The most useful thing that you can do to improve your odds in any situation is one that I learned from Alan Watts. The thing is a realization. That realization is that all those factors working against you are like the ground that pushes up your feet or the hills in your way that take you higher.
Whether this was an original thought from Watts or some bit of wisdom he picked up, I do not know.
And really it’s irrelevant aside from the fact that Watts is peculiarly appealing for me due to my development.
Wish I had the clip on hand to share. But no such luck. Perhaps I’ll find it, at which point I’ll share all this again, since such things are worth the repetition.
Pretty sure it’s your pituitary gland that causes you to grow up. And the desire to learn cliffs of dover is what causes you to improve. Women generally distract you from learning cliffs of dover in between sessions of telling you that you work too much. BP is a classic salesman using FOMO: hey bucko you arent a real man! let me tell you what a real man is! ….and then he’ll close the deal by telling you chicks will dig you. It’s like the coors light twins except with a lot more wordsalad.
I think he’s a great lecturer and can give useful albeit oftentimes generic and omnipresent advice to folks looking for a daddy. His stand against political correctness and bucking of the Patreon Politburo are highly admirable.
But…
I just don’t understand people’s fascination with him. I see no genius here, I see nothing spectacular, or particularly useful. Just another self help guru with some academic chops. Hailing from a discipline which is pretty much the shakiest form of ‘science’ around.
No JBP doesn’t inspire me to clean my room. Because my room is already clean. Not because I’m conscientious or a big grown adult man that all the ladies dig! But cause I got tired of tripping over my barbells.
If you love Peterson and he really gets your needle moving: all power to you. But he keeps popping up all over my suggestions and it’s time I threw these thoughts out there before I explode with bewilderment.
I just don’t get the desire of people to be told that they’re lacking, then be given a though guy pep talk, just so they can feel they’re overcoming something.
Que the fanboys telling me how I’m a basement dweller, who thinks he’s overcome everything, who isn’t even an award winning academic superstar!
I’m sorry lads I already have a god and his name is Eric Johnson:
I need Cheetos money to fuel my woman hatred and self pity. Please help.
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Not Just Zazz…but Pizzazz
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Are you a self centered, passive aggressive, jealous caricature? Inc Magazine is here to help. And I’m here to poke fun at taking caricatures seriously.
(Note: It’s not that bad of an article but there’s plenty of commentary to be made based on how I’ve seen these concepts play out in the real world.)
1) Douchy Guitar Jam
2) Introduction
3) The List
3) The Commentary
4) Buh Bye
It’s a touch difficult to pick a title for one of these vlogs that’s all over the place. So, I sort of just listed some of the main topics under discussion.
I go over those and some odds and ends of life and new responsibilities. I take that rabbit trail to less solipsistic ends by talking about the importance of applying discipline at opportune times.
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I will never cease to be baffled by the pride that a good chunk of humanity seems to take in submitting to preistcraft. By preistcraft I do not necessarily mean religion.
In this broadened definition I include many ideologies and yes…among them I dare include that shibboleth called ‘science.’
Now, I am not a fan of comparing science to religion. This being due to the fact that science is not religion. But there is a sort of popular notion of science that may as well be religion.
It is both pro and prescriptive. It has a metaphysic. It has an ethic. There are within its dogmas not only cosmological claims but outright prophecies.
This is not the science of Spinoza or Feynman. That is to say it is not science. It is whimsy and hubris systematized. That is to say religion.
It has priests and teachers of the law.
I do not even so much here begrudge authoritarianism as I lament sloth. For its profound mental laziness that causes so many otherwise rational people to utter the demure prayer:
“I am not a scientist.”
Well…so bloody what?
Do you not have access to books? Or to get less medieval… to the sodding internet?
Ah but you require special training. These mysteries must of course be properly understood.
Yes, and did you not spend at least twelve years of your life in the school system?
Alright… I get it…that institution is deteriorated and generally rots the mind. Fine, all well and good. I too am cynical about the supposedly unalloyed good of mandatory public schooling.
However…even the most barefoot, twelve-toed, slug snacking Appalachian scion surely understands that the beauty of science is in its inherent democracy. Or if you prefer Libertarianism.
How is it that the experts to which you submit your reason came to their knowledge? Was it through sorcery? Did they approach a shewstone and therein decipher the mind of the most high God?
Or did they apply the fairly simple mechanisms of the scientific method to expand and expound upon the current body of knowledge?
You tell me that you cannot do the same?
Or are you in a roundabout way asserting that I cannot do so. That I must flagellate myself. That I should toss my critical faculties into the purifying flames of inquisition. That I should shroud my brain in the same Catholic darkness that gives you the jollies?
Suppose all those mea culpas ever bleeding from your rosary are valid. That we are both at sea before the vast incomprehensibility of the universe. That we require the confessional booth. That we must submit to a higher power.
Fine.
But I have a question…
WHICH?
To which higher power should I surrender? I suspect that your answer will depend entirely on your political persuasion.
If you do not know the things of which you are speaking of. If they are so arcane and require so many years of academic pilgrimage to fathom…then how…in all sodding Christendom do you know whether you agree.
Would it not be simpler to just vomit Druidic litanies?
