Month: February 2022

Your words mean nothing. Your intentions mean nothing.

Do stuff. Do it well.

The universe will reward you.

Aspire to be competent.

You become competent by taking action. The noob who takes action is a competent noob. Your first time painting your house? Your first oil change? Your first day at the range with a pistol in your hand? Your first time having sex? Be a competent noob.

Everything else after that is refinement. You will develop and expand you skill through repetition of action, whether as a house painter, auto mechanic, pistolero, or sexor.

Take action. Then do it again. Maybe take @visakanv’s advice and do it 100 times and see what happens.

Write 100 songs, cook 100 omelettes, talk to 100 people. It never seems like a huge deal until you try it yourself. It’s manageable, and yet it stretches you, and you’ll be observably different at the end of it. Effective way to get a foothold on a new thing

https://mobile.twitter.com/visakanv/status/1330985556872818689

And ignore the wordcels.

Inspired by this: https://alexandertechnique.com/articles2/howmanylessons/

I don’t even know what the Alexander Technique is. But the article is a tremendous example of reframing a question.

A student wants to learn the Alexander Technique and asks the teacher how long this will take. She writes:

Now, my student is expecting a certain type of answer to this question, probably either a time-related answer (x number of months) or an answer about application (depends on how much you practice). Instead, I asked a question in return, and asked the class to answer it. How about you have a go, too!

How long does it take to learn the violin?

She answers her own question:

How quickly you progress in anything does depend on the quality and frequency of your practice. And learning is indeed a constantly evolving process. But if we settle for these answers, when will be finished learning how to play the violin?

Never.

That’s a depressing way to frame reality, isn’t it? You will be shoveling snow uphill in Hell in the summertime. Forever.

Why even bother. Let’s just die right now, shall we?

Here’s the reframing:

So what if we turned this on its head? Try this for size. As soon as we know that if we pluck or draw a bow across the string of the violin, and that we can change the note by changing the length of the string, we can play the violin. Everything else is refinement.

Can you see that this way of looking at the issue is instantly empowering? A couple of basic facts, and we have the basic tools to go away and work the rest out entirely by ourselves, if we choose to. How fantastic!

When am I going to have a good life? When am I going to be happy? When am I going to be skilled in activity X? Now. And then you refine and expand it forever, as far as you care to go.

I have demonstrated this in my own life. Every five years or so I think “Well, I have this nailed.” (Whatever “this” happens to be, but most noticeably in my spiritual development.) “I’m so advanced, sophisticated, and enlightened. Unlike that dumb, arrogant know-it-all bastard I was five years ago. He was fucking clueless.”

This has continued for thirty-plus years. Constant work on self. Reading. Thinking. Talking about these principles. Help and guidance from others.

There is no reason to expect this to stop.

World without end, Amen.

Social justice warriors or indeed politically-charged people of any stripe seem to be outwardly motivated, and furthermore motivated by resentment. “I see bad stuff, therefore they—whoever they are—must be changed against their will.”

As a result they inflict terrible damage on everyone around them.

Which leads to a thought about personal change. Is it motivated by outward resentment aimed at externals? Or seeming attraction toward the shiny external? “Big house” or Ferrari or whatever. But outside of you.

Resentment is hard to sustain over the long haul. External rewards feel like dust in the mouth after a while.

Are there examples of people who made massive change by being inwardly-focused? The Kingdom of God is within. Etc.

Become the man you want to be and then let it radiate from there. That seems much more sustainable over the long haul. Especially if you’re content to be yourself even if nothing else ever happens.

Because “be the change you want to see in the world” is nonviable if the true underlying motive is “People will weep with gratitude when remembering my name, throughout history” and you see yourself as Ghandi 2.0.

Inward. What do I control? What is out of my control?

poetically, action is the best forcing function for knowledge-systematiziation, the best philosophy stress-tester, argument-sharpener, mind-clarifier

@visakanv

Hence . . . Into Action.

That Tweet by @visakanv was in response to a light-hearted Tweet:

Litany of the age: Once all my knowledge is systematised and my philosophy is built airtight and my arguments are razor sharp and my mind is Buddhist monk clear, then I’ll actually *do* something to change the world.

https://mobile.twitter.com/krishnanrohit/status/1489520567019577347

Jen Sincero pp 141 – 142

The stories you tell yourself have a beneficial psychic payoff that you want. Change the story, change the payoff.

Also maybe it’s possible to examine the payoffs to identify hidden stories — because sometimes self does not reveal self to self upon direct inspection.

The interesting thing is the payoff is not superficially what you want but second order effects are what you want.

What stories am I telling myself?

This is when I wish I had the kindle version instead of the paper book. Most of the time paper is better. But when I want cut and paste . . . .

Think to yourself, “What do I have to do or not do, or think or not think, right now, to be happy?” And if the answer is “let the jackass think he’s right,” then so be it.

Jen Sincero, You Are a Badass, pp. 125-126.