Martin Hähnel

Mini Review: How To Live

I certainly have consumed worse books. But I have also had plenty better. This felt like an extended writing exercise without any commitment to get into the meat of the issue. I was mostly disappointed. The idea here is to present 27 different approaches to answer the question of how to live. Here they all are:

Be independent, Commit, Fill your senses, Do nothing, Think super-long-term, Intertwine with the world, Make memories, Master something, Let randomness rule, Pursue pain, Do whatever you want now, Be a famous pioneer, Chase the future, Value only what has endured, Learn, Follow the great book, Laugh at life, Prepare for the worst, Live for others, Get rich, Reinvent yourself regularly, Love, Create, Don’t die, Make a million mistakes, Make change, Balance everything.

Apart from the kind of annoying reading style and the exhausting nature of reading 27 formulaic chapters, most of them are not very convincing or interesting. There were a few sentences in there that resonated with me, but most of it was just written in service of fulfilling the recipe.

Spoilers below:

The book ends with a conclusion consisting of two images and a couple of descriptions: A picture that could be seen as either a bunny or a duck, depending on how you look at it: "Is this a duck or bunny? No. This is a duck and bunny." And a schematic of an orchestra with an error pointing to the conductor's position: "This is an orchestra. You are the composer and conductor."

I feel like the book should have started here and actually engage with the nature of life as bunny AND duck. A very interesting book about the good life could have been written, about the fact that life is paradoxical and a constructivist endeavor. Instead, we get a tedious book that doesn't even start to scratch the surface.

Review on the Storygraph.

P.S.: Sivers has the conclusion on his website.