I’m going to start writing up short book reviews as I know from past experience that it’s very easy to read a book and then come out a few years later with absolutely no knowledge of what was learned.
Book Review: Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope
To be honest, the main reason why I read this book was because I had enjoyed his first and second books (Models and The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck) and so I was willing to take a risk. There were definitely some interesting ideas here, but I’d already received many of these through other sources: Harrari, Buddhism, talks on Nietzsche, summaries of The True Believer; so I didn’t gain as much from this as I’d hoped.
It’s fascinating how a number of thinkers have recently converged on the lack of meaning within modern society. Yuval Harrari argues that modernity has essentially been a deal sacrificing meaning for power. He believes that the lack of meaning could eventually lead to societal breakdown and for this reason he argued that we need to embrace shared narratives that aren’t strictly true (religion without gods if you will; he personally follows Buddhism). Jordan Peterson also worries about a lack of meaning, but seeks to “revive God” as someone kind of metaphorical entity.
Mark Manson is much more skeptical, but his book does start asking similar lines. He tells the story of gaining meaning from his grandfather’s death by trying to make him proud although this was kind of silly as they hadn’t been particularly close or even talked recently. Nonetheless, he felt that this sense of purpose had made him a better person and improved his ability to achieve his goals. Mark argues that we can’t draw motivation from our thinking brain and that we need these kinds of narratives to reach our emotional brain instead.
However, he argues that there’s also a downside to hope. People who are dissatisfied with their lives can easily fall prey to ideological movements which promise a better future, especially when they feel a need for hope. In other words, there is both good and bad hope. It isn’t especially clear what the difference is in the book, but he explained to me in an email that his main concern was how movements cause people to detach from reality.
His solution is to embrace Nietzsche concept of Amor Fati—that is a love of one’s fate whatever it may be. Even though this is also a narrative itself, he believes that it isn’t so harmful as unlike other “religions” it doesn’t require us to detach from reality. My main takeaway was his framing of the need for hope as risky. Hope is normally assumed to be good; now I’m less likely to make this assumption.
It was fascinating to see how he put his own tact on this issue and it certainly isn’t a bad book, but there just wasn’t enough new content for me. Maybe others who haven’t been exposed to some of these ideas will be more enthused, but I’ve read his blog so most of the content wasn’t novel to me.
Further thoughts: After reading the story of his Grandfather, I honestly was expecting him to to propose avoiding sourcing our hope from big all-encapsulating narratives in favour of micro-narratives, but he didn’t end up going this direction.
I’m going to start writing up short book reviews as I know from past experience that it’s very easy to read a book and then come out a few years later with absolutely no knowledge of what was learned.
Book Review: Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope
To be honest, the main reason why I read this book was because I had enjoyed his first and second books (Models and The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck) and so I was willing to take a risk. There were definitely some interesting ideas here, but I’d already received many of these through other sources: Harrari, Buddhism, talks on Nietzsche, summaries of The True Believer; so I didn’t gain as much from this as I’d hoped.
It’s fascinating how a number of thinkers have recently converged on the lack of meaning within modern society. Yuval Harrari argues that modernity has essentially been a deal sacrificing meaning for power. He believes that the lack of meaning could eventually lead to societal breakdown and for this reason he argued that we need to embrace shared narratives that aren’t strictly true (religion without gods if you will; he personally follows Buddhism). Jordan Peterson also worries about a lack of meaning, but seeks to “revive God” as someone kind of metaphorical entity.
Mark Manson is much more skeptical, but his book does start asking similar lines. He tells the story of gaining meaning from his grandfather’s death by trying to make him proud although this was kind of silly as they hadn’t been particularly close or even talked recently. Nonetheless, he felt that this sense of purpose had made him a better person and improved his ability to achieve his goals. Mark argues that we can’t draw motivation from our thinking brain and that we need these kinds of narratives to reach our emotional brain instead.
However, he argues that there’s also a downside to hope. People who are dissatisfied with their lives can easily fall prey to ideological movements which promise a better future, especially when they feel a need for hope. In other words, there is both good and bad hope. It isn’t especially clear what the difference is in the book, but he explained to me in an email that his main concern was how movements cause people to detach from reality.
His solution is to embrace Nietzsche concept of Amor Fati—that is a love of one’s fate whatever it may be. Even though this is also a narrative itself, he believes that it isn’t so harmful as unlike other “religions” it doesn’t require us to detach from reality. My main takeaway was his framing of the need for hope as risky. Hope is normally assumed to be good; now I’m less likely to make this assumption.
It was fascinating to see how he put his own tact on this issue and it certainly isn’t a bad book, but there just wasn’t enough new content for me. Maybe others who haven’t been exposed to some of these ideas will be more enthused, but I’ve read his blog so most of the content wasn’t novel to me.
Further thoughts: After reading the story of his Grandfather, I honestly was expecting him to to propose avoiding sourcing our hope from big all-encapsulating narratives in favour of micro-narratives, but he didn’t end up going this direction.