to explain gravity using falling apples. It is far more difficult to explain space-time warps caused by intense gravitational forces around super-dense matter, using apples or oranges. This does not discourage laudable efforts by people of science to use simple models involving rubber sheets bending around a heavy marble to illustrate space-time curving around strong gravitational fields or blowing balloons to illustrate the expanding nature of the universe after the Big Bang and such, but unfortunately such explanations spawn more questions than answer existing ones. And what is true about gravity is true for gravitas too. First, spiritual experience (any part of it - from awakening through attainment) cannot be mass distributed. When it does, it turns into either a cult or a religion or an institution or ... a business! Second, there's gotta be room for questioning. You can't shut the reader up by saying sorry, no questions, no thinking, do not apply your mind to what you're reading.

Which brings me to the other thing. This book stops you from questioning (maybe doesn't actually say that in so many words, but the discouragement to question is implicit everywhere). The message is that these thoughts you’re thinking and the questions you are asking are all the work of your feeble brain trying to understand the phenomena of Life using Reason, something that is beyond the grasp of the Mind. Here's where I have a problem agreeing. I saw phrases like "thinking is a disease" which could easily persuade troubled readers (remember our target audience?) to stop thinking about their lives altogether. And to forget the past and the future, as the book suggests. And to immerse themselves fully in the Now. My problem is that this could potentially remove any sense of responsibility the reader might have. Dropping the past and the future directly causes you to drop responsibility for what you did and what you are about to do. OK, maybe some people take on more responsibility than they should, and that screws them up. Agreed. In such cases, the solution lies in their rationalising their portfolio of responsibilities. In fact, more thought - better thought, is to be applied towards doing that, and not lack of it. The key lies in the ability to balance freedom with responsibility. 'Stop thinking' is a slogan for escapists, to my mind. In contrast, 'Stop brooding and get on with life' is good solid practical advice to most anybody, because we all need it at some time or other. So what's the big fuss about, if this is all there is to it?

Last criticism: Nowhere in the entire book (which, again I should remind you, I have not actually read word-by-word sequentially from start to finish), did I find that one most vital element - humour! Benign and gentle looking as he may be, he never smiles in his pictures. In fact his eyes look sad. At no point in my reading (OK, browsing) of the book did I come anywhere close to even chuckling at anything that I read.

So, all in all, this is a strange and rather paradoxical combination of a book - too much gravitas in form and delivery, but not enough weight in the content, which is kept light so that it can go around and reach more people, but is not fun. There are probably more oxymorons in my last sentence than I care to count, but you get my drift. Speaking for myself, I have no place for things (light or heavy) that don't make me smile or chuckle or better still ... laugh! Certainly not for spiritualists who take themselves and their (pre)occupation too seriously!