Or at least more cough than humble bragging…
If you have ceased to be able to work with the facts and theories thus far achieved and must now entirely lean upon the insights of the clergy. How…HOW…pray tell is this science? The thing whose chief strength is mutability. A strength nourished by diligent scrutiny.
I guess there’s really not much use in railing against this madness. It seems to be more of a drive than a philosophical position.
I doubt I’ll ever understand it.
I guess I just don’t have that kinky submissive streak that plagues such a large chunk of humanity.
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IRL fasting has many benefits. Check out P.D. Mangan’s amazing anti-aging site for more on this.
If that’s not enough.
Even Jesus loves fasting. There’s some juju out there that can’t be banished any other way.
Except maybe the internet.
Pictured: The internet in its most malignant form: Teh kittez. An ancient evil of possibly Canaanite origin.
So should you go on internet fasts?
Folks like Bryan Lunduke would probably say yes. Folks like me would probably say…maybe.
Fact of the matter is that I’ve been trying and planning to go on a no electronics sequester, where I produce a bunch of somethign, with a lot of focus; for well…it’s embarassing…for nearly….if not exactly a decade.
Sweet Elijah! You might cry. Your discipline sucks.
Absolutely. Yes. I’m a whimsical beast with very strong drives that are not easily tamed. Which is why I prefer letting them run free. Seems more humane. That is until they go over a cliff.
The nubmer one complaint with all things web related seems to be wasted time. The internet seems to be a distraction machine.
So, it is only natural that people throw up their hands and ask, “Hold on a minute! Hold on a minute! What if I wasn’t voluntarily pulled in a million directions at once! Wouldn’t that be…I don’t…sane?”
So all the goal setting and good intentions begin. Only to be shattered by the realziation that most of your work and social life depends on electronics. Even if you aren’t a blogger.
“Welcome to the machine.” – Roger Waters or some such hippy.
Yes. And now you’re booting up and logging on to answer e-mails or apply for jobs or write this or that and…boom now you’re on YouTube…and well….frankly…welcome to Hell and goodbye time.
Or so it would seem.
I’d suggest that there’s probably a happy medium, wherein you use your baser browsing urges to spice up the legitimate ones, and catalyze learning and productivity.
But at the same time perhaps some fasting would be good towards that end.
Not here to make proclamations just to ponder so…I dunno you tell me.
Or if you don’t want to chat with an overcaffeinated time slayer, then ponder your way to Vallhalla.
Speaking of Valhalla. Pillaging is no longer profitable and mead remains expensive. Please contribute to a thirsty bard.
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It’s altogether easy to lose your sense of wonder. Especially when questions can be answered instantly.
But it isn’t the answer that kills the magic.
It’s the speed. It’s the lack of space.
Mystery is a living thing and needs room to breath.
One cannot write weird fiction or write at all without the animating force of wonder.
Why describe a twilight Appalachian brook if it’s just rainwater lazing through rock and dirt?
If its suggestions are nothing more than the inevitable electric pulses stirring a chemical stew whose aim is to leave behind a profusion of bones?
Yes, in such a world of concrete half truths. In this world that is the foundation of life there can be no mystery…no art.
How glad I am that I’ve been given the space to wander, to spy the stairs and landing, and to ascend through the door into the house of Magic where true life dwells.
For a house is not merely the foundation.
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So, I stumbled across the Shindo Renmei. An interesting group that sprang out of an interesting set of circumstances. It is a peculiarity in the truest sense of the word. Absolutely dependent on the specifics of its time and place.
That is the case with any bit of history.
So why study it?
The popular answer is so that we do not repeat it.
I see no reason to be contrarian. But I also see no reason for such narrow apologetics.
I think the main reason to study history is that it is a gold mine of catalysts and ideas. I think this is the main reason because it is so much more fertile. And also because the wise fear of repeating history is often hijacked by this or that pundit to cherry-pick examples that ‘prove’ why this or that is going to be catastrophic. Or more colloquially, “You’re just like a HitlerStalinTerrorist.”
I think it’s possible to extend this notion even further. This ‘mine’ is perhaps the ultimate case of art for arts sake. Art here being any endeavor including science and philosophy.
Art…or ‘well informed doodling’ should practiced precisely because practice begets art. There needs be no other reason. No harried seeking of supporting themes, or grants, or panty parting guitar solos but simply doing for doings sake.
So, I was just considering finishing a vlog and posting it. But, I realized it’s late and I have not been getting adequate rest. So, I asked myself: How good is this vlog going to be? Sure, I feel the creative juices surging RIGHT NOW but how much of that is fatigue induced illusion? I’ve already posted today and some distance and reflection would probably be a good idea…
Furthermore, don’t I know better? Haven’t I spent hours reading health blogs, books, and listening to podcasts about sleep?
Sure, there is that old writers trick of staying awake in order to slay inhibitions. But, as someone who also works a rather gruelling day job is that really wise?
And, finally I concluded. Hey, your goal is consistent content, consistent creative effort, and learning new things. That means you need to know when you have energy and when you have time. These things don’t very easily come to those who do things simply when inspiration strikes. Furthermore these things DEMAND sleep in order to be fully digested and utilized.
So, while there is the nagging desire to DO MORE RIGHT NOW to really MARATHON IT; there is also the sobering knowledge that doing more means you have to do it smarter.
The Fractal Journal 