Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Apple Loses Its Cool

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The Tao of Steve

In the movie “The Tao of Steve” (2000), the lead character associates the name “Steve” with cool, charismatic men such as the actor Steve McQueen. Apple (AAPL) co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs was famously cool and charismatic, and when he passed away three years ago, investors wondered what impact that would have on the company. As we now know, Apple rocketed to new highs over the next few years. The company had a product pipleline in place, and a wide moat: the convenience of upgrading to a new iPhone, for example, and keeping all of your data and apps, was and still is a powerful inducement to remain an Apple customer. Reactions to Apple’s San Francisco product launch event on Wednesday, however, suggest that Apple may have finally ran out of the residual Steve Jobs cool factor.
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Godspeed, Doctor Dyer

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In the midst of all of today’s trading tumult, I happened to see the death notice of Doctor Wayne Dyer. This wasn’t shocking news – – he was 75 years old, and he had health issues on and off over the years – – but I was still saddened to see the news and wanted to do a post about the man.

For those of you unacquainted with Dr. Dyer, he was one of the leading authors of self-help books. I doubt Dr. Dyer would want himself described that way, but that’s how I remember him, and that’s certainly how he initially became famous.

When I was a youngster – about twelve years old – I became afflicted with a mild and lingering depression (that’s not what we called it; I simply recognize it for what it is in hindsight). The book that I found most comforting during that troubled time (which persists, ummm, to this day) wasn’t the Bible, although that helped, but was instead Dyer’s first book, Your Erroneous Zones (as a little kid, I didn’t get the pun, but that’s beside the point).

I read the book over and over again. It addressed the subjects of worry, interpersonal relations, and other items from the long list of neurotic possibilities. In my teenage years, I carefully read Dyer’s new books, such as Pulling Your Own Strings and The Sky’s the Limit. I also listened (repeatedly) to the cassette tapes on which he read his books. I imagine I was one of the few teenagers in the country who was pretty much addicted to the wisdom of Wayne Dyer. As you can see from Amazon, Dr. Dyer went on to write dozens and dozens of books.

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