The secret ingredient in the secret is balls.
The Secret. Let's discuss this snake oil again, shall we?
First of all, if this book/DVD had an actual old lamp in it that I could rub and have a genie appear? I would be all the fuck over that. It wouldn't be a secret for long because I would be fucking selling that shit on EBay to the highest bidder. In which case, I guess the Secret really would work because I would be one rich motherfucker.
I am bringing this up AGAIN because my best friend just mailed me a few things I'd left in Calgary. She helpfully included a copy of The Secret book. Which I just as helpfully mentioned numerous times that I think is the biggest load of delusional crap I have ever heard.
I cannot tell you enough how incredibly heinous I find this type of "just believe it and it will be yours!" bunk. There's nothing wrong with visualizing what you want and writing it down and thinking about it and REALLY figuring out how to go about getting it. That's actually really important in goal-setting and career evaluations and whatnot. But the secret of the Secret is: Just want it. Just want it a lot. Let the universe know you want it. Give it over to the universe and the universe will reach into its magic bag and just give you what you want without you having to do anything.
The immortal Bill Watterson once penned a Calvin & Hobbes strip where Calvin opines "I wish I could just push a button to get anything I wanted immediately." Hobbes rolls his eyes and says "The American dream lives on."
They've dressed it up in metaphysics and forces and mystical powers and ancient sects and cloisters and shit, but the people behind The Secret want you to believe that there is just such a button. Some magical force in the universe. A genie, if you will. Don't believe me? It's right there in the video! A guy steals a magic lamp, rubs it, a genie pops out and says "Your wish is my command." Well, that's just a metaphor, you say. IS IT?
Is a genie any more ridiculous than a kid wishing for a bike, drawing a bike on a piece of paper, really vizualizing the bike, visiting the bike store and pining after his bike and asking the unvierse to take care of it, only to wake up and find his kindly old grandfather has bought him a bike? Instead of, I don't know, saving his money, doing some hard work to earn more money, investing in the stock market and buying a bike with his own pile of cash? Or, I don't know, pooling money with neighbourhood kids to buy one bike and taking turns on it, if rampant capitalism isn't your bag. The first scenario is just one of many ridiculous examples put forth on the Secret DVD.
I don't have anything against meditation or Feng Shui or trying to bring positive forces into your life or anything like that. Enlightenment is different. Wanting to know yourself and be more in tune with the world around you and your own thoughts and moods and desires is different than imploring the universe to give you a box of money or diamond encrusted puppies or high-yield bonds or whatever. The Secret conditions you to believe that you DESERVE everything you want just because you're you. You're special, and there's this sense of entitlement that goes along with that. Do we have to have the Fight Club talk about how you are not a perfect special snowflake? If you want something, by all means, go out and get it. Work hard. Be positive about your life. But do not expect to have things handed to you because you asked for them. They impress upon you a culture of Win Win Win. It can be extremely difficult the first time you lose.
The Secret also teaches you to brainwash yourself. I very much remember the first time my best friend tried to get me to do this. I was bitching about being broke and she was like "Just open your mind to money and money will come to you!" I humoured her. And a GST cheque came in the mail. I told her this and she was like "SEE?!" See what? That a cheque I knew to be coming was delivered on time? Even if I hadn't "opened my mind to money" that cheque would have come. So I said "Sooo... basically, I'm brainwashing myself into believing I had something to do with this? This is the secret?" That... did not go over so well. It was the first indication I had that if I continued to poke holes in her "secret" theory that we would not continue to be such close friends. That and her numerous attempts to pull me into Landmark Education Seminars. She appears to have given up on that and is now focusing on the soft sell by mailing me a book. If I get into the Secret, it stands to reason I'll be gullible enough to fall for Landmark. I'm torn between keeping the copy she sent for LULZ and sending it back with a sticky note saying "Thanks, but no thanks. I am not interested in this. I think it is garbage. Please stop forcing it on me."
Let me tell you how to make a millions dollars! First thing you do is, you pretend you have something everyone else wants. Then, you pretend it's very hush-hush. "Keep it on the down-low folks! This is strictly confidential! I only tell you. And every other person who buys a copy of my DVD/book." Then you tell people they can have whatever they want. It's aaaalllll within their grasp if they just apply the methods you so thoughtfully detailed in your best-selling book/video services. Make sure it's all wrapped up to look like some ancient, wax-sealed, Harry Potter/DaVinci Code scroll shit. Sell the FUCK out of that. And if the people to whom you peddle your snake oil don't get what they want, then imply it's because they weren't vigilent enough. They were doing it wrong. Supply them with the tools to help them help themselves through the law of attraction! All available for the low-low price of whatever you decide they should pay.
