Analysis of Discarding and Keeping

1. Pain Potentially Consequential of Discarding Clutter
   1. Cost to Repurchase something I discard — Repurchasing something I discard rarely happens.  Additionally, the cost of storing and transporting something is probably equivalent the cost of repurchasing but discarding it doesn’t have any of the psychological baggage effects.  TRUE!
   2. Time to refind the item to repurchase if feel need it after discarding the item.  – This is probably equivalent to finding the item amongst heaps of clutter, but true some items cannot be found but some items that discard, you don’t want to ever find again!
   3. Fear of discarding something unpleasant will cause me to repeat that unpleasant experience.  — This is the “vacuum” idea that if I discard the flyers from Los Angeles rubbish apartments, or psychology meetings, or the like, I will then repeat those to “fill the void” of that negative space.  This idea is that if I keep the unpleasant reminder, it won’t happen again.  To some extent this may be true, but it would be very painful to keep and so many unpleasant reminders that you dont’ get away from the spaces that caused the unpleasantness and make pleasant memories.
   4. Erroneous thought that discarding something may discard a “part of me”.  – This is unlikely because I put so much scrutiny into discarding items and it is illogical because some random book doesn’t define my identity.  True!
2. Pain Consequential of Keeping Clutter
   1. Physically trapped — can’t move as easily
   2. COST — cost of storage of keeping clutter and the cost of moving vans or even cars of moving clutter is abominable and gross.
   3. Overwhelm — massive stress simply from keeping track of all the clutter and sorting it and storing it and transporting it! It’s a massive headache and overwhelming source of pain!
   4. Doubt Self — Yes, keeping so many clutter belongings does cause self-doubt because you start to become uncertain if those past bits of rubbish are “me”, when of course they are not. If I pick up a book that turns out to be absolute rubbish, I am not that book.
   5. Anxiety and stress of keeping all the stuff.
   6. My digital files go neglected — THIS IS THE BIGGEST Incentive for eliminating clutter.  I live in my computer.  I’ve written a ton and I study and take tons of notes and almost everything is digital for me. If I have a ton of material space clutter, my digital files naturally (because of their being a constant amount of time in the universe) go

OTHER TIPS FOR ACHIEVING CLEANLINESS AND SPACE.

• Clutter is a vile enemy; treat it as such.  Do not just dive into clutter.  You will be bombarded and assaulted by myriad items, memoirs, things that you had forgotten about or neglected.  Then what happens is the clutter infects one conscience and causes worry, overwhelm, depression, and anxiety.  This sounds a bit inflated, but the negative consequence to treating clutter “lightly” is accurate.  NEVER EVER Just plan on “burrowing through clutter” without a plan without premeditation, just “hoping to find stuff”.  Always have a plan.  Your plan could be to “move stuff around and examine what is there, get scope and then close it up” or to “deliberately take action and eliminate or sort specific items that you already know are there”.

• In other words: the clutter is not a sandbox; it’s not your friend; it’s not a toy; and it will eat you alive if you attempt to lightly mess with it.

• Wouldn’t you agree that there exist some tasks in which you must have preparations before?  When baking a very decadent meal you wouldn’t just randomly open the fridge and try to work with the items, right? You’ prepare adn read up and envision what you’d need.  Using a better metaphor, when demolishing a building to then build up something much sturdier and better, you wouldn’t just approach it with a pickaxe and dynomite.  Of coure not, you have to take very mathematically calculated measurements to properly demolish a building (eliminate clutter).  Don’t misinterpret that metaphor.  ”Demolishing clutter” does not in any way imply the necesity of “building something new in it’s place”.   When doing a road trip, you “could” simply get in vehicle and step on gas but you would likely run into countless obstacles such as deciding which roads are optimal given conditions time, scenery, where you will stop and rest, etc.  The same is true for eliminating clutter, you “could” just dive into it like an absolute buffoon, but getting the goals of clutter achieved that you want to achieve will take probably 50 times as long as if you premeditated and planned out exactly what you will do.

• The best thing to do, therefore, the best approach one must take is to envision what you want to do with the clutter and ONLY ALWAYS ONLY approach the actual physical clutter (make visual and or kinesthetic contact with it) when you have a premeditated not only what is there, but more importantly, exactly what you will do with the items (the books, the old papers, the clothes, the bags, the individual belongings).  In other words, here’s a perfect example:  I recently tackled an enormous amount of “clothes clutter”.  I realized I had 4 great collared long-sleeve shirts that I had already wanted and worked and were mine, so I knew I had a collected and concise (This is important because it cannot be sprawled and amorphorous) piel of old rubbish, ugly, idiotic shirts.
• I knew that I could quickly go through those and feel delightful after having eliminated much of them afterwards because:
  • 1) I knew exactly how much I was working with (it was roughly 8-9 pieces of clothing wrapped in cleaning wrapper all hanging up).  Work with a predefined subset of clutter or else get buried in the avalanche of clutter hell.
  • 2) I knew exactly where it was located.  Often you find things you want to discard or sort, scattered, then in the search process your unravel more cans of worms which discombulates your nice clean crisp sorting and eliminating process.
  • 3) I knew where each item would go.  Shirts that I discarded would go in a huge garbage bag to be sent to charity and shirts I was uncertain about would go in a certain pile and shirts I wanted to keep would go in this pile and those piles would be stored accordingly.  This one is essential.  This is the most crucial component of eliminating clutter because you have to have “an outlet” for every belonging you encounter.  If, for example, you sort out and discard a stack of 20 old seemingly useless books that you 1)know how many are there and what kind of book they are and 2)know exactly where they all are located and 3)know where each will go based on a criteria you predefine, things will operate swimmingly when you process and eliminate the clutter. Here’s an example of defining categories for a sort (say, of books):
    • Discard pile (garbage bag)
    • Already Read & Keeping Pile
    • Already Read (boring or useless) & Keeping Pile (these will obviously be more easily discarded)
    • Unread & Keeping Pile
  • Or another (and simpler ) set of categories is simple
    • Discard!
    • Keep!

Conclusively, whenever you attack and resolve and dismantle clutter, at the VERY minimum, know :

• • exactly how much (with which you’ll be dissolving) AKA Work with a Pre-defined Subset of Clutter.
  • the exact location (of the clutter you’ll annihilate)  AKA Be able to quickly acquire that subset of clutter.
  • the exact spots or zones (for the clutter to be fully eliminated) AKA Define areas of clutter.
  • It doesn’t hurt to have a shovel and/or a blunt heavy object and maybe some pepper spray to attack anything that emerges out of the steaming amorphous blob of clutter that you will dissolve.

DEFINITELY DO NOT. Start “reading through” the clutter items you’re trying to eliminate.  Perusing old memorabilia and enjoying it as a seperate and distinct time from eliminating clutter.  Also, don’t put on clothes you’re trying to eliminate because what happens?  With the books you’ll find reasons to keep them “Oh they mention this author!  I hate xyz book but I like xyz author they mention.   or Hhmm this paragraph is interesting but the books sucks, etc.”  Or you’ll envision some fantastical far-off ridiculous nonexistent utilization of clothing that will never be worn.  Do NOT indulge in your clutter! Process it and then enjoy perusing the old journals from school.

HUGE KEYS to dealing with clutter

NEVER peruse, never treat teh books you’re going to get rid of as something you’re perusing through in like a bookstore.  Instead, treat the books like toxic objects that have weighed down and burdened your life!

FOCUS on all the awesome BETTER, more aligning things you’ll be able to focus on:

• the uplifting friendships you’ll smoothly not just maintain, but enjoy, cherish and love
• and better yet, the friendships, you’ll completely discard as rubbish just like te material rubbish you will discard
• your energy which will skyrocket!
• your digital life!  you can full go digital and have ALL  (or atleast 90% of which) of you memories of somethings in your computer, perpetually backed up, all stored, properly named and organized that you can access at any time. of old dorm, living residence photos, of old memorabilia, that’s incredible,
• In short, you’ll be able to focus on all the stuff that’s truly valuable to you!
• “De-junking allows you to start over. You don’t want your clutter and memories of the past getting in the way of your future.  It’s very idealistic, but getting rid of your ex’s belongings or your old company files can really help you to start over and make a new beginning.” Shed the skin.  A snake wouldn’t go burrowing back into the old crumpled, brittle broke skin it just shed off would it?  No, certainly not.  Don’t try to go burrowing back into your heaps of junk, rubbish you shed many years ago.  Liberate yourself from what you’ve shed off and removed and enjoy your future and new beginning in the new place.

and truly how awesome is it to have so many digital files crisply organized and clear?  That’s rad!!

I’m not an expert in eliminating clutter but I’ve done a Lot of it and want to keep myself from accumulating rubbish so I don’t have to endure the exhausting, awful, indecisive, wreck, hellish, pain of having clutter to process.  I want ot enjoy the smooth, electric, white, bright, scientific, aligned, crystal clear, energized, organized, only uplifting experiences of simplicity and cleanliness of only what I need.

Some of the biggest obstacles for me were attachment and fear of a void or hole that would be present upon eliminating clutter.  But instead the opposite was true.  If I careful scrutinized the clutter and eliminated what was stupid, useless, unnecessary, burdening, heavy, draining, and/or cumbersome, I felt energized and the stuff that is most valuable to me (science, math, health, staying organized digitally, contact with uplifting friends) became the centerpiece forefront of my life.  Rad!

