as a man, you want to be evaluated in a setting you define. not in someone else’s marketplace, not in a feed. & certainly not on some dumb app.
basically you want to make sure it’s not in a room where the ranking system rewards the shallowest possible read of you, like a police lineup.
what you need a backdrop that reveals what is actually compelling about you like your taste, your judgment, your discipline, your humor, your presence, & most important your way of seeing the world.
if you let modern systems define the frame, they will reduce you to the most superficial version of yourself & then judge you for it.
A strong predictor of who does extraordinary work is being terrible with everyday life; they get people’s names wrong, forget meetings, constantly lose things or don’t remember to eat because all their mental bandwidth is going elsewhere.
We met a researcher with 87000+ unread emails and a passport that expired the day before an AI conference he was speaking at, and a founder who had worn pretty much the same outfit every day for 10yrs because choosing took up way too much mental effort.
Maintaining a well run life is a part-time job hours-wise. For someone who is juggling a hard problem in their head 24-7, there is no spare capacity to run these background processes. Society treats this as a flaw to coach out (the command is “be more present”), but this level of absorption is necessary to solve a problem nobody else has.
The most manipulative but effective thing I’ve ever done in my life was when I read an article about how children moderate their behavior to protect their self-identity, so if a child believes he’s smart, for example, he’ll intentionally study and try to do well to protect his image of himself.
Anyway, I would pull kids aside with behavioral issues at church and tell them, “David (obviously fake name), you’re such a kind person and such a good listener. I can see that in you. Thank you for always listening.” “Little Annie, thank you for taking such good care of the babies around you. You’re going to be such a good big sister. Can you be in charge of watching Sally?”
They would ALWAYS behave afterward. ALWAYS. Worked like a charm. Morally questionable because it wasn’t initially true, but I kind of willed it into existence. Tbf, I did think that they had that in them or I wouldn’t have tried.
Will publish longitudinal results of this method once my kid is old enough to report back.
Packing thousands of straws together basically creates a low-tech pixel screen.
Each straw acts as an independent light pathway, perfectly mimicking how data channels work.
you must create because the thing you’d make doesn’t exist anywhere else. nobody has your exact combination of experiences and wounds and obsessions, which means the work only you could make is genuinely irreplaceable. if you don’t make it, it simply never exists. the world just goes without it, never knowing what it missed. that’s the most exciting thing about being you. the thing is waiting and you’re the only door it has.
I do. A man, perhaps no one, should aim to 'show' intelligence. It's a vain venture. If a man genuinely believes in himself—what makes him, him—he'll have a silent confidence that shows in his carriage.
This way, he can be strong, playful, artistic, humble, orderly, courageous, knowledgeable, and teachable—all as a man will.
It takes courage 'cos even in the process of Becoming, lots of things will be made to leave you in doubt of who you are, or what you want for yourself. The acceptance of self and other natural principles is what yields grace.
It's interesting you'll ask this, 'cos I had a similar convo with a friend yesterday. Our mutual friend had berated me for not gaming a girl like a man. We laughed at his advises 'cos I'm always with women, and he's hardly with any.
But one of his points was that instead of asserting masculine dominance to her in particular, I was dancing and playing around her and with everyone else. What he hadn't understood is that one of the virtues of masculinity is courage and that courage could be exhibited in various contexts.
Me, in living my life to the fullest, is masculine, 'cos I have the courage to do so, without caring much for judgment or errors or backlash. In this sense, Michael Jackson (one of my heroes) is perhaps just as masculine as St. Paul (another of my heroes).
I felt like dancing and playing, and I did just that.
So, masculine grace comes ultimately in the acceptance of one's (masculine) essence. Men are not monoliths. Given that we have different archetypes of masculinity, within which several samples exist, you don't have to be like another man. Be fluid. (I don't mean "gender fluid.")
A lot of people are playing a role that's a bit far from their essence and it can be burdensome. Many don't even know who they are and beneath the pretty looks, they're an anxious mess. The opposite of this anxiousness and weariness is where grace and calm is found.
I never compare myself with those buff gym bros 'cos they represent a different kind of masculine beauty. I'm a slender man with a loosely artistic flair, some tradition and balls of steel. I've long accepted this person in me, so it shows in the way I carry myself. I can be gracious in my interactions. I can be serious, yet simple. I can change positions sometimes.
I can study or adopt a masculine trait 'cos I believe it's important to behold. This is because I'm a natural student. But if I carry arround the burden of being a specific way, 'cos it's manly, it will reveal my insecurity and manifest in an ungracious manner.
Most self-proclaimed tough guys and hard girls will never understand why a person (like me) can be addictive to those who love them. 'Cos, the bulk of their lives is based on shallow performances and vain efforts.
I hope I communicated an answer. @LordshipAbba
@enyinna_ Socrates: "Wisdom is she that knows that she knows nothing."
If there was any confidence in a truly intelligent man, it is not in the knowledge that he knows, but rather in the belief that although he may not know, he'd find out in due course by trying. Testing.
Bro to bro: study the patterns in your family. Look at what distracted, delayed, or derailed the men before you, then make intentional decisions to break those cycles. refuse to be a victim of generational curses
You have to be extremely self aware for this as a man. You have to have the ability to sit with very uncomfortable truths about your parents, esp your father as a man, a husband & a parent. This is a very uncomfortable & disturbing process, given most men are avoidants!
In Feng Shui, your family of origin is your 'ancestral estate.' If your parents didn't pave the way or teach you survival skills, it’s like they gave you an 'energy-leaking' or 'barren' plot. In such soil, sprouting late and growing slowly is basic physics. Now they stand in the mud and judge you for not growing as fast as those in 'fertile estates.' In Feng Shui, this is called 'Yin energy suffocating Yang' (a toxic field stunting a good seed). The solution is simple: 'Move out.' Since the ancestral Feng Shui doesn't nourish you, mentally and physically 'sever the tie.' Don't demand a harvest from barren land; go out, find your own dragon vein, and build an 'energy-gathering layout' that actually works for you.
If the internet was this popular pre 2008, a lot of you would have been “inspired” by the Wall Street bankers making billions off subprime mortgages.
All the signs would have been there, but you would have been too invested in the facade.
A tale as old as time.
You goto any serious building site in Lagos and you'll find Benin Republican kids.
Our own kids no longer train for skills even though these are skills that are always in demand.
They want to be car spotters and Tiktok stars.
I say this to my kids all the time. Do it for the plot. Do it for the story. Tell yourself if it all goes wrong it will just be a funny story. Ironically job interviews, dates, and public speaking go better anyway if you're just happy to be there and not overthinking it!!
@LFCLaurie It is easy to assume this, as usually population size positively correlates with a high level of productivity and skill. But what is really at play is the national or rather, regional/continental orientation of the social systems in Asia.
every good outcome I’ve seen has been from finding a secret and doubling, tripling down on it in a way that compounds over time. not necessary that it even remains a secret because nobody ever believes you anyways; if it was something easy to accept it wouldn’t be available
Very important. No one (worth listening) will tell you about their secret directly. Some aren't even aware (it's embodied). You have to learn how to reverse engineer/analyze breakout success' secrets yourself. For any field. This is a huge meta skill. Thiel (& the most impressive people) do this on the go as they're talking. You have to have it.