João M. Fernandes's Blog, page 4
October 30, 2015
Art is a Joyous War
There are so many distractions, things to do and time consuming tasks that just stop the work flow. You are writing an article but the phone rings, your girlfriend is asking if you want to go for a coffee… Of course you want, but you have that article to finish. You already know that you are done.
You never finish that article, it adds up to the drafts folder in your writing software. Damn it, it was a great article, but…
Quite recently I read “The War of Art” and even though it didn’t brought me any new insights or any practical advice it reinforced the idea that creating art is a mastery process and as such is your obligation to work as much, if not more, on your craft than most people work in regular jobs.
Most people can’t write more than 2 or 3 hours a day, even professional award winning writers. But when you are struggling with projects, money or delivery dates you will be able to write for 10 hours. Take as many necessary breaks as you need, but you will write and your fingers will hurt but something will come out and you will do your job.
This week has been incredibly non-productive and I know the reason for it. Every time I schedule a trip, — traveling is a major part of my life -, there are so many papers to print, forms to complete, dates to check, last minute shopping and for some reason everybody invites me to hang out.
I’ve been delaying the completion of a short ebook for weeks. I am struggling to find inspiration to write a series of articles to be published on a course. I feel it difficult to focus when I receive a phone call from the Embassy that I can’t dial down.
I used to approach my work as an hobby: I write 2 hours per day while the rest of the day is to be enjoyed. Now I don’t do that anymore, that is not the path that I want for myself because I take a greater pleasure in creating art than in any other thing.
Art is beauty, but art must be approached with intense delight and work ethic.
You never finish that article, it adds up to the drafts folder in your writing software. Damn it, it was a great article, but…
Quite recently I read “The War of Art” and even though it didn’t brought me any new insights or any practical advice it reinforced the idea that creating art is a mastery process and as such is your obligation to work as much, if not more, on your craft than most people work in regular jobs.
Most people can’t write more than 2 or 3 hours a day, even professional award winning writers. But when you are struggling with projects, money or delivery dates you will be able to write for 10 hours. Take as many necessary breaks as you need, but you will write and your fingers will hurt but something will come out and you will do your job.
This week has been incredibly non-productive and I know the reason for it. Every time I schedule a trip, — traveling is a major part of my life -, there are so many papers to print, forms to complete, dates to check, last minute shopping and for some reason everybody invites me to hang out.
I’ve been delaying the completion of a short ebook for weeks. I am struggling to find inspiration to write a series of articles to be published on a course. I feel it difficult to focus when I receive a phone call from the Embassy that I can’t dial down.
I used to approach my work as an hobby: I write 2 hours per day while the rest of the day is to be enjoyed. Now I don’t do that anymore, that is not the path that I want for myself because I take a greater pleasure in creating art than in any other thing.
Art is beauty, but art must be approached with intense delight and work ethic.
October 24, 2015
Why I dropped out of college... but you shouldn't.
This article’s title is even a surprise to me. This is not something that I expected to write and you’re probably wondering what happened to all that advice about “you grow your wings on your way down”. I know, but this is the kind of theme that creates a lot of fuss by itself and a lot of irresponsible advice is given.
Here I will clarify my position on pursuing an academic career and how is the life of a college drop out.
Why Did I Drop Out of College?
I’ve always been a decent student, I always knew that I could be one of the top students in the class, but I never felt like going after that status. Video games always seemed more interesting than boring themes with zero practical implication. So school never presented itself as a challenge when it came to studying. Even in college I pass at every subject on the first try with above average grades.
My method was simple: being as lazy as possible for as long as possible and one week before an exame I would lock myself in the bedroom and I would devour those books. It always worked.
I always found classes utterly boring. I never had that teacher who motivated me to be better, I never learned anything essential in school or college that I couldn’t have learned by myself. I was the smart ass student whose teacher’s either hated or loved. I had no problem correcting a teacher in front of the entire class and if some valued my ballsy approach many saw it as a direct attack on their authority.
Now I can understand it, I could be pretty much of an asshole.
The motivation has never been there and it all got worse with the first years of college. I was taking a degree in History and my one week before method was still working. I passed the time in classes writing fiction or just skipping classes and smoking weed in the campus gardens. But the worst part, the one which made me really disdain the academic world was the arrogance, self-entitlement and stupid way that teachers addressed us, students. They were the elite, we were the peasants.
But I can’t thank enough a fat, round and way too annoying teacher that I had on my first Masters semester. She decided that I would be the example, she decided that no self thinking was allowed, she pushed me to the edge in every single class… One day, more precisely a Sunday afternoon I decided to quit.
“Fuck you!”, I said out loud in my bedroom. I felt good.
And Why You Shouldn’t…
For every Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg there are thousands of guys working in gas stations, being waiters and working on Wendy’s handing greasy fast food day after day.
To simply say I am going to quit and I am going to be an entrepreneur is not only ridiculous, but also dangerous. I did it but I knew what I would do. I had a set of skills that allowed me to do other things besides waving a fucking paper in companies offices.
Really ask yourself: what value do I bring to the table? Would anyone hire me or pay me for something that I know how to do?
If the answer is no, you’re fucked. Seriously. I can’t conceive how some twenty something year old people complain about being unemployed and still they don’t have a clue about value exchange or think that it’s normal to not have a skill set. That’s nonsense. One friend asked me if I could hire him as my personal assistant. But even that I wanted he had no idea how to work on WordPress, schedule social media posts, review articles, do some in depth research, had no idea how to send a proper email or how to handle costumer service. (By the way, I am still looking for a P.A. Email me on info at adventurousartist dot com if you’re interested)
What will I do with someone like that?
I dropped out but I was writing every single day for 8 years. I had experience with online writing. I was establishing myself as an authority in the self development field. I was charging 300$ for a 8 hours seminar. One month after I left college I closed a 1k deal that allowed me to move to Budapest for 2 months.
Those were very difficult times, I kid you not, but I had an idea of what I would do next. Even that everyone around me thought that I was being stupid and a fool.
And this is why a formal education is dangerous
Because it’s easier. Because nobody will complain if you spend 5 years on a useless degree, because that is part of the beaten path.
The illusion of formal education is one of the greatest illusions of our time and if you think that college is difficult you have no idea where your life is heading towards to. Sometimes I get delusion and wish that I only had to wake up, attend some classes that I don’t give a fuck about and come back home with a sense of fulfilled duty. When you are on your own… that doesn’t exist. Sorry, welcome to real life.
The pain and confusion are even greater if you are a solopreneur, like I am. The amount of days by yourself, the self motivation, the love for your craft that vanishes in the days that you needed it the most, the obstacles and lack of help. This will make you grow, this will make you shed your old skin but… It isn’t easy.
The worst part is that you won’t have a safety net below you, that money will be short sometimes, that people around you will be more critical than supportive because “Who do you think you are? You’re no Richard Branson.”
Formal education is dangerous because you are risking having no skill set. You’re trading your comfort for evolution and if one day you end up falling from your very narrow rope you will understand that the safety net has never been there, that it was all an illusion.
Like Seth Godin says: “The Recession is here forever.” You have been warned.
Question: What is your story? Do you have an academic degree or are you a school drop out? What is your experience in having (no) degree and being successful.
Here I will clarify my position on pursuing an academic career and how is the life of a college drop out.
Why Did I Drop Out of College?
I’ve always been a decent student, I always knew that I could be one of the top students in the class, but I never felt like going after that status. Video games always seemed more interesting than boring themes with zero practical implication. So school never presented itself as a challenge when it came to studying. Even in college I pass at every subject on the first try with above average grades.
My method was simple: being as lazy as possible for as long as possible and one week before an exame I would lock myself in the bedroom and I would devour those books. It always worked.
I always found classes utterly boring. I never had that teacher who motivated me to be better, I never learned anything essential in school or college that I couldn’t have learned by myself. I was the smart ass student whose teacher’s either hated or loved. I had no problem correcting a teacher in front of the entire class and if some valued my ballsy approach many saw it as a direct attack on their authority.
Now I can understand it, I could be pretty much of an asshole.
The motivation has never been there and it all got worse with the first years of college. I was taking a degree in History and my one week before method was still working. I passed the time in classes writing fiction or just skipping classes and smoking weed in the campus gardens. But the worst part, the one which made me really disdain the academic world was the arrogance, self-entitlement and stupid way that teachers addressed us, students. They were the elite, we were the peasants.
But I can’t thank enough a fat, round and way too annoying teacher that I had on my first Masters semester. She decided that I would be the example, she decided that no self thinking was allowed, she pushed me to the edge in every single class… One day, more precisely a Sunday afternoon I decided to quit.
“Fuck you!”, I said out loud in my bedroom. I felt good.
And Why You Shouldn’t…
For every Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg there are thousands of guys working in gas stations, being waiters and working on Wendy’s handing greasy fast food day after day.
To simply say I am going to quit and I am going to be an entrepreneur is not only ridiculous, but also dangerous. I did it but I knew what I would do. I had a set of skills that allowed me to do other things besides waving a fucking paper in companies offices.
Really ask yourself: what value do I bring to the table? Would anyone hire me or pay me for something that I know how to do?
If the answer is no, you’re fucked. Seriously. I can’t conceive how some twenty something year old people complain about being unemployed and still they don’t have a clue about value exchange or think that it’s normal to not have a skill set. That’s nonsense. One friend asked me if I could hire him as my personal assistant. But even that I wanted he had no idea how to work on WordPress, schedule social media posts, review articles, do some in depth research, had no idea how to send a proper email or how to handle costumer service. (By the way, I am still looking for a P.A. Email me on info at adventurousartist dot com if you’re interested)
What will I do with someone like that?
I dropped out but I was writing every single day for 8 years. I had experience with online writing. I was establishing myself as an authority in the self development field. I was charging 300$ for a 8 hours seminar. One month after I left college I closed a 1k deal that allowed me to move to Budapest for 2 months.
Those were very difficult times, I kid you not, but I had an idea of what I would do next. Even that everyone around me thought that I was being stupid and a fool.
And this is why a formal education is dangerous
Because it’s easier. Because nobody will complain if you spend 5 years on a useless degree, because that is part of the beaten path.
The illusion of formal education is one of the greatest illusions of our time and if you think that college is difficult you have no idea where your life is heading towards to. Sometimes I get delusion and wish that I only had to wake up, attend some classes that I don’t give a fuck about and come back home with a sense of fulfilled duty. When you are on your own… that doesn’t exist. Sorry, welcome to real life.
The pain and confusion are even greater if you are a solopreneur, like I am. The amount of days by yourself, the self motivation, the love for your craft that vanishes in the days that you needed it the most, the obstacles and lack of help. This will make you grow, this will make you shed your old skin but… It isn’t easy.
