How To Live, by Derek Sivers

27 plausible-sounding prose-poems about how to live, each contrasting/conflicting with the previous. e.g. "be independent" then "be part of a community", "be rooted", "be unattached", "think for the long run", "think for the short run"....

I like Sivers, I think he's an interesting guy. And I thought this was a cute idea for a book, a fun send-up for the genre of Life Advice in an interesting way.

However... idk, I wasn't that interested. I got through maybe 1/3rd of the book then skipped to the end, it's just not that interesting and it all washes together a bit. Since the book is called "27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion", I skipped to the conclusion, which I will spoil below for anyone interested, though I feel like you can probably guess approximately.

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spoiler: the "one weird conclusion" of the book is two images. One is the famous duck/rabbit image, "is it a duck or is it a rabbit?" Answer: both. The second is an orchestra, pointing out that you are the conductor in the middle. This is fine? Idk. If I'm allowed to put into words the thing he was trying to not-quite-put-into-words, it would be: "if there are many plausible-sounding Right Ways To Live, the answer is to do a harmonious mixture of different ways-of-living." This feels non-obvious, not necessarily true.