12 Commandments: For Extraordinary People To Master Ordinary Life Book club

[Slevin]

Just starting a thread for the clickbait titled next book from Hanzi Freinacht. Post in if you want to join, book description to follow, book summary and discussion to follow in later posts:

Hanzi guides the reader through an unforgettable journey of highs and lows, light and darkness, and all the way back to ordinary existence. Life, death, love, terror, rage, unhinged sexual desire, faith, spirituality, politics, God, family, and idealistic strivings to change an ailing world—all topics are woven together into one and the same philosophy of life, crystallized into 12 Commandments that you will want to obey as if your life depends on them.

This is no book for the ordinary person. No, the already-extraordinary, the misfit idealist, the maverick, these all find a structure to life and solace for their sorrows in these pages. Readers are guided back to ordinary existence, to where their different journeys began. This book is a secret bible for the transnational class of creatives and idealists that Hanzi is native to. It seeks to reestablish sanity and peace of mind to the very people who can make a real difference in the world.

The 12 Commandments

1. Live in a mess, moderately
2. Fuck like a beast
3. Live sincerely, ironically
4. Turn workout into prayer
5. Quit
6. Do the walk of shame
7. Sacrifice immortality
8. Heal with justice
9. Burn your maps
10. Do what you hate
11. Kill your guru, find your others
12. Play for forgiveness

You must read each of these to understand the depth of their meaning. And you must obey them—if you are to master ordinary life and make it a homestead for your extraordinary adventures.

Post script: the “Hidden title” of the book is: Sublime Mediocrity, and it is self described as a systems-thinking win-win scaleable (from individual scale to societal scale, I.e. what if everybody did it) approach to lifestyle design / philosophy.

[7Wannabe5]

I will definitely join in. Sure sign that AI has not yet taken over would be fact that I was not alerted to the release of this title. I love that he is taking on Peterson on some level.

[AxelHeyst]

In, loving it so far (up to commandment 2). I'm finding it dovetailing with ego is the enemy well.

[mountainFrugal]

Interested, but will need not conflict with Plotkin MMG meetings (should be easy to coordinate).

[ertyu]

I'm in. book doesn't seem to be available yet in my corner of the world, but i suppose in preparation i can read the previous two

[AxelHeyst]

Fwiw ertyu, he writes that the purpose of writing this book is to get people to read his other books...

[7Wannabe5]

It is also a much easier read than the other two. I'm very much enjoying it so far (@chapter 7.) Also thinking about the multi-dimensional Venn diagram intersection of Sublime Mediocrity and Frugal Affluence. My DS34 recently recollected that on one occasion when he was a child he asked me if we were poor, and I actually replied "No, we are genteel impoverished." I think another appropriate subtitle for this book might be "Make of Your Life a Pleasant Conceit."

[ertyu]

Having started the listening society, is the author the same sort of insufferable douche in this one? Bc if yes, idk if he'll become my personal development guiding light. I'm aware it's probably marketing but it's still not a vibe I want in my life.

I'll wait for you guys to tell me what his point is - or look up a youtube summary I guess

[Slevin]

@ertyu, sorry you’re having an allergic reaction. Do you hate the content, or the voice? I find Hanzi fun and playful and intensely dense most of the time. This book is much less dense in terms of the ideas.

[7Wannabe5]

@ertyu:

It is a bit of a marketing trick. He is self-aware using a psychological mechanism similar to when a player jokingly insults a beautiful woman. Further in, he basically cops to this, and also his voice becomes much more straight-forwardly nerdy-intellectual. I would further note that this sort of "player" move is known to hard fail when the beautiful woman doesn't believe that she is beautiful or is otherwise feeling unusually vulnerable in the momentOR soft fail when the beautiful woman is hip to such tricks and too busy to be bothered. It soft-wins when she is hip to such tricks, but is open to being provoked and amused in the moment. The hard win would be if she never becomes hip to the trick. It's obvious that Hanzi is only going for the "soft win" at best, because he reveals himself as trickster.

[Bicycle7]

I'm interested, I'm just deciding if I want to buy an electronic or physical copy, it's not at my local library.

[theanimal]

I'm confused. Is this a forum based conversation or is this for video meetings?

FWIW, we used to have a book club on the forum which went pretty well. All discussion took place on the board. See here for examples:
viewtopic.php?p=64976
viewtopic.php?p=61073

[Slevin]

Just starting a thread for the clickbait titled next book from Hanzi Freinacht. Post in if you want to join, book description to follow, book summary and discussion to follow in later posts:

I was intending a thread, book club style. If people wanna zoom chat about it, that's cool too. Happy to follow the vibes.

[theanimal]

Thanks for the clarification. My misunderstanding.

I'm through Chapter 1 and am planning on following along and contributing to the discussion.

[mountainFrugal]

I think that I was the first to jump the gun on assuming thread + video/discussion. Whoops! Happy to stick with the asynchronous default.

[guitarplayer]

Cool! Good stuff, will participate.

[ertyu]

@ertyu, sorry you’re having an allergic reaction. Do you hate the content, or the voice? I find Hanzi fun and playful and intensely dense most of the time. This book is much less dense in terms of the ideas.

I dislike how full of himself he is -- so you can say I dislike the voice. I kept on with the listening society - I skipped the intro chapters where most of him blowing hot air seems to be concentrated - and in all honesty, being a libtard soyboy, it doesn't take much to persuade me that an ounce of prevention's worth a pound of cure, which is what his argument comes down to. As I kept reading, I kept thinking, "tell me you're having a midlife crisis without telling me you're having a midlife crisis" -- and when i got to the chapter on him declaring himself one of the new metamodern aristocracy, i was finally moved to google his picture -- and yep, a pretentious twat:





Now, being a pretentious twat doesn't necessarily mean your ideas are to be discounted wholesale. But when it comes to taking life advice, which is what seems to be going on here -- he's trying to be Jordan Peterson from wish but for libtards, looks like -- I'd rather listen to someone who's not so obviously about his ego.

I don't mean that one can't have self-esteem or that one must pretend false modesty. But he strikes me as a person who very obviously wants followers, and something about this turns me off. The intro chapters of the listening society are negging central - let me insult you a bit, accept me as your alpha, and then we can both look down on these other people who are not it and are clearly not at the forefront of social thought -- and we know they're not 'cause if they were, they'd be listening to me.

I still only have access to nordic ideology and the listening society, but in all honesty, i aspire to the opposite of his kind of posturing narcissism. That's not who I want to be, and if I was, I'd feel put off and a bit disgusted by myself. Could be I've got a shadow to embrace there, who knows, but what I'm aiming for is simple unpretentious authenticity -- and he does not strike me as that.

I will follow everyone's thoughts and discussion because if so many intelligent people find something worthwhile in what he has to say, I want to at least consider it before throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But regardless of whether the posturing is his authentic snobbery coming through or just a marketing trick, it does not appeal.

[Slevin]

@ertyu,
Hanzi is two authors; Emil ejner friis and Daniel Gortz; they don't look anything like that.
Emil


Daniel

[ertyu]

?? ha then i have been completely bamboozled

so who is it then whose picture shows up for me in my search

thanks for straightening me out

i wonder if those images are part of the gimmick then

[7Wannabe5]

Hanzi Freinacht epitomizes much of the metamodern philosophy and can be considered a personification of this strand of thought

I think the image is supposed to convey stereotype of Nordic Philosopher, but also incorporates some of the “both/and” perspective of meta modernity. For instance, the rather preppy shirt with suspenders or the beard with a very slight Mohawk, or the appearance of strong posture and fitness and worn denim with the posh indulgence of the bar.