Aspies For Freedom

Wow! How could this ridiculous self-absorbed rant sell so many copies? I'm stunned at her examples of blocks - monsters and crazymakers - her writing style isn't even very good. Lots of short choppy thoughts and sentences. At times I even felt as though I'm reading about all of her own hidden demons and to be honest, it's extremely ridiculous and hard to take seriously. For example, Cameron talks a lot about SHAME and begins with "When people do not want to see something, they get mad at the one who shows them. They kill the messenger. A child from an alcoholic home gets into trouble scholastically or sexually. The family is flagged as being troubled. The child is made to feel shame for bringing shame to the family. But did the child bring shame? No. The child brought shameful things to light. The family shame predated and caused the child's distress. "What will the neighbors think?" is a shaming device aimed at continuing a conspiracy of illness" EXCUSE ME - WHAT???? This is the most random and ridiculous example of shame - and what's that example have to do with anyone else - sounds like a deep hidden personal issue if you ask me. At any rate, don't take this self-help book too seriously folks - it's embarrassing really and most exercises are completely juvenile as well - or just plain wayyy out there - for example, her take on reading - how you should not read for a particular period of time because it will open up your senses - she says "Here is a list of some things that people do when they are not reading: Listen to music (really) fix the bike, MAKE CURTAINS!!!!, Mend! (how old is she and mend what, socks!), wash the dog, knit, cook, watercolor" Okay - enough - she has obviously forgotten to list breath there, I mean, can we breath while we're not reading? The book is just one of the most self-absorbed books of this genre I've picked up in quite awhile. It really doesn't help much in terms of spirituality either - I've had too hard a time to begin with reading her examples of God and creativity - I don't find this women very creative at all since most of her thoughts seem like a thread of someone else's revelations. Right down to morning pages - isn't that called journaling???

Wow. I read most of the book, and it was painful, veritably painful, to get through. Aesthetically: there are this hideously trite quotes from various famous people at the top of almost every page which constantly jar your eyes away from the text. They drove me crazy. Any good designer, I have to say, would never have let a book go to print that way. Which makes me wonder about her artistic talent. Anyhow. On to the content. And about that, I have a bunch of tangential and one primary issue:

The GOD component. I'm not religious, and people who are religious may feel very differently about this book. It shouldn't matter whether I'm religious or not, though, because the author lets you know in the very beginning that you don't have to believe in a fundamental Christian GOD to benefit from the book, and that you should (drum roll) make the word mean...whatever YOU want it to mean. Um. Okay, that may be true if you also lack fundamental logic skills and tend not to fall on the "rational" side of the road. But this is a weird, Christian-biased book. It just is. All her examples have GOD in it. I bought the workbook, and it has exercises such as "Write down ways GOD has wronged you..." in it. Tell me: how does one who lacks faith in a Christian god, and doesn't have knowledge or experience in the whole "guilt-based" tradition, write about such things?

I'm a very rational person, and this book is not for rational people. I don't think the creative process is necessarily spiritual, and it certainly isn't metaphysical, as this book would have you believe. I can't buy into a single one of her ideas. The main one are the "morning pages" that you write: three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing every morning. Meh. I've been doing journal writing for years and years, and I don't think this is much different. I think any time you can put aside for yourself and your thoughts is going to make you more productive. It's not rocket science. Or metaphysics.

Maybe a "hobby" artist, or someone who just does art to make him/herself feel better would find this book useful. If you're into "creative energy" and "finding your place in this world" (as some reviewers have said), maybe you'll get something out of it. I don't know. I'm a professional designer, and I was looking for a book to help me solidify a creative process. But seeing as I design for clients and to make myself more skilled in my field, art isn't really about expressing myself in some weird Christian fairyland of energy and self and GOD and other weird nameless stuff so much as it is about doing something that a. makes sense for the client; and b. makes sense to me. I think that the author thinks of art as something extremely personal and tied up in mystery, and I really don't think art that is meant for an audience is so much about spiritual personal expression. Most "career" artists aren't particularly religious, even, and their art is a craft and exercise in expertise as much as it is about "positive energy" and solipsistic creationism. At any rate, I found no insight into a useful creative process in this book.

And there's really no way I can imagine that someone who didn't believe strongly in spirituality could take ANYTHING away from this book. The author says, sure, that "it works for anyone," but you can't really have your cake and eat it, too: the "higher power" thing runs thick in this book, and for people who are into that sort of thing, it probably will make sense. But for people who aren't into that sort of thing, it reads like a very disjointed, far-fetched, metaphysical, self-indulgent, useless piece.