A heartfelt plea: Read immediately Tim Parks’s new book, Teach Us to Sit Still, published today. The book comes disguised as medical self-help or new-age how-to, but it is not: It is an original and courageous exploration of the ravages of the thinking life.
Says Coetzee, Teach Us to Sit Still is a “quest for relief from chronic pain that begins with learning how to breathe and ends in something close to spiritual transformation.”
Read sections from it here on Little Star:
Paradoxical Relaxation
The Skeptic Meditates
The trenchant Parks excerpt reminds me of Barbara Ehrenreich’s frustration with “positive thinking.” It can delude as much as depression.
A glowing reference to Little Star on Open Letters Monthly….