Is there a trick to successful living? If one peruses the bookshelves in both small and large bookstores, one might think so. Self-help books fill a section, new volumes on the shelves, older ones on sale tables. If one has the patience, self-help comes cheaply. Of course, having the patience means postponing the help until the price falls.
I’m not knockin’ self-help books here. To do so would probably be hypocritical. After all, what is the purpose of this website other than being a point of departure for my readers’ thinking? And self-help book authors do what I cannot do, provide the magic of a formula for life. Learn their various formulae, learn how to live. That certainly seems better than a 1,001 nights of thisisnotyourpracticelife.com (which, by the way, this website exceeds in number).
As each of us looks around, we see that others might have solved the mystery of living, found the magical algorithm of doing whatever one is supposed to do whenever one is supposed to do it. Others apparently are still looking to discover the trick; still others don’t even know such tricks are possible. That seems to put humans in three categories: Magicians skilled in their craft, audiences amazed and befuddled by what they do, and people who don’t see magic in anyone or act. Most of us probably fall into that second category; I know I’m there.
Magicians know their tricks, of course; they know that what appears to be isn’t what is; that’s the point. They perform a trick, one they practice until they master it, like pulling a rabbit out of a seemingly empty black top hat. “Hey, where’d that come from?” the audience asks.
Honestly, I don’t know how they do it, but I can imagine the practice sessions during which the magician sees rabbit poop in the hat. To me that would not be something unexpected. Cats might learn to use the kitty litter, but rabbits? So, I’m guessing that the trick, though ostensibly magical for the audience, isn’t all that it seems to be, that the magician has the same kinds of problems we all encounter. It’s just that the magician probably knows what to hide from the rest of us, and the experienced magician knows to look before re-donning the hat.
It appears to be the nature of the audience—maybe you and definitely me—that once a magician performs a trick, people want another trick. Thus, hundreds, if not thousands, of self-help books. Magic understood isn’t magic. That is, once we learn the formula for success or effectiveness, we seek a new formula. That’s our nature. We tire of one magician’s tricks and look to another’s. For the audience, for the self-help book reader, the hat will eventually contain some rabbit poop; the formulae for successful living will fail in this or that particular circumstance, engendering a search for another show, another trick, another book.
Our curiosity eventually drives us to look into the bottom of the inverted hat after we have pulled out the rabbit. Maybe the trick to life lies in seeking a new magician with new magic tricks or in reading different self-help formulae. We seem to practice until we master only to realize that practicing is all we can master. This, as I say, is not your practice life, but practicing is all we can ever hope to do to keep life magical.
I’m not knockin’ self-help books here. To do so would probably be hypocritical. After all, what is the purpose of this website other than being a point of departure for my readers’ thinking? And self-help book authors do what I cannot do, provide the magic of a formula for life. Learn their various formulae, learn how to live. That certainly seems better than a 1,001 nights of thisisnotyourpracticelife.com (which, by the way, this website exceeds in number).
As each of us looks around, we see that others might have solved the mystery of living, found the magical algorithm of doing whatever one is supposed to do whenever one is supposed to do it. Others apparently are still looking to discover the trick; still others don’t even know such tricks are possible. That seems to put humans in three categories: Magicians skilled in their craft, audiences amazed and befuddled by what they do, and people who don’t see magic in anyone or act. Most of us probably fall into that second category; I know I’m there.
Magicians know their tricks, of course; they know that what appears to be isn’t what is; that’s the point. They perform a trick, one they practice until they master it, like pulling a rabbit out of a seemingly empty black top hat. “Hey, where’d that come from?” the audience asks.
Honestly, I don’t know how they do it, but I can imagine the practice sessions during which the magician sees rabbit poop in the hat. To me that would not be something unexpected. Cats might learn to use the kitty litter, but rabbits? So, I’m guessing that the trick, though ostensibly magical for the audience, isn’t all that it seems to be, that the magician has the same kinds of problems we all encounter. It’s just that the magician probably knows what to hide from the rest of us, and the experienced magician knows to look before re-donning the hat.
It appears to be the nature of the audience—maybe you and definitely me—that once a magician performs a trick, people want another trick. Thus, hundreds, if not thousands, of self-help books. Magic understood isn’t magic. That is, once we learn the formula for success or effectiveness, we seek a new formula. That’s our nature. We tire of one magician’s tricks and look to another’s. For the audience, for the self-help book reader, the hat will eventually contain some rabbit poop; the formulae for successful living will fail in this or that particular circumstance, engendering a search for another show, another trick, another book.
Our curiosity eventually drives us to look into the bottom of the inverted hat after we have pulled out the rabbit. Maybe the trick to life lies in seeking a new magician with new magic tricks or in reading different self-help formulae. We seem to practice until we master only to realize that practicing is all we can master. This, as I say, is not your practice life, but practicing is all we can ever hope to do to keep life magical.
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