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A review by ashleywantsbooks
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
5.0
***Language warning - I do not censor.***
To say that this book has helped me understand what the dozens of self-help books I have read over the past...20ish... years of thinking like an 'adult' tried to impart would be an understatement. I can't tell if it is that this book came off my library holds list at just the perfect point in my most recent existential crisis or if it really is perfectly frank to call most Americans out on their bullshit. It is probably both. I know I needed to be called out.
Manson's point is not that we should or can give no fucks, but that we each have to choose the things about which we give a fuck. Those give a fuck things are the values by which we live our lives and we each have the opportunity to choose those values - everyday. He repeatedly states that 'not' choosing is still a choice. As humans we can not possibly give a fucck about every single thing - we just need to be conscious about what and how we decide to define our values.
By the end, Manson gets deep and heavy into the biology and psychology of humanity and how -using Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death" - we have two selves, the physical body and the conceptual self. We know our physical self will someday die and so our conceptual self tries to construct something that will outlive our physicality. " Our immortality projects are our values...and when our values fail, so do we, psychologically speaking...because giving a fuck about something is the only thing that distracts us from the reality and inevitability of our own death." (pg 199)
So, here I am in the middle of my own values crisis and I just got called out on my inner bullshit. "Because once we become comfortable with the fact of our own death - the root terror, the underlying anxiety motivating all of life's frivolous ambitions - we can then choose our values more freely, unrestrained by the illogical quest for immortality, and freed from dangerous dogmatic views."
I am very excited for Manson's next book coming out in May, "Everything is Fucked", and will probably purchase both books in hardback for future re-reads/reference - so much did I feel all of the things he said in this book. I think EVERYONE needs to read it.
To say that this book has helped me understand what the dozens of self-help books I have read over the past...20ish... years of thinking like an 'adult' tried to impart would be an understatement. I can't tell if it is that this book came off my library holds list at just the perfect point in my most recent existential crisis or if it really is perfectly frank to call most Americans out on their bullshit. It is probably both. I know I needed to be called out.
Manson's point is not that we should or can give no fucks, but that we each have to choose the things about which we give a fuck. Those give a fuck things are the values by which we live our lives and we each have the opportunity to choose those values - everyday. He repeatedly states that 'not' choosing is still a choice. As humans we can not possibly give a fucck about every single thing - we just need to be conscious about what and how we decide to define our values.
By the end, Manson gets deep and heavy into the biology and psychology of humanity and how -using Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death" - we have two selves, the physical body and the conceptual self. We know our physical self will someday die and so our conceptual self tries to construct something that will outlive our physicality. " Our immortality projects are our values...and when our values fail, so do we, psychologically speaking...because giving a fuck about something is the only thing that distracts us from the reality and inevitability of our own death." (pg 199)
So, here I am in the middle of my own values crisis and I just got called out on my inner bullshit. "Because once we become comfortable with the fact of our own death - the root terror, the underlying anxiety motivating all of life's frivolous ambitions - we can then choose our values more freely, unrestrained by the illogical quest for immortality, and freed from dangerous dogmatic views."
I am very excited for Manson's next book coming out in May, "Everything is Fucked", and will probably purchase both books in hardback for future re-reads/reference - so much did I feel all of the things he said in this book. I think EVERYONE needs to read it.