Truth and the Devil

Apparently there’s some new ‘woo woo’ bullshit percolating through the country at the moment. Some ‘philosophers’ are touting a new self-help method of turning your life around called The Secret. It seems Oprah is all over it, helping to reveal the ’secret’ and expand its marketing empire. Currently there’s a DVD, book, CD and more.

What’s the secret, you ask? According to the amazon.com plot synopsis:

Plot Synopsis: The Secret is a feature length movie presentation which reveals The Great Secret of the universe. It has been passed throughout the ages, traveling through centuries… This is The Secret to everything – the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted. All the resources you will ever need to understand and live The Secret. The world’s leading scientists, authors, and philosophers will reveal The Secret that utterly transformed the lives of every person who ever knew it… Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein.

You can watch the video preview for more. Apparently it’s thinking real hard about the things you want, and then the universe aligns and basically does your bidding.

BigHeathenMike rants:

So holy jumping Cracker-Jack-eating Christ. Do people actually still fall for this shit? Apparently Oprah does. I love it when people with millions of dollars start talking about “manifesting” the shit they want in life. See, for them, “manifest” means “go out and buy”. When Oprah “asks the Universe” for a new Bentley, she’s really asking the Bentley dealer. When Bob Doyle (in the video) says, “What will help you generate the feelings of having it now? Go test drive that car, go shop for that home, get in the house, do whatever you have to do to generate the feelings of having it now and remember them, whatever you can do to do that will help you to literally attract it”, he’s saying something incredibly horrible about the less fortuntate in the world.

It is truly irresponsible to show a kid pining away for a bike in a catalogue and then the goddamn thing shows up on his doorstep. How many times are we going to blame people who have nothing for “not wanting it badly enough”? I can see Oprah on her next fucking mission to Ethiopia squatting next to a starving child:

It’s really easy, honey, here’s The Secret – all you have to do is try a bite of this deli sandwich I had flown in from Quiznos for my lunch. Once you taste how incredible this is (and it will be, because you’ve been eating sand and insect shells for the last few weeks), then you’ll know what it is like and you’ll be able to get the Universe to attract delicious food for you and your family!

I’m certainly glad I wasn’t exposed to this kind of crap when I was growing-up. Sure, thinking positively can help put yourself in the good frame of mind to help you achieve your goals, but they’re missing the vital step here: doing something! Now, I’m not going to say I’ve had a hard life or anything like that, but not once during the video do they even mention hard work or dedication to achieving your goals.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but it seems that the best way for someone to feel happy and satisfied with their life isn’t more shit, but people aren’t even subtle about it. The examples they use in the film are about a kid getting a new bike, and a woman finding the perfect man. It’s superficial and materialistic. Getting a new bike is not going to make you happier. I’ve always found the people to be happiest and most satisfied with their lives are those who are happy with what they have, and don’t pine for more stuff all the time.

Indeed, recent research into the nature of happiness seems to back this up. According to Michael Shermer’s Skeptic column in this month’s Scientific American:

Consider a paradox outlined by London School of Economics economist Richard Layard in Happiness (Penguin, 2005), in which he shows that we are no happier even though average incomes have more than doubled since 1950 and “we have more food, more clothes, more cars, bigger houses, more central heating, more foreign holidays, a shorter working week, nicer work and, above all, better health.” Once average annual income is above $20,000 a head, higher pay brings no greater happiness.

Happiness is better equated with satisfaction than pleasure, says Emory University psychiatrist Gregory Berns in […], because the pursuit of pleasure lands us on a never-ending hedonic treadmill that paradoxically leads to misery. […] “While you might find pleasure by happenstance—winning the lottery, possessing the genes for a sunny temperament, or having the luck not to live in poverty—satisfaction can arise only by the conscious decision to do something. And this makes all the difference in the world, because it is only your own actions for which you may take responsibility and credit. [emphasis added]

Good advice. And they didn’t even need to dress it up like it was wisdom delivered on high from a 3,500 year old religious tradition, or better yet, Oprah.