The Subtle art of not
giving a f#ck
A Counterintuitive
approach to living a good life
Written by: - Mark Manson
Charles Bukowski was an
alcoholic, a womanizer, a chronic gambler, a lout, a cheapskate, a deadbeat and on
his worst days a poet. He is the last person on the earth you would ever look
for life advice or expect to see in any sort of self-help book.
He wanted to be a writer.
But for the decades his work was rejected by almost every magazine and newspaper,
journal, agent, publisher, every magazine and newspaper agent he submitted
to. His work was much horrible, they said. Crude. Disgusting. Depraved. And as
the stacks of rejection slips piled up, the weight of his failures pushed him
into the alcoholic fueled depression that would follow him for most of his
life.
Bukowski had a day job as
a letter-filer at a post office. He got a paid shit money and spent most of it
on the booze. He gambled away the rest at the racetrack. At night, he would
drink alone and sometimes hammer out poetry on his beat-up old typewriter. Often,
he would wake up on the floor having passed out the night before.
Thirty years went by like
this, most of it a meaningless blur of alcohol, drugs, gambling, and prostitutes.
Then, when Bukowski was fifty, after a lifetime of failure and self-loathing,
an editor at small independent publishing took a strange interest in his
work. The editor couldn’t offer Bukowski much money or much promise of sales.
But he had a weird affection for the drunken loser, so he decided to take a
chance on him. It was the first real shot Bukowski had ever gotten, and, he realized,
probably the only one he could ever get in life. He wrote back to the editor.''I have one of the two choices- stay in the post office and go crazy… or stay
out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starve.''
After signing the
contract, Bukowski wrote his first novel in three weeks titled simply post
office. In the dedication, he wrote ''Dedicated to nobody.'' And his book went
through a record breakable sale.
For the past years Mark
Manson via his wildly popular blog-has been working on correcting our delusional
expectations for ourselves and for the world. He now brings his hardest-fought
wisdom from this book.
Manson makes the argument
that human beings are flawed and limited. As he keeps on writing the fact ‘’
not everybody can be extraordinary. There are winners and losers in society
and some of it is not fair or your fault.’’ The writer advises us to get to knew
our strong points and limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears,
faults and uncertainties- once we stop running from our fears, and faults, and
uncertainties- once we stop running from and avoiding, and start confronting
painful truths- we can begin to find the courage and confidence we desperately
seek.
''In our life, we have a
very limited amount of fucks to give. So you must choose your fucks wisely.''
I recommend this book to read
and keep it secured with you.
It will guide you
throughout your life.
©
Kaushik
