Matador Network's Blog, page 2269

Global greetings cheatsheet

I’ve just downloaded this image onto my phone as a quick-read guide to saying “Hello!” in over 20 different languages. Although having a pronunciation guide would also be helpful, as I know the “t” in salut! is silent, and god only knows how to say “Hi!” in Hungarian. It’s a cool visual, at any rate, and may especially help travelers who are planning to see several countries during a round-the-world journey.

Explore more visuals like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.

The post The ultimate global greetings cheatsheet [infographic] appeared first on Matador Network.

4 songs that define you

Photo: Justin C.

Mexico / Ohio

“Si Te Vas” by Shakira

You’re hanging out with these girls who eat literally everything: from crazy shit like oxtail soup and Szechuan-style frog legs to the cheesy bread at Red Lobster. You make pilgrimages from Oberlin to Cleveland to feed their cravings. There’s high-performing Sophia, editor of your campus newspaper and a concert pianist. There’s Ariana, constantly quizzed about where she’s ‘from,’ and her dry, unperturbed answer, “I’m Chinese Jamaican.” There’s Stephanie, from San Francisco, French-educated, super fucking fancy, and a real joy to party with. Drunkenly confesses your smarts once intimidated her during the political theory class you had together.

These are the girls who’ll offer you love and real-world knowledge when your shitty boyfriend unceremoniously dumps you over a bad cell-phone connection. When they look knowingly at you and say, “You need alcohol, lots of alcohol,” please believe them. You won’t always need alcohol, but for the next few days you’ll need a lot of it. After you’ve all gotten drunk off boat-sized glasses of rum, they’ll walk with you down the sandy avenues of this tiny Pacific beach town in Southern Mexico, and together you’ll find a real Italian restaurant. The owners will feed you reams of spaghetti soaked in pesto, and you’ll begin to feel your appetite again.

Washington, DC

“Perth” by Bon Iver

You’re living in a punk house that doesn’t have a roach problem yet. It’s a summer of outdoor cookouts and natural disasters. Hurricane Irene will hit soon, and you and your housemates will hole up for days with Buffy and pizza. But now it’s July, and you’re all fucked up over some Capitol Hill staffer. He’s sexy in a weird way, looks a little like George Clooney, if you strain your eyes.

But your relationship is going nowhere, just strong chemistry and uncomfortable conversations, an avoidant ex he just can’t shake. Your friends are all quick to mention how prone you are to make excuses for him. Looking back, you know you rushed things, from the moment you met him at a dive bar, to the kiss you prompted on the porch, to him crawling awkwardly into your bed that night.

You feel more stuck than ever — you know things can’t improve, but you’ve grown seriously tired of being alone. And there’s something beautiful and sad about this feeling, of wanting something to last but knowing it can’t.

He hates the phone, so you break up with him twice over g-chat. The second time you’re successful. You never see him again and move away the next year to California.

San Francisco

“Acabou Chorare” by Bebel Gilberto

You’re walking around North Beach on Saint Patrick’s Day. You’ve been staying with family for a short visit and desperately need to get out of their palatial home. You need to connect.

Things have been heating up back in DC with an old flame, but nothing’s for certain and as always when you don’t have a clear plan, a clear next step, your self-regard is a little low. You’re prone to wandering and feeling sorry for yourself.

Before setting out you read that City Lights Bookstore is open until midnight, so that’s where you go. You’re hanging out in the political theory section, because you studied it in college, and then you notice this guy asking someone for advice on where to sightsee. He’s cute — tall, skinny. Not exactly your type, but promising. You say something, in that way you have, which comes from a Southern, folksy mother and your irksome tendency of always acting like a yenta. He asks what you’re reading, and then for your number. You meet again, the next night, for pizza in your aunt’s ritzy neighborhood. He’s from Brazil and you speak together in Spanish. He’s nice, from Bahia, but sort of boring. Lingers over his food. You’re saying fairly obvious things about race and class, but he treats every statement like a revelation. Walks you home and says, “Wait…” in a way that makes you desperately uncomfortable after you decide to go inside without kissing first, except for that one-cheek Brazilian peck.

