The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*CK: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

This chapter includes four subchapters: “The Self-Awareness Onion,” “Rock Star Problems,” “Shitty Values,” and “Defining Good and Bad Values.” Manson opens with a fascinating anecdote about Hiroo Onoda, a former soldier of the Japanese army, who was stranded on the island of Luban in the Philippines during WWII. Once the war ended, Onoda had no way to receive verifiable communication that it had ended and subsequently spent the next 30 years living in a jungle, still believing the war was raging on. When Onoda was finally convinced that the war had indeed ended, he returned to his native Japan and was aghast at what he saw. The consumerism that had become the norm in Japan while he was away disappointed Onoda and made him question the purpose of the last 30 years of his life. Ultimately, Onoda left Japan because he couldn’t live with the signs of defeat that were all around him. Manson uses this story as the jumping off point for his discussion of suffering and its hidden value.

Manson accepts that suffering is inevitable but then challenges us to ask ourselves a significant question: “Why am I suffering—for what purpose?” rather than asking “How do I stop suffering?” (68).