The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

He spoke of how his life was turned upside down by an incident at school and how his parents broke up but didn't see any correlation with his own actions. He spoke of his best friend who lived a "dream life" that was entirely false but failed to understand the guy was just a classic psychopath and not a role model. He spoke how he used to be shallow and self centred but now here he is in a film dedicated to his world view featuring no-one but himself. I totally agree with this main point that it's foolish to compare yourself with what's found on YT etc but I found the the guy himself quite sad.

It's always so easy for people like Mark to tell us the how and why and what we should do to live a better life when they have $14,000,000 in their back pocket.

Seriously, his ideas aren't new, they're just old ideas repackaged. If you have t figured out how to be a good person before you watch this, this film ain't gonna help. If you think your a pretty good and kind person before seeing this film, it'll just come off as sanctimonious nonsense.

Listen to the audio book, as this certainly is a case of the book being better than the movie.

And the 3 stars are for Disappointment Panda. He's the one thing that kept me engaged.

A drawn out monologue that fails to engage with anything philosophical, responding only to anecdotes.

It's odd that this philosophy only works with numerical identifiers of success. There is no sense of inner fulfilment, no enjoyment from the attempt of trying something new. You can only be good or bad at something.

It's both critical of late stage capitalism and completely complicit. Perhaps justifying flogging these books.

Mark Manson loves the use of binary, there is little to no room for nuance & balance. Promoting a circular philosophy that can only lead to self-pity & loathing.

I'd offer this binary: watch this or speak to someone outside a club at 3am.

I have not read the book so I don't have much to compare it to, but the film felt more of a speaker making a motivational speech than a documentary. The entire documentary was the author talking about his personal experiences, which didn't resonate with me in any way. I just didn't "give a f*#!" about his own stories so it seemed a little pretentious to me that he was making us listen to all these very basic stories from his past. I did like the in between of talking about entitlement and taking responsibility, but it would have been nice to also hear from professionals to hear their take on it.

It won't take you long to wonder why you're watching this.

I've listened to some of the audiobook and it didn't feel this meandering or pointless.

Unlike superior theses like The Happiness Advantage which includes examples, anecdotes, psyche research and conclusions, this "film" is just a series of pointless anecdotes told by some random bloke in a chair.

If I was with this guy at a party, I'd find an excuse to walk away from him. His anecdotes-whether personal to him or gleaned from somewhere else-have no conclusions.

If the overall message to this thing is that "life isn't perfect, make the most of what you've got", then it was pretty much summed up at the beginning.

I thought this would be an interesting watch. It wasn't.