Deceptively Fluffy

Deceptively fluffy. I mean that as a compliment, and it’s a phrase I would apply to Shonda Rhimes’ TV work too. It all goes down so easy, like candy, like ice cream, like delicious, bite-size, still-warm chocolate chip cookies; you think this is purely a pleasure read, a satisfying pep-talk in a fast, pleasing cadence, but nestled inside all that fluff, all that cookie dough, like the pill you press into a wad of peanut butter for your dog, is medicine, some profound truth that feels irrefutable because you agreed with everything leading up to it. I really enjoyed it. I’d read it again. And I really appreciate that she somehow makes it seem easy to transform yourself and your mental health the way she did while also keeping an air of fantasy and unreality running through it all to signal that it’s a lot harder than she’s making it seem and you both know it. It’s really that easy, but also difficult, but totally possible, but will be a struggle, that you can get through, even though it’s a long journey… So as in TV, where I think of her as the queen of trojan-horse social justice, here Shonda Rhimes is the queen of trojan-horse self-help. (Update, I actually read this twice in a row because it was so easy and fast, and because I wanted the seeds of wisdom to be intentionally planted in the soil of my mind so that I can nurture them and make sure they germinate rather than just scattered around and left up to environmental chance.)