I am having so much fun reading Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, that it almost feels wrong. I find myself agreeing with Ehrenreich on most counts and where I differ, I appreciate her point of view as a valid, thought-provoking one. The experience makes me wonder if I might have entered a bubble created by this book that reaffirms everything I believe on the topic.
It gets to be a bit scary when a credentialed author validates my uninformed rants against the "system". Ehrenreich holds a Ph.D. in cell immunology; I was grateful to emerge alive out of tenth-grade biology never to venture near it again. She is wicked snippy with her little barbs like calling Deepak Chopra an all-purpose Guru like he were all-purpose flour suitable for any baking project or this line about Jobs "Steve Jobs had been a Buddhist or perhaps a Hindu— he seems not to have made a distinction—". On the mindfulness fad she says "This is Buddhism sliced up, commodified, and drained of all reference to the transcendent." So while her content is mostly serious she makes the reader chuckle too. All in all a very good and satisfying read.
It gets to be a bit scary when a credentialed author validates my uninformed rants against the "system". Ehrenreich holds a Ph.D. in cell immunology; I was grateful to emerge alive out of tenth-grade biology never to venture near it again. She is wicked snippy with her little barbs like calling Deepak Chopra an all-purpose Guru like he were all-purpose flour suitable for any baking project or this line about Jobs "Steve Jobs had been a Buddhist or perhaps a Hindu— he seems not to have made a distinction—". On the mindfulness fad she says "This is Buddhism sliced up, commodified, and drained of all reference to the transcendent." So while her content is mostly serious she makes the reader chuckle too. All in all a very good and satisfying read.
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