This blog post is about a book titled “How to hold a Cockroach” written by Matthew Maxwell

I had read this book many months ago. Subsequently I had a chance to listen to the audio book that I thoroughly enjoyed mostly because it was a great audible product with background music and a wonderful narration. The core message of the book is that we are bound by what we believe about several aspects of our lives.

Core idea

The core idea of the book is around the belief systems we carry with us consciously or unconsciously. It is mostly the latter category that usually creates biases in our thinking,

The book explores close to dozen aspects of our lives such as life, death, love, past, future etc. The template followed in each of the chapters is as follows: The author takes up on of the topics and shows that the boy has unpleasant feelings about it. The boy then remembers the cockroach and starts questioning the beliefs and starts asking questions to truly understand a specific topic mentioned in the chapter.

The Boy and a Cockroach

Why does every chapter contain a reference to the cockroach ? The first chapter starts off where the boy is at his dinner table and realizes that there is cockroach crawling infront of him. He is disgusted by the appearance of the cockroach. He is also thoughtful about the cultures that held cockroaches in delight and even consumed them. Then he remembers his mother who planted the initial feeling in him that cockroaches are disgusting and slowly he collects facts in life that reinforced his initial belief. Before he realized, he builds an elaborate set of belief system based on his initial belief. That’s when a miracle happens and he starts questioning his fear of cockroaches. He was afraid of cockroaches not because of what they were but his belief of what they were.

The initial chapter is a reminder of how we tend to find evidence that furthers one’s belief about something. We never question our initial belief as such and we go on finding evidence to further our story. When we drop our beliefs and start looking with fresh eyes, the world looks very different.

The Boy and Himself

This chapter talks about the boy hating himself and when investigated, traces it to an experience in his childhood that shaped him forming a story to further reinforce his belief. This is probably relevant to all of us. From time to time, 1we might zero in one situation and hate ourselves. We might trace it to a particular incident in life after which we just find it natural to hate ourselves. Once we pause and look at the reason for hating one self, often we realize that we hate ourselves because of the belief system. If we drop our belief system and examine ourselves with fresh eyes, we might discover a completely different person

The Boy and X

The rest of the chapters of the book explore various aspects of a life such as

• Love
  • Why does one believe that love is painful dangerous and scary ?
• Past
  • Why does one hate the past
• Future
  • Why does one dread the future
• Doing
  • Why does work seem so overwhelming ?
• Others
  • Why should one hate others ?
• Death
  • Why does one fear death ?
• Life
  • Why does one hate one’s current life ?
• Emotion
  • Why hate emotions ?
• Knowledge
  • Why does on get nauseated with not knowing ?
• Everything
  • Why do keep believing things about so many aspects of our life with out reexamining them?

Choice

We all have a choice on how we hold our lives. In the concluding section of the book, the author says

We can choose what things are to us, what they mean, and how to hold them. To do this, we may need to “un-know” some of what our minds hold as true. I believe that if you’ll consider this message and play with it from a place of openness, discovery, and love, you’ll be free to experience your deepest desires.

Takeaway

There are many ways this book can resonate with someone who starts questioning the belief system embedded with in oneself. If we really want to live and experience life, we need to let go of our belief system. We need to let go our of our filters through which we see the live. We need to let go our pre-conceived assumptions. We need to let go our egos as they sometimes cloud our understanding. We need to let go our memories that sometimes create false notions of who we are. I loved the audio version of the book from audible. The overall message from the book is a simple but powerful message - question your belief system from time to time for you might discover wonderful things about life that you have never paid attention to.