The Prophet and Profit

Khalil Gibran's book, "The Prophet", sold well prior to the 60's. However, during the 60's sales sometimes reached five thousand copies a week. Blame it on the hippies. I was one of the suckers who walked into a pharmacy-restaurant-bookstore called Vars Brothers in Westerly, RI one summer day looking for it. It was up near the window, not hidden but not in plain sight either. I opened the slim hardbound 150 page book with margins wide enough to drive a truck through. The color of the thick paper was meant to look like an ancient text recently unearthed in Egypt. "It-must-be-a-cult" Knopf made a lot of money on the book. Nine million copies in English alone. Back then, it was not inexpensive. Afterall, I was paying for "The Prophet", a book I thought would bring me some wisdom. One of the things that puzzled me about the text was that The Prophet kindly informed me that many things were their opposite. Freedom was slavery; waking is dreaming; joy is pain. "So, whatever you’re doing, you needn’t worry, because you’re also doing the opposite." Not much is known about Gibran's life because he wanted it that way.