Everything is F*cked

Lesson 1. Introduction.

Ever wonder why people are seemingly becoming more anxious and miserable despite life getting easier or why the news always seems so depressing? Why aren’t people as happy as they appear to be?

Take a moment to look around yourselves. There’s been a lot of progress worldwide in the past couple of generations. There have been drastic changes in the areas of poverty, education, starvation, child mortality and many more. Yet somehow, as some sort of a paradox, we are still witnessing rising rates of depression and other anxiety issues. What do you think is the reason for this? At first glance, the book almost appears to be an argument for nihilism and a basic assertion, that life is utterly meaningless. But Manson is actually insisting on the opposite.

‘Everything is F*cked’ is a wonderfully accessible book that tackles some of the deeper questions about where our world is headed and how to take better care of ourselves until we get there. It gets straight to the point and uses some tough words for people obsessed with comfort and happiness. But Mark’s advice in the book is constructive and is only meant to motivate us to focus on the important things in life. 

Lesson 2. Hope is built on Nihilism.

Nihilism is the uncomfortable truth of life that most of us prefer not to dwell on. We are quite aware of the fact that all of us are going to be dead someday and our actions and opinions are pretty insignificant. But, do we accept it and not do anything? No. We get out of bed every day with a desire to achieve something. Be it for our friends or family, we strive to work hard and lead a happy life. We do all those things, because we have hope. 

Hope requires a certain amount of self confidence. It gives the person a sense of responsibility over his life. If that is absent, then the person slowly fades into hopelessness. When people feel personally responsible for their own misfortune, or that there’s little chance that a bad situation will improve, they often spiral into total hopelessness. In turn, the hopelessness makes them feel helpless. This happens because of their beliefs about adversity. To recover from a setback, a person must first believe that recovery is possible.

Meaning is derived from our subjective hopes—what we’re trying to do and accomplish. The harder we look for an objective meaning to life, the more we’ll struggle and lose hope altogether. 

Hope, real hope, can’t be built on lies. And