"Blink" Book Review

       I would give the book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell a four-star rating. This is a book about how powerful first impressions are. That within seconds of meeting someone or just overhearing someone’s conversation we are able to perform “thin-slicing”, a term that encompasses being able to make instant unconscious rapid assessments of people and situations based on information surrounding the situation to the extent of your own knowledge. Within 254 pages we are taken through many wonderful snippet stories of people's lives all illustrating perfectly just how we are able to “thin slice” people and situations. Also how sometimes we become “mind blind”, which is when we become temporarily autistic and can not match up the situation or personal protocol and lose the ability to read someone’s mind as to what they are thinking so we know how to respond and/or react. “Mindblindness” creates countless needless reactions that can cause anything from an argument to a tragic death due to someone’s heightened adrenaline and loss of ability to do the right thing; such things as stereotypes or misinterpreted information cloud otherwise intelligent judgment causing mistakes of varying degrees.

• In section one entitled The Theory of Thin Slices: How a Little Bit of Knowledge Goes a Long Way, we are introduced to John Gottman who wrote The Mathematics of Divorce and the creator of “thin-slicing” in an effort to be able to just hear the smallest amount of information and be able to tell whether the marriage will last or not. Further explaining how we all can hear or see the smallest amount of information and make a judgment call about what is going on.
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• In section two entitled The Locked Door: The Secret Life of Snap Judgments, we learn about how we tap into the locked door of our unconscious when we make snap decisions about people and situations that are snap judgments about how we proceed, respond and react.
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• In section three entitled The Warren Harding Error: Why We Fall for Tall, Dark, and Handsome Men we learn just how wrong we can be when we make snap judgments at times, especially when we allow stereotypes, prejudices, and emotions get involved. When those issues become involved we can become clouded with visions of grandeur and falsely allow ourselves to be taken advantage of or deceived and/or make mistakes regarding innocent people.
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• In section four entitled Paul Van Riper’s Big Victory: Creating Structure for Spontaneity we are introduced to the concept that we should never bow down to what may be ‘better’ when tried and true can win just the same if not ‘better’. That sometimes the best decisions can be made in the blink of an eye because overthinking and over-analysis doesn’t always win the war, because while some are thinking others are doing.
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• In section five entitled Kenna’s Dilemma: The Right- and Wrong Way to Ask People What They Want we are faced with the realization that it’s not always easy to know what people want. It’s not always cut and dry, black and white, and as simple as sampling the population with blind tests or snippets of sound clips because most times people don’t even know what they really want until they just say what they really want in that blink moment.
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• In the last section six entitled Seven Seconds in the Bronx: The Delicate Art of Mind Reading, we are presented with the idea that we all can mind read each other, with the exception of those with autism and mental disabilities who can not associate with emotions. Otherwise, we all have the capabilities to mind read each other and know what the other is thinking, feeling, and how they’re going to react simply by paying attention to our surroundings and them. We all wear our emotions and thoughts written on our faces, it’s just a matter of finding those people willing to take that extra millisecond to pay attention, which makes all the difference in the world.

        I enjoyed this book so much because it was extremely well written. It didn’t drag on about the same thing and it used descriptive stories to illustrate its points well so that I understood and could follow along with its message easily; a message that I completely agree with. I definitely see myself “thin-slicing” now when I enter into a new situation and can recognize when I have become “mind blind” in the past when I’ve gotten irate in arguments with my boyfriend. So I also realize in retrospect that with practice in certain situations I have become better able to read people, especially the people closest to me, and know what they are thinking and how they are going to react so that I may be able to change my approach or know what to expect out of their reaction. Which not having deeply thought about it before, I just did it cause it naturally evolved that way but now having it brought to my attention I do see what I was/am doing, and it's weird that it is an unconscious mind reading. For example, if I am arguing with my boyfriend I know exactly what each of his facial expressions mean now and each different tonality in his voice, I know what he is thinking behind those expressions and know how to react to each perceived thought he has; he is very predictable. I have essentially “thin-sliced” him to the point that I know what is going on within milliseconds and am able to direct my own reactions in certain ways to end the fight more quickly and less painfully.

"The Power of Now" Book Review

        I would give the book, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle a three-star rating. Much like The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, I do not agree with the book's presentation. This book is about spiritual enlightenment that can be gained through simply living in the present moment, the “now”, as opposed to the past or future. It explains very well how people, in general, tend to constantly live in the past or the future not paying clear due attention to the present moment, not seeing the beauty that is present in front of us because our minds are elsewhere in thought. It explains perfectly just how much we are living in a fog were calling life, where because our senses are not clear we are missing true life, and that experiencing life through clarity of senses is the key to enlightenment.

        To explain all of this Eckhart Tolle presents seemingly frequently asked questions he apparently collected and then answers for the general reader in as best way as he can, though he states many times that the reader's mind cannot understand his explanations of the present unless it experiences the present. For most people I am thinking that this was probably a very logical and effective presentation of this type of information, however for me personally it made the book extremely redundant and (for lack of a better term) elementary. For 229 pages Eckhart Tolle goes on and on rewording the same concept ‘be in the present’. He does so in 10 chapters entitled: You are you’re your mind, Consciousness – A way out of pain, Moving deeply into the now, Mind strategies for avoiding the now (these are the strategies your mind will do to keep you out of the now, he does not suggest you to not be in the now), The state of presence. The inner body, Portals into the un-manifested, Enlightened relationships, Beyond happiness and unhappiness there is peace, and The meaning of surrender where the author ends on the essential point: How will you know when you have surrendered; when you do not need to ask that question; which happens only when you become fully present in the now. There is simply not much else to this point, but he repeats it so much to drill it home in every way possible to those who will have so much trouble grasping the concept.

