Self-help and personal growth books are a trend. It is enough to look at the airport shelves or the windows of the most commercial bookstores to verify the success of those who promise leadership, happiness, stress reduction or weight loss. The advanced society of the modern era lives besieged by the evils of the mind. The obligation to be happy grips us and the possibility of having it all leads us to want more and more.
As soon as the frustration of not being well appears, we look for a remedy, and this usually comes from a prevailing psychology that is linked to a series of precepts that are repeated. If you’ve read any of these positive thinking best sellers, you’ll know them well. “Every obstacle represents learning and an opportunity to grow. When a door closes, a window opens. Connect with your goal and you will be happy. Be good and always look at the positive side of things… Be your best version… The sky is the limit.”
They are phrases loaded with good intentions, but as Oscar Wilde said “with the best intentions, the worst effects are achieved”. Sometimes the demand for perfect happiness makes us miserable. What would happen if instead of this position we could allow ourselves to say that we are made of shit? Confess that we have hit rock bottom and rub ourselves in the mud for a while. Living in the no future and the disenchantment of punk is also part of human psychology. From this brilliant and necessary idea, Víctor Amat (Barcelona, ??1963) builds his book against positive and naive thinking. He only has one flaw: after successfully charging against self-help manuals, he ends up doing the same.
The recipe for what to do and not to do, comes at the end of each chapter. The tone tends to that second person who speaks directly to the reader from an arrogant punk pride. “Do it wrong, but do it. Instead of avoiding, try to do the things you fear, do it with fear… Face your future without bullshit or self-deception. What’s wrong with being imperfect?… If something doesn’t have anything good for you, you can complain and you should handle it artfully… If you’re lazy, admit it. Never force yourself to smile.
Many of these slogans are read as a liberation or rebellious act of anarchy before the dominant thought, under that healthy conviction of thinking differently. Víctor Amat is an experienced psychologist, a member of that reviled Generation X, who has the right to complain. Having grown up with punk or having gone through grunge serve to abandon naivety. No need to be a depressed nihilist. Just go beyond the banal and superficial. Positivity mantras may be good for some people, but as the author proposes, good therapy is tailored to each person.
Some, like Vázquez Montalbán, claimed to have been born to revolutionize hell. Bruce Lee was more explicit in stating that “expecting life to treat you well because you are a good person is like expecting a tiger not to eat you because you are a vegetarian.” These are quotes that appear throughout a book that also includes various interesting concepts such as kryptonization as well as an endless number of slogans that any punk mind would sign: I’m fine because I’m wrong / The normal thing is to have cellulite.
We can offer our help when asked, not compulsively and giving superior advice. Going Kryptonized means going soft, killing ego hubris, and showing that we can throw off that Superman cape. We are not super men but vulnerable beings, capable of showing our weaknesses. The punk archetype is not a superhero but quite the opposite, an antihero who hits bottom to be reborn. What really is punk is knowing how to fail. There is life beyond wonderful psychology.
Victor Amat. Psychology Punk. Against positive and naif thinking. Vergara. 296 pages, €19.90
