Malaysia Festival of The Mind V - What Is Wrong With The People

As my previous post described, I was at the Festival of The Minds V. From this event, I learned so much from the people there. But I also got a lot of feedbacks from other people who attended the event. Some of the feedbacks are really positive and encouraging. However, there are a bunch of minority with ideas and opinions that somehow made me think more.

"Now that I've got the book, I can study better!"

"I've attended the workshop but how come I am not reading faster?"

"Is he/she bogus? Cause I am not getting better..."

"Did I do this the right way? It isn't working"

These are the common comments I heard from people who attended the event. A lot of people religiously attended the talks and workshops. I even saw people splurging on books and aids products. Seriously, the booths and the experts there are really good. But, I think a lot of people went there with the wrong mindset and the wrong set of expectations.

This event is like a starting point, an inspiration and a mere guide towards a better future. How can one expect to achieve success simply by attending the event or a workshop for a few hours? Yes, the workshops are extremely useful at giving tips, teaching techniques and sharing experiences. But speed reading, powerful memory, skillful mind-mapping and many more takes years and years of practice and use. How can one expect to learn it all from just a talk or two? And the most hilarious is that I saw some people who seldom reads buying books like "How To Be A Top Student" or "The Secret of Happiness" and many more. Dude, buying the book and putting on the shelves doesn't help you to be a top student. And people, you guys spend every waking moment of your life playing the "emo kid" and complaining about life; how do you possibly expect to get happy?

There were also extremely impressive sessions of hypnotherapy and subconscious mind. The one where I attended by Mr Terry Winchester was beneficial to me. He talked about visualising success in the Alpha state of mind, where we enter our REM state. In order to do that, we have to let go of the Beta mind, which is our physical mind. After the event, a lot of people doubted and questioned his technique. Even some doubting themselves if they entered the Alpha state or not. Ladies and gentlemen, with all due respect, if you don't believe how do you expect it to work? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but if you are skeptical about the issue in the first place, why are you there to listen, only to spend time thrashing it?

As all the experts in the exhibition says, all our potential and capabilities are already given to us. It is already in our mind, lying dormant.

Mr Terry Winchester said,
"Actually we know. We just don't know that we know."

Mr Anant Kasibhatla said,
"It's all in your head. You just need the right way to use it."

I strongly believe that there is no such thing as one is born with better, stronger or smarter genes. Everyone is born with the exact same amount of neuron in the exact same size brain. It is all in our minds already. We just need to discover it, to know it, and to use it. By that I mean really working for it, not buying a book, or attending a few sessions, or doubting oneself.