0:00

I'm making coffee so it sounds like someone is peeing in

0:02

the background. Classic

0:05

reassurance. You're going to hear someone peeing in the background,

0:07

that's actually coffee. I'm actually hosting a

0:09

piss party right now. It's a golden shower

0:11

party. You caught me. I know

0:13

that there is gay shit happening in the background,

0:16

Michael. You do not have to lie to me. I

0:20

have a zinger for this one, Peter. Are you recording? I

0:22

am. I am. Let's

0:25

do it. Michael. Peter.

0:27

What do you know about the subtle art of not giving

0:29

a fuck? This is the first time we've done a book

0:31

where the title also describes my

0:33

approach to making an episode about the book.

0:39

All right. The

0:50

subtle art of not giving a fuck

0:53

by Mark Manson. Oh, we're

0:55

swearing. We're bad. There is one

0:58

nice thing that I will say about Mark Manson

1:00

before we get going. There

1:02

are worse Mansons. I'd

1:04

say he's the third worst Manson.

1:07

Surely there are better Mansons though. I

1:10

would assume there are. Nothing? We

1:12

often say that these self-help books should

1:14

have been a blog post and

1:16

this one actually was. Oh.

1:19

Mark Manson was like a rich kid with a business degree.

1:23

He got quickly bored of his job

1:25

in finance and he left

1:27

to become a blogger and

1:29

he starts off writing about dating. Oh no.

1:32

In 2011 he writes a dating advice book titled

1:34

Models Attract Women Through

1:37

Honesty. Oh,

1:38

that's, I mean, new approach for

1:40

us. Tell her about your yeast infection.

1:44

He sort of segues into

1:47

general advice blogging. In 2015

1:50

he writes a blog post titled The

1:52

Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, which

1:55

gets very popular and of course

1:58

scores him.

2:00

a deal for a book by the same

2:02

name. And here we are. It sells

2:04

like two million copies and change, something

2:07

like that. Does it actually say like

2:09

based on the blog post? That's just

2:11

like a funny phrase to me. I don't think so. Okay.

2:15

If they did, it's sort of hidden. I don't think that they advertised

2:17

it like that. The only thing better than that is in Pirates

2:19

of the Caribbean where it says based on the theme

2:21

park ride. It's a really weird thing to think about. So

2:27

we can start off talking about the blog post

2:29

because the blog post is sort of like a very distinct

2:32

thing. And I'm going to send you far too

2:34

many examples to get you into the

2:36

proper headspace. Okay. To just

2:38

sort of do what I do which is initially just get you upset

2:40

a little bit. Okay. In the same way that

2:42

I'm upset. What year was this published? Oh,

2:45

this

2:45

is recent. Okay. He says,

2:47

people often say the key to confidence

2:49

and success in life is to simply not

2:52

give a fuck. Indeed, we often

2:54

refer to the strongest, most admirable people

2:56

we know in terms of their lack of fucks

2:58

given. Like oh, look at Susie

3:00

working weekends again. She doesn't give a fuck.

3:03

Or did you hear that Tom called the company

3:05

president an asshole and got a raise anyway?

3:08

Holy shit. That dude does not give a fuck. We

3:11

don't need a third example but fine. Jason got up

3:13

and ended his date with Cindy after 20 minutes. He

3:15

said he wasn't going to listen to her bullshit anymore.

3:18

Man, that guy does not give a fuck.

3:21

Okay. I'm going

3:23

to keep it coming here.

3:24

Now while not giving a fuck

3:26

may seem simple on the surface, it's

3:28

a whole new bag of burritos

3:30

under the hood. I don't

3:33

even know what that sentence means but

3:35

I don't give a fuck. A bag of burritos

3:37

sounds awesome so let's just go with

3:40

it. Okay. I was upset but

3:42

then he saved it. The point is most

3:44

of

3:44

us struggle throughout our lives by giving too

3:46

many fucks in situations where fucks

3:48

do not deserve to be given. We give a fuck

3:50

about the rude gas station attendant who gave

3:53

us too many nickels. We give a fuck

3:55

when a show we like was cancelled on TV. We

3:57

give a fuck when our coworkers don't bother asking

3:59

us out. about our awesome weekend. We give a fuck

4:02

when it's raining and we were supposed to go jogging in

4:04

the morning. Fucks given everywhere. Stroon

4:06

about like seeds in motherfucking

4:08

springtime.

4:09

And for what purpose? For

4:11

what reason?

4:11

Convenience? Easy comfort? A

4:14

pat on the fucking back maybe? This

4:16

is no way to live, man. So stop

4:18

fucking around, get your fucks

4:20

together, and here, allow me

4:22

to fucking show you. Okay, I'm not

4:24

upset, but I'm really annoyed. Just like-

4:27

This is so annoying. Shut up, shut

4:29

up. Shut up. Oh my

4:31

God. This is how the entire piece is

4:34

written. And look, I want to remain

4:36

aware that I am on two podcasts,

4:39

both of which have received the occasional criticism

4:42

for using too much profanity. Yes.

4:45

That is actually how I talk though. I

4:47

was raised outside of Philly by a contractor.

4:50

This is not how Mark Manson talks.

4:53

And I know that because I've heard him talk. And I also know

4:55

that because this is not how anyone

4:57

talks. This just convinced me to never swear

4:59

again. It's not edgy to do this

5:02

anymore. I mean, it's tedious.

5:04

It's like if you've ever been around someone who's

5:06

like a little too sex positive and it like makes

5:08

you a little more puritanical. Where you're

5:10

like, all right. So this

5:13

is a 2300 word essay, give or take. The

5:16

word fuck appears 110 times or so.

5:20

So fully 5% of

5:23

the essay is the word fuck.

5:25

This is a right wing podcast now. What's

5:28

wrong with these liberals? Return. We

5:31

must go back. Dude, also, I mean,

5:33

the thing that you just sent me is like so

5:35

big that I have to scroll numerous

5:38

times to get through it. Like this is a massive brick of words.

5:40

And like all he's really saying

5:42

is that in general, you care about stuff.

5:45

And it would be helpful to care less about stuff.

