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This book, as far as I've gotten, (not all that far) is making an argument and it's not uninteresting. The problem is, it's not one I need to hear, and I am already finding holes in it. For example, eternity (non-finitude) is presented as a situation in which there is nothing that needs to be done, that since you can't die, there's no room for improvement. If that were true, being condemned to hell would be no worse than being in heaven. All eternity is equal. Hence, only finitude has any real stakes and any real choices. I haven't yet chosen whether to continue reading.

My second objection is the idea that this kind of argument is superior to "faith" because it is rational. I don't see the rational finite way of understanding as a given. It presumes what you're trying to prove. From our (or my, at any rate) limited point of view, figuring stuff out can't be trusted. The built in finitude of rational understanding is self-limiting and an article of faith in itself, despite it's seeming convincingness. We don't live in a world of logic but of experience and impose a grid of language on top of our immediate consciousness to "make sense of it." And we then have faith that we DID make sense of it, and pretend that it didn't require any faith.

I just finished Chapter 1 and already I am finding things wrong!

That sounded more dramatic than I intended because I also am really enjoying this book. It begins with the notion that no one ever believes they are wrong about anything. This presumes that there is no such thing as inner conflict, or, in the current parlance, that we aren't made up of "parts."

The concept of parts has been a staple of psychodrama, gestalt therapy, IFS (Internal Family Systems), Focusing, and likely several other models of the self. It allows one part of us to believe something true while another part doubts it or believes it false. I, your reviewer, am often insecure about many of my beliefs. That is, I am not confident in their rightness. (One belief I have, though, is that confidence isn't necessarily a good thing.) I have encounted others who fit Ms Schultz's premise in that they are always sure they are right and I try and steer clear of them.

Furthermore, as a blitz chess player, I am quite often confronted with a move whose rightness I believed in moments before immediately countered with a demonstration of its shortcomings (and have had the pleasure of giving that experience to my opponents).

Chapter one quotes John Updike's observation on writing book reviews; it is “almost impossible to…avoid the tone of being wonderfully right.” In so far as I have failed in this regard, let me admit in advance to being wrong so as to therefore be less so.

. . .

I had forgotten I was reading this book until I came across the partially written review above. I decided to start it up again (I'm now about 25% into it) It wasn't long before I found something else wrong. She discusses the Sally-Anne test and "Theory of Mind" and says that autistics lack it. Suspicious, I googled and discovered this is a commonly believed myth lacking empirical evidence. Perhaps less controversial is the author's description of 26 out of 525 (women at Harvard Law in 1967) as "just over 5 percent," when google calculates it as just UNDER 5%. Still, I'm enjoying reading this book. At the moment, I want to give it 5 stars despite its errors.

I'm now about 2/3 through the book and, of course, I've found other "errors" (which I put in quotes because they are more differing perspectives in which I have a preference for my own (which I believe better because it explains, or even CONTAINS theirs). The most recent is the characterization of one's self as having separate parts as "just a metaphor" whereas I think of all conceptualization as metaphoric and that dismissing metaphor is the delusion that there's anything non-metaphoric in our conceptual understandings.

It turns out I was WRONG about the 2/3 throughness because almost a third of the book is footnotes, references, and sources. This is an important feature in a book on wrongness though I won't be reading that part.

This book made me wonder if there is a graininess to thought--that it is composed of discreet quanta each of which is sure its right. We would be digital then, every idea a 1 or 0. Shades of gray would then always be a matter of parts which never actually mix but argue forever with their opposite halves. Maybe maintaining such a balance acts as a hedge against wrongness, but (on the other hand) can also be seen as a refusal to take a stand, a fear of risk leading to a depressive standoff.

I still remember the days before Goodreads gave one the chance, or you might instead say "urged one," to begin a review as soon as one admitted one was reading it. It feels recent and yet it may have been several years ago when this turn was taken. I welcomed it at first because by the time I reached the end of a book I had so often forgotten things I wanted to say at the beginning but once it became the default, that opportunity to not forget turned threateningly in to a frontloading of the reading process. As one who abandons more than I complete, though I wasn't always such, I wonder if I will become more likely to DNF once I've already had my say.

