Tuesday, April 28, 2015

How to Create a Better World for Yourself

I am only going to answer your question by giving you this information since you've asked. Doing so otherwise would conflict/undermine it's meaning and become an irony/contradictory in itself.

The best and more stable way to move to any dimension is utilizing 'time' and it is done so gradually not suddenly, otherwise you will quickly fall back into the old paradigm/reality/dimension. You can gradually and more permanently manifest physical or non physical dimensional realms utilizing both law of attraction and other methods listed below.. They may work best/faster in combination. But it will only work for you if you are determined and follow this advice, I am replying here to assist you in showing this path and providing you with an anchor point since I now partook the role as a wayshower to you; the seeker of your destiny.
  1. The first thing you must do before you can move on and let go is accept responsibility for the now reality/dimension you experience. Even though you don't realize it, up until this point most of your experiences were a result of an auto-pilot program (your protein based DNA software) that allowed you to experience results from learning by observing it's actions, much like your breathing, done subconsciously/instinctively and in rhythm based on an ever changing code. Having read and understood that, you can now control your choices in your reality and what you choose to proportionally experience next. Similar to someone telling you that you can now breathe manually. You not only become consciously aware that you are and can resume breathing manually if you choose to, you can also take control over it and thus responsibility. By accepting this responsibility you cease having the ability to or blaming someone else holding the control of your next multidimensional realm/experiences, you also become capable to take control. Your body offers you certain experiences with unique senses, it is also a tool for spiritual learning and gradual adjustment towards other realms after you shed it. When you are young you have less conscious control of it and your actions, as you get older this changes and you become more responsible for the choices you make including what you choose to put into it.
  2. Forgive, love and accept all unconditionally. This act implies letting go of the conflicting reality you currently hold on to consciously or subconsciously. By understanding certain aspects typed here to assist you to letting go then unconditionally/equally loving and accepting everyone and everything, you are letting go of that your previous law of attraction/beliefs/manifestation that led you to experience unwanted realm whether done consciously or subconsciously, you also open yourself up to new and more loving subjective alternate realities/experiences that can sum up to gradually becoming a whole new heavenly realm of experience that you may assume is vastly different from you current one. By 'accepting all' you allow others to experience their ideal heaven too even if it involves 'drama' in their lives. There are beings who wish to experience it and to you it may seem like an issue but in fact what they choose for themselves is proportional to what you choose for yourself, taking it away from them and their choices will also deny you of your will. The definition of evil can be anything that denies another being to choose for themselves what they wish to experience. That is.. unless you may choose to experience it yourself too and become a willing victim. Karma is the matrix of opportunities and it spans across multidimensional space and time both within and the observable without. Doing evil in one lifetime/reality and trying to get away with it may offer you a chance to experience the end of it's proportionally stretched out stick in another, because what you do to others you do directly to yourself. Forgiveness is the act of accepting the current outcome of your negative karma and only then moving on to what you do want to experience next along with its own outcome. Expressing gratitude is being thankful for those who assisted you to play out your role regardless of the outcome, because in the end you take lessons from it and grow/evolve/move on.
  3. Be the change you wish to see in this world. The world/dimension you experience now is a reflection of your beliefs and your choices. If you want a cleaner environment then you can achieve it by contributing to it. You can catch yourself seeking media where people are not genuinely nice to each other and have some form of social/racial/gender issues. Each time you pull up a drama feed, ie: violent or conflicting movies/videos/games/news stories. You experience that reality whether you are aware it is fiction or not, your subjectively oriented mind adapts that reality to observe it. In other words you are attracted to that which creates your experience/reality. If you change your target of attraction you thus change your experience/reality. If you take careful observation of your thoughts and find the source of the negative ones you will then have the choice to change it's course too. So?, are you ready to take the leap? Your faith in this awaits or you may choose doubt and resume as usual. Keep in mind, all dimensional potentialities are realities in actuality. The observer is both the creator and the created, of himself from within himself. If you read this far, you've become awakened/initiated into partaking the role of responsibility for yourself and your life's choices and thus the results you've contributed to so far.
That is all. The rest is up to your will to change and contribution to your cause. Remember from the movie "Matrix", a line that goes something like: "I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it". You now have the keys to this door. Whether you choose to unlock and step through it, is up to you.

SOURCE

Friday, April 24, 2015

How to Achieve Your Goals

Do you obsessively want to accomplish your goals?

Nothing I will write now negates what you've learned about goals before. Yes, they are essential to accomplishment. Yes, there are better ways to formulate goals. There is no lack of content discussing the strategy of goal setting and so I can only assume you have taken your need of goals quite seriously.

But there is one crucial aspect on the topic of goals--crucial--vital--required--if you are not an accomplished person today but want to be tomorrow…

And that is writing down your goals. every. single. day.

Why?

Here's what happens when you write down goals once or twice per year:
  • You get distracted.
  • Other things falsely present themselves as more urgent, wasting away the time (the one thing you don't have a lot of).
  • And worse of all, you don't get obsessed over your goals if you forget about them.
Obsession is what is required to accomplish what you want out of life--because it takes a tremendous amount of energy to change. Name someone who you respect and admire, who has accomplished greatness. They did so because of obsession. And obsession is a brain requirement.

Your brain must be constantly synoptically wiring itself, constantly problem solving, constantly focusing on what it wants. When your brain automatically wants what it wants like one automatically wants to breath--because of necessity to survive--it will attain that thing eventually no matter how stupid, poor, fat, short, or far away from your goals you think you are.

Success doesn't come in a box, and you can not walk towards success in a straight line. Success comes from being obsessed with getting out of your trap, like a man in a straight jacket.

You do know why you aren't successful, right? It's not because you don't have the correct information. Information is free brothers and sisters! It's on the net. It's in the cloud. Information is air.

The reasons you aren't successful are because you're too nice. You aren't successful because you don't know how to sell, influence, persuade. You aren't successful because you don't know how to commit your brain to the activity and practices that build you into a monster.

