Review by Matheikal at
http://matheikal.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/11/unlearn-before-you-learn.htm

book motivation unlearn

Unlearn Before You Learn
By Kamekish , Promilla & Co Publishers, New Delhi, 2007, pp. 416, Rs 550

Do you think Mallika Sherawat did the right thing by breaking “her relations with her parents to pursue her career” because “her parents never agreed with her ideas”?

Do you think it is right to abandon your relatives and others dear to you if they become a liability on your way towards your personal successes in life?

Do you think that the traditional menu has to be replaced with “burgers, pizzas and so on” and that “chicken-roast, fish-fingers, paneer-tikka, etc have to come on the everyday menu”?

Do you think it’s right to have sex “with your friends, colleagues, seniors or juniors” because sex is fun and ought to be enjoyed to the full?

Do you think the traditional wisdom contained in such sources as the Gita, Koran or Bible or the advice given by elders or sages will keep you “poor and undeveloped”?

If your answer is ‘yes’ to all the above questions, you will love to read this book. If your answer is an emphatic ‘no’, you might want to know what the author has to say about such things? If you are not sure of your answer, the book can confuse you more.

The book is an ambitious endeavour aimed at revolutionising the thinking of the 21st century man. The author is convinced to the core of his heart that the age-old values and systems will not work anymore in the rapidly changing world. If you want to be successful you have to learn to look at the world and life in a new way. The book teaches you the new way.

Unlearning is the innovative concept developed by Kamekish based on his personal researches. The book takes a close look at human life from seven different angles, viz thinking and action, aspirations, sex, God, the negative role played by parents in the development of a child, need for a godfather and creating a wisdom domain. Very practical guidelines are provided in each section with some very interesting real-life or life-like examples. Some of these practical suggestions may shock or scandalise the sensitive or the conservative. One thing, however, is irrefutable: Kamekish is very forthright and earnest about his goals and motives, and is convinced that he can transmit those qualities to the disposed reader.

“Hard decisions have to be taken before you can advance,” says the back cover blurb of the book. Some of the decisions demanded in the book are indeed hard for those who still value traditional wisdom. But I feel Kamekish has captured the spirit of the age, the attitude of the present generation, and is successful in transmuting it into a systematic technique. The present young generation may find it easy to follow the suggestions provided in the book. For the rest, of course, it is a matter of unlearning if they wish to follow the new ‘course’.

Personally, my answers to the questions given at the beginning of this review are an emphatic ‘no’ and remain so even after reading Kamekish’s book. First of all, some of my conservative roots are too strong to cut (and I don’t intend to unlearn them). Secondly, I’m not interested in the kind of success envisaged by Kamekish. The book is an ideal companion for those who seek success at any cost.

Apart from the protests springing from my relatively conservative moorings are the apparent contradictions in the book. The author’s attitude towards god seems to be ambivalent, to say the least. “The people of the developing world in this fast-changing scenario need to be atheists to harvest the growth of civilization, just as a scientist should be an atheist, free from all preconceived notions and speculations imposed by religious beliefs, to experiment with new things,” says the author on page 211. However, the whole chapter is premised on the strong faith that god exists and he “is a very powerful invisible factor in life” (181). Yes, I grant that the author’s advice “to be atheists” is to taken as a metaphor for scientific impartiality. But what use is god without some element of blind faith on our parts? What use is god without an element of mystery that grips our hearts without any logic but with an irresistible charm that refuses to leave us even in the darkest moments of our life? A god who fits neatly into our system of thoughts and plans and schemes will not be a god but an assistant or an accomplice. Kamekish’s god suffers from that severe disability.

More surprisingly, in the chapter on godfather we come across Kamekish suggesting earnestly that horoscope can be “a real dynamic godfather (DGF)”. The argument is that horoscopes have the potential to induce optimism and confidence in us. In the author’s own words, “At times, they give you support, they give you direction, they congratulate you, they warn you, they advise you, they try to give you a future picture, and so on” (274). I think he mixed up between god and horoscopes.

The earnest suggestion given on page 138 under the section, ‘Detach immediately from lower levels,’ is: “Don’t keep thinking that you are responsible to bring up everyone. You have made something of yourself after a lot of struggle and you should remember that the more you move ahead, the better it is for you, your family, society and the nation.” Earlier, while talking about ‘fatal aspirations’, the author exhorted us that “We need to keep changing contacts, friends, relatives and even origin” (126). But later on page 271 one of his “personally generated” and learned-from-life quotations says, “If you like my work, tell others, if you don’t tell me but never ignore me for your betterment.” The contradiction between the quasi-Machiavellian egotism in the former quotes and the unabashed desire for altruistic sentiments in the latter is too glaring to ignore.

In many places in the book, particularly in the chapters dealing with god and parents, the author tries to repudiate as worthless the wisdom of religious texts as well as experienced elders. In many cases he is right, but not always. The purpose of religious texts is not to teach scientific truths. Their teachings belong to the realm of what Karen Armstrong calls ‘mythos’, the inner, spiritual world. Applying religious texts to the outer world of physical or historical reality is dangerous. This is the mistake committed by religious bigots and terrorists. The solution lies not in discarding scriptures altogether but in learning to apply them only where they should be applied. Similar is the case with ‘elders’. Experiences of a life lived in this world are more valuable than all the lessons from any number of books. Otherwise why does the author give us so many of his personal quotations which express the lessons he learnt “in the course of my struggle towards a better life”? (271)

I also think the views expressed in the book on sex are outlandish. The book advocates extreme libertarianism with respect to sex. It can have disastrous consequences on our civilization. Right now, without such open permissiveness we are already grappling with such deadly enemies as the HIV virus and other less deadly sexually transmitted diseases. In Kamekish’s grand vision such diseases may come under human control when proper sex education is provided to children. In reality, things are not so simple. Secondly, what about human relationships? In a permissive society, such as suggested by Kamekish, human relationships will be rendered too hollow for humans to bear.
Notwithstanding such contradictions or limitations, the book remains interesting to read. The earnestness of the author about his vision for the future is all too clear right from the beginning. His keenness to bring cheer into the lives of people is commendable. His style is very lucid, almost conversational and hence eminently readable.