ARA Review by Dmcbrown of In It Together
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Dmcbrown
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ARA Review by Dmcbrown of In It Together
[Following is an OnlineBookClub.org ARA Review of the book, In It Together.]
In It Together isn't a novel like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that illustrates various aspects of a philosophical framework. It is a serious polemic intended to expound the author's philosophical views. As such, it isn't for everybody. You'll have to ponder it a bit to grasp the ideas.
You can skim the first half, much of which is defending what the philosophy is not, i.e., yet another treatise on what you have to do to live a virtuous life by following someone's value premises. In fact, In It Together urges you to stop doing. Most of our angst comes from failing to achieve something that does not need to be achieved, and we celebrate overwhelm as a substitute for productivity. Aside from that basic premise, which might well be a new thought for many, the rest of the first half spends a great deal of time persuading you of an obvious truth that hardly anybody would question: that the real you is not your sports car or your slinky body but something more transcendental.
About halfway through the book we get to the meat: the author's idea of what the fulfilled life is. At this point it is a little hard to grasp because it extends a general concept of gaining inner peace from oneself to some form of cosmic inter-connectedness. He also challenges the idea of fighting evil because most things aren't evil, they're just acting differently from what you might do, and they are all part of your cosmic oneness.
The last third of the book is what you came for: a set of 11 attitude shifts you can make to gain that inner peace, and some explanation of why and how that works. Many of the rules are quite insightful and practical. For instance, the first half of the book exhorts you to accept bad things, bad situations, and bad people just as they are; at that point, it sounds like a passive surrender with no effort to improve yourself or the general situation. This more specific section clarifies that you should accept who they are, but it is up to you to decide what to do next, and your response may be quite emphatic if you think that is the best thing for you to do.
The book relies heavily on revealed truth ("obviously this is so") rather than any real exposition. A prime example is the frequent admonition that inner peace and spiritual freedom are just synonyms for self-discipline, but the self-discipline part is taken as a given, not explained. As such, you may be tempted to give it up early if you don't agree with some of the fundamental propositions. Actually, you can reject much of the author's philosophical framework but the 11 suggestions for gaining inner peace remain quite sound.l advice. As this book would say, you can take it or not, and either choice will be right because you made it and you will accept whatever happens as a result.
I am rating In It Together as a 4 out of 5. That requires some explanation. It cannot be a 5 because it is obviously not on the level of a leading book in its field, and it certainly is not a "5 stars, everyone go out and buy it" book with general interest. To rate it a 3 would dismiss the fact that the book is technically well written and edited. More importantly, the author has gone a long way to make a highly arcane discussion as accessible as possible. It's not the kind of thing you would recommend to most of the readers you know, but for someone who is into this genre, it's worth taking a look at it.
***
View In It Together on Bookshelves
In It Together isn't a novel like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that illustrates various aspects of a philosophical framework. It is a serious polemic intended to expound the author's philosophical views. As such, it isn't for everybody. You'll have to ponder it a bit to grasp the ideas.
You can skim the first half, much of which is defending what the philosophy is not, i.e., yet another treatise on what you have to do to live a virtuous life by following someone's value premises. In fact, In It Together urges you to stop doing. Most of our angst comes from failing to achieve something that does not need to be achieved, and we celebrate overwhelm as a substitute for productivity. Aside from that basic premise, which might well be a new thought for many, the rest of the first half spends a great deal of time persuading you of an obvious truth that hardly anybody would question: that the real you is not your sports car or your slinky body but something more transcendental.
About halfway through the book we get to the meat: the author's idea of what the fulfilled life is. At this point it is a little hard to grasp because it extends a general concept of gaining inner peace from oneself to some form of cosmic inter-connectedness. He also challenges the idea of fighting evil because most things aren't evil, they're just acting differently from what you might do, and they are all part of your cosmic oneness.
The last third of the book is what you came for: a set of 11 attitude shifts you can make to gain that inner peace, and some explanation of why and how that works. Many of the rules are quite insightful and practical. For instance, the first half of the book exhorts you to accept bad things, bad situations, and bad people just as they are; at that point, it sounds like a passive surrender with no effort to improve yourself or the general situation. This more specific section clarifies that you should accept who they are, but it is up to you to decide what to do next, and your response may be quite emphatic if you think that is the best thing for you to do.
The book relies heavily on revealed truth ("obviously this is so") rather than any real exposition. A prime example is the frequent admonition that inner peace and spiritual freedom are just synonyms for self-discipline, but the self-discipline part is taken as a given, not explained. As such, you may be tempted to give it up early if you don't agree with some of the fundamental propositions. Actually, you can reject much of the author's philosophical framework but the 11 suggestions for gaining inner peace remain quite sound.l advice. As this book would say, you can take it or not, and either choice will be right because you made it and you will accept whatever happens as a result.
I am rating In It Together as a 4 out of 5. That requires some explanation. It cannot be a 5 because it is obviously not on the level of a leading book in its field, and it certainly is not a "5 stars, everyone go out and buy it" book with general interest. To rate it a 3 would dismiss the fact that the book is technically well written and edited. More importantly, the author has gone a long way to make a highly arcane discussion as accessible as possible. It's not the kind of thing you would recommend to most of the readers you know, but for someone who is into this genre, it's worth taking a look at it.
***
View In It Together on Bookshelves