Some things, it is clear are not going to change in the pages that follow (though I am listening to it in audio and thus it isn't pages at all) and that is the style in which it is written, or the genre, which though related is a separate consideration.. That genre is not fantasy, in my opinion, but closer to magical realism. The style is almost unique, if "unique" may be modified by "almost.' It is unhurried. It is poetic. It is at times technical, referencing Paracelsus, Aquinas, Theosophy, the Rosicrucians. It is whimsical--e.g. a doctor who doesn't practice medicine but writes children's books "under the name of Saunders.". a house inhabited by The Junipers which smells like gin. It uses words like 'infundibulum' and ' ineluctable'. I admit I worry how that will wear on me over time.

I learned Focusing from Gendlins’s book of that title but never got into it until relatively recently when meeting others of the Focusing Community. Who knew there was one? Most of them learned from Ann Weiser Cornell and used her language and techniques. I remained a bit skeptical and stuck with Gendlin’s writings. I began reading his philosophy papers and books and preferred his way of phrasing things.
And so it was a surprise to find this book so readable and practically useful. It begins with a description of how she learned about Focusing , including the difficulties she had to overcome. I realized I had some similar problems starting out. Her explanations were uniformly clear (something I can’t say for Gene Gendlin’s philosophy papers) and I especially liked her chapter on trouble shooting.
Even she admits that for some, saying hello to a bodily felt sense, seems peculiar (suggesting one “acknowledge it” if saying hello feels too weird.) Nowadays, with therapy modalities like Internal Family Systems and Inner child work, treating yourself as a relationship of parts isn’t that far outside the mainstream.
In the end, Focusing is a practice and an experiential system and those who insist on approaching it through theory are missing out. I am therefore recommending that you put aside your fears of looking new agey and read this book and give it a try.

How does a person with ADHD ever manage to finish writing a book? Often I find it hard even to finish reading one, and this is one of those.

The main reason I stopped was because I was misled by the title. Humans aren’t being explained in this book. If I didn’t feel a need for such explanation I could perhaps overlook this mismatch but I was really hoping the author could provide me with one. Back when I was growing up, diagnoses like ADHD and ASD were hard to come by. When my parents brought me in to be “evaluated” (I had mediocre grades and no friends) I said some pretty bizarre things to the psychologist but he just ignored them because when he tested my IQ it was high so all my other problems were ignored. And I was functioning, more or less. If I could finish my assignment, even if I had trouble sitting still in my seat, no one would have labeled me ADHD. Imagine if I could write an entire book!
As a child, I needed that explanation that this book promised only I didn’t know that. I just assumed it was my fault—perhaps I was too smart to get along with my classmates? Since my parents felt they were superior to our neighbors, such an explanation was in line with my family’s attitude. Like the author, I was drawn to study science but this just removed me further from my peers who were more interested in sports and celebrities.

The author complains a bit about her diagnosed disabilities but clearly is impressed with herself. I doubt she felt that secure when she was growing up though little time is spent in the book on the pain of not fitting in. I wonder if she, coming across this kind of book as a child would have been helped by it. I suspect she would not but would have enjoyed the science.
I came to this book already knowing about refraction and harmonic motion so I didn’t need to read about them. I did learn about proteins, though.

Don't know much about history, as the song goes. That song written a few years before this book's author (who I'll call HCR) was born. In part, this is because I went to school back when America was great (in the opinion of those who wish to make it great again) and much of the subject matter was taught in a way to emphasize America's greatness. We were also taught that we lived in a democracy, unlike, say, the Soviet Union, but also that we lived in a meritocracy. The obvious differences we saw all around us were attributed to the greater merit of the winners. Hierarchies in school were everywhere, from the academic (I did well) to the social (I did poorly) and were also clearly a part of the world outside of school. I was bullied in school and came to believe that the world outside was also run by the bullies though perhaps bullying with their money more often than with naked force.

If we see democracy as the alternative to authoritarianism, how do we deal with the democratic election of a bully? Do we doubt democracy? Or do we say it must not really be democracy if this happens? HCR would choose the latter. For her, the Trump presidency is an aspect of the South winning the Civil War. She historically traces present day voter suppression and movement conservatism to the confederacy. What we now find alarming is only the latest manifestation of many similar power grabs and attempted power grabs by oligarchs, starting with the minority of slave owning Southerners (they were even a minority in the South!) who saw themselves as better (as demonstrated by their success) and thus deserving to rule.