        People, in general, have the hardest time being able to ‘let go’ or ‘live in the moment’ because the mind is so against giving up its ego. We use the past and future to feed our egos a relive, daydream, and project instead of simply living and our minds thus never shut up, off, or down they just keep dwelling on what can't be changed and what may or may not ever happen all in this package of time that we never feel there is enough of because we are bound to its constraints that people, in general, put on themselves. Time is irrelevant to the natural order of life and yet people bind themselves to it and are therefore are a slave to it and to what end, none, essentially dying without having experienced anything. Personally, I think the book could have been 226 pages of blank with 3 pages of boldface type explaining the point, and 3 pages is stretching it. It just doesn’t need much paper to explain that to experience life, live in the present day now. When you are in the present day now assess how you feel, anything hurt, anything wrong, if so fix it, if not then you have no problems move onto the next moment. In each moment use every sense and feel the world around you and the life around you. Thinking about something old or something not happening, stop, focus, use your senses and breathe. That’s it!

        All of which I personally agree with. While I am aware that I too am a slave to my brain and the constraints of time more times than I like, and I am constantly feeling the incessant need to exercise my knowledge and brainpower, I can honestly say that I do live in the moment more than most people. I never really had terms for it but I never thought that it was weird to stop and smell the roses, and actually, until I read this book I thought that I didn’t do it enough in comparison to the rest of the world and here I do it more than most. I was always under the silly impression that people could shut off their brains unlike me, so from a young age I tried slowing my thoughts down and shutting them off cause I thought I was nuts for always thinking something. Now I know that I wasn’t alone, but that it was good that I thought that way because it has instilled in me, without even being taught, how to stop and enjoy life and see things in HD and hear things with surround sound and feel things with every fiber of my being and experience the vibrancy that is all around. I knew I was doing well too when about 8 years ago I started to dream in vivid HD quality. It was amazing. I started experiencing my senses in my dreams like I never had before and my dreams became a clear reflection of my days. What I was truly taking in, in all its texture and life, I was then seeing even after I shut my eyes.         

"The Secret" Book Review

        I would give the book, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne a three-star rating. This book aims to reveal the secret to life in a small coffee table book form. It addresses the basic points to life: money, relationships, health, the world, your self, and life in general. This book explains how we can achieve/gain the secret to life in each of these areas by basically positive thinking. If we think that it should be ours then it will be ours. If we think we are worthy of love, we shall receive love; if we think about money positively and the inflow of money, then the money will flow in instead of out. Ms. Byrne states, with the use of quotes provided for her book by an array of contributors, that it is essentially about the energy you give out in life. Positive energy will bring positive reactions, situations, outcomes, and people; while negative energy breeds negative thoughts that breed negative outcomes in life. That these come from the “laws of attraction”, basically stating that what you give to the world in terms of energy is what you will receive back. People attract the kind of energy that they exude. It is all about what we think in our minds if we think happy thoughts and treat people well and give our time and money without regard then we will reap the rewards of a fulfilled happy life, as smiles are contagious. However, the opposite is just as true with anger breeding anger. People cannot walk around feeling and acting like an Eeyore and expect to get all the breaks in the world, negative energy attracts negative energy which is why misery loves company, or so it thinks it does. The book says that if we simply ask for what we truly want and believe that we deserve to get it then we will receive it in its best form.

        While I would like to say this book is a load of horse crap I actually cannot say the whole thing is. I am a firm believer in what it is essentially saying. In no way do I think that when I personally come off abrasive and blunt that I am not going to get those reactions back, I know this, and I except this because to me it is me being true to myself. I do not for one minute think that when I constantly bitch about how bad my job sucks that one day it will miraculously change and be the dream job. It will not, nor do I want it to be, if I were to exude an energy that I loved my job, despite its great pay, then I wouldn’t strive so hard to leave it. While it takes horrible amounts of negative energy (that is more taxing on me than happy energy) to hate my job, if I let myself love it I will not leave it and therefore I will be settling for something that I feel very strongly is not a place that allows me to grow as a person. When it comes to my relationships, I am not blind to the fact that I am in love with projects, men and women/ friends and lovers, and by bitching about them I keep myself at a safe distance from them so that I help them with what I can but don’t get too attached to them because if I should succeed then they will be a bird and fly away. I shield my heart from hurt. I know this about myself and I know exactly what energy to exude in what situation to breed the results I want. I know what it means to look someone in the eye when I talk to them and what it means when they don’t look me in the eye back and it takes every piece of who I am to give everything I can of myself to help a person understand what makes their life so unhappy. For this is get tired, for this I get few places fast, for this I learned patients, for this is what it is to feel alive. For most people energy makes no sense because ignorance is bliss but for some, like myself, conscious awareness is so exhausting that everything takes a lot longer to achieve but the pain assures life and the rewards are much greater, however, the price is sheltered self-induced loneliness. We give to get.

        My three-star rating, however, comes from the presentation of the book. It is ridiculously cliché. Though I understand for the audience she is trying to reach many will respond well to her choice, as apparently they have since it was funded into a movie. Personally, it just doesn’t appeal to me and makes reading something like it seem like a joke. Along with the fact that what she is saying is no “secret” but again that’s a societal misconception. The truth is always the secret and the lie is always perceived true. The secret, to me, is that way too many people have way to much free time they think isn’t free time to turn dirty laundry into gold and throw out common sense.