Author: Kim Jacobson

Our culture today is obsessively focused on unrealistically positive expectations: Be happier. Be healthier. Be the best, better than the rest. Be smarter, richer, sexier, more popular, more productive, more envied, and more admired.

Ironically, this fixation on the positive – on what’s better, what’s superior – only serves to remind us over and over again of what we are not, of what we lack, of what we should have been but failed to be.

I am not a self-help book kind of person. I find them full of glaringly obvious advice, pointless and often counterproductive. I usually get bored before I have read more than a quarter of the book and lose interest.

I am quite comfortable saying that what first drew my attention to The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck was the obvious swear word in the title. However, once I read what it was about I quickly dismissed it as another one of “those” self-help books. But then over the following months the book kept appearing in my life; as a recommended book on my Kindle, a book review by a blogger I follow, then a former colleague posted on Good Reads that he had read it. Clearly something was telling me to read the book.

It did take me a while to read, I kept getting distracted by more interesting books, but I finished it! And I’m reviewing it. So it passed “Is it worth reading?” test.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson basically tells you to suck it up and get on with your life. It doesn’t pussy foot around telling you that your life will be a bed of roses as long as you follow some amazing formula for life that the author miraculously discovered.

The problem is that giving too many fucks is bad for your mental health. It causes you to become overly attached to the superficial and fake, to dedicate your life to chasing a mirage of happiness and satisfaction. The key to a good life is not giving a fuck about more; it’s giving a fuck about less, giving a fuck about only what is true and immediate and important.

Yep, the f-word is used a lot. If that upsets you, don’t read the book. But know that by Chapter 2 the f-word is used less and less.

Mark basically says that we are hard-wired to be unhappy. That it is dissatisfaction that keeps us striving, building, evolving – to make things better.

Whatever makes us happy today will no longer make us happy tomorrow, because our biology always needs something more. A fixation on happiness inevitably amounts to a never ending pursuit of “something else” – a new house, a new relationship, another child, another pay rise. And after all our sweat and strain, we end up feeling eerily similar to how we started: inadequate.

Mark tells us some hard truths …. that nothing worthwhile is worth it without working hard, that you are not special or different from anyone else, that you and everyone else suffers, that you will make mistakes … and then you die.

The challenge is to know what to give a f*ck about and focus on that.

The only way to be comfortable with death is to understand and see yourself as something bigger than yourself; to chose values that stretch beyond serving yourself, that are simple and immediate and controllable and tolerant of the chaotic world around you.

Mark believes that “Values underlie everything we are and we do.” And that choosing good values are crucial.

Some examples of good, healthy values: honesty, innovation, vulnerability, standing up for oneself, standing up for others, self-respect, curiosity, charity, humility, creativity.

You’ll notice that good, healthy values are achieved internally. Something like creativity or humility can be experienced right now. You simply have to orient your mind in a certain way to experience it. These values are immediate and controllable and engage you with the world as it is rather than how you wish it were.

Overall I’d say that this book gave me a lot to reflect on as I continue my sabbatical into the second year. (A blog post for another time.)

And the quote which resonated with me most?

In the long run, completing a marathon makes us happier that eating chocolate cake.

 

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, Mark Manson, Sydney, Macmillan, 2016, EPUB format 9781925483857

 

A worthwhile existence lies in playing whatever cards life has dealt you as skillfully as you can.

This book, more than any other in a long time, has made a huge impact on me. I read it a few weeks ago and I still regularly pause to consider the messages I have taken from it.

In Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8: A young man’s voice from the silence of autism, Naoki Higashida shares his thoughts and experiences as a young man living with autism.

Naoki, born in Kimitsu Japan, was diagnosed with severe autism when he was five. Through the support of his mother he learned to communicate using a handmade alphabet grid. He went on to write The Reason I Jump at age 13 and has since published several books, essays and poems.

Photo: © Miki Higashida

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that until I read this book I truly had not given much thought to the lives of people with autism and similar conditions. Naoiki’s story opened my eyes to the experiences, and more importantly, thoughts of people with autism.

Back in the days when I had no way to communicate at all … I was extremely lonely. People who have never experienced this will go through life never knowing how soul-crushing the condition of wordlessness is.