Yes, they lost the shooting war but won the peace because after Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat succeeded him. Johnson tried to restore the nation to how it had been before the war, minus slavery which was replaced by laws passed in the South to keep the formerly enslaved people subservient.

The Democracy vs. Oligarchy lens through which to view American history is a powerful one and this is a powerful book but it has the drawback of too much good guys (pro Democracy) vs. bad guys (anti-D). There are arguments to be made that as governmental philosophies go, Democracy is bad (though Churchill may be right that all the others are worse). HCR's oligarchs are either greedy or grandiose--that is they are just out for themselves, or else think they're better than the others. Or a combination of the two. Many Trump voters saw themselves as rejecting the elite--the professional class who saw themselves as meritocrats. For them Trump represented true democracy. We can argue that they got the facts wrong or that they are low information voters, but then you might wonder if, perhaps those with low information shouldn't have the vote.

HCR would argue that the undemocratic (historically established to preserve slavery) electoral college put Trump into office and that Democracy as seen in the popular vote would have kept him (and Dubya) out.

At any rate--if we are to "heal" the polarization of this country--not seeing the other side as evil will be necessary.

"I spoke in absolutes, only pointed out facts that supported my view,..." explains a participant in a failed conversation in an example in the beginning of chapter 4. He was saying what he did wrong--why the conversation failed (though he explains that this happened because his boss provoked him first).

If you consider a book a conversation, it is one-sided. The author(s) speak to you and, with the exception of the reviews we give it, we don't get to speak back. I read this book, like many (as I noticed reading other's reviews) because it was given to me as an assignment. There's a power imbalance right there to begin with which reminds me of the earlier example about buying this book for another, saying "You'll love this, especially the parts that I've underlined for you." This is meant to be an obvious bad example and yet it is a common way we are introduced to this book, minus, perhaps the underlining. It is a book that speaks in absolutes and only points out arguments supporting its point of view.

Here, I imagine the author(s) following the system they propose. Like the example of the CEO trying to get employees to sign on to cost cutting when challenged with what looked like hypocrisy, admitting that the issue needs to be addressed, (this book is made up mainly of examples) the author(s) admit they were giving the program the hard sell. They apologize and explain that in addition to me there are many other readers who respond well to that approach, that their book is in fact a best seller. (More than 500,000 copies sold, boasts the blurb on the cover.) They can say that their editor(s) assure them that this aggressive self-promoting style (the first sentence is "This is a breakthrough book.") that this is one of the reasons why it was so successful. That, perhaps they lost track of what is really important--giving their readers the tools for talking when stakes are high--and instead trying to make the maximum impact on the book reading public--which, they will admit might undercut their message but, had they not done so, their important lessons would never have had the wide audience it needs to make a difference in the world. In fact, had they not done so, I probably would never have heard of it, much less be reviewing it. In the end, these proven marketing techniques, though not my personal cup of tea, are why their ideas are part of the public conversation.

After starting off like this, I was surprised to find that the rest of the book (I wrote the above only a third of the way in) was actually quite good. They really did give the tools they promised and though some were, at least to me, obvious, not all of them were. I'm glad I continued instead of abandoning this book but it could easily turned out differently. I advise you therefore to skim the first four chapters. Read their titles and enough to understand the main points. Better still, I will summarize them right here.

A crucial conversation is one in which an important decision or outcome is under discussion. Important means important to the participants. Though a large percentage of the examples are from the corporate sphere, this emphasis ultimately misleading. It probably reflects the authors' desire to sell training courses to those with deep pockets.

You have such a conversation because, either the information and expertise is distributed among several (possibly only 2) people, or because all the parties must sign on with the conclusions. That is, you want to preserve the relationships among the group in addition to coming up with results. Assuming that you can't achieve both of these goals is called the fallacy of the suckers choice (in the first edition--in the second edition, this is changed to the fool's choice. The second edition is superior in other ways as well.)

Chapter three, with the cutesy name ("Start with heart") basically says that the general plan is to start out clearly understanding your motivations and not get derailed when it becomes emotional.

