The subtle art of giving a FUCK

I hate the book the subtle art of not giving a fuck and I don't hide it because I'm a hater first and person second.

Listen, I read this book, the subtle art of not giving a fuck by Mark Manson (Manson? Sounds familiar) in 2018 and I still wake up in cold sweats over it, arguing with its author in my head, so I thought, why not write my counter argument here.

I already wrote an article about The rise of nonchalence and the death of passion, so I’m going to try not to reiterate what I said in there, but the global point of that article was that people, educated people, are making the conscious, luxurious choice every day to stay passionless and go about their day without a single thought drumming in their head like a Fatboy slim sample, because nobody dares anymore. Nobody dares to be interesting, everyone’s wearing the same clothes, has the same opinions, and it’s boring as fuck. That’s the article for you.

My issue with this book lies in general with its idea of individualism:

“You and everyone you know are going to be dead soon. And in the short amount of time between here and there, you have a limited amount of fucks to give. Very few, in fact. And if you go around giving a fuck about everything and everyone without conscious thought or choice—well, then you’re going to get fucked.”

I completely disagree with this quote. Yes we have a limited amount of fucks to give but to say you can’t care and give a fuck about things that don’t touch you directly just makes you a selfish asshole. Gaza doesn’t touch me directly; however, I’m protesting, I’m writing about it constantly, and I donate (even though that’s not very helpful since humanitarians can’t get there to help).

Besides, no one is out here being your nemesis; you’re not that important. No one is out there trying to get you and fuck you in the ass, people in general don’t care enough even to try to fuck you over. That’s the real truth: people don’t care about like anything. I’m pretty sure the only thought crossing your co-worker’s head this morning was if her ass looked good in lululemons. So if you think she’s out to get you, your job, you’re dead wrong. People haven’t been taught to care, it seems like they stopped after their teenage phase of ‘everything sucks’ to a phase of ‘everything’s kinda okay,’ and they’re fine with okay. Once again, the death of passion, everyone.

You are allowed to care; in fact, you should. Caring is important, passion is important, so care about local, national, and international politics. Care about art in all its forms, care about food, and discover new recipes constantly. Care about your friends and their mundane lives (yours is mundane too, I assure you), care about your family and your pets. Don’t be afraid to pet a dog outside, appreciate the sun on your face on a cloudless day, take a bite of a juicy ripe apple, and care about all of this. Care about the little moments too, because if you ignore them, you’re just missing out on what makes life so interesting and beautiful.

“Maturity is what happens when one learns to only give a fuck about what’s truly fuckworthy.”

Once again, a big fat fuck no. Maturity isn’t what happens when you learn to give a fuck about what’s fuckworthy, maturity is turning twenty five and your frontal cortex fully developping and deciding which things need to be prioritized is an important componant of that yes, but what about emotional maturity? Emotional maturity is about your ability to understand and manage your emotions. You learn that through living and making mistakes, you learn that through facing rejection, terror, and glorious happiness.

Now, I’m a strong believer that the self-help genre is financed by gym bros and moms in their 40s going through an identity crisis, which means that the genre is not for me. I don’t think it ever will be because I can barely listen to my therapist (someone who knows me) when she gives me advice so why the fuck would I take some advice from a stranger?

So, of course, 18-year-old me, who was straight out of their Nietzsche phase, was going to hate this book. I never believed in individualism; my great-grandparents were communists (they were still alive until last year and were a massive influence on me). I believe in community. If I didn’t believe in community, I wouldn’t be writing on a social platform, but keep my ideas and articles to myself or try to get them published traditionally (I don’t know how to do that).

To me, community comes first, I mean, right after the Careless Whisper bridge, so reading a book that completely denies the necessity of community makes no sense to me.

Outside of online communities, it’s important to have a strong community helping you rise to your best self. That shitty book doesn’t mention that does it? And you know what comes with the territory of having a strong community? Carrying them when they’re not doing okay, which is time taxing, mentally taxing, and emotionally taxing, and yet we all do it because we love them and know it’s just a bad phase. That’s also called giving a fuck by the way.

We should all care more. We live in a careless society where if you see someone get hit by a bus your first instinct isn’t to go help but to think ‘fuck I’m gonna be late to work’. That’s what individualism and capitalism do to your brain.

We need to de-wire our brains from capitalism and individualism. You’re not special, you’re not better than anyone else here, even if you have 10k subscribers, it doesn’t matter, you’re still a person behind a screen on a niche app writing. Underneath it all, you’re still a fucking nerd.

I’m writing this as my neighbor who lived on the first floor has passed away. He was not someone I got along with well, but a constant presence in my life (he walked very slowly, he was very old), so I’d see him almost every day up until last month, when I stopped seeing him. Yes, we had our arguments, but in the end it was over bullshit that doesn’t matter, and I wish I had cared more. I wish I had talked to him more, from one isolated person to another.

So fuck the subtle art of not giving a fuck, you should give a fuck. You should give a fuck when someone shoves you on a sidewalk and you should give a fuck when someone attractive smiles at you. Give a fuck about strangers, co-workers you don’t know very well, friends, family. Give a fuck about the little pleasures of life like a happy dog out on a walk, or a child (if you like children) playing football on the plaza, drinking wine at the beach, smoking a good cigarette on your break.

Please care, or else you’ll just become one of those faceless zombies who ask ‘hi, how was your weekend’ over the coffee machine, and that is just terrifying and embarrassing.

And don’t forget what Snoop Dog said: sharing is caring.

From Marseille with Love,

*vapes away*