Philadelphia

“Can’t Hardly Wait” by the Replacements

It’s like you were 16 once, and so your 16-year-old self, in a way, is watching you. But you’re not 16 anymore, you’re 25. You’re dressed in a black thrifted t-shirt and some black jeans and sunglasses, and your friend just cut your hair. So you’re looking particularly countercultural, and the person holding your hand is the same person you secretly (and at times not-so-secretly) crushed on for many years.

And you guys are walking around in Philly, like some young hipster couple, and the weird thing is, you sort of are. But, as always, the truth is so much more complicated than what our vintage clothes and flannel shirts project. And your 16-year-old self, on the drive up, she’s so nervous she wonders if she needs to ask your best friend’s boyfriend to pull over, just for the option of stomach-emptying release.

But the thing is you’re almost 26 now, little Miss. So you’ve gotta pull it together, buck up, hold fast. Or something. You can’t be nerves vomiting like you did the day before a big algebra test, when your dad was putting pressure on you to just pass the class, Anne. Pass the damn class.

Inside there’s a raging pit of anxiety, and you feel scared to just ignore it. Like maybe it’s telling you that you really aren’t so far from 16 as you thought, or 19 or 22, for that matter. You are, in a sense, living your punk-rock teenage dreams, but it’s the little girl inside you that’s looking hard for some reassurance from the person lying next to you.

But something, some voice inside, is compelling you, no, telling you, to stay put. Don’t fucking move, that voice is saying. Because this is your life, right here. It’s not in five years from now, it’s not when you fully move to San Francisco, it’s not buried in an ancient childhood bedroom, it’s here, sitting right next to you.

The post 4 songs that define your travels, anxiety, drunkenness, and relationships appeared first on Matador Network.

Surfers from beneath the waves [vid]

Surfing is already probably the coolest looking sport out there, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise how awesome it looks from underneath the water. But it looks fucking incredible.

LA-based filmmaker Morgan Maasen took a dip under the water and filmed the ocean, the waves, and the surfers from below. So if you’re having a rough day in your office, just close your door for a minute, pop on your headphones, and imagine you’re drifting in the waves of Hawaii.

The post Watching surfers from beneath the waves is incredible and surreal appeared first on Matador Network.

To understand Ukraine follow the gas

Map: PolicyMic

Shocking no one, Russia’s top natural gas producer, Gazprom, announced last month that it will cancel a discount on the price it charges for gas in Ukraine. The bargain, a sweet 30% off the price of gas, was a bid by Moscow to deter Ukraine from accepting a trade deal with the EU.

“This is not linked to politics or anything,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters on Tuesday, regarding the discount cancellation.

The ongoing Ukraine crisis is often cast as a battle of values, East versus West. But another way of looking at things is to follow the old gas lines.

Ukraine would freeze without Russia.

Some 60% of Ukraine’s consumed gas comes from Russia. Over the years, this reliance has given rise to a so-called gas “mafia” in Kyiv. Ukrainian oligarchs, working closely with Russian suppliers, have taken advantage of the dependency. It is widely believe that these elites siphon money from state coffers and actively prevent Ukraine from developing a sustainable energy sector. All the while, foreign investors are scared away.

Similarly, Russian energy supplies help Moscow keep a firm grip on other former Soviet states like Moldova and Georgia. In September, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin threatened to cut off Moldova’s gas supply during the winter if the country continued on its pro-EU economic course. “We hope,” said Rogozin to Moldavians, “that you will not freeze.”

Europe is hooked too.

Russia supplies, but Ukraine is the middleman. This helps to explain why some European states (like Germany) have been cagey about imposing sanctions on Russia. Germany and Ukraine are Gazprom’s biggest foreign purchasers.

Russia is Europe’s largest natural gas supplier, supplying about one-third of the continent’s natural gas, more than half of which travels through Ukraine. Important pipelines pass through Ukraine to Slovakia, and then on to Germany, Italy, and Austria.

So, what would happen if Russia switched off the Ukrainian pipes? Actually, it has done just that twice over the last decade, in 2006 and again in 2009, amid pricing disputes between Kyiv and Moscow. The result: gas shortages in several European countries.

