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0001: The Start

As I started writing this I am pushing through some massive writer’s block, not because I can’t write. But maybe just because I don’t want to, or I don’t really see a point in it. Even though it has been proven to me that it works (the whole strengthen your resume with a blog thing). I also don’t see the point in writing about this stuff for myself. In my mind I have already gone through these experiences, why relive them? (I try to live in the present as much as possible, more on that later). And already I find myself falling into using “classic” blog post and writing terms and phases that I would never say in normal conversation (EX: “more on that later” which I just used). One thing i will say and it will hold true for all of my future posts as well everything written in these posts will be stream of consciousness, I will not be coming back and editing or whatnot. I will however follow whatever spellcheck tells me to do because I can’t spell worth a damn sometimes and my fingers hit the wrong keys randomly. Back to what I was talking about before.

I DON’T LIKE WRITING:

Why? Because I hate one sided conversations. I like flow. Not static. I would much rather work on an ongoing conversation that we can both learn from rather than just typing a bunch of letters in a specific order that happen to trail my actual thoughts to some degree. I don’t see how writing this helps me (that got randomly bolded, but I like it. It’s staying in). Yeah, it might help someone get a better understanding of who I am or how I think (on paper at least…. Or pixels…). But I really don’t like that you can not see my body language as you read this, or how long I pause in between thoughts. Typing. Which sentences are written exactly after one another while some… take… longer.. To write. Or even when I go back over and go through my spell check errors. All of that is lost entirely. So all you have is some meatbags we call digits raming themselves into little plastic things. That could very well not be in the normal QWERTY setup (there are much better ones…. I don’t use them (Dvorak etc.)). Turning into 1 and 0s, sent through a cable, turned into different ones and zeros (switching from numbers to number words. fun) and then sent through a bunch of little tiny logic gates. And a bunch of other bullshit (more cables, a bunch more computers, your screen) and now. You are reading it not even thinking about the entire process…….. Well now you are since I told you. but before that, no way every time you type something or read something it comes up in your mind the amazingly immense complexity (could take out two of those words) behind what is needed for you to just live your normal life. 

Okay i’m starting to see why this is fun. But for now i think it’s because I tangented to a place where no one would have guessed. Did you enjoy the ride? If so. Slap your email down and get a random dose of random (yep) whenever I post. Or you can do the thing that everyone thinks they are going to do “remember” to check this page every once and a while because you hate actually giving your email away to some random asshole on the internet that is highly tangential and has only posted one …post. I believe in you and your email. Well. this is the first post. I’m kinda bored of writing now so this is all you get. I might post a random photo that I’ve taken as well for these. Who knows.

For the future:

Photography stuff

Climbing stuff

Startup ideas

Game ideas

Reading of books

Conversations with friends

A new random philosophy I just came up with (“more on that later” in the first paragraph will be in this) (hey i didn’t say how much later…)

Sourdough bread making

Anything else i decide to blab about.

GIVE ME YOUR EMAIL. GIVE IT TO ME

Trading week 2

Notes: This is a paper trading account, so not real money, but the real markets. All percentages besides the overall percentage are compounding daily. I give percentages because with the way I trade doesn’t depend on how much capital I have. Goal is 2% compounding daily.

OVERALL – 21.83%

Day 1 – 2.09%

Day 2 – 2.12%

Day 3 – 1.46%

Day 4 – 1.90

Day 5 – 1.82%

Trading week 1

Notes: This is a paper trading account, so not real money, but the real markets. All percentages besides the overall percentage are compounding daily. I give percentages because with the way I trade doesn’t depend on how much capital I have. Goal is 2% compounding daily.

OVERALL – 11.02%

Day 1 – 1.98%

Day 2 – 2.37%

Day 3 – 4.11%

Day 4 – .06% (sad was down.. a lot, learned a lot, came back)

Day 5 – 2.10%

Quote 1

Marcus Aurelius – “It is common when speaking of a doctor’s order to say: “Aesclepius prescribed for this fellow horseback riding, cold baths, or walking barefoot.” In the same way, we should be able to say, “Nature has prescribed a disease, a disfiguration, a dismemberment, or some other disability.” In the former case, treatments are prescribed to make a man physically whole, whereas in the latter case, circumstances are prescribed to complete or round out his destiny. These circumstances are like the stones that a stonemason uses to construct a wall or pyramid; they are selected and fit together to form one solid structure. By coming together in the right way all the individual stones become one. Just as the universe is the coming together of all the objects in it, so destiny is the one compelling the inescapable logic to which every cause contributes. This is expressed even by those who don’t fully understand it when they use an expression like “he had it coming.” Yes, he did have it coming. Nature prescribed it for him, and he should accept it as readily as he would a doctors’s orders. It may even hurt, but he welcomes it in hopes of being well again. Accept the prescriptions of natures as if they were intended for your own health, even if at times they may seem cruel or disagreeable to you. Remember that they are for the good of the universe and for the pleasure of God. Nothing is prescribed for any part that does not benefit the whole. After all, it would violate the nature of anything to act against its own interest in governing its parts. There are two reasons, then, for being content with whatever happens to you. The first is that it was meant just for you, prescribed for you, and preserved for you like a thread woven into your destiny from the very beginning. The second is that whatever happens to the individual contributes to the health, wholeness, and survival of the entire universe. You destroy the symmetry and continuity of the whole if you cut away even one part or remove a single cause. And that’s what you do, to the extent you’re able, every time you whine and complain – mutilate the whole by amputating the parts.”

