Just Put the Fracking Cheese Back and Nobody Gets Hurt

This week I have mostly been reading Who Moved My Cheese a self-help guide which is apparently An Amazing Way To Deal With Change In Your Life.

The book takes the form of a little parable about the inhabitants of a maze who live on the cheese they find in it. There are two mice, Sniff and Scurry who live by their simple mouse instincts, sniffing out new cheese and scurrying into action. Then there are two miniature humans who are encumbered by human thought patterns, expecting their cheese to go on forever and scared to venture out into the maze when their cheese supply runs out. One of the little people learns to laugh at himself for hanging around waiting for the cheese to come back and plucks up courage to venture back into the maze and start searching. Eventually he finds all manner of great new cheeses of types never encountered before.

It sounds patronising, but at it's not as bad as Paulo Coelho and at least it's short. The most appallingly-written part is the wraparound story about a bunch of people listening to the cheese parable and using it to deal with the changes going on in their lives but I guess no one reads self-help books for fully-realised characters.

On his way through the maze our tiny hero chalks up useful advice for anyone following him on the walls. My favourite was, "It is safer to search in the maze than remain in a cheeseless situation.". Very true. In contrast the least useful was,"What would you do if you weren't afraid?". Every time I try to answer that honestly I come up with something violent or unethical or just plain destructive. Basically, you should all thank your lucky stars that I am afraid.

Anyway, the advice is all very well but what about other people? None of the tiny people has tiny children looking up at them begging for cheese, or whining that the quest for new cheese has meant moving away from their friends. There are no spouses who carry on consuming cheese when there isn't any on cheesy credit cards (which are probably made of crackers). No one is an island and realising what you need to do does not necessarily make you free to do it. I have a horrible feeling that what you're meant to do is wheel out the cheese story and tell it to your family, employees or whatever. And I don't think that's going to wash this side of the atlantic. Not unless they're very easily led indeed.

In many ways the most interesting aspect of the is as an example at pacing and leading. These are rhetorical devices commonly used by hypnotists, politicians and other species of charlatan whereby you start with a statement everyone can agree with and slowly, step by step lead people by the nose into deeper, darker waters. One day I will use these techniques to write a self-help book of my own which will leave my victims, sorry, readers with a warm glow of empowerment and the overwelming urge to send me all their money.