Already Europe is working to wean itself off Russian supplies. Ukraine’s woes might help to speed up that process.

It’s a two-way street.

Russia needs Europe too. Oil and gas trade accounts for half of Russia’s annual export revenue and more than half of Russia’s federal budget. Important to note is that many of Russia’s important gas pipelines go through Western Ukraine, which is decidedly pro-Europe.

“I would argue that Russia has more to lose than Europe at the moment,” says Tim Boersma of the Brookings Institution. “Russia needs European demands. It is making roughly $100 million a day from hydrocarbons.

What about America?

Washington is making moves. The US doesn’t export natural gas yet. But congressional Republicans especially are calling to loosen export restrictions, with the idea that if Washington puts more gas on the market, it can (economically) cut Russia down to size.

The US Department of Energy is issuing permits to American corporations that will let them start exporting gas in 2015.

Fun fact: Who is now leading the US State Department’s new Bureau of Energy Resources? It’s Carlos Pascual, former US ambassador to Ukraine.

So what about that new global order?

Eurasia experts and political hacks have been talking big about a new global energy order inspired by events in Ukraine. Chaos in Ukraine, goes this logic, will threaten natural gas supplies and push Europe to look for non-Russian gas sources.

It’s already happening. US energy behemoth Halliburton Co. will soon start fracking in Poland. Royal Dutch Shell will start hunting for natural gas in Ukraine next year.

In fact, Europe is already way less energy dependent on Russia than it was in 2009, the last time Moscow switched off the Ukrainian pipelines. Germany, for instance, has found alternative energy sources in Norway and Algeria.

2009 was a turning point. And 2014 could be Russia’s biggest mistake yet.

This article originally appeared on PolicyMic and is reprinted here with permission.

The post To understand what’s really happening in Ukraine, follow the gas lines on this map appeared first on Matador Network.

8 signs you’re still a tourist in Hawaii

Photo: gregory mc.

1. You’re driving your shiny new sports car…through the rainforest.

Every local knows that in order to truly enjoy your surroundings in Hawaii, you have to own a cruiser or a beach vehicle that can hold all your toys and take a beating. Usually, this is an old pickup truck you can throw your surfboards, kayaks, and friends in. Only tourists are cruising the rugged back roads and rainforests of the island in a shiny new sports car, afraid to get it a little dirty from a day of adventure.

My favorite drive, Maui’s rugged North Shore from Kapalua to Wailuku, has the best panoramic views — at a cost, though. You have to drive along an unpaved path etched into the side of the mountain, teetering off the edge, thwarting certain death for just a little while. Rental car companies technically forbid you to travel this road because of the conditions.

But locals know the unspoken right-of-way law: If you’re going mauka (toward the mountain), yield to oncoming makai (toward the sea) traffic. This is especially imperative on a road that’s a hair wider than a golf cart. Cruising this road, you’ll always encounter the occasional svelte sports car, whipping around corners, filled with tourists who’re angry you won’t make room for them. All you can do is observe the ‘rules of the road’ and hope others follow suit.

2. Your skin is pasty.

There’s a difference between trying to avoid skin cancer from harmful UV rays and being completely, blindingly pale. Many tourists visit Hawaii straight from the mainland winter, where the sun hasn’t shone in weeks, possibly months. As if the Hawaiian sun isn’t glaring enough, a look at a pasty tourist’s skin is a good reason for locals to put on some Ray-Bans and walk on.

Boatloads of pasty tourists tend to congregate on main thoroughfares: Front Street in Lahaina on Maui is a popular one. There, tourists bobble along in the hot sun, working on their ‘tans.’ But later, they’ll be at pau hana (happy hour) rubbing aloe vera all over their burning skin. Skincare’s a hard lesson to learn for a tourist, but important nonetheless.

3. You pronounce it ‘high-low’ and the ‘like-like’ highway.

Hawaiian words are notoriously hard to pronounce, and Hilo (hee-low) and the Likelike (lee-kay-lee-kay) Highway are the least of your worries. Most people aren’t accustomed to all the vowels in the Hawaiian alphabet, but after time transplants learn how to pronounce the local kine slang. When tourists show up and butcher the local language, it’s painful, but funny.

