I may be suffering from acute paranoia here, which would not be surprising in the wake of Vegas, but journalist Nirpal Dhaliwal seems to be reacting to my blog in his articles in the Evening Standard.
It's happened 3 times in the last month or so - I emailed him (with a link to the blog) a while back and asked him to front up on his opinions re the drug trade following an article of his, but no response...
Then he wrote some similar things as I had about David Cameron – 2 days after I wrote them.
Then he talked about how nightmarish the London property market was after I did.
Maybe we are just both annoyed at the same things.
Anyway, yesterday he berated the culture of self-help, which he blames for his father's descent into depression. His father went bankrupt and became a self-help junkie apparently, never reclaiming his former success...
Nirpal blames self-help for giving his father false hopes and dreams.
This led me to do a bit of research on Nirpal.
His marriage has just collapsed due to his infidelities… He is now living in a small room in an apartment block in Shoreditch… His first novel, published lat year, is about a guy who relies on his wife for financial support while writing his novel and sleeping with lots of other women (which he readily admits is semi auto biographical)… His first novel has not sold particularly well… He seems to be pretty much down on his luck…
Added to this, Nirpal’s articles are diatribes on whatever is annoying him on that particular day. Real vective.
Nirpal’s life, many on the internet say, has turned into a bit of a joke. He was always wandering aloud when his marriage would end, and now it has. I think the problem is that Nirpal’s writing is so good – so readable and so achingly hip, ‘honest’ and cool, that he is trapped by what his editors want.
Inside, I reckon Nirpal is crying out… Yet still he hates self-help, which holds so many of the answers. He symbolises the youthful ‘island mentality’ which keeps people from realising their full potential. But his father and he now get on better than ever and are close.
It all makes me wonder…
What might have happened to Nirpal's father had there not been any self-help?
Writing time: 3 hours
Manifestation: 90% due to nirpal's negativity
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1 comment:
I am not familiar with Nirpal but he sounds interesting...particularly given the self-prophesising he seems to have done in his life. He sounds pretty negative/cynical. But yes, that is often appealing to the masses.
I honestly have never heard anyone blame self-help for providing false hope. I think it is likely that the self-help gave his father hope but he waited around for that hope to be fulfilled, rather than going the distance with it by taking action. That seems common...people seek out self-help but then abandon it or continue to wait for someone/something to bring their dreams to life.
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