Self-help book authors seek to assist people to execute mundane tasks successfully, but in so doing lead them to erase their engagement with the world as it is
For years, whenever I passed by the new titles shelves in bookstores, I peeked at the self-help books among them. There was something off-putting even about the jackets of these books – they look like they’ve been designed like packaging for hair dye. Even before you open them, they sort of give you the smile of a traveling salesman: glistening in its whiteness and totally sterile. Still, I would leaf through them a little, on the way to other books, and occasionally a paragraph would catch my eye. Afterward the paragraph would resonate in my head, and quite often I found myself helped by it at a moment of crisis or difficulty.