I’ve heard a lot of people in the Puna District (an area of the Big Island, 30 miles south of Hilo) helplessly ask for directions to ‘High-low,’ clearly looking for ‘Hee-low.’ It’s an honest mistake on any novice’s part. Another common mispronunciation is the Hawaiian snack poke, which is diced, marinated ahi tuna salad. Pronounced ‘po-kay,’ people often pronounce it ‘po-kee,’ or worse, ‘poke,’ as in “I will poke you if you pronounce poke wrong.”

4. You still shop at the ABC Store.

Overpriced beverages, gimmicky aloha shirts, and chocolate-covered macadamia nuts? Not unless you’re a tourist. ABC Stores litter the tourist spots on all the islands. I think there are two within a one-block radius in Waikiki.

Once you’re shopping at Times Market, Foodland, or Safeway for your day-trip and grocery needs, you’re in.

5. You’re wearing anything other than Locals brand slippahs on your feet.

Locals in Hawaii have rough feet from continuously being immersed in salt water, walking over treacherous lava rock barefoot, and having their toes in the sand. Locals brand slippahs, purchased at Long’s Drug Store for $5.99, are all you need.

The best thing about Hawaii is a poor man and a rich man side by side are indiscernible. The poor man wears board shorts, a tank top, and beat-up Locals slippahs. The rich man wears board shorts, a tank top, and beat-up Locals slippahs. The tourist sticks out like a sore thumb: They’re wearing their ritzy, strappy sandals or loafers, have manicured toes, and yelp aloud when stepping on the hot sand.

And real locals will wear their Locals beyond their shelf life too, because everyone knows it takes a while to break in a good pair of shoes.

6. You still think “aloha” only has two meanings.

A word packed with so much significance, aloha has applications for all facets of life, not just in coming and going, and locals know the importance of “living aloha” on the islands. Many tourists believe aloha only means “hello” or “goodbye,” but it really signifies a way of life through unity and oneness with mankind and da ‘aina.

7. You haven’t made spam musubi part of your regular diet.

Perhaps the sweetest and most savory little snack you can get your hands on, spam musubi is a staple in any local Hawaiian’s diet. You can find these delicious little suckers everywhere: plate lunch joints, da beach, on the counter at the gas station, you name it. Spam musubi is a great snack any time of day, and it’s portable, too. They’re perfect for driving, alongside your saimin (noodle soup), dinner, you name it.

Tourists are apprehensive. They know what spam’s four letters stand for and still haven’t developed a taste for nori (seaweed). Tourists get skittish about refrigerating everything, and, more often than not, these sushi-inspired treats are saran-wrapped and sitting atop the counter for convenience. But once you get brave and go for that first sweet and savory bite of spam musubi, you’re hooked.

8. You honk instead of throwing shakas.

Nothing is more of a dead giveaway that you aren’t a Hawaiian local than honking in traffic. We try to keep it calm, cool, and collected here on da island, and honking a car horn is aggressive and obtrusive to our way of life.

I once heard someone honk in traffic in the sleepy surfer town of Paia on the North Shore of Maui. As with most small towns, people tend to cross the street when there’s a break in traffic, especially over a two-lane highway coming from the beach.

In retaliation to the blatant noise pollution by the obvious tourist honker, a peeved local shouted, “Go back to the mainland!” then threw a shaka out the window.

The post 8 signs you’re still a tourist in Hawaii appeared first on Matador Network.

The Saigon Kiss

Photo: Thanh Mai Bui Duy

Hanoi drivers in their sunglasses and facemasks ignore ambulances and fire trucks — they won’t even move for a man in a faded white tank top, in a wheelchair he ratchets down the turn lane, a boy with shuttered eyes draped across his lap. Kid’s got to be at least nine, nothing looks wrong except for that stillness, his baseball cap rocked back, eyes closed, legs over the side of the dull green chair. There’s no room on the sidewalk, never is, no sloped exits. A moat of trash. The man’s breath explodes as he pushes out of potholes, waits for lights amidst the motorbikes; facing forward, his shoulder-blades droop until they seem to rest upon his ribs.

