They claim to but do not really tell us who we are and what we’re supposed to do. So the self-help books work well for a while but eventually fail, as all diversions do. All the self-help experts can add is to stay busy (but with stress-relieving periods of recreation) and positive so eventually things will turn around for you. But lots of us, Percy observes, faithfully follow the self-help advice and end up feeling more disoriented or displaced or more empty than ever. We are, like the other animals, organisms in environments, and we can be happy if we think for ourselves, listen to the experts, stay safe or avoid all the risk factors, are rich, and have effective interpersonal dynamics.

They tell us that we need, say, seven habits to be highly effective, to be productive, to satisfy our basic material needs. They claim to use the latest studies to tell us who we are and what we’re supposed to do. Percy adds that the self-help books are diversions too. That’s also why highly educated bourgeois Americans today try so hard and fail so miserably in being bohemians too. That’s why Percy knew people visiting museums are mostly ineffectively fending off despondency. And one problem among many about living in our highly self-conscious time is that diversions we know are merely diversions are boring or only very weak and evaporating antidotes to despair. The pursuit of happiness has become the pursuit of diversion in the midst of prosperity. According to Percy, most of our lives these days are diversions that become progressively more disappointing. According to Pascal, most of our lives are diversions, escapes from what we really know, evidence of our misery without God. Diversions, of course, get your mind off yourself, relieve your stress, help out in alleviating your fears, your anxieties, your boredom. And it did.įrom Percy’s view, our bookstores are mostly filled with two kinds of books-self-help books and diverting or entertaining books about scandal-ridden law firms or extraterrestrials or vampires or a bunch of sexually obsessive shades of grey. Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos is subtitled “The Last Self-Help Book.” He said he gave the book that title so that it would end up in the self-help section of bookstores. Several posts will be required to lay out even the basics about being lost in the cosmos. It was published in 1983, and I’m one of the very few Americans celebrating the book’s 30th anniversary. Here’s my recommendation: Lost in the Cosmos by the philosopher-physician-novelist Walker Percy. So lots of readers (about six) have written me asking for advice on what book they should read to turn their lives around.

Lost in the cosmos by walker percy