Mind control

O tema é ancestral
A felicidade!
A dificuldade em  conquistá-la  é  assunto de livros e mais livros, religiões e mais religiões, e de charlatães e mais charlatães.
Eu diria que para que se empreenda uma busca serena é preciso chegar ao entendimento de que nossa máquina física/mental é alvo de poderosas forças que nos querem transformar em zumbis escravos de seus propósitos:
- O drive evolucionista (a enésima esposa, o filho desnecessário etc...)
- A sociedade de consumo (aquilo que vc não precisa e, mesmo assim, compra; luxo etc...)
- Perversões químicas: drogas, perversões, fama, poder político etc
- Mentes alheias digamos... mais espertas

Enfim, uma série de forças que embaralham nossos objetivos e subvertem nossos caminhos desviando a felicidade de onde ela deveria realmente acontecer: nossas mentes.
Uma série de "micos" facilmente previsíveis nos quais vc nunca deveria se meter e tão pouco esperar qualquer retorno duradouro mas que, mesmo assim, às vezes hipnotizam completamente suas vítimas em catástrofes tão previsíveis quanto inevitáveis.
O livro abaixo discute este jogo de forças que luta pelo controle de sua usina de energia vital e que é responsável pelas crises de meia-idade (ápice da infelicidade: entre 44 e 46 anos) e pela depressão pessimistas dos velhos.
Não diria que é um livro de auto-ajuda mas sim um texto interessante para que aquela pessoa que se sente feliz continuamente possa aumentar sua blindagem.

Este post foi sugestão de um seguidor anônimo deste blog (hope you guess its name!) e uma homenagem a um queridíssimo amigo o qual, apesar de muito me considerar, jamais consegui ajudar a evitar que se metesse em tragédias das mais diversas etiologias.
Ao lado da capa, dois pequenos resumos em inglês.

Stumbling on Happiness is a book about a very simple but powerful idea. What distinguishes us as human beings from other animals is our ability to predict the future--or rather, our interest in predicting the future. We spend a great deal of our waking life imagining what it would be like to be this way or that way, or to do this or that, or taste or buy or experience some state or feeling or thing. We do that for good reasons: it is what allows us to shape our life. And it is by trying to exert some control over our futures that we attempt to be happy. But by any objective measure, we are really bad at that predictive function. We're terrible at knowing how we will feel a day or a month or year from now, and even worse at knowing what will and will not bring us that cherished happiness. Gilbert sets out to figure what that's so: why we are so terrible at something that would seem to be so extraordinarily important?
In making his case, Gilbert walks us through a series of fascinating--and in some ways troubling--facts about the way our minds work. In particular, Gilbert is interested in delineating the shortcomings of imagination. We're far too accepting of the conclusions of our imaginations. Our imaginations aren't particularly imaginative. Our imaginations are really bad at telling us how we will think when the future finally comes. And our personal experiences aren't nearly as good at correcting these errors as we might think.
I suppose that I really should go on at this point, and talk in more detail about what Gilbert means by that--and how his argument unfolds. But I feel like that might ruin the experience of reading Stumbling on Happiness. This is a psychological detective story about one of the great mysteries of our lives. If you have even the slightest curiosity about the human condition, you ought to read it. Trust me.

******

Not offering a self-help book, but instead mounting a scientific explanation of the limitations of the human imagination and how it steers us wrong in our search for happiness, Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, draws on psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy and behavioral economics to argue that, just as we err in remembering the past, so we err in imagining the future. "Our desire to control is so powerful, and the feeling of being in control so rewarding, that people often act as though they can control the uncontrollable," Gilbert writes, as he reveals how ill-equipped we are to properly preview the future, let alone control it. Unfortunately, he claims, neither personal experience nor cultural wisdom compensates for imagination's shortcomings. In concluding chapters, he discusses the transmission of inaccurate beliefs from one person's mind to another, providing salient examples of universal assumptions about human happiness such as the joys of money and of having children. He concludes with the provocative recommendation that, rather than imagination, we should rely on others as surrogates for our future experience. Gilbert's playful tone and use of commonplace examples render a potentially academic topic accessible and educational, even if his approach is at times overly prescriptive. 150,000 announced first printing.(May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.