The worst part is that you won’t have a safety net below you, that money will be short sometimes, that people around you will be more critical than supportive because “Who do you think you are? You’re no Richard Branson.”
Formal education is dangerous because you are risking having no skill set. You’re trading your comfort for evolution and if one day you end up falling from your very narrow rope you will understand that the safety net has never been there, that it was all an illusion.
Like Seth Godin says: “The Recession is here forever.” You have been warned.
Question: What is your story? Do you have an academic degree or are you a school drop out? What is your experience in having (no) degree and being successful.
October 18, 2015
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER (2ND PART)
If you haven’t read the first part of this article do it now here: So You Want to Be a Writer?
As you might have noticed I mention here and there the fact that writers must be the artists with the greatest amount of clichés attached to. I had great fun writing the first part of this article and even though I might have sound a bit abrasive, – which was my intention, I noticed that another article could be written about the portrait of writers in this day and age and what you need, or don’t need to be an artist. (At least according to some media).
There are movies, tv shows and even entire books about writers, it seems that no other archetype is more fascinating than the one of the miserable guy who writes for a living. He might or might not write from a typewriter, he is shy, a social maniac and for sure he has some sort of addiction. Many young artists go after this ideal, portrayed quite brilliantly by the media, and end up disappointed with the results. That usually are none. Let me show you the most famous stereotypes created around those who (try to) earn their living out of the tip of their fingers.
You must be an addict
Choose your own poison, it doesn’t matter. From alcohol to crack cocaine, sex to barbiturates, LSD to heroin. It’s up to you, but without one of these you will never be a writer. I mean by your third book you can combine various substances and become a real literary legend. And don’t forget that all of these are great when added to other addictions such as: gambling, chain smoking, alcohol and horse racing. Pills are okay, weed used to be pretty popular and always adds a flair to it.
There was never a straight edge writer and never will be! You’re either an angry hardcore motherfucker deepthroating Jack Daniel’s at 8am or you are nothing.
At least you need to be a recovery addict. That’s the limit and where real writers distinguish themselves from wanna be writers.
You must be terrible at relationships
Actually you can either be terrible, like socially awkward or just a total fucking mess. Hank Moody style in Californication, you know? The matter of the fact is that you are destined to live alone, you can’t find happiness in others and due to too much boozing or some other ridiculous reason you are always borderline depressed and having empty sex. You can have as much sex as you want, but never with the one that you love. That’s where is located the crux of the matter.
And then you write about how lonely, sad, depressed, miserable and contemplating suicide you are. You add sensitive and arabesque words to your vocabulary. It shows that you are human too, that it isn’t really your fault how messed up you are. Deep down you know very well that you are manipulative little bitch, because you always portray your writing in ways that women reading it see the poor and scared little boy that you are. The reality behind the façade.
You might very well fuck some of them, but will be empty and soulless. It will create more misery and sad contemplation. You call it all research.
You are a writer, you don’t work…
And even less you have a day job like everybody else. Suddenly you don’t have bills to pay, rent ceases to be a priority, you have no obligations. You are either rich because of a millionaire contract fallen from heaven or you always sidestep your landlord with funny stories and excuses, they always buy it. You have one book out, or maybe two, and you live out of the royalties of it. Even though that you only get 10%, that the publishing house doesn’t give a fuck about you and nobody buys your books.
Writing is not work either. It comes in flushes of inspiration out of nowhere, you’re a genius after all.
And speaking of which:
Your First Book Will Be a Massive Hit
From the moment that they showed you the green light of publishing it was paradise. You get thousands of dollars in advance, the publisher pays a huge amount of money publicizing you without having any assurance that anybody likes what you write and will buy your book. Even without having a PR department behind, magazines, reporters and TV call your name out. You are invited to hang out with celebrities and to cocktail parties where you are introduced to the director who is eager to turn your words into images project on the big screen. You’re pretentious and everybody likes you.
You must suffer from writer’s block.
At first in short periods of time. It will haunt you, you will drink and have too much sex because of it. Then at some point of your career it will hit you like a ton of bricks and you won’t be able to write for at least a year. Nothing. You will disappear. And suddenly it will hit you again: the revelation. The answer, the ethereal inspiration and you will write once again and this will be your life’s work. An unparalleled vision on life, proper of a true genius. They will write about you. They will call you the new Hemingway, you will outshine Shakespeare and the Literary Nobel Prize will have your face all over it for consecutive years. All others after you will live in your shadow.
~~~
As you can see the life of a true writer is quite easy. There is a laid down path in front of you and it is all much fun. Besides everything else it is cool as fuck. That’s the life of a genial man, that’s your life. That’s easy and it all starts with a pick your own addiction game.
What are you waiting for?
As you might have noticed I mention here and there the fact that writers must be the artists with the greatest amount of clichés attached to. I had great fun writing the first part of this article and even though I might have sound a bit abrasive, – which was my intention, I noticed that another article could be written about the portrait of writers in this day and age and what you need, or don’t need to be an artist. (At least according to some media).
There are movies, tv shows and even entire books about writers, it seems that no other archetype is more fascinating than the one of the miserable guy who writes for a living. He might or might not write from a typewriter, he is shy, a social maniac and for sure he has some sort of addiction. Many young artists go after this ideal, portrayed quite brilliantly by the media, and end up disappointed with the results. That usually are none. Let me show you the most famous stereotypes created around those who (try to) earn their living out of the tip of their fingers.
You must be an addict
Choose your own poison, it doesn’t matter. From alcohol to crack cocaine, sex to barbiturates, LSD to heroin. It’s up to you, but without one of these you will never be a writer. I mean by your third book you can combine various substances and become a real literary legend. And don’t forget that all of these are great when added to other addictions such as: gambling, chain smoking, alcohol and horse racing. Pills are okay, weed used to be pretty popular and always adds a flair to it.
There was never a straight edge writer and never will be! You’re either an angry hardcore motherfucker deepthroating Jack Daniel’s at 8am or you are nothing.
At least you need to be a recovery addict. That’s the limit and where real writers distinguish themselves from wanna be writers.
You must be terrible at relationships
Actually you can either be terrible, like socially awkward or just a total fucking mess. Hank Moody style in Californication, you know? The matter of the fact is that you are destined to live alone, you can’t find happiness in others and due to too much boozing or some other ridiculous reason you are always borderline depressed and having empty sex. You can have as much sex as you want, but never with the one that you love. That’s where is located the crux of the matter.
And then you write about how lonely, sad, depressed, miserable and contemplating suicide you are. You add sensitive and arabesque words to your vocabulary. It shows that you are human too, that it isn’t really your fault how messed up you are. Deep down you know very well that you are manipulative little bitch, because you always portray your writing in ways that women reading it see the poor and scared little boy that you are. The reality behind the façade.
You might very well fuck some of them, but will be empty and soulless. It will create more misery and sad contemplation. You call it all research.
You are a writer, you don’t work…
And even less you have a day job like everybody else. Suddenly you don’t have bills to pay, rent ceases to be a priority, you have no obligations. You are either rich because of a millionaire contract fallen from heaven or you always sidestep your landlord with funny stories and excuses, they always buy it. You have one book out, or maybe two, and you live out of the royalties of it. Even though that you only get 10%, that the publishing house doesn’t give a fuck about you and nobody buys your books.
Writing is not work either. It comes in flushes of inspiration out of nowhere, you’re a genius after all.
And speaking of which:
Your First Book Will Be a Massive Hit
From the moment that they showed you the green light of publishing it was paradise. You get thousands of dollars in advance, the publisher pays a huge amount of money publicizing you without having any assurance that anybody likes what you write and will buy your book. Even without having a PR department behind, magazines, reporters and TV call your name out. You are invited to hang out with celebrities and to cocktail parties where you are introduced to the director who is eager to turn your words into images project on the big screen. You’re pretentious and everybody likes you.
You must suffer from writer’s block.
At first in short periods of time. It will haunt you, you will drink and have too much sex because of it. Then at some point of your career it will hit you like a ton of bricks and you won’t be able to write for at least a year. Nothing. You will disappear. And suddenly it will hit you again: the revelation. The answer, the ethereal inspiration and you will write once again and this will be your life’s work. An unparalleled vision on life, proper of a true genius. They will write about you. They will call you the new Hemingway, you will outshine Shakespeare and the Literary Nobel Prize will have your face all over it for consecutive years. All others after you will live in your shadow.
~~~
As you can see the life of a true writer is quite easy. There is a laid down path in front of you and it is all much fun. Besides everything else it is cool as fuck. That’s the life of a genial man, that’s your life. That’s easy and it all starts with a pick your own addiction game.
What are you waiting for?
October 9, 2015
21 LESSONS THAT I LEARNED WHILE DRIVING THROUGH UNITED STATES
Today it is a special day. Two years ago I was landing at the Boston Logan Airport and got my passport stamped: touristic visa: 3 months of permit to stay in US soil. I couldn’t be happier, America here I go! (Actually I was too tired to be jumping up and down).
It was during those three months that I crossed an entire continent, from East to West, from Boston do Los Angeles and many great places in between. I still think that it was one of the most spectacular trips that someone ever did. For 90 days I did nothing else besides driving countless hours, meeting great people, seeing great landscapes and having some meltdowns in between.
It isn’t really a surprise if I tell you that a trip like this changed me. I think that it’s almost inevitable. Not only we were being put in extreme situations on a daily basis but we were in a foreign country, with little to no money and every day had in it the potential to be an unpredictable adventure.
So this way I will leave you with the 21 most valuable lessons that I learned on such a journey and how it changed me for the better. From being sleep deprived to being genuinely hungry, from sleeping on the floor for several weeks and driving more hours than are advisable. Not to speak of the constant feeling of anxiety, anger, sadness and confusion towards each other, who were the only close people that we had. That’s all in here.
~~
Travel carry-on. There isn’t a valid reason to take with you more than a carry-on bag. If I was able to live off such a small piece of luggage for such a long time, so can you. It’s practical, light and doesn’t take much space.
Speak your mind even if it creates some friction. There is nothing worse than to hold back your thoughts, that will turn you into a resentful and frustrated person. And let’s be honest, nobody likes a guy who goes around throwing tantrums over some unimportant stupid shit. Besides that, people tend to respect those who speak their minds.
Be flexible. Most things won’t go according to plan. Plans are always changing and it will greatly benefit you if you don’t hold on to those. That’s the fun of it.
Luck favors the bold. It is not a written law, but I live by it. If you never ask you will never know. If you don’t extend invitations you will stay in the dark. It was that way that I met Noam Chomsky, most people don’t believe me when I tell them how easy it was. We ended up in staying at the house of a Vegas billionaire by just asking if he could host us for a few days, it was by being bold that we were able to survive a snow storm in the heart of Texas. If you don’t know what to do, move forward.