It has nothing to do with information in raw form. It has to do with practice. But you are trapped in a straight jacket. How do you get out?

Wiggle yourself out--every day, over and over, focusing only on getting out. And whether you're with friends you don't really care about, driving in a car that actually doesn't reflect your value as a human being, or watching a TV show that truly only exists to trap you in front of the TV long enough to show you 10 minutes of commercial air time for every 20 minutes of entertainment--whenever there is a break in the conversation, 2 minutes at a car light, or you finally get away from the TV, your brain will revert to whatever it is obsessed with. Your brain will be in conversation with your goals.

You will absorb new things. And what you don't know that constrains you will reveal itself clearly, in due time, and you will go after that thing in obsession of knocking down more walls--the walls blocking access to what makes life worth living to you--until you reach your goals.

Not reaching your goals is a pain you must feel--daily.

Here's some odd news: you are not a Person. What you think of as the person in your body is merely a conscious loop function. You are a self-illusion and that illusion was given a name. Truly, deep, deep inside you, you are a simple organism in a sensory experience that avoids pain and seeks pleasure. Everything else is merely complication wrapped around and atop that simple you, in layers of evolutionary complexity--which is good because bacteria can't walk to Starbucks or drive a Taurus. But that simple part inside you, that shares function with everything else that is living, is what must be in pursuit of those goals at all times--obsessively.

Think of it as multitasking: while the rest of you is showering, walking, talking, eating, your core function is living in obsession of your goals. You have to be crazy, even if its your own little secret.

So, focus on your goals repeatedly--daily.

You'll notice that I keep repeating my point. Does it annoy you? Good, because you remember what annoys you. It is painful. It is wiring itself into you. Write down 3-4 goals daily--daily--daily.

Write them down when you wake up and get a moment. Write them down before bed. At least write them down once per day, off the top of your head.

If I wake you up from a deep sleep you should be able to automatically recite your goals as soon as I ask, soldier. Your goals should be expressed daily from the depths of your programming.

Surface level dedication is not obsession. Nobody wins a first prize race doing a practice run only twice a year.

Do this. Otherwise, you don't deserve to reach your goals. The unobsessed human gets nothing out of life worth living for. They die mediocre, unremembered, and probably taken advantage of.

Write your goals down. Repeatedly. Daily. Daily.

TL;DR: Write your goals down daily. Daily. Daily. Its the life hack to end all life hacks.

To clarify, a goal is usually long term (eg. Lose 60 lbs). It's an objective, a place of satisfaction. On the other hand, a task is an event, usually short term, that put together with other tasks, accomplishes that goal (eg. Read about Ketogenic diet). So by obsessing about your goals, like losing 60 lbs, and writing that down every single day, your brain will begin to look at the task of reading about ketogenic diet as a rewarding task. Otherwise, you'll procrastinate. You will go months and months without losing weight because your brain just isn't rewarded with any tasks that doesn't lead to goals being accomplished. The trick is becoming obsessed with the goal. Obsession.

Also, writing your goals down daily is a confrontation with yourself, and so you'll see the language you use, and even the goal itself, shift and improve. All of a sudden, you will feel like something is carving itself into you, making room, looking forward to the goal being accomplished. Then all of a sudden you'll find yourself actually working on the tasks you used to procrastinate, or maybe the things you used to procrastinate on have revealed themselves to be part of a false goal. Many things have to shift, between task and goals. Writing them down daily is a simple discipline that makes the difference of finding yourself in a short time vs never finding yourself at all and just living in a bad loop.

SOURCE

Thursday, April 23, 2015

How to use Vim

Vim is a disease. I know this, for I suffer from it. It is a mind-altering ailment that permanently rewrites your concept of text editing, preventing you from ever thinking in the way you used to. When you're infected with Vim, all other modes of editing text become deeply unsatisfactory to you. Other editors will look like tricycles to you. Even worse, you will find endless frustration in being unable to explain Vim to someone that isn't already infected themselves.

I'm a dev team leader, and I do not push Vim on my junior members, for that should be criminalized. Two things can happen when you try to learn Vim: either you fail to master it, in which case it was wasted time, or you succeed, in which case you can never go back, even if you want to.

So, what is so infectious about Vim?

1. Modal editing. Most editors are in a perpetual "if you start typing now, what you type will appear on the screen" mode. This is "insert" mode in Vim, and it is not the default mode. Vim users will switch in and out of this mode to type. But the rest of the time, they are in other modes, usually one called "normal" mode.

What is normal mode? When in normal mode, letters you type will not be text entered on the screen, but rather they are commands. It's like your entire keyboard has become a command panel for manipulating the text in many complex ways, rather than editing the text character-by-character.

Lest you think normal mode is something that just gets used here and there: Vim users will spend most of their time in normal mode. They will enter insert mode to type text, and then immediately exit insert mode. It's that fundamental to the Vim experience.

Visual and Visual Block mode also exist for selecting areas of text in order to perform actions upon them.

2. Text objects and editing commands. Normal mode wouldn't make much sense on its own, if the act of editing text was a character-by-character action like it usually is. One of the core things about Vim is that the single character ceases to be the only fundamental object in text editing. Vim elevates words, sentences, lines and paragraphs into first-class objects.

Text objects are important because the facilitate actions being performed upon them.

Part of why Vim is hard to explain is that any single editing command is usually not all that impressive upon its own. If I have the text:
"something in quotes"
... and I want to replace what's inside quotes, I can use the editing command ci" (mnemonic: "change inside quote"), which will wipe out the text inside that quote, and put me into Insert mode to type new text.

By itself, that's not very impressive. Sure, it's faster than using the mouse to highlight the text and hit the Delete key, but it's not that much faster. What you have to understand is:

1) everything becomes a fast, streamlined text edit command like this. This is a tiny example, and here's some more small examples but every common edit action you'd take can be boiled down into a snappy command like this, and...