The Odd Categories

Rubbish A Possible Potential Future Use

Nebulous.  Very Unlikely Future Use. This stuff is purely items that you do not think you will ever need nor want, but feel like

REasons why this is such a problem for me?

Because I’m unemotional.  It’s difficult to make these decisions because some of them require an emotional opinion (e.g. I threw out an old striped tie because I saw a picture of me wearing it and it looked like rubbish.)

PROMINENT NEGATIVE Consequences of Clutter

When you travel, you often travel to get away from your clutter as opposed to traveling toward a place to enjoy it. This, quite understandably, wrecks any concept of vacation travel.

You end up buying more junk because of having pre-existing clutter.  The clutter is a SYMPTOM of some problem in your life.  That clutter is a symptom is unquestionably a veracity of the highest order.  This sounds counter-intuitive.  Someone has piles of rubbish, how could they buy more of it, but think about it.  Picture some kind of businessman or scientist; everything about him (or her) is clean, polished.  Let’s say he wears all the same clothes and actually has 5 sets of the exact same clothing that he rewears; his house is impeccable and bleached; his clutter is nonexistent; and all of his “belonging” are digital.  He has very little furniture and his work invovles extremely precise laboratory work with DNA.  He eats consistently the same diet because he knows it’s nutritious and puts him into the peak state of clarity. This “clutter free” person that one has envisioned now comes across a keychain item in a gift shop that sells for $2.50 and a stuffed animal.  Do you think this person would purchase this clutter? Absolutely NOt!!   People who fester in the squalor of clutter are ALWAYS the culprits of purchasing more clutter and the most of it.  Advertisers who sell clutter, target the idiots already drowning in their own clutter!

Some provocative good questions to ask yourself to throw things out:

• Could I set a number (say 30 things) and throw out that amount?
• What blockage is keeping this rubbish being created?
• How good will that mobility and freedom and piece of mind be having eliminated this clutter?
• How much will my anxiety plummet and relaxation skyrocket when I eliminate this clutter?
• Where will I be in life after having eliminated this clutter?
• “In fact, I not only ask them to throw out 50 things but also ask them to make a list of what they’re throwing out, so they can look at it later and actually feel lighter. Here’s why: When you start throwing out a lot of physical clutter and you get on a roll, a new urge kicks in – the desire to clear out all the clutter in your mind.” – Michelle Goodfellow
• At first before seeing it was “sofeminine.co.uk” (good ol brits!) I was perplexed as to why most all pictures contained only women (surely, males need decluttering as well!).  However, while most of these types of articles I long ago abandonded because of their useless, tacky and superficial nature, this article is a stark contrast.  It presents reasons for keeping and discarding things in a kind of photo library format and is extremely clear.  An excellent reminder and source of encouragement to eliminate clutter and stay clear.  http://www.sofeminine.co.uk/mag/psycho/d885.html
  • For the purposes of this article, one can simple adopt some of the qualities of a throwawayer (in moderation to maintain balance of course) while maintaining a few of the memorabilia and organization qualities of the hoarder for the best balance.  I’ve listed the qualities of each:
  • Throwaway:
    • Anti-materialism
    • Starting Over
    • Need for Freedom and Control
    • Fear of Attachment
    • Extremes
  • Hoarder
    • Guilt
    • Living in the Past
    • Fear of Seperation
    • It’ll come in handy (mabye-someday)
    • Extremes
  • Good Balance
    • Get Organized
    • Recycle
    • Sell
    • Give to Charity
    • Believe in the Memories
    • Memory Boxes

Parallels to Computer Programming

In computer science and programming we have a concept called “starvation”.  Starvation in the processing of code refers to a process of an application that is supposed to be running and executing something but it doesn’t (maybe it’s waiting for an output variable from another process or maybe it’s waiting for the result or the “go-ahead” or a threshold to be reached from another process).  The stalled process is said to be “starved”; it can’t move forward until the process that’s causing the starvation does what it needs to do.  The same is true for clutter.  Almost always, if you can identify something as definitive “clutter”, but can’t get yourself to get rid of it, the clutter-identified-but-can’t-discard item is most likely in a state of “processing starvation”.

The goal is to “collect” pleasant memories in life! YES.

Does staying in xyz place geographically doing xyz things surrounded by xyz amount of clutter create pleasant memories?? If not, bye!

he goal is to “collect” pleasant memories in life! YES.

Does staying in xyz place geographically doing xyz things surrounded by xyz amount of clutter create pleasant memories?? If not, bye!

Top Reasons Why People Find it Difficult to Let go of Hurtful People

• Fear of Rejection
• Strange, but true. Fearing to cross someone off your list means you somewhat fear rejection from others. Don’t ever fear rejection; you must interpret everything merely as feedback!
• Fear of People Attacking Back
• You may fear people retaliating. For me I feared the people cutting off financial support, supplies, and “material things”.
• Fear of New Behavioral
• Old habits die hard. Period.
• Top Most inefficient ways that People Exclude what They Don’t Want
• A lot of this works subconsciously….
• Do things to make them unattractive.
• Outrageously insane, but, yes, true. Some people gain weight, tarnish their image, purposely (subconsciously) look disheveled to “repel” people and things they don’t like, but don’t know how to exclude.
• Punish themselves

Yep the old, “it’s my fault” line creates a lot problems.
Get out of their mind and into yours. Your mind is a colorful, alive, limitless place – trust me, you want to go there!
Every people-decision in life opens a door and closes another. YOUR spirit and existence would benefit greatly to manufacture precise actions that open the door of Welcoming of exhilaration, romance, joy, jubilation, honesty, clarity, and quality, precision, freedom, strength, and grace, while closing the door of Misery of repulsive vilifications, confusion, frustration, angst, and pain. So many of us close the Welcoming door and open the Misery door. Don’t do that! You either welcome the right, good, quality people and events into your life that make you feel sincere, calm, and energized and feel warmth from the world, or you let in the infectious people, situations, things, and habits that taint your worldly perspective obfuscating your weltanschauung with bleak misery. Your interpretation of the zeitgeist reflects whom you welcome or do not welcome into your life. Do not even give yourself the choice to not close Misery doors and open Welcoming doors of genuineness. Just develop an instinctively intrinsic validation system to always slam shut the Misery door and fling open the Welcoming door.
This sounds simple, but, often the simplest things need the most alignment.
Let me know if you think this sounds too harsh, haughty, or haranguing, or if you have related ideas.

(Modified-Reconstructed 2007 Post).

Important words here. Excluding dangerous, abusive and destructive people, habits, and things from you life does not classify as “holding grudges”. Protecting yourself, your mind, your life, from people that hurt you, make you feel neglected, make you feel shitty, lost, confused, and foul does yourself a favor. Whenever you put time into “thinking” about people – even if it’s thinking about how to avoid them – you give them fallacious power. Power does not exist, but I used to spend a lot of time getting enraged when people I didn’t like contacted me. Does that process have a desirable purpose? No, because you can’t make anyone feel blame. Don’t give undesirable relationships the privilege of hearing your words (even if you deliver vilifying insults – that response could still be rewarding for them than ignoring a person).

So, conclusively, one thing I have done to prevent emotionally abusive people, debilitating habits, or miserable places from entering my life is remove them from my contacts list. Then It’s simple. If you get a call or message from someone who is not on your list of people who “support your beliefs, call you back, and are “active” in your life” you just ignore them! Or if you get an urge, a compulsion to execute a destructive habit, you just ignore that impulse!

One common reaction to excluding people and saying “no” to people (implicitly, just cutting them off) is the sensation of guilt. The involuntary reaction of guilt originates from illusion; it doesn’t exist, but it gets you to do things that bring you more pain and turmoil. Here’s an example: I would frequently get calls and emails from people that brought me pain, blatantly insulted me, and hurt me in the past. I’d exclude them (delete emails, delete messages, etc.) but then would feel my unconscious reaction of guilt speaking up saying: “Don’t hold grudges. Maybe those people are different now. Call them back.” I’d listen to my idiotic “guilt-based ego voice” and, once again, I’d go flying into a tormenting, painful, confusing, and denigrating interaction with those people then. Therefore, indirectly, it was “Guilt” that operated as my greatest enemy. It was guilt that tricked me into diving back into destructive experiences.

(Modified 2007 Post).

(Modified 2007 Post)

Feynman QUOTES!!

He said, “You see, I’m a stenotypist, and I type everything that

is said here. Now, when the other fellas talk, I type what they say, but I don’t

understand what they’re saying. But every time

you get up to ask a question or to say something, I understand exactly what you mean–what the

question is, and what you’re sayi

ng–so I thought you can’t be a professor!”

Notice how everyone else, every understandable person at the conference was incomprehensible to the stenotypist and that they are not well-known.  It’s because what the speak is convoluted rubbish aimed to impress people of their vast intelligence instead of communicating clear, simple, direct, and honest points like good ol’ the best, one of the most ultimate scientists ever, Richard Feynman communicated.