In the winter with my gloves, coat, and helmet screen no one knows I’m foreign. A cop once pulled me over for the usual bribe, then blanched — when I took off my helmet red hair rained down, my face glowworm white. He tried to wave me on, but I stayed, pretended I didn’t know what was happening. What did I do wrong, officer?

I see the pair three times in two months, in Ba Ðình, Ðông Ða — regular neighborhoods. The third time, I’m idling next to him at a stoplight on Kim Mã, masked. His head reaches the chassis of my motorbike. That unconscious boy. In Hanoi, drivers unscrew their side mirrors because you’re not responsible for what’s behind or beside you.

I understand Confucianism best in miniature. Once a conversation starts I’m in a family of pronouns and cords pull tight. In the narrow market I buy only from the same four women every day. They ask about my husband, give me the right price, extra lychees too ripe to sell but still a gift. But all these millions in the streets, these strangers outside our alley — people to extort, gossip about, suspect.

If he were begging it’d be different, but he’s in the business sector, miles from the mini empires of folk art, dog tags, bottled water. He’s going somewhere. Does he recognize me, the other anomaly in the herd? Do we have a relationship?

The cop could have confiscated my bike if he’d asked for my license, since I didn’t have one. Instead I read his name tag, smiled, Hello, Mr. Bom, pretended I spoke no Vietnamese. He asked in English, covering his stained teeth with one hand, Where are you from? and How old are you? and Do you like Vietnam?

There are hundreds of us around the wheelchair. I could touch where the white strap of cloth darkens at the man’s armpit, could touch the drivers on three sides of me. I watch mufflers to make sure they don’t burn my bare calves tipped forward to hold up the bike. The light flashes, horns shriek, we call those scars the Saigon Kiss.

Originally published in Brevity and republished here with permission.

The post The Saigon Kiss appeared first on Matador Network.

29 dizzying pics from skyscrapers

In the 20th century, engineering and architectural techniques and resources became stronger and more sophisticated, and skyscrapers took off. For a solid 40 years, the undisputed “World’s Tallest Building” was Manhattan’s Empire State Building. That was shortly followed by the original World Trade Center and then Chicago’s Willis (Sears) Tower. But since the Willis Tower lost its spot in 1998 to Malaysia’s Petronas Towers, we’ve built a ton of crazy huge skyscrapers all over the world.

Asian and Middle Eastern countries like China and the United Arab Emirates seem to be firing back and forth, topping each other every few years. But right now, the title holder is the stupidly tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

The good news for those of us not footing construction bills is that often, workers will snap pictures while doing maintenance on the towers. Or maybe a journalist will seek a special permit to photograph the towers. Or maybe a daredevil (who, after researching this piece, I’ve discovered is most likely to be a young Russian man) will elude the building’s guards, climb all the way to the top with no safety gear, and take a pant-shittingly terrifying photo of the city that lies beneath. However the pictures are taken, here are some of the most dizzying, mind-blowingly awesome pictures we’ve been able to find from mankind’s tallest creations.

Burj Khalifa

The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the tallest skyscraper in the world and, at a height of 2,717 feet, is nearly 700 feet taller than the closest runner-up. This image is actually from Google Streetview.

(via)

Shanghai Tower

This picture, taken from atop the world’s second tallest building, was taken by Russian daredevils Vadim Makhorov and Vitaliy Raskalov, who climbed to the top.

(via)

Macau Tower

Taken from the Macau Tower bungee platform (after closing). It’s the second highest skyjump in the world.

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Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay

This photo was taken from one of the many skyscrapers in Hong Kong’s super-dense Causeway Bay by rooftopper Javin Lau.

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The Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco’s iconic and gorgeous Golden Gate Bridge is also the second most-used site for suicides in the world (behind Nanjing’s Yangtze River Bridge), and there are plans to put a net under the bridge to catch jumpers.

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Taipei 101

Taipei 101 was the world’s tallest building from 2004 until the Burj Khalifa was finished in 2010. In 2007, daredevil Felix Baumgartner (the guy who skydived from the stratosphere) BASE jumped off it.

(via)

See more like this: 21 examples of you-fall-you-die photography with the world's most insane skywalkers


Burj Khalifa

This photo, also from the top of the Burj Khalifa, was Instagrammed by National Geographic photographer Joe McNally.

