Useful Not True

About the book

Book author: Derek Sivers

This is the third book from Derek that I read, the others being How To Live and Anything You Want.

This book is about truth, belief and perspectives. The idea is to acknowledge that there are many ways to see a situation, and truth is very strange, but you should pick the thoughts and beliefs that empowers and are useful to you, which is completely in your power.

I’d like to just say that this book is fantastic, and very hard to summarize, because Derek already condenses his writing so well. So it’ll just be the stuff I really liked. Sometimes it’s direct excerpts.

Reflection and takeaways

What is truth, anyway? It’s quite subjective. If I tell you what the time is, you might say 12 PM. But it’ll be 2 PM somewhere else. That case is relative to you. It’s different from a fact. A fact can be true. A perspective or belief might not be. Almost everything anyone tells you is a perspective or opinion that is subjective to them. And remember, a belief is almost never true. If it was objectively true, it would not upset you if someone has a different belief from your identity.

You should become adept at determining if something is a fact or a perspective. To scare you even further, consider this except from the book:

Explanations are invented

Some people have damaged the fibers that connect the left and right hemispheres of their brain, and need to have that connection surgically severed. They live pretty normal lives even though the two sides of their brain are disconnected. Psychology researchers work with these people to better understand the brain. They showed a patient a message in her right eye, saying, “Please close the window.” She got up and closed the window. Then they showed a question to her left eye, “Why did you close the window?” She said she chose to do it because she was cold. To another patient, a researcher said, to only one ear, “Please walk.” The patient started walking. Then they asked his other ear, “Why did you walk?” He said he just felt like getting a drink. Brain surgery has to be done while the patient is awake. When they’re poking in the brain, they keep the patient talking to make sure she’s OK. When they probed one area, she started laughing. They asked why she laughed. She said the picture on the wall is really funny. Later, when probing that same area again, while she was eating, she laughed again. This time, she said it’s because her fork is really funny. These patients weren’t lying. They fully believed those were the real reasons. These controlled experiments highlight something that everyone does. When asked for an explanation, the brain invents a reason and completely believes it. To that person, the explanation feels like absolute fact — the kind they swear is true, believe deeply in their core, and will fight to defend! Think of the implications: major life choices, attraction, excitement, love, anger, anxiety, jealousy, fear, and interpersonal conflict. All of these are supported and defended by explanations that aren’t true. **People’s motives are unknowable. Let go of the need for a reason. Ignore their explanations. The only true facts are their actions.**

Another profound thing:

Aim a laser pointer at the moon, then move your hand the tiniest bit, and it’ll move a thousand miles at the other end. The tiniest misunderstanding long ago, amplified through time, leads to giant misunderstandings in the present. We think of the past like it’s a physical fact — like it’s real. But we never have all the information. One story based on one point of view: that’s what we call “the past”.

I like this one because it’s akin to two boats moving in parallell. One boat shifts their course (truth) slightly, and keeps going. I’m almost positive this is how old arguments can sometimes get worse, and reconciliations impossible.

Because there are so many ways to view an event, some more true than others, the chief task is to pick the one that is most useful to you.

Let’s consider a breakup. Dramatic events like that can have a thousand different perspectives.

• That person was too good for me => decreased self worth
• I’m happy that it happened but sad that it ended => cherish memories, move on
• I need to get better => work on yourself
• I don’t know what I want => figure out what you want
• I’m giving up on relationships => be single
• It wasn’t your fault => don’t blame yourself

What is right? Who knows ¯\(ツ)/¯. But some perspectives are more useful than others to you. Pick one!

Another important perspective is that no matter where you are, what you believe is true, might not be true. It might be rude to say hello to a stranger where you are, but not where you are from.

A traveler comes to a river and sees a local woman on the opposite bank. He yells across, “How do I get to the other side of the river?” She yells back, “You are on the other side of the river!” An American woman went on a vacation to Scotland. Talking with a group of people there, she said, “I just love your accent!” They said, “We don’t have an accent. You do.”

It’s important to think that for someone else, you are across the river.

I also liked that I was reminded that we humans experience so many events that are not happening. Derek had this brilliant excerpt about “Watcher/listener Aliens”

Alien surveillance

Orbiting Earth are two aliens with two amazing devices. **One device can see everything we do. The other can hear all of our thoughts.** They sit next to each other on their little spaceship, observing us. Let’s call them Watcher and Listener. When one finds something exciting, he gives the other the coordinates, to check it out through the other device. This is where it gets confusing. Listener finds an emergency — a human under attack! Ten people are ganging up on one, maliciously causing harm. Listener shares the coordinates, but Watcher finds almost nothing. One human, sitting alone, with nobody else around. They verify the location and confirm. The human’s mind is experiencing an attack that isn’t actually happening. Watcher sees two humans in a building greet each other with the same word. Listener hears one experience a happy hello, while the other experiences an insult. Watcher sees a human standing in a room for an hour, staring at a colorful painted rectangle on the wall. Listener hears so many emotions — the full human experience of connection, gratitude, hope, regret, and reconciliation. They return to their planet, submit their findings, and get in trouble for their conflicting reports. They say humans must have access to another dimension since **we experience events that aren’t actually happening.**

Life is “____”. Nothing has any inherent meaning, whatever meaning you project is your own. Really. You can insert whatever you want, and it’ll probably be different for everyone. But remember that even though meanings are entirely in the mind, their power is real, but only for those who believe it. That also means that any meaning that is holding you back loses it’s power when you stop believing it.

It’s very common that people think that what worked for them will work for everyone. It’s understandable, but not right.

Here are some useful “reframing” questions to turn something more useful:

When wrong:

• what’s great about this?
• how can I use this to my advantage?
• does this change the goal, the path, or nothing?
• how can I reduce the downsides?

When changing directions:

• when I was at my happiest, what was I doing?
• what have I strongly wanted for the longest time?
• what’s the opposite of what I usually do?
• which of my old beliefs are not serving me?
• forget me. what would be most helpful for others?

When stuck:

• what is my top priority right now?
• how can I begin without waiting for anything?
• what advicve would I like to hear from an all-knowing sage?
• what am I doing that is actually a distraction?
• instead of avoiding mistakes, how can I make more to learn faster?
• who can help?

To make peace with what’s outside your control:

• what happens if I ignore it and do nothing?
• should I learn from this, or just move on?
• how can I blame no one and see this as nobody’s fault?
• how can I be OK no matter what happens?

The main concept of this book really is:

Instead of asking if it’s true, ask yourself if it’s useful to you. What are you going to do about it? Will it really change your actions? If not, what does it matter?

Why did I pick it

I love Siver’s books. I want to read them all. This one is so elegantly written. Extremely wise and practical, yet understandable. Most of the content in this book is useful to me, so then it must be true :-)

Verdict

4.⁸⁄₅. This really is a great read, and a mere ~130 or so pages. You might think it will take you an hour but it took me two weeks because I had to think so much.