2) the edit actions can become very complex. An individual command, like the one I demonstrated, is a tiny thing. But these commands are meant to be composed together into much bigger operations. Much like how programming itself can take complicated manual tasks and turn them into simple repeatable routines, complicated manual editing tasks can be turned into simple repeatable Vim actions.

Why this is useful is hard to explain. It's kind of one of those "nobody can be told what the Matrix is" sorts of things. You don't really get it until you fully experience it yourself. Vim users often describe the act of editing text in Vim as feeling like you're programming text, rather than just editing it.

3. UNIX is your IDE. If you are using Vim in a GUI window, I would argue that you're only half using Vim. Vim is really the editor part of an IDE, and that IDE is the UNIX base system. It is a tool you use in conjunction with UNIX utilities in order to manipulate text. You can pipe a buffer of text into a UNIX tool, and have the transformed text returned to your buffer. This isn't just possible, it is idiomatic. Likewise, your "project browser" is your UNIX shell itself. Particularly when paired with a terminal multiplexer like tmux, Vim and UNIX make for a complete, portable, language-agnostic development environment.

4. Vim springs eternal. As I said in another comment: Vim was here before your IDE. Vim will be here after your IDE is long gone. Vim will outlast your job, your career, your marriage, your life.

Learning Vim means you learn an environment that you can (and, once the disease sets in, will) use for the rest of your career. Long after everything else you know has gone to dust, Vim will be there. Some version of Vim will be running on whatever computer triggers armageddon.

5. Vim is composable. Vim is far from the only editor with plugins. But while most editors have a larger "out of the box" footprint and a smaller amount to which they can be configured and overridden, core Vim is a very small, tight package, upon which you build the editing environment you want with a very deep and powerful level of customization. Vim is a core around which you build your personal editor.

6. Vim operates at the speed of thought. People talk about Vim saving keystrokes and mockingly comment on how that will add up to entire seconds of time saved. It is correct that the value of efficient editing is not best measured in time saved. But what should be familiar to programmers is reducing the interruption of thought. We programmers have plenty of rants and comics about the pain of even brief interruptions of our thought processes. Well, what you don't realize until fully down the Vim rabbit hole is how you are putting up with thought-interrupting manual editing actions that become streamlined into oblivion in a Vim environment (and thus, those tasks you didn't think twice about before are completely intolerable to you now).

7. Even more crazy stuff than I know. I'm still falling down the hole. Years into my fall, I am still finding Vim features which are entirely new to me, which further impact my ability to manipulate a text buffer in new and efficient ways. If it's conceivable, someone has probably already thought of it and made it possible in Vim. Much like Zombo.com, the limit is your own imagination.

TL;DR #2: Look, I said to stay away. It's a bit like Operation: Mindcrime. Don't ever trust the Vim needle, it lies.

SOURCE

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

How to Stop Drinking/Using

We start feeling bad so we medicate it with alcohol, drugs, sex, anger, etc. and then we feel shameful because we know we did something that we shouldn't have done. So now you have the original feelings you were trying to drown out and cover up early plus the added feeling of shame for drinking/using again. So, now we medicate the shame with more drinking and/or using and the cycle continues.

The cycle not only continues, but it grows stronger and stronger until we're driven to the brink of complete hopelessness and depression. In order to get sober we have to break that cycle which is simple, but not necessarily easy.

It's simple because there's a ton of things we can do constructively that can pull us out of that shame based thinking, Reaching out to somebody, journaling, meditating, prayer (if that's your thing), going to a support group/12 step meeting, exercising and making a gratitude list are just a few of the ways you can do that But unfortunately for us alcoholics/addicts, those things are the absolute last things one earth that we want to do when we're in that shame based thinking.

So how do you change that?

Well the truth is you simply have to force yourself to do it. You have to force yourself to reach out and ask for help even when your ego will tell you that you don't need to. When going to a meeting/support group is the absolute last thing on Earth that you want to do, you force yourself to go because chances are that's exactly where you need to be at that moment.

The good news is that our brains are adaptive so the more you do those things that pull you out of the shame cycle, the easier they get. I don't know much of anything about the brain and how it works but I've heard people talk about making new neural pathways. I'm a very visual person so I imagine it like my brain has different solutions for different situations that I'm in.

Before I was in recovery my brain pretty much had 1 solution to deal with stressful situations and that was to go drink and/or use. So I think of it like back then my brain had this path between when I felt stress and telling me to drink/use. The path was wide open and surging with electrical activity with absolutely nothing in it's path to stop it. The more I used the more I imagined the road getting wider and more open, like a wide open freeway.

So once I got into recovery, I would feel stress and force myself to do something else like writing for example (which is a huge one for me). I pictured my brain having a very hard time taking the path of writing over the path of drinking and/or using because it was like trying to crawl through a narrow, rocky canyon versus taking the large open lane highway. But, over time the canyon got wider the more it was traveled and it became easier for my brain to accept writing as an acceptable alternative to drinking/using. Now it may not be the wide open highway that drinking/using was for me but it's getting there and it gets wider and easier to travel every time I feel anxiety and respond by journaling.

I don't know if that makes any sense and by no means is it an accurate representation of what's actually happening in the brain, but it's definitely a visual that has helped me in my recovery. I also try to remind myself that the old highway to drinking/using isn't gone, it's still there, as wide as it once was with its abandoned roads. I try to remember that because I truly believe that the minute I go back to drinking and or using, I'll open that highway right back up and be right back where I started.
Anyway, sorry for the wall of text, I sincerely hope you find sobriety and the peace and serenity that can accompany it.

SOURCE

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Always Wear Your Seat Belt on Airplanes

I'm a pilot for a living. I never take my seat belt off in flight unless I'm getting up for a very specific reason. Do you know how much energy is wrapped up in the airplane at those kinds of speeds? There have been people that have been straight up killed because they hit clear air turbulence in flight. Even if you don't get killed it could ruin your day.