5:48

It could be two to three sentences. But he's

5:50

not trying to say something

5:52

simple. He's trying to convey the image

5:54

of a cool dude. Yeah, he's

5:57

flipped the chair around backwards. He

5:59

takes that down. before he typed this out. Peter,

6:01

we try so hard to be like nice and fair on this

6:03

podcast. We're on the first episode,

6:05

we haven't even gotten to the book yet, and we're both just like,

6:08

fuck this guy. You always want me to be fair,

6:10

and so my initial goal is always to just get

6:12

you to hate the author so then I can proceed

6:15

as I want to proceed. So we can make it a Peter

6:17

joint from like minute five onwards. So

6:22

this book is part of a trend during

6:24

the 2010s of books with

6:26

swear words in the title. It starts

6:28

off, I think, with that satirical children's

6:31

book, Go the Fuck to Sleep, which comes

6:33

out in 2011. There was

6:36

a cookbook called What the Fuck Should I Make for Dinner?

6:39

Just a few months before the Manson book

6:41

comes out, there's another one published called

6:44

The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving

6:46

a Fuck. So this isn't even the first like I don't give

6:48

a fuck book? No, it's like how Hollywood studios

6:51

used to release two of every type of summer blockbuster.

6:54

Although I will say his blog post

6:57

came out before that. My guess is

6:59

that they were trying, that they were actually ripping off him,

7:01

but I don't really know what was happening behind the scenes

7:03

there. This is Armageddon Not Deep Impact,

7:05

Mike. This would be clear. Right, right. This is the

7:07

better of the two. There was one called Get

7:10

Your Shit Together, there was one called Busy

7:12

as Fuck, Unfuckology.

7:15

This is just like a small slice. I found so many of

7:17

these. I don't entirely understand what the

7:19

social psychology was here, but

7:22

I am calling upon experts. Someone look

7:24

into this. It's like a midlife crisis

7:26

for all of society. Now I understand

7:28

the people that complain about the cursing on this podcast.

7:31

This is already radicalized me. This

7:33

is so annoying. Before

7:36

we get into the substance, I will say

7:39

that after reading the blog post, I was just fucking

7:41

dreading reading the book. I was like,

7:43

it can't all be like this. But he actually tones

7:46

it way down. Like an editor got to him

7:48

or something. The word fuck only appears

7:51

like 175 times in

7:53

the whole book. I was about to turn off the Zoom,

7:55

Peter. I was like, I don't know.

7:59

Let's talk about the book itself. Obviously,

8:02

the purpose of the cursing

8:04

and the aggressive, edgy energy

8:07

is to present the veneer of a book

8:10

that is not like other self-help books.

8:12

Right. This is a cool self-help book. Right. And

8:15

that's how you're going to get the truth, right? I'm

8:17

telling it like it is. I curse. I don't

8:19

hold anything back. Manson says

8:22

stuff like this sort of explicitly throughout the book.

8:24

He's sort of comparing himself to other books, other

8:26

gurus, etc. There is

8:28

an irony to that because the real surprise of the

8:30

book is that beneath that veneer

8:33

is like a very generic

8:35

self-help book with advice you've heard

8:37

a thousand times before. Right. It's not

8:40

very interesting. It's frequently

8:43

a little bit questionable. Right. It's

8:45

also not quite dumb enough to be

8:47

fun to read, you know? Dreading

8:50

the rest of this episode, Peter. Dreading

8:53

where you're taking me. It's just a bore.

8:55

Zero stars, not fun. Also,

8:57

the minute you told me you were doing this book, me

9:00

with my like zero knowledge whatsoever, I was

9:03

like, oh, is this going to be like one of those diet books?

9:05

It's like, we're not like the other diets. We're like

9:07

the

9:07

don't give a fuck what you eat diet.

9:10

And then it's just like, oh, you should eat less and like

9:12

exercise more. Yeah. It's like, okay,

9:14

it's just a diet. Have you ever seen the TikToks

9:16

of that lady that like smells chocolate while

9:18

she's eating broccoli? Oh, God,

9:20

no, that's dark. She's like trying to trick

9:23

her brain into thinking she's eating chocolate

9:25

while she's eating broccoli. That's what this book is.

9:28

Oh, you're smelling cool guy

9:30

telling the truth and you're actually consuming

9:33

generic self-help. So

9:36

the book opens with a little anecdote

9:38

about Charles Bukowski, the writer

9:40

and the famous degenerate, of course.

9:42

Yes. The epitaph on Bukowski's tombstone

9:45

says, don't try. Oh, Bukowski

9:47

meant like, let your art come to you.

9:49

Don't force it. Right. Okay. Manson sort of

9:51

extrapolates upon that to say that Bukowski was

9:54

successful because he stayed

9:56

true to himself and didn't care

9:58

about what society. told him to care about.

10:01

Oh, like women? It's sort of a weird example

10:04

because like as Manson admits,

10:07

Bukowski was like a complete asshole, like a famous

10:09

asshole, an aggressive drunk, a misogynist.

10:12

And if you look at his life, it seems like a pretty

10:14

good example of why you should try in

10:17

various regards. Like you should make conscious

10:19

efforts to better yourself. He

10:22

makes the argument that not trying

10:24

is actually a path to success

10:26

in a lot of ways. I'm gonna send

10:28

you this excerpt.

10:29

He says, ever noticed

10:31

that sometimes when you care less about

10:33

something, you do better at it. Notice

10:36

how it's often the person who is the least invested

10:38

in the success of something that actually

10:40

ends up achieving it. Notice how sometimes

10:42

when you stop giving a fuck, everything

10:45

seems to fall into place. Yeah,

10:47

Peter, you should see me flirt with women. Sometimes

10:50

I'll like chat to some lady at a bus stop

10:52

or whatever and I'm like, dude, this is like a Rock Hudson Doris

10:54

Day movie. We're like zinging

10:56

back and forth. And then if I'm

10:58

around somebody

10:58

that I'm attracted to, I'm just like,

11:02

this is just vowel sounds. So I

11:04

guess to some degree, I understand

11:07

what he's saying. Your example is

11:09

a better example than anything he talks about.

11:12

Right. Sometimes when you don't care about something,

11:14

it removes the anxiety. Yeah. But

11:16

like, generally, I don't think that

11:19

it's my experience that I do better at

11:21

things I care less about. That is not my general

11:23

experience. I don't think my

11:25

experience at the bus stop is like a useful

11:28

rubric for understanding all of my behaviors.