Be brutally honest. This is about not coming up with excuses and trying to soften a situation. If we had lied to the State Troopers we would have ended up in jail on our first week in America. If I haven’t said in a strong way that the idea to end the road trip and stay in Miami for two months was ridiculous that could have been the end of it. This might end up hurting people’s feelings, but there isn’t anything clearer than honesty.
Accept being tired, hungry and make discomfort your friend. Don’t resist something in your way that you can’t swerve by. All those elements are a natural piece of your journey and to fight against those is the same as fighting against yourself. And speaking of which…
… If you don’t have something to say, stay quiet. There is nothing worse than someone that complains, whines and blames others. The only result of such words is to create tension and arguments that will lead you nowhere. It is nobody’s fault that you couldn’t sleep at night, nobody cares about how tired you are, or how bad the food is. Keep that to yourself.
Write a journal. I don’t usually read my journal and I have no purpose for it besides allowing me to express my thoughts. But sometimes I find some really cool ideas and situations that I wrote down and couldn’t remember anymore.
Be patient. If you will learn something in being locked in a car for 18 hours per day is that time is your friend. With all that time in your hands you can read, write, talk about trivial shit and deep philosophical stuff, you can sleep, eat and think about that girl from high school that used to be your crush. What happened to her? And you still have 6 more hours to go…
Comfort is overrated. You don’t need a bed to be happy, neither a couch, neither a daily shower, neither a cell phone. Of course that all those things are nice, but you don’t need those to be happy, at least not essentially. I had none of those during those 3 months and it was the best time of my life.
Accept other peoples generosity. Sometimes we don’t accept other peoples generosity because of pride. That’s stupid. If people want to help you, accept their help. If someone wants to pay you a meal, then accept it. If people tell you that you can crash in their bed, while they go to sleep in their girlfriends place. Please accept.
If you don’t like doing something… don’t do it. There isn’t a good reason to do something that you don’t enjoy. None. I gave up of a masters do to what I like, my family was not happy with it, but I didn’t care. It is my life and I won’t waste it doing what I don’t love.
People are essentially good. You can say whatever you want, but people are generally good, kind and compassionate. People are eager to help you. Just because that doesn’t sell newspapers, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t true.
Accept other ways of living and don’t judge. Nobody can judge you and you shouldn’t judge other people. You have zero authority over other peoples lives and vice versa. There are certain things that I saw others doing that I would never do. And so what? In Los Angeles I was sleeping on my friends couch and one night I couldn’t fall asleep because his flat mates were fucking so loud that it could be heard in Mexico City. It was their house, I was a guest, who am I to say that it was a wrong thing to do?
Have a daily routine. What slowly kills you is not the routine, it is to have a routine that you hate. Even in a travel like this I created a consistent routine: I would wake up at 10 am, work until mid afternoon and then I would have the day to myself. It might seem irrelevant, but without some discipline and method it is easy to feel carried away and lost in your obligations.
Those with less to lose, end up winning. Simple and easy. It can be harder to apply in certain situations, but is a golden rule.
Where there is conflict there is life. I still struggle with this, but I recognize that during the entire trip the conflicts were constant and this was as well the period of greater growth in my life. I don’t believe that it is a coincidence.
Accept (every) invitation. You never know where it will lead you and most often than not you will end up with some memorable stories. One of the best moments of the trip happened after I was invited, and convinced, to go to an african nightclub in San Francisco. It was not my style, but hey… why not?
Border Control is important. There is a border that you shouldn’t let people cross. There are people who only know one way of behaving: crushing others until they say “ouch!”. So say it as soon as someone puts one foot on the line. No excuses, no exceptions.
Learn to recognize a dangerous situation and act accordingly. Yes, we live in the safest time of human history, but dangerous situations are everywhere. If you find yourself in one, it is vital to identify it as such, measure the variables around you and decide what to do. Never enter in a physical fight unless it is your last resource.
Turn off the internet and live more in the real world. Easier said than done, but all of us would greatly benefit from being more connected to each other in real life and less on the internet.
It was during those three months that I crossed an entire continent, from East to West, from Boston do Los Angeles and many great places in between. I still think that it was one of the most spectacular trips that someone ever did. For 90 days I did nothing else besides driving countless hours, meeting great people, seeing great landscapes and having some meltdowns in between.
It isn’t really a surprise if I tell you that a trip like this changed me. I think that it’s almost inevitable. Not only we were being put in extreme situations on a daily basis but we were in a foreign country, with little to no money and every day had in it the potential to be an unpredictable adventure.
So this way I will leave you with the 21 most valuable lessons that I learned on such a journey and how it changed me for the better. From being sleep deprived to being genuinely hungry, from sleeping on the floor for several weeks and driving more hours than are advisable. Not to speak of the constant feeling of anxiety, anger, sadness and confusion towards each other, who were the only close people that we had. That’s all in here.
~~
Travel carry-on. There isn’t a valid reason to take with you more than a carry-on bag. If I was able to live off such a small piece of luggage for such a long time, so can you. It’s practical, light and doesn’t take much space.
Speak your mind even if it creates some friction. There is nothing worse than to hold back your thoughts, that will turn you into a resentful and frustrated person. And let’s be honest, nobody likes a guy who goes around throwing tantrums over some unimportant stupid shit. Besides that, people tend to respect those who speak their minds.
Be flexible. Most things won’t go according to plan. Plans are always changing and it will greatly benefit you if you don’t hold on to those. That’s the fun of it.
Luck favors the bold. It is not a written law, but I live by it. If you never ask you will never know. If you don’t extend invitations you will stay in the dark. It was that way that I met Noam Chomsky, most people don’t believe me when I tell them how easy it was. We ended up in staying at the house of a Vegas billionaire by just asking if he could host us for a few days, it was by being bold that we were able to survive a snow storm in the heart of Texas. If you don’t know what to do, move forward.
Be brutally honest. This is about not coming up with excuses and trying to soften a situation. If we had lied to the State Troopers we would have ended up in jail on our first week in America. If I haven’t said in a strong way that the idea to end the road trip and stay in Miami for two months was ridiculous that could have been the end of it. This might end up hurting people’s feelings, but there isn’t anything clearer than honesty.
Accept being tired, hungry and make discomfort your friend. Don’t resist something in your way that you can’t swerve by. All those elements are a natural piece of your journey and to fight against those is the same as fighting against yourself. And speaking of which…
… If you don’t have something to say, stay quiet. There is nothing worse than someone that complains, whines and blames others. The only result of such words is to create tension and arguments that will lead you nowhere. It is nobody’s fault that you couldn’t sleep at night, nobody cares about how tired you are, or how bad the food is. Keep that to yourself.
Write a journal. I don’t usually read my journal and I have no purpose for it besides allowing me to express my thoughts. But sometimes I find some really cool ideas and situations that I wrote down and couldn’t remember anymore.
Be patient. If you will learn something in being locked in a car for 18 hours per day is that time is your friend. With all that time in your hands you can read, write, talk about trivial shit and deep philosophical stuff, you can sleep, eat and think about that girl from high school that used to be your crush. What happened to her? And you still have 6 more hours to go…
Comfort is overrated. You don’t need a bed to be happy, neither a couch, neither a daily shower, neither a cell phone. Of course that all those things are nice, but you don’t need those to be happy, at least not essentially. I had none of those during those 3 months and it was the best time of my life.
Accept other peoples generosity. Sometimes we don’t accept other peoples generosity because of pride. That’s stupid. If people want to help you, accept their help. If someone wants to pay you a meal, then accept it. If people tell you that you can crash in their bed, while they go to sleep in their girlfriends place. Please accept.
If you don’t like doing something… don’t do it. There isn’t a good reason to do something that you don’t enjoy. None. I gave up of a masters do to what I like, my family was not happy with it, but I didn’t care. It is my life and I won’t waste it doing what I don’t love.
People are essentially good. You can say whatever you want, but people are generally good, kind and compassionate. People are eager to help you. Just because that doesn’t sell newspapers, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t true.
Accept other ways of living and don’t judge. Nobody can judge you and you shouldn’t judge other people. You have zero authority over other peoples lives and vice versa. There are certain things that I saw others doing that I would never do. And so what? In Los Angeles I was sleeping on my friends couch and one night I couldn’t fall asleep because his flat mates were fucking so loud that it could be heard in Mexico City. It was their house, I was a guest, who am I to say that it was a wrong thing to do?
Have a daily routine. What slowly kills you is not the routine, it is to have a routine that you hate. Even in a travel like this I created a consistent routine: I would wake up at 10 am, work until mid afternoon and then I would have the day to myself. It might seem irrelevant, but without some discipline and method it is easy to feel carried away and lost in your obligations.
Those with less to lose, end up winning. Simple and easy. It can be harder to apply in certain situations, but is a golden rule.
Where there is conflict there is life. I still struggle with this, but I recognize that during the entire trip the conflicts were constant and this was as well the period of greater growth in my life. I don’t believe that it is a coincidence.
Accept (every) invitation. You never know where it will lead you and most often than not you will end up with some memorable stories. One of the best moments of the trip happened after I was invited, and convinced, to go to an african nightclub in San Francisco. It was not my style, but hey… why not?
Border Control is important. There is a border that you shouldn’t let people cross. There are people who only know one way of behaving: crushing others until they say “ouch!”. So say it as soon as someone puts one foot on the line. No excuses, no exceptions.
Learn to recognize a dangerous situation and act accordingly. Yes, we live in the safest time of human history, but dangerous situations are everywhere. If you find yourself in one, it is vital to identify it as such, measure the variables around you and decide what to do. Never enter in a physical fight unless it is your last resource.
Turn off the internet and live more in the real world. Easier said than done, but all of us would greatly benefit from being more connected to each other in real life and less on the internet.
October 1, 2015
So you want to be a writer?
Writers are likely to be the professionals with the greatest amount of stereotypes that exist. To start with the assurance by most people that being a “writer” is not a legit profession. Besides that, there are a great number of clichés that movies throw at us about how writers should behave, live and be like. TV shows like Californication and the recent web celebrity status of Charles Bukowski are good examples of that, like most glamorous ideas some are true while others are just ridiculous and makes me wonder: “Who the hell thought of that?”
But let me address something about writing before we kick the ball off. There are two kinds of writers: those who write because they have something to say and those who write because they want to get something out of it. If you are young and relatively inexperienced as a writer I will bet that you are in the second group. You know writing at late hours of the night while everybody is sleeping, a bottle of Jack besides the computer, an ashtray full with points of dead cigarets and a rude attitude of “fuck you all… I am a genius!” . It does sounds glamorous doesn’t it? Well, there isn’t a positive thing about it, let me tell you.
