The Art of Failure - The Anti Self-Help Guide [Kindle Edition]

At first, I did not like the title at all. The Art of Failure. It deeply disturbed me. Just like many other things in this books which make you think. The book is a pleasure to read and it is highly entertaining. Start reading the first page and you will not stop. Yet, if you start thinking about your art of living and consider what the book means for you, it may become impenetrable and very disturbing. It may change your life - without helping you at all.

The Art of Failure comprises several inspiring themes. Madness, the meaning of life, death, freedom, friendship, happiness and truth. Neel Burton draws on a wide range of inspiring authors - Plato, Freud, Kant, Jung, Russel, and Aristotle to name just a few. As the title suggests, the book will not offer you a way to the kind of 'happiness' you expect from a self-help guide. Rather, it introduces the type of happiness certain philosophers experienced. One of Burton's shining examples of the art of failure and perhaps an epitome of the book is Diogenes who was enjoying the morning sunlight when Alexander the Great visited him. Alexander asked whether there was any favour he might do for him. Diogenes only told him to step out of the sunlight. Episodes such as these - many of which are less known than Diogenes' - make the Art of Failure my favourite, all-you-ever-need, anti self-help guide. I would be somewhere else without reading this book, so it definitively did not help. I started to like the title, especially as it epitomises what life should be. Failure in the eyes of most and an art which makes life worth living. I still do not like the cover image, but that might change.

One of my favourites in this book is the mzungu passage. In the Western world, we are usually engaged in some kind of task which keeps us busy. And we are unhappy if we don't have a set of things to do - whether we are waiting for the bus, are on holidays, or are trying to enjoy our leisure time. People in Kenya, for example, do not share the worldview that it is worthwhile to spend all of our time rushing from one task to the next. Westerners are therefore called mzungus in Swahili - which literally translates as those who go round and round in circles.

My suggestion is therefore that you pause going round in circles for a moment and buy this book. Even if you do not like the title or some of the impenetrable questions it raises. Also, it is good value for your money, as you can read it more than once.

I've read many a self-help guide in my time, but this is one is by far the most brilliant and insightful that I've ever come across. That's probably because it's not a self-help guide but an anti self-help guide, and successfully undermines the very premises of the "get ahead" brand of self-help guides.

Although the title suggests that the book may be ironic or tongue in cheek, it's nothing of the sort. It'll grab you, shake you up, spit in your face and leave you shaking in a corner. And then it'll rebuild you bit by bit as a wiser and better person. Aside from all this violence, it can be quite intellectually challenging at times, particularly when discussing philosophical topics such as free will, knowledge, virtue, personal identity, the meaning of life, and the role of friendship and love in the good life.

As someone with a degree in psychology, one of the most interesting aspects of the book was the diverse links that are formed between human thoughts and emotions and the human condition, between psychology and philosophy. But what particularly impressed me was the author's honesty and intellectual rigour, the way that he challenges ideas that no one thinks or dares to challenge, the way that his own ideas form part of a coherent worldview that becomes increasingly compelling as the pages are turned. I must say that after reading the last page I was completely stumped and had to go back to page one and start all over again!

Ultimately, The Art of Failure aims to remind us of who we are lest we have lost ourselves somewhere along the way, and to teach us how difficult and yet important it is to be true to ourselves even though this may mean `failing' in the eyes of others. It's impossible to do this book justice in a review: just read it and see what I mean.

The Art of Failure is an uncommonly valuable book because it pinpoints the faults of contemporary definitions of failure and success, helping readers realign their values to match the things that lead to fundamental happiness. Unfortunately the book is challenging to many of the core beliefs that drive contemporary humans and its conclusions are difficult to implement in proportion to their truth. As such, it appropriately calls itself an 'anti-self help guide' and promises no easy tricks to success among one's peers.

While the author draws from (primarily though not exclusively Western) philosophy and psychology, The Art of Failure is in not merely a summary or a survey of either of these. The author ties together relevant and interesting philosophical and social theories in a tight arc that clearly leads to a realization of the fuller possibilities attendant to being human, as well as how one can achieve these personally. The examples from psychology and philosophy are not only engrossing for their own sakes but are often remarkably novel repackagings of material from the the intellectually sensitive minds of the past in different and unusual forms. I found that the results not only elucidated the ideas of those psychologists and philosophers but gave them dimensions I had not before realized. On this account alone the book would be worth reading.

By far the book's most important impact is that it speaks to that voice inside that wonders at the end of the day how it has gotten here and whether it needs to be here at all. It rang true for me on this deep level usually reserved for literature and art; if I can implement only some of the conclusions in my life, I will be better for it.