Authors: Andrew Boyd
ISBN-13: 9780393322811, ISBN-10: 0393322815
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Date Published: January 2002
Edition: 1ST
Andrew Boyd is a writer and activist living in New York. He is the author of Life's Little Deconstruction Book: Self-Help for the Post-Hip
A dark, twisted, existential manifesto posing as a book of daily inspiration.
Self-help satirist Andrew Boyd (Life's Little Deconstruction Book) manages to turn the affirmations genre on its head and still offer some inspirational wisdom in Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe, a collection of brief meditations that urges readers to embrace sorrow and pain as the way to personal growth. Under tongue-in-cheeck headings like "Living a Worthless Life," "Keeping to the Dark Path," and "The Trajedy of Commitment," Boyd emphasizes that failure in work and love is a necessary part of conscious life, and that a person can recognize the darkness and futility of life yet still dive into it headlong. ( Jan.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Introduction | xv | |
Author Note | xix | |
The Book of Daily Afflictions | ||
Life | ||
The interstate of life | 5 | |
Living a worthless life | 6 | |
Being there then | 7 | |
The supermarket of life | 8 | |
Living as a work of art | 9 | |
Keeping to the dark path | 10 | |
Self | ||
Deepening the crisis | 13 | |
Listening to your inner critic | 14 | |
Selfless selfishness | 16 | |
The nausea of language--a guided exercise | 17 | |
The uses of obsession | 19 | |
Opening up to your inner psychopath | 20 | |
Finding sorrow | 22 | |
The suburb within | 23 | |
Family | ||
Embracing the life forced upon you | 27 | |
The nurturing power of dysfunctional families | 28 | |
The boot camp of life | 29 | |
Living the unlived life | 31 | |
The healing power of sick parents | 33 | |
Love | ||
The other side of love | 37 | |
Passion and companionship | 38 | |
Loving the wrong person | 39 | |
Fucked by love | 40 | |
Seeing things through to total catastrophe | 41 | |
Breaking up with yourself | 42 | |
Career | ||
Failing at what matters | 47 | |
Doing the wrong thing | 48 | |
In pursuit of failure | 49 | |
The havoc of Saturn's return | 50 | |
Succeeding at failure | 52 | |
The tragedy of commitment | 53 | |
Politics | ||
Visualizing the worst possible world--a guided meditation | 57 | |
The inner bigot | 58 | |
Compassionate hypocrisy | 60 | |
Being in it for yourself | 61 | |
Hopelessness can change the world | 62 | |
Philosophy | ||
The perils of creating your own reality | 65 | |
Faith and irony | 66 | |
One step from oblivion | 68 | |
Everything happens for a reason | 70 | |
Religion | ||
Consulting the silence--a guided exercise | 73 | |
The economics of spirituality | 74 | |
Reasoning with your inner prophet | 75 | |
Skeptical mysticism | 76 | |
Diving into the abyss | 78 | |
Death | ||
Embracing your inner corpse | 81 | |
Learning to die | 82 | |
At One with your inner corpse--a guided meditation | 84 | |
Living with death | 85 | |
Enlightenment | ||
The agony of being connected to everything in the Universe | 89 | |
Glossary | 91 | |
Guide to Sources | 95 | |
Acknowledgments | 103 | |
Index | 107 |