Richard Brodie dropped out of Harvard to join the computer revolution and write the first version of Microsoft Word. Then, burned-out helping Microsoft achieve its phenomenal success, he quit and embarked on an equally intense search for a more meaningful life. For three years Richard mined the wisdom of famed self-improvement seminars and workshops. Most of all, he wanted to discover why life seemed to coast along at either an "OK" level or plummet into "the pits," spending so little time in true satisfaction and fulfillment. In this book, he shares the results of his odyssey,...

Virus of the Mind is the first popular book devoted to the science of memetics, a controversial new field that transcends psychology, biology, anthropology, and cognitive science. Memetics is the science of memes, the invisible but very real DNA of human society.

In Virus of the Mind, Richard Brodie carefully builds on the work of scientists Richard Dawkins, Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett, and others who have become fascinated with memes and their potential impact on our lives. But Richard goes beyond science and dives into the meat of the issue: is...