0004 Mentality

JUST KIDDING, I wanted to write about this first before confidence because they wrap together nicely. Annnd I was sparked to write about it because of some things I noticed while watching a video game tourney on twitch (NERD!). Mentality is a killer. Watching the energy level of these pro players through multiple games. They come in SPICY, now maintaining that energy is extremely hard, but it’s what you want in a game like CoD. The tourney is decided by points gathered over multiple games. 4 people squads, kills count as 1 point, wins count as 25. The players are constantly on the move looking for more kills and trying to keep tempo. Both in game, and mentally. 

SOME OF THE AREAS OF THE MAP PLAY SLOW

One of the top teams got horrible areas quite a few games in a row. You could hear how angry they were about it. Their tempo slowed, their mentaly weakened. What does this mean? In a high intensity game like CoD it means that you might be behind tempo for kills, your focus will waver a bit. Fights you would have won before, you lose. Your confidence starts to go down and you can watch teams crumble. Communication becomes less energetic and less useful. Depending on your team and everyone’s mentality you could lose the mental game way before you even know it, after that. The real game is lost (the tourney). How do you get it back? Get that mentality to win (i’ll talk about sports and normal life situations in a bit, JUST LET ME RANT jeesh). In games, hopefully one of the people in your squad can start hyping up the others. Can get the comms working again, the tempo back brings back up the mentality. The usual way that this happens is when someone “pops off” (gets a bunch of kills very fast, makes a sick play) you can immediately hear the energy in the other players raise. If they can rally off of this it’s amazing. Sometimes…. Right after the “pop off” moment. Some bull shit happens and the roller coaster drops ya. Crash in mentality.

SPORTS N STUFF

Same shit, different people. Mentality is one of the most important things in sports, keeping focused, making the right play etc. Most people at the top level are fairly even athletically, the best are separated by their mentality and how they play the game. Confidence has a HUGE impact on mentality. If you are confident, bad shit doesn’t phase you that much, you push through adversity. Especially in sports where teams have a large amount of people that need to work together and do their part. The team mentality and confidence is king. If a team has an unwavering killer mentality and confidence, I would bet on them every time. Teams have a bunch of different “default” mentalities. What I mean by this is the mentality that they naturally gravitate to in their life (Ie, killer, passive, weak, negative, etc.). Every team (to be successful) NEEDS the positive killer mentality. There are players that champion this mentality within the team, and move everyone’s average default towards them. These people are the hype men, the team captains, the people you chant “speach speech speach” at when needed. Now what about normal life?

MENTALITY IS YOUR EMOTIONAL STABILITY

Your mentality is what floats your emotions, it’s how you view things that happen to you and others. If your mentality is weak, you will be crushed by the little things. If it’s strong, you will shrug these off, no sweat, no stress. How do you change your mentality? I have no fucking idea. I’ve always had a really strong mentality, because in the end nothing really matters. I think the only way to change your mentality is to somehow realise that nothing matters, you will live and you will die. Things will happen to you, your reaction to them is one of the only things you can change, so why react negatively? Read Marcus Aurelius. He is a stoic and his little muses are very good to read once and awhile (actually everyday) to remind you of humility and what really matters in life. Championing your own ethics and being the best person you can be. What you cannot control you brush off, because you can control your reactions. Think you can’t control your emotions? True. you can’t, right now at least. People try to control their emotions, it’s impossible, but you can start to change how you react to things. LISTEN TO YOUR EMOTIONS. Do not try to push them down, or do the opposite of them, the more you give your emotions time and actually listen to them and dissect them the better off you will be. Will it suck? Yeah i’ve seen it a lot, people crying every night, really bad thoughts (you know which). The only thing that helped them was SLOWLY facing and realizing what their emotions were telling them, and working on that within themselves.

Your emotions are there to tell you something, listen to them, learn from them.

Center your edge.

