Yesterday I drove with my granddaughter to the book store to buy a book for a college class. When I found it was small and red and costs twenty dollars, I was suspicious. I attended college in the sixties. Small red books tend to infuriate me. It took my granddaughter all of an hour to read the book, because she took copious notes and made an outline for class. Then she handed the book to me and said, you should read this Grandpa, it's cute. It's about two mice and two small people who eat cheese in a maze.
Where have I heard this plot before, it seemed familiar. Maybe on some alternate universe on some other planet, I shrugged off the dé-jà -vu and opened the book. Soon the feeling returned because it opened dusty memory files lurking in the recesses of my mind. Let's take a moment to look at `Who Moved My cheese. Dr. Spencer Johnson, MD is obviously is a learned man. A web search found four or five books attributed to the good doctor, all about a hundred pages long. The brunt of my first impression is that they are designed for the sales staff.
I make a quick assumption. The good Doctor was not politically motivated when he wrote these books. (I visited Amazon and got the standard threads on the ones I couldn't find in the library.) Dr. Johnson doesn't seem to be politically motivated at all. He does, however seem to be motivated by money (Cheese). (I can't find fault in that.)
This book is obviously designed for the workplace as a self help book for the individual who finds himself in a highly volatile workplace where change is a prominent factor. This book on the surface is good. It is short, sweet and to the point. Definitely readable, with it's large type and margins, most good readers can buzz through it in thirty minutes and retain a buzz of agreeable jargon, quotes and examples that should assist him in manage his life with a more resolute attitude.
Why then are college professors interested? Oh, my! I think I see some political implications here! The two mice represent the lower classes, not mice. The little people represent the college graduate who is more of a thinker. (This is verbalized in the book.) The mice are Sniff and Scurry. When they get to the cheese, they take off their shoes and tie them around their necks so they will be handy in case they have to move on. The little people are Hem and Haw.
As the title page will tell you, Hem and Haw represent the simple and complex parts of ourselves regardless of race, gender, age or nationality. The mice Sniff out the changes in reality early, and Scurry off to find a solution instinctively, Hem and Haw obsess over the changes in life with a dismal attitude worrying about implications and status. Hem is much more obsessively compulsive about staying with the known than Haw.
In fact Haw moves to the left in more ways than one. Like the leftist advocates of Karl Marx, he is given to writing graphitic slogans on walls. It doesn't say so in the book, but he probably uses the left hand rule for mazes. Hem is (in my opinion) not a real conservative, but he is rather what a liberal believes a conservative to be, afraid to venture away from the known and comfortable for the common good, even in the face of hunger.
Is this a return to the leftist books required by politically minded professors in the sixties, or is it my imagination. Check it out. Used copies of the book are going to be available really soon. Two bookstores were already sold out close to the college area. Either it is really popular or it is required reading.
I have been passing by this book for years and years and years and having no inclination whatsoever to pick it up as i was into non fiction books and its title sounded like a joke.I was never once moved to even pick it up and see what it was all about.But last week I had just finished the HIGHLY MOTIVATIONAL book DAMN!Why Didnt I Write That?" And i was in the bookstore because I had taken Marc McCutcheons advice to read more and learn more on writing to polish my 12 unpublished books. I was in the bookstore because Marc moved me.I have been writing for years and never even tried to publish my work till DAMN! came along.
I was in the bookstore for a reason.I was there because my cheese was moving and i knew my cheese was moving and i had with a push from Marc decided to do something about it.I saw my
old business that has been good to me for the last 15 years coming to an end soon and i was making the transition into the literary world.I love to write and i know 2 friends who were
both dental technicians who love to cook and who both opened highly successfull restaurants one in san francisco and one in LA. Zarzuella on the corner of Hyde and Union Streets,the cable car stops in front of the restaurant and the other is Z Marios in Tustin LA. When you love what youre doing you just cant go wrong.
Who Moved My Cheese (WMMC) moved me like Marcs DAMN! book did. The pieces were begining to fall into place.WMMC as simplistic as it was (could easily be a childrens book, in fact im going to ask my kids to read it too) made me realize that i was doing the right thing in anticipating change in my life and looking for new cheese and thus taking my writing seriously and doing something i really love to do.Sorry if this sounds so cheesy but im rushing as im writing this.
In this time of constant change,a loss of a job or a business or at my age,im almost 55, the loss of our parents our spouse,our friends and some of us even,the loss of a child,i highly reecomend this book, like i said i have been seeing it on the shelves for years but never picked it up,it didnt attract me,but last week i was in the bookstore and it just jumped out from the shelf and into my basket where i had bought a few other books on writing well.
I just had to share this WMMC book with you i hope you dont mind
its just a hundred pages or so and being readers yourselves, you wouldnt be here reading this if you didnt love to read, im sure you could read it in an hour or less.Buy it if you havent already,its good for the kids too,its simple enough,but sends a powerful message.
John Thompson
Writer and Teacher
http://www.lifelikeamovie.com
