Saturday, July 29, 2006

I ordered self-help books?

I didn't mean to, wouldn't have had I had a better understanding of what their subject matter truly was and the author's background, but I did. Now I have to read through the first one because I've already opened the damn thing. The author was recommended to me at some point, presumably because of my unorthodox ideas about spirituality.

Which books did I order? Power vs. Force, The Eye of the I and Truth vs. Falsehood, all by "Dr." David R. Hawkins. Now, had I bothered to look him up on Wikipedia previously, I would not have ordered the aforementioned books, but I didn't, I did and an Amazon gift certificate made taking a chance on completely unfamiliar material that much easier.

And here I am, 33 pages into the first book, Power vs. Force, and I am already turned off. I'm keeping an open mind, primarily because there seem to be a significant number of people who subscribe to the man's teachings, but reading a preface in which the author more or less proclaims himself to be an enlightened soul in a similar state to the Buddhist idea of Boddhisatva was a bit discouraging, primarily because it is hard to imagine a truly enlightened spirit would be selling his work, rather than distributing it freely. I have other qualms with the idea, but that is probably primary on my list.

They say a sucker is born every minute and it appears I might be one of those suckers. After having a look at the Wikipedia reference and doing some further research on the web, I've decided to return the two unopened books. I'll finish Power vs. Force, but the other two seem unnecessary, given the man's spotty track record and questionable credentials. I've got better things to do with my time than read the works of a new-thought spiritualist with a PhD from an unaccredited "diploma mill".

What have we learned? I am lazy at times and impulsive at others. Here my impulsive urge to purchase combined with my laziness is going to cost me shipping charges. Suckage, but it could have been worse...I could have opened all three books prior to reading a portion of the first. Small blessings, I suppose. :)

In other news, I went to see my friends from MuRdok at Gasoline Alley last night and they rocked the joint! The sound was better balanced than previous shows I had seen and our relatively small contingent of fans/friends was particularly vocal. At the beginning of their set, most of the crowd seemed to be undecided. By the end, most of the people in attendance were head nodding or even headbanging. Apparently their performance led to an invite from another band who's vocals guy was in the crowd, which means they could be playing even more shows this month and in the immediate future.

It was a good night and their sound seems to really be coming together. Their most recent tracks are getting more aggressive, which is fine by me and I would have to say they seem to be on to something. I wish them all the best and plan to make it out to future shows as often as I can. For more info, drop me an email or hit up their Myspace page.

Posted by Erik @ 7/29/2006 05:27:00 PM