The Art of Stillness can thus seem to serve the distractions it purports to escape. As with all therapeutic prescriptions, the value of the “cure” is haunted by the inevitable need to return to what made us sick. Seeing it offered as a panacea for corporate stagnation is even more depressing. Seeing the revolutionary power of stillness reduced (as it must be in such a project) to a spa treatment (I am being slightly unfair but not by much) is dispiriting. And yet the whole endeavor-the packaging, the bite-sized wisdom, the benevolent and bloodless style of self-help-sets my teeth on edge. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (TED Books). Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. The advice is sensible and likely to be valuable to anyone who takes it. The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (TED Books) - Kindle edition by Iyer, Pico. Its subject is the virtues of retreat and “sitting still” in an “age of distraction.” Much useful advice is offered, generally in the form of anecdotes about famous or successful people (or about Iyer himself) spending time in monasteries or observing some sort of Sabbath, either traditional or “Internet.” The benefits are said to include such measurable goods as lower blood pressure and a “level of happiness” hitherto uncharted by MRI scans. This very brief book is a “TED original,” one of a series of “short books about big ideas” offered by the nonprofit best known for its talks delivered in the style of a Silicon Valley product launch.
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