The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life)

by Chris Hardwick

The truth is, things have no innate value. If you say, “I want a million dollars,” it’s not the money you want but the feelings it will bring you.

To your brain, wanting a million dollars is meaningless. You have no emotional connection to that. Consider the following two options: 1. I want a million dollars! 2. I want a million dollars to save an orphanage!

You’re working toward that money for a cause that you care about, not just for the idea of possessing a thing or scratching something off your list. If you care enough about that cause, you’ll happily do whatever needs to be done to make it happen.

rich Caucs (I call white people “Caucs”)

Chris. You’re white.

“Every second you get through this makes you stronger.” I was tired of being afraid of everything and decided that I wanted to be a stronger person, and this made my life a septillion times better. This was my emotional connection. It got to the point where I almost kind of wanted the turbulence so my brain could flood itself with reward chemical.

…..bruh. (Again, something that could be twisted into victim-blaming far too easily.j

If I had written the program in BASIC, it would have looked like this: 10 STRESS ABOUT FLYING 20 GOTO 10 30 RUN

This is literally so pointless it’s just “oh btw I know a tiny bit about BASIC.” At least *sometimes* the nerd jokes actually clarify his point or improve the metaphor. Who edited this/allowed this book in this state?

Slightly uncomfortable is GOOD. Seek out the unfamiliar and the uncomfortable. I don’t mean to seek out misery. It’s more akin to that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you went to your first school dance or the first time you picked up a game you’d never played before.

If you’re a gamer, you don’t just play the same game all the time forever. You play, you master, and you seek out new titles to repeat the pattern. (Obviously networked gaming and MMOs offer constant change and challenge, so don’t throw Halo or WoW at me to try to discount this idea.)

Write down five new things you could try. Build a mannequin replica of yourself so you can chestbump it.

What.

I knew a girl who had developed such an insurmountable fear of snakes that you had to refer to them as “S’s”

negative information GREATLY empowers the giver and makes them feel important. Why? Because we listen. It affects us. Also it’s rude to respond to someone who’s just told you about something terrible in the following manner:

This is what the news media has become. Something that tells us daily that our cat has AIDS. Or that murders are up. Or that a common household item could possibly kill you. Bad news always gets more weight.

Sunshine is boring to us.

We are exactly like those young girls but with news instead of jerkwads: The more awful it is, the more we want to get it inside us.

Literally so disgusting. Girls don’t actually like “bad boys” as much as media acts like they do, and “nice guys” who go over the top can still be unlikeable.

WE GET IT. THERE’S AN ECONOMIC CRISIS. WE’RE IN A DEPRESSION. They even went as far as to inform us, “Hey, remember 2007? We didn’t know it then, but that was a depression, too!” just to make sure that any recent memories were also charred in the magma of despondency. WAR, DEATH, NATURAL DISASTERS: the manna of the media.

You don’t have to go on some kind of doe-eyed Pollyanna bender; just start out by taking five minutes a day to find something about the world to feel good and/or hopeful about.

I googled “happy” and found HappyNews.com, a site devoted solely to positive news stories (but if you Google “good news” you may accidentally enroll in Bible college).

I’m normally one of those cynical comedian types.

WE CAN TELL

Read good news. Hug a flower. Look at a puppy. Doesn’t matter. Just create a space in your soul for hope.

How could she not see what a piece of shit that guy is??? She’s choosing to notice different things.

start to open the drapes in your brain and let some light in.

If I said to you, “Hey! Wingtips!” you would start to notice wingtip shoes everywhere and wonder if they were always there or if they coincidentally just started popping up. (I would then ask you why you lived in a 1930s gangster movie where wingtips are so plentiful.)

if the media started reporting that the economy was turning around, people would start to unconsciously make it happen. Tensions would relax and consumer confidence would begin to increase because they would start to look for reasons to do so. I’m not advocating living in denial, but I am saying that there must be SOME good stuff happening. Why can’t we throw some focus on that? It would CERTAINLY help put us back on the right path.

Don’t be a pawn for the darkness.

Every year on my birthday I start a new playlist titled after my current age so I can keep track of my favorite songs of the year as a sort of musical diary

I’ve done this for calendar years but not for ages - I also like making playlists for months or seasons.

If you don’t feel the nagging tag of addiction, telling you to partake of substances that you know in your higher brain are bad for you, then skip this part! I

addiction can cover a wide variety of flavors encompassing food, drugs, the Internet, drama—whatever.

I believe that because the Nerd is not being sated in the external social world, he or she is forced to turn inward.

(yes, some folks are hopelessly addicted to creating drama),

Nerds LOVE control. They crave it. Eating a shitload is a form of control over your body. Video games are chance to control a universe. Never striving for better in life is a way to control your outcomes: If you don’t try, you can’t be rejected.

If a dog begs and begs and begs at your table, sooner or later you might just give him a bit of steak to shut him up.

Now, many people from the Program will balk at this. I have a friend who occasionally will ask me, “You still not going to meetings?” to which I always say, “Naw, they’re not my cup o’ tea,”

I wonder if maybe some people get addicted to AA or other groups that provide structure - this is why cults are so effective, they provide framework for your life without you having to build it yourself.

I’ve seen so many people who quit doing whatever it is that they do, and think that’s going to solve their problem. Quitting only provides the clarity to discover and then start solving the problem.

people who don’t have the drinking gene don’t think about drinking in quantifiable terms.

I can’t say what it’s like for drugs, but with alcohol I always managed to find a way to weave it into every activity.

my bestest fwend in the whole world, Mike Phirman, said, “Hey! I’ll not drink too if that helps!” My mom cried when I told her that.

awwww

I couldn’t fathom how that was even possible, but those lucky dorks without the alcohol gene can just take it or leave it.

you can get used to rejection, so much so that it feels alien when something goes right. And if a BUNCH of things go right, you might have a freak-out.

To the Universe, positive and negative values only matter when referring to particle charge, not human events.”

It’s foolish to think we exist here to toil in misery.”

“The right thing to do is to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Honor your work as if it were a person you respected.”

1. You don’t think you deserve nice things. 2. You’re addicted to despair. 3. You’re Catholic.

you are just experiencing growing pains.

“Better” often feels “new” and new situations are like jeans: They can sometimes take a little bit of time before they start to fit right.

When you do begin to achieve success, who do you want to be? The act of succeeding itself will not make you happy forever. Don’t think it’s going to suddenly make everything rosy. It is a good thing but it’s not a magic spackle for your problems. You come out of success with the same emotional baggage you had going into it. If you’re unhappy in life, work on that separately.

We (myself included) seem to live in a constant state of “If I just had X, things would be RAD.” We tend to live in a constant pursuit of happiness, as defined by exterior goods or circumstances.

Steal moments of happiness if you have to, and then collect them until they are the dominant images in your psyche.

Some Nerds are timid when it comes to anger and confrontation. Others have itchy rage triggers because they have spent their lives fighting upstream socially and therefore have some control issues.

it’s part of how they define themselves, so sometimes we come from a place of “everyone is stupid but me.”