11:30

I think I should care about this stuff. There's sort

11:32

of like a weird tension here where he's

11:34

sort of saying that if you don't care about the things

11:36

that you want, they will eventually

11:39

come to you. But

11:40

like, isn't this a roundabout

11:42

way of caring? Right. This

11:44

is like those diet books. They're like the minute you stop trying

11:46

to lose weight, you'll lose weight. Right.

11:49

Oh, so this is another way of trying to lose weight. That's

11:51

the thing is like you're not not trying. You

11:53

have the same goal. Right. Now,

11:56

the heart of his book revolves

11:58

around what he calls the three

12:01

subtleties. Remember this is the subtler.

12:03

Oh the subtler. The subtler giving a fuck. Subtlety

12:05

number one, not giving a fuck does

12:07

not mean being indifferent. It

12:10

means being comfortable with

12:12

being different. Okay. Okay. Subtlety

12:15

number two, to not give a fuck

12:18

about adversity you must first

12:20

give a fuck about something more important

12:22

than adversity. This one is actually

12:25

the central message of the book. Okay. When he says not

12:27

giving a fuck, he mostly means not giving

12:29

a fuck about adversity in the face

12:31

of your goals. Okay. Subtlety number

12:34

three, whether you realize it or not,

12:36

you are always choosing what to give

12:39

a fuck about. Yeah. He says, the

12:41

idea of not giving a fuck is a simple

12:43

way of reorienting our expectations for

12:45

life and choosing what is important and what

12:48

is not.

12:48

So it sounds like he's just saying like set a goal,

12:51

try to bust through any barriers toward

12:54

that goal. Sort of. So you can

12:56

essentially see that he's very quickly abandoned

12:58

any literal reading of the title of the book,

13:01

right? It's not about not giving a

13:03

fuck. Generally, it's about prioritizing.

13:05

As a person with anxiety, I know that I can think

13:07

about the things that I want to think about. Right.

13:10

I can just choose not to overthink things that don't matter. Piece

13:12

of cake. Easy. At the end of the chapter, he says, maybe

13:14

that crazy alcoholic Bukowski was onto

13:17

something. Don't try. Okay.

13:19

He brought it home. Did he? Because I want to be

13:22

good. What does that have to do with not trying?

13:24

I don't really understand. I honestly

13:27

think he like the Bukowski anecdote is

13:29

not in the blog post. He

13:32

does the classic airport book thing. Every

13:34

chapter opens up with an anecdote at the

13:36

Walsford Ave. Right. But in this case, he's sort

13:38

of building around this pre-existing blog

13:41

post. And so a lot of the anecdotes

13:43

are just a little bit forced. Although

13:46

we're already in It Depends

13:48

territory, right? Which all of these books come

13:51

down to It Depends.

13:52

So it's basically like, you should

13:54

give a fuck about some stuff

13:55

and not other stuff. Yeah. Which, yeah.

13:57

I sort of put aside some of this because it's so generic,

13:59

but he very quickly.

13:59

is like people these days care too

14:02

much about social media and it's like

14:04

yeah okay yeah you know like sure it'd

14:06

be on their phones so this made me think

14:08

about filler because I was like

14:10

the Bukowski things sort of feels like filler yeah

14:12

not part of his original post but he needed

14:15

an anecdote to open the book and so he sort of jams

14:17

this in even though it's not a perfect fit

14:19

right usually the filler in these books as

14:22

you know is like fucking worksheets poems

14:25

yeah right like incredibly obvious

14:28

but with this book there's none of that okay

14:30

substance of the book is

14:32

like his original blog post and

14:35

the filler is everything else right

14:39

a book of filler so the core content

14:41

of the book right is filler so I

14:44

think because he's like forcefully stretching

14:46

a very simple idea out to book

14:49

length there's a lot of like general

14:51

incoherence unresolved

14:53

tensions within his ideas even

14:56

in the opening chapter where he's laying out the

14:58

thesis it feels a little bit like he's rambling

15:00

at times I think different things at once

15:03

first he gives the Bukowski anecdote

15:05

saying don't try then he concedes

15:07

that Bukowski was a bad person right then

15:09

he says like you know when I say don't give a fuck I mean it's about

15:12

being different and then he sort of pivots

15:14

to not giving a fuck about adversity it

15:16

feels like the difference between wanting to write a

15:18

book and writing a blog

15:21

post and being told you should write a book

15:23

right you know

15:23

this is the same dilemma as having

15:25

a podcast about bad books when all of the bad

15:27

books are like

15:29

how do we not do the same thing over and over again

15:32

there is one substantive part of the

15:34

book that I want to drill down on it's the the

15:36

idea that you shouldn't try to

15:39

avoid suffering or adversity

15:41

if you are suffering in service of

15:43

some greater goal it is character

15:45

building and also a gateway to happiness and

15:48

satisfaction that is a key

15:50

part of this book I don't really have a problem

15:52

with it as a broad principle I

15:54

do think it's worth noting that it's some of the most

15:56

common advice on planet Earth yeah no

15:59

pain no No gain. Or League

16:01

of their own. What makes it hard is what makes it great.

16:04

That's right. There's no crying in baseball. That's

16:06

the bait and switch of the book, right? It's got cool

16:08

curse words on the cover and he's saying

16:10

he's going to teach you the art of not giving a fuck

16:13

and then very quickly it's like, okay, it's not actually

16:15

about not giving a fuck. It's about how adversity

16:17

makes us stronger. Sure. I was like,

16:20

yeah, I've seen brave art. Yeah, I get it. And I've

16:22

seen a League of their own. I love how

16:25

we have the most quintessential straight

16:27

and gay. Those are

16:29

our two Dutch stones. I'm

16:33

like, let's bring it back to Dottie. I did just think

16:35

of Brave Heart off the top of my head and the idea that the

16:37

League of their own came to your mind.

16:39

It's so good. And I have some Mariah Carey lyrics ready.

16:44

All right. A lot of his attempts to illustrate

16:46

this point are just sort of forced,

16:49

half-baked. I'm going to send

16:51

you some illustrative

16:54

examples. Oh, no. Okay. The

16:57

Misadventures of Disappointment Panda.