Then I went over the next sentence, and I realized that I could translate that one also. Then it became a kind

of empty business: “Sometimes

people read; sometimes people listen to the radio,” and so on, but written in such a fancy way that I couldn’t understand it at first, and when I finally

deciphered it, there was nothing to it.

“It isn’t the

stuff, but the power to make the

stuff, that is important. But I realize now that these people were not in scienc

e; they didn’t understand it. They didn’t understand technology; they

didn’t understand their time.

“

THREE STRATA!!

So basically I look at all learning in three strata:

1st

On the ground (or basement) floor there’s the muck quagmire, disgusting muddy soup crap of humanities, New Age, religion, a lot of psychology, and the like.  Basically stuff that’s untrue, explains nothing, and is the antithesis of pure.

Here at a symposium conference discussing ethics in education, Feynman thought of some brilliant questions such as

For instance, in education, you increase differences. If someone’s good at something, you try to develop his ability, which results in differences, or inequalities. So if education increases inequality, is this ethical?…The next day I brought my paper into the meeting, and the guy said, “Yes, Mr. Feynman has brought up some very interesting questions we ought to discuss, and we’ll put them aside for some possible future discussion.” They completely missed the point. I was trying to define the problem, and then show how “the fragmentation of knowledge” didn’t have anything to do with it. And the reason that nobody got anywhere in that conference was that they hadn’t clearly defined the subject of “the ethics of equality in education,” and therefore no one knew exactly what they were supposed to talk about.

Feynman slaughters Humanities Social science RUBBISH and reveals for what it is with this awesome quote:

So I stopped–at random–and read the next sentence very carefully. I can’t remember it precisely, but it was very close to this: “The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels.” I went back and forth over it, and translated. You know what it means? “People read.”

Then I went over the next sentence, and I realized that I could translate that one also. Then it became a kind of empty business: “Sometimes people read; sometimes people listen to the radio,” and so on, but written in such a fancy way that I couldn’t understand it at first, and when I finally deciphered it, there was nothing to it.

Explaining nothing except the most obvious and trivial with convoluted useless language, social science is for the weak and stupid and feeble minded!

This was a huge epiphany for me in getting out of the mountain of shit humanities-social-studies inferno.  Before I had always thought that social studies and humanities rubbish was a mind-infection that if I focused on it would disturb my thought and thinking clarity.  However I soon realized far from the contrary, as soon as one focuses on critically interrogatively reading, cognitive scrutiny, truly scrutinizing, rereading, and understanding a sentence or two of the social humanities bullshit, we realize that it is saying the most puerile, stupid useless utterances that have been masked in eloquent, superfluous literary garb gibberish.  True!

2ND

The next floor (a drastic increase, because while that first strata has zero and actually detracting, negative, deplorable value) the second strata is immense value.  This second strata in this “mount paradisio” is a far advancement from teh inferno of the 1st strata.  This second strata is more fulfilling than purgatorio; it represents physics, biochemistry, anatomy, and neuroscience.  This second strata of immense value explains how things work, how we percieve things in the real world; all the clicks, clanks, flashes, utterances, even thoughts to some extent are explained and can be measured in this awesome second strata.

Biochemistry and physics will explain how everythign works.  As I was writing this I heard the sound of Carbon Dioxide particles clinking against the can of Hansen’s carbonated soda to the right of me.  Physics plus anatomy explains to me how the ossicles in our human ears can pick up frequencies between 20 and 20,000 hz and that then chemistry chimes in to explain the rising air bubbles of CO2 in carbonated beverages.  That’s fascinating and awesome, and crisp, and must importantly true.

Where are all my friends, the scientists and mathematicians?

3RD

The third strata is truly paradisio.  In the third strata of paradisio is mathematics.  Math is freedom from the world.  It’s the antithesis of all the “wrong”, obfuscating muck of the 1st strata.  Like the 2nd strata it’s true and stable and accurate, but it joyful tinkers with things with 100% accuracy.  Math on the upscale, is like the next floor up.  Equally as true, but in it’s own private connected perfect reality . Math is perfecton; it’s 100% precision, accuracy, and stability.

Math hones the mind and makes it sharper. I don’t care much about natural history but I do like the witticism of dawkins and how he pwn ridicules the ininite neverendign stupidity of religion.  Math is what the mind needs to stay sharp.  Biochem of human anatomy is useful too, to know what is necesary to stay sharp.  lol.  But natural history is okay because of 1)it’s actually true, rare in teh huamnties rubbish adn 2)dawkins is amusing and decent and good.

math is true precison of mind thouh

Math is the only true subject where you mind has to DO something.  All other things you do what you’re told and in biochem you do truly memorize valuable information and the regurgitate it out and biochemistry IS valuable info, but you cognitively don’t do anything with it. With Math and chess, you actually do things cognitively with your; your mind does actual work and envisioning and calculation.

Like for example, 53042 in base 6 equals 7154 in base 10.  That’s very rudimentary math (base systems), but it’s still unquestionably so crips, clear, true, and exciting, and awesome!  It’s just so convenient, awesome, nifty, precise, meaningful, rad nad almost magical– math truly is a different world — because of the transformation and everything matches up!  There can be no coefficients written in a digit higher than BaseNumber-1, so not higher than 9 and 5 for respectively base 10 and base 6.

This is old stuff and very rudimentary but math and numbers are unquestionably the ultimate toy with which to tinker.  It never breaks down, needs updates, is scientific advanced, and aligned!  It’s so fascinating and impressive and astounding and stable and fun to see how you set the coefficients net to each other in descending order and you get the base-based number!

2 • 6^0 + 4 • 6 ^1 + 0 • 6^2 + 3•6^3 +   5•6^4 ( base6)= 7154 (base10).

Its’ so fun and safe to tinker and use one’s mind to calculate and juggle and examine the always 100% correct, precision, alignment of math because of its 100% accuracy, universlaity (all languages understand numbers from all eras), and freedom and everything about math rocks!

Applying these:

If you want to feel discombobulated, doubtful, infected, lost, dubious, and quite wretched and vile, waste your time and pollute your mind with the 1st strata.  Basically, don’t go to the inferno of that waste.

If you want to understand the world and feel practical and not necessarily wise, but just complete in understanding, definitely check out the 2nd strata.

If you want meaning, joy, clarity, succes, happiness, fulfillment (funny enough all the fallacious and unfulfilled “promises” of the 1st mire strata), go to math.

yeah!

Regarding other academic fields:

I think philosophers share the same “freedom” bubble of mathematicians, but they’re paralyzed in it and can do nothing. Basically, if this “freedom” bubble of mathematicians is the sea, mathematicians are hte fish and sharks that can do things in it, and philosophers are just inanimate, dead rocks; they’re in the same “freedom” bubble of math, but are useless in it.

Math is the only authentic cognitive rigor.  In other words, do math; it’s good for your mind.

Most importantly, doing math puts you in a state of “flow” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)#Components_of_flow

Don’t need to respond at all, just kind of sharing process.   The piles of books are big a lot of chess books, miscellaneous sport/helath/martial arts , miscellaneous travel language stuff (like spanish).

Unfortunately there’s some book piles and electronci stuf.  I’m whittling it down and dejunking magnificently though . just stressful all the hard-copies bleh.

Processed almost all file folders which is GREAT.   Scanned and photographed everythign individually so fully safe to discard.  sweet.

Going all Vegan with Intellectual Subjects

I LOVE Eating Vegan.  So much more digestive time for the foods I enjoy, savor, and that are healthiest. Best of all, nothing I eat feels heavy or burdensome.

I remember my brothers (both whom of which are also vegan but are so because of animal rights reasons) asking me what compelled me to go vegan. For me, the animal rights, the better for the environment, all those reasons are dandy, but for me it just plain out felt better.  Even when I drank a glass of milk I remember saying “it felt like an invasion of crap!”.  And I felt as though I had to wait for that to digest.

Being vegan crept up on me!  If someone said 9 years ago, you should never eat red meat, dairy, fish, nor chicken again I would’ve thought they were crazy and would have struggled it.  But in the past 9 years just naturally, I’ve gravitated towards grains, vegetables, fruits, and non-animal protein and slowly eliminated the staples of a carnivorous diet.  It’s only now that I look back on my diet selection can I go, “Oh wow! Cool I happily actually enjoy a cuisine of primarily all plant, grain, and root produce!”  If I would’ve started veganism like that “Just deciding one day to eat only plant, grain, and root produce” it would’ve sounded awful.  But I naturally drifted towards that and looking at now how healthy my nutrition is, it’s very rewarding.  It’s also rewarding for all the bonus animal rights and environmental reasons.

But I’m interested in taking that a step further with intellectual studies.

So what subjects are definitely “vegan” — light, healthy, savory, and uplifting, and which subjects are definitely “not-vegan”?

Definitely Not-Vegan

• Political Science
• Drama
• Acting
• Self-help books
• Religion (the epitome of eating dirt and animal fat mixed with fecal matter).

All those are obviously heavy, burdensome, take you no where, make you feel like shit, and are a total waste of time; the definitely non-vegan subjects are crippling and disgusting.  These topics are all repulsive and highly toxic.  They must never be “intellectually consumed”.

