No one can accuse M. Scott Peck of ducking the hard ones.
In his audio program ”Further Along the Road Less Traveled,” the psychiatrist/author discusses parenthood, marriage, narcissism, faith, sex, dying and the meaning of life.
That`s a lot of ground to cover in four hours. The fact that he does so is an accomplishment. By the same token, it almost goes without saying that his treatment of the topics, while perceptive, suffers a bit because of the time constraints.
The program (Simon & Schuster, $25) is made up of four lectures: ”Self-Love Versus Self-Esteem,” ”Togetherness and Separateness in Marriage and the Family,” ”Sexuality and Spirituality,” and ” `Going to Omaha`: The Issue of Death and Meaning.” (The reference to Omaha is from the Carl Sandburg poem ”Limited,” about death and our inability to come to grips with it.)
In the self-love lecture, Peck, who has based a good part of his philosophy on his Christian beliefs, says, ”We cannot not sin. . . . We cannot be perfect.” He adds, ”Part of loving ourselves is to realize that there`s something about us that we need to work on.”
The most effective lecture of the four is the one on marriage and the family. Peck, drawing on the writings of Martin Buber, says that when we choose a mate, we tend to fall in love with our own fantasy. Later, we discover that our spouse does not conform to our fantasy. ”That`s when the real work of love begins,” Peck says.
In Peck`s view, the work never stops. The striving is the very heart of life. In his lecture on death, he notes, ”It is precisely because our existence is limited that we are looking for its meaning.” Death becomes ”a giver of meaning,” defining the structure of our lives. As Peck puts it, ”We learn best when we have a deadline-what a wonderful word.”
His lecture on sexuality and spirituality emphasizes the links between the two. He contends that it is almost impossible to arouse either our sexual or spiritual side without arousing the other.
Peck says that God did not make sex ”as secular as breathing or eating, but instead … brushed it with a spiritual flavor … in order to give us a taste for Him, because above all else, he wants to lure us to Him.”
Depending on how you approach his talks, Peck can be either rambling or subtle and brilliant.
