The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
by Mark Manson
Pan Macmillan Australia
It is only after you have lost everything that you are free to do anything.
Nothing is static.
Everything is appalling.
Everything is falling apart.
You have to realize that some day you will die, until you know that you are useless.
Quintessentially, Mark Manson could have joined Tyler Durden’s campaign, adding the inscriptive of Charles Bukowski’s tombstone “Don’t try.”
Manson’s oeuvre is based on the truism that some things in life are just awful and we have to deal with it, no matter what positive thinking mantra is being propagated as the latest fad for the spoiled generations of millenials that are being rewarded for trying.
Despite the profane lingo – one cannot help but think that the crude language is used as a tool to trick to engage an ADHD riddled audience to engage with actual values - the book is inspiring as it is grounded on academic research and a fundamental acceptance of some truths, i.e. that you are not a unique snowflake with unlimited abilities.
It is about embracing your shortcomings, fears and limitations – about acceptance, lessons learned and confronting unpleasant truths to enable yourself to move on to figure out what truly matters and what needs to be disregarded and let go, limiting concern over things that have little to
no meaning or value in your life.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F is both a reality check and a mirror for self-confrontation, devoid of any positive airy-fairy fluff that mainstream media spoon-feeds us to believe in self-help gurus.
As per Manson, life is essentially an endless series of problems, no matter what your approach is.
Instead of wasting time avoiding those problems, Manson encourages the reader to make a deliberate choice to decide for which problems you are willing to sacrifice for.
“The path to happiness is a path full of shit heaps and shame,” Manson quips.
While the book does not reveal a world changing epiphany, it is an at times painfully honest, refreshing and fulfilling read that succeeds at kärchering the grime of denial and delusion off our pneumas to ultimately find the courage and confidence we desperately seek.
While abandoning hope, the book actually is hopeful and does leave you feeling elated.
The nourishing effect of Manson Trojan horsing some unfiltered truths past our filters to inspire thoughts that count.