Unfortunately Likely Not-Vegan

• Chess
• Computers
• Magic
• Fictional LIterature
• NLP
• Anti-Persuasion

NLP is too non-scientific.  Some fictional literature is amazing, but it’s not true.  Computers are light, but loopy, and unlike math which is direct; computers is really repackaged kind of more “political” wannabe math.  Magic is just illusions that are most fun debunked, besides physics offers some of the most amazing and TRUE astonishing feats possible.  Chess is a tough one because I like it so, but, alas, it seems to have too many parallels to political science unfortunately.  I hate political science.  Chess is a tough one to deal with because a part of me really likes it.  It’s cool to win games at chess, such an ancient game, one of the most ancient!  Chess might acceptable at times.  Anti-persuasion is just pre-emptive to avoid even worse non-vegan intellectual material.

A few of the “unfortunately not-vegan” subjects may be acceptable to study in small amounts to avoid the “certainly not-vegan” infections and intellectual viruses, but even that should likely be avoided.

These subjects are on the fringe.  They likely will be definitely not-vega, but for the moment they’re “guilty pleasures” of sorts of intellectual cuisine.

Definitely Vegan

• Math
• Classical Music
• Neuroscience
• Botany

All those are UNQUESTIONABLY light, lucid, direct, forward-moving, easy to apply to life (equations you work out and can instantly check, all the neuroscience is relative to your own body, and classical music you apply on an instrument!).  They’re fulfilling and forward-moving!

Maybe by eliminating the all Not-Vegan material, the three Definitely Vegan intellectual subjects will expand and I will discovery all kinds of hosts of diverse and exciting reads from the definitely intellectually vegan selection, just as I did with vegan nutritional cuisine!!

Mingling less and less with the Unfortunately Not-Vegan stuff will be liberating and make me feel safer in life because I’ll be “feeding my mind” healthy, truly, safely material!! And then just as with veganism, once I’ve got an all vegan intellectual diet, I can just safetly eat as much as I want of the “vegan subjects”!! SWEET!

“So men are not from Mars, nor are women from Venus. Men and women are from Africa, the cradle of our evolution, where they evolved together as a single species. Men and women have all the same genes except for a handful on the Y chromosome, and their brains are so similar that it takes an eagle-eyed neuroanatomist to find the small differences between them. Their average levels of general intelligence are the same, according to the best psychometric estimates,24 and they use language and think about the physical and living world in the same general way.”

== Steven Pinker, MIT & Harvard prfoessor and cognitive scientist.

YES Finally, something that dissolves the pop-new-age ludicrous falsities claiming men and women are biologically different . They are not. They are very very similar and almost 100% identical, genetically.

This isn’t so much an interest in masculine/feminine studies, but rather a dissolution of fallacious belief, hyped by superficial media and pseudo-science.

Hearing Pinker’s wise words is not only comforting and alleviating from the intoxicatingly vile untruths I heard uttered to me by so many pop media feminists or people interesting in pointing out the “inherent superiority of one gender over the other”, but Pinker’s words move forward with dissolving untruths that clog, obfuscate, and blur our scope of reality.

I think the most concise and most lucid article that encapsulates this entire pseudo-truth-unraveling behavior is Dawkins’ article “Hall of Mirrors”, where he enunciates the validity of scientific truth.

Pinker’s dissolution of and illustrative evidence provision of the noble savage, blank slate, and ghost in the machine fallacious paradigms of human nature is brilliant.

Of course, while others put forth similar ideas, it was pop-hype author John Grey who further propounded this disillusioned idea that men and women are so inherently different.  So John Grey is obviously the nemesis of the subject of this article.  But it’s wise and prudent to if one recognizes a nemesis, to not speak frequently of him.  So we won’t waste time unraveling Grey’s fragile arguments and absurd “wave-welling”, “elastic-rubberbanding” feminine and masculine analogies.  Instead, let’s focus on how toxic said authors are on our collective conscience.

If one wants to have an intelligent conversation with another human about, say, human nature, or gender roles, or cognitive evolution, I think the best course of action is to completely evade the possibility of entertaining such a conversation with a status quo, average, pop-hype-book-reading human because of the eventual inevitable collisions with these hype media falsities.

These hype media falsities that sell simply because of emotional reaction flurry, permanently scar the perceptions some people make.  I am not proposing that they should be banned, but rather, that some kind of warning be put on said books indicating it as completely unproven, completely unscientific.  The Bible, John Grey’s “Men are From Mars, Men are from Venus”, most all non-scientific works, would all be pooled under pure 100% fictional works, for that they are.  I think it’s vitally important to clarify that certainty.  And to then of course distinguish those books (the majority of which make up most bookstores unfortunately) from the proven, cut & dry, scientific books that are actually true, that have the potential for containing material that is genuinely true!

Many of the “non-fiction” books in bookstores are grossly miscategorized and the social and cognitive consequences of this are drastic.   Abolishing fiction would be absurd, dangerous, bleak, and depressing, but when I read fiction, I want to read of Tolkien’s lore, or of Verne’s punctual characters, or of any of the other much more rich and inviting works of true fiction.  Instead of these pseudo-non-fiction works that are like weeds amongst the truthful scientific books and the pure, original fiction books, or the scientifically-proven and tested books, I think appropriately labelling all the pseudo-non-fiction (unproven) books as what they are, fiction, will cause people to drift to the healthy extremes: pure fiction  or pure scientifically proven books and these pseudo-non-fiction hype media works will simply drift off and plummet in sales simply because of appropriate labelling!

The pseudo-science books written by non-scientific, usually very uneducated authors that claim to be true are, frankly, deleteriously cognitively malnourishing.  This analogy to food is interesting.  I think an appropriate set of parallel extensions would be fiction is oh some kind of stirfry, scientific books as some kind of healthy natural produce or fish, and then these hype media false non-fiction boks as something similar to the cigarrette: addictive, intoxicating, wrought with flair and hype, and massively destructive.

If you extrapolate this idea out, yes, it would mean finally appropriately labelling all “religious tomes” as merely (in my opinion horribly written and very bland) fictional stories.  These pseudo non-fiction books are toxic books 1)they are unscientific untruths, 2)claiming to be truthful!  Pure fiction of Tolkien or Verne or Doyle is not the slightest bit toxic because the readership of those epic works know that the respective Frodo, Fogg, and Holmesian heroes are fictional.  Increidbly descriptive, brilliantly crafted? yes, but indubitably fictional.  Religions and similar books preachign fiction as non-fiction is a direct cognitive dissension into insanity.

Books by scientific authors containing scientifically-proven data should be the only books acceptablly labeled as “idea-sharing” books.  Fiction books should serve the purpose of image-sharing (some of which can have ideas) pieces of literature.  New Age, pop culture self-help books have become the new religion for the “semi-educated” average intelligence (typically american).  This newest incarnation of this vile, toxic, dangerous entity (religion) is even more surrepticious and dangerous because it’s packaged as this “life improvement” device, but it’s really toxic and fallacious repackaged religion.

The religious folk’s clever malign doesn’t really have much downtime.  It’s always crafting new ways to infect peoples’ minds.  Religion discourages critical thinking and that is one of the greatest causes of its toxic and viral-like perpetuation.  The example of this is the biblical quote of  saying “Don’t argue with the devil, he’s had thousands of years to practice”.  That’s religion discouraging critical thinking and encouraging blind submission.  Religion is how people devolve into drones hiding behind sanctity, eager to kill on command.  Domesticated house pets have more cunning than humans under the dangerous, deluding, and deleterious spell of religion.  So obviously greatest perpetuation of this mind virus, religious books, should ulitmiately simply be eliminated.  This is very brash, but the proposition of any religious books to be labelled simply as what they are: fiction, will lead to the natural extinction of religious texts simply because no one wants to read extremely insipid and poorly written fiction when there’s extremely well-written and colorful and adventurous genuine bona fide fiction authors on the next shelf, or genuine bona fide scholars, academics discussing scientific truths!

Indeed, Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit as well as the entirety of his book, The Demon-Haunted World, is an indispensible survival item for cognitive clarity.

Books that have not undergone rigorous scientific scrutiny and claim to be non-fiction truly pollute any attempt for clear thinking.  There’s so much astonishment and shock and “Wow” in scientifically laboratory-proven evidence that there’s absolutely no need for this pseudo-non-fiction rubbish.  There’s a need for fiction, for escape, and a need for scientific articles and books for truth.  There exists no need of the desire “to be deluded into a hype media falsity belief to prove or disprove some opinion one currently holds”.  I’ve been a victim of believing so many of these pseudo-non-fiction books and therefore found authentic, genuine scientific and true books by the authors of Pinker and Dawkins for example so remarkably mind-shatteringly good that the need for any other kind of “non-fiction” book or a book that hedges the fence of fiction and non-fiction seems pointless.

On a side note, one of the most indubitably unique, often quite humorous, and unquestionably impressive characteristics of Pinker is his ability to list a smorgasbord of highly diverse, seemingly random, and all entirely relevant examples that illustratively delineate and provide meaning, color, and texture to what theorem or point he is making.

After having a mind clogged with all these pop fiction media hype authors such as Anthony Robbins, John Grey, most any of the non-scientific-authored books you’ll find a book shelf that claims to be fiction, the works of Dawkins, Pinker, Hitchens, and many others is like having a full feast from all the food groups after cognitively starving off of an obscure, meager, and deprived diet of say only beets.  The non-scientific books that claim to be non-fiction are mind pollutants, and their fallacious points offer at best meager (and at worst, outright toxic and poisonous) sustenance for an already ravenous cognitive conscience.   People are starving for truth and they’re being fed preservatives.

