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A review by shewantsthediction
Why Smart People Hurt: A Guide for the Bright, the Sensitive, and the Creative by Eric Maisel
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
2.0
This is... not it. I'm reading a bunch of books on giftedness right now, and most of them are either a) overtly religious or b) have something else glaringly wrong with them. In this case, the author doesn't believe in ADD/ADHD, OCD, bipolar disorder, depression/anxiety, or basically any other mental afflictions. Instead he says anyone with these disorders are mislabeled smart people and touts some dangerous "natural psychology" as the cure—which is clearly something he made up, and also conveniently happens to be the name of one of his other books.
To be clear, I'm not dissing alternative medicine or holistic therapies at all, I'm simply saying that for some people, pills/medication DO work, and they are lifesaving, and there is NO SHAME in taking them. I think someone who is taking medication and/or has one of these disorders would feel really bad reading this book, when the dude is essentially gaslighting them by saying their experiences aren't real and it's all made up.
He also uses the book as his own personal soapbox to shout about how atheism is WAY better than mysticism, and I'm an atheist myself but I was just like, "Okay, but can we get back to the topic at hand?" Cuz some of it bordered on rants. I feel like white male atheists acting like this are part of the reason atheists as a whole get stereotyped as mean, morally degraded, etc. The book kind of devolved into "create your own meaning in life!" Which I already do to some extent, and so was not very helpful.
QUOTES I ACTUALLY LIKED:
To be clear, I'm not dissing alternative medicine or holistic therapies at all, I'm simply saying that for some people, pills/medication DO work, and they are lifesaving, and there is NO SHAME in taking them. I think someone who is taking medication and/or has one of these disorders would feel really bad reading this book, when the dude is essentially gaslighting them by saying their experiences aren't real and it's all made up.
He also uses the book as his own personal soapbox to shout about how atheism is WAY better than mysticism, and I'm an atheist myself but I was just like, "Okay, but can we get back to the topic at hand?" Cuz some of it bordered on rants. I feel like white male atheists acting like this are part of the reason atheists as a whole get stereotyped as mean, morally degraded, etc. The book kind of devolved into "create your own meaning in life!" Which I already do to some extent, and so was not very helpful.
QUOTES I ACTUALLY LIKED:
Unfortunately industry and academia both act as if the highest level of educational attainment that was available to a person when young represents the maximum worth of their mind.
There is no necessary connection between the value that society puts on a line of work and its meaningfulness to a given individual. Society may hold the profession of doctor in high esteem, but if you do not find medicine a meaningful line of work, it is not meaningful to you. Society may not hold the profession of elementary school teacher in high esteem (whatever lip service it may pay to the value and importance of that work), but if you find that a meaningful line of work, then it is meaningful to you.
If we meant to work large, but we shrink from that task because of anxiety and work small, we may find the consequences of that self-soothing maneuver dramatically negative.
There is almost certainly no single path to a lifetime of acute meaninglessness. There are so many ways to kill off meaning: by not caring, by not committing, by not finding the courage, by not choosing, by not besting demons, by not standing up.