Two events collided in a single evening, conspiring to force my hand into writing this essay...
At around eight o’clock, I was sitting in the back of an Uber with a close friend, who casually mentioned she had just started reading James Clear’s renowned self-help manifesto, Atomic Habits.
I let out a heavy, entirely involuntary sigh of disappointment.
Not a completely unusual thing for me to do, and she laughed at me in response.
Next thing I knew, I was launching into a full-throated, unprovoked crusade against the text… It was little short of blind rage. I won’t inflict the gory details on you now but trust me when I say that the poor Uber driver formed a rather striking opinion of me.
That was the first event of the evening. Seemingly inconsequential, right? Clearly not- it appears I haven’t stopped ranting since.
By midnight, I was back at home, scanning my unread books in search of something to read me to sleep. Finally, my eyes landed on a text from a close personal friend of mine- Oscar Wilde. I began reading A Poet Can Survive Everything but a Misprint, and the delight I found in his words felt like what can only be described as divine intervention. It was as though I were undergoing a quiet spiritual awakening, and I thought to myself: Atomic Habits has nothing on you, Wilde.
I must admit, I’ve never actually read Atomic Habits. I am like a stubborn child refusing to eat a vegetable simply because it’s a vegetable, and I'm certain that my criticism is unearned. But my scepticism goes far beyond this single text. Point is, I am wary of the entire culture surrounding 'hustle culture' and mechanical self-optimisation. Or what I prefer to call the tedious admin of becoming a better person.
The sequence of these two events resulted in a severely delayed bedtime (a travesty) and a late-night reflection on what it really means to execute life well. Modern productivity books make endless attempts to get our lives into strict order. But I would argue that the first truth one must accept is that life is not comprised of order.
And so, I present to you my alternative: Atomic Novelty.
Atomic Novelty
Have an awful laugh.
In other words, succumb to absurdity. A god-awful laugh requires an eye for the ridiculous, which means finding humour in almost everything- especially yourself. If the strangers around you aren't looking over to you in disgust and judgement, then you're doing it wrong. And when you've reached the peak of your obnoxiousness, this is when you start snorting. The people will hate it.
The best minds I know all have awful laughs (I apologise to my close circle) because the ability to be ridiculed is not a display of foolishness, but a strength of character: to have understood life well enough to know when to meet it with laughter. Perhaps that is where true strength lies.
Don't go to the cinema.
Before venturing into the new, maybe start with the old. Literature, film, music: make an attempt to consult the classics first.
There are two reasons for this. Firstly, sheer vanity: to look impressive at dinner tables. Modern life is little more than one long, running reference. If your only knowledge of ‘Homer’ comes from The Simpsons and not The Odyssey, or a ‘Tale of Two Cities’ from J Cole rather than Dickens, or even ‘Redrum’ from Kendrick Lamar rather than The Shining, you ought to return to the fundamentals.
Secondly, to appreciate the present, you must understand the past. The modern world is not devoid of genius, but technique and craft are only truly appreciated when you understand where they came from. A healthy dose of snobbery goes a long way. Good taste is built on a timeline, and discrimination is the first requirement of self-knowledge.
So, I recommend that you do not step foot in a cinema until you have consumed every bit of media produced to date.
Cultivate a taste for the rubbish.
Mastering the art of living requires being both a solemn scholar and a joyous idiot. High-brow pursuits refine the mind, but a little absurdity cleanses it…
Be sure to pair classical symphony sessions with cheap techno raves. Balance fine dining with ungodly midnight junk food. Wear silk and loafers to buy a beer can from the petrol station at two in the morning. Know everything there is to know about the history of politics, but forget the current Prime Minister's name. Convince yourself you could argue cases in a high court, but keep a DJ set ready just in case. Quote Dante in conversation but never turn down a karaoke duet. Engage in high-minded debate but prioritise a genuine laugh over winning an argument. Treat humanity with a healthy scepticism but remain curious enough to learn from even its weirdest characters.
Living well is not about consistency; it is about contrast.
Always be inconsistent.
Give up the exhausting pursuit of “knowing yourself”. Modern self-help insists that your soul is an administrative task waiting to be solved through journalling apps, habit trackers, and personality tests. But the true point of human life is not self-discovery, but continuous self-invention. Be occasionally unsure of your own opinions but carry yourself with conviction regardless. Be an honest saint on Monday, and a shameless liar on Wednesday. Consider yourself a good person one minute but allow for slight doubt the next. Hypocrisy is not a flaw, but the sign of an active mind enjoying the freedom of remaining unresolved.
Stop reading.
If you have a genuine interest in humanity, I suggest that you step away from pop-psychology and sociology textbooks, and turn backwards to the giants who wrote the original blueprints.
Turn to The Iliad for war; to Dostoevsky for the guilt of the soul; to Orwell for the art of deception; to Tolstoy for the collision between love and history; and to Dante for the full inventory of human vice.
These newer books (which I must admit, there are a few I've indulged in) ultimately signify the shift from the Humanities to the STEM. Human nature has become abbreviated and simply explainable, but it takes the twist and turns of a novel to truly appreciate our own condition.
That being said, do not become a martyr to canonical literature: if a classic hasn’t earned your affection within the first 100 pages, move on. Life is too short for dutiful reading. God knows how many books I've put down in the name of 'what the hell is going on'.
Always be overdressed.
Civilisation hangs in the balance!
As my close personal friend Oscar Wilde once observed- or rather, as I shamelessly plagiarised from him- the nation’s attire reflects its intellect. He believed that the only way to compensate for being terribly overdressed is to be excessively educated.
This is precisely why I refuse to step foot outside without a waistcoat and bow tie. On mornings when I’ve had a particularly brilliant thought, I may even test out a top hat.
It all comes back to the basics, my friend: look good, feel good.
Disagree with everything.
Someone else’s questionable taste is no reason to ruin your afternoon. Disagreement is one of life’s many pleasures, yet we’ve reduced it to personal insult. Learn to enjoy opposition without taking it to heart; it is an opportunity for intellectual sport, for verbal fencing. If you lose the ability to engage with ideas you dislike without taking them personally, you lose the ability to think.
… Unless, of course, somebody offers a glowing review of Atomic Habits. In that case, you ought to be offended to the point of rage and immediately consult The Iliad for inspiration on your vengeance plan.
Be completely unrealistic.
Realism is dreadful; it insists that things simply are what they are. Romance, however, insists that things are whatever we have the audacity to make of them. Live with absurd optimism, fall in love with strange ideas, pursue bizarre passions, and overestimate yourself dramatically. If you carry out your romantic delusions with enough sincerity, the rest of the world will eventually have no choice but to accept them as reality.
Essentially, you are blackmailing the universe.
Sabotage your own routine.
Routine, and the preservation of our precious habits, demands we go straight home to protect tomorrow morning’s 6:00 AM productivity window. Well I say: resist it. Instead, aim to get between two and four hours of sleep a night in the name of absolute aimlessness. Real novelty only ever happens in the unscripted hours when polite social filters dissolve, or when you allow yourself to wander down a rabbit hole of wild curiosity. I do not believe that 'everything happens for a reason' but I do believe in serendipity, and for magic to come your way, you have to be willing to accept it. Our hands do not need to be on the steering wheel at all times.
The best stories of your life will always start with "So I took my hands off the wheel..."
Shout out to James Clear and my close personal friend, Oscar Wilde.