Seriously, you really want to wear your seat belt, and wear it properly. I've been in turbulence in little airplanes so bad that I thought the wings were going to come off. I've been thrown to 135° of bank in light aircraft. Hell, just commuting to work at my old job in Juneau once I saw turbulence so bad the FAs never got out of their seat on the flight and all the masks fell while we were on approach.

Egregious turbulence is pretty uncommon up in the flight levels where the airlines usually cruise, but you never know what could happen. You know how much your ass gets kicked if you hit a speed-bump in your car going too fast? Imagine hitting that same speed-bump at 80% the speed of sound.

Seriously, wear your seat belt. Not only is safe, but it's more polite than the alternative. Do you know how much paperwork there is if you get killed because you didn't wear your seat belt? The NTSB would be getting involved, There'd be a massive investigation by the FAA to see if any procedure wasn't followed - not to mention the lawsuits.

If you get killed for not wearing your seat belt, you traumatize the people next to you and vastly inconvenience a whole host of other people.

Don't be a dick, wear your seat belt.

SOURCE

Monday, April 20, 2015

What to take Photos of

If at an event or on vacation, take pictures for 30 seconds and then put your phone/camera away. Don't allow your photography time to exceed 1% of your in-the-moment time. You don't need photos of your kids playing every 5 minutes. Take one or two good photos and then enjoy the moment.

If you're going to take a photo, only do so if the moment is so unique that it has never been captured before, is worth sharing, and it would otherwise be lost. If it can be found on Google image search, there's no reason to take the photo. Taking photos of static subjects (paintings, statues, animals at the zoo acting normal, etc.) is pointless. If you really want your own photo of a "thing" that much, make it a selfie, or put someone you care about in the frame.

Never film something like a fireworks display or concert, especially when that event is being professionally filmed and broadcasted. You will never ever watch that footage and neither will anyone else.

Always try to include a person that you care about in the frame. When I watched the home movies my father shot, all I wanted to see was myself and my family. Most of the footage of our visit to Disneyland is just footage of the rides. The rides are still around. Five year old me is gone. Capture photos of loved ones reacting to things, don't capture photos of the things themselves. Capturing the expressions on people's faces is how you capture a moment.

SOURCE

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

How to Become a Morning Person

First, having a routine to prep for bed is good. I usually stop with any electronics and have a cup of tea. I didn't even like tea when I started, which actually kind of made it good to pair with a new habit since I didn't have any old habits associated with it.

Try and go to bed around the same time every night. The first times, you'll be like "I'm not tired though" and may even end up laying in bed for hours on end bored out of your mind and unable to sleep. There was many a night that I just laid there unable to sleep and would realize it's 2 am and I've been doing nothing since 10. That's ok! Your body will eventually get with the program. Don't give in and do other things to try and fall asleep. That's only keeping your brain more active. And if you say "but it helps me fall asleep," then start doing that earlier as part of your bed time routine.

The next parts gonna sound weird. So you're on board with the early bed time and you're able to fall asleep. Here comes the morning and even though you got your full 8 hours, you still find yourself hitting the snooze button. I would argue the answer is that it's a habit at this point. So, you need to make getting out of bed as automatic as hitting the snooze.

Enter some classical conditioning. During the day when I was not actually sleeping, I got into bed and pretended to be asleep for two minutes. I set my normal alarm to go off and when it did, I immediately turned it off, stood up and walked to the bathroom (the first step in my morning routine). I did this not once, but like 5 times back to back. And I did it a couple of different days too. A little countdown is also a trick I used (I'd think to myself, "getting out of bed in 3, 2, 1). Making it a habit to use a countdown on something I knew I'd actually follow through with makes the countdown more effective. I rarely can even sleep past 8am these days even if I stay up way too late.

Finally, how to not feel groggy. I personally started waking up at 5 so I'd have time to go for a jog because otherwise I'd dread having to exercise all day and make excuses not to. And exercise is also just a fantastic way to wake yourself up. Better than coffee. It sucks, but it takes discipline.

Discipline is what keeps you going when motivation gives out. This small change in my daily schedule got me working out consistently and I managed to lose over 40lbs with little to no dietary changes. Once I started improving my health in other ways, I got down to almost 100lbs less than my starting weight. And getting a consistent sleep schedule was a huge factor in improving my overall health.

You are the habits you keep. It takes a week or two for this to really work. Stick with it and you will see results. If it's not working for you, well then I'd say you didn't stick with it long enough.

SOURCE

How to Talk to Women

Here's the problem, the people who are great with having a conversation with new people are able to talk to them in an uninhibited and open way, like you do with you friends, and indeed the person they speak to feels as if they're talking to someone they already know! WHY? It's NOT because of content, it's about getting on that same wavelength.

So if you're thinking about CONTENT you're focusing on the wrong thing already. This is not an intellectual pursuit, it's an EMOTIONAL one. CONTENT DOESN'T MATTER.

I called it getting on the same wavelength, other people call it breaking the ice, getting in the right mood or vibing, all those are the same things. In fact you even have to do this with your friends. Why do jokes get funnier as the night progresses as compared to when you JUST meet?

Here are the beliefs you go in with:
  1. I am a guy, and I find this girl attractive. DO NOT compromise or apologize for this in exchange for easier conversation. (this is how people friendzone themselves) You don't have to verbalize it, but even holding this belief unapologetically will dial in your voice and eye contact to telegraph interest in the right way (which is attractive in itself!)
  2. My thoughts and views are interesting and valuable because they are MINE. If YOU care about something, that is good enough! She will enjoy it, trust me!! Even if it's something YOU THOUGHT was funny that happened in your day. E.g. I was at the gap today and I was like holy shit why is everything so cheap?? Turns out I was in the kids section (true story).
  3. ASSUME RAPPORT The problem with asking questions is that THAT"S NOT HOW YOU TALK TO PEOPLE YOU'RE COOL WITH!! So just ACT like would with your friends (tips on how to do this in the tips section below). You can say things and be excited like you would with your friend who you haven't seen in a long time DUDE you HAVE to come!!! It'll be SO MUCH FUN!!! It doesn't matter if you just met! An analogue to this is when you meet your friend but you've been DYING to tell him something, so in your head you've been talking to him already and then when you meet you're like DUDE, and the convo is ON RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING? That's because you assumed rapport from the GET GO, instead of going through so "what's been up?"
Bonus 4: I trust myself
You are a good guy, you care about others having a good time, TRUST YOURSELF and you faculties. Don't worry, or scramble to think about what to say, you make good decisions when you're not micromanaged by your brain.

