Anneli RufusBesprekingen

OK, I must admit that it took me a while to get into this book. I thought of returning it many times to the library but just never did mainly because I just didn't have any errands to do near the library.

As the title suggests, it's a book about being stuck. The authors pulls stories from all over the place and I think it became mostly a personal narrative. I would read one story and think this book was trivial. Inane. Silly. However, the next story would make me pause and make me excited (or sickened) to be a human.

It's a soft kind of book. It doesn't really have a main purpose or big climax. It meanders this way and that. It started as a lump of clay ready to be molded into something wonderful and beautiful. In the end, it's still a lump of clay. Wonderful and beautiful.

This book isn't for everyone. If you're looking for a roller coaster, look elsewhere. This is more just like a pleasant walk on the same road that you walk every day with a good friend - and subtly seeing everything just a little different.

Rufus, who has clawed her own way out of low self-esteem, reaches a hand back to her fellow sufferers. While she acknowledges that self-hatred can come from many sources, we do hear an uncomfortable amount about her difficult relationship with her mother. Inspired, perhaps, by Buddhist philosophy, Rufus encourages her readers to aim for a middle path between self-hatred and narcissism.

I found a few useful ideas and strategies in this book. My best takeaway relates to negative self-talk. The author recommends acknowledging that the negative voice is trying to protect you, and then gently redirecting. I’m going to try to do this in future. However, I listened to the audiobook, and did not think that the narrator was a good fit, vocally. Her phrasing was awkward in spots. She also mispronounced a few words and names, which a good producer should have caught and corrected. I feel badly for criticizing the narrator of a work about self-esteem, but there you have it. Read the print version if you think this book might be useful to you.

YES. Rufus hits the nail on the head about being a loner: we don’t hate people – we just want to be alone. We have friends. We are not “hiding” in our homes. We are not stuck up, we are not perverts, we are not socially inept. A point she brilliantly hammered home was the the headline “loners” who kill are never loners in the real sense – they are alone, not loners. They don’t want to be alone, but rather have alienated anyone who might have wanted to be around them.

“We, the authors of this book, redefine scavenging as any way of legally acquiring stuff that does not involve paying full price.” [pg viii]

It's definitely a manifesto, written in staccato, almost poetic sentences that read like a rallying speech. It makes you feel good to be a scavenger – proud and empowered about your unusual state. It makes you want to fly your freak flag. Early on, they liken standard consumers to screaming, pouting soiled brats [pg 9] and non-consumer scavengers to “capitalism's naughty children, little rebels . . .” [pg 8] and tries to open your eyes to the fact that:

“Marketers have so mesmerized consumers that consumers see brand logos as their own logos, their new flags. Today the brand is the new nation, the new army, the new clan, the new religion, the new tribe. Consumers by the billions line up behind logo, vanish into logos, pour their income into brands.” [pg 12]

As the book moves along it addresses the misconceptions standard consumers have about scavengers (that they're poor or desperate or penny pinching and that used merchandise is second-rate, dirty, or suspect) and the reasons scavengers scavenge (to save money or the environment, to survive, for the mystery and the thrill of the hunt, because we prefer an item with a past). It covers the history and economics of scavenging (Pointing out a little-known fact that reinforces why reusing is preferable to recycling: “If recycling is done inefficiently, then it can be a net loss in regard to energy consumption, compared to modern mining costs.” [pg 94]), while stressing that scavenging will always be a fringe, subculture activity because it feeds off of mainstream society's cast-offs. If we were all scavengers the economy would break down.

As the authors move on from their history of the very old prejudices against scavenging and their glacially slow melt into something that could almost be called acceptance, they profile the many kinds of modern scavengers who fall into four main categories: Retail Scavengers, Urban scavengers, Social Scavengers, and Specialty Scavengers. They also discuss the spirituality of scavenging – it's a little Taoist, involves a certain amount of faith, and devoting oneself to scavenging can be like taking a vow. They end the book with a nice, common-sense scavenger code of ethics.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. —BERTRAND RUSSELL

I've been reading several books of low self-esteem, but this is the only one that has been written by someone who truly understands what it is to loathe yourself. Author Anneli Rufus has struggled with this all her life. But it's not just the feeling of being understood that makes this book tops. Rufus writes amazingly, and her analogies help even those who don't hate themselves (lucky!) understand what those who do struggle with this are going through. She writes as if to the reader alone, as if you're reading a long letter from a friend.

I've also never laughed at loud while reading a book on self-esteem: "Be the first on your block to start a self-loathing support group. Call it SLAG: Self-Loathing All Gone. Or SLOB: Self-Loathing Oblivion-Bound. Hello! My name is Tyler and I hate myself."

