A Speccy Man Has A Breakdown - day 126

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He’s one of those writers whose books people press into each other’s hands.

For two decades Oliver Burkeman has written about things the self-help industry handles badly: happiness, time, productivity, mortality.

His old Guardian column was called This Column Will Change Your Life, a title that managed to mock the genre and serve it at the same time.

The Antidote took a sceptical look at positive thinking, drawing on Stoicism, Buddhism, and the value of confronting failure and death. Four Thousand Weeks pointed out, with great gentleness, that we get about that many of them, give or take, and that the whole apparatus of trying to get more done rests on a refusal to look at the number. Meditations for Mortals is his most recent book. His newsletter, The Imperfectionist, has the same flavour – and quality – as his books.

I have known Oliver since we were both staff journalists – him at the Guardian, me at the FT.

We shared interests, and there was a period when we found ourselves regularly invited to the same conferences and festivals.

Here’s a photograph from one of those trips, in 2015, on the plane out to Amsterdam:

And in the back of a taxi at the other end:

Once, in a fit of enthusiasm, we put on an event of our own, in a room in London, with another writer, Mark Stevenson. It went well, and I’ve no idea why we didn’t do it again.

What I have always liked about Oliver – on the page and in person – is that he takes a serious subject seriously without becoming pompous about it. He is funny, but not at the subject’s expense. He is sceptical, but not cynical. He reads widely and quotes carefully.

When he writes about something difficult, you trust that he has actually thought about it, and not merely read three studies and rephrased them.

So when my book was finished, I asked if he might like to look at it. He came back with this:

“I found this book moving, funny, and honest in a way that has the power to liberate others.”

Thank you, Oliver.

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👉 If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to a crisis line in your country. In the UK, Samaritans are available any time on 116 123.

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