Then I have to say that you are writing for the wrong reasons. You will bleed way too quickly, read way too much and have an inflated ego. You write but chances are that nobody is reading what you put out there. You will blame them, but in fact you sound fake as fuck. C’mon who the hell at the age of 20 has gone through a divorce, knows the in’s and outs of sorrow and writes from the emotional center of his sadness? You don’t even know what sadness is. They tell you to write all the time, they tell you to send articles to the school newspapers and to the local magazine, go to writers group, be part of a creative writing class… It’s all bullshit! Have any of those persons been published? Yeah, I just kinda guessed it.
I am one of those few cases who was lucky enough to been published and combining that with the fact that I don’t take advice from people who don’t know what they are talking about, I tend to believe that I became a pretty decent writer. Well, I get paid to write, that must mean something. So, allow me to be a self-entitled prick and tell you what is your first mistake in your writing career:
To be a fucking writer!
The problem of wanting to be a writer is that you glue yourself to certain steryotypes that will be harmful for your evolution, you will stop enjoying reading books since you are obviously way more interested in the grammar, the structure and the placement of commas. You will stop doing fun and exciting things because that is what writers are supposed to be: boring, intellectually superior and distant. You might very well become a master of putting words together, the problem with that is that nobody gives a fuck about it.
Do you know why a good article is a good article? Because it has a message, because it communicates something in a clear way. Because the writer was not even thinking about the words, his priority was to write right from his emotional center and he is only able to do that because he went through shit and came back, because he didn’t became an addict because nowadays is fashionable… No, he became an addict because that was his way of healing his pain, he became a tormented human being because his wife let him, his father used to beat the shit out of him every Thursday night, because he fucked so much that he got an infection on his dick and it decomposed it, the poor guy can’t even cum nowadays!
That’s why. You might fake it, but it will suck and nobody will buy it.
Do you know why Hemingway wrote such amazing pieces? Because he had been in the Spanish Civil War as an ambulance driver literally fighting for his life. Do you know why Kerouac was so creative? Because the dude was an alcoholic, a poor bum and depressed as fuck, not because he intended ever to be it. Same thing with Bukowski, I mean Charles might have been one of the most miserable human being in existence: he was always angry, hanging over, depressed and it happened to him to write about his condition so clearly that it is fucking genius!
No one ever reads Charles or Kerouac and says: “Well, I got nothing out of this besides the lack of depth of it and have no idea of what it means, but it is written in such a beautiful technical way that is marvelous!“, of course not! People say in fact the opposite: “Fucking shit, this guy was a lunatic but that sure is good” nobody cares about typos, poor gramar and simple diction.
Believe it or not but a deep, true and beautiful message can make a writer who can’t even finish a sentence in logical order appear as genius. Forget about all that being perfect, perfect is boring and nobody likes it. So for now I highly advise you to stop writing for a while, to actually stop reading! Yes, you heard me write Mr. bookworm. What I want you to do is to only pick up a pen when you have your chest burning and you have to take out that steaming hot piece of coal out of. This will come easily when you are doing something different and that you are not used to, believe me.
I won’t lie to you and say that I became a good writer from one moment to the other, that it all just happened. No, I have more hours of sitting in front of a laptop hammering down the keyboard than I like to admit but one thing is for sure: I wouldn’t be as good as I am if I haven’t lived as full as I try to. Everything that is good and authentic about my writing came from having my heart broken, from having travelled from Eastern Europe to Portugal by train for 3 weeks solo, it was from having been kidnapped in fucking Albania and having my head cracked upon in one of the poorest countries in Europe. It was from having slept on the floor of strangers for over 3 months, for having Road Tripped through North America and dropping out of a Masters because of it, it was because once in my life I only thought about having as much sex as I could. It was about hanging with people much smarter than I am. It was because I had to run for my life in the streets of Serbia. It was having gone through a depression and having nobody to help me and having to fight my way through. It was sending emails to out of reach people asking for so much that it is ridiculous and once in a while receiving a “yes”.
All of this shaped the way I write. It gave me a perspective, an unique voice that isn’t mistaken for somebody’s else. It wasn’t the grammar, the technical books, the fucked up seminars lead by someone who highest achievement was to get a degree in a private school. I have no idea when to put a comma if you ask me objectively, I don’t really know or care where the predicate should be, where the subject must be put and how a phrase should be arranged to give space to a passive voice. I don’t know it and I never needed it so far, – this tends to piss off people who see themselves as highly knowledgeable, grammatically correct and intellectually superior, which I find it fun and makes me laugh.
(Every person who considers himself as an intelectual I know that they are not only a complete bore but also a presumptuous coward, since the tend to never publish a thing, but like to point out how much they know. I rather read a piece of a ten years convict than of a Phd in the romanticism of XIX century England any time, any day.)
To write is easy. Nowadays everybody is a writer, you can even pay for getting published or self-publish your work. The true challenge is in having people following you, reading what you write and making you a true writer. Without them you are nothing. This is why if you don’t write because you have something to say it will be very difficult to face the fact that nobody is interested in what you write since you’re writing for an higher goal, for something beyond writing. You will lack the honesty, the vulnerability and the authenticity. You will be like a disposable plastic doll.
The only way to be a writer, or an artist, is because you have that hot piece of coal burning inside your chest and you have to take it out. Otherwise you will burn out too quickly, the hours of typing will become a prison, you will not endure the pain in your fingers or in the lower back, consequence of spending so much time sat in the same position. You will not survive while your friends go to work and have empty conversations and you are writing for your life. You will bleed too quickly.
That’s the only way, to hammer down those keys at 10 a.m. of a cold rainy Monday morning, hair all disheveled, skipping shower and food, clothes spread around the bedroom and one semi-hot coffee mug. You would smoke if you had money for it. You would go to parties and have a girlfriend, but it is burning and you have to bleed it out and create some real magic.
Then you will be a writer. I guess that some stereotypes are in fact true.
Originally published in: www.adventurousartist.com
But let me address something about writing before we kick the ball off. There are two kinds of writers: those who write because they have something to say and those who write because they want to get something out of it. If you are young and relatively inexperienced as a writer I will bet that you are in the second group. You know writing at late hours of the night while everybody is sleeping, a bottle of Jack besides the computer, an ashtray full with points of dead cigarets and a rude attitude of “fuck you all… I am a genius!” . It does sounds glamorous doesn’t it? Well, there isn’t a positive thing about it, let me tell you.
Then I have to say that you are writing for the wrong reasons. You will bleed way too quickly, read way too much and have an inflated ego. You write but chances are that nobody is reading what you put out there. You will blame them, but in fact you sound fake as fuck. C’mon who the hell at the age of 20 has gone through a divorce, knows the in’s and outs of sorrow and writes from the emotional center of his sadness? You don’t even know what sadness is. They tell you to write all the time, they tell you to send articles to the school newspapers and to the local magazine, go to writers group, be part of a creative writing class… It’s all bullshit! Have any of those persons been published? Yeah, I just kinda guessed it.
I am one of those few cases who was lucky enough to been published and combining that with the fact that I don’t take advice from people who don’t know what they are talking about, I tend to believe that I became a pretty decent writer. Well, I get paid to write, that must mean something. So, allow me to be a self-entitled prick and tell you what is your first mistake in your writing career:
To be a fucking writer!
The problem of wanting to be a writer is that you glue yourself to certain steryotypes that will be harmful for your evolution, you will stop enjoying reading books since you are obviously way more interested in the grammar, the structure and the placement of commas. You will stop doing fun and exciting things because that is what writers are supposed to be: boring, intellectually superior and distant. You might very well become a master of putting words together, the problem with that is that nobody gives a fuck about it.
Do you know why a good article is a good article? Because it has a message, because it communicates something in a clear way. Because the writer was not even thinking about the words, his priority was to write right from his emotional center and he is only able to do that because he went through shit and came back, because he didn’t became an addict because nowadays is fashionable… No, he became an addict because that was his way of healing his pain, he became a tormented human being because his wife let him, his father used to beat the shit out of him every Thursday night, because he fucked so much that he got an infection on his dick and it decomposed it, the poor guy can’t even cum nowadays!
That’s why. You might fake it, but it will suck and nobody will buy it.
Do you know why Hemingway wrote such amazing pieces? Because he had been in the Spanish Civil War as an ambulance driver literally fighting for his life. Do you know why Kerouac was so creative? Because the dude was an alcoholic, a poor bum and depressed as fuck, not because he intended ever to be it. Same thing with Bukowski, I mean Charles might have been one of the most miserable human being in existence: he was always angry, hanging over, depressed and it happened to him to write about his condition so clearly that it is fucking genius!
No one ever reads Charles or Kerouac and says: “Well, I got nothing out of this besides the lack of depth of it and have no idea of what it means, but it is written in such a beautiful technical way that is marvelous!“, of course not! People say in fact the opposite: “Fucking shit, this guy was a lunatic but that sure is good” nobody cares about typos, poor gramar and simple diction.
Believe it or not but a deep, true and beautiful message can make a writer who can’t even finish a sentence in logical order appear as genius. Forget about all that being perfect, perfect is boring and nobody likes it. So for now I highly advise you to stop writing for a while, to actually stop reading! Yes, you heard me write Mr. bookworm. What I want you to do is to only pick up a pen when you have your chest burning and you have to take out that steaming hot piece of coal out of. This will come easily when you are doing something different and that you are not used to, believe me.
I won’t lie to you and say that I became a good writer from one moment to the other, that it all just happened. No, I have more hours of sitting in front of a laptop hammering down the keyboard than I like to admit but one thing is for sure: I wouldn’t be as good as I am if I haven’t lived as full as I try to. Everything that is good and authentic about my writing came from having my heart broken, from having travelled from Eastern Europe to Portugal by train for 3 weeks solo, it was from having been kidnapped in fucking Albania and having my head cracked upon in one of the poorest countries in Europe. It was from having slept on the floor of strangers for over 3 months, for having Road Tripped through North America and dropping out of a Masters because of it, it was because once in my life I only thought about having as much sex as I could. It was about hanging with people much smarter than I am. It was because I had to run for my life in the streets of Serbia. It was having gone through a depression and having nobody to help me and having to fight my way through. It was sending emails to out of reach people asking for so much that it is ridiculous and once in a while receiving a “yes”.
All of this shaped the way I write. It gave me a perspective, an unique voice that isn’t mistaken for somebody’s else. It wasn’t the grammar, the technical books, the fucked up seminars lead by someone who highest achievement was to get a degree in a private school. I have no idea when to put a comma if you ask me objectively, I don’t really know or care where the predicate should be, where the subject must be put and how a phrase should be arranged to give space to a passive voice. I don’t know it and I never needed it so far, – this tends to piss off people who see themselves as highly knowledgeable, grammatically correct and intellectually superior, which I find it fun and makes me laugh.