Her advice seems simple enough so that you're willing to try, as in this description of releasing negative thoughts: "Imagine the phrase I can’t as a leaf that has flown into your hair on a windy day. Imagine plucking that leaf from your hair, holding it in your palm, and letting the wind take it back, blow it away." Or this one: "But say you had walked with that rock inside your shoe for five blocks. Say you had walked that way for five miles. Say you had walked that way for fifty miles and never shook it out. Because you did not know it was a rock, you believed it was part of you. Because you did not know you could."

Alternatively encouraging and understanding, this book is the ONE you should read if you struggle with self-hatred, or love someone who does.

I wanted to like this book way more than I did. I had no problem with her writing or her adding people's individual stories in between. I had a problem with how she thinks, also a big problem I had when I read her book on saints. She can come across as very snarky, self-righteous and rude.

As a person with a 34 year relentless eating disorder, I will NOT allow her to label me as someone with 'bad habits '. I have had and continue to have a team of mental health workers who have not made any progress with it, and I graduated from a 5 month eating disorder program here in NY only to leave heavier than when I entered. I also have OCD and chronic insomnia. These are illnesses/disorders/afflictions and not bad habits. So if that is her stance, we have to part ways.

Also she is a self acknowledged cheapskate, something I am not and abhor. I gravitate generosity.

She is against living with your parents beyond the age of 20 or so, yet, how many college graduates out there find the only job waiting for them is pushing a broom ?? I have a Master's degree and it never mattered on bit. I am on SS disability now, but on my last job for the gov't in 2007 I only made $ 44,000. NY rents start at about $ 1,500 a month, then with the light bill, gas bill, phone bill, laundry, food and carfare, how can you manage ??? So she blames young people for wasting money, but if you make $ 35,000 on your first job out of school, the only place you can live for that kind of money is someone's closet for $ 100 a week.

I no longer like this author - I have read 3 of her books, I think I will toss ' Party of One ', I don't think I can deal with her anymore.

I am giving this book 2 stars only because I read a whole batch of gory and somewhat interesting stories of the lives of some saints that I did not know before. Despite having gone to Catholic school, I tussled and wrestled the nuns to the ground over my rebelliousness and questions - needless to say I was not a popular child.

I have always loved angels and saints. I am also the recipient of a few miracles thru praying novenas to a couple of saints, that science would not be able to explain. However, I am not into clergy or the Pope. It is a case of love the religion, despise who runs it.

This book was written by a woman who is not Catholic, or even Christian and her snarkiness, cynicism and general disrespect colors each page. I literally winced when she used the word ' crotch ' in the story of Maria Goretti, a little 12 year old girl who was savagely murdered, rather than allow herself to be raped. That word paired with a story of a 12 year old is cringe worthy. She made snide remarks throughout about the appearance of the saints or their stories.

I am not a fan of what was done to these bodies - I find it disgraceful. Once a person is gone, they need to have a proper and decent burial and not have their bodies hacked apart and sent all over the globe for people to venerate. So I too find it fairly bizarre and unholy to not bury someone, cut off their heads, or hands, or legs or whatever and ship them all over Europe - but that was what was thought right 200-2000 years ago, thankfully it is no longer done. Since she has no real regard for Christianity, has a hatred of missionaries, no love of saints or how they help mankind, it was inappropriate and insulting for her to have written this book at all.

This book has the potential to be loved or hated, I do not think there is any middle ground. To those with regular to above average self esteem and no self loathing, she will come off as a whiner, a complainer and an oh poor me type.

But .................................
To any person who has spent years ripping themselves apart bit by bit until they arrive at the day when they can not find one positive thing to say about themselves inside or out ( I am one, hence the 5 stars ) this book will feel like salvation.

I won't say more, other than for the right person with this miserable way of living, run out and get a copy. For the ' pull yourself up by your bootstraps ' crowd, run like hell, you will hate it.

This was a short book, but it was a slog and it has several problems. The first is that none of the Saints mentioned in the title are actually in the book. Instead, the book is about the author's trek around Europe looking for relics of obscure saints that are found in obscure places. At the beginning of the book the author says that she wondered why people venerated these objects, but she never does anything or writes anything that answers that question.

The book is structured in a series of vignettes about each saint and the trials and tribulations of trying to find these obscure relics and the equally obscure churches that house them. The searches themselves would be fodder for a book, but the author chooses to make snarky remarks about the churches, the relics, the saints, and the people she sees and meets along the way. In fact it is her snarky attitude about the people she meets that set my teeth on edge. I don't think a book about relics has to be totally glorified praise or filled with excessive reverence, but this kind of remark totally disrupt the flow of the book and are just plain sarcastic and mean-spirited. Relics are relics because they have some kind of religious significance and that alone requires a certain kind of respect and tolerance. This author displays none of that.

