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    OK, now that I've had a chance to get off my chest just how deeply I dislike the critics of the “create your own” approach, let me freely admit that sometimes they are right. Exhibit A in their favor is the New Age movement.
    If I listen carefully, I can hear my publisher crying somewhere. No, Bolelli, c'mon. You have already pissed off scores of militant atheists. Fundamentalists from different religions are united in gloating at the thought of you burning in hell. At least, be nice to the new agers . . . Do you want to sell books or not?
    Sorry, man, but I got to tell it like it is.
    The New Age movement bugs me precisely because it takes some beautiful ideas, and turns them into a parody. Don't get me wrong. Plenty of great people with nothing but good intentions are connected with the New Age phenomenon. But the whole thing mostoften appears so painfully superficial as to give ammunition to those opposing the notion of anyone “creating their own.”
    Today after yoga, I'll try Tibetan meditation. Tomorrow I'm off to healing with crystals, and then I'll complete my spiritual joy-ride playing with the dreaming techniques of Australian aborigines.
    Mixing different elements together is an art. Tossing a bunch of random ingredients together without truly understanding any of them is not. Even though many individuals are genuine—albeit somewhat desperate—seekers, just as many are on an ego-inflating trip taking them from one spiritual fad to the next. Besides making me sick, the pseudo-mystical posing that characterizes plenty of new agers ends up giving a bad name to the very ideas I am advocating, and this is why it bothers me to no end.
    Everyone has the right to be free to pick and choose the best from different ideas and practices, thereby creating his or her own path. But clearly, merely rejecting traditional dogmas and creating your own way is no guarantee that you'll come up with something good. Talent and intelligence—unfortunately—are not distributed equally. The abundance of choices is welcome to those who have the skills to choose wisely, but is overwhelming for those who don't. If you combine the right elements together, you can come up with a masterpiece. I worship daily whoever first departed from tradition by deciding to throw in the pan noodles from Asia and tomatoes from the Americas, and came up with Italian pasta. On the other hand, mix the wrong ingredients, and you end up with Alfredo sauce.
    This is probably why Benjamin Franklin promoted freethinking in matters of religion for highly educated people like himself or Thomas Jefferson, but at the same time he argued for the necessity to keep the masses anchored to traditional forms of religion. In hisopinion, in fact, they lacked the wisdom and self-discipline necessary for a healthy use of freedom.
    This same elitist attitude has characterized the history of many philosophical schools of Taoism. They rarely ever tried to recruit people to their ideas. Most often, they tried to discourage them. If, like most people, you are too stupid to play with us—argued the Taoists—you better stick to Confucianism. There, they will give you rules to limit the amount of damage you can do, and feed you fairy tales to comfort you. It's better for you. If you try to play with the big boys, you may get hurt.
    In the same spirit, Nietzsche wrote, “And he who is not a bird should not build his nest over abysses.” 21 An echo of this is heard in Hermann Hesse's warning at the entrance of the Magic Theater in his famous novel Steppenwolf , “M AGIC T HEATER —E NTRANCE N OT FOR E VERYBODY .” 22
    Call me idealistic, but I see no reason to discourage freedom just because most people use it poorly. Sure, not everyone can create something wonderful, but everyone can and should be pushed to honestly express themselves. Despite all the possible problems, I agree with Bruce Lee. I'll take a daring experiment that fails over a safe, wimpy devotion to dogma