(Every person who considers himself as an intelectual I know that they are not only a complete bore but also a presumptuous coward, since the tend to never publish a thing, but like to point out how much they know. I rather read a piece of a ten years convict than of a Phd in the romanticism of XIX century England any time, any day.)
To write is easy. Nowadays everybody is a writer, you can even pay for getting published or self-publish your work. The true challenge is in having people following you, reading what you write and making you a true writer. Without them you are nothing. This is why if you don’t write because you have something to say it will be very difficult to face the fact that nobody is interested in what you write since you’re writing for an higher goal, for something beyond writing. You will lack the honesty, the vulnerability and the authenticity. You will be like a disposable plastic doll.
The only way to be a writer, or an artist, is because you have that hot piece of coal burning inside your chest and you have to take it out. Otherwise you will burn out too quickly, the hours of typing will become a prison, you will not endure the pain in your fingers or in the lower back, consequence of spending so much time sat in the same position. You will not survive while your friends go to work and have empty conversations and you are writing for your life. You will bleed too quickly.
That’s the only way, to hammer down those keys at 10 a.m. of a cold rainy Monday morning, hair all disheveled, skipping shower and food, clothes spread around the bedroom and one semi-hot coffee mug. You would smoke if you had money for it. You would go to parties and have a girlfriend, but it is burning and you have to bleed it out and create some real magic.
Then you will be a writer. I guess that some stereotypes are in fact true.
Originally published in: www.adventurousartist.com
September 28, 2015
My Spiritual Journey
I regard myself as a deeply spiritual person, – I don’t use the word “highly” because it conveys more to a “ultra spiritual Zen whoo whoo new agey ignorance”, than anything else. For a long time I’ve been interested in something other besides the rightly mundane and the “i live in the real world” doctrine, that I find just plain non sense. I find that most people crave for deeper connections with other human beings, to live with more love than they actually live. I also find funny the discrepancy of people who regard themselves as utterly practical and at the same time hold to the belief of a personal God, to whom they turn in times of great need. That to me is just as blind as the most religious believer who sees the words as the reality itself.
We lost the ancient religions and created new ones: football teams, political parties, ideologies. With those born new Jesus Christs, Budhas and Mohammeds: sports superstars, actors, public figures that we turn into idols of worship, guiding your set of believes and moralistic views. We look at them as an intersection between the mundane and divine, just like us in nature but supernatural in their current circumstance. That gives us a irrational hope that if it was possible to them, so it can be possible for us, because after all we are also “special” and entitled to something more, always something more. It is no surprise that young people in school age when questioned about their dream profession, almost 80% said: “I want to be a celebrity”. This is basically the same as saying that they want to be on an higher level of existence.
And this doesn’t come as a surprise at all, does it? I mean, it would be a lie if I said that most people feel happy, a general sense of well being, a high self-esteem and a lasting feeling of love, wouldn’t? In fact most people in the western world are quite sad, disappointed, lonely and frustrated with their life situation. I believe that never in the human history has been so much isolation and a deeper feel of separateness from the world around us.
One of my biggest surprises as a life coach came when I started to see a pattern with the men that I worked with: they came as wanting to be good seducers and having more sex, but in the end everybody could tell that what they essentially wanted was a deep and true connection with a woman, sex was clearly secondary even though nobody would admit it.
It is the old story of the hero wanting to be rescued by love.
The Beginning
As all good journeys my spiritual journey came to me in a surprising way. So for you to have a clear vision of my background: I studied in a catholic private school until the age of 10, went to mass every Sunday until I was 12 on what is known as sunday school. Until my 14 years old I decided to focus more on video games and girls. Then around the age of 16 I started to think by myself and became what can be described as an atheist and a die hard anarchist. (even though I would still pray to God for him to get me that girl and that my mom would allow me to travel to Scotland. I have no idea why I wanted to go to Scotland.)
Then around the age of 18 I started to question my own atheism and came to the conclusion that after all I did believe in “something”. Around this time I also got hooked on bodybuilding and motivational videos, you know, to get pumped. Surprisingly enough among those videos of big guys pulling heavy weights there was one that presented a middle age guy sat in the lotus position talking about how we use our minds and after him appeared an old Indian man with a funny accent. I looked it up and the Indian guy ended up being Krishnamurti, – back in those days that meant zero to me. But I couldn’t find who the other guys was and the reason why I was so interested was because that first man spoke with such a clarity, in a way that I’ve never heard before.
Then a surprising video came to me on Facebook, it was called “What If Money Was No Object” and the moment it appeared couldn’t been more precise. I was in the middle of the greatest life crisis that I’ve faced so far. His name was Alan Watts and after the words on that video sunk on my consciousness I searched for other videos and I was hooked. For the first time in my life I was listening to a man saying exactly what I always suspected but couldn’t put into words. That was mind blowing and was as well my gateway to spirituality and personal awakening.
I started meditating, reading about the Vedas, the Upanishads and old Hinduism. After all this time it finally made sense to me. All the other schools of thought, self-help and the traditional self-development seemed pale, weak and with no substance when compared to this philosophies.
And then out of thin air, again, I found a video of Russell Brand talking about consciousness, love and how spirituality changed his life for the good. The reason why I opened that video is still a mystery to me since I did not like Russell, mostly because I was distracted by his fame, pretentious way of talking and his “clownish” way of being. But in that video I forgot the superficial and focused on the message and what he was saying couldn’t be denied, couldn’t be seen as nothing else besides… truth. You can watch the video here.
What is really funny about both of these guys is they committed one fatal sin in the eyes of the judges of acceptance. Both disrupt the social rhetoric, none accept the label of spiritual guru and they both move away from the scripted idea of what one leader of thought should be and behave like. I mean Alan Watts had an alcoholism problem and died in his boat in Sausalito, California just as another regular guy. And Brand… what can we say about him that we don’t know: recovering drug addict, known for his sexual adventures, his comedy and having many appearances in front of TV cameras where he resembles a utter lunatic. How can someone take both of them seriously?
We are quick to judge but not to listen, is far easier to point fingers than to see beyond the immediate. We want to be entertained and if suddenly one of the muppets of our show decides to be another character we disregard them and pay no attention. The crave for entertainment and lack of attention on what is actually going on is the key that opens the doors for most charlatans.
If you hold any prejudice towards any of these two figures I highly advise you to hold your judgment and open your mind and listen to what is being said.
The Middle Way
By now I was meditating daily and had a bit of understanding of what it meant to be spiritual in its true meaning, I haven’t read many books but I was accumulating a great number of hours of listening to lectures of men such as Alan Watts, Terrance McKenna, Krishnamurti and others. That was my daily ritual: one hour of spiritual lecture while playing video games.
This was also the time that I met a number of spiritual people and got inside some circles of what can be described as simply bizarre and of what movies are made of. I don’t want to point fingers or being cynical but most people in these circles ended up being more essentially sad, desperate and judgmental of others than regular people. While searching for a deeper connection they bound with the group and reflected their “bad feelings” to the outsiders. (This is a fantastic element of human behavior: people when join a circle tend to share love and protection to the people inside the circle and reflect their aggression to their neighbors. This goes from the micro-scale to a global scale. Fascinating!)
I was introduced to my first group of spiritual practice by Russell Brand, not personally of course, but I was intrigued by his high praises on Transcendental Meditation. I read a bunch of articles about it and looked for a certified TM teacher around the place I live. After finding one we exchanged a couple of emails and we scheduled a introductory meeting. The guy was cool but right from the get go I felt a creepy vibe from him. He also had quite of a superstitious view on many aspects of daily life that I found hard to digest: people die more often in houses with the door facing south, people have a greater tendency to conflict if they live near a cemetery and other stuff that I could tolerate but that got me increasingly cautious.
But as he kept speaking things got weirder and weirder: a fanatical reverence to the guy who started it all, the claim that they donate money to fund the creation of their own country, yogis that could fly while meditating due to a higher frequency of brain waves and, stay with me, he was a Catholic Christian. Ok, by now I was just confused and with no idea of what he was talking about.
But if I could forget all this non sense and just accept that people are bizarre and weird and there is nothing wrong with that he said something that I couldn’t just tolerate and he destroyed any change of getting me introduced to TM.
“Yeah, it all seems very interesting and I am sure that it has great results, but right now I can’t pay 450$ for it. I am going to publish a book in a few months and have to save all the money that I’ve.”
“Oh, but believe me, if you invest your money in learning on how to meditate you will attracted no only more happiness but you will attract a lot more money than you have now.”
That was it. Goodbye and you can go prey on other people’s money. See you. I am fine with bizarre people, I just don’t tolerate people preying on other peoples weakness. That’s just wrong and made me wonder if he was that good at attracting money, why was that guy so desperate to sell me those classes?
But this was just the beginning. A couple of months later I encountered people who lived in another dimension, in such a strange and downright bizarre way that it is still crystalized in my mind as one of the weirdest encounters that I ever had with other human beings.
Los Angeles, December 2013, around 9:00pm. Myself and two other friends enter an hotel lobby in Santa Monica, we are greeted by a short and round blonde lady. She is smiling at everybody and shaking hands. She seems normal. Each of us pay 10$ to enter a room and we are introduced to what is know as Orgasmic Meditation. Okay, I thought, what is all this about?
Then the practitioners did a Q & A among themselves in order to explain to the outsiders what OM consisted about. And if the short, round, blond lady seemed normal that image was destroyed when she answered a question about where her power came from: “My vagina!”, she said in a powerful and assertive voice. That was intense. I felt like laughing but everybody was taking it quite seriously, so I resigned to my silent condition.
But something even weirder came to me, observing that group of people who rubbed clitoris and had their clitoris rubbed, oh… Yes, that is what OM is about, sorry for the spoiler, – it came to me that the women were in fact very sexual, assertive, powerful and walked with a quite magnetic hip swing, while most guys were… How can I put it without sounding like a judgmental asshole? Well, most guys seemed just weak, servile and with a quite vicious and poisonous way of looking at us.
They explained that through that kind of meditation they could access an higher plain of existence and were essential better, more present and more happy people. But what they were really proud to claim was of how free, open minded and superior to the “muggles”, – their words, not mine – they were. How enlightened they were when compared to the non clitoris rubbers.
You might be thinking that I am joking but I am dead serious. That is what they do: the woman lays down and one guy rubs her clitoris until she orgasms. Then they hug, the guy removes the plastic gloves, she gets dressed and they part ways, maybe to never see each other again, maybe to meet next week. And you thought that romance was dead!
But the interesting part was that not only the principle of outward aggression was present as well, but that most people had zero connection, zero empathy and a great lack of love overall. It all seemed to me as people losing themselves while finding who they were.
The Final Way
Well, not really the “final”, it is more like “where I am right know way.” I do tend to meditate daily, I believe that we are all connected and we are all just one. And that is precisely the way that I believe that God is, me, you, everything around us, the entire universe and the present every day experience.
