The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*CK: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

“Being open with your insecurities paradoxically makes you more confident and charismatic around others.”

An important aspect of the book is that it challenges us to consider what’s at the root of the paradox. Part of Manson’s strategy throughout the book is to reframe conventional wisdom, and this quote illustrates that.

“Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires.

The first part of this quote is largely understood as conventional wisdom and recalls the mantra, “no pain, no gain.” The second sentence draws attention to the need to face negative experiences head-on rather than devise strategies that prevent us from this essential act.

“The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering.”

A central idea of Manson’s book. Suffering must be accepted as inevitable if we are to truly grow as individuals. Strategies that deny this fact won’t relieve us from suffering.

“People who are indifferent are lame and scared.”

Although the title of the work suggests the adoption of apathy as a means of arriving at happiness, Manson quickly dispels any misunderstanding. Here, he clearly tries to differentiate between indifference and the title of his work.

“Happiness is not a solvable equation.”

Manson makes this points after his discussion of the Buddha. He claims that many people have the misunderstanding that happiness can be achieved if we only follow “algorithmic” patterns. This is flawed thinking because happiness isn’t the end product of some formula.

“We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change.”

Manson uses this quote to segue into a discussion of why suffering is a critical component of our growth as individuals. In this case, he’s appealing to the logical idea that without it, we would not have evolved as a species in the way we have.

“And this is what’s so dangerous about a society that coddles itself more and more from the inevitable discomforts of life: we lose the benefits of experiencing healthy doses of pain, a loss that disconnects us from the reality of the world around us.”

Manson generally limits large-scale indictments of Western culture to the context of his current discussion. This passage is an example. He views the tendency of modern culture to shield and protect against pain as misguided because pain is necessary to live a fulfilling life.

“If you think at any point you’re allowed to stop climbing, I’m afraid you’re missing the point. Because the joy is in the climb itself.”

Here, Manson shares his vision of what happiness is. It doesn’t come as a result of arriving at the mountaintop. It comes from the climbing itself. The journey is the best part.

“Because entitled people always need to feel good about themselves, they end up spending most of their time thinking about themselves.”

This passage is part of Manson’s discussion on self-esteem. Focusing on self-esteem leads to a sense of entitlement, which in turn leads to egoism. A narrow focus on self-esteem is simply a means of making the ego feel good.

“The deeper the pain, the more helpless we feel against our problems, and the more entitlement we adopt to compensate for those problems. This entitlement plays out in one of two ways: 1. I’m awesome and the rest of you all suck, so I deserve special treatment. 2. I suck and the rest of you are all awesome, so I deserve special treatment.”

Manson again argues that a narrow focus on self-esteem leads to entitlement. Here, he demonstrates how this entitlement takes shape. In both cases, people use pain as justification for a reward of special treatment; they feel that they deserve it because they’ve experienced pain.

“The pervasiveness of technology and mass marketing is screwing up a lot of people’s expectations of themselves. The inundation of the exceptional makes people feel worse about themselves.”

Manson includes this observation about modern culture in the chapter titled “You Are Not Special.” At the root of his observation is a trend in which people elevate themselves so that they feel unique in some way. The desire to feel special is therefore misguided because while we’re individuals and unique in some ways, our experiences are generally not novel to the world. Manson sees this drive toward feeling special as destructive.

“Our values determine the metrics by which we measure ourselves and everyone else.”

In Manson’s view, without clearly defined values, we tend to have misguided perceptions, in which we think that either everything matters or nothing matters. Having clear values enables us to determine what’s important and worth our energy.

“It’s far more helpful to assume that you’re ignorant and don’t know a whole lot. This keeps you unattached to superstitious or poorly informed beliefs and promotes a constant state of learning and growth.”

The mindset that Manson describes here is the antithesis of always being right, which Manson views as a misplaced value. Insisting on being right all the time robs a person of the opportunity to learn and grow as an individual.

“We should prioritize values of being honest, fostering transparency, and welcoming doubt over the values of being right, feeling good, and getting revenge.”

Manson is referring here to both individuals and society as a whole. If we value honesty, transparency, and welcoming doubt as individuals, we’re far more likely to have leaders who value the same things.

“Some of the worst criminals felt pretty damn good about themselves. And it was this feeling good about themselves in spite of the reality around them that gave them the sense of justification for hurting and disrespecting others.”

Manson is discussing the ways that we can use our minds to trick ourselves into certain emotional states. This quote echoes the sentiments from his discussion of self-esteem and it calls into question how a psychopath’s ego is often inflated.

“I’m the exception; I’m unlike everybody else; I’m different and special. This is narcissism, pure and simple. You feel as though your problems deserve to be treated differently, that your problems have some unique math to them that doesn’t obey the laws of the physical universe.”

Manson recommends adopting a stance in opposition to these feelings. The tone here is reminiscent of Ecclesiastes of the Old Testament. Manson views the pursuit of exceptionalism as futile and fraught with peril.

“If it feels like it’s you versus the world, chances are it’s really just you versus yourself.”

At its core, this quote refers to the human tendency to project one’s ego onto others, which assumes that others care enough about you to make your life as miserable as possible. In this view, sadism lurks around every corner, when in fact, it’s most likely the person’s projection of their own hostility onto the world around them.

“Failure itself is a relative concept.”

Manson argues that a fear of failure is unwarranted and can be the source of a person’s self-sabotage. With this statement, he forces us to consider an alternate view of failure in which it doesn’t always feel like disaster; instead, we can learn to see it as part of a larger process that leads to learning, growth, and a better sense of who we are as individuals.

“Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s also the cause of it.”

This is another reframing of a typical way of looking at something. Generally, people believe that it requires motivation to act; Manson makes that premise circular and argues that action can create motivation too. We don’t always have to wait for the motivation to arise before we act; instead, we should act first. This speaks to developing habits that support one’s values. For example, you force yourself to exercise, and you feel better, which motivates you to exercise again.

“The mark of an unhealthy relationship is two people who try to solve each other’s problems in order to feel good about themselves. Rather, a healthy relationship is when two people solve their own problems in order to feel good about each other.”

In the first part of this passage, Manson is referring to codependent relationships, in which each person depends on the other, usually in some dysfunctional way, to feel good about themselves. The second sentence here provides the antithesis and touches on how independence actually helps foster a healthy relationship.

“Acts of love are valid only if they’re performed without conditions or expectations.”

Manson is describing a feature of unconditional love. He sees this kind of love as the natural product of two people who do things for each other for selfless reasons rather than doing things because they expect something in return.

“Yet, in a bizarre, backwards way, death is the light by which the shadow of all of life’s meaning is measured. Without death, everything would feel inconsequential, all experience arbitrary, all metrics and values suddenly zero.”

Manson argues here that death is an essential aspect of how we understand life. We don’t have to fear it, nor should we. Accepting the fact of our own mortality can yield positive results.

“Without acknowledging the ever-present gaze of death, the superficial will appear important, and the important will appear superficial.”

Acknowledging our mortality allows us to have a more accurate measure of what matters. Nothing is trivial when we realize that, ultimately, our time will run out.