Personally, I would like all the pop hype media books not written by a scientific author and lacking in scientific data, removed or banned in someway unless they’re explicitly labeled as fiction.  Meaning that bookstores would contain scientifically proven books and fictional literature.  I don’t think such a change will happen any time soon nor ever at all, but the fact remains that these pseudo-science hype media falsity “non-fiction” books that are wrought with fiction, do scar the clear thinking of the status quo.

So conclusively, the best solution for an intelligent conversation regarding any of the aforementioned topics is to circumvent the status quo American (actually, bypass all but the most educated americans) and find an academic savvy in the fields of cognitive science, neuroscience, or any of the natural science fields, or simply a noble lad whose a solid bloke from the UK or Europe. haha.

“So men are not from Mars, nor are women from Venus. Men and women are from Africa, the cradle of our evolution, where they evolved together as a single species. Men and women have all the same genes except for a handful on the Y chromosome, and their brains are so similar that it takes an eagle-eyed neuroanatomist to find the small differences between them. Their average levels of general intelligence are the same, according to the best psychometric estimates,24 and they use language and think about the physical and living world in the same general way.”

== Steven Pinker, MIT & Harvard prfoessor and cognitive scientist.

YES Finally, something that dissolves the pop-new-age ludicrous falsities claiming men and women are biologically different . They are not. They are very very similar and almost 100% identical, genetically.

This isn’t so much an interest in masculine/feminine studies, but rather a dissolution of fallacious belief, hyped by superficial media and pseudo-science.

Hearing Pinker’s wise words is not only comforting and alleviating from the intoxicatingly vile untruths I heard uttered to me by so many pop media feminists or people interesting in pointing out the “inherent superiority of one gender over the other”, but Pinker’s words move forward with dissolving untruths that clog, obfuscate, and blur our scope of reality.

I think the most concise and most lucid article that encapsulates this entire pseudo-truth-unraveling behavior is Dawkins’ article “Hall of Mirrors”, where he enunciates the validity of scientific truth.

Pinker’s dissolution of and illustrative evidence provision of the noble savage, blank slate, and ghost in the machine fallacious paradigms of human nature is brilliant.

1. Movies leave you under a spell; an illusory haze so you cannot see. Books give control of the haze others are under.
2. Movies manufacture illusion without you knowing it, while books allow you to choose experience illusion, without decoupling awareness from experience.
3. Books enable to you to explain and teach about illusions and reality, placing you at “cause” instead of at “effect” where you are a victim of illusion. You’re in the driver’s seat reading and writing books.
4. Books clarify and provide understandings. Movies merely create suspence and foreshadowing. Movies are hollow, they foreshadow and build suspense, but they leave you empty with no treasure, no gem. Books have the gem. Books, sure, create suspense, intrigue, and connection. I remember countless “on the edge of my seat” reads of Sherlock Holmes and bawling at the end of Where the Read Fern Grows in early elementary school. And just in 2008, I was completely engaged and in awe of the adventure created by Jules Verne in around the world in 80 days. Those fiction reads provided massive suspense, BUT BUT BUT, unlike movies, the books also provided incredible value and understanding!! I learned so many lessons from those books above. For example, inductive observational skill from Doyle’s book (Sherlock Holmes), the touching experience of pet comraderie (from Where the Red Fern Grows), and the necessity of time, precision, and the cool collected travel making things happen skills of Mr. Fogg from Around the World in 80 days. Because I READ those experiences as books as opposed to watch what was blasted at me with pixels from a movie, I experienced them more wholistically and I acquired the lesson and understanding, with the entertainment and fun of a very absorbing and exciting read!
5. You think more clearly with a book because your brain gets neurological activity firing that is congruent with the logic of the book. Kind of like a “mental-cerebral” version of “if you smile, you’ll feel happy”. If you read a smart book, you’ll think more intelligently. Movies trick and obfuscate intelligence.
6. Books, you have total control over the pace, and “order you read”, movies (unless you fumble with FF and RW buttons, you do not have the same control.
7. Books, your vision is the movie and you are the director; movies lack that customization.
8. Books teach and entertain and create more cohesive thinking; movies, merely entertain with an inkling of “teaching”.
9. Both movies and books inspire, but books provide an inspiration that is more enduring beacuse it is “your own version” of the inspiration.
10. Finally, books don’t need electrical outlets, high-tech dvd players, surround sound and the like. Books are portable; you can bring them anywhere. Laptops are fixing that with movies, but with a book, you use your “built-in” surround sound, imax, widescreen mental imagery vision, which is infinitely more crisp, alive, and exciting than a movie screen.

I’m a former movie junkie (thousands and reruns) and have rediscovered the joy of reading!

Refuting Preposterous Counter-Arguments

• Books are hard to preserve — ebooks hard copy, soft copy. egyptian documents have been found that are over thousands of years old, our declaration of indendence has been perfectly preserved for 200+ year. Books have been around longer than movies and will likely stay longer.
• Books are expensive — nope. your average dvd (say $20) is infinitely more expensive than a library book (free), but even if you buy a book, it’s likely to be less than film.
• Books are heavy — ebooks, my friend. wieghtless
• Books can fall from tall places and kil your children — so can movies.
• Books smell bad in high humidity places — film will corrode and become inoperable in high humidity places. Books actually have a broad environmental survival capacity when you think about it.
• Books becomes ugly looking after soaked in water — try putting a wet VHS in the video player and see what happens. The pages might be wrinkled, but a book won’t damage your electronic equipment.
• Books are written by old people mainly — haha. first off, not true. I’ve written a fair share of books and am in my youth. There are tons of youthful authors. Besides, whats the average age of your typical movie director and producer (older than the average author). Besides, whats wrong with some wisdom from elders?
• Books are against technology — apparently you aren’t familiar with the sci-fi fiction genre and the entire nonfiction line devoted to teaching and theorizing about new forms of technology.
• Books use large amount of trees — true, but ebooks refutes this.
• Books are ancient tools — they’re ancient learning devices, tools, forms of carrying messages, passing on research that took years and thousands of people. Yep. they’ve stood the test of time and have endured in their utility.
• Books lack user interaction — no. Books require you (especially with fiction) to 3-dimensionally interact with the interpretation of the material and your mind via visualizations. Movies cripple your ability to visualize. You create “the mental movie” so to speak, but movies just have little creative interaction where you see what everyone else sees.
• Books don;t have any moving things in them — the images created by books (your mental picture) ceaseless changes and dynamically moves.
• Books are rigid — this point, of course, doesn’t necessarily descredit books, but last time I checked, isn’t a paperback much less rigid than a dvd? If you “bend” a movie, it breaks, bend a paperback, it bends.
• Books are 2 dimentional — no, again, 3-d with your mental imagery. Actually, with very creative mental imagery you could visualize a book’s material in infinite dimensions with thought experiments, something impossible to do when just “observing” what happens on a screen.
• Books are usually unclear — haha. A distaste for literature is becoming more and more clear. Unless you’re a cat, scientist, or the rare exception of a courageous person, we usually fear or dislike what we don’t understand. Read books that interest you and work your way up to the complex ones, otherwise, you won’t like the experience. You’ll find some literature that fascinates you. Given that many more books exist than movies, it’s almost a probablistic certainty you’ll find an interesting book, if you found an interesting movie.
• Books have to be copied and printed — and movies have to be spliced, edited, printed, copied, and distributed as well.
• Books can’t be edited easily — actually neither books nor movies are designed for post-final print editting, but changing one word is MUCH easier than having to call back in the director, the camera crew, the actors, the editting crew, and reshoot, refilm, reprint and republished one line of s movie scene.

That said, I just wanted to say, I don’t dislike movies. Movies have reached and inspired me in ways that some books could have never have done, but, on the other hand, books have done the same — evoked intrinsic understanding that open up new doors of thought that completely change my life. Both definitely possess the ability to inspire. However, in my experience, the quality of the motivation and change you experience from a book feels MUCH more solid and grounded. In other words, the longevity of inspiration received from a book is greater — the fictional scene, or idea, or inspiration — sticks with you longer than with most movies (unless the rare exception of incredible filiming and cinematography) because you have to “design the mental movie” cognitively. But I definitely wouldn’t be person I am today without movies, and certainly without books. In part, I feel like I was “raised” by books and movies. Lessons from authors and films that teach what was skipped over at home or school. Good stuff!

I think the ultimate underlying mutual understanding here is this: “You read the right books, on a topic, skill-set, or value you want to acquire, and you will program your mind to genuinely live that life”. Movies are a quick way to glimpse at, and live vicariously through the characters and plots of other (fictional, screenplay) stories.

Why do so many Millenials (almost every member of the IWR club) LOVE Office Space? Because we’re constantly mobile, we loathe actual stagnant office spaces, but don’t mind the internet and that dynamic exchange at all. However, watching the movie “Office Space” will merely create a vicarious, temporary, short-lived feeling of “freedom” from something in your real life that you wish to escape. If you actually want to CHANGE your life, books will do that for you. I guess an analogy is a movie is the ignition (it can start the desire or create awareness of a desired change) but then the book is the actual car (it supplies the programming you need in order to get you where you want to go).