This put in more practical terms only means that I try to be the kindest person that I can and the best human being that I can possibly be. This leads me to my moral compass that the only general rule is total selfishness. What? Yes, you read me right…
In my view to be total selfish is the best thing you can do to be the best person you can be. If you’re definition of being selfish is treating every body in a mean way and slapping people with giant fishes in the head then you are just mentally disturbed. Sorry to say, but it’s true. When I am being totally selfish I acknowledge my human and imperfect nature, I acknowledge that everything I do is because it makes me feel good and none of that matters, what matters is the outcome of my actions.
"You can't be more vulnerable to joy without being more sensitive to pain."
I understand that whenever I donate money for a cause that I believe in the #1 reason why I do it is to feel better with myself, to feel that I discharged my duty as a person. The reason doesn’t matter, if it is selfish or not, what matters is that the money I donated will be used in a positive cause.
Also this is what can be said as being altruistic while being selfish. To be just purely altruist is the fast way to fuck you up, to resent other people and be always on the expectation that others will, and have, to thank you. When I am being selfish I do it for my own reasons and so I don’t tend to expect much in return.
My selfishness leads me to make others feel good, which is what makes me feel happy. Full circle, you see?!
The problem with selfishness and its bad reputation comes first from the feeling of guilt. We think that we shouldn’t think first of ourselves, that we should do things for other people and not expect something in return but we can never really be in that place, can we? The problem with people who are nice and not kind, that detach themselves completely from their nature is that they don’t accept that they are rascals, that they have a dark side that is just as right or wrong as their bright side. As we can’t pass our own nature we go in a mental loop of guilt and resentment while feeling that we are better than other people, that we somehow are in an moral high ground.
… It is all purposeless.
Meditation is the key to the understanding of purposeless nature of life. There isn’t any and that is great. I am not nihilistic and I see that the purposeless way of life is essentially great news. This means that we can do whatever we want, that we are the creators of our own lives and destiny and that there is no wrong path, because none of them matters.
Should you date that girl or not? Doesn’t matter, nobody will remember in a few years.
Your great life’s work? Dust in some decades, perhaps some people will remember it, perhaps not.
Life is a great game that neither side should win, it is a non ending, all eternal and transient state of on and off. Just like in meditation if you go ahead in order to get something out of it, then you loose it. You ruined the spirit of what meditation is all about, about doing nothing, about being completely in the here and now, in your experience.
And this is highly in contrast with the super control freak society that we live in: where we are always trying to control others to our will, to make things go the right way – even when we have no idea of what really is the right way.
Can you see how this has nothing to do with being ultra spiritual and whoo whoo dancing in around a bonfire and singing mantras that are not different from the catholic chants of Hallelujah? I mean if you enjoy it for all means do it, but if you dance around a bonfire in order to get something out of it, or attract more love then you are just as split as every other religious fanatic.
I write because I enjoy it, the moment I started writing to achieve a prize, or fame, or reputation my writing would be poisoned by it and suffer from the impact of having another purpose behind it. Same thing with every other action if you do something to be good, or to seem smart, or to be any other thing that you think that you should be… then you ruined the present experience by trying to be something more than yourself. Which is ridiculous because you are literally God.
And yes, it is all without a purpose, it is all a big game, a tremendous dance which purpose is not to go somewhere but just to enjoy it. In the end what makes us happy are exactly the same: being loved and love other, have food on the table, a safe place to sleep at night and a myriad of beautiful and exciting experiences. That’s it, so simple, so clear.
Question: Did you enjoy the article? If so, would you like me to keep writing articles about my spiritual views and learnings from what I read about it?
Joao Fernandes, originally published in: www.adventurousartist.com
We lost the ancient religions and created new ones: football teams, political parties, ideologies. With those born new Jesus Christs, Budhas and Mohammeds: sports superstars, actors, public figures that we turn into idols of worship, guiding your set of believes and moralistic views. We look at them as an intersection between the mundane and divine, just like us in nature but supernatural in their current circumstance. That gives us a irrational hope that if it was possible to them, so it can be possible for us, because after all we are also “special” and entitled to something more, always something more. It is no surprise that young people in school age when questioned about their dream profession, almost 80% said: “I want to be a celebrity”. This is basically the same as saying that they want to be on an higher level of existence.
And this doesn’t come as a surprise at all, does it? I mean, it would be a lie if I said that most people feel happy, a general sense of well being, a high self-esteem and a lasting feeling of love, wouldn’t? In fact most people in the western world are quite sad, disappointed, lonely and frustrated with their life situation. I believe that never in the human history has been so much isolation and a deeper feel of separateness from the world around us.
One of my biggest surprises as a life coach came when I started to see a pattern with the men that I worked with: they came as wanting to be good seducers and having more sex, but in the end everybody could tell that what they essentially wanted was a deep and true connection with a woman, sex was clearly secondary even though nobody would admit it.
It is the old story of the hero wanting to be rescued by love.
The Beginning
As all good journeys my spiritual journey came to me in a surprising way. So for you to have a clear vision of my background: I studied in a catholic private school until the age of 10, went to mass every Sunday until I was 12 on what is known as sunday school. Until my 14 years old I decided to focus more on video games and girls. Then around the age of 16 I started to think by myself and became what can be described as an atheist and a die hard anarchist. (even though I would still pray to God for him to get me that girl and that my mom would allow me to travel to Scotland. I have no idea why I wanted to go to Scotland.)
Then around the age of 18 I started to question my own atheism and came to the conclusion that after all I did believe in “something”. Around this time I also got hooked on bodybuilding and motivational videos, you know, to get pumped. Surprisingly enough among those videos of big guys pulling heavy weights there was one that presented a middle age guy sat in the lotus position talking about how we use our minds and after him appeared an old Indian man with a funny accent. I looked it up and the Indian guy ended up being Krishnamurti, – back in those days that meant zero to me. But I couldn’t find who the other guys was and the reason why I was so interested was because that first man spoke with such a clarity, in a way that I’ve never heard before.
Then a surprising video came to me on Facebook, it was called “What If Money Was No Object” and the moment it appeared couldn’t been more precise. I was in the middle of the greatest life crisis that I’ve faced so far. His name was Alan Watts and after the words on that video sunk on my consciousness I searched for other videos and I was hooked. For the first time in my life I was listening to a man saying exactly what I always suspected but couldn’t put into words. That was mind blowing and was as well my gateway to spirituality and personal awakening.
I started meditating, reading about the Vedas, the Upanishads and old Hinduism. After all this time it finally made sense to me. All the other schools of thought, self-help and the traditional self-development seemed pale, weak and with no substance when compared to this philosophies.
And then out of thin air, again, I found a video of Russell Brand talking about consciousness, love and how spirituality changed his life for the good. The reason why I opened that video is still a mystery to me since I did not like Russell, mostly because I was distracted by his fame, pretentious way of talking and his “clownish” way of being. But in that video I forgot the superficial and focused on the message and what he was saying couldn’t be denied, couldn’t be seen as nothing else besides… truth. You can watch the video here.
What is really funny about both of these guys is they committed one fatal sin in the eyes of the judges of acceptance. Both disrupt the social rhetoric, none accept the label of spiritual guru and they both move away from the scripted idea of what one leader of thought should be and behave like. I mean Alan Watts had an alcoholism problem and died in his boat in Sausalito, California just as another regular guy. And Brand… what can we say about him that we don’t know: recovering drug addict, known for his sexual adventures, his comedy and having many appearances in front of TV cameras where he resembles a utter lunatic. How can someone take both of them seriously?
We are quick to judge but not to listen, is far easier to point fingers than to see beyond the immediate. We want to be entertained and if suddenly one of the muppets of our show decides to be another character we disregard them and pay no attention. The crave for entertainment and lack of attention on what is actually going on is the key that opens the doors for most charlatans.
If you hold any prejudice towards any of these two figures I highly advise you to hold your judgment and open your mind and listen to what is being said.
The Middle Way
By now I was meditating daily and had a bit of understanding of what it meant to be spiritual in its true meaning, I haven’t read many books but I was accumulating a great number of hours of listening to lectures of men such as Alan Watts, Terrance McKenna, Krishnamurti and others. That was my daily ritual: one hour of spiritual lecture while playing video games.
This was also the time that I met a number of spiritual people and got inside some circles of what can be described as simply bizarre and of what movies are made of. I don’t want to point fingers or being cynical but most people in these circles ended up being more essentially sad, desperate and judgmental of others than regular people. While searching for a deeper connection they bound with the group and reflected their “bad feelings” to the outsiders. (This is a fantastic element of human behavior: people when join a circle tend to share love and protection to the people inside the circle and reflect their aggression to their neighbors. This goes from the micro-scale to a global scale. Fascinating!)
I was introduced to my first group of spiritual practice by Russell Brand, not personally of course, but I was intrigued by his high praises on Transcendental Meditation. I read a bunch of articles about it and looked for a certified TM teacher around the place I live. After finding one we exchanged a couple of emails and we scheduled a introductory meeting. The guy was cool but right from the get go I felt a creepy vibe from him. He also had quite of a superstitious view on many aspects of daily life that I found hard to digest: people die more often in houses with the door facing south, people have a greater tendency to conflict if they live near a cemetery and other stuff that I could tolerate but that got me increasingly cautious.
But as he kept speaking things got weirder and weirder: a fanatical reverence to the guy who started it all, the claim that they donate money to fund the creation of their own country, yogis that could fly while meditating due to a higher frequency of brain waves and, stay with me, he was a Catholic Christian. Ok, by now I was just confused and with no idea of what he was talking about.
But if I could forget all this non sense and just accept that people are bizarre and weird and there is nothing wrong with that he said something that I couldn’t just tolerate and he destroyed any change of getting me introduced to TM.
“Yeah, it all seems very interesting and I am sure that it has great results, but right now I can’t pay 450$ for it. I am going to publish a book in a few months and have to save all the money that I’ve.”
“Oh, but believe me, if you invest your money in learning on how to meditate you will attracted no only more happiness but you will attract a lot more money than you have now.”
That was it. Goodbye and you can go prey on other people’s money. See you. I am fine with bizarre people, I just don’t tolerate people preying on other peoples weakness. That’s just wrong and made me wonder if he was that good at attracting money, why was that guy so desperate to sell me those classes?
But this was just the beginning. A couple of months later I encountered people who lived in another dimension, in such a strange and downright bizarre way that it is still crystalized in my mind as one of the weirdest encounters that I ever had with other human beings.
Los Angeles, December 2013, around 9:00pm. Myself and two other friends enter an hotel lobby in Santa Monica, we are greeted by a short and round blonde lady. She is smiling at everybody and shaking hands. She seems normal. Each of us pay 10$ to enter a room and we are introduced to what is know as Orgasmic Meditation. Okay, I thought, what is all this about?
