I quite enjoyed the Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter and was considering purchasing his new one “Scarcity Brain”. But the blurb below looks umm…..I want to say..silly and self-important and…silly. Like if I was writing a parody of a self-help book, I might come up with something like this..direct quote from his website below…
* “Detect hidden scarcity cues to stop cravings before they start, from a brilliant slot machine designer in a Las Vegas casino laboratory
* Turn alone time into the ultimate happiness hack, from Benedictine monks who live in silence in the mountains of New Mexico
* Reignite your exploration gene for a more exciting and fulfilling life, from an astronaut onboard the International Space Station
* Reframe how we think about and fix addiction and bad habits, from Iraq’s chief psychiatrist
* Recognize when you have enough, from a woman who left a million-dollar career path to adventure the world”
from [https://eastermichael.com/books/](https://eastermichael.com/books/)
So we have Benedictine monks dedicating their lives to happiness hacks, astronauts hell-bent on reignitng our exploration gene and a Chief Psychiatrist, in a country, where the major worry might be caring for your double amputee bombing victim relative, offering sage advice on how to, I dunno, chill about that failed pay raise meeting.
It’s not that any of this is necessarily wrong. Could be some deep wisdom here, but the mash-up seems a bit suspect. And all of this is meant to “rewire our brains”, according to his website. But looking at a pigeon rewires our brains. Our brains are always rewiring. Easter knows as much about neuroscience as a pigeon. Why mention rewiring? Oh yeah, because it makes it all sound sciencey.
Perhaps novels about people in space stations, monasteries or emergency rooms (maybe one per, unless its David Mitchell) would better fuel my imagination than all this self-help business where they try to extract the essence of these experiences, characters and situations into a set of sound-bites and life-hacks.
And perhaps some alert should be sent out to monasteries, hospitals and space stations that a self-help guru is coming to monetize their life long passsions so that they just don’t answer the doorbell (if indeed space stations have doorbells, which they definitely should).
Still, I kinda want to read it. Doh!!
Anyone read it? Anyone like it? Am I just being mean? Any better books on our “scarcity brain” out there?
by Unlikely-Loan-4175