Books connect your body, mind, and voice.

I am not you, and you are not me.  That is the way things are.  I like that.  As you ponder that, let me explain to you why I find tremendous value in that distinction.

Distinctions create boundaries.  Without distinctions, everything would be porous and absorbing this information or that information would generate confusion.  But that confusion is instantly absolved when we utilize distinctions.

There’s a tendency for people with whom I communicate to think that we have some connection, as-if they “know me”.  The way they communicate and the advice they give comes from the perspective of “I know this person in every dimension and in every aspect”.  But then I mention something that I have done that the person with porous distinctions has not done, like ran multiple marathons,  the person shirks back and immediately says “Oh, I couldn’t do that!”.  Instantly their slurring and blurring of our distinctions of you being me, and me being you –gets mutilated when an element of capacity enters the conversation.

You see, as you listen to this closely and intently you realize that intention should govern our behavior (and often it does when we are not being persuaded, manipulated, or under a hypnotic trance by the media), but  many times our perception of capacity limits our behavior.  When I mention to someone actions I have taken that they deem outside of their capacity (for example having written 4 books, or ran multiple marathons, or any other task of which people are incredibly capable of doing, but don’t believe they have that capacity to do so) who has a ruptured their perception of boundaries, what happens in their mind?  First they recoil.  They instantaneously have a thought process of “this person is not whom I thought they were and there exists a distinction in our capacity”.  Such distinctions are good.  Because in many ways, what makes you you, and me me, is our logical levels, which of course, include beliefs, identity, capabilities, and behavior.  If I am talking to you in person, we share the same environment.  That is it.  I’d say environment is roughly 3% of “who I am” and “who you are” at best.   Without logical levels, we are all practically identical twins because our only differences would be blemishes on our epidermal layer of our skin, hair coloration, simple, trivial distinctions bound into the same sequences of deoxyribonucleic acid.  So it’s truly our logical levels that spark this kind of Lamarakian

For awhile in my junior year in college I engaged this belief that we were all this spiritual, interconnected, “Universal One” person.  I enjoyed entertaining that belief because of many reasons.  Reasons for entertaining the “universal one” delusion:

1. It was a good remedy for loneliness (If you’re lonely, thinking that everyone is interconnected creates a delusion of togetherness).
2. I thought it would be helpful to creating a connection with people.  (After all if you are interconnected with people “as one” then it’s very easy to feel harmoniously connected with another human).
3. I felt the idea of a “universal one” would somehow bring success believing that people were “working with me on my specific goals”.
4. What sparked this belief?  Likely a reading of Whitman’s Song of Myself

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

–Whitman 1819-1892

Yep, taking a gander at the American poet and essayist’s verse was likely what sparked that delusional belief for me.  Now am putting forth a criticism of that belief that “we are all universally one” where I will detail how toxic it truly is.

First off, we must first acknowledge that yes, “we” humans are taxonomically very similar in that we share the same class (mammalia), order (primates), genus (homo), and our species of course, sapiens, are also identical.  But there are VAST differences beyond that species classification.  We have homo sapiens who can program themselves to run 26.2 miles in under 2 hours, 10 minutes.  We have homo sapiens, like Nikola Tesla, who create magnificent inventions like the wireless communications radio and polyphase power distribution. Tesla was fluent in 7 languages.  Few people even fathom learning a “second” language”!  Indeed, the person who thinks we have 6.8 billion identical people walking around the planet is in effort to be as uncolorful as possible, an idiot!  There exist 6.8 billion exact DNA copies, but each and everyone of those bundles of cells is simultaneously a bundle of beliefs and identities and what I refer to as “life program code”.  Our internal cognitive programming that creates addictions and creates discoveries and breakthroughs previously thought impossible are derivatives of our internal code.  It is our internal code that makes us distinct.  Going beyond the given cellular similarities, humans, because of the existence of the cerebrum, are each individual bundles of code.  As a species, I’m convinced our belief in capacity has slowly decreased since the late 19th century, the Einstein and Tesla era.  Sure we have, in regards to technology, expanded in the realm of software with personal computing platforms with inventors like Wozniak (Jobs and Gates were merely businessmen, mind you), and in physics with the utilization propulsion, aerodynamics, and the employment of the LOR method at NASA we were able to land on our neighboring natural satellite .  Although I am not an enormous fan of art and frequently denounce religion for its destructive mind-virus-like properties, it is undeniable that the intricacies of Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel or David or Da Vinci’s Vetruvian Man are creations that few people could honestly say they have the capacity to create.

Most certainly, one could argue that it was not just Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin who individually “landed on the moon” first (Collins never set foot on the rock, but orbited in the Command Module) but rather the “universal one” of Mission Control, the past inventors who had paved the way for such launches and maneuvering to occur, as well as possibly a “sprinkling” of that “human spirit” universality.  But when it comes down to it….

ONE INDIVIDUAL DISTINCT person invented the polyphase power distribution system, Nikola Tesla.  Do you not think that Tesla’s fluency in 7 distinct languages was absolutely essential to his capacity to “think outside the box” and go beyond the capacity of so many of his scientific predecessors?  Linguistic definitive diversity is without a doubt an intrinsic component to scientific creativity and precision.

ONE INDIVIDUAL DISTINCT person outlined the paradigmatic ground-shattering breakthrough in physics known as special relativity, Albert Einstein.  But did you know that it was the photoelectric effect that won Einstein the Nobel Peace prize in 1921 and that it was his Annus Mirabillus papers written in 1905 that, although less known, had a larger impact on physics than any of his other work, including special relativity?  When Einstein first proposed the special theory of relativity on June 30 of 1905, his third paper that year, in “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” he referenced

One person surveyed, calculated, and documented the actual origination of our very biological species in 1859, Sir Charles Darwin.

Now I have been inductively drawn to the late 19th century….all of its inventions, ideas, fictions, and beliefs.

I have a penchant for late 1800s Scottish and British Authors!! I just inductively became aware of this pattern!

• 1859 British, Dickens, Tale of Two Cities (2 books)
• 1859, Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
• 1873, French Verne, (Around the World in 80 Days and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea)
• 1886, Scottish Stevenson,  (Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
• 1891 Scottish, Doyle, Adventures of Sherlock (2)
• 1897, Irish, Bram Stoker, Dracula (1 book)
• 1980s, British, Douglas Adams (10 books)
• 1950s, British, Roald Dahl,  (10 books)
• 2000, British, Mark Haddon
• 2000, British, Richard Dawkins
• 31 Books by British Authors!!!! Jolly good!

Young Eintein (1879-1955) was a mere toddler during the time most of those fictions were published.  But we are not focusing on Einstein, because there exists a greater capacity and a more greatly overlooked genius, of Nikola Tesla (1856- January 7, 1943).  Do you ever view a picture of a person and feel some kind of connection as-if you know them or can relate to them?  Such delusions are common and for the reasons I outlined above in the “Reasons for entertaining the universal one delusion”, appealing.  However, when Nikola Tesla invented the wireless communications radio in 1894, he did not accomplish this amazing feat by staring at a picture of english chemist Michael Faraday and  sottish physicist James Maxwell — the 18th century theorists of electromagnetic waves — and “willing the universal one” to enable him to craft a wireless communications radio!  If Tesla believed that “we are all a universal one working harmoniously together”, we would not have FM and AM radio as we know it today because Nikola would not have had the resources to design the wireless communications radio.  You are beginning to understand!  Believing in the “universal one” or any derivation thereof is “acceptable copping out”.  Saying, “Oh i could run a marathon or have a great scientific invention or accomplish this great feat…but I’ll just leave it up to the universal one” is a way of failing to achieve but stated in a way that it slips under the radar.  I can assure you that it is only the status quo who believes in “the universal oneness of things”.  Great achievers who accomplished very unique and highly specific feats — inventions, athletic achievements, great papers, paradigmatic mathematical formulae — did so out of acknowledging “Hey, I am unique in this area.  I have an attraction to xyz subject or field.  Few other people are focused on this.  I am going to pursue an interest in that.”  Most people are deluded by the obfuscating sludge that is religion, media, newspaper dribble that occupy the clarity of our mind, that hypnotizing us into thinking that “some universal one will take care of it”.  Let me assure you that one and only one person

Traversed 26.2 miles in Munich, Germany in 2 hours 12 minutes of the 1972 Olympics to win a gold medal, Frank Shorter.

Wrote the ground-shattering paper that completely revolutionized our perception of time, Albert Einstein in 1905.

Popularized the breakthrough discovery known as the copernican revolution, which made “the universal one” realize that our solar system is not geo-, but heliocentric!

Swam 100m butterfly in 50.77 seconds at the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia, beating his own 51.25 Athens record.  This ONE person was Michael Phelps.

Designed myriad inventions in at least 278 distinct patents in 26 countries that contributed incredible new technologies.  This ONE person was Nikola Tesla.  Out of all these distinct, individual achievers, I think it is Tesla whom accomplished the most and simultaneously received the least credit.

