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

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2016

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

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Chapter 9Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 9 Summary: “And Then You Die”

The final chapter contains two subchapters: “Something Beyond Our Selves” and “The Sunny Side of Death.” Manson addresses the topic of death and how we should handle it while we’re alive. Manson begins with a personal anecdote about the untimely, accidental death of a high school friend named Josh. His friend’s death left him in a state of depression for the ensuing summer. After struggling to come to terms with it, Manson realized that if life eventually leads to death, then there’s no reason to fear not doing anything since success and failure lead to the same result in the end. For Manson, this marks what he calls “the clearest before/after point” in his life (193). After his epiphany, Manson became much less of the teenaged slacker that he claimed he was and started becoming more motivated to achieve things in life, though as he notes throughout the book, that vision remained somewhat elusive until he reached his late 20s and early 30s.

He discusses 20th-century philosopher Ernest Becker and one of Becker’s significant works, The Denial of Death. Manson presents a highly abbreviated version of the text and picks out two points that he uses to help explain himself. First, humans are the only species capable of imagining a world without them in it, which ultimately leads to what Becker refers to as the “death terror” (197); second, Manson mentions Becker’s idea of the immortality project, which Manson equates with values and which, according to Becker, fulfills the human mind with a sense of living on despite dying. Manson summarizes Becker in his own words (returning once again to the F-word) and suggests that we’re driven to care about things because this distracts us from the terror that death represents. By limiting what we care about, and the amount of F-words we give, we can achieve a kind of spiritual freedom. This begins with understanding and accepting the reality of our death. Manson shares a personal story of standing at the edge of a cliff. He likens this to a confrontation with his own mortality, as life and death can be separated by merely a literal foot of distance. Standing at the cliff’s edge also serves as a metaphor for facing the fear of death, and Manson notes that when he stepped back from the cliff edge, he gained a better understanding of what death is, which also gave him a better understanding of how he should live.

Chapter 9 Analysis

Because much of Manson’s book—and the system for living that he presents in it—centers on overcoming self-imposed and unnecessary limitations, it seems natural that he’d close it with a chapter about death. As in much of the book, Manson tries to take on the subject in a way that adequately accepts it but in an unorthodox manner. The beginning of the chapter is significant in that it allows the reader a glimpse into how Manson arrived at his outlook on death. He was confronted by its reality as a young man, and after a season of depression and a kind of nihilistic view toward life and death, Manson suddenly realized that the reason to lack motivation can actually be the motivation:

If there is really no reason to do anything, then there is also no reason to not do anything; that in the face of the inevitability of death, there is no reason to ever give in to one’s fear, or embarrassment, or shame since it’s all a bunch of nothing anyway (193).

While this epiphany doesn’t connote a profound or particularly inspiring realization, it had practical value for him. It triggered a change in the way he lived, and it’s an outlook that he has carried with him into adulthood.

Manson’s discussion of Becker is limited, but what he borrows from Becker contributes significantly to the way of life that he advocates in the book. First, the fear of death is generally human. How we process and learn to handle our fear is critical. Manson doesn’t suggest taking an indifferent stance toward death because that would imply avoidance rather than acceptance. Instead, he suggests facing the fear, much as he did when he stood at the cliff’s edge. Confronting it can lead us to an understanding of death that liberates us from that fear—and helps make us less afraid to live. Manson quotes Mark Twain: “The fear of death follows from the fear of life” (204). The two are inextricably connected, and it follows that if one is able to overcome the fear of death, one will be much less likely to live life in a state of fear and anxiety. Becker had an idea similar to Twain’s: He called it the “bitter antidote,” and it argued that “people should question their conceptual self and become more comfortable with their own death” (199). The points that Manson makes here fit in with what he develops throughout the book; however, when referring to the fear of death, he’s referring to an individual’s fear of their own death. Although he doesn’t comment on coming to terms with the fear of the death of loved ones, Manson emphasizes that confronting one’s own demise can lead to a real and lasting sense of freedom.