Chapter four explains that in order for the conversation to stay on track, both (or all) parties need to feel safe to be able to maintain the necessary dialogue. Chapter five (I'm throwing in a bonus) explains that you need to stay aware of the emotional atmosphere at all times to assure the condition of safety and to reassert it if and when it is lost.

The rest of the book gives you techniques to do what is outlined in the initial chapters in sufficient detail that the reader feels they may actually be able to improve their ability to communicate with those who may have different agendas. Wait--I should use 'I' statements. I found the rest of the book to be mostly insightful and I say "improve" because even the book admits you're not going to be perfect even after reading it. It also lets slip that some of those with whom you speak are not going to hear you no matter what you say.

In the end, technique will only take you so far. If you don't really believe the premises of the book--e.g. that others may have better ideas than you do--and your goal is really to learn to better manipulate others to do things your way, you will probably even learn to be a better manipulator.

So, let's take as an example, those reviewing the book on goodreads. Opinions vary widely. A few reviewers frankly state they don't get why people can't just "get over it already." They have no patience for people who need to be coddled this way. They don't see their lack of patience as a problem. It's the problem of those with whom they are impatient. What could I, now that I've read the book say to these people?

"Maybe you're right and people should get over it--thing is, they're not doing it. If the conversation is actually crucial, you will need them to and dismissing them as wrong is unlikely to achieve that. Maybe the book has some suggestions for how to reach them? I mean if giving up on them is not an option?"

I'm feeling like giving up now--how can you talk to people who feel superior? They're so sure they're just right about everything. "Fix me first" says the book--It's true that I have a problem with know-it-alls. There's a part of me that's know-it-allish that feels beleaguered--afraid it's no use talking to these "others." Maybe it will help if I see them as afraid like me--threatened that there are people so different from how they are. How can I make the conversation feel safe?

"I agree that the book could be better written and that some of what they offer is obvious." (Do they feel safer that we have common ground?)

Once you're through with chapter four, I found the book readable and even useful. See what you think.

There's a lot to be said about breathing and its place in our lives but I'm not sure this book is saying it. Oh, it might be but it's not convincing for some reason. It's a little too dramatic--a little too "this revolutionary truth is being overlooked"--but at the same time, there are such overlooked truths about breath, I think . . . Maybe I need to do all the breathing exercises and experience it directly but some are scary--they come with warnings--and others need to be repeated over a long period for results that aren't exactly clear.

The first surprising truth is that mouth breathing is bad for you. The "proof" is experienced by the author who has his nose sealed off as an experiment, but I'm not sure it proves what he says it does. It may merely show that having your nose sealed off has adverse results. It doesn't show that breathing only partially through your nose is bad for you.

So that's he kind of book this is. If you want to take it as a starting point for your own personal research, it should serve. There's clearly stuff in there that deserves to be further explored. I tried to follow up on some of this book's claims by searching the internet and there are legit medical journals who seem to support many of its theses.

Ghostwritten, I assume, since he mentions getting a ghost writer when he was going to write a book that praises Trump, but quite entertaining. He says we'll hate him but I did not for most of the book. It's told as the sorrowful tale of one who was in a cult, now out seeing the error of his ways. His love for Trump is convincing even as he sees the horribleness he is part of. I believe all his stories and his portrait of Trump certainly matches all the evidence and what I've read in [b:Rage|53317913|Rage|Bob Woodward|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1597575057l/53317913.SY75.jpg|81657197] which I read at the same time. When he finally gets arrested I was pleased to see him suffer, if even that can be believed. Is this a book of a reformed man? Or just a vengeful hit job? Hard to tell, especially since it's ghosted so I can't get close enough to Mr Cohen's true thoughts.

There's no quick fix for a country in which this could happen, no matter what the next administration may do and there's no instant transformation of a man from one who can do what he does while in the cult to one who would never act that way again given the right circumstances. Will the evangelicals get to hear how Trump was playing them and learn anything? I don't think they'll get so far as to even find out they were played and so many in this country are still being played. I suppose there are still many Nazis in modern Germany too.

I enjoyed, mostly, reading this, the stories acting as a respite from the horrible world we're living in. The awfulness, I fear, will remain for while but maybe it can be covered over with something more pleasant soon.