17:00

If I could invent a superhero, I would

17:02

invent one called Disappointment Panda.

17:04

He'd wear a cheesy eye mask and a shirt

17:07

with a giant capital T on it that

17:09

was way too small for his big panda

17:11

belly and his superpower would be

17:13

to tell people harsh truths about themselves

17:16

that they needed to hear but didn't want

17:18

to accept.

17:19

Oh, I don't

17:20

even know really what he's saying here, but it's just annoying.

17:22

His whole point is that like people need to hear

17:25

harsh truths or whatever. We

17:27

do not need Disappointment Panda

17:29

to illustrate this point. What

17:32

is it doing, Mariah?

17:35

All he's really saying here is

17:37

just you should have a realistic assessment

17:40

of your skills. If you want to be a singer

17:42

and you're not very good at singing, you probably shouldn't try

17:44

to do that, I guess. Sometimes he just sort of rambles

17:47

on for half a chapter like this. People

17:49

need to be aware that they're not good at everything.

17:52

There is a chapter called The Value of

17:54

Suffering where the primary

17:56

anecdote he uses is the story of

17:59

the holdout. Japanese soldiers after

18:01

World War II. Do you know that story? I

18:03

think vaguely, but I feel like if I try to

18:06

summarize it, I'm gonna get something egregiously wrong and embarrass

18:08

myself so why don't you tell me? Yeah, so

18:10

there were Japanese soldiers deployed throughout

18:13

the South Pacific and when

18:15

the war ended many of them did

18:17

not get word and when they

18:21

were told that the Japanese

18:23

had surrendered they thought it was propaganda

18:25

from the enemy to get them to surrender And

18:28

so there were several people who just held out for decades

18:31

and the last holdout is Hiro Onada

18:34

He returned to Japan in 1970s. And you know, he had spent

18:36

the whole time fending

18:39

for himself launching attacks

18:41

on local populations. He

18:43

says that he doesn't regret staying

18:45

in the South Pacific and in fact, he was proud He

18:48

was content because even

18:50

though he suffered he suffered in

18:52

service of a goal that he felt was admirable

18:55

Right? He thought he was doing a good

18:57

thing. So I'm gonna send you... I

18:59

feel a lesson coming on. He says

19:02

Hiro Onoda's highest value was complete

19:04

loyalty and service to the Japanese Empire This

19:06

value in case you couldn't tell from reading about him stank

19:09

worse than a rotten sushi roll

19:11

It created really shitty problems for Hiro. Namely,

19:14

he got stuck on a remote island where he lived

19:16

off bugs and worms for 30 years Oh,

19:19

and he felt compelled to murder innocent civilians,

19:21

too

19:22

So despite the fact that Hiro saw himself

19:24

as a success and despite

19:26

the fact that he lived up to his metrics I

19:28

think we can all agree that his life really

19:30

sucked None of us would trade shoes

19:32

with him given the opportunity nor

19:35

would we commend his actions Okay,

19:38

I mean he's reached the I guess correct conclusion

19:40

from this weird racist Sushi

19:43

roll line in the middle

19:45

of it could have picked anything could have picked anything that smells

19:47

bad anything So he's

19:50

basically said so far in that facing

19:52

adversity is character building. It's it's

19:54

affirming and Now

19:57

he gets to this example that sort

19:59

of shows the inadequacy of it. You

20:01

know, Onata was content, but

20:03

he wasn't a good person. And

20:06

so you want to face

20:08

adversity, yes, but you want to face it in

20:11

service of good values.

20:14

And Manson gives five.

20:16

One, taking responsibility for everything

20:19

that happens to you. Two, acknowledging

20:22

uncertainty. Three, willingness to

20:24

accept failure. Four, the willingness

20:26

to say and hear no. And

20:29

five, awareness of one's own

20:31

mortality. That one's a bizarre

20:34

outlier, but he says paying

20:36

vigilant attention to one's own death is

20:39

perhaps the only thing capable of helping

20:41

us keep all our other values in

20:43

proper perspective. I want to be better at tennis,

20:45

but okay. If you paid attention

20:46

in

20:47

like sophomore year philosophy,

20:50

some shades of stoicism here. A

20:53

lot of people pointed this out when the book came out and then he like

20:55

wrote a blog post being like, I'm

20:57

actually not an adherent of stoicism and here's

20:59

why. And then other

21:02

actual adherents of stoicism were

21:05

like, he completely misunderstands stoicism.

21:08

Yes, you are. So

21:11

we've transitioned from don't give a

21:13

fuck to actually, there

21:15

are five values that we must

21:18

all care about in order to be good and valuable

21:20

people. This is the opposite of not giving a

21:22

fuck, right? This is giving a very

21:24

specific type of fuck. But then

21:26

of course it is because like even in his opening

21:28

example from his blog post, he's like,

21:30

we all love people who don't give a fuck. I mean,

21:32

not really. No. We like

21:34

people who selectively don't give a fuck or don't

21:36

give a fuck about things that don't really matter.

21:39

But somebody who doesn't give a fuck about anything would be

21:41

like Bartleby the Scrivener.

21:43

I want to hone in

21:45

on one of Manson's ideas, one of his values,

21:49

the idea that you should take responsibility

21:51

for everything in your life. It's nice to

21:54

see a self-help book finally advocating for

21:56

individual responsibility. It's refreshing. Bold

21:59

stuff. There is a simple realization

22:01

from which all personal improvement and

22:03

growth emerges. This is the realization

22:05

that we individually are responsible

22:08

for everything in our lives no matter

22:10

the external circumstances. We

22:12

don't always control what happens to us, but

22:15

we always control how we interpret what

22:17

happens to us as well as how we respond.