Now some EMOTIONAL kickstart tips

The first thing you need to realize is that typically what people do is that they will let the girl dictate their feelings. So they will throw things to try to get a positive emotion from a girl and THEN feel good, THEN try to reflect it back on the girl (or they just get drunk).

You don't need that. BE the warmth, get yourself in a good mood, joke around with yourself. I have a great time just by myself (dancing in the changing room, for example) so when I do interact with someone THE PARTY IS ALREADY HOT!! EVERYONE'S INVITED!! CHOO CHOO!! i forgot to mention it's a party train!

TIP 1. Get yourself in the mood you want the girl to be in. So it'll be FUN > RELAX> and then you transition into romance and if you do it naturally within you, she will naturally follow.

TIP 2. Don't ask questions, make statements. Even if they throw her off. You are trying to ELEVATE the mood above interview mode, so you can say "You didn't grow up around here, huh, you're too city for us country folk" rather than "Oh where did you grow up?"

TIP 3. Make fun of her. This is called flirting. (don't be mean). You can also make fun of yourself. E.g. Random girl while waiting in line: for some reason we're talking about Disney movies

ME: Ok what's the best [Disney movie]? Don't say Frozen.

Her: Cinderella!!

ME: Lol of course trust the blonde girl to pick Cinderella! Aladdin was the best by far!

Her: LOL! Trust the brown guy to pick Aladdin!!

TIP 4. MOST IMPORTANTLY do anything if YOU find it fun YOURSELF, that's what makes everything natural and smooth. This is what the perennial BS advice "just be yourself" is trying to say.


Few more tips:

How to get a number

"hey what's your number? (hand her your phone) let's hang out"

"We're goong to X this week, you HAVE TO HAVE TO COME! Gimme your number, here (hand phone)"

There's NO REASON to be like UM do you mind if I get your number? or Oh is it okay if I get your number?? OF COURSE IT IS!

I disagree with a lot of this "oh make sure you ask her questions," or "make sure you don't end up talking only about yourself," etc. The problem is that advice is given with someone in mind who would NEVER ASK THIS QUESTION YOU JUST ASKED. TRUST ME you'll be fine. You can talk about yourself all you want, DO NOT MICROMANAGE YOURSELF!

YOU KNOW what feels right. Do you worry about talking too much about yourself with your friends?? Just do what you enjoy!

EDIT: Just to add one more VERY IMPORTANT TIP:

DON'T JUDGE YOURSELF!

Yo! Maybe you're off today? Who cares, DON'T FORCE IT! DON'T ADMONISH YOURSELF.
Oops! maybe that was stupid, oops! maybe i shouldn't have said that. DOESN'T MATTER. Imagine you HAD to go off into a battlefield and you took this whiny guy who keeps reminding you "hey man what if we get shot?" "Hey man you know its really dangerous here" "no man I can't go on just carry me please" THAT GUY WILL GET YOU BOTH SHOT. Maybe everything he says is true, but he's not telling you anything new, and at this point he is dead weight, cut him loose.

SOURCE

What is Post Post Modernism

PostPoMo (Post-Postmodernism), from what I've gathered, is an ongoing discussion, more artistic than academic, about how to approach and examine our world in the absence of:
  • Grand utopian narratives of how society should be (such as communism, democracy, religion, etc.)
  • Feelings of deeply held sincerity/trust in oneself or one's ideals
  • Objective Truth (this one, in my mind, is indistinguishable from the absence of grand narratives, but I'll include it for completeness)
PostPoMo thinkers believe that Postmodernism, in its aggressive critique and deconstruction of society, effectively dismantled human idealism along with it. Postmodernism was a reaction to the shock of the 20th century (The World Wars, post-war cynicism, Cold War, rapid changes in society and culture) and the warring narratives of human progress which marked it, and basically asked: does anyone really have the answers? And is there any objective moral/philosophical/political truth in this world? The answer was no. PostPoMo thus responds: how do we handle that answer?
The two main reactions I've seen that dominate current PostPoMo discourse are Metamodernism and New Sincerity.
it concerns embracing the contradictions that are more or less inevitable, while still striving for something genuine and hopeful.
Metamodernism is the process by which one strives for that genuineness. That leaves New Sincerity. New Sincerity is about embracing a sense of renewed sentimentality, hope and enthusiasm in artistic works, and resisting the Postmodern tendency toward cynicism and bleak irony.
The main difference between New Sincerity and Metamodernism lies in focus.
  • Metamodernism is a search for the most correct out of many possible ways of being, which tends to manifest itself now as being more focused on the most sincere or hopeful way as a reaction to the perceived bleakness of our current times. I believe that as Metamodernism grows, it will grow to include celebrations of other ways.
  • New Sincerity is solely about finding that sincere hopefulness, wherever it can be found in and of itself, without necessarily celebrating it as a way of being, but a way to be.
Other modes of PostPoMo thinking exist beyond Metamodernism and New Sincerity (you can find many of them in the sidebar), but those are the two I feel come up most in both this subreddit and what few PostPoMo "analyses" of popular works tend to work with. Ultimately, many of us are looking for those sparks of sincere, meaningful feeling in art and our lives, and using Post-Postmodernism as a reaction to what we perceive as the meaninglessness and nihilism inherent in current Postmodern discourse.