Then the practitioners did a Q & A among themselves in order to explain to the outsiders what OM consisted about. And if the short, round, blond lady seemed normal that image was destroyed when she answered a question about where her power came from: “My vagina!”, she said in a powerful and assertive voice. That was intense. I felt like laughing but everybody was taking it quite seriously, so I resigned to my silent condition.
But something even weirder came to me, observing that group of people who rubbed clitoris and had their clitoris rubbed, oh… Yes, that is what OM is about, sorry for the spoiler, – it came to me that the women were in fact very sexual, assertive, powerful and walked with a quite magnetic hip swing, while most guys were… How can I put it without sounding like a judgmental asshole? Well, most guys seemed just weak, servile and with a quite vicious and poisonous way of looking at us.
They explained that through that kind of meditation they could access an higher plain of existence and were essential better, more present and more happy people. But what they were really proud to claim was of how free, open minded and superior to the “muggles”, – their words, not mine – they were. How enlightened they were when compared to the non clitoris rubbers.
You might be thinking that I am joking but I am dead serious. That is what they do: the woman lays down and one guy rubs her clitoris until she orgasms. Then they hug, the guy removes the plastic gloves, she gets dressed and they part ways, maybe to never see each other again, maybe to meet next week. And you thought that romance was dead!
But the interesting part was that not only the principle of outward aggression was present as well, but that most people had zero connection, zero empathy and a great lack of love overall. It all seemed to me as people losing themselves while finding who they were.
The Final Way
Well, not really the “final”, it is more like “where I am right know way.” I do tend to meditate daily, I believe that we are all connected and we are all just one. And that is precisely the way that I believe that God is, me, you, everything around us, the entire universe and the present every day experience.
This put in more practical terms only means that I try to be the kindest person that I can and the best human being that I can possibly be. This leads me to my moral compass that the only general rule is total selfishness. What? Yes, you read me right…
In my view to be total selfish is the best thing you can do to be the best person you can be. If you’re definition of being selfish is treating every body in a mean way and slapping people with giant fishes in the head then you are just mentally disturbed. Sorry to say, but it’s true. When I am being totally selfish I acknowledge my human and imperfect nature, I acknowledge that everything I do is because it makes me feel good and none of that matters, what matters is the outcome of my actions.
"You can't be more vulnerable to joy without being more sensitive to pain."
I understand that whenever I donate money for a cause that I believe in the #1 reason why I do it is to feel better with myself, to feel that I discharged my duty as a person. The reason doesn’t matter, if it is selfish or not, what matters is that the money I donated will be used in a positive cause.
Also this is what can be said as being altruistic while being selfish. To be just purely altruist is the fast way to fuck you up, to resent other people and be always on the expectation that others will, and have, to thank you. When I am being selfish I do it for my own reasons and so I don’t tend to expect much in return.
My selfishness leads me to make others feel good, which is what makes me feel happy. Full circle, you see?!
The problem with selfishness and its bad reputation comes first from the feeling of guilt. We think that we shouldn’t think first of ourselves, that we should do things for other people and not expect something in return but we can never really be in that place, can we? The problem with people who are nice and not kind, that detach themselves completely from their nature is that they don’t accept that they are rascals, that they have a dark side that is just as right or wrong as their bright side. As we can’t pass our own nature we go in a mental loop of guilt and resentment while feeling that we are better than other people, that we somehow are in an moral high ground.
… It is all purposeless.
Meditation is the key to the understanding of purposeless nature of life. There isn’t any and that is great. I am not nihilistic and I see that the purposeless way of life is essentially great news. This means that we can do whatever we want, that we are the creators of our own lives and destiny and that there is no wrong path, because none of them matters.
Should you date that girl or not? Doesn’t matter, nobody will remember in a few years.
Your great life’s work? Dust in some decades, perhaps some people will remember it, perhaps not.
Life is a great game that neither side should win, it is a non ending, all eternal and transient state of on and off. Just like in meditation if you go ahead in order to get something out of it, then you loose it. You ruined the spirit of what meditation is all about, about doing nothing, about being completely in the here and now, in your experience.
And this is highly in contrast with the super control freak society that we live in: where we are always trying to control others to our will, to make things go the right way – even when we have no idea of what really is the right way.
Can you see how this has nothing to do with being ultra spiritual and whoo whoo dancing in around a bonfire and singing mantras that are not different from the catholic chants of Hallelujah? I mean if you enjoy it for all means do it, but if you dance around a bonfire in order to get something out of it, or attract more love then you are just as split as every other religious fanatic.
I write because I enjoy it, the moment I started writing to achieve a prize, or fame, or reputation my writing would be poisoned by it and suffer from the impact of having another purpose behind it. Same thing with every other action if you do something to be good, or to seem smart, or to be any other thing that you think that you should be… then you ruined the present experience by trying to be something more than yourself. Which is ridiculous because you are literally God.
And yes, it is all without a purpose, it is all a big game, a tremendous dance which purpose is not to go somewhere but just to enjoy it. In the end what makes us happy are exactly the same: being loved and love other, have food on the table, a safe place to sleep at night and a myriad of beautiful and exciting experiences. That’s it, so simple, so clear.
Question: Did you enjoy the article? If so, would you like me to keep writing articles about my spiritual views and learnings from what I read about it?
Joao Fernandes, originally published in: www.adventurousartist.com
August 25, 2015
Minimalism
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The first time I got in touch with such term was back in 2011. Living in Budapest in the typical students flat I had invited 3 friends of mine to come and visit me. They were living in the Romanian capital of Bucharest after having traveled the world for over 4 years non-stop. Everything they owned could be put inside a Zucca suitcase and I got fascinated by such a lifestyle. The simplicity of it was just incredible, a clear cut with the traditional lifestyle of having more and more that only leads to being slower and dragging yourself through life.
This is everything I own right now: a Macbook Air, one unlocked Samsung S4, an Ipad, 3 pairs of jeans, 1 complete suit, 1 winter jacket and one year around leather jacket, 3 button down shirts, 7 t-shirts, 1 small bag of bathroom stuff, some jewelry, 1 pair of glasses and another of sunglasses, 1 pair of classical shoes, 1 pair of sports shoes, 2 pairs of boots, 1 pair of sneakers and some scarfs and 2 caps. This is because I am not traveling right now, because when I am this usually gets cut down in half.
If needed I can put everything I need inside my bag under 20 minutes and I am ready to go. This versatility and readiness already saved my life more than once, literally.
When I am traveling it is quite common for people to ask me where is my other bag or how can I live with so few things. What they don’t know is that in each trip I end up packing less than in the previous journey and I never use everything that I packed. Usually I end up giving some shirts away since I realize that I don’t need those at all and probably will never wear them again.
This for me is the ultimate luxury that a single man without bills to pay can have. There is nothing that beats the simple freedom of it. If I say “no” to a trip the fact that I am not ready won’t be one of them. And this all happened after my friends arrival, shortly after I decided that I would lighten up my belongings and set myself free from everything that wasn’t absolutely essential.
The only question that I kept on my mind while throwing clothes on the pile of “will never use again” was: “Do I really need this?” If I had some doubt about it I knew that it was time to go. Why? Because you only use 20% of your clothes at 80% of your time. The same principle that applies to economics is also applied to the most mundane and seemingly unimportant facts of life. Think about it and you will see that I am right. You only wear 20% of all your clothes, the rest of it are just there catching dust and mold.
I am not advocating for you to throw all your stuff away, – perhaps you have a family and don’t go around renting furnished flats like I do – but I do believe that you would greatly benefit if you gave away some of the stuff that you have in your place that you don’t use and won’t probably use.
Mental Clarity
2014-06-02 14.05.36
I am all up for mental clarity and sanity. Your surroundings influence your mind to a larger extent that you might realize, if your house is cluttered with “shit” that you don’t need then I will assume that you mind is also cluttered with shit that is not benefiting you in any way.
I never have the hesitation of: should I wear this or that, should I use this soap or that or will I spend 10 minutes trying to decide which pair of shoes I will use, or have a sense of guilt about not wearing that super expensive jacket that after all I never used.
You might think that does are not real problems, but when you start your day juggling through 10 decisions that will have zero to none impact on your day, then it might amount to a considerable level of stress and that is a problem.
Design It Cleverly
It is all about designing your life the way you want. I mean I don’t own a car because I don’t live in Los Angeles, otherwise I would very well need one and not living in Los Angeles is my decision. The same way I did not needed to buy any cooking appliances when living in Budapest or Romania because the restaurants were insanely cheap, that is also a good quid pro bono choice.
By making a series of clever choices you will end up not only saving money, having more mental clarity but also investing your money in a more fulfilling way.
Remember Fight Club? “The things you own end up owning you?”. Yep, that is right… The brand of your TV becomes not only a well thought choice but also a sign of your personality, the same way the color of your couch says more about your childhood repressed memories than you every thought and what about the curtains of your shower? Those must be important and reflect your creativity. Right?
Non Sense.
Even the clothes that you wear every day ARE NOT a sign of who you are and you can actually live without them. I never missed something that I lost or gave away, ever. Most of those things I don’t even remember that I ever had them. For example, when I was in San Francisco I left behind one of my favorite shirts and I got pissed with myself for about… 2 minutes, then I shrugged my shoulders and realized that it was not that important.
But worst than all that was the shirt, that my girlfriend gave me as a gift, left behind in Miami. I really liked that shirt. I realized that it wasn’t in my bag when we were somewhere in deep Texas. Oh well… I never looked at my clothes and started crying because some part of my identity was lost forever in that piece of clothing.
Even if you have a family or a spouse you can always get rid of some stuff that you own. When I look at my parents house I kinda get stressed because there is so much stuff everywhere, my god, can humans live like that? Old magazines, book collections that nobody will ever read, clothes, footwear, car shit that is long lost in the garage, pool stuff that nobody really knows the purpose behind it.
The Aversion of Loss
Business-Sample
I know, I know, it is deeply structured in our personality to not be willing to lose and feel a sense of loss. Well, I also don’t really care about that, because we are only controlled by all those theories to the extent that we choose, so… it is time to man up and make some “difficult decisions” = get rid of stuff.
But first let me address one point that I can already hear you saying:
You won’t loose your investment in any of that by selling for a way lower price or by giving it away. If you think clearly you already spent your money on that and nothing will bring that money back. To reject this idea because you don’t want to loose your investment is the same thing as paying 20$ for a sandwich and eating it until makes you sick, because you are not really that hungry or feeling sick.
So the logic of: I will finish the sandwich until the end because it was expensive and I don’t know when I am going to have another expensive sandwich even if it makes me sick, is completely flawed. Even though it is a common occurrence in our kinda schyzoprenic society, we have to think beyond the social rhetoric that is not working for anyone.