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Princess Tower

Dubai claim to skyscraper fame isn’t just the Burj Khalifa, of course. Here’s a shot from near the top of Princess Tower, a 1,358ft residential building in the Dubai Marina.

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Burj Khalifa

Photographer Gerald Donovan did a full panoramic photo from the top of the Burj Khalifa. You can see an interactive version here.

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One World Trade Center

The tallest building in the United States, as of last year, is One World Trade Center in New York, standing at a very symbolic 1,776 feet tall.

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Downtown Chicago

Rooftop photographer Aurelie Curie looks down on the Windy City from above.

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Empire State Building

For nearly 40 years, the iconic Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world, until it was topped by its New York neighbor, the former World Trade Center.

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Abraj Al-Bait

AKA the Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower, the Abraj al-Bait is the world’s tallest clock tower, and the world’s third tallest building. It stands in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

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The Cologne Cathedral

This photo was taken by Vadim Makhorov and Vitaliy Raskalov at the Cologne Cathedral. While the cathedral isn’t super tall in comparison to many of these other structures — it’s only 516 feet high — this image is too incredible not to post.

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The Eiffel Tower

Another from Makhorov and Raskalov. Pretty much anyone can go to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Not everyone can do this.

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One World Trade Center

One World Trade Center replaced the towers that were destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and briefly caused a feud between Chicagoans and New Yorkers over which city had the taller building (and the better pizza). As with the Burj Khalifa, One World Trade Center has a fully interactive panoramic version as well, which you can check out at Time Magazine’s site.

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Sagrada Familia

Another image by Russian rooftoppers Makhorov and Raskalov. The Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona has been under construction for over a century.

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Moscow State University

This one is another that doesn’t rank particularly high in the global skyscraper charts, but it gets on the list because of the lengths free-climber and extreme selfie-taker Kirill Oreshkin went to get the picture.

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Downtown Toronto

Rooftopper Tom Ryaboi dangles his feet out over the roof of a skyscraper in Toronto.

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Downtown Toronto

Another Ryaboi stunner above the busy city streets of Toronto.

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Shanghai World Financial Center

The Shanghai World Financial Center is the sixth tallest building in the world, looks like a bottle opener, and sits right next to the second tallest building in the world — the Shanghai Tower.

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The International Commerce Center

This photo was taken inside the Sky100, a 360-degree observation deck on the 100th story of the International Commerce Center in Hong Kong. This is the seventh tallest skyscraper in the world and Hong Kong’s tallest, at 1,588 feet.

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The Cologne Cathedral

Another crazy shot from Vadim Makhorov and Vitaliy Raskalov at the Cologne Cathedral.

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The Willis Tower

Until One World Trade Center was finished, Willis Tower in Chicago (probably better known as the Sears Tower) was the tallest building in the United States. It was the world’s tallest building for 25 years, but is now ranked 11th. This picture is taken from its infamous glass balcony.

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Moscow Bridge

Enjoy the stomach-turning view from several hundred feet above the Dnieper River at the top of Kiev’s Moscow Bridge.

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The Petronas Towers

The Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur held the record for the world’s tallest building(s) from 1998 until displaced by Taipei 101 in 2004. Unfortunately for tourists, the observation deck is actually a bridge that only gets about halfway up the building. (via)

Al Hamra Tower

A BASE jumper gets ready to launch off of Kuwait City’s Al Hamra Tower, the tallest sculpted tower in the world. (via)

Manhattan Midtown East

Photographer Jason Pierce won’t say where one of his favorite Manhattan rooftops is.

(via)

The post 28 dizzying photos from the top of the world’s tallest skyscrapers appeared first on Matador Network.

Why procrastinators procrastinate

Photo: Reuben Stanton

pro-cras-ti-na-tion |prəˌkrastəˈnāSHən, prō-|

noun

the action of delaying or postponing something: your first tip is to avoid procrastination.

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT that after decades of struggle with procrastination, the dictionary, of all places, would hold the solution? Avoid procrastination. So elegant in its simplicity.

While we’re here, let’s make sure obese people avoid overeating, depressed people avoid apathy, and someone please tell beached whales that they should avoid being out of the ocean.