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Monday, April 6, 2015

Lifehack - Life Pro Tips and Tricks

  • When meeting someone for the first time, make a mental note of their eye color. This technique allows you to maximize the amount of eye contact you treat your new acquaintance to, which they will find to signify friendliness and confidence.
  • If a song is replaying over and over in your head, and you want to end the loop once and for all. Employ the 'Zeigarnik effect' and think about the ending of the song in question (if you can). The mind usually fixates on unfinished things so this trick may just be enough to help you get that annoying tune out.
  • Whenever there is big, communal laughter among a group of friends, people instinctively look towards those they feel the closest to and the most comfortable around.
  • If you ask someone for a small favor, you'll trick/train their brain to feel more of a liking towards you (the thought process is something along the lines of - 'Oh, it seems I went out of my way to help this individual, which means I must like them as I only tend to help people that I like'
  • Learn to become comfortable in silence, this can be a golden asset. Say you have asked someone a question and no conclusive response seems to be coming right away - ride it out under the silent conditions, they'll cave and add the omitted/missing information soon enough because in general, people despise the perceived awkwardness that comes with social silence, and will eventually do or say anything to bring it to a timely end. Thus, if you ask someone a question and they only partially answer, just wait patiently. If you stay silent and maintain eye contact they will usually continue talking.
  • Nodding or shaking your head as appropriate when asking someone a question will often encourage them to instinctively agree with what you are saying, without pondering too deeply over the substance of your question.
  • If you want to throw someone off their game whilst talking to them, making them feel uncomfortable and self-conscious - stare semi-intently at their hairline over the course of the conversation.
  • A warm handshake makes you seem more friendly and amicable as opposed to a cold one (wear gloves when you can).
  • To make a story of yours seem more believable, and less likely to be a lie, add some small yet embarrassing detail to help convince others that the story is in fact true.
  • A date that involves adrenaline – roller coasters, a psychological thriller or horror film (in fact any genre of film which features a lot of suspense and excitement), etc. will help simulate arousal in the brain, and psychologically trick the person whose romantic interest you're trying to secure into thinking that the arousal and good feelings can be attributed to you and your company. This phenomenon is known as the 'Misattribution of arousal' in psychology.
  • When walking through a busy crowd, keep your eyes intently fixed on the space between the people ahead of you as opposed to the people themselves, in general they will track the direction of your eyes and move in such a way as to let you through.
  • People always have the clearest memory of the first and last things that happen, while the middle becomes a vague blur. So if you’re setting the time for an interview, try and be the first or last through the door. This is dubbed the 'Serial position effect'.
  • The feet of an individual are powerful indicators of interest in a person, and can swiftly tell you about how comfortable they are in your vicinity, and where they intend on going next. For the former, look to see if their feet are pointed towards you whilst conversing with you, if they are often pointed away from you then you can assume that they don't want to stick around and talk for much longer. This can also be observed say in approaching a pair of people who are talking to each other, if when you try to enter the conversation their torsos point towards you but not their feet - it indicates that they are probably disinterested in talking to you, and are not best pleased with you joining their conversation. As an indicator of proposed direction/anxiety, feet pointed towards the door can mean the person in question would like to leave, fairly soon - often liars in interrogative situations will point their feet towards the door when they have just told a lie and are feeling nervous and anxious, because they just want to get out of there.
  • The first name is a great social tool, because people love the sound of their own name. When seeing acquaintances you only recently met, always make a point of including their name, "Hey, NAME!" They'll feel flattered that you took the (frankly minimal) time to learn it.
  • Another name trick, if you have forgotten the name of a person you are talking to, and don't want to seem rude by asking them bluntly what it is. Say "What's your name again? Sorry I've forgotten..." They'll respond with the first name, and might display signs that they are a little disappointed and disheartened, now you can snap back with the following line, "Oh, I knew that, I meant your last name!" And so after a little chuckle, you now have the information you wanted (and more), and the amount of offense felt by the other person is minimized. An improvement on this technique has been suggested, if you feel the previous routine was too transparent - simply inquire "What is your full name?" and proceed to wax lyrical about how nice of a middle name they have or ask about their background etc.
  • Mirroring the body language of another person is an effective way to build up trust between you. It makes it seem like you fit together better and that you are more compatible. This of course comes with the proviso that you be subtle about it.
  • If you know someone is going to have a go at you in a meeting, deliberately sit right next to them. The proximity will make them feel less comfortable with being aggressive, and they should go a lot easier on you.
  • When appealing to someone to do a favor for you. Start by asking them to fulfill a relatively small request which they can't refuse, and then ask them to do the bigger task which you had in mind all along. Once someone has committed to helping you, or agreeing to something, they are now more likely to agree to a bigger request. This is known as the 'foot-in-the-door' technique.
  • Avoid telling someone outright that they are wrong, it's usually unnecessary and does the opposite of endearing them to you. There is actually a way to show disagreement and turn it into a polite conversation without telling someone they are wrong, which strikes to the core of their ego. This is called the Ransberger Pivot. The idea behind it is pretty simple: instead of arguing, listen to what they have to say, and then seek to understand how they feel and why. Then you explain the common ground that you share with them, and use that as a starting point to explain your position. This makes them much more likely to listen to what you have to say, and allows you to correct them without them losing face.
