Handbook for the Timeless Man

Not what you think it is

FULL DISCLOSURE: the author and I are friends. He asked me to read his book and write an honest revIew. I did and I will. Here is that honest review:

This is not a self-help book. Self-help books and the carnival barkers that peddle them are trying to sell you on the notion that they've discovered something new and revolutionary about life, but they haven't.

For all that things that the title of this book suggests, it's really about one thing: information is universal, eternal, and empowering. You see, information, or knowledge, if you prefer, is beholden undo the Law of Conservation of Matter. It can neither be created nor destroyed, and, even if present in a different form, what we have today is what has always been. Anyone who is suggesting that they have some new information, some new message, is only trying to control the information. And the only reason to control information is to distort it and manipulate.

The author here takes a different path. His message is that there is no secret to happiness. His message is that happiness today can be achieved, and, in fact, may only truly be achieved, by following the paths of all those who came before us. Ancient wisdom that has been largely forgotten, but not lost. Largely hidden, but not secret.

As society has evolved, one's ability to profit from the exploitation of physical labor and natural resources has waned. To rely on the control of men for your own wealth is unreliable. At some point, those being controlled realize that they control the means of production and, therefore, the wealth. But information? That is much less tangible, and must rely on people to pass it down. That makes it easier to control. And why do they want to control it? See above. But, really, you don't even have to control it. You just move it out of view and then create a distraction. And before long, the information becomes forgotten. People forget the keys to happiness, and only know the distraction. And then, it's a simple task to convince them that the distraction itself is the means to happiness. And that a new and improved distraction leads to a new and improved happiness.

This book wants to remind you where real happiness comes from, where all that ancient wisdom rests, and to open your eyes to the fact that you are being distracted and manipulated. This book hopes to break the reliance upon distraction for happiness and usher in a new era of old ways. The old ways where happiness was something we went out of our way to give to others, without thinking about how to get it for ourselves.

This book is to remind you that true happiness is a gift, a reward, for making the space around us better for everyone that passes through it. It is not a cash crop one can always sow, harvest, and hoard from a place of seclusion and exclusion.

All that in only 133 pages, and it's funny too.