And being a consumer is not a good badge to show around, believe me.
So, what can you throw away right now?
1) CD’s.
Seriously, that shit is obsolete as the zeppelin for passenger transportation. It is 2015 and nobody uses music cd’s anymore. My laptop doesn’t even has a cd drive. Youtube has more choices than you can ever have on cd’s.
2) Games.
Nothing against games, nothing against gamers… but you probably spend way much money in such a hobby and way much time in front of the TV set. Games are fun and I like to play once in a while, but to think in investing way over 500$ in a playing system, plus games, plus all the shit that you need to play online and whatever people use nowadays, can be the price of a round trip from anywhere in Europe to Bali. It isn’t a hard choice for me and it shouldn’t be for you either. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself: “If I had spent 3/4 of the time I spent playing video games in the last 5 years socializing, reading or following my passion how different would my life be?”. Yeah, exactly…
3) Television
This “magic box” is kinda of my personal hate target. Every year I see more middle aged men getting more slump and lazy while their TV watching time increases. Television not only kills your intelligence but also kills your enthusiasm for life and for what truly makes you happy. I wonder how life would be if TV would have never been created. Instead of watching TV you can learn to play an instrument, master your craft, talk with your family, dance, paint, gardening, play with your pet or simply be out of house.
Almost nothing good comes from a TV set. You don’t need a television to watch movies, be informed, watch sports or any of the crap that you think you need. After I spent 8 months without even turning the TV on I realized that it was the number 1 thing that needed to go.
4) Collections
I don’t care and nobody cares about your collection. Nobody cares about your Magic The Gathering cards collection, Star Wars toys collection, puzzles, postcards, cookies cans, dolls, posters collection… Almost no collection is of interest besides for the people who own it. Besides being a time and money sucker such an hedonistic activity is simply the number one clue of how far we have come in the level of human comfort and life standard. We are so bored that we need to collect shit to feel something, to have a fucking purpose! Jesus! That is stupid.
I once stayed in a guys house that was full with cookies cans, they were perfectly aligned and polished. I have never been more freaked out by a guy in my life.
And now the big one…
5) Car(s)
If you own more than one car it is time to send the other one to go. Yes, I am serious. Why would anyone need more than one car? There is not a conceivable reason for that. It always cracks me up when I see old guys driving their big, fat, luxurious cars on Sunday afternoons slowly as hell just to show off how well in life they are. More cars equals more expensive stuff that equals more problems and more money flying out of your pocket. The money that you can make with a second car will be better used in traveling, living in a better area or putting that money to a better use.
Also, think seriously if you really need a car in the city that you live. If you live in Europe I would say that it is not needed as much as you think, more if you live closer to the center of the city.João M. Fernandes
The first time I got in touch with such term was back in 2011. Living in Budapest in the typical students flat I had invited 3 friends of mine to come and visit me. They were living in the Romanian capital of Bucharest after having traveled the world for over 4 years non-stop. Everything they owned could be put inside a Zucca suitcase and I got fascinated by such a lifestyle. The simplicity of it was just incredible, a clear cut with the traditional lifestyle of having more and more that only leads to being slower and dragging yourself through life.
This is everything I own right now: a Macbook Air, one unlocked Samsung S4, an Ipad, 3 pairs of jeans, 1 complete suit, 1 winter jacket and one year around leather jacket, 3 button down shirts, 7 t-shirts, 1 small bag of bathroom stuff, some jewelry, 1 pair of glasses and another of sunglasses, 1 pair of classical shoes, 1 pair of sports shoes, 2 pairs of boots, 1 pair of sneakers and some scarfs and 2 caps. This is because I am not traveling right now, because when I am this usually gets cut down in half.
If needed I can put everything I need inside my bag under 20 minutes and I am ready to go. This versatility and readiness already saved my life more than once, literally.
When I am traveling it is quite common for people to ask me where is my other bag or how can I live with so few things. What they don’t know is that in each trip I end up packing less than in the previous journey and I never use everything that I packed. Usually I end up giving some shirts away since I realize that I don’t need those at all and probably will never wear them again.
This for me is the ultimate luxury that a single man without bills to pay can have. There is nothing that beats the simple freedom of it. If I say “no” to a trip the fact that I am not ready won’t be one of them. And this all happened after my friends arrival, shortly after I decided that I would lighten up my belongings and set myself free from everything that wasn’t absolutely essential.
The only question that I kept on my mind while throwing clothes on the pile of “will never use again” was: “Do I really need this?” If I had some doubt about it I knew that it was time to go. Why? Because you only use 20% of your clothes at 80% of your time. The same principle that applies to economics is also applied to the most mundane and seemingly unimportant facts of life. Think about it and you will see that I am right. You only wear 20% of all your clothes, the rest of it are just there catching dust and mold.
I am not advocating for you to throw all your stuff away, – perhaps you have a family and don’t go around renting furnished flats like I do – but I do believe that you would greatly benefit if you gave away some of the stuff that you have in your place that you don’t use and won’t probably use.
Mental Clarity
2014-06-02 14.05.36
I am all up for mental clarity and sanity. Your surroundings influence your mind to a larger extent that you might realize, if your house is cluttered with “shit” that you don’t need then I will assume that you mind is also cluttered with shit that is not benefiting you in any way.
I never have the hesitation of: should I wear this or that, should I use this soap or that or will I spend 10 minutes trying to decide which pair of shoes I will use, or have a sense of guilt about not wearing that super expensive jacket that after all I never used.
You might think that does are not real problems, but when you start your day juggling through 10 decisions that will have zero to none impact on your day, then it might amount to a considerable level of stress and that is a problem.
Design It Cleverly
It is all about designing your life the way you want. I mean I don’t own a car because I don’t live in Los Angeles, otherwise I would very well need one and not living in Los Angeles is my decision. The same way I did not needed to buy any cooking appliances when living in Budapest or Romania because the restaurants were insanely cheap, that is also a good quid pro bono choice.
By making a series of clever choices you will end up not only saving money, having more mental clarity but also investing your money in a more fulfilling way.
Remember Fight Club? “The things you own end up owning you?”. Yep, that is right… The brand of your TV becomes not only a well thought choice but also a sign of your personality, the same way the color of your couch says more about your childhood repressed memories than you every thought and what about the curtains of your shower? Those must be important and reflect your creativity. Right?
Non Sense.
Even the clothes that you wear every day ARE NOT a sign of who you are and you can actually live without them. I never missed something that I lost or gave away, ever. Most of those things I don’t even remember that I ever had them. For example, when I was in San Francisco I left behind one of my favorite shirts and I got pissed with myself for about… 2 minutes, then I shrugged my shoulders and realized that it was not that important.
But worst than all that was the shirt, that my girlfriend gave me as a gift, left behind in Miami. I really liked that shirt. I realized that it wasn’t in my bag when we were somewhere in deep Texas. Oh well… I never looked at my clothes and started crying because some part of my identity was lost forever in that piece of clothing.
Even if you have a family or a spouse you can always get rid of some stuff that you own. When I look at my parents house I kinda get stressed because there is so much stuff everywhere, my god, can humans live like that? Old magazines, book collections that nobody will ever read, clothes, footwear, car shit that is long lost in the garage, pool stuff that nobody really knows the purpose behind it.
The Aversion of Loss
Business-Sample
I know, I know, it is deeply structured in our personality to not be willing to lose and feel a sense of loss. Well, I also don’t really care about that, because we are only controlled by all those theories to the extent that we choose, so… it is time to man up and make some “difficult decisions” = get rid of stuff.
But first let me address one point that I can already hear you saying:
You won’t loose your investment in any of that by selling for a way lower price or by giving it away. If you think clearly you already spent your money on that and nothing will bring that money back. To reject this idea because you don’t want to loose your investment is the same thing as paying 20$ for a sandwich and eating it until makes you sick, because you are not really that hungry or feeling sick.
So the logic of: I will finish the sandwich until the end because it was expensive and I don’t know when I am going to have another expensive sandwich even if it makes me sick, is completely flawed. Even though it is a common occurrence in our kinda schyzoprenic society, we have to think beyond the social rhetoric that is not working for anyone.
And being a consumer is not a good badge to show around, believe me.
So, what can you throw away right now?
1) CD’s.
Seriously, that shit is obsolete as the zeppelin for passenger transportation. It is 2015 and nobody uses music cd’s anymore. My laptop doesn’t even has a cd drive. Youtube has more choices than you can ever have on cd’s.
2) Games.
Nothing against games, nothing against gamers… but you probably spend way much money in such a hobby and way much time in front of the TV set. Games are fun and I like to play once in a while, but to think in investing way over 500$ in a playing system, plus games, plus all the shit that you need to play online and whatever people use nowadays, can be the price of a round trip from anywhere in Europe to Bali. It isn’t a hard choice for me and it shouldn’t be for you either. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself: “If I had spent 3/4 of the time I spent playing video games in the last 5 years socializing, reading or following my passion how different would my life be?”. Yeah, exactly…
3) Television
This “magic box” is kinda of my personal hate target. Every year I see more middle aged men getting more slump and lazy while their TV watching time increases. Television not only kills your intelligence but also kills your enthusiasm for life and for what truly makes you happy. I wonder how life would be if TV would have never been created. Instead of watching TV you can learn to play an instrument, master your craft, talk with your family, dance, paint, gardening, play with your pet or simply be out of house.
Almost nothing good comes from a TV set. You don’t need a television to watch movies, be informed, watch sports or any of the crap that you think you need. After I spent 8 months without even turning the TV on I realized that it was the number 1 thing that needed to go.
4) Collections
I don’t care and nobody cares about your collection. Nobody cares about your Magic The Gathering cards collection, Star Wars toys collection, puzzles, postcards, cookies cans, dolls, posters collection… Almost no collection is of interest besides for the people who own it. Besides being a time and money sucker such an hedonistic activity is simply the number one clue of how far we have come in the level of human comfort and life standard. We are so bored that we need to collect shit to feel something, to have a fucking purpose! Jesus! That is stupid.
I once stayed in a guys house that was full with cookies cans, they were perfectly aligned and polished. I have never been more freaked out by a guy in my life.
And now the big one…
5) Car(s)
If you own more than one car it is time to send the other one to go. Yes, I am serious. Why would anyone need more than one car? There is not a conceivable reason for that. It always cracks me up when I see old guys driving their big, fat, luxurious cars on Sunday afternoons slowly as hell just to show off how well in life they are. More cars equals more expensive stuff that equals more problems and more money flying out of your pocket. The money that you can make with a second car will be better used in traveling, living in a better area or putting that money to a better use.
Also, think seriously if you really need a car in the city that you live. If you live in Europe I would say that it is not needed as much as you think, more if you live closer to the center of the city.João M. Fernandes