0003.1 My Edge

READ THIS PREVIOUS POST IF YOU HAVN’T

Everyone’s edge is different, not as in a special snowflake kinda way, cuz that’s all bullshit. We will all die and we will all suffer. Just think about it this way, all snowflakes fall into an unrecognizable form of snow like all the other snowflakes. You are not special. HOWEVER, your edge is. Now this will be the most important thing i say about your edge

YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO DESCRIBE YOU EDGE

You will be able to flow with your edge and use it. But you will never be able to describe it, the second you start to try and describe it you will dull and lose it. This is because your edge is something that only you will understand, and there is no language to describe it to others or even yourself. You know how it feels to use it, isn’t that the only important thing? Nothing else matters.

Why did I decide to write about this? A Little history. I think differently than other people, I see things, notice things, make connections that other people don’t. (there is no other way to describe this other than sounding like an asshole, bite me (I taste good, I swear (like caramel chocolate (anywho…)))). This has made simple human interaction and communication difficult for me and has slowly dulled my blade over time. Why?

BECAUSE I HAD TO ADAPT EVERYTHING I DID

Just to be able to communicate with people, interact with society in a normal manner. Only in a recent random talk with my parents did I re-realize that I’ve been doing this my entire life. After that conversation, I thought about it. I haven’t truly honed my edge in many years. So what now? Now hone my blade (destroying the parts that don’t fit). Since then I’ve had many experiences and I now know that I can use my real edge. The problem was how I was wielding it.  

SIDENOTE: (relationships and breakups definitely helped. Always…. A fun…. timmmmeeeee)

So, time for me to hone my own edge, I need to destroy the parts that I added on over the years. Carefully realizing why I added them and then honing my edge to slice through the same problem but with me. (writing these blogs help me sharpen my edge) Something that my edge helps me do is think and write with extreme clarity, a small flow state if you will. Another thing i’ve been doing to hone it is day trading the stock market. I find that the more I follow the “feel” of things, the better I do, no reading, no research, just trusting my intuition and instinct.

THE MORE I TRUST, THE EASIER IT GETS

If I can just trust, I don’t have to even think about it. Same goes for business. If I can tell someone what to do and they get it done, my mind doesn’t even think about the task anymore. It has been “offloaded”. This applies itself well to management and decision making, I don’t flip flop over decisions. I take immediate and direct action based on my prior knowledge, my trust in the team. And my intuition.

This could also easily fuck me if someone is untrustworthy… I have a pretty good radar for that now.

OTHER PEOPLE CAN SENSE EDGE

Not really, but have you ever met someone and been like “damn they shit is together bruh”. You probably just thought they were really attractive. BUT, people can actually sense edge, they don’t know that is what they are sensing. There is so much shit that people don’t fully understand, but their brain tells them about it anyways, having an edge is one of those things. When you meet someone who has honed it. You can tell immediately just by their presence. Kinda like when someone has confidence (actual, not fake (which we will talk about in the neeeexxxtttt random assortment of words))

What is your edge? How does it help you?

Find it, center it.

0003: Finding Your Edge

Everyone has one, you use it all the time. You especially know when you are not using it, but might not pay attention. Your edge is when you feel your actions cutting. You mind sharper, your thoughts focused. 

You’ve lost your edge, or you’ve never found it and honed it.

First find absence of edge, when do you not cut? When do you feel like you are pushing, unfocused, bogged down. Write this down. every time you feel this, write down where your edge isnt.

An example could be going to bed early, talking with people in social situations, math. Find these feelings, and write them down.

These should be extremely easy…. But random guy on the internet! I already know my edge. I’m really good at blah blah blah.

Possible it’s your edge, but not likely, go deeper

YOU DON’T HAVE TO ENJOY YOUR EDGE

Unfortunately your edge might be something you don’t enjoy

You have no idea what your edge is

You are confusing what you are good at, with what your edge is. Your edge is flow, it’s focus, it’s loss of self. You are good at a bunch of shit that isn’t your edge.

HONING YOUR EDGE

I have no idea how to find your edge.

But I can give you hints on where it’s not, now honing it. That’s something else. If you have actually found your edge, honing it will probably be the most rewarding thing you have ever done. It will consume your life, and once your edge is honed, you will be able to use it to cut anything. Take out all the bumps you feel when using it, if you feel friction at certain parts focus on those. Are they part of your edge? If not. Destroy them, if so. Gently nudge them in line. Once you are honed your edge will cut smoothly but not sharply. Right now you are only thinking about the consistency of use. Not how easy.

SHARP

Once you home the blade for consistent use and feel you can work on sharpening. This will feel like a reduction in viscosity. Instead of cutting honey you will be cutting milk. Then water. Then air. Then nothing. If you constantly hone and sharpen your blade using it will feel like nothing. It will become part of you and all of your actions. You will physically and mentally feel yourself using it at all times.

Next post I’ll talk about my edge

Find your edge, center it.