Intro
I don’t really watch movies but had to watch this movie adaptation of Mark Manson’s book.
I really really enjoyed this book when I first read it back in 2019. I was initially attracted by the bright orange book cover and the word “F*ck” in the title. bonus points for it being a book about self-help which I thought was the gospel at the time.
My main takeaway from the book is that life is short and that we each have limited things to give a f*ck about. Family, friends, peace, learning, health, wealth, purpose etc etc.
With limited amount of time, we have to allocate time to the things we give a f*ck about and stop focusing time on the things we don’t give a f*ck about and things that don’t align with your own individual life principles.
Somehow the Mark Manson’s way of phrasing that idea that ‘time is precious’ really stuck with me and made a deep impression.
I think it has to do with the fact that he doesn’t give a f*ck about making the book formal and in a proper ‘self-help’ book format. The authenticity and truthfulness of the book was a great relieve and break from every other book.
I am sure it was ‘manufactured’ to be authentic by mark which makes it less authentic but that doesn’t matter as its authenticity and truthfulness meter is off the charts when compared to other books in the subject matter.
The rest of the book was pretty mid and I even read his sequel book called “Everything is F*cked”. It was super boring and wasn’t worth spending valuable time to read.
Anyways back to the movie. Here are my bullet point notes and comments.
Notes
Self-help industry is a lie: you can achieve your dreams is a lie
- Maybe in America, people believe that they can achieve their dreams a little too much but in the rest of the world people do not normally think this way. If there was a scale of how many people think they can achieve their dreams in each country, America would be at one extreme away from every other country. It’s the reason it rose from nothing to Global Superpower and maintained its power over the past quarter millennium. The rest of the world can learn a thing or two about dreaming big. Also agree that self-help industry is a lie. It’s like crypto, the idea is great but most of the industry is full of people scamming you and trying to get you to buy something useless they are selling. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t certain useful self-help books/products. These are far and few between.
Hedonic treadmill rant: rat race rant
- Yes. Rat Race bad and Hedonic Treadmill. Also got reminded that I wrote this post in 2020 (wow 3 years ago)
Friends with Jimmy. lambo. girls. startup guy. party. rich. confident. TOTAL FRAUD who lied to VCs to get deals and misused funds raised that were meant for startups.
- Love Jimmys. Ruining things for everyone.
Has a problem with self-esteem motivators, confidence, participation trophies. Little Timmy and Susie think they can be next Neil Armstrong
- Participation trophies bad. Need to deal with failures and learn instead of blind confidence.
These things create a generation of Jimmys. always positive, thought he deserved, felt great. ‘society can’t function if everyone believes that” “jimmy was entitled, feel results without effort”
- Yes society can’t function if everyone believes that. I remember watching this video of Shiey. Shiey is this pretty popular YouTuber who goes around Europe climbing to the top of tall buildings illegally (trespassing) and sneaks into the back of train carts to ‘train surf’ and shows his experiences of avoiding getting caught and enjoying the train ride from the back of a train cart.
- In one of his old videos, he explains his philosophy and way of living. He talks about how if everyone in society acted like him, society wouldn’t be able to function and how he acts in a way that allows him to be distanced from society while still being apart of society as the guy whose role is to be the guy that is distanced from society. If everyone acted like him and didn’t follow the rules society won’t work so he likes society to be where everyone follows the rules but he doesn’t follow certain rules like trespassing and sneaking into the rooftops of buildings and hiding behind train carts. Also even while not following the rules he still respectfully and doesn’t litter when roaming, doesn’t destroy the environment, places things back where he found them and tries not to break things at abandoned places.
“We like the idea that we are somehow the exception in the world”
- I love this idea so much
“Social media is human highlight reel”
Instagram: ridiculously beautiful ppl in ridiculous places doing ridiculous things
Facebook: Everyone getting married. Everyone having kids.
Twitter: apocalypse starting every day
Only had one job ever at a bank. Asked around table what they would do if they made 6 figs a year. “Buy this boat. buy this house. buy this thing.”
- Mark wanted to go on 1 year long sabbatical.
- Went on sabbatical, more countries, more things, more parties, more girls. max quantity of experience. Had huge fear of committing to people, events etc
“I was always jealous of people who had rules and laws named after them” fr fr
- Need a Sharvenium or Sharvesh Principle or Law or my life is a failure.
Manson’s Law of Avoidance: People will avoid an action or an experience in proportion to how much it threatens their identity and world view.
“No I don’t want to be too successful” “I don’t want to buy something that’s too nice” “I don’t want to live somewhere too fancy” “I don’t want to take a chance in another city”
“I am the chosen one” is the cheese burger and fries for your brain. It feels good but it is really bad.
- I agreed with almost everything in this movie and book but YOU ARE WRONG HERE. I AM THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME. I WILL CHANGE HISTORY. I AM THE GREATEST HUMAN BEING TO BE CREATED OUT OF 110 BILLION HUMANS THAT HAVE EVER WALKED THIS EARTH. I AM THE CHOSEN ONE MARK.
Rant against Karens. Karens are dumb. people get offended when you say they are responsible for tragedies in their life. its not their fault but they are responsible. shouldn’t blame others.
Hiroo Onoda: cautionary tale of thinking you are always right to an extreme
- Man stayed in jungle for decades thinking he was fighting for his emperor. A case of taking simping for monarchy too far and being skilful enough to survive in remote conditions for decades physically and mentally more than thinking you are always right to an extreme. Think of the group of people in the Japanese army who would actually die fighting for their emperor. Then remove the people who died in WW2 fighting. Then remove the people who aren’t skilful enough to survive in a jungle for 30 years alone. Then you have a Hiroo Onoda 1/1. Unfortunately, he was just too lucky.
Psychologist in cold war era interviewed hundreds of ww2 and holocaust survivors: majority said that while the experience was horrible, it was beneficial to them and made them better people. made them more grateful, compassionate, improved sense of self respect. mark says its like pressure on a diamond. can’t form a diamond without applying pressure.
non-f*ck giving mastery: not giving a f
- Not sure what the lesson from this was Mark. Seems pretty obvious.
Lesson from travelling everywhere: diminishing returns
Josh, best friend at 19, wanted to just sing and play drums, didn’t buy into bullshit, confident, did not give a f*ck. went to party. famous cliff nearby that people jumped into water. mark and josh talked about going to cliff but then just went to party. during party, mark was with girl. he saw josh and was like “hey where can i find you” while going separate ways in the party “seek the truth and i will meet you there”. said lol and went separate ways.
came out of house. everyone gone. everyone was down at the water. couple guys in water swimming, police cars everywhere. asks girl who was last seen with josh about josh. girl starts crying and shaking. mark realised what happened and walked for an hour around the water taking in what happened. josh died.
if there’s no reason to do anything. no reason to NOT do anything.
Realisation of death: it can all be gone.
stands near cliff edge whenever he gets a chance. body is anxious, alert mode. pure thankfulness of being alive. realises only few things in life worth giving a f*ck about. in face of death, dumb status games, dumb achievemetns you work towards are meaningless
- Back to Shiey, a true embodiment of not giving a f*ck.
Conclusion
It’s great if you loved the book and wanted a refresher. If you haven’t read the book, would recommend starting with that. The book is a lot more detailed and explores stories in depth. There’s a reason why it has sold over 10 million copies making it one of the most popular books in human history.
If you didn’t like the book, you should watch it to remind yourself why you disagree with Mark and spend more of your life on things that you do NOT give a f about.
