Notes on a nervous planet

How I came across the book:
Christmas present from my brother and his girlfriend.

Best quotes from the book:
1. I was distracted from distraction by distraction. – TS Eliot (Four Quartets)
2. If just about the worst thing that can happen is for a parent to lose a child, that’s about half as likely as it was in 1990.
3. Anxiety may be the dizziness of freedom. – Soren Kierkegaard 
4. He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers from what he fears. – Montaigne 
5. Sex isn’t really what sells. What sells is fear.
6. To be constantly presenting ourselves, packaging ourselves, like potatoes pretending to be crisps. 
7. Forever – is composed of Nows – Emily Dickinson
8. Maybe happiness is felt heading out, not in. Maybe happiness is not about what we can get, but what we already have, and what we can give.
9. People for thousands of years have woken up at seven in the morning. We are waking up because it is seven in the morning.
10. We have multiplied everything, but we are still individual selves.
11. Political opposition, but emotional mirroring.
12. Every one of us, is in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. – Carl Sagan 
13. Sleep is the enemy of consumerism. 
14. I have noticed as the years pass by that the number of my virtual friends is rising, while the number of friends I see in real life is shrinking.
15. Online socialising is easy. It is weather-proof. It never requires a taxi or an ironed shirt.
16. Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get.
17. Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously near to wanting nothing. – Sylvia Path
18. We need to build a kind of immune system of the mind, where we can absorb but not get infected by the world around us.
19. Wanting is also lacking. We have to be careful of our wants and watch that they don’t cause too many holes inside us, otherwise happiness will drip through us like water through a leaky bucket. 
20. Those things can test the open minds of even the best of us.
21. Aim not to get more stuff done. Aim to have less stuff to do.
22. Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. – CS Lewis
23. Reading is important, because it gives you room to exist beyond the reality you’re given. It is how humans merge. How minds connect. A deep connection to the imagination of another human being.
24. Life is not simply a tequila to be slammed.
25. It’s just a shame, that it takes such major events in our lives, for perspective to arrive.
26. The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff. – Carl Sagan
27. We have to find, within all those billions of human worlds, the one we want to live on.
28. There is only one corner of the Universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self. – Aldous Huxley.
29. Never be cool. Never try to be cool. Life is warmth. You’ll be cool when you’re dead.
30. When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. – Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher
31. Slow down. Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. – Lao Tzu
32. Planning for future is just planning for another present in which you will be planning for future.
33. Don’t beat yourself up for being a mess. Galaxies are drifting all over the place. You’re just in tune with the cosmos.
34. One version of multiverse theory states that we create a new Universe with every decision we make.
35. The brain is bigger than the sky. – Emily Dickinson
36. The best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.
37. We can think about anything, so it makes sense that sometimes we end up thinking about everything.

Introduction:
Matt Haig is a successful British novelist and a Sunday times best selling author, based in Brighton, UK. He had a mental breakdown in his 20s, and then according to him chose to “write a book on depression that is not depressing”, called ‘Reasons to stay alive‘. Subsequently, in this book, he says he wanted to write not about why should we live but, “How can we live in a mad world, without going mad ourselves?”

Summary:
Because only 40 different books were published in a year, there was a time in the early 16th century that if you were an avid reader, you could have potentially read all the books! Thats impossible today, because there are millions of books out there now. That’s just one of the issues of overload that we face on this ever so connected nervous planet. In a world of free choices, we struggle to understand our own feelings, when we do not feel like we want. We struggle to undestand why? Another paradox of modern life is that although we are supposed to have much more time than before (because of washing machines, cars, emails etc), it still seems that we are struggling for time. An interesting analogy of our obsession with browsing the internet and social media, is that of a rat which will keep pressing a lever if it gets a treat everytime, but not as much as the one that gets mixed results – sometimes treat, sometimes nothing. Matt offers some simple life advices like switching off at times, having proper sleep, reading book to connect to the power of human imagination, taking a walk in the park, connecting with nature or just getting some fresh air like they say. He also advises that if we put our problems in context, they are so small considering the vastness of the sky, the Universe. 

My thoughts:
I suppose the key message from the book for me is that mental well-being comes from a state of awareness. And perhaps a state of acceptance. Acceptance of who we are. We can be prepared for life only by being grounded in our truth. As a species we have multiplied everything around us, but biologically we are still pretty much. Therefore, to survive this world on steroids, he offers some genuine, simple and potentially life changing tips.  The book is also full of beautiful quotes and I wanted to preserve them in this book summary. 

Conclusion:
Matt Haig is clearly a well read author and there is a lot to learn from this book. He chooses to write in a simple easy to understand style, using uncomplicated vocabulary. I have certainly found myself staring at the mobile screen in a senseless, hopeless and purposeless manner at times. I will be using his simple tips of being mindful, having proper sleep, getting some fresh air and reading, to help cope with the paralysis that social media and internet can induce in all of us.