PART 1 Q & As
1. What does Charles Bukowski's success try to prove?
Charles attributed his success to the fact that he was comfortable with himself as a failure. The author used Charles's example to prove that the key to success is not to overcome unbelievable odds, but to not give a fuck about success.
2. What's wrong with the conventional life advice, which is fixating on what you lack?
Being fixating on what you lack causes you to become overly attached to the superficial and fake, to dedicate your life to chasing a mirage of happiness and satisfaction. It is bad for your mental health and runs counter to true happiness.
3. Can you use your own words explaining what the Feedback Loop from Hell is?
A negative experience causes negative feelings. The realization of being overwhelmed with negative feelings brings out more negative feelings such as anxiety and guilt, which makes you stuck in the feedback loop.
PART 2 Expressions
1. You are constantly bombarded with messages to give a fuck about everything, all the time.
bombard sb with sth: to do sth too often or too much, for example criticizing or questioning sb, or giving too much information
They bombarded him with questions.
Today we are bombarded with advice on what to eat and what to avoid.
类似表达： pepper sb with questions eg. Reporters peppered him with questions.
2. Meanwhile, our credit cards are maxed out, our dog hates us, and Junior is snorting meth in the bathroom.
max sth out: to use sth such as money or supplies so that there is none left
I maxed out my Visa.
max out on sth: to do too much, eat too much etc
"Want a beer?" "Nah, I maxed out on booze this weekend."
3. Because here’s a sneaky truth about life.
sneaky: doing things in a secret and often dishonest or unfair way SYN underhand 鬼祟的；卑鄙的
a sneaky little trick
Transparency is important -- it prevents you from seeming sneaky.
4. Her pension is on its last legs.
on its last legs: informal, old or in bad condition, and likely to stop working soon 可以想象成一个椅子只剩最后一条腿已经摇摇欲坠了
The car's on its last legs.
The company is on its last legs after the manager retired.
复习：give sb a leg up
If you’re black in South Africa, speaking English is the one thing that can give you a leg up. (来自Born a Crime)
a leg up: a position of advantage
give sb a leg up: the act of assisting someone, giving someone a boost. This usage alludes to helping a person get on a horse by getting a foot in the stirrup.
5. No, not that airy-fairy, eternal bliss, end-of-all-suffering, bullshitty kind of enlightenment.
airy-fairy/ airy fairy: not sensible or practical 不切实际的
He was supposed to give us advice, but all he came up were airy fairy ideas.
这种构词法有点像中文里的叠韵（声母不同，韵母相同）
On Writing Well里出现过一个 wishy-washy (意为“空洞无实质内容的，摇摆不定的”)：
"I give it the first prize as the most wishy-washy sentence in modern public discourse."
6. Because one you become comfortable with all the shit that life throws at you, you become invincible in a sort of low-level spiritual way.
invincible: too strong to be destroyed or defeated, 来自于拉丁语vincere 意为“征服”，有一部讲意大利法西斯党领袖墨索里尼的电影名字就叫<Vincere>. （注：没有vincible !）
Young athletes think of themselves as invincible.
an invincible belief, attitude etc: a belief, attitude that is extremely strong and cannot be changed
invincibility: (n.)
PART３ Thoughts
Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.
Among all the self-introductions I have ever heard, the most impressive one came from a guy by the name of Bing. He announced on the first day of school that he was gay, which made him the bread and butter of gossip throughout his college life. The other day I asked him whether he regretted his decision to come clean about being homosexual. Bing admitted that he had a trying time at the outset. He was treated as persona non grata by his roommates. Worse still, he was dammed and deprecated by someone who hardly knew him. However, he saved himself from the suffering of low self-esteem and the trouble of disguising his sexual inclination. Most of his gay friends, Bing said, were prostrated by their own shame and the fear of being socially excluded. They lived their life with full prudence and cowardice as if their life was blemished by their sexual inclination. Determined to live his life to the fullest, Bing decided to come clean about being gay and not give a fuck about the malice from others.
This chapter and the story of Bing strike a chord with me. For years, I have been haunted by my math phobia. I flunked many math exams in high school. Since then, whenever I have an exam that I am not quite prepared for, the past experiences of flunking math exams come to haunt me like a nightmare. The harder I tried to wipe them out, the more entrenched they became. However, I have come to realize that the key to emancipating myself from that phobia is not to struggle to catch up with others in math, but to be okay with the fact that I am poor in math. And since the performance in math exams is never a benchmark of my performance in other realms, all I need to do is to take my lumps, not give a fuck and move on.
