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The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck -Mark Manson - Coggle Diagram
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck
-Mark Manson
Chapter One: Don't Try
The Bukowski Experience
Drunken loser writes poetry, some publisher takes pity on him purely out of luck - dude becomes a bazillionaire
The Feedback Loop from Hell
You X (worry / are angry / feel inadequate), so you feel X about feeling X, which makes you feel more X....and so on
Alan Watts "Backwards Law" - the more you chase positivity, the more you attract negativity
Affirmations, visualizations, etc. are sometimes only really used to affirm that we are not currently that way (which is really just affirming the opposite of what we mean to)
Subtleties
1 - "not giving a fuck" doesn't mean be indifferent, it means be comfortable being different
2 - give a fuck about something bigger than yourself
the other, smaller fucks melt away
3 - You are always choosing what to give a fuck about
choose wisely, and give a big fuck about what you choose to
We are constantly bombarded with the message that we should give fucks about EVERYTHING
probably for reasons of profitability
And bombarded by images and stories of people who are "happier" or "better" than us
Everything won in life is won by surmounting adversity and negative experiences
Insecure people give too many fucks. People who care about the wrong things have nothing else they give a fuck about.
Chapter Two: Happiness is a Problem
Dukkha - life is suffering created by wanting things to be different than they are now
Unfortunately, this is an inevitable state for humans
Life is a series of problems, when we solve one another replaces it.
If we don't have any, we make them up
Even solving a problem just leads to the next
Problem: relationship stale. Solution: date nights every Wed. New problem: what to do for date night (logistics of fucking in a tiny tub with too many bubbles)
Every choice, every success, has an inherent sacrifice
The success we have is based on the pain we are willing to endure
Pain is good, it signals what we should avoid doing again or what we are not currently capable of
Seeking to avoid all pain is seeking to avoid all progress
Pain + Reflection = Progress
Pain is an indicator that you should DO SOMETHING
Disappointment Panda - tells harsh truths people don't want to hear (but need to)
Happiness comes from solving problems
SOLVING problems, not AVOIDING problems
Victim Mentality
Oppressor/Oppressed
Denial
Emotions are overrated
People get too wrapped up in how they feel
You know who is too wrapped up in emotions? Dogs and toddlers. They shit on the floor.
The journey / pain
IS
the point
Chapter Three: You Aren't Special
Two forms of entitlement
I'm awesome and you all suck, so you owe me
I suck and you're all awesome, so you owe me
With so many media options, we are bombarded so often by the 99.999999th percentile that we begin to think that it is normal to achieve
The obsession with "High Self Esteem" was a huge spark for this "everybody's special" participation-trophy mentality, which sucks for everyone
feeling good about yourself with no reason to causes entitlement
EARN YOUR FEEL-GOODS
Someone with true self-worth can look at their failures and shortcomings and improve upon them rather than deny their existence or blame/justify them away
So what's the point of trying?
Because people who truly excel realize their "average-ness" and strive to build upon it rather than delude themselves into thinking it is a) impossible or b) they are already amazing(ly narcissistic).
Enjoy the average and mundane - it is what is truly important
Chapter Four: The Value of Suffering
The Emotional Onion
What do we feel?
Why do we feel what we are feeling?
What underlying value makes us feel that this is true or necessary?
Good and Bad Values
Good Values
Socially constructive
Under our control
Immediate
reality-based
Bad Values
Not reality-based
Externally controlled
Not immediate
superstitious
Socially destructive
Examples
Pleasure-seeking
material wealth
Always being right
"Always Staying Postiive"
We are apes, so we are inclined to compare ourselves to others. This is almost always bad.
Onoda, the Japanese warrior who fought WWII for 25 years after it was over, only to find out he was on the losing side
Important: choose what is worth suffering over wisely
What if you only feel like a failure because you're focusing on the wrong metrics or your values are fucked up?
Rockstar Problems
Dave Mustaine - Megadeth/Metallica
Pete Best - Beatles
Chapter Five: You Are Always Choosing
It might not be your
fault
, but your situation is still your
responsibility
Story about getting dumped
might not be his fault that it happened, but he is responsible for dealing with it
although, he is probably responsible for his share of what went wrong
William James
sickly kid with a tendency to get sick decided to spend one year living as though all of his life was 100%
his
responsibility. Became father of Modern Psychology
yes,
that
William James
If you are miserable, chances are you feel like a victim
We are far more tolerant of the suffering we choose or feel responsible for
Fault is past-tense, Responsibility is present-tense
Malala Yousafzai - young Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban, went on to speak out against terrorism and violence
Poker - not always the guy with the best hand that wins
There is a current social trend that it is "cool" to be a victim
the media plays on this - something happens, it is broadcast to trigger one group, that group is broadcast to trigger another group, and so on
There is no "how
you are always choosing. Just decide to choose better.
