Give Fewer Fucks

When you are in a shitty situation, one of my pieces of advice is to Give Fewer Fucks. I’ve written about this before, including in the Risky Business Book — so this shouldn’t be new.

The example here is about a terrible job, but it can be extrapolated to terrible situations in general. To quote myself: “…if you are stressed and sick and short on energy / time / money then the best thing you can do is pull back, stop giving so many fucks (save them for when you really need them), and don’t try so hard.”

I’m going to double down on that advice right now… because the Riskthulhu has spread its tentacles into every crevice of life. It’s all horrible and it’s all crap and it’s all entangled. It’s like you can’t even look at it — you can’t even peer through your fingers at it.

But I’m not just here saying don’t look at stuff. While there are certain cesspits of awful that you might want to completely avoid even looking at (certain talk “news” shows, certain “discussions” online, “social” media — don’t make me pull out any more air quotes, you know whereof I speak), I’m here to propose something even more controversial and radical…

Give. Fewer. Fucks.

Now, the reasons I say this is controversial is that someone will read that and hear “ignore injustice and racism and stop caring about people being hurt” and grab their pitchforks and torches. Rabble rabble rabble!

So yeah, that’s not what I’m saying. Full disclaimer, that’s totally not what I’m saying. Not. What. I’m. Saying.**

** Look a footnote reiterating that that’s not what I’m saying because, you know, that’s the level of stupid we’re at right now.

In fact, what I’m actually saying is that if you spend all your energy caring way to much about the wrong things, you will be completely out of fucks when it comes to the really important things that really matter (like injustice and racism and real people being really hurt in your actual community). And I’m going to propose that getting you to expend all your fucks on these wrong things might just part of the plan, the op, the POINT…

-Scene-
Rich and powerful fuckwit #1: Yeah we’re fucking up the environment and spying on everyone and giving poor people the shaft and waging war all over the planet — profits are way up!
Rich and powerful fuckwit #2: Aren’t the unwashed masses, you know, protesting and shit about that? The peasants are, after all, revolting.
Rich and powerful fuckwit #1: Revolting, yeah, good one! No, in fact they’re spending all their time arguing about shit online and having endless semantic debates about microaggressions and freaking out about Dr. Seuss and British Royalty and boycotting companies that don’t virtue signal correctly!
Rich and powerful fuckwit #2: Awesome!
-Curtain-

Now, you can argue online all you want and you can seek out terrible stories and videos of horrible people doing horrible things (don’t forget to turn your volume up!) and you can expend your fucks in any way you so choose. You do you.

But if you find yourself at the end of your going out of fucks sale (all fucks must go!) feeling hopeless and terrible and depressed and enraged and exhausted and confused about how everything can just be getting worse and worse all the time… well, remember this post.

Things aren’t OK. I get it. But I don’t need endlessly drip feed horror into my brain to keep proving it to myself… and neither do you. Certainly people who are being oppressed know that fact without the help of CNN. Anyone who doesn’t get it at this point is never going to and also not worth your fucks (vote them out, punch a Nazi if the occasion arises, but don’t go looking for assholes because you will find them endlessly).

And I don’t need to give fucks about stupid, stupid stuff that takes energy and attention but doesn’t DO anything. The endless BS about the British Royal Family is a perfect example. So a 2000-year-old family dynasty who literally think that their blood makes them special and worthy of ruling over other people — blood originally labeled because of its color visible through their pale, pale skin — is racist. Yeah, total shock there. I should care about this why?

This post is way crankier than usual for me, I know. But it’s just frustrating to see good people expend their energy on this shit and hurt themselves in the process (remember what happens in Bird Box). So, let’s be more proactive and upbeat to conclude, OK? What should you save your fucks for? How about…

• Yourself — put your own oxygen mask on first. Take care of your mental, emotional, and physical health. If it makes you feel sick or crazy or impotently enraged, avoid thinking, reading, saying, or doing it. Remember Ivy’s third maxim***: Life is too short to eat shit. You need your strength to get through this! Conserve it so that you can spend it on…
• Your inner circle — your household, your family of relation or choice, the people that love you, the people who you love. If you aren’t doing for them (and them for you) who will? If you are expending energy on strangers without caring for those you love, then you are getting life all wrong.
• Your little corner of the world. Try to make the place you are at better, kinder, more hopeful. Your neighborhood, your apartment block, your local grocery, your community — whatever. These communities can be distributed in space, but they should be REAL. Not just chat boards that tear themselves apart at the first sign of dissent. They should be under 10% drama.
• Nature. Ever notice how the environmental causes that get the most attention are the ones that you are least able to do anything about personally? Sure, I have an electric car, but the US military puts out more CO2 than many COUNTRIES. It’s almost like they want you to despair at the futility. But I can increase the biodiversity and reduce the trash and vote for clean air standards in my own little corner of the world right now. And moreover, paying attention to nature is really really good for human beings. It’s healing. Do more of it.
• One cause, but only locally. OK, you can have a cause (just one to start) that you can put fucks toward, but keep it local. So if it’s housing you vote for affordable housing and humane policies for the unhoused in your local elections and you donate to related causes in your town. If it’s gun control, then you get a city ordinance against assault rifles passed and help defend it. If it’s nutrition accessibility you work with your local farmers market, free school lunch program, etc. If it’s the environment, you donate to wildlife rescue or volunteer on river cleanups. But always local. Because by focusing on one thing in the place you can have the most actual effect, your fucks will actually be making real, positive change. And that’s worth giving a fuck about.

I want you to have the fucks you need to do good things! Don’t waste them.

*** Ivy’s Maxims:

1. Religion that’s easy is wrong (I should write about this some time so that it can have a link)
2. Don’t get offended, get pissed off
3. Life is too short to eat shit
4. Look where you want to go
5. It’s better to look ordinary and actually be interesting
   5.5 But it’s better to be interested than interesting
6. Make your own sense
7. Don’t just know yourself, grow yourself
8. Focus, don’t dwell