Book Review-The Antidote By Oliver Burkeman

I picked up this book at Carmichael Books in Louisville. It sat there, quite innocuous with a rather mundane title and a rather funny looking cover. I’d read about the book previously and the topic looked entertaining, so I bought it. Little did I know that this was going to change my world view completely.

The Antidote questions, in the first chapter, our obsession with being happy, and in so doing it also questions the underlying folk wisdom that we take for granted. Such things as our cult like adhesion to the western definition of happiness, our goal setting habit, our aversion to anything that smacks of negativity, our fear of failure, our discomfort with death, and our deep seated dread of uncertainty. In eight well researched and written chapters, Mr. Burkeman dives in and dives in deep. Unlike most books investigating a specific subject, Mr. Burkeman does not just cite and regurgitate academic research results, although he does a quite reasonable job of that. He dives into experiencing a number of topics that challenges the status quo and certainly places him into some uncomfortable situations, all in order to conduct research for the book. Some of the more satisfying portions of the book are his descriptions of his own feelings and mental states as he is conducting his research.

Another source of reading pleasure are his in depth interviews with people. Rather than just doing a cursory review and restatement of the salient points of the interviews, Mr. Burkeman goes into deeper descriptive elocution of the interviews, this part of the chapters were wonderful peeks into the conversation and gives the reader a snapshot of the discussion. His subjects were eclectic and representative of the fascinating world that he had jumped into with both feet.

The breadth of the book is broad, Mr. Burkeman discusses the Stoic philosophers and philosophy, the Buddhist philosophy and how the two correlate. He examines the impossible situation that we force ourselves into when we adapt the ubiquitous and pedantic habit of goal setting, and how our fear of uncertainty reinforces our grip onto that goal setting habit. He then delves into our fear of failure, and how some have embraced failure as a guide and utilize that examination of failure as the guiding principle towards achieving tranquility, in place of happiness. He invokes the Stoic practice of looking at the most negative possible outcome in order to gain perspective and alleviate fears, fear of uncertainty, and submitting to the Stoic practice of dichotomy of control. He also dives in on the Stoic practice of Memento Mori, which forces us to examine the role of death and dying in our culture and attempts to get our minds to accept the finality of death and to overcome our fear of death. I must admit that this part of the book was particularly difficult for me, yet this practice does allow me to understand this previously taboo subject. I am still working on this part of my own thoughts.

The Antidote is not an easy read, which s what makes it special. The integrity of Mr. Burkeman who made sure that he had skin in the game as he did research was a singular point of merit; it made me that much more interested because he made the effort. Mr. Burkeman’s epilogue in the Antidote was matter of fact and rational. It did not appeal to nostalgia nor emotional hysteria, instead he remained Stoic in his story telling, which is the very attractive quality that permeates the entire book.