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I am starting to tire of books that masquerade as grand adventures but really boil down to a self-help novel. Some examples: The Celestine Prophesy, The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and, now, The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho. All of the above feature a protagonist on a buddhesque quest for personal fulfillment and depth of soul, which is all well and good - who doesn't want fulfillment? - but the chocolate shell of a story surrounding these slow revelations is hardly ever delicious. I often feel like I am eating a not-so-tasty helping of New Age.

I have just finished reading a passage in the aforementioned The Pilgrimage in which the main character steals a ball from a small Spanish child in the interest of 'facing his demons.' That's right, a grown man and his spiritual guide halt their journey to take a child's toy. This is justified by some weird deja vu thing, and also the kid's eyes are "frightening". Well holy shit man, I would be pretty pissed if I was a poverty-stricken Spanish child and some uppity European backpacker had just punked my only toy in the world. I would have frightening eyes too.

So the kid asks for the ball back several times, gets no response and starts threatening to throw rocks... all fully justifiable, in my opinion. And then our noble bully tells his young mark, "If you hit me, I'll come over there and whack you one." At this point, the guide is like, "Whoa dude, you totally passed your spiritual test! A winner is you!" And that's that. The kid cries and jumps in the river.

This is totally fucked. So we're walking along and suddenly some random kid, minding his own business and playing with his ball, is a demon in our protagonist's eyes. And then the great task becomes to steal the ball. From a kid. Who is poor. And small. So basically we learn that it's okay to be a selfish dick to the rest of the world as long as you are conquering your own inner strife?

I've noticed this trend in other, similar books too: an abandonment of external responsibility in the face of a laughably pensive attempt to gain mastery over one's self. How about the self operates in a larger system? How about it's not All In Your Mind? You can't just steal shit because it looks like a test of will. You may, in fact, be deluded and crazy. Too much meditation rocks the casbah. Too many demons victimizes bystanders.

Spiritual quests are bunk, and they should've never given you a sword.

Posted by Chris at 06:40 AM >> Commentations (4)