A sample of her snark - At one of the last churches she visits she sees an American frat boy who is visiting. He leans up against the glass casket, lays his hand on it, and says "Hi Amigo." The author then adds. He has buttocks that are going to grow larger and larger with age. As a reader, you are thinking "What?" And then "Why would she say that?" I won't be reading another of her books and wonder why I bothered to finish reading this one.

What a weird book. Well, the first 100 pages anyway, that’s where I stopped.

Basically it’s the comments section of any internet website. Ranting nearly incomprehensibly about everything under the sun, she states near the beginning that she’s really immature and feels like she never moved past 12 years old, and is very fearful. That pretty much sets the tone of the book.

Not what I was expecting, or wanted.

UNWORTHY, a book about self-loathing, was recommended to me by two of the smartest, funniest, kindest, most gifted people I know. Isn’t that both sad and hilarious? I feel unworthy to share their perceptions of unworthiness.
Anneli Rufus’ hysteria-tinged prose captures the delirium of self-hate, the sodden yearning to un-be the self you are. The “unworthy” are legion. From page 49:
“According to one biographer, Franz Kafka’s lifelong struggle with low self-esteem was due to his ‘highly developed capacity for seeing himself in the eyes of others.’ ….
“The painter Paul Cezanne reacted so strongly to criticism that while still young he earned the nickname l’Ecorche, meaning ‘the flayed one.’ It was the name of a sculpture of which he owned a cast, and which he drew again and again - fascinated by the metaphor of a skinless man….”

https://maryoverton.wikispaces.com/Self-Loathing
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/feature-2003-06-Houdon-Ecorche.html

I can't say that I'm terribly impressed with this book. The premise - that people who hate themselves have every reason not to, and how to get there - is sound and certainly a good idea. But how the author gets from A to Z, and what she says in between, didn't always strike me as always being reasonable.

Firstly, the studies that are cited are of the flavor that I hate: social science research that isn't really backed up by anything more than a hypothesis and a scientist. Many of these studies involve infants and come to the conclusion that no matter what on Earth you do as a mother, you are inevitably destroying your child's life forever. Don't frown even once, don't ever be impatient with your infant, never withhold what your infant needs exactly when zie needs it, or else your child will be miserable and spend the rest of hir life loathing hirself. Just because the author had an emotionally abusive mother does not mean that every mother is emotionally abusive, and the idea that perfect mothering is the only platform for raising children without self-esteem issues is incredibly problematic.

Also, one of the last chapters talks about the benefits of having low self-esteem. Certainly, narcissism isn't the greatest character trait, but that high self-esteem does not necessarily equal narcissism. And the author sets up this straw-woman with high self-esteem, whom she puts down incredibly, just the way bullies (her mom or our classroom tormenters of years ago) put us down. How is that fair? She them lambasts all "millenials" (of which I'm not one, but feel more of a kinship towards than the author, certainly) for being stuck up, self absorbed and incapable of handling every day life because our self-esteem has been artificially raised since we were in school. That argument has been used by EVERY generation to disregard the generation younger than them. I give it about 10-15 years before millenials start ripping on "whatever-ers" for being stuck up and self-absorbed and the cause of all of our current problems.

So, there are certainly some beneficial things to take away from this book. A lot of the self-care and coping techniques can be found in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and other frameworks for recovering from depression or anxiety. Some of the author's reflections on self-loathing are incredibly accurate and poignant. I just wish that she could have been just a touch less judgmental toward the rest of the universe while writing this book. And less of the persuasion that her opinions are facts.

I've long used this to travel with and it had definitely enhanced my trips.

I'm a big Anneli Rufus fan. This book definitly reached my weird and wonderful history bone. I've had the fortune to have visited some of the places that Rufus wrote about and her stories added to my visit.

I picked this book up while perusing the "last chance" section at Barnes and Noble. It is not a self-help book, it's a treatise on how and why we're stuck in various arenas of our lives- job, relationships, bad habits, etc. Well-researched and easy to read, a lot of what Rufus has to say makes sense. One of the sections I found very interesting was about the impact capitalism (and it's opposites) have had on monogamy. As the author says, "Companies with goods and services to sell hate happy couples." If we are happy and feeling content with our lives, we don't need anything else to fill the void.

I feel, however, she oversimplified a few things and her bias shows. The chapter on trauma, and how our current society has made superstars of victims, feels a little whiney. And she acknowledges her own issues, which sheds light on why it felt that way. She also disparages therapy a bit, which I might take personally ;)

It's a lot of good food for thought. I guess I wish the book offered some hope for getting unstuck, which was hinted at in the introduction, but didn't surface anywhere else.

