Review of Everything Is F*cked
This book tries to answer the question: What is happening in our world that is causing us to feel worse despite everything consistently getting better?
The Uncomfortable Truth
This is the Uncomfortable Truth in life: Everyone will die, and little to nothing that we do will ever matter on a cosmic scale. We imagined our own importance, we invented our purpose, and we were, and still are, nothing.
All our thoughts and motivations stem from a never-ending need to avoid the inherent meaninglessness of human existence.
Hope
Our psyche needs hope to survive the way a fish needs water. To feel hope, we need to feel there is a better future out there (values); we need to feel as though we are capable of getting to that better future (self-control); and we need to find other people who share our values and support our efforts (community). In short, these are the 3 things to build and maintain hope:
1. A sense of control
2. A belief in the value of something
3. A community
The opposite of happiness is not anger or sadness, but hopelessness. Hopelessness is the root of anxiety, mental illness, and depression. It is the source of all misery and addiction.
Self-control
We require more than willpower to achieve self-control. And that is our emotions which are instrumental in our decision making and our actions.
Every problem of self-control is not a problem of information or discipline or reason, but rather, of emotion. Emotional problems are much harder to deal with than logical ones.
The fundamental problem of self-control is the uneducated Feeling Brain that has adopted and accepted poor value judgements about itself and the world. The solution is to get our values straight with ourselves so that we can get our values straight with the world.
Feelings
We must feel something about ourselves to feel something about the world, and without those feelings, it is impossible for us to find hope. But self-worth is an illusion that Feeling Brain spins to predict what will help it and what will hurt it. People are always mistaking what feels good for what is good.
Narcissism fuels survival but it also comes at a cost – separateness from the world. This ultimately perpetuates unnecessary suffering.
He made up Newton’s Three Laws of Emotions:
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite emotional reaction.
- Our self-worth equals the sum of our emotions over time.
- Your identity will stay your identity until a new experience acts against it.
Values
Our narrative about ourselves and the world are fundamentally about (a) something or someone’s value and (b) whether that something/someone deserves that value. All narratives are formed following this template: bad/good thing happens to a person/thing, and he/she/it does/does not deserve it. Our identity is this network of value-based narratives.
The values we pick up throughout our lives crystallise and form a sediment on top of our personality. The only way to change our values is to have experience contrary to our values. Thus, any attempt to break free from those values through new or contrary experiences will inevitably be met with pain and discomfort. It is why it is impossible to be someone new without first grieving the loss of who you used to be.
Collisions of culture will inevitably result in war because many people are willing to die for their values. The supremacy of winning values live on, and the values are written and lauded in our histories, and go on to be retold in stories, passed down to give future generations hope. Eventually, when those values cease to be effective, they will lose to the values of another, newer nation, and history will continue on, a new era unfolding – and this is the form of human progress.
Faith
All hope and all religions are based on faith, faith that something can be important and valuable and right despite the fact that there will never be a way to verify it beyond all doubt. Most religious practices are developed for the alleviation of guilt.
There is a guide about starting your own religion which I think is meant as a joke. Nonetheless, the principles outlined there are quite logical.
What is good for leadership business? A crowd of perpetually dissatisfied followers. If everything were perfect and great, there would be no reason to follow anybody. However, power corrupts – every institution will decay and corrupt itself. Each person, given more power and fewer restraints, will predictably bend that power to suit himself. Every individual will blind herself to her own flaws while seeking out the glaring flaws of others.
How to Live a Meaningful Life
The most important things in life cannot be gained through bargaining. The most precious and important things in life are non-transactional.
The problem with hope is that it is fundamentally transactional – it is a bargain between one’s current actions for some imagined, pleasant future.
Life is a never-ending stream of pain, and to grow is not to find a way to avoid that stream but to dive into it and successfully navigate its depths. Pain is at the heart of all emotion. The most meaningful freedom in life comes from commitments, the things in life for which we have chosen to sacrifice.
To live a meaningful life, the author invokes Formula of Humanity from Immanuel Kant: Act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.
Artificial Intelligence
Consciousness is a vast network of algorithms and decision trees – algorithms based on values and knowledge and hope. Based on this line of thought, AI is theoretically able to develop consciousness.
The author holds favourable view on artificial intelligence and think human race might evolve into a great unknowable entity with the advent of AI. This is the best case scenario while the worst case scenario is that AI would wipe out humanity.
Conclusion
We need our lives to mean something, and while the advance of technology has made finding that meaning more difficult, the ultimate innovation will be the day we can manufacture significance without strife or conflict, find importance without the necessity of death.
The stories of our past define our identity, the stories of our future define our hopes. And our ability to step into those narratives and live them, to make them reality, is what gives our lives meaning.
Everything Is F*cked exposes the truth behind human life. Our life is inherently meaningless, and it is up to us to derive our meaning. However, does it really matter? This question can only be answered by each individual personally.
One-sentence summary for Everything Is F*cked
Hope inevitably leads to destruction and a new cycle starts.
Quotes
- Our values aren’t just collections of feelings. Our values are stories.
- We are the most impressionable when things are at their worst.
- Without faith, there is no hope.
- True freedom doesn’t really exist because we all must sacrifice some autonomy for stability.
- Because the only thing that can ever truly destroy a dream is to have it come true.
Rating
⭐⭐⭐
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