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Ok, so I wrote The Art of Being, and it becomes a New York Times Bestseller (which I never understood, anyway,
why do we need The New York Times to tell us what a bestseller is? Can't we get that information from bookstores?), and now
I'm a billionaire giving lectures and going on TV.
Now here we come to the part that really sucks, which is when people start copying me and acting like they know more
about it than me. Or they just outright steal my ideas and write their own books.
Plus, if I'm going to build a self-help empire, I'm going to need more than just one book. No one stays rich and famous
from just one book. Like, when you have a book called Chicken Soup For The Soul, and then Chicken Soup For The
Hockey Dad's Soul, and Chicken Soup For The Frustrated Loner's Soul, and on and on.
If it gets really popular, folks are going to talk about it a lot. And when folks get to talking (like on Dr. Phil and
stuff), eventually they're going to start misquoting and misrepresenting me. There's a certain personality type that just
loves all this new crap, and throws themselves into it all the way. They're always all, yeah, this is it, I believe it,
I know it, I'm living it!!!
They stay this enthused about it for two or three months, when they start getting tired of it and start looking for the
Next Big Thing, which is usually another book with a catchy pop-psychology title, so it's vital that I be the one to write
the Next Big Thing.
The beauty of it is, I don't have to say anything new. I just have to reword everything that I've already said, tighten
things up a little, and my next book is ready.
The Science of Being
Chapter One
Define Your Being
Joshua Quigley was 17 years old when he was hit in the head by a wild slapshot at a Calgary hockey
game and lost the use of his right arm. Later that same year, he was hospitalized after having been bitten by a rabid squirrel,
and while in the hospital got a Coke bottle stuck to the end of his tongue and underwent six hours of surgery to have it removed.
Joshua wasn't discouraged, as he so often said, good luck is just around the corner. Before he was released from the hospital,
he met his future wife and accidentally invented the Q-Tip.
Quigley later wrote, after his brother died of syphillus in 1952, that his Q-Tip fortune was
worthless without love and family. Although he led a remarkable life, Quigley was unable to accept his being within
the context of objective reality, and he died alone. Quigley life became the basis for Serge Kafka's minimalist classic The
Dreamless Mind, which was banned behind the Iron Curtain and was chiefly responsible for his incarceration in a Russian
gulag where he was stabbed to death with a sharpened broom handle.
Our being is not defined by our circumstance, a lesson neither Quigley nor Kafka ever truly learned,
despite their fame and success. Objective reality is what it is despite what we believe about it.
Chapter Two
Contextualize Your Being
The mistake most often made about Beingism is the assumption that it only deals with the physical
being. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a mistake of the highest magnitude, for instance, to reject a dream
as being unreal simply because it is a dream. The psychological value of the dream process has been well-documented; when
we contextualize dreams in this manner, we see that they are real.
For instance, if I dream of a Flying Purple Monkey (and who hasn't), and I fear flying purple
monkeys, then my fear is irrational. The flying purple monkey is not real. The dream of the flying purple monkey
is real. A dream is always a real dream.
Chapter Three
Accept Your Being
When a bird wants to fly, it simply flies instinctively. It accepts that it is a bird and does
what birds do by nature. When man wanted to fly, he built airplanes and studied aviation. A man who wants to fly studies
aviation; he does not study birds!
By doing the first (studying aviation), he sets a goal that is realistic (i.e., like
that which is Real, yet not Real, in and of itself). He is planning for a future which is Unreal, yet one which he
can rationally expect to become Real.
In short, the physical is Real, yet what is Real is not always physical!
Accept your Being, delight in it, celebrate it! You are Real!
Ok, let's make a few notes here to understand what I did:
- I started with an inspirational story. I followed to standard pattern for an inspirational story, where
horrible things happen but the guy (or girl) doesn't let the horrible things get them down, and then they make millions or
become wildly successful, and then they die. This is done to make you feel happy or sad or whatever, and once you're
at this really emotional place, I can get you to accept whatever I tell you. Even if, ultimately, I'm not saying anything.
Note that the story has no point; when I'm talking about just being, it doesn't need one. I throw in a few facts, like the
Q-Tip thing (which isn't true but no one is ever going to check, or care). I created another "classic" piece of literature
to validate everything else (even though there is no such book and luckily the author is dead too). And now everyone
is sufficiently inspired.
- I can talk about dreams and goals for a long long time and still not say anything. Of course, by the
theory I am now outlining, everything is real. A dream is a real dream. A lie is a real lie. I've just covered everything.
- A new catch phrase. The thing about the airplanes. It doesn't have much to do with anything else I said
(again, it doesn't have to), but it's easy to remember and it makes a good bumper sticker.
Update: The new book cover!
It's a picture (obviously) of a thermal image that I copied and reversed. Being and Unbeing. I thought it was cool.
(From The Mailbag May 5, 2006)
This is really useless information... So let's say you're at a dinner party and someone's going on about something
you don't even remember, because it's about to put you into a coma. And, so you interject with something insipid
like, "Did you know the Q-tip was invented in the 1920's by Leo Gerstenzang?"
--
---<--<-@ SHANNON
@->-->---
It was actually Joshua Quigley
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