No, “avoid procrastination” is only good advice for fake procrastinators — those people that are like, “I totally go on Facebook a few times every day at work — I’m such a procrastinator!” The same people that will say to a real procrastinator something like, “Just don’t procrastinate and you’ll be fine.”

The thing that neither the dictionary nor fake procrastinators understand is that for a real procrastinator, procrastination isn’t optional — it’s something they don’t know how to not do.

In college, the sudden unbridled personal freedom was a disaster for me — I did nothing, ever, for any reason. The one exception was that I had to hand in papers from time to time. I would do those the night before, until I realized I could just do them through the night, and I did that until I realized I could actually start them in the early morning on the day they were due. This behavior reached caricature levels when I was unable to start writing my 90-page senior thesis until 72 hours before it was due, an experience that ended with me in the campus doctor’s office learning that lack of blood sugar was the reason my hands had gone numb and curled up against my will. (I did get the thesis in — no, it was not good.)

Even this post took much longer than it should have, because I spent a bunch of hours doing things like seeing this picture sitting on my desktop from a previous post, opening it, looking at it for a long time thinking about how easily he could beat me in a fight, then wondering if he could beat a tiger in a fight, then wondering who would win between a lion and a tiger, and then googling that and reading about it for a while (the tiger would win). I have problems.

To understand why procrastinators procrastinate so much, let’s start by understanding a non-procrastinator’s brain:

Pretty normal, right? Now, let’s look at a procrastinator’s brain:

Notice anything different? It seems the Rational Decision-Maker in the procrastinator’s brain is coexisting with a pet: the Instant Gratification Monkey.

This would be fine — cute, even — if the Rational Decision-Maker knew the first thing about how to own a monkey. But unfortunately, it wasn’t a part of his training and he’s left completely helpless as the monkey makes it impossible for him to do his job.

The fact is, the Instant Gratification Monkey is the last creature who should be in charge of decisions — he thinks only about the present, ignoring lessons from the past and disregarding the future altogether, and he concerns himself entirely with maximizing the ease and pleasure of the current moment. He doesn’t understand the Rational Decision-Maker any better than the Rational Decision-Maker understands him — why would we continue doing this jog, he thinks, when we could stop, which would feel better. Why would we practice that instrument when it’s not fun? Why would we ever use a computer for work when the internet is sitting right there waiting to be played with? He thinks humans are insane.

In the monkey world, he’s got it all figured out — if you eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired, and don’t do anything difficult, you’re a pretty successful monkey. The problem for the procrastinator is that he happens to live in the human world, making the Instant Gratification Monkey a highly unqualified navigator. Meanwhile, the Rational Decision-Maker, who was trained to make rational decisions, not to deal with competition over the controls, doesn’t know how to put up an effective fight — he just feels worse and worse about himself the more he fails and the more the suffering procrastinator whose head he’s in berates him.

It’s a mess. And with the monkey in charge, the procrastinator finds himself spending a lot of time in a place called the Dark Playground.

The Dark Playground is a place every procrastinator knows well. It’s a place where leisure activities happen at times when leisure activities are not supposed to be happening. The fun you have in the Dark Playground isn’t actually fun because it’s completely unearned and the air is filled with guilt, anxiety, self-hatred, and dread. Sometimes the Rational Decision-Maker puts his foot down and refuses to let you waste time doing normal leisure things, and since the Instant Gratification Monkey sure as hell isn’t gonna let you work, you find yourself in a bizarre purgatory of weird activities where everyone loses.

And the poor Rational Decision-Maker just mopes, trying to figure out how he let the human he’s supposed to be in charge of end up here again.

Given this predicament, how does the procrastinator ever manage to accomplish anything? As it turns out, there’s one thing that scares the shit out of the Instant Gratification Monkey:

The Panic Monster is dormant most of the time, but he suddenly wakes up when a deadline gets too close or when there’s danger of public embarrassment, a career disaster, or some other scary consequence.