22:19

I mean, sure, I don't know. I mean, I don't

22:22

really think this is true. Yeah,

22:24

I mean, whatever. But there's an argument

22:26

that, like, you know what he means, you know? Yeah. There

22:29

are a lot of things in this book that are presented as

22:31

harsh truths, but I

22:33

think a lot of people want to believe that just because

22:36

something is harsh, that means it's a harsh

22:38

truth. Yeah, yeah, it's true, yeah. They're

22:40

not truths. They're just like a cold, isolating

22:43

view of the world. You're not solely

22:46

responsible for dealing with every tragedy

22:48

that befalls you because, like, we have

22:50

responsibilities to one another, right? It

22:52

means you have a responsibility to others and they

22:54

have one to you. I don't think that's,

22:56

like, hippy-dippy bullshit. I think that's just, like,

22:59

the most basic element of existing

23:01

in a society. For example, if your sister

23:03

is really good at pitching and you used to be on

23:06

the same team, but then you get transferred to a different

23:08

team, you can also come back together and

23:10

forge, reforge the relationship, just

23:13

to pick a random example out of my brain base. I

23:16

love that this bit relies on

23:18

people remembering the plot to a league of

23:21

their own. It did take you a while, god

23:23

damn it. Our gay listeners got

23:25

that immediately, though. It's like, sister pitching.

23:28

Ooh, I'm with you so far, Mike. Every, like, older

23:30

millennial gay guy was

23:33

like, yes. Someone

23:36

just said, yes, out loud on the bus. Also,

23:39

to be fair, if you try to say anything

23:41

about Braveheart to me right now, I wouldn't be

23:44

lost. If I'm being honest, I was trying to

23:46

think of a Braveheart parallel as you said it, but

23:48

I can't really remember the plot to Braveheart. See?

23:51

I remember that his enemy sent a

23:54

woman to undermine him,

23:56

but she just falls in love with him. Classic.

23:58

The classic thing that happens to cool. dudes. I

24:02

want to send a lengthy

24:04

excerpt that reveals

24:06

in my mind just how hollow

24:09

and disgusting this worldview

24:12

is. He says, a few years ago I had

24:14

written about some of the ideas in this chapter on

24:16

my blog and a man left a comment.

24:19

He said that his son had recently

24:20

died in a car accident. He accused

24:22

me of not knowing what true pain was and

24:24

said that I was an asshole for suggesting that he

24:26

himself was responsible for the pain he felt

24:29

over his son's death. This man had obviously

24:31

suffered pain much greater than most people ever

24:33

have to confront in their life. He didn't choose

24:35

for his son to die, nor was it his fault

24:38

that his son died. But despite all that, he

24:40

was still responsible for his own emotions,

24:42

beliefs, and actions. How he reacted

24:45

to his son's death was his own choice. Pain

24:48

of one sort or another is inevitable for all of

24:50

us, but we get to choose what it means to

24:52

and for us. Even in claiming that he

24:54

had no choice in the matter and simply wanted

24:56

his son back, he was making a choice.

24:59

One of many ways he could have chosen to use

25:01

that pain.

25:02

Oof. Re-litigating

25:04

a comment on your blog from

25:06

years ago

25:07

by a guy whose son died,

25:09

I don't know. Like, what is the advice

25:11

here? What choice is this man being presented with,

25:13

exactly, right? The weight of his trauma

25:16

is extremely difficult to bear. The

25:19

fact that he's responsible for bearing

25:21

it is what makes it difficult. And the

25:23

implication here is that he could take

25:26

this pain and sort of like

25:28

segue it into something. And I

25:31

don't really think that that is true.

25:33

I don't think that you are responsible

25:36

in a sense that you can change what you're feeling.

25:39

It's actually much better advice to

25:41

like give yourself permission to

25:43

feel the way that you feel. It's like objectively really

25:46

fucking awful to go through

25:47

that. He does. Later in the book, he talks

25:49

about the work of a psychologist,

25:51

like a polar psychologist, Debrowski,

25:54

I think it is, who studied victims

25:56

of the Holocaust and basically

25:58

discovered that a lot of people were in the same

25:59

place.

25:59

A lot of them felt that they were better

26:02

people in a lot of ways for having

26:04

gone through these severe traumas. And he introduces

26:06

this theory called positive disintegration, which

26:09

is very interesting. It's not really

26:11

what Manson is getting at, but he's sort

26:14

of trying to like address large

26:17

severe trauma in a way. Right.

26:19

But he never quite gets there and he

26:21

never squares it with his like, take responsibility

26:24

bullshit because it's not really meaningful advice.

26:26

You need to become 1% better at ignoring

26:29

your son's death every day. That's

26:31

the real, that's the math, that's the scientific way.

26:33

Obviously what was happening here is that that guy's

26:35

comment shook him up a little bit and

26:37

made him realize that there was something inadequate

26:40

about what he was offering, what

26:42

he was saying. And

26:45

rather than

26:46

try to look into words and think about what

26:48

was like missing from his philosophy, he's

26:51

like, look at this, look at this loser complaining

26:54

about his son's death. Am I the problem?

26:56

No, it's the internet commenters that are wrong. I

26:58

will say this is something that it feels like you would

27:01

do where it's like, here's this guy I've been Twitter

27:03

beefing with. There's like an entire

27:05

chapter in your book about it. I can

27:07

see that from my car. This

27:11

is why I haven't written a book yet. Just be fucking Twitter

27:13

beef. I would read a book just called Beefin' with Hobbs.

27:15

And it's just like, if you just

27:18

like every chapter is just a distinct

27:20

Twitter beef you've had. Oh,

27:23

God. The rest of the book goes through

27:26

each of his like five values that

27:28

you should prioritize. I'm not going to cover them

27:30

all in detail, but there is a thread

27:32

running through the book that I want to pull

27:35

out a little bit. Michael, what is my favorite

27:38

pet theory on this podcast? One

27:40

book. One book, baby. The

27:42

book that this consistently reminded me of was

27:45

like a self-help version of

27:47

the coddling of the American mind. Oh. At

27:50

one point, he even uses the phrase

27:52

the pampering

27:53

of the American mind,

27:55

which made me think that he was inspired by the original

27:57

essay, the coddling of the American mind. And

28:00

also, Mark Manson now recommends

28:03

the book. Oh, is he about to take us to Oberlin?

28:05

Don't worry, he doesn't get that detail. That would require

28:07

a level of research

28:09

that Fogg is deeply unwilling

28:12

to engage in. The eight minutes of Googling

28:14

that the authors of the coddling of the American mind

28:16

did to write their book. That's beyond

28:19

his skills. Mark doesn't give a fuck about

28:21

research. So, like

28:23

I said, he talks extensively about willingness to

28:25

face adversity, and a big

28:28

part of that is complaining about kids

28:30

these days. Hell yeah. People are too

28:32

soft, unwilling to face challenges.