I know that if I was wordless, if I could not speak or write, I would be extremely frustrated. I would want to stomp, scream, hit out and make any noise I could. And when someone asked what was wrong, how could I explain to them the agony of not being able to tell them how I feel?

Through his reflections on life Naoki shares some excellent advice on how to interact with people with disabilities.

One of the lessons I’m grateful to have learned as an adult is that life serves up hard times to everyone, not just me. …. Many people with disabilities are, I think, kept isolated and insulated from society. Please give those of us with special needs opportunities to learn what’s happening in the wider world without deciding on our behalves – by assuming ‘They won’t understand anything’, or ‘Well, they don’t look interested’. On the surface, a sheltered life spent on your favourite activities might look like paradise, but I believe that unless you come into contact with some of the hardships other people endure, your own personal development will be impaired.

Naoki’s words certainly have caused me to reflect on my own preconceptions and attitudes. Perhaps, the focus should change from asking How can people with special needs fit into our society? to How can we embrace our differences and create a society where everyone benefits from these differences?

The value of a person shouldn’t be fixed solely by his or her skills and talents – or lack of them. It’s how you strive to live well that allows others to understand your awesomeness as a human being.

 

Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8: A young man’s voice from the silence of autism, Naoki Higashida, translated by KA Yoshida and David Mitchell, New York, Random House, 2017, First edition, ISBN 9780812997392

 

 

 

 

One of his last acts was to take a picture of himself, standing near the bus under the high Alaskan sky, one hand holding his final note toward the camera lens, the other raised in a brave beatific farewell. His face is horribly emaciated, almost skeletal. But if he pitied himself in those last difficult hours – because he was so young, because he was alone, because his body had betrayed him and his will had let him down – it’s not apparent from the photograph. He is smiling in the picture, an there is no mistaking the look in his eyes: Chris McCandless was at peace, serene as a monk gone to God.

Having recently read and reviewed books about solo journeys into the wilderness, I thought I would explore a similar story that did not end so well.

Into the Wild tells the story of Chris McCandless who disappeared into the Alaskan wilderness, four months later his emaciated body was found by hunters. The author, Jon Krakauer, pieces together the years leading to Chris’s death and explores why Chris and many people like him feel compelled to leave civilization behind and to push themselves to extremes.

Understanding Chris’ motivations is much more difficult as he never clearly articulated them (and obviously he’s not around to ask). Jon delves into his reasons by speaking with family, friends, and people Chris met on the two year journey leading to his final trip to Alaska.

I’ve decided that I’m going to live this life for sometime to come. The freedom and simple beauty is too good to pass up. (Written by Chris on a postcard sent to a friend.)

To gain an insight into Chris’ mind Jon explores the experiences and stories of other  adventurers, himself included. He explains why people feel compelled to push themselves to the outer limits and how even the best prepared can find themselves in danger.

It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it. When I decided to go to Alaska that April, like Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devils Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams. And I lived to tell my tale.

These people journey into the wild alone because they are adventurers, physical extremists, escapees from society, romantics. They all have similarities, they are all different. They all have their reasons, sometimes knows to themselves and others, sometimes, I suspect, they don’t even know themselves.

Notably many are male, often young but not always. We know women do this too, Cheryl Strayed and Robyn Davidson for example, but they are in the minority.

What did I take from this book? Adventuring alone in the wilderness is not romantic, things can and do go wrong.  Solo journeys don’t always solve the issues you want them to. And tell someone where you are going!

I found Into the Wild an interesting read. Not just learning about Chris McCandless’ journey but also the authors, as he recognizes and accepts his own failings as an adventurer and as a writer.

“HAPPINESS IS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED.” It is tempting to regard this latter notation as further evidence that McCandless’s long, lonely sabbatical had changed him in some significant way. It can be interpreted to mean that he was ready, perhaps, to shed a little of the armor he wore around his heart, that upon returning to civilization, he intended to abandon the life of a solitary vagabond, stop running so hard from intimacy, and become a member of the human community. But we will never know, because Doctor Zhivago was the last book Chris McCandless would ever read.

Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer, London, Pan Books, 2011, ISBN 978-0-3330-46998-2 EPUB

(Photo by Carine McCandless)

 

I had diverged, digressed, wandered, and become wild. Cheryl Strayed

Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Tracks by Robyn Davidson on the face of it are two quite similar books. The story of a woman leaving her old life behind to travel alone in the wilderness. However, both are also quite different which is what makes them such good reads.

Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found tells the story of Cheryl Strayed hiking 1,100 miles alone along the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California, Oregon and into Washington state.

Tracks is the story of Robyn Davidson’s journey across 1,700 miles of Australian desert with four camels and a dog.

Probably not the most rational thing to do, but I think you have to be a little bit crazy to actually go out on your own and do this. Both had similar reasons for their journeys. Cheryl was quite forthright about her reasoning.

That in truth my hike on the Pacific Crest Trail hadn’t begun when I made the snap decision to do it. It had begun before I even imagined it, precisely four years, seven months and three days before when I’d stood in a little room at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and learned that my mother was going to die. Cheryl Strayed

For Robyn you need to read more deeply to get a sense of why she was compelled to do this.

What I wanted to do, which was to be alone, to test, to push, to unclog my brain of all its extraneous debris, not to be protected, to be stripped of all social crutches, not to be hampered by any outside interference whatsoever, well meant or not. Robyn Davidson

Interestingly Robyn’s mother had also died and, while she didn’t elaborate on her death, you got the sense that her mother’s passing had impacted her and her family as much as it had Cheryl’s.

The trip reinstated a faith in myself and what I was doing. I felt calm and positive and strong, and now, instead of the trip appearing out of character, instead of worrying about whether or not it was a pointless thing to do, I could see more clearly the reasons and the needs behind it. Robyn Davidson

Unsurprisingly there were quite a few similarities in both stories. Both women were escaping society to find themselves, they encountered danger along the way, had periods of madness and times when they were perfectly happy in their aloneness. And both realized they couldn’t escape society forever.

I was beginning to understand that being alone got awfully boring sometimes, and that I needed people, wanted them. Robyn Davidson

There were also differences. Much of this was due to the location of the journey, Australia and the US, and the women’s physical distance from civilization. And the timing. Cheryl’s journey took place in the 1990’s, Robyn’s in the 1970’s. While only 20 years apart much had changed in society. Technology and the perception of women in the community both made a difference to their stories.

As an Australian, I found Robyn’s interest in and connection with indigenous Australians fascinating.

I was caught between two versions of the truth. I liked station people and know that they did not consider themselves racist. When they look at the sordid camps around town, they see only violence and dirt and the incomprehensible lack of protestant work ethic. While they usually have a patronizing respect for the older Aboriginal people, they are unable to see beyond the immediate and beyond their own values, to understand why the demise occurred and what their part in it is, either traditionally or at present. Robyn Davidson

There was very little in Wild about native Americans.

Robyn was much more prepared for her journey having spent a significant amount of time in Alice Springs, mainly learning about camels and how to handle them. Given the isolation of where she was going and how she was traveling this was unsurprisingly essential to her survival.

Cheryl had just her backpack. Robyn had four camels, and the support of National Geographic and a photographer visiting her a number of times on the way.

My hands moved to it on instinct, seeming to bypass my brain. Monster was my world, my inanimate extra limb. Through its weight and size still confounded me, I’d come come to accept that it was my burden to bear. Cheryl Strayed

I enjoyed reading both books, in fact I have read them twice in the past 12 months and watched the movie version of Wild (and would like to see Tracks too).

At times while reading, I was frustrated by their decisions and wanted to tell them to be more logical and less impulsive. However, on reflection this is probably the reason why I would never seriously contemplate doing this myself. (Although, secretly I’d love to give it a go!)

Thank you, I thought over and over again. Thank you. Not just for the long walk, but for everything I could feel finally gathered up inside of me; for everything the trail had taught me and everything I couldn’t yet know, though I felt is somehow already contained within me. Cheryl Strayed

The two important things that I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavour is taking the first step, making the decision. Robyn Davidson

Photo credits: Robyn Davidson – Rick Smolan, Cheryl Strayed – http://www.cherylstrayed.com

Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found, Cheryl Strayed, Atlantic Books, 2012,  E-book ISBN: 9780857897770

Tracks, Robyn Davidson, London, Bloomsbury, 2012, eISBN: 9781408834879