The Instant Gratification Monkey, normally unshakable, is terrified of the Panic Monster. How else could you explain the same person who can’t write a paper’s introductory sentence over a two-week span suddenly having the ability to stay up all night, fighting exhaustion, and write eight pages? Why else would an extraordinarily lazy person begin a rigorous workout routine other than a Panic Monster freakout about becoming less attractive?

And these are the lucky procrastinators — there are some who don’t even respond to the Panic Monster, and in the most desperate moments they end up running up the tree with the monkey, entering a state of self-annihilating shutdown.

Quite a crowd we are.

Of course, this is no way to live. Even for the procrastinator who does manage to eventually get things done and remain a competent member of society, something has to change. Here are the main reasons why:

1. It’s unpleasant. Far too much of the procrastinator’s precious time is spent toiling in the Dark Playground, time that could have been spent enjoying satisfying, well-earned leisure if things had been done on a more logical schedule. And panic isn’t fun for anyone.

2. The procrastinator ultimately sells himself short. He ends up underachieving and fails to reach his potential, which eats away at him over time and fills him with regret and self-loathing.

3. The Have-To-Dos may happen, but not the Want-To-Dos. Even if the procrastinator is in the type of career where the Panic Monster is regularly present and he’s able to be fulfilled at work, the other things in life that are important to him — getting in shape, cooking elaborate meals, learning to play the guitar, writing a book, reading, or even making a bold career switch — never happen because the Panic Monster doesn’t usually get involved with those things. Undertakings like those expand our experiences, make our lives richer, and bring us a lot of happiness — and for most procrastinators, they get left in the dust.

So how can a procrastinator improve and become happier? See Part 2, How To Beat Procrastination.

This post was originally published at Wait but Why and is reprinted here with permission. Wait But Why posts every Tuesday. To receive Wait But Why posts via email, click here. 

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How to model a living economy

It’s no secret that our economy has become more and more reliant on throwaway goods — there’s a garbage patch in the Pacific that covers at least 270,000 square miles, so it’s pretty clear we’ve got a bit of an issue.

This video from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation asks what our economy might look like if we modeled it after natural processes instead. Since materials in the natural, living world are used and then absorbed back into the environment and reused, it’s a very sustainable system. So why don’t we try to do that with our economy? Rather than a linear economy — get the item, use it, throw it away — we could get to a point where all materials are recycled and re-utilized, thus ridding us of the problems that come with waste.

It’s not just an important idea, it’s an essential one, especially if we want to develop a sustainable future.

The post If we modeled our economy like this, it would solve many of our most pressing problems appeared first on Matador Network.

22 moments in a luxury hotel

1. When your friend invites you to stay at the most luxurious hotel in town

2. Which provides limousine services

3. And elevator concierge!

4. But the outrageously strong elevator smell is just way too much!

5. When you find out you have a personal butler and his job is to fulfill all your needs

6. But in an hour’s time you get fed up with them following your every step

7. When your check-in takes forever because you have a three-page pillow, linen, towel, meal, toiletry, and “everything else” preference menu to fill in

8. And you end up spending half an hour every night trying to get rid of all those extra pillows

9. When you realise your bathroom has 2 toilets, 2 sinks, a huge-ass antique bath, and is just as big as the studio flat you currently live in

10. But when you slip into that huge, oh-so-soft cotton robe, your bitterness suddenly fades away

11. When you realise you have an unlimited supply of cute, luxuriously packed and branded toiletries

12. And you wonder why there’s a telephone next to the toilet seat. Does anyone ever make calls while taking a dump? Maybe, if they run out of toilet paper.

13. When it takes forever to undo the fancy end-rolling on your toilet paper roll

14. When you find you have unlimited usage of a well-stocked minibar full of those cute little champagne bottles

15. When you find a piece of handmade chocolate left on your pillow every night

16. When you wish there was no dress code at the hotel bar

17. But when you finally see how amazing it is, you’re willing to pay 5x as much for a drink, just because!

18. When you can’t stop saying, “This is amazing” to everything you see in the hotel

19. When your buffet breakfast features things you’ve never even heard of

20. When the ladies at the table in front of you sipping soya lattes are clearly judging you for going for fourths

21. When you get a cute farewell souvenir to add that cherry on the top

22. Followed by thousands of emails asking for feedback on your stay

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