28:36

I mentioned that there is a chapter called You Are Not Special.

28:39

I am going to send you some of it. Sometime

28:43

in the 1960s, developing high

28:45

self-esteem, having positive thoughts and feelings

28:47

about oneself, became all the rage

28:50

in psychology. Research found that

28:52

people who thought highly about themselves generally

28:54

performed better and caused fewer problems.

28:56

As a result, beginning in the next decade,

28:58

the 70s, self-esteem practices began

29:01

to be taught by parents, emphasized

29:03

by therapists, politicians, and teachers, and

29:06

instituted into educational policy. Grade

29:08

inflation, for example, was implemented to make

29:10

low-achieving kids feel better about

29:12

their

29:13

lack of achievement. Participation awards and bogus trophies

29:15

were invented for any number of mundane

29:18

and expected activities. The

29:21

funniest thing about this is that he says like in the

29:23

60s, self-esteem, the next decade,

29:26

the 70s. Blast

29:28

that word count up, Mark. There's none of this, I

29:31

mean, none of this is fucking true. Basically none of

29:33

this is true. So first of all, the next thing

29:35

he says is, it's a generation later and the data

29:37

is in. We're not all exceptional. But

29:41

there are no citations in this book at

29:43

all. Oh really? I was like, I

29:45

guess we have to trust him, but data is in. You

29:48

know, the grade inflation thing is just

29:50

not true. He says that it's the result of an

29:52

effort to boost kids' self-esteem.

29:55

Now I found absolutely no evidence of this. Grade

29:57

inflation in both primary and secondary schools over

29:59

the years. over the last like half century is

30:02

very real. The causes are complex,

30:04

the consensus seems to be that it's the result

30:06

of perverse incentives among the schools,

30:09

right? Schools want high graduation rates,

30:11

they want to place students in good colleges,

30:13

colleges wanna place students in good jobs, all

30:16

of that creates upward pressure on grades.

30:18

It's not because they're just trying to be nice to the kids.

30:21

Yeah, like, oh, they can't handle getting a D.

30:22

The participation trophy thing, I mean,

30:25

fairly worth addressing, but someone

30:28

over at Slate looked into this a few years ago

30:30

and traced participation trophies back like a hundred

30:32

years. It's just a way to encourage kids

30:35

to like get into sports. All

30:37

of this is just bullshit.

30:39

And he like hits on all

30:42

of the dumb conservative

30:45

talking points here. He says, numerous

30:47

professors and educators have noted a lack

30:50

of emotional resilience and an excess

30:52

of selfish demands in today's young

30:54

people. It's not uncommon now for books to be

30:56

removed from a class's curriculum for no other

30:59

reason than that they made someone feel bad.

31:01

Oh. Speakers and professors are shouted

31:04

down and banned from campuses for infractions

31:06

as simple as suggesting that maybe some Halloween

31:08

costumes really aren't that offensive.

31:11

Oh my God. Chapter 12, what

31:13

is a woman? Can you define it? They're

31:15

using different

31:16

bathrooms. I

31:18

didn't think it was gonna get so explicitly

31:19

reactionary. At

31:21

one point he says like, this is happening on both the

31:23

right and left. But if you need proof that

31:26

he read that coddling of

31:28

the American mind essay, this is it. He's just

31:30

ripping from it. Halloween costumes.

31:32

Apparently a little bit of face paint

31:35

is unacceptable. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

31:39

What was the paint? What was the paint, Mark? What

31:42

did they say? It's also so fucked

31:44

up that like

31:45

my brain is so fried that when

31:47

he

31:47

says Halloween costumes, I

31:49

actually know the specific incident that

31:51

he's talking about. It's like

31:53

I have all these fucking fake anecdotes

31:56

bouncing around in my head and I'm like, oh yeah, that was the one at

31:58

Yale or like the guy. Right, right.

31:59

reactionary and got in fire. It's like fuck. Why

32:03

is this in here? Mariah Carey lyrics and fucking

32:05

cancel culture

32:06

anecdotes is all I have left. And

32:08

then you're like, tell me about World War II and I'm like, oh

32:10

no, tell me about it. The more cancel culture

32:13

anecdotes enter your brain, the more

32:15

you lose your grip on Mariah, you know. One

32:18

day you'll be listening to All I Want for Christmas is You

32:20

and not quite remembering your lyrics and you will know

32:22

that you have gone too far. It's very funny to me

32:24

that that's the only Mariah Carey song that you can name. No,

32:27

first of all, no fantasy. I

32:29

know. Keep going, Peter. What else

32:31

you got? There

32:36

are a lot of Mariah songs you could play and I could sing

32:38

along, but I'm not sure that I remember the dials. We

32:41

played them at the wedding, OK? Alright, that's true. You

32:43

did. Alright, there is a section

32:46

titled Victimhood Chic and

32:48

I'm going to send you a little bit of it. He says, unfortunately,

32:51

one side effect of the

32:53

internet and social media is that it's become easier

32:55

than ever to push responsibility for

32:57

even the tiniest of infractions onto

32:59

some other group or person. In fact,

33:02

this kind of public blame shame game

33:04

has become popular. In certain crowds,

33:06

it's even seen as cool, quote,

33:09

cool, unquote. The public

33:11

sharing of, quote unquote, injustices

33:15

garners far more attention and emotional

33:17

outpouring than most other events on social

33:19

media, rewarding people who are able

33:21

to perpetually feel victimized with

33:23

ever-growing amounts of attention and sympathy.

33:26

I love that he puts injustices

33:27

in quotes. Well, you

33:30

can't concede any ground to

33:32

these fucking libs. These fucking losers,

33:34

man. So, surprise appearance by San Francisco

33:36

here. Remember victimology? Here

33:39

we are. One book, baby. I'm

33:41

never wrong. Is the next paragraph about, like, how

33:44

to use this to get girls? I'm like, well,

33:46

we shitted her and, like, nail her

33:47

sister. That's the only thing.

