Relevantly Irrelevant
From my favourite Julien Smith, that guy who’d definitely be invited to the cool people party. Posting here for future reference and inspiration:
I recently realized that I’d been reading a book every week now for 5 years straight.
It kind of made me wonder: what did I really learn? Am I smarter than I used to be?
I started to wonder, and this is what happened. 140 characters per book, for 174 books… 174 things you may not know.
Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life by Joshua Fields Millburn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was my Audible registration freeby. Because of the service’s horrible DRM I had to go through a multi-step procedure to get the files in MP3 on my mobile phone to listen to while walking around. Many thumbs down for counterintuitive marketing and copyright infringement boogeymen.
I first got to know about The Minimalists through their blog, their essays and their links to and from other awesome people with awesome blogs like Julien Smith or Leo Babauta. I thought they had some advanced ideas and wanted to get more in-depth. I thought, (mis)guided by the way they advertise the book, that by reading it I would be getting to enjoy content they don’t have on their blog. That is true to a certain extent: the complete backstory of Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus isn’t presented very clearly on the blog but the book features a whole chapter on the way the minimalists quit their six-figure salary jobs and set out on their quest for happiness and meaning. This chapter was the only one that contained information that was unknown to me. If one has already read their blog, their disection of the meaning of life into five pillars and related material won’t be very enlightening. It has some solid advice inspired by their lives and experiences as well as exercises anyone can do to find out how they can contribute more, be healthier, have more meaningful relationships etc. — all on the basis of minimalism. This information is geared, I felt, toward people that have never looked into minimalism before and works as a self-help, change-your-life guide, just like what the subtitle so magnanimously promises. If again one has read and enjoyed their essays, they might be disappointed by the lack of focus and depth. That is why I’d much sooner recommend their blog than this book.
Nevertheless, there is some value to this “finest, most important creation to date”: having a concise, basic yet radical handbook on the steps one must take to cut off the excess (the “excrement”, as Shevek would have it) is always useful if only for the connection the reader can have to the book, the physical presence which can work as a reminder for one to act on what they’ve learned. I might not own the printed book to look at and remember what I’ve learned, going through the notes the authors had asked me to make if I wanted to see progress and inspire change. I can appreciate, however, the fact that there is significant value in this kind of connection, a relationship which is much more difficult to cultivate on the web due to its apparent weaknessses: distractability, pluralism and low retention among them.
Turns out the guy who wrote The Flinch is keeping a blog. His favourite topics include –you guessed it– personal development, self-help and tips for helping others make their life into what they could only ever dream it to be. Beware; just like he demonstrates in The Flinch, this guy pulls back no punches. He’s ready to kick your ass into action and force you into some serious introspection. No wonder he’s buddy-buddy with The Minimalists. Put a couple of hours aside and check out his selection of best articles, which includes such inspiring articles as “The Complete Guide to Not Giving a Fuck“, “How to Recognize an Idiot” and “Life Doesn’t Start Tomorrow“. I can guarrantee you won’t regret it.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Quote from near the end of the book: “At this point in most books, the authors promise you that if you do what they say, you’re sure to succeed.
In this case, you’re sure to fail. To be rejected. To discover wrong paths. To see what
humiliation is like, firsthand”…
Me, after reading the above:I don’t like it, it sounds dangerous…”
…”You’re sure to live.
And then yes, maybe, you might reach your goals.
Would you have it any other way?”
So, is The Flinch a book or not? In theory, it is; to me, all it takes for a book to be a book, apt for review here on Goodreads, is for it to call itself by that name — being an actual bound edition is becoming more and more passé, so let’s stick to what we’ve got. In practice, however, it’s not really one: it could have been an exceptionally long post on some forum or an article on a site like High Existenceor 30 Sleeps. If you ask me, it makes no difference at all: what’s important here is the information.
The Flinch strikes at human instinctive self-defense mechanism — the out-stretched palms hiding one’s face from the… face of danger — taken to less physical domains of existence, such as talking to strangers, taking plunges off of various heights or simply doing anything that might challenge our comfortable status quo. The book says that when we feel our all trying to prevent us from doing something (and we can’t find any good, logical reason not to do it if we ask ourselves “what am I really scared of?”), it’s probably others people’s fears, prejudice and/or experience kicked into us: from parental overprotection to serial-killer ward to “a frined of mine once…” to cold, hard facts of life.
The things is though that if we follow everyone else’s advice we never get to experience anything for our own, we never get to face our fears and know ourselves a little bit better, much less create ourselves into what we’d dream to be. We never get to take life to the next level, and then the next. While it may be true that some, if not few, of society’s fears we’ve taken up would be good to keep in mind at all times, I’ve found from whenever I’ve fought The Flinch that it never was all that bad. On the contrary — who knows what having learned to pursue a comfortable, flinchy front might be robbing me from daily?
It was a good, short, crisp read that filled me with inspiration which will probably prove to be short-lived as with other writings of similar kind but I hope I keep it with me and remember its lesson for long.
Here is a link for you to read it. It won’t take you very long and you will come out of it thoughtful and hopefully empowered.
