On "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F"
Intro
So I finishedSeems like I was right about a few things:
* Reflection is very important, questioning myself
* Meditation
* Mortality... We all end up in the same place
I probably was less wrong about my life 3-4 years ago than I am now. In the past 3 years, I have been more and more pessimistic. But maybe that was a good thing, because this is either a three-year step back or, by realising this, a full step forward.
I think there are a few more things to consider:
Pillars
Some time ago I asked a question:If our minds can be so uncertain, and if our views are biased and riddled with subjectivism... how can we have something "constant", something certain? I.e. assuming worst case scenario that we were crazy, how would we know it?
Back then my answer was probably an acceptable one: friends / people who care about us. By measuring our "distance" we can ensure we don't stray too far into crazy land. By measuring against a few people we can ensure that we don't all veer at the same time into crazy land.
One other answer might be along the lines of "I think therefore I am". That is another certainty.
Mark comes with yet another answer: death. Death is another certainty. How can death then be used as a beacon? A navigation point? As he points out, by keeping it in our minds we can put things into perspective.
TLDR:
1. We exist
2. We die <- can't be sure of this
3. We are on a spinning rock <- can't be sure of this
Being special
I like believing that I'm special. Everything that I did which seems a bit off can be explained via this desire to be special, in fact everything Manson did in his book could be explained from this - waaait: I don't know that! The only thing I know is that believing I'm special motivates some of my behaviour. I don't know about others'Denial of death is a form of being special: maybe death doesn't apply to me. Maybe I'll be kidnapped by aliens so I don't have to face the fact that I'm going to die. Or maybe I can pay a doctor off, I'll pay them millions of dollars so that they'll make me immortal, they have to! These BTW are childhood memories, probably completely different to how they were originally (link any article regarding the high unreliability of human memory), but I still think they explain some things. They are basically my first encounter with my own mortality.
"Succeeding" - whatever that means
Maybe success isn't an act, maybe it's a mindset. Maybe somebody's worth is not measured against what they did or what happened to them, what if it's measured by their mindset. What if it is actually possible to have the same mindset as your hero, but at the same time be an employee?Being a victim
21st (actually equal with 3 more people - so more like 21-24th)
I like being a victim. I like being the first guy under the line... it makes me special. (later edit: I once participated in a contest and I'm remembering there the moment when I got to see the results) That moment, at that contest where the first 20 people won and I was number 21st.... that's why I'm special and I like staying there. I don't want to be in the first 20 because that would mean I'm not special.I stopped caring after that because I was fine with this... same with Uni... barely scraped a high mark while everybody said I was a smart kid. What if... I substitute laziness as a way to ensure I don't get in the top 20?
Instead of that showing me: "this is doable, I CAN do it", it showed me "if even after this is not enough, why bother?". I quit, I threw in the towel. I keep throwing in the towel probably. Why? because then I can feel good about myself in being a victim.
Or how about this: I like being the smartest guy who achieves the least, it makes me feel special: that special person who got dealt this "curse" of being in the 3% but never at the "top", or rather never giving 100%, because "I know that if I did I would be very high-up, but not top", so I never give 100%, cause I might actually be wrong.
Here's something Disappointment Panda might say: I like believing that I'm the guy who is secretly greater than everybody else. I'm better than everybody else, just that I don't like to show it. I like accumulating examples of small achievements, but no follow-through. Why? 21st place.
Actually the above is hiding the full picture: in that 21st place I beat a friend of mine who placed lower, a person smarter and older than me. That's the true reason why I didn't continue. I beat him.... I was the smartest of the bunch, no need to work. The "worked too much" is actually a rationalization, as you can read above. Probably the real reason why I stop is:
I just accomplished something very difficult, showing that I'm great.
These "setting my mind to something" are just incarnations of my need to validate that I'm better than everybody else... that I'm special and that even if I don't do anything else, it's still fine because I'm special. That is messed up.
Passing up opportunities
Maybe this is why no PhD, maybe this is why no job at big company, maybe this is why no job at company I really liked - which I am still secretly believing they will say yes. Even though I didn't like them, I still want them to say yes because that is easier and that validates my beliefs, because it would give me a high.Upset with somebody
I like being a victim: I secretly enjoy being upset. I enjoy acting upset so as to "punish" others which are close to me. This also comes hand in hand with the desire to fix others... to teach them a lesson.I'm broken
Even now I'm thinking "God, this is so messed up, I must be messed up! I must be broken." Again, being a victim. If I convince myself that I'm broken... well, there's nothing to fix.
edit on 2020-05-13:
Actually the above was pretty truthful at the time. I think I was kind
of beating myself up and now I'm thinking I haven't thought like that in
at least a year, but at the time... yup, it was honest.
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