Buddhist Self-Help: Going to Pieces without Falling Apart

For every season, turn, turn turn

In the 70s self help books had a we’re-all-in-this-together feeling and clustered around transpersonal themes such in the book I’m Ok, You’re OK In the 80s, decade of major money-making, self help moved onto managing time and handling the people–either at home or in the workplace–who made you angry or got in your way: think One Minute Manager and Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  In the 90s, books such as Listening to Prozac pondered pharmaceutical possibilities for being comfortable with the self.  Move on to the first decade of the 2000s and we find popular self-help and transformational

MODIGLIANI SAID SAVE YOUR MONEY (from 10/8/08)

Franco Modigliani

FRANCO MODIGLIANI WON THE NOBEL PRIZE IN 1985 for “his pioneering analyses of saving and of financial markets”.

When the Italians come to Cambridge and stay with me, they used to visit with Franco Modigliani–when he was alive–& his wife  Serena who lived in an apartment building overlooking the Charles River. Francesca and Renato described Modigliani as brilliant and also ‘cute.’   By then he was in his 80s and liked to drive a little car. His wife didn’t think he ought to because his eyesight and reflexes weren’t the best. During conversation, he repeatedly went back to the car topic, she would roll her eyes, and he would smile.

FRANCO & AMADEO
Before Francesca and Renato came into my life, I didn’t know about Modigliani the Economist. I knew the long-faced, stretched-out painting of Amadeo Modigliani. Were the two men related?  No. They were both born into Jewish-Italian families. Amadeo in Livorno to a bohemian family; Franco in Rome, to a professional family.

You Gotta Know Larry King (from 9/18/08)

The seed that started my blog was Hobson, my cleaning man. A cleaning man who over the years cleans less and talks more. He’s six foot six, as strong as a linebacker, puts dings in all my furniture, looks German, and likes gossip. When we first see each other on Friday morning, Hobson asks if my daughter is depressed, “Her face is sad,” and if my allergies are acting up because I look puffy. He likes to fill me in on goings on in the local Brazilian community.  For instance the story about his cousin whose 28-year old wife had everything done over. “Breasts, nose, tummy tuck, everything, and even down there they made her tighter.”  Hobson nodded.  “She looks good.”  According to Hobson, his cousin wanted people to stare at his wife when they walked down the street together.