The Freedom Manifesto: How to Free Yourself from Anxiety, Fear, Mortgages, Money, Guilt, Debt, Government, Boredom, Supermarkets, Bills, Melancholy, Pain, Depression, Work, and Waste
Product Description
The author of How to Be Idle, Tom Hodgkinson, now shares his delightfully irreverent musings on what true independence means and what it takes to be free. The Freedom Manifesto draws on French existentialists, British punks, beat poets, hippies and yippies, medieval thinkers, and anarchists to provide a new, simple, joyful blueprint for modern living. From growing your own vegetables to canceling your credit cards to reading Jean-Paul Sartre, here are excellent suggestions for nourishing mind, body, and spiritwitty, provocative, sometimes outrageous, yet eminently sage advice for breaking with convention and living an uncluttered, unfettered, and therefore happier, life.
Rate Points :4.0
Binding :Paperback
Label :Harper Perennial
Manufacturer :Harper Perennial
ProductGroup :Book
Studio :Harper Perennial
Publisher :Harper Perennial
EAN :9780060823221
Price :$13.95USD
Lowest Price :$3.40USD
Customer Reviewsyeaah!! Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :1 Excellent book full of common sense and I dont know...I thought it was lovely and hopeful and more people should read it and follow some of the advice and give up all of the nonsense that it opposes because there is nothing wrong with anything Hodgkinson suggests. It is a no argument sort of thing...only if you believe in humans and the idea of them living a wonderful, whole, and fruitful life full of freedom and love and truth. And for the reviewer who said this book is for sociopaths...what the hell do you even mean? I do not think you are clear on what a sociopath is and it would be good to look it up and get clear because your comment made me laugh it was so weird.
Give Freedom a Chance! Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :1 I dont even remember how I heard about or came across the book but the cover and title must have caught my eye. If you can get over the pain, humiliation, and shock when you figure out that you are not "free" but simply a corporate hack easily influenced by big marketing and empty promises of a "career" and a "life" you will love this book. Now dont beat yourself up too much as it happens to the best of us and the sad part is you start to fall deeper and deeper in without even realizing it. You work to live and before you know it you live to work. Your needs go from food and shelter to big cars, bigger houses, over priced vacations n so on.
In fact this book is so out there book stores have merchandised the book in both the humor section and the self help section. Here is a few sentences from the book - "Self importance is a trap, because the moment we start to think that we actually matter is the moment when things start to go wrong. The truth is that you are supremely unimportant, and that nothing matters. All of mans striving is for nothing all effort is wasted." or "Career is just posh slavery. And career is an institutionalized putting-off, a paradise defferred. I also bought his book " How to be Idle" which I am currently reading and enjoying.
The amount of people, books, & articles he references from the last 200 years is vast and if you pursue them individualy could turn into a full time job, which if you read the book you may understand that it may not be a bad thing. However he helpfully listed all resources used in the back of the book for easy reference.
Buy it, love it and then try and live it if you dare!
Read it, take a nap, then lie in the grass and watch the clouds go by Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :0 Finally, an antidote for all those personal productivity books that make you feel guilty for not being an optimally efficient wagebot, forever getting things done with your highly effective habits. This book made me feel happy about the times when I kick back and become a total slacker.
Odd little book but a nice read. Rating Point :4 Helpful Point :0 This is an odd little book that I both enjoyed and shook my head at. On the whole the book is very readable. Its written in a conversational style with a kind of populist comfortability. Its a lot like talking to your grandpa about life on the farm. Hodgkinson offers lots of friendly advice and I think this is where the book does well - if youre looking for a coherent philosophy of simplicity and escape you wont find it here. For those of you familiar with the Britcom "The Good Neighbors" you could imagine Tom Good reading a couple chapters in front of the fire each night.
What I dont understand is Hodgkinsons skewed view of history: he seems to hold to an overly romantic view of history and especially of the middle ages. He refers to them frequently as time when trade guilds took care of their members, when times were more gentle and kind, and when everyone just got along in happy harmony. Silly facts like a thirty year old life span, rampant disease and poverty, and almost complete lack of freedom never seem to bother him.
In all I give the book four stars for general entertainment and youll definitely come away thinking about things differently
Waste of time Rating Point :1 Helpful Point :0 It was not even funny. I had to put a lot of effort to finish it which ironically contradicts the whole idea. Only for sociopaths.
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Sold as each. Not your average loose change jar. Electronically counts your coins as they slip through the slot. Tallies total deposits on an easy-to-read LCD display. Easy-access twist-off lid. Perfect for saving for a special treat. Requires 2 AA b