As you can see “the universal one” by DEFINITION is inherently outdated, obsolete, old-fashioned, and unadvanced!  It was the universal one that believed in geocentrism.  It was the universal one that believed that the sub-4-minute mile was humanly impossible.  It was the universal one whom believed transference of information without the usage of wires couldn’t be done.  It was those individuals, those people who acknowledged distinctions between them and other members of the same species (in regards to the above  three accomplishments respectively Copernicus, Roger Bannister, and Nikola Tesla) who proved the universal one wrong.  And for those who actually go around believing that their answers lie in the universal one are seriously setting themselves up for massive capability limitations!  All of the “I can’ts”, “That’s Impossibles”, “I can’t do thats” are components to the universal one.

As a conclusion, I present 5 of my current heroes all of whom exemplify the incredible capacity to neglect the condemning and restricting “universal one” and who rise above it, creating distinct and very constructively elucidating breakthroughs in music, logic, science & electricity, for our species.

Richard Dawkins.  1941-Present.  British Evolutionary biologist.

Nikola Tesla, 1856-1943.  Serbian-born scientific inventor who individually created roughly 300 patents for countless inventions that paved the way to the technology we see today.

Gustav Holst. 1874-1943, British Composer known for distinctly composing The Planets.

Sherlock Holmes, Fictional Detective crafted by Scottish Author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  1887, first appearance publication.

Derren Brown, 1971-Preset.  British illusionist, stage hypnotist, and mentalist.

Sherlock Holmes (A fictional creation can hold some invaluable lessons on the process of deduction) and Derren Brown (both masters of microcosmic observation).

Ludwig Van Beethoven, 1770-1827.  German composer who Distinctly assisted in the transition of classic to romantic music.

I encourage you to look at all those individuals and observe how by NO MEANS could they have crafted the magnificent creations that they authored, invented, composed, conjured, or observed with the assistance of the “universal one” concept.  They all focused their minds and bodies and genius to create authentic advancements for our species.  I encourage you to do the same!  Disown your relationship to “uiversal oneness”; honor your distinct individual genius be it in athletics (undoubtedly Michael Phelps and Frank Shorter both, unquestionable have cultivated a distinct genius in the fields of swimming and running), science, music, authoring, or whatever field you notice a distinct and unique pull.  This is a call to action that is much more demanding than embracing self-reliance or non-conformity.

I think it’s worthy of note that the above heroes of “Distinction” are personal predecessors to five heroes that brought me to the above five great individuals.  The previous ones are shown above.

The moment you realize your individuality and that you are a distinct network of electric neurological electrical firings directed and managed by a 8-pound nervous-system center containing two distinct hemispheres intersecting at a corpus callosum that controls endocrinological chemical mini-sub factories such as the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, thalamus, thyroid, adrenals, and testes/ovaries woven into 206 distinct sticks of calcium matrices, pulleyed together through over 600 distinct muscular strands, and sheathed in a kinesthetic epidermal layer, you realize that you are not a universal one.  You are you.  And I am me.  And that is the way things are.  And that is very, very good for the sake of advancing our species!

This work is licensed by John Thomas “Kooz” Kuczmarski and Validate Your Life under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/.

The whole “work hours” thing is a foreign concept to me. Maybe because I just don’t make a distinction between work and play, or (most likely) I just always work.  Sometimes I wake up and start work at 2am. Sometimes I just don’t ever go to sleep and take a nap in the middle of the day.

It’s easier for me, I realize, to just say my sleep patterns (the times where I’m not working) than the times I am working;  I sometimes sleep around the 12ish to 3ish zone. I like exercising at night (moonlight runs).

So it’s strange, I work about 80-90 times harder and am more demanding of myself than I would have been if I worked for an employer other than myself.  This increase in work motivation, results, and demands is probably inherent to any freelance work or “business owner” work.  That’s an interesting pattern and managing the work that you do as an entrepreneur is what we’re talking about today. You have to develop this weird relationship with yourself where you’re the administrator who decides what we need to do (as a business) and then you put on the “employer cap” and do the stuff that you decided to do while wearing the administrative hat. Finally, you clean it all up by wearing, possibly a “customer hat” and test-running for the purposes of debugging your business feature.  This works with websites, products, services, expansions of any kind.

Having access to multiple outcome frames from multiple hats (points of view and angles) is a must for any entrepreneur. How do you do this? How do you don and even design the array of chapeaus you have to wear to be a successful entrepreneur?

Map it out

Map out which hats you need. Read my excerpt from my fourth book, Compassionate Reservoirs, where I discuss De Bono’s thinking hats.

Recognizing Venues of Impact

It is incredibly challenging and essential to discern when we do and when do not have an impact.    This can be accomplished by examining the people in the room.  Are they laughing at you or with you?  Are they looking towards you or through you or at you?  If their relationship with you is aimed so that they look or laugh or talk at you, you can’t have an impact because the people have either labeled you negatively or chosen not to change. In situations where people interact at you — the prepositional connotation is key — where you cannot have an impact, give up control and stop speaking.

When we don’t have the potential to impact — because of external factors with the people or internal limitations in ourselves — we should, obviously, aim cease conversing.  Continuing will only manufacture agitations and doubt.  Giving up control where we have no control is incredibly liberating, as well.  Acts of relinquishment provide freedom to stop bashing our psychological brain against the wall.  It inspires us to ascertain certainty in our convictions.  Whenever we certify our capacity for invigoration, we create opportunities for growth.  Pinpointing those areas of certification and linking them to areas that behold a capacity for impact is the vital consideration. Go to your studio and converse and make stuff, but make sure you studio is the place where you have control and an impact.  If your studio doesn’t have those qualities change the studio or find one that connects to your wisdom.

Wherever you have the potential for leaving an impact, you can experience with leading discussions by wearing different hats.   Edward de Bono’s “6 Thinking Hats” describes the six hats that successful people where and must wear in different situations.  Here’s the breakdown of the empowerment hats:

·         The White Hat – resourceful, use what data is available

·         The Black Hat – criticism and pessimism;

·         The Green Hat –- creativity;

·         The Red Hat – intuition and gut thinking;

·         The Blue Hat – control and managing, often links to other hats for problem solving

·         The Yellow Hat – optimism

The white is the ultimate hat of adaptive resourcefulness.  You connect with what is in front of you and around you and use it for that agenda.  It is the hat that you wear when you live out Teddy Roosevelt’s idea of “do what can with what you have where you are”.  I mentioned Teddy Roosevelt’s incredible ability to access his child-like voice and adapt when Teddy Roosevelt said that phrase and created the successful Rough Riders in my first book, Validate Your Life. De Bono is simply phrasing this capacity for adaptation and expansion in another context using the hat metaphor, but the underlying principle is the capacity access our inner voice and adapt beautifully.

Although the black hat may not sound like a hat of empowerment, the ability to criticism can toughen and make your agenda more connected and secure.

The other hats are quite obvious in their application.  This hat idea is quite interesting, but I don’t think people have a choice to wear these hats.  They are patterned into one specific hat.  The most liberated person not only has the potential to wear all the different types of hats, but they have the awareness and scrutiny to decipher precisely when a certain situation calls for a specific hat.  Knowing when to communicate and when to liberate your control, or knowing which hat to wear, are different ways of expanding your potential for interaction.

Great, now that that’s all in the clear…

Visualize which hats are most important to you and then cut that number in half. If you think you need 4 hats to run your business, you only need two. Minimize. Make the differences between the types of hats you need to wear HUGE. In other words, make sure a “different hat” truly links up to a VERY different kind of thinking, cognitive questions, frames, and outcomes.

At most, I think three hats is by far all you need: Administrative hat, Employer hat, and Customer Hat. Keep in mind that these hats are just merely collections of cognitive frames.  What I mean by cognitive frames is that in NLP (something I study, teach, and practice) there’s multiple frames where different criteria and outcomes are envisioned.  The way you should structure your 2-3 entrepreneurial hats is so that each of those hat points of view is a collection of frames that achieve the objects of that point of view.  For example, if you decide to go with a customer hat, the customer hat would likely want an “outcome” (that of buying a product or service) but that would be very different and distinct from the type of outcome frame utilized the administrative hat.  Additionally, with a customer hat you’d likely want a backtrack frame so that you could reconnect with your original purchase idea to see if whatever you’ve installed (a website, a service, a product) moves in congruence with that frame.  Here’s the most common NLP.  Just pick and choose which one of the frames you’d like to associate with each of your hats and plug those into the cognitive structured Point-of-View!

