Forget Happiness, Be Antifragile
“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.” ~Saint Francis de Sales
Be careful that your need for happiness does not become an albatross. Focusing on your lack of happiness will only lead to more lack. Focus on action instead. Focus on movement. Fill the negative space with positive growth. Happiness will come by the wayside.
Break the cycle of lack. Become a master of negative space. Fill it with courage, imagination, and humor. Forget about happiness. Focus on maneuverability, flexibility, and adaptability—whether it be through the mind, body, or soul. Bend into the flow state. Become antifragile despite fragility. Here’s how…
Forget explaining, embrace doing:
“The general principle of antifragility: it is much better to do things you cannot explain than explain things you cannot do.” ~Nassim Nicholas Taleb
By prioritizing “doing” over “explaining,” you increase your exposure to upside volatility while limiting downside risk, turning uncertainty into an advantage. The real world rewards the bold tinkerer, not the eloquent theorist.
Antifragility refers to systems, people, or strategies that not only withstand shocks, volatility, and uncertainty but improve and grow stronger because of them, in contrast to fragile systems that break or robust ones that merely endure.
“Doing things you cannot explain” favors practical experimentation, trial-and-error, and intuition-driven action, even when the underlying ‘why’ isn’t fully understood. This builds antifragility by exposing you to real-world stressors and randomness, allowing organic learning and adaptation. It’s about embracing the unknown to gain from serendipity and Black Swans (rare, high-impact events).
“Explaining things you cannot do” critiques over-reliance on theory, abstraction, or post-hoc rationalizations (what Taleb calls the ‘narrative fallacy’) without the ability to apply them in practice. Such intellectualism creates fragility because it prioritizes comfort and predictability over resilience, often leading to paralysis or misguided planning in an unpredictable world.
Forget what you think you know, embrace No Mind:
“A sign of intelligence is an awareness of one’s own ignorance.” ~Niccolo Machiavelli
Pretend what you know is a trap. Imagine all that you’ve learned up to this point is a trick, a deception, a con and that your previous iterations were always the trickster, the deceiver, and the conman. This is the nuts and bolts of getting out of your own way. Unhinge the nuts, loosen the bolts, flip the script on your indoctrination. Then use that negative space like a sponge for new knowledge.
As Krishnamurti said, “We try to enrich our poverty-stricken minds with a great deal of knowledge, information and facts. But the mind is not capable of deep inquiry if it is filled with knowledge.”
No Mind is that space. It’s a space of sacred unknowing. A space of pure curiosity. Where you stand “beside yourself” and your thousand and one screaming angels and demons. Where you absorb without retaining. Where you consider without certainty. Where you entertain a thought without accepting it.
Indeed. Forget what you think you know, therein lies traps, poisons, snares, and flies in the ointment. Embrace the manna-fueled mindfulness of No Mind instead. Transform ignorance into immanence. As Will Durant said, “Sixty years ago, I knew everything. Now I know nothing. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”
Forget hubris, be humorous:
“A sense of humor is the only divine quality of man.” ~Arthur Schopenhauer
Humility is the root of humor and the counter to hubris. Without the foundation of humility there is simply the nonsense of hubris, and a good sense of humor never emerges.
Seek what your ego clings to and sacrifice it. It’s probably something so wrapped up in your identity and persona that you may not even be aware of it. It tends to fall under the umbrella of religion or politics. Rise above it. Surrender it to humility.
Be curious, not certain. Be creative, not convinced. Be unique, not conformist. Be humorous, not full of hubris.
But don’t merely tolerate your ignorance, find the punchline in it. Have a laugh at your seriousness. Become self-aware with a smile—understand that we’re all stumbling naked apes bumbling through an indifferent universe with half-baked theories and outdated maps, and that’s okay. A little humility goes a long way to keep our ego in check. And a little humor goes even further to propel the ego into Soulcraft.
This kind of humor defangs the anxiety of being wrong about our beliefs—it’s less “Oh no, I’m a fool” and more “Ha! We’re all fools, pass the popcorn.” Cultivate the “skyhook” of a good sense of humor lest the “deadweight” of hubris hold you down.
Forget the herd, embrace oneness:
“If you want to be loathsome to God just run with the herd.” ~Soren Kierkegaard
Out beyond the things of man there is a sacred space called Solitude. This space is sacred because it teaches you how everything is connected to everything else. As Arthur Schopenhauer said, “Great men are like eagles and build their nest on some lofty solitude.”
Nothing extraordinary can happen if you’re outflanked by the comforts of culture. Tear down the ramparts. Upend the fences. Flatten all the boxes you’ve been forced to believe in. Seek the healing pain of solitude before the deadly comfort of complacency lays you low. Don’t let up until your comfort zone becomes a thing you can take with you into the wild, into solitude and adventure.
Then balance solitude and society. Solitude is important for self-discovery and discovering sacred neuma but returning to society to contribute and influence is just as important. Equilibrium is key. Seek solitude and adventure. Discover the labyrinth within, your very own Hero’s Journey. Just remember to return to the “tribe” and share your magic elixir.
Most important of all: avoid Dogma. Each step should be approached with a caution against creating new dogmas. Oneness is about continual nonattached overcoming, not static belief.
Forget happiness, allow the journey to be the thing:
“The strongest men find their happiness where others would find their destruction: in the labyrinth, in hardness against themselves and others, in experiments. Their joy is self-conquest…Difficult tasks are a privilege to them; to play with burdens that crush others, a recreation.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche
The only way fragility can become antifragility is through hardship.
Forget armored happiness and become vulnerable and curious with your own hardship. Discover the pleasurable experience of transforming pain into strength. Pluck the elusive Phoenix Egg from its sea of ashes. Pull your rebirth out of your death. Allow the journey to be the thing.
Live on purpose, with purpose. Focus on creating meaning. “Happiness” will take care of itself. As John Stuart Mill said, “Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.”
The search is the thing, not what’s found. The Truth Quest is the thing, not the “truth.” The journey is the thing, not the destination. Meaning is the thing, not happiness. Happiness is more a side effect of doing something meaningful than it is anything else.
So, get out there and create meaning. Create art. Create your own Hero’s Journey. Create hardships to overcome. Navigate the labyrinth of yourself. Drag the skull of the Phoenix through the desert and up the switchbacks and onto the summit. Live an antifragile lifestyle.
About the Author:
Gary Z McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide-awake view of the modern world.
This article (Forget Happiness, Be Antifragile) was originally created and published by Self-inflicted Philosophy and is printed here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Gary Z McGee and self-inflictedphilosophy.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this statement of copyright.
