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Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Man Alive, that was interesting!

I just read an online book that I really enjoyed. I found it over at Sunni's blog .

It is called "Man Alive! A Survival Manual for the Human Mind" by Greg Swann.

Now, you could argue that this is just a libertarian version of "The Secret" or something, but I don't think so. There's no "magic" or mystical thinking involved- just thinking. And acting on those thoughts.

I really dislike reading books on the computer, but on Sunni's recommendation I did it anyway. And I got a lot out of it. If you feel like reading it, I think you'll be glad you did.


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2 comments:

  1. Oh, bless you. Thanks for the review. I actually like the analogy to The Secret. That's all mumbo-jumbo, of course, but it remains that your conscious thoughts are entirely yours to control. If you focus your mind solely on your values, and not on disvalues, your life will get better and better over time.

    If people are daunted by the idea of a full-blown book, I wrote a short summary of these ideas ten years ago as a speech:

    http://splendorquest.com/?p=120

        In every choice you make, in every action you
        take, in each of your thoughts and in each of your
        deeds, you are acting upon your self. By your
        attitudes and your habits of mind and your
        internal and external behaviors, you are acting
        either to complete and burnish and exalt your ego
        -- or to dismantle and deface and destroy it.
        
        This is an inescapable ontological fact. This is
        what it means _essentially_ to have a reasoning,
        recollecting mind. Skyscrapers and symphonies, on
        the one hand, and squalor and slaughter, on the
        other -- these are secondary consequences. Every
        action in every human life is first taken _by_ the
        ego _upon_ the ego.
        
        So do you want to worship your god, the only god
        who can exist in the universe of your experience?
        Then _be_ that god. Behave always, constantly, in
        such a way that you will have earned and deserved
        your own self-adoration. Act always to complete
        your self and never to dismantle it, always to
        burnish it and never to deface it, always to exalt
        your ego and your body and your mind and your life
        -- never to destroy it.

    My thanks to you again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're welcome. And I thank you for taking the time to write the book to share what you have discovered.

    ReplyDelete