33:49

There is, you know, there is, like, the

33:52

lightest hints of – I won't say there's

33:54

sexism in this book, but there are times

33:57

when he talks about how, like, having

33:59

a lot of sex – isn't fulfilling, but

34:01

in a way where it feels like he's

34:03

trying to mention that he at one point in his life he

34:05

had a lot of sex. I

34:09

want to make it clear that I have had lots of sex. Look,

34:11

getting tons of pussy, being the coolest

34:14

guy in the club, that's

34:16

not all there is, you know, being

34:18

a millionaire. I knew you were gonna go into your

34:21

voice. I can't help it. I could feel it coming. It doesn't

34:23

matter that none of our authors sound like

34:25

that. I have to do it. You've

34:28

placed him firmly in New Jersey. I want

34:30

to step back and sort of gaze

34:33

out upon what we have learned at a high

34:35

level. Do not give a fuck about adversity

34:38

because it makes us stronger and better. Do

34:40

give a fuck about important things, specifically

34:43

the five great values. But

34:45

not important things like the death of your child. The subtle

34:47

art of not giving a fuck about your child's death.

34:50

Lingering over the entire book is

34:52

this question of like how, right?

34:54

It's simple enough to say like change your priorities,

34:57

prioritize the important stuff, deprioritize

35:00

the dumb stuff. Sure. That's not very

35:02

insightful, right? How do you actually do

35:04

that? And I sort of thought that was what

35:06

the whole book was gonna be about. Like I

35:09

know that there are things in my day-to-day

35:11

life that I pay way too much attention to.

35:13

I know that about you too. But how

35:15

do you rewire your brain, right?

35:18

I am going to send you what I think

35:20

I can fairly say is the sum total of

35:22

his advice

35:23

on this front. He says,

35:26

you are already choosing in every moment

35:28

of every day what to give a fuck about. So

35:31

change is as simple as choosing to

35:33

give a fuck about something else. It

35:36

really is that simple. It's just

35:38

not easy.

35:39

Oh,

35:40

well yeah, we're just back to like be

35:43

a different person.

35:43

This made me so mad. This is

35:45

like if you opened up a financial advice book

35:48

and the advice was like, get rich. Right.

35:50

Like we have all these like chemical impulses,

35:53

social and cultural influences,

35:56

etc, etc. That like come together

35:58

in our brain to form what we view

36:00

as our priorities. And the sum

36:02

total of the practical advice in this book

36:05

is just like, you got to change that. Pay

36:07

yourself first. Here

36:10

is one book. One of the first things I

36:12

said to you was, I'm going to send you a bunch of long

36:14

ass excerpts in this book because he just, he

36:16

sort of carries on in his writing. And

36:19

then you get to the part that you actually need to know

36:21

and all of a sudden he's quite succinct.

36:23

And he punks. Just got so mad at

36:25

reading this because like, how dare you, how

36:28

dare you even pretend that this

36:30

is a passable way to address this? Just

36:33

give me like a shitty chapter with

36:36

fake psychological tricks like every

36:38

other book. In fairness, he is implementing

36:41

Bukowski's rule about not trying. He's

36:44

doing it. He's living it. Treat me like an asshole.

36:46

You know, that would be better

36:48

than what you do here, which is just

36:50

be like, you got to change that. We're

36:53

on page 247. He's like, care about other stuff.

36:56

Have you tried caring about other stuff? I

36:58

was like desperately flipping forward in the book like, no,

37:00

this can't be the end. This brings

37:02

me to the last section of this episode.

37:05

And I think it's time we talked about this. So I'm

37:07

going to ask you a question. I'll give you a minute. In

37:10

your view, Michael, what is a grifter?

37:13

Oh, this

37:14

is something that has become a more commonly

37:16

used term.

37:17

And like all commonly used terms,

37:19

I think has taken

37:20

on like a kind of muddy definition.

37:23

But I think of it as someone who like knows

37:26

that they are scamming you and

37:28

are scamming you. Yeah, I think that you're

37:30

onto something there. I think there's there needs to

37:32

be a bad faith element. And

37:34

I think maybe a simple way to

37:36

define it is someone who aggressively

37:39

monetizes themselves in

37:41

a way that undermines the authenticity

37:44

of what they're doing. Right. So it seems

37:46

like the true goal is

37:48

the money rather than whatever

37:50

they say it is. So Mark Manson was a

37:53

blogger, like I said, right? He publishes a

37:55

dating book, one of thousands on

37:57

the market. He keeps blogging, writes

37:59

a book. popular post spins that into a book

38:02

deal for this book. The book is a hit.

38:04

And from there he just sort of keeps it going

38:06

in various ways. He puts out another

38:09

book in 2019 called Everything

38:11

is Fucked. He co-writes

38:14

Will Smith's memoir in 2021. Okay,

38:17

that's actually the most respectable thing he's done so far.

38:20

I feel like ghostwriting is a real art. He sells

38:23

monthly subscription content on his website

38:25

where you get access to like articles and

38:28

his e-books, video courses.

38:31

He posts videos on YouTube, which

38:34

is just him summarizing his own content, a

38:37

lot of which is him summarizing his own content.

38:39

He recently launched a podcast. Just

38:42

this year, he put out the subtle art of not

38:44

getting a fuck movie, which I watched 10 minutes

38:47

of last night before I realized I hadn't

38:49

watched this week's Survivor. And I was like, no. You

38:51

tried. You tried and you made it 10 minutes. And

38:54

what I could gather, it was him doing loose

38:57

narration over like stock footage.

39:00

Okay. I did not. I couldn't

39:02

do it. I was like, no. I've always wanted a sequel to Koyanis

39:05

Katsu that's mostly complaints about internet commenters

39:07

and college sophomores. You know, I said

39:09

right up top that he rambles. Yeah. And

39:12

the result is like a bunch of different ideas

39:14

that just don't fully mesh. The

39:16

latter section where he's talking about

39:19

how like you need to be aware of your own mortality, it's

39:21

just him sort of going on about

39:24

death and its meaning and like what it means for how

39:27

we should live our lives. And he says, the

39:30

only way to be comfortable with death is to

39:32

understand and see yourself as something bigger than yourself,

39:34

to choose values that stretch beyond serving

39:36

yourself that are simple and immediate and controllable

39:39

and tolerant of the chaotic world around

39:42

you. This is the basic root of all

39:44

happiness. He sort of

39:46

has this very atomized presentation

39:49

and then all of a sudden he like pivots

39:51

into being like, well, you're part of something bigger.

