1. Questions
1) What does Charles Bukowski's success try to prove?
By citing Charles's success, Mark tries to tell us that we don't need to give a fuck about success rather than pay more attention about it.
2) What's wrong with the conventional life advice, which is fixating on what you lack?
Most conventional life advice is positive and tries to persuade people to stay positive. But in practice, if people stick to those advice, they emphasize their weakness. When fixating on what they lack, people tend to be trapped in this feeling.
3) Can you use your own words explaining what the Feedback Loop from Hell is?
The Feedback Loop from Hell is a kind of vicious circle. People who have negative emotions fell in this loop, which generates negative emotions.
2. Thoughts
When hearing the book's name, the first thing came to my mind was the song called Let It Go. I wish I could just say,'let go' when I come across things that bother me. It turns out that saying words is easier than doing real stuff. I want to share with you a story that I wish I could not give a fuck when I was in elementary school.
Having fever became a routine for me when the final exams were approaching. I knew I should have studied hard during that period of time but probably because I was worried sick of those exams. So I was always getting sick and took a week off before important exams. Worse still, my mind went blank during those exams, ended up getting bad scores. In this case, my parents was disappointed in me. As a result, I felt under pressure both from my parents and myself, because I only had myself to blame. I guess I was in the Feedback Loop from Hell. If I had realized it earlier and had not given a fuck of it, I would have got rid of it.
3. Expressions
Then, when Bukowski was fifty, after a lifetime of failure and self-loathing, an editor at a small independent publishing house took a strange interest in him.
It takes a lifetime of practice and discipling to achieve.
lifetime means the length of time that sb lives or that sth lasts.
e.g. He created this book with his lifetime of experience.
Idiom: the chance of a lifetime: it means a wonderful opportunity that you are not likely to get again.
once in a lifetime: means sth special that is not likely to happen again.
e.g. For me, doing extreme sports may be a once-in-a-lifetime-experience.
You are constantly bombarded with messages to give a fuck about everything, all the time.
Be bombarded with means to attack sb with a lot of questions, criticisms, etc. or by giving them too much information.
e.g. We are bombarded with many useless information on the internet.
Conventional life advice is actually fixating on what you lack.
Fixate means to think and talk about sb or sth in a way that is abnormal.
e.g. Her younger brother was fixating on barbie dolls.
