re: #269 chadu

Do you mean The Secret? I was working part-time at B&N and doing some self-publishing on the side at the time, and there is >no way that book maybe more than pennies (not nickles or dimes, pennies) net revenue per copy, even given the Law of Big Numbers. (That’s because of the form-factor, page count, paper stock/quality/coating, color throughout, art & layout, etc.)

I can only conclude it was a loss-leader for the DVDs/advertising for the self-help gurus in it.

Nope. Humans are social animals. Complaining about life’s shitstorms is one way of dealing with it. It’s only when one abuses the privilege that it’s a social or personal problem.

However, given our selfish, instant-gratification culture, a single complaint becomes “Oh, you’re sooooo negative KTHXBYE.”

Answer: Fuck those people. They wouldn’t help you out if you got bit by a mammoth* back in the day, so vote them out of the cave.

_{* TRU FACT: Mammoth bites were more common than you’d think, in the Stone Age.**
** No, not really.}

It is not wrong to want to talk to your friends. Having been on both sides of this issue, I can say: I am not a professional. It isn’t fair to dump onto people who cannot really help you. I had to accept this when I had a friend trying to do to me what I had often tried to do to others. It wasn’t fair to me or to them.

That is why there is clergy, and counselors and diarys.