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

The astonishing tale of Hiroo Onoda begins this chapter on the value of suffering. Once again, the chapter title, because it’s unorthodox, almost taunts us to engage. Typically, we think of suffering as something to avoid at any cost. Sure, it comes, but that doesn’t mean we should see value in it. In Manson’s view, this again is a faulty way of looking at things. He uses the Onoda anecdote to illustrate that not all suffering has the same cause, and this delineation reveals a useful lesson. He comments on Onoda and the young man named Suzuki, who finally convinced Onoda that the war had ended some 30 years after the fact: “To both men, their suffering meant something; it fulfilled some greater cause. And because it meant something, they were able to endure it” (68). What Manson is pointing out here is that not all suffering is equal; in some cases, if we believe in the reason for our suffering, then we can endure it. Onoda’s survival in the jungle of the Philippines for 30 years is a testament to his belief in his cause—performing his duty to the Japanese Imperial Army. Manson uses the Onoda story as a way to show the extent to which humans can suffer if they believe their cause is just.

Onoda’s suffering wasn’t entirely self-chosen, and Manson points out later in the chapter that often, suffering is a result of something terrible happening to us. In other words, we’re “victimized” by something—for example, we’re stricken with a disease and can do nothing to alter its course. We can’t simply wish away cancer by changing the way we respond to it mentally. However, while Manson makes a point to concede this, he turns attention toward those who suffer in more superficial ways, such as when people make victims of themselves. Generally, people who suffer because they’ve built faulty metrics for happiness are those whose values, like Jimmy’s in the previous chapter, are absent or inauthentic to themselves.

Manson gives examples of these superficial values, which he refers to as “shitty values”: “pleasure,” “material success,” “always being right,” and “staying positive” (81-83). Having these sorts of values sets up a person for the kinds of problems that almost always arise and, according to Manson, are extremely difficult to solve. Manson asserts that pleasure and success should come as the result of doing things in a way that provides true value to one’s life; pleasure and success should not be the driving force for our behaviors. To decide on what we should value, Manson suggests that we root our values in a “reality-based” perspective. In addition, they should be “socially constructive” and “immediate and controllable” (85). When values aren’t rooted in reality, or are built on faulty assumptions of what leads to happiness, people tend to perpetually feel as if they’re being victimized and can overcome their suffering only by garnering enough attention from others, which puts them in a vicious cycle.