Late last year, R. Michael Fisher blogged about my memoir Days of Shock, Days of Wonder and invited me to join him in a fear analysis of my writing. Searching for "Rafiq" here at the Fearlessness Movement website will show you the artifacts of our exchange. Since that time, Dr Fisher and I have continued our dialogue offline, and I hope to eventually write an article about what I have been able to distill about his ideas regarding fear.
Recently, I shared a new review of Days of Shock, Days of Wonder with Dr Fisher, and he encouraged me to post it here, perhaps as a way to direct readers to our earlier exchange but also to encourage readers to support writers like ourselves whose ideas are so far outside mainstream paradigms and the dominant worldview that our work rarely receives enough exposure for us to find an audience.
For me, both fearlessness and the constructive use of fearfulness are closely tied to our deepest perceptions of reality, and these perceptions in turn are inseparable from our capacity for spiritual experience, understood as the sensation of connection to a whole that is larger than the self. Just as fear is one of the great dividers of people from one another and from the earth, it is also one of the great inhibitors of this kind of spiritual awareness rooted in notions of diversity within unity and variety within essence.
So without further preamble, here is the brief review, recently posted at Amazon. If it inspires you to ponder my earlier exchange with Dr Fisher, all to the good. If it inspires you to read my book, all to the better. For I am sincere in my belief that in this age without prophets, it is up to us to inspire each other.
There is something happening here ...
By Alicia on July 24, 2017
Rafiq’s memoir is both a thought-provoking critique of our neoliberal times and a touching account of one man’s spiritual pursuit. It is written in a lively and engaging prose, making it quite difficult to put down. I did not know what to expect when I purchased this book, but found myself captivated by the author’s adventures and inspired by his spiritual journey that took him through India, Belize and Mexico. At times I laughed out loud too. Rafiq’s sober assessment of our capitalist world is an important undercurrent to the text. But more significantly for me, this book is a powerful testimony to the importance of reciprocity in our lives, a call to correct our relationships with the non-humans around us, and a gentle invitation to explore the gifts of the invisible. Days of Shock, Days of Wonder makes for a fantastic read.