Chapter Six: You're Wrong About Everything (but So Am I)
Three Questions:
What if I'm wrong?
What does it mean if I'm wrong?
Does me being wrong make the problem better or worse, for both myself and others?
We are the architect of our own beliefs 🏗
Meredith and the false memory of being molested by her father
Memories are like the telephone game - after a few iterations, they are nothing like the original
Erin, the crazy stalker chick - the dangers that total confidence in your beliefs can bring
being completely sure narrows your mind and your focus
being unsure leaves you flexible and open for potentialities
We are always on the path of pursuing truth, but never really reach it
every time we learn something, be merely become a little less wrong
Manson's Law
the more something threatens our identity, the harder we will work to avoid it
We have no real idea if any situation is good or bad in the long run. We only have our current, very limited, perceptions to work with...and that isn't much to go on.
The people and the random light experiment - everybody thought
they
had the way to "beat the game", but the points were just random
We make meaning from things, even when there is no causality
causality vs. correlation is a common struggle in logic
Chapter Seven: Failure is the Way Forward
The "Do Something" Principle
Just do it. Anything. Just start working.
Just 5-10 minutes
Just 200 words
When you're at rock-bottom, you can try anything. Worst case, you're in the same place you are now.
We are bombarded by the massively successful all day while never being shown the hours of training and pain and sacrifice necessary to get there
Someone who is better than you are probably just went through more failures
Invest in Loss - The Art of Learning - Josh Waitzkin
VCR Questions
Programming a VCR is confusing if you sit and think about it, but if you just do it it is pretty simple. This is a common theme with personal dilemmas - easy questions with painful answers.
You never actually know what you are doing. Ever. And that's OK, so get comfortable with it.
Pain is part of the process. FEEL it, let it happen, and let it motivate you to change.
Chapter 8: The Importance of Saying "No"
Freedom, in itself, isn't really a value and doesn't really bring about significant personal change on its own
Traveling to another culture allows you to strip away some of the cultural traditions you've taken for granted and question - this other culture lives differently from me and doesn't hate itself
The Russian coffee date girl - "What you just said is stupid"
Western culture values being liked over being trusted, which has led to massive cultural differences between us and the rest of the world
We must all care about something. And to care about something, we must
not
care about something else (we don't have enough fucks to give)
What we say "No" to is a large part of who we are
if we can't say "no", we have very little identity at all
Boundaries
Romeo and Juliet sucks. They're insane, and the entire story is based on giant amounts of assumption and miscommunication
Romantic love triggers the same areas of the brain as cocaine and makes us behave very much like addicts
Factors:
How well does each person accept responsibility for their actions?
Willingness of both parties to be rejected by the other
When your values become centered around making your partner happy, you may have boundary issues
In a toxic relationship
The victim creates problems, even when there aren't any, because having problems to solve gets them attention
Savers need to make the victims take responsibility for themselves
The saver will continue to fix more and more, because they only feel worthy when they are helping others fix their problems
Victims need to hold themselves responsible (and savers need to help them be responsible for their own problems)
It's not about giving a fuck about everything your partner does, it's about giving a fuck about your partner regardless of the fucks they give.
The only way a relationship can be rebuilt
The trust-breaker admits the true, shitty value that caused the breach and own up to it
The trust-breaker rebuilds trust over time with a track record of solid behavior
Both parties acknowledge that the road will be hard and support each other in their own parts.
Commitment
When we commit, we experience parts of things that can only be experienced by committing to one thing over a long period of time
Skill
relationships
Chapter Nine: And Then You Die...
If there is no reason to do anything, then there is also no reason
not
to do anything.
Facing one's death is life-affirming
The author and his cliff-side experience
We have irrational fears and fucked up values because of our frantic attempts to ignore or overrule death
The Denial of Death
Human beings are the only creatures capable of visualizing our own death or fantasizing about our own pasts/futures
We are aware, on some level, that we will die. We attempt to get past this by creating "immortality projects" (our values) that will live on past us.
These have often gone poorly
Accepting the fact of one's death allows one to move past these immortality projects (shitty values) and
Statues, our names on buildings, awards
All of our efforts are geared towards our desire to
not die
in this sense
When we become comfortable with our own death, we can choose our values more freely and without such dogma
What is YOUR legacy? What are you leaving behind? Let your values and your efforts be guided by that, not by the daily chasing of another dollar or a little more power/fame.
The very fact that a person perseveres while deciding to continue giving any fucks at all is a beautiful thing.