  • One of the most positive ways to influence others is to show them that you really understand how they feel, that you have real empathy for them. One of the most effective ways to do this is by paraphrasing what they say and repeating it back to them, also known as reflective listening. Studies have shown that when therapists used reflective listening, people were likely to disclose more emotion and have a much better therapeutic relationship with the therapist. This easily transfers over to talking to your friends. If you listen to what they say, and rephrase it as a question to confirm that you understood it, they are going to be more comfortable talking with you. They are also going to have a better friendship with you and be more likely to listen to what you have to say, because you showed that you care about them.
  • This is known as the 'Door-in-the-face technique'. You start by throwing a really ridiculous request at someone—a request they will most likely reject. You then come back shortly thereafter and ask for something much less ridiculous—the thing you actually wanted in the first place. This trick may also sound counter-intuitive, but the idea behind it is that the person will feel bad for refusing your first request, even though it was unreasonable, so when you ask for something reasonable they will feel obliged to help you out this time.
  • If you want to be tactical about it, offer someone a choice as opposed to a demand. For example, instead of saying "Drink your milk" to a toddler, ask which mug would he/she like to drink milk from. This gives the person a sense of control and hence produces a higher chance of a better outcome.
  • In a sporting situation, to throw someone off of their game when they are doing really well, ask them a couple of questions like "Hey, you're doing great today, what elements of your game did you change?" or "How are you playing so well today?" They'll feel the added pressure and will start to over-think what they are doing a lot more, making them more prone to messing up.
  • When you're approaching a situation that would make you nervous like public speaking or bungee jumping, chew on some gum. If we are 'eating' something, our brain goes through the following thought process: 'I would not be eating if I were in danger. So I must not be in danger'.
  • This is an interesting video about a technique you can use - called 'power posing' - to make yourself feel more comfortable and relieve some anxiety before a challenging social situation or entering a high-pressure environment, watch it if you have the time: 
  • If you want to find out whether someone is observing you or staring at you with a lot of interest, try briefly glancing at your phone or staging a yawn and seeing if they instinctively mirror these actions.
  • To confuse someone and stop them from memorizing a number, shout out a logical sequence of numbers (2, 4, 6, 8...) instead of a randomized selection - here you are utilizing the fact that the mind latches onto patterns and so you are more likely to screw things up for them if you opt for the sequential route.
  • If you want to get rid of an object that you're carrying while walking with someone simply keep talking to that person while handling them the object, most of the times they will take the object without even thinking.
  • If you get yourself to be really happy and excited to see other people, they will react the same to you. It doesn't always happen the first time, but it will definitely happen next time.
  • A couple of confidence instilling tricks... the key to confidence is walking into a room, and assuming everyone there already likes and respects you. Make a habit of smiling at people... smile more and see how good you will feel about yourself, in the process you will make others feel good, and you will render yourself open to making more friends/associates. When alone, try making the biggest smile possible, you'll automatically feel happier and more outgoing. Also, if you start acting like you’re a confident and assertive person, people will believe you are indeed that - 'fake it until you make it'.
  • With a serious outward appearance of purpose, you can get just about anywhere. Take long, confident strides, and be completely unwavering in the direction in which you are looking and moving. You'll improve your odds of this working if you utilize a clipboard and professional-looking apparel such as typical office/business wear, or a high-visibility jacket.
  • Flattery is ubiquitous. For starters, learn to understand that flattery should look natural, otherwise it may bring more negative outcomes than positive. If you try to play along with someone who has a high self-esteem, then you have better chances in succeeding. People of this type love themselves and love flattery, and they do not seem to notice it. But those who have low self-esteem may see trickery and deceit when you try to make them feel better. In essence, try to acquire an understanding of an individuals self-worth - there is nothing more important to people than their self-image. Figure out how people like to think of themselves, and then challenge or reinforce it to your advantage.
  • I recently found an important and interesting phenomenon studied in social psychology known as the 'Pratfall effect'. The pratfall effect is the tendency for attractiveness/likability to increase or decrease after an individual makes a mistake, depending on the individual's perceived competence, or ability to perform well in a general sense. A perceived competent individual would be, on average, more likable after committing a blunder, while the opposite would occur if a perceived average person makes a mistake. I'm not sure whether this effect can really be used to acquire an advantage in a social scenario (it probably can be), but it's fascinating nonetheless. Here's a nice quick excerpt from a lecture at Yale on it: 
  • If you want people to take you seriously, tell them what you say is what your father taught you. People tend to believe fatherly advice inherently.
  • To appear more confident, self-assured, thoughtful and knowledgeable - don't use too many filler words like 'uh' 'umm' 'err' etc. Instead, use the silence (but not with too dramatic a delay) to order your thoughts and more coherently communicate whatever it is you are trying to get across.
  • A customer service tip - place a mirror behind you at the counter. This way angry customers who approach you will have to see themselves in the mirror behind you and the chance of them behaving irrationally lowers significantly. This is because no one wishes to see themselves acting like a ridiculous hothead.
  • One for the ladies, concerning attractiveness and the wearing of red clothing. For women, the color red makes them exponentially more attractive. Research has shown that men will go to great lengths to do things for a woman in red that they would not do otherwise like give her money or even carry her across the street.
  • Get people to talk about themselves. People are selfish and they love talking about what they do. Ask your interviewer some questions about what they do for work and really listen. They will walk away from the interview in a good mood because they got to talk about themselves and they will then think that the interview went well.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

