One idea that has revolutionized my thinking is this: you are allowed to not want things.
You can look at everything society tells you that you need to have and just be like, “Nope. I will not be participating.”
LGBTQ+ are united. Feminists are united. Patriarchists are united. Billionaires are united. The ruling class is united. The clergy is united. Even bandits are united. The only group that does not recognise the importance of unity is the POOR.
This is because many poor people do not view poverty as a man-made condition, which should be collective fought and defeated, they see poverty as a natural condition, and even one to be ashamed of. This mindset leads them to identifying with the rich class with whom they have nothing in common and share none of the same struggles.
Then you’ve got religion on one end assuring that everything is okay. “There’s nothing to worry about, as there’s a trillion dollars waiting for you in heaven, but you have to die first before you take it.”
It's crazy.
The River of Money is by far the most impactful article I've ever written.
Many people who read the article say it's changed their perception of money and value exchange. The concepts have become mental hooks for myself and others to orient our actions in business in ways more aligned with the energetic properties of money.
One time, a friend in Thailand told me she read an article about a "River of Money" that had her completely rethinking her approach to business. She talked to me about the article for 5 or 10 minutes, having no idea I wrote it. This was a good indicator that the idea was actually sticky.
The funny thing about this article is, I wrote it in one shot for 2 hours while waiting to board my plane in Boston. I had no preparation, no research, no outlining, no purpose, and no AI. It just seemed like an interesting idea, and I wanted to explore it.
I wrote the article to discover what I thought, rather than to prove a point or teach something I already knew.
This experiment and the results opened my mind to a new way of writing. Standard online writing advice is to start with an outline, have a clear purpose for your piece, and finish with actionable advice for the reader.
But approaching it backward, having no outline and no idea where the article was going, led to both an expansion of my own thinking and an unconventionally impactful experience for the reader.
So here's the point:
Write more articles for the sake of discovering what you think — not for proving what you know.
You just might write your way into an idea that changes your worldview forever.
I often keep my opinions on the gists of others to myself so I don’t invite unnecessary conversations to my timeline and mentions. And perhaps too, so I’m not called a hater.
But in truth, I genuinely think many Nigerians don’t know what attraction actually is—even if the principles of attraction still work on them unconsciously.
By and large, you only really know how attractive a person is when you experience them in person, especially more than once. You experience how they make you feel, their expressions, their timing, their presence, and how they carry themselves. Not just cute pictures and polished résumés.
And I say this at the risk of sounding like a hater:
A lot of people publicly called attractive may not actually be attractive in reality. I know people who are unbelievable in person, yet have awkward social media accounts, funny LinkedIn profiles, or have even been called ugly online.
But you either make people tick or you don’t. Full stop.
This is what attraction is, in the intimate sense; which should then be reflected in romantic relationships.
Most men may never experience this. Some women might, but often not from a man they admire in return. The experience of true, primal attraction from someone you genuinely want is rare—not only because of natural inequalities, but because the people are not perceptive enough to distinguish real attraction from social conditioning. This is more so in low-trust and desperate societies where social rules established by socioeconomic conditions grossly determine how they approach and experience attraction.
People follow the optics. The packaging. The consensus.
Not what they would truly desire if nobody else was watching.
A conventionally beautiful woman is used to attracting eyes almost automatically. But an otherwise “mid” woman may have a better chance of being deeply obsessed over by certain men specifically because of who she is, not merely because she is beautiful. In that sense, she may actually be luckier than the universally admired woman. She has a better chance at experiencing true attraction than the conventionally beautiful woman who’s too distracted by everyone’s admiration and now embodies a form of narcissism that hinders her from such experiences. (This contributes to why many extremely beautiful women are as sad as they’re intolerable).
Likewise, a cute-faced guy may have many girls who “like” him. But it could be the eccentric guy, the loner, the creative, or even the annoying one who inspires a more particular kind of desire, that experiences true attraction. The numbers may be fewer, but the feeling is far deeper. Also, bearing in mind that being cute-faced isn’t exactly what women intuitively seek in a man, regardless of their superficial displays of attraction for such men.
I knew these things later in my life. But early enough to not make significant alterations in my life to look “more attractive.” I’ve been mocked maliciously but also playfully: online—for heat rashes on my face, on the basketball court—for hairs on my chest, and for my slimness; but I felt nothing. It’s even often funny. In every room I enter, I can feel the force I command even in my persistent silence; adoring me should be natural. You don’t have to completely understand it. I don’t either.
But these are the kinds of things that jolly good fellow you quoted may never understand. Perhaps not in this lifetime.
Nassrawis… what a season. From day one, we knew what we wanted and what it would take to get there. We worked, fought and gave everything in every training and every game. It wasn’t an easy road, but we did it together. Thank you for believing in us and standing by our side every step of the way.
I don't think I've ever seen Ronaldo this emotional - or even close - except when winning trophies for his country.
Not after the 2019 Atlético hat-trick, not after 3-Peating the Premier League, not even after repeating and 3-Peating the Champions League.
Unbelievable.