When I coach clients some of the most effective techniques I use for remapping the clients’ model of the world to achieve the success results they want is framing.  I use framing all the time.  Framing is used by advanced NLP practitioners, and although they may not know it at the time, anyone who embraces a “different Point of View” mentality embraces a form of framing.  Frames are an incredible NLP tool and an amazing bit of transformation technology.  If you learn one thing from this article: learn the ability to frame and different types of frames.  If my clients knew how to frame (and I do try to teach them how to do this , they’d likely be clients for a much shorter period of time!  Learning to frame is like adding “another mind” to the problem.  If you can take problem x and frame it in 3 different ways, suddenly it’s like you have 3 cerebrums working on that same problem!  Framing is definitely part of the equation to using that so-called other 90% of your mind.  So onward!  What are some frames?  Alphabetical list of all 8 frames with major (most common frames) frames in bold:

• As-If Frame — How would I go about this goal as-if my desired state had already been realized? The as-if frame is a very intriguing one.  It was taught to me in acting class.  I was supposed to, if playing a scene where, for example, I had to congratulate you on achieving a degree, but in real life I had trouble congratulating you if I never knew you to achieve anything.  So I was supposed to think of you “as-if” you were a brother who’d just won an award and then that as-if would get the desired result for a scene.  So that was a small taste of the impact of as-if frame.  It’s most potent application is of course in coaching.  Envision how you would go about your life as-if the outcome (from outcome frame) had already been achieved or to go about a meeting as-if xyz person were there.  A great trick is to plug in an as-if outcome frame so you act as-if the outcome has been achieved then plugin a backtrack frame to examine the “backtracked steps” necessary to achieve that outcome frame as-if it were complete.  This is rad!
  • Similar to Dreamer Disney Reality Strategy
• Backtrack Frame — Does where we are now and where we are going have concordance and agreement with our goals and aims of a project or meeting? Backtrack frame is analogous to a “double check” frame.  Backtrack to make sure all ends are in agreement and understanding.  I like to think of the backtrack frame as though you observe all the “decision and action branches” of a project.  Every project has variety of action branches, and those branches have sub-actions, and a backtrack frame is just taking that entire action and/or decision “tree” if you will of a goal or outcome to make sure it’s heading in the productive and desired direction!
  • Similar to Open Frame and Evidence Frame
• Ecology Frame — What will the impact on my body, family, society, work environment, and/or community in pursuing this outcome? Ecology frame is one of the main and incredibly important frames because you ask “will this work?  can this be safely implemented?”  For example, staying in the same place is ecologically easy to do externally, but on your body and mind would staying in the same place be good?  Or, changing your diet may not ecologically effect work environment, community, family, and will hopefully make you “look attractive” but what will the impact be on your immune system?  Ecology frame is similar to Ed de Bono’s judgement hat.  Ecology frame is also very similar to the Realist Disney Reality Strategy.
• Evidence Frame – How will I know — what’s the exact criteria — of having achieved an outcome? Evidence frame is an outcome sub-frame. It adds detail and a more crisply vivid vision to manufacture a more rich and lucid end outcome frame.
  • Similar to Outcome frame
• Open Frame -- What are some comments and or questions to the topic? An open frame is just a frame for people to ask comments or questions about the topic.  Usually an open frame can be a corollary to an outcome frame.
  • Similar to Backtrack frame
• Outcome Frame – What will this look like when its finished? Easily, the most common and one of the most universally useful frames.  When you focus on the outcome frame you’re envisioning the end result.  The outcome from is essential to the Present_State comparison to Desired_State test of the TOTE model.  You needed to determine an outcome for all of your activities.  An outcome frame provides a focus for what you want to achieve.  Better yet, it’s the frame where you focus on visualizing what you want to achieve.  Do you have problems making decisions?  Having a clearly defined — crisp in immense detail and visualized — outcome frame is absolutely essential for having success in getting things done.  Ever merely have a meeting but nothing gets accomplished?  You need an outcome frame!  Not having an outcome frame means you can quickly experience overwhelm by taking on too much or not achieve your dreams at all because the actual “I’m finished!” state and criteria has not yet defined.  You can use outcome frames for projects, for meetings, for anything where a specific result is desired!  Achieving anything successfully, efficiently, smoothly and intelligently involves the outcome state.
• Problem Frame — What could go wrong in achieving this outcome? Problem frame kind of works from the opposite direction as the outcome frame by focusing on all the possible weird or unexpected things that could arise.
  • Similar to Critic Disney Reality Strategy and a sub-frame of the Ecology frame.
• Relevancy Frame – Is this behavior comment or question pertinent to an agreed upon outcome? This frame is essential if you have an open forum and embark on an “open frame” and take questions from a crowd.  One of my favorite radio programs at the moment is an Australian local radio program and the host is brilliant at maintaining a good relevancy frame; if a caller deters off the topic he’ll end the call or pull them back on topic.  He’s great at staying very open to a variety of opinions, but if one of those opinions becomes irrelevant, he moves on very quickly.  Relevancy frame is essential to staying on target, keeping the nose to the grindstone, and moving forward in the direction you want to go.
  • Similar to Evidence frame.

Here’s some suggestions based on how I structure my hats in relation to the consolidated frames integral to each hat (each hat represents a unique cluster of frames).

Who’s Time Is This?

I’ve introduced (a year after the original post) a concept of whose time is it?  Under each frame, the time belongings to either you off work, your boss, or you planning what your employee will do.

Administrative Hat

• Who’s Time is this?  This is just the boss’s time to plan and assign things for the employee to do.
• Ecology Frame — Consider how this will effect your environment, your belongings, your future, your past, your relationships, your friends, community, your body.
  • Trigger Question: How will achieving this outcome and living in the state of having this outcome achieved effect my body, ideas, beliefs, my community, my friends, family, society?
• Outcome Frame — The vivid visualized end result to be compared to the present state using TOTE, so you know when the outcome is achieved and if you have more work to do or you’re done!
  • Trigger Question: What does this outcome look like?
• Backtrack — Check agreement and understanding during or after a meeting to update a new idea arrival or to restart a discussion.
  • Trigger Question: Wait…what were we talking about again?

Employee Hat

• Who’s Time is this? This is your boss’s time.  You have to make a non-porous distinction betwen your boss’s time and your time (while of course, neglecting the cognitive dissonance, and inducing some productive amnesia, that you’re also you’re own boss).  Your boss’s time (yes, I’m aware you’re the boss and thus is your time as boss) must not be looked at as your time, because it’s not.  When you’ve got the employee frame going you are working for some other person, another archetype, that person is not the person working for that.  You aren’t the same person.  The person (the boss frame) who defines the work that the employee frame productively accomplishes are distinct individuals (although they possess the same brain and body).
• Evidence Frame– Gauge how well you’re progressing.  Looking at evidence.  Assessing progress.
  • Trigger Question: What are milestones and how will know — what will I see and feel — to understand that I’ve completed a sub-outcome?
• Outcome Frame — Implement strategies and actions to achieve sub-goals that are congruent and components of the major administrative outcome.
  • Trigger Question: How can implement this sub-goal that ties in with the administrative main meta-outcome?

Employee Hat – Customer Frame/Hat

• Who’s Time is this?  This is still your boss’s time.  You’re in the employee frame, but because you’re an entrepreneur, you also need a way to test the boss-defined, employee-accomplished work.  The customer hate frame accomplishes this.
• Backtrack Frame — Focus on a customer outcome and constantly backtrack to ensure the interface appropriately matches up.
  • Trigger Question: How does this interface help me get the product or service I want?
• Outcome Frame — Get the desired product or service you want and shape what that will look like and even possibly what the process may be like (you will obviously use the framework designed by the Administrative hat and created by the Employer hat for this one!) .
  • Trigger Question: Do I trust this service-provider? How can I find the service (or product) I seek? How do I know it’s legitimate? Is this a good price?

Off-Work Time

Whose time is this?  This is your time.  This is what you would do when not at work.  It could be scheduling, gaming, communicating, planning.  This is basically the “not wearing a hat” frame.

Ideas for implementing these different hats

• Different Logins  – If you have blog or other kind of customer-driven interface you could create different logins to explore the product or service.  For example, if you’re creating an iPhone app that requires a login, you could create “john_adminhat” “john_employerhat” and “john_customerhat” logins.  These will function to remind you that “Oh yeah! I have to be in the customer hat to see how this goes and plug-in the backtrack frame and outcome frame for getting a a product!”  or “Oh yeah I shouldn’t be focused on product buying, I need to focus on design for the customer” (admin hat), or “I need to implement the design I decided upon (employer hat or “design hat”)
• Different Emails -- This one is similar to the different logins. But if you’re setting up something with e-commerce, and want to “test buy” a product you’ve put up, then having all those debugging test buys (undoubtedly the “Customer Hat”) consolidate toward your customer email (yourname_customerhat@gmail.com would work) is a great way to keep track to see if all your welcome messages and auto-responders work.  This sounds overly organized (and it is!) but when you setup something like an online store, or some advaned bit of ecommerce, knowing the difference between “Hey, yeah I sent myself this email when I was troubleshooting wearing the customer hat!” or “Oh yeah, this is a little administrative hat note to myself to change the usernames around!” is very valuable.
• Different Accents — Yes, I know this one is strange, but with my voice acting experience, I’ve found actually speaking in a different accent is conducive to getting things done more efficiently and structuring auditorially when I’m in a different cognitive mode.  I’m convinced you truly do think differently when speaking in a different accent.  Therefore, although the idea of accent utilization is very peculiar, I recommend this anecdote for implementing your different kinds of entrepreneurial points of view.
• Inter-relationship — What’s so cool about using these different hats for your business, is you make the functioning of your business hermetic, and airtight, with no problems or flaws or cracks where stuff can happen.  You’ve thought through all those by employing, administering, or “customering” scenarios and outcomes and cycling through the various frames.  Frames and applying these hats catalyzes growth, expansion, and new ideas, but such application also makes ideas and concepts and projects airtight and moves them forward and makes them seamless and extensible!