X-Message-Number: 352
From att!lsuc!canrem!ben.best Mon Jun 17 11:05:21 1991
From:  (Ben Best)
Date: 16 Jun 91 (02:00)
To: 
Subject: branden,esteem,death

   On the weekend of April 12-14 I attended Nathaniel Branden's
"Self-Esteem and Personal Transformation" seminar in Toronto. I was
very impressed by Branden's arrogance, sleaziness and lack of
intelligence. The result of his 22 years of thinking about self-esteem
seems to be that his ego has finally grown to the point that it has
crushed all the other neurons in his brain. I think he should title his
next book HOW TO ACHIEVE SELF-ESTEEM WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT COMPETENCE
OR INTEGRITY. Anyone wishing to meet the Great Man can phone
(604) 589-6868 and reserve a place in the June 28-30 seminar in Los
Angeles.

  I am mentioning all this because in preparation for Branden's workshop
I read his book HONORING THE SELF and thought the chapter on "Death
Anxiety" might be of interest to cryonicists. Branden asserts that
mortality is one of the "givens" of existence and that therapeutic
efforts are necessary to overcome the powerful behind the denial of
death, so that a client is more willing to participate in life. He says
that working with "death anxiety" is the most rapid way to generate
growth, because it focuses attention on values and priorities. But then
he goes on to say that a "morbid" preoccupation with death usually
reflects a fear of life -- that a sense that one is "not living" is
translated into concern that life is too short and becomes a rationale
for procrastination. Oddly, he says that to know how to live in
eternity, one must first know how to live in the moment. (I say "oddly"
because he has already said that living in eternity is impossible. I
have noticed that Branden is more inclined to mollycoddle religionists
these days, and explicitly flirts with mysticism.)

   I have not met any cryonicists who impressed me that they were
people who are living for the "afterlife" (after reanimation) --
although I can imagine such people might exist (bored with life and
living in a fantasy futurific world of nanotechnology and space travel).
A willingness to face the reality of death and try to do something about
it does not strike me as "morbid" (provided that something can really be
done). Procrastinators are the sort of people who never get-around to
making suspension arrangements.

   Branden's analysis is very much like that of other psychologists
reflecting on death. Many of his conclusions follow from his assumption
that mortality is a "given", but he has not done enough to check his
premises.

                   -- Ben Best ()
--
Canada Remote Systems.  Toronto, Ontario
NorthAmeriNet Host

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