Say, did you know that musicians such as Ludwig van Beethoven expressed The Secret through their music? Yeah, I totally remember Beethoven's 9th Symphony: Prelude to GIMME-GIMME.
The only people the law of attraction really works for are the self-help gurus/motivational speakers who motivate themselves to speak about how they will motivate you to give them money. If the secret were as great as people say it is, they'd just give it away for free. In fact, they do! You can learn all about the mid-eastern philosophies and religions The Secret and other crapfests of its ilk wrap themselves up in at your local library. My friend tried to sell me on The Secret that way. Her: "You looked into Buddhism once, right?" Me: "Yeah. More than once. I still kind of dig it." Her: "Well Landmark is based on principals of Buddhism!" Me: "Gripper... if I want Buddhism, I'll study Buddhism. Not Buddhism by way of Landmark."
Besides, studying Buddhism is free. At the library, I pay them $2 and I get a maaaagical plastic card that lets me have alllll the books I want! Landmark sessions are $500 a pop. Wow. Look at that. I just visualized not turning my pockets inside out for a pyramid scheme! Money may not be coming to me at this very moment, but it's also not leaving my bank account to pay for the summer home of a motivational speaker with a marketing degree.
Somehow in all this, I have been labelled a disbeliever. A skeptic. A Another way she tried to get me: "My brother is the biggest skeptic ever and he gets something out of it." Me: "The biggest skeptic ever? I doubt that, or he wouldn't have fallen for this." Her: "Why won't you just try it!?" Me: "Because if I try it and tell you first hand that it's balls, I'll hurt your feelings." So now, other than a book slipped into my parcel, she's given up on me. See, my life is so sad because I don't have what she has. Namely, a lot of Secret-related merchandise. You should buy the DVD! You should get the book! You should... realize that the only real secret is determination, focus and hard work.
***
I'm off to visit Burlington Ikea to visualise up a couch and then witness Ryan Adams in all his GUITAR SOLO! yelling glory.
Click to viewFirst of all, if this book/DVD had an actual old lamp in it that I could rub and have a genie appear? I would be all the fuck over that. It wouldn't be a secret for long because I would be fucking selling that shit on EBay to the highest bidder. In which case, I guess the Secret really would work because I would be one rich motherfucker.
I am bringing this up AGAIN because my best friend just mailed me a few things I'd left in Calgary. She helpfully included a copy of The Secret book. Which I just as helpfully mentioned numerous times that I think is the biggest load of delusional crap I have ever heard.
I cannot tell you enough how incredibly heinous I find this type of "just believe it and it will be yours!" bunk. There's nothing wrong with visualizing what you want and writing it down and thinking about it and REALLY figuring out how to go about getting it. That's actually really important in goal-setting and career evaluations and whatnot. But the secret of the Secret is: Just want it. Just want it a lot. Let the universe know you want it. Give it over to the universe and the universe will reach into its magic bag and just give you what you want without you having to do anything.
The immortal Bill Watterson once penned a Calvin & Hobbes strip where Calvin opines "I wish I could just push a button to get anything I wanted immediately." Hobbes rolls his eyes and says "The American dream lives on."
They've dressed it up in metaphysics and forces and mystical powers and ancient sects and cloisters and shit, but the people behind The Secret want you to believe that there is just such a button. Some magical force in the universe. A genie, if you will. Don't believe me? It's right there in the video! A guy steals a magic lamp, rubs it, a genie pops out and says "Your wish is my command." Well, that's just a metaphor, you say. IS IT?
Is a genie any more ridiculous than a kid wishing for a bike, drawing a bike on a piece of paper, really vizualizing the bike, visiting the bike store and pining after his bike and asking the unvierse to take care of it, only to wake up and find his kindly old grandfather has bought him a bike? Instead of, I don't know, saving his money, doing some hard work to earn more money, investing in the stock market and buying a bike with his own pile of cash? Or, I don't know, pooling money with neighbourhood kids to buy one bike and taking turns on it, if rampant capitalism isn't your bag. The first scenario is just one of many ridiculous examples put forth on the Secret DVD.