The Truth About Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)

This whole RFRA madness is the most hyperbolic thing in the world. I'll give you a brief history and rundown for religious freedom laws in the US.

In the 1960's, "free exercise" (the part in the first amendment about religious exercise) got a major boost. In the case, Sherbert v. Verner, a women was a Seventh Day Adventist. She was working at a job that originally had her working 5 days a week. It was switched to 6 days a week. Because her religion forbid her from working on Saturday, she was fired. She couldn't find other work and filed for unemployment. She was denied. She said this denial violated her free exercise right because it required her to choose between working and practicing her religion. She sued and ultimately won in the US Supreme Court. NOTE: The majority opinion was drafted by the Court's liberals: Justice Brennan wrote the opinion.

What this did is effectively raise the free exercise standard to "strict scrutiny." "Strict scrutiny" is the absolute highest bar for the government to overcome. It says that if the government's actions, whether by imposing a penalty or withholding a benefit (as here), burdens a citizen's exercise of religion, the government must show that it has a compelling interest (which means like a really serious interest) and that forcing this individual citizen to violate his or her religion is the only way (the "least restrictive means") of attaining that compelling interest. When something requires "strict scrutiny," the government almost never wins.

Fast forward to 1990. A new case came up to the Supreme Court: Employment Division v. Smith. There, two native american were counselors at a drug clinic. They were fired because they had ingested peyote, something they were doing because of their religion. They, like the woman in Sherbert, filed for unemployment. The unemployment office denied their claim because their firing was based on "misconduct," as ingesting peyote was a crime. As such, like the woman in Sherbert, they sued, claiming that their practicing their religion (ingesting peyote) should not disqualify them from receiving unemployment. They lose. NOTE: The majority opinion was drafted by the Court'sconservatives: Justice Scalia wrote the opinion.

What this did is effectively lower the standard of review for free exercise way down. The standard became something like this: "Neutral laws of general applicability do not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment." As the Court says: "It is a permissible reading of the [free exercise clause]...to say that if prohibiting the exercise of religion is not the object of the [law] but merely the incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid provision, the First Amendment has not been offended....To make an individual's obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law's coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State's interest is 'compelling' - permitting him, by virtue of his beliefs, 'to become a law unto himself,' contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense.' To adopt a true 'compelling interest' requirement for laws that affect religious practice would lead towards anarchy."

In other words, if a law is neutral and applied to all citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs, it does not violate the free exercise clause. "No one can smoke peyote" is a general law applied to everyone neutrally, regardless of his or her religion. As such, even if your religion demands you do it, you cannot. You will still be charged with a crime (or still not receive benefits relying on your not doing it). The government doesn't have to show a compelling interest. It doesn't have to show the only way to reaching the interest is by specifically stopping specific people from doing something, etc. As you can imagine, under this ruling, the government will almost always win.

People did not like this ruling. In fact, it made many people mad. Now comes RFRA: The Religious Freedom Restoration Act. RFRA was introduced by a liberal democrat and was passed almost unanimously by both the House and the Senate and was signed into law by Democrat, Bill Clinton. What RFRA does is raise the standard back up to the "Sherbert v. Verner" standard mentioned above. As a result, the government in free exercise cases, again, rarely wins. You can see this in the case Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal. There, US Customs agents confiscated hoasca, a sacramental tea that qualifies as a Schedule 1 Substance, an illegal drug. The church wanting to use the drug sued and wanted the tea back (and to be able to ingest it) under RFRA. They win, as the government could not show it had a compelling interest in stopping this particular group of people from ingesting this drug.

So, why is Indiana passing a RFRA statute now? Because RFRA is a federal law. We have two major types of laws in this country: federal and state. They, in theory, work together and address different things. Because RFRA (the 1993 original one) was a federal law, individual state actions (like of Florida's state government as compared to the United States federal government) could not be said to violate it. There was a case about this in the Supreme Court (City of Boerne v. Flores), and, as such, states need their own individual RFRA laws to protect citizens from state laws that violate their religious beliefs.

And that's exactly what happened. Something like thirty states have RFRA laws. Indiana passed literally the same law(s) that has been around for over twenty years. (This is slightly up for debate, as Indiana's RFRA along with Texas' from 1999 provide for explicit protection against private suits where the government is not a party. But what Indiana's RFRA fundamentally does is what you would think it would do. Your state passes a law that says you must serve every person in every context, no matter what (no matter if you fundamentally disagree with the act being requested), with no religious exception. It moreover provides private citizens with the right to privately sue you for violating this rule. RFRA effectively provides that exception as a general rule for all laws. What RFRA is doing, although it is being applied in a private suit, is effectively protecting you against that state law that allowed the suit to be brought by the private citizen.) There is fundamentally nothing extraordinary or new about what they did. And it is beyond disingenuous for democrats (including Chuck Schumer who wrote the original 1993 RFRA law) to now come out criticizing Indiana's law. It's nuts. It's dishonest, political nonsense.

But now that you have that background as to why it's not a big deal at all, I'll explain why it is. There have been a lot of cases recently where people refuse to participate in gay weddings, etc. So, let's say you're a caterer. Someone comes in and says, "I need you to cater my gay wedding." This makes you uncomfortable. You aren't supposed to directly support gay marriage. You especially aren't supposed to participate in gay marriages. As such, you say, "No, I'm sorry, I can't do that." The person is incredibly offended and sues you. In some of these cases, the person getting gay married wins the lawsuit. The caterers, obviously, are sitting there thinking, "I was just trying to be a good Catholic, and now I have to pay punitive damages to this guy? What happened to "if you don't like gay marriage, don't take part in gay marriages?" There are also possible anti-discrimination laws where the caterer could be criminally liable for doing this. Under the Smith standard (the general, neutral law) rules, the caterer would lose. Under Sherbert, he would win. As such, states like Indiana are now beginning to pass RFRA's again to ensure that the caterer will win.

What is making people upset is the idea that the caterer (or whoever) is discriminating against a person in choosing to serve him or her. This makes people think of "No Coloreds" businesses before the Civil Rights Act. In what way is it actually different than that? What's different is that the caterer (or whomever) is choosing not to participate in aparticular activity. He or she is not choosing to discriminate against a person. As I wrote elsewhere: The issue is whether the person is refusing to participate in an act as compared to treating the person unjustly based on what they are. Not serving a gay person just because he's gay? Not alright. Not participating by serving someone in his gay marriage (regardless of his actual orientation)? Completely reasonable. In the same way you may refuse to cater a protestant anti-gay rally, but would otherwise serve any of those same protestants in any other context. What they are is actually pretty irrelevant. As such, you are not discriminating against a person but merely against an activity. A doctor who refuses to perform your abortion because he's Catholic? Seems just. A doctor who refuses to treat your cold because you're pro-choice? Not so just. Etc. Etc.

To be generous to the other side though, the line is not always clear. What counts as participating in an activity? Could a Catholic university not give marital benefits to a Protestant couple? The line isn't clear. For the most part though, there is absolutely no new danger that didn't already exist for over twenty years. It's mostly just politics, and it is so dishonest for people to get on their moral high horses about this. It's honestly infuriating.

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