39:54

You need to have values

39:56

that reflect that. But

39:59

the bulk of the book is talking about taking responsibility

40:02

and facing adversity. It's all very,

40:04

very individualistic. There's nothing that

40:07

really goes into any depth about building community,

40:10

developing connections with other people. So I

40:12

really do feel like this is just a 30-something

40:16

rambling and like so these sort of different tangents

40:18

come out. He hasn't really thought it

40:22

through and that's because he's a guy who

40:24

wrote a fucking blog post and then got

40:26

offered a book deal and was like, yeah, yeah,

40:29

yeah, yeah. There's

40:31

also, I feel like these guys kind of have

40:33

to throw in something that acknowledges that

40:35

we live in a larger world and like, yeah, you should care about values

40:38

and morality and community.

40:39

But that's always the part

40:41

of the book that they've thought about the least and

40:43

it's like, well, if this is your worldview, why should

40:45

I help other people? If I'm

40:47

going to a soup kitchen to help the homeless, well,

40:49

they're homeless because they didn't work

40:51

hard enough and they're lazy. The whole worldview

40:53

is based on the idea that it's their fucking fault. So like,

40:55

of course, I'm not going to engage with my community. I'm going

40:57

to allow Mark Manson himself

41:00

to articulate this for us. This

41:02

is from the book and it features

41:04

the phrase, the pampering of

41:07

the modern mind. I feel like he used synonyms

41:09

for like two of the words to make it seem like he wasn't

41:12

just like wholeheartedly listing that. The cradling

41:14

of the United

41:16

States mind.

41:19

He says, the pampering

41:21

of the modern mind has resulted in a population

41:24

that feels deserving of something without earnings

41:26

at something, a population that feels

41:28

they have a right to something without sacrificing

41:30

for it. People declare themselves

41:33

experts, entrepreneurs, inventors,

41:35

innovators, mavericks and coaches

41:38

without any real life experience. Oh,

41:41

it's one book. One book, baby. He's telling

41:43

you the grip that he's doing. How

41:46

do you write that? How do you write

41:48

that? You're a

41:51

finance dropout who

41:53

started blogging and you're talking

41:55

shit about people without real life experience.

41:58

There can't be fucking Look,

42:00

people are going to use curse words to

42:02

make themselves seem edgy while actually

42:04

repackaging reactionary, odd-standard

42:07

advice for you and selling it back to you. Can

42:10

you believe it? Can you believe

42:12

that there are people doing that? So can you

42:14

use an aggressively folksy tone with you? One

42:16

thing I read when I saw people

42:19

chatting about this on Reddit was

42:21

someone saying that they read this

42:23

book a few years ago and they thought it was so insightful

42:26

and helped them a lot. And they read it again

42:28

a few years later and were like, what the fuck is this? Yeah.

42:31

And I think a lot of self-help

42:33

is like that where it's just getting people at

42:36

a time when they need advice more

42:40

than they need any specific advice

42:42

and are using advice. It's like the feeling

42:45

that you're receiving advice is itself

42:47

therapeutic. Right. And so a lot

42:49

of people I think are just at like a crossroads

42:52

in their life for whatever reason. They

42:54

read a book like this and they come away with like a good

42:57

impression

42:58

because they just needed to be like talked to.

43:00

But this is also why I have

43:02

like basically no contempt for people who read

43:05

and enjoy these books but bottomless

43:07

contempt for the authors because they're fulfilling

43:10

a real emotional need for people and sometimes

43:12

you just need a little pep talk. Absolutely. I think

43:14

that's totally fine. And I think honestly

43:16

there's ways of writing

43:17

these books

43:18

that are like not that shitty and like I get that they're

43:21

in an individualistic frame and they never cover

43:23

structural solutions, etc. and like the sort

43:25

of limitations of the genre are kind

43:27

of inherently baked into these books and that's fine.

43:30

But there's like a responsible way to do this.

43:32

Tell people like you're not a piece of shit and

43:35

like you can do stuff and like everything's going to turn

43:37

out okay. I think fulfilling

43:39

that emotional

43:39

need is totally fine. Yeah. And

43:41

even like in this book, it sounds like the actual core

43:44

advice is like set a goal and like

43:46

try to work through adversity and it might be hard sometimes.

43:48

Right. And like that's like at the

43:50

bottom

43:51

of it

43:52

pretty reasonable advice. The problem

43:54

is when you then package

43:56

it with this weird world

43:58

you stuff.

43:59

And it's weird, like, wow, kids have too much participation

44:02

trophies and stuff that is basically misinformation

44:04

or a way of looking at the world where it's like

44:06

you're not just getting this pep talk, you're

44:09

getting a pep talk that makes you think that

44:11

it requires you to step on other people

44:13

or that other people are doing this wrong

44:15

as opposed to, like, hey, everybody's going through

44:18

it. You're going through it. Other people are too.

44:20

And let's all just be kind of as nice to each other

44:22

as we can while we're trying to

44:25

achieve

44:25

the goals that we have. Yeah, no,

44:27

I think that's right. And I understand wanting

44:29

to read a book about functionally bettering

44:32

yourself. That's a very that's a very

44:34

normal impulse. I can't look

44:36

down on people who do that. I watch

44:40

probably three hours a month

44:42

of Kansas City Chiefs highlights

44:44

from the 2019 playoffs. I

44:48

watch them and I'm ready to tackle the day.

44:50

It's your emotional support playoffs. And

44:54

you know, I don't know, everyone has something that, you know,

44:56

perks them up a little bit. I think that

44:58

it's for most people, it's not the details

45:01

of these books that matter. Right.

45:03

Sort of like a feeling that

45:06

we're all in this together. And you know, there

45:08

you tap into little things you pick up

45:10

on in these books. And

45:12

like you said, the core of this book

45:15

is not super objectionable. It's just

45:17

that Mark Manson can only talk

45:19

for so long before he says something stupid

45:21

and gross.

45:22

Yeah, he's pretending that

45:23

he's telling you harsh truths. But actually,

45:25

he's just spinning a sweet, sweet fantasy

45:28

baby. A

45:31

reference, I understand.