12/30/2017

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: Book Review


Dork score: 7/10

Many people in my life, including myself care too much about many silly things that we are better off moving past. I picked this up in attempt to help solve that problem. After reading it, I feel it's worth sharing. 

Having never read a strictly defined self-help book, I have nothing to compare this to (except perhaps 'Weird in a World That's Not' - which is a career guide), but as far as books in general go, I quite enjoyed this one! I'd say this is more of a life guide than a self-help book. I think anyone can benefit from reading this, even if you don't think you have any particular personal issues.

I had never heard of Mark Manson, so I visited his website. Immediately I was concerned he may be a bit of a smug fellow. The first sentence reads, "I am the NY Times bestselling author of the Subtle Art...". "I give life advice that doesn't suck". Way to toot your own horn, sir! How about simply and humbly stating you're the author of so and so? Is he really rating your own material? And here begins my short rant of the cons of this book:

It's funny that he mentions being humble in this book. There are a few subtle spots in the book where you can see a bit of conceit seep through - and at least two giant spots. The first is right in chapter 1 where he lays out a center-aligned, what I'm sure he thinks is a clever few lines of a personal philosophy. He then continues the chapter saying, "I'll give you a minute to unpretzel your brain and maybe read that again.". Mark, if I wanted and or needed to read those lines again, I would. I don't need you to tell me to because you think it's clever. Then second glaring smug bit comes later in the book where he names a life methodology after himself: the 'Manson's Law of Avoidance'. It's also a bit contradictory of him to discuss uncertainly so much and simultaneously, in several chapters, list bullet points on how things are. Judging from my short experience, I think it may just be part of his brand and marketing technique, hence the attention grabbing title.

Another small annoyance was some of the chapter/section headings; some of them just don't make sense and rather act like as attention grabbers. The title of the book is one of them, as this book is more about what to give a f*ck about. The subtitle as well... I found that many things discussed really aren't counterintuitive at all. Another example is the title of the first chapter: 'Don't try'. He even attempt to paraphrase Albert Camus with these exact words. This is a fail, Mark.

p. 10 "You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life". - Albert Camus

End of cons rant. Now that I've gotten that out of the way and moving past my skepticism, here's what I liked:

Despite the minor drawbacks, this blog-like book is very well thought out. Mark is and was originally a blogger, so it makes sense that this is likely a compilation of blog posts. It's written from a perspective of his personal experiences with tons of interesting anecdotes and famous quotes mixed in. At first, I thought the book was going to be a bit comical - given the flashy title and orange cover. While there is some humor such as the invention of his fictional superhero, the Disappointment Panda - the remainder of the book is quite serious, presented in a way that grabs your attention since it is direct and truthful. Thankfully, the use of the F-word is limited.

There is a lot I can personally identify with here. Much of the book reminds me of the philosophy of existentialism and the idea of the absurd. Basically, you are responsible for yourself and your own happiness and there is no objective meaning in this life besides what we give it. For the most part, it's not you against the world, it's you versus yourself.

I liked the section about failure when Mark compares adult failures to baby failures. When babies are learning to walk and they repeatedly fall down. Sure they cry, but do they ever give up and say to themselves, 'maybe this whole walking thing just isn't' for me'?

A good chunk of chapter 8 is devoted to relationship advice. Mark is quite well known for this type of advice as he even has a book called, "Models: attract women through honesty'. I quite liked the explanation of the unhealthy relationship between the saver and the victim. Boiled down - two people shouldn't be wholly dependent on one another.

The last chapter is about death. For many, this human realization drives how we live and what choices we make. Mark references the work of Ernest Becker - 'The Denial of Death' - which he won a Pulitzer prize for, ironically after his death. I will likely give this a read in the future. The quote below struck a chord in me.

p. 204 "The Stoics of ancient Greece and Rome implored people to keep death in mind at all times, in order to appreciate life more and remain humble in the face of its adversities.". - Mark Manson / Greeks/Romans

There are only a few times in my life when I thought I may perish - even if the events actually posed no real risk. One of the times I was in a plane. I somehow developed a fear of flying after working at a jet engine manufacturing company. Although statistically speaking, there is very little chance of the plane crashing - knowing how complicated the engines are and how many little pieces make up the engines - as well as knowing all the possibilities of what could go wrong, I just couldn't accept the fact that these possibilities have very, very small probabilities of happening.

In any case, when we landed and after stepping off the plane I felt my life was all of a sudden very valuable and precious. This is the type of reminder the above quote is all about. All of my 'problems' suddenly seemed so insignificant. I felt alive and I wanted to live.  Unfortunately and strangely enough, this feeling wore off rather quickly. And honestly, I'm not sure if simply reminding yourself is enough.

Mark even goes so far as to intentionally dangle himself off a cliff in South Africa in the Cape of Good Hope, which I am assuming with intention to more feel alive (which is a bit idiotic in my opinion). In our mundane, daily lives we become a bit numb - like monotonous zombies or perhaps on the other side of spectrum we are continuously irritated by silly things. Since we rarely ever have near-death experiences and just thinking about it isn't the same, I wonder what the better option is besides living on the edge?

Here are some additional insightful quotes:

p. 101 "if people in your relationships are selfish and doings hurtful things, it's likely you are too, you just don't realize it.". "People who date each other tend to have similar values". - Mark Manson

p. 102 "taking responsibility for our problems is more important, because that's where the real learning comes from" - Mark Manson

p. 119 "we assume we already know how the story ends" "certainty is the enemy of growth" - Mark Manson

p. 145 "... if it feels like it's you versus the world, chances are it's really just you versus yourself.". - Mark Manson

p. 170 "To truly appreciate something, you must confine yourself to it." - Mark Manson

p. 201 "The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time" - Mark Twain

p. 208 "We're all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us lover each other, but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by life's trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing." - Charles Bukowski

A great way to spend the last few days of my 2017 vacation - paving way to a revitalized perspective going into the new year.

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