Honestly, I was expecting a rational exploration of introversion, but got what felt like a brochure of Anneli Rufus' musings on what makes extreme loners better than non-loners. Not a terrible read, but not exactly what I was looking for

The Free Dictionary defines "manifesto" as "A public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions...." As a loner and a lover of solitude, I was excited to read this book because I was looking for just that to validate and enhance my lifestyle. I looked for the manifesto, but I didn't find it.

What I read were angry recollections by the author and about others and shrill fist-shaking at the "mob" who enjoy being together in groups of 2+. The book's definition of "loner" fits me, and I have known this for most of my life. I choose when to be with people, and it is a special event because usually, I choose to be alone. I work with the public, and so get plenty of face-to-face human interaction, overly so most days when I am relieved to get onto my own patch of desert and loving animal friends and lock the gate against the world.

However, I believe in live and let live, which this book appears to not do; there is much condescension against those who want to be en masse. Loners are not superior to those who seek out company. I believe that loners benefit from the community while enjoying the luxury of being alone - particularly in modern times - because the community provides much of the services that loners use (utilities, transportation and roads, food and food services, physical protection of life and property, medical care, etc). I appreciate the community from afar, and value my solitary life made possible by many I'll never (thankfully) meet. This book is not this loner's "manifesto."

Quick read that serves as a guidebook for people traveling from San Diego northerly to San Francisco. Interesting writing even if all the events listed aren't widely known. Good bibliography. Small thumbnail B&W photos. Says that the Tom Sawyer Island was once taken over by hippies who raised the Vietcong flag over it, and that there was a fight over whose kids would be the very first on to ride the carousel.

Almost completely content-free--when the authors weren't patting themselves on the back about how great it is to be a scavenger, they were writing a weak history of scavenging that reminded me of the worst of Wikipedia. It doesn't offer anything to learn about being a scavenger, just self-congratulations.

This book is an absolute godsend for anyone introverted, lonerish, or individualistic who after being constantly subjected to the "Extrovert Ideal" (as Susan Cain calls it) finally - even if only slightly - caves into the notion that there is something wrong with them. Let's face it, after being told "don't be shy", "you're so quiet", "why don't you talk to anyone", "I am worried about you", etc. an uncountable number of times, you begin to question your own sanity a little bit. This kind of badgering is the pressure of the extrovert ideal, which pushes the notion that being social equates to correct behavior, that things are only fun in the presence of others, that being alone and/or turning down invitations to gatherings means you are missing out on something. While these assertions may be true for nonloners and extroverts, they are false for loners and introverts. Admittedly, Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking is a more diplomatic treatment of this topic, and I would definitely recommend it over "Party of One" to any extroverts/nonloners who are interested in the subject matter. On the other hand, I would recommend both books to introverts/loners, as Party of One will help you to shrug off the constant barrage of anti-loner sentiment (as well as affirm the fact that you are not crazy if you are having doubts), while Quiet will give you a well-researched overview of both of these seemingly diametric personality types.

Searing, and exactly what I needed to read now. Rufus chronicles her own journey through loss, bravely facing up to the things one doesn't speak of in polite society after one is bereaved. She talks about feelings of indifference, anger, guilt, and many others. Illustrated with lots of incidents from her own life, presented unflinchingly. Recommended.

Interesting premise, but ultimately annoying. Could have been an in-depth analysis of the solitary sort of person, but instead it's a bunch of laundry lists of loners in various jobs, loners who are unfairly maligned, loners who ought to be recognized and honored for their specialness, rather than excoriated by the great touchy-feely mob. This book made me weary and irritable, and want to be alone forever.

The Loner's Manifesto is the subtitle, but the interviews and author's experiences focus on meandering through difficulties experienced. The book would have benefited from celebrating experiences of positive aloneness and how to have them without feeling lonesomeness. One of the few references to the joys of aloneness is towards the end of the book: "Travelling means never staying anywhere long enough for others to know us. It is a liberation." Two stars for the interview work and exploration of feelings of insecurity and the status of outsider.

self righteous, pretentious, bordering on snotty, and not very well written. rufus probably sees herself a polemicist, but she mostly just comes off as a whiner. i'm not a terrible fan of other people's company myself, but rufus has a sort of victim complex happening here that detracts from the points(?) she's trying to make.

I found this book incredibly reassuring. I have a very small circle of friends and on the whole, prefer my own company. I don't need someone telling me how great an outfit would look on me while I shop. I enjoy eating out with a good book. In other words, I know how to entertain myself. Extroverts may not "get" the author's sarcasm and disagree with some of her conclusions. But then, I believe Rufus' target audience is the introvert.