Reviews for The pattern of the past

The average rating for The pattern of the past based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-08-20 00:00:00 Mark Shade Burnout! There's a dark side of the moon. And there's a dark side of Society; a dark side of our friends; and a dark side of the Deep State. Societal interaction, of course, tells us it's only one little blip on the screen and it'll all come out in the wash. Will it really? When I retired 16 years ago, burnt out, I thought not. While I worked, I exuded positive feelings - but at home I often exuded Black Night. In early retirement I became a confirmed Outsider, mainly through my total lack of success in trying to cut my life's losses. Carl Jung calls that dark spot the Shadow Self, and we all have one. Hard to believe? Look at all the bad habits among friends, family... and yourself. We all, left untethered, will eventually irk our best friends. That's life! And that's our Shadow. We can't tolerate 24/7 Sunshine. Our moods will show themselves in spite of our best intentions. And if life bites us once, we're twice shy. We couldn't make it through a life without rainy days! Life's no picnic, but by refusing to rail at the rain that SPOILS it... we MUST learn to smile away the pain. The people who were always there for us in the past are a very good reason to smile. Do we have a choice? Wilson uses an excellent metaphor to get us out of our pit. He says to just imagine one of our feared primary school teachers telling us o get our act together - PRONTO! Worked for me. Life will always gall us, but we have to STAND TALL to make it to the finish line in One Piece - something we ALL pray for. For we've all heard of Alzheimer's. By 2010, I was mired in the apathy of my burnout. Life had bitten away my good intentions without ceasing, so started to SERIOUSLY look at my life objectively. There must be a literary soulmate out there... I read this, expecting sympathy. But Colin Wilson WOKE ME UP. By SHAKING me. He showed me my self-serving misery as if I clearly saw it peering back at me from my bathroom mirror. It was monstrous. Sure, I know it hurts, he seemed to say, but what of Dostoevsky and all the Other Outsiders who TURNED THEMSELVES AROUND AND MADE A MAN OF THEMSELVES? The road to recovery is not easy. In fact, it HURTS LIKE ALL GET-OUT! But it's the Only road out of the Slough. And it'll get us Right Back into the SUNLIGHT: Guaranteed. It healed me from my burnout. Cause if you can't take the heat, get out of the hot kitchen of your self-pity. Just walk away... one small, decisive step at a time.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-06-18 00:00:00 Charles Ray Wilson's first book, The Outsider, prefiguring much of his later serious work, was a best-seller, making him a celebrity in his twenties, a status quickly lost and never regained. It is not, in my opinion, one of his best books, but then none of his books are really very good by any ordinary standards. Wilson is no great scholar, no masterful prose stylist. He has made his living as a popularist in scores of sellable books about hot topics like sex, murder, scandal, aliens and the occult. On the side, he has occasionally written serious books in a serious manner, but few or none have likely obtained many sales much after the success of The Outsider. Yet I keep coming back to Wilson like a cocaine user chases the dragon, seeking again the first high or even something more. Wilson has the spirit and conviction of a person who has had a profound mystical experience which transcends expression. To his credit, he sticks to it, working it like a dog a bone. He is never successful, but to others who have had a similar glimpse he is evocative, suggestive and the reading of his more serious works is to their credit as well.