Eat, Pray, Love Your Artists

 I am interested in this book because my friend, Tammie, gave it to me. And I read it. And felt that the author offered fresh perspectives on culture, religion, friendship, and other themes that I still reflect on, two years after reading the book.

For example, Liz is in Bali. She has just rallied her friends to raise a whopping $20,000 for a woman who she has befriended who has a daughter, but no home. She just hands over the money to the woman- who instead of buying a home, procrastinates. She has never seen this much money in the whole of her life, and doesn't want it to go anywhere, even to buy a home.

Liz gets angry, feeling that her Balinese friend will surely squander the money instead of buying a home, and then all her American friends will be very upset that the cause they supported was all for naught. But her friend Felipe, who fills in the "love" part of the book for her quite nicely, wisely advises: "Don't get angry. Because then you've lost a friend."

Such simple, yet beautiful advice. And this book is filled with many more such instances.

So it is with wonderment that I observe the story being surrounded by so much controversy. Many accuse Liz of being narcissistic, selfish, spoiled. I just don't get it. So she is depressed. Many people are. But instead of becoming addicted to medicines prescribed to her, she forms the idea of a quest that will cure her. She writes a book that makes a lot of people laugh, enables others to travel vicariously to places they may never go and have a taste of what the culture and people are like, makes herself and a lot of other people really rich, and provides Julia Roberts with a perfect role. And the world is a worse place because...?

Going on a quest to find what you need, in order to be free from prescriptive medicines and other debilitating habits, is not a bad thing. In Liz's case, the medicines doctors gave her for her depression dulled her sense of adventure, her wanderlust, her need to know herself. I find it kind of interesting that a woman undertaking a journey of self-discovery, of exploration of the inner and outer world within which human souls exist, should be so unacceptable to so many people.

Perhaps it makes a lot of people uncomfortable? Because they are reluctant to go on their own personal quest that will certainly lead to uncertainty, and possibly chaos? No, I don't think everyone needs to travel to Italy, India, and Bali to find inner peace. But freedom from debilitating habits, and knowing what you need, that does take an inward search that sometimes equals traveling the world. And for most people, it usually takes more that 80 days. (I just watched that movie.)

So I ask you, critics, is there something wrong with employing a little adventure and creativity in dealing with your most intimate spiritual difficulties? With wanting to be free from doctors who offer relief, but no real answers? So what if you have an affinity for travel, and happen to be handy with a pen? Is it really better to deny your gifts, and suppress your best desires?

It kind of looks like there are many who are just like Liz Gilbert, and are searching for a better way, or her book would not be at the very top of the New York Times bestseller list.

"This is what happens when you leave home. You meet... people."

                                                                             ~Phileas Fogg, Around the World in 80 Days