I don't have anything against meditation or Feng Shui or trying to bring positive forces into your life or anything like that. Enlightenment is different. Wanting to know yourself and be more in tune with the world around you and your own thoughts and moods and desires is different than imploring the universe to give you a box of money or diamond encrusted puppies or high-yield bonds or whatever. The Secret conditions you to believe that you DESERVE everything you want just because you're you. You're special, and there's this sense of entitlement that goes along with that. Do we have to have the Fight Club talk about how you are not a perfect special snowflake? If you want something, by all means, go out and get it. Work hard. Be positive about your life. But do not expect to have things handed to you because you asked for them. They impress upon you a culture of Win Win Win. It can be extremely difficult the first time you lose.
The Secret also teaches you to brainwash yourself. I very much remember the first time my best friend tried to get me to do this. I was bitching about being broke and she was like "Just open your mind to money and money will come to you!" I humoured her. And a GST cheque came in the mail. I told her this and she was like "SEE?!" See what? That a cheque I knew to be coming was delivered on time? Even if I hadn't "opened my mind to money" that cheque would have come. So I said "Sooo... basically, I'm brainwashing myself into believing I had something to do with this? This is the secret?" That... did not go over so well. It was the first indication I had that if I continued to poke holes in her "secret" theory that we would not continue to be such close friends. That and her numerous attempts to pull me into Landmark Education Seminars. She appears to have given up on that and is now focusing on the soft sell by mailing me a book. If I get into the Secret, it stands to reason I'll be gullible enough to fall for Landmark. I'm torn between keeping the copy she sent for LULZ and sending it back with a sticky note saying "Thanks, but no thanks. I am not interested in this. I think it is garbage. Please stop forcing it on me."
Let me tell you how to make a millions dollars! First thing you do is, you pretend you have something everyone else wants. Then, you pretend it's very hush-hush. "Keep it on the down-low folks! This is strictly confidential! I only tell you. And every other person who buys a copy of my DVD/book." Then you tell people they can have whatever they want. It's aaaalllll within their grasp if they just apply the methods you so thoughtfully detailed in your best-selling book/video services. Make sure it's all wrapped up to look like some ancient, wax-sealed, Harry Potter/DaVinci Code scroll shit. Sell the FUCK out of that. And if the people to whom you peddle your snake oil don't get what they want, then imply it's because they weren't vigilent enough. They were doing it wrong. Supply them with the tools to help them help themselves through the law of attraction! All available for the low-low price of whatever you decide they should pay.
Say, did you know that musicians such as Ludwig van Beethoven expressed The Secret through their music? Yeah, I totally remember Beethoven's 9th Symphony: Prelude to GIMME-GIMME.
The only people the law of attraction really works for are the self-help gurus/motivational speakers who motivate themselves to speak about how they will motivate you to give them money. If the secret were as great as people say it is, they'd just give it away for free. In fact, they do! You can learn all about the mid-eastern philosophies and religions The Secret and other crapfests of its ilk wrap themselves up in at your local library. My friend tried to sell me on The Secret that way. Her: "You looked into Buddhism once, right?" Me: "Yeah. More than once. I still kind of dig it." Her: "Well Landmark is based on principals of Buddhism!" Me: "Gripper... if I want Buddhism, I'll study Buddhism. Not Buddhism by way of Landmark."
Besides, studying Buddhism is free. At the library, I pay them $2 and I get a maaaagical plastic card that lets me have alllll the books I want! Landmark sessions are $500 a pop. Wow. Look at that. I just visualized not turning my pockets inside out for a pyramid scheme! Money may not be coming to me at this very moment, but it's also not leaving my bank account to pay for the summer home of a motivational speaker with a marketing degree.
Somehow in all this, I have been labelled a disbeliever. A skeptic. A Another way she tried to get me: "My brother is the biggest skeptic ever and he gets something out of it." Me: "The biggest skeptic ever? I doubt that, or he wouldn't have fallen for this." Her: "Why won't you just try it!?" Me: "Because if I try it and tell you first hand that it's balls, I'll hurt your feelings." So now, other than a book slipped into my parcel, she's given up on me. See, my life is so sad because I don't have what she has. Namely, a lot of Secret-related merchandise. You should buy the DVD! You should get the book! You should... realize that the only real secret is determination, focus and hard work.
***
I'm off to visit Burlington Ikea to visualise up a couch and then witness Ryan Adams in all his GUITAR SOLO! yelling glory.