Holding Multiple, Contradictory Beliefs

A very overlooked game related skill is the ability to simultaneously hold two contradictory beliefs. (this is also a sign of schizophrenia but let’s ignore that for now). A perfect example of this is believing that you have significant control over your own life. Mark Mason writes:

There is a belief from which all other positive beliefs flow. This is the prime belief. This is the belief that you are responsible for what happens to you in your own life, no matter the external circumstances. The belief that regardless of the situation, our decisions are our responsibility.

It seems to be clear that a strong sense of control and responsibility for your own life leads to success, happiness and emotional health. The problem is that every day it is plain to see that most people are victims of circumstance who have very little control over the course their lives are taking. We can argue forever about whether that’s bad luck, or demonstrative of people apathetically rejecting the option to seize control of their lives; but it’s a pointless argument because if a resolution were ever to be found, that wouldn’t cause changes that would improve people’s live on a large scale.

Instead, we should just accept that both are true depending on application. Like how the laws of classical gravity break down on a quantum scale, the laws of statistics break down when applied to individuals.

Consider something like “the movement of smoke through air follows a predictable pattern”. This is true if you observe a cloud of smoke. They tend to behave in predictable ways. So predictable that convincing smoke special effects can be made in basic computer programs. So predictable that smoke signalling was one of the first forms of reliable long distance communication.

But when you observe the cloud of smoke more closely, you can see that each individual particle behaves entirely randomly. The aggregate sum of these entirely random movements, however, is very predictable.

The belief is both true and untrue, and the ability to hold a contradiction like this without experiencing cognitive dissonance is a difficult, but incredibly useful skill.

In my next post I’ll detail how to apply this contradictory (and stereotypically female) thinking to your personal life.

Mission Statement

This blog sucks ass. It is a cacophony of self indulgent, meaningless thoughts and has, for the last year, been a means for me to just talk about myself.

My own arrogance disgusts me. From now on, this blog will exclusively contain articles written to help improve your life in some way. Either via guide or demonstrative example. Yes I will still talk about myself, all bloggers are narcissists after all, but only in order to demonstrate a wider point.

I won’t lie, I’m not gonna be updating frequently. My band, education, social life and job all take precedence. But fuck it. I was on the verge of deleting it entirely. I had rationalised to myself that I had nothing left to add. In reality I was angry at myself because a girl LMR rejected me after reading my blog, then had the cheek to fall asleep next to me rather than getting the fuck out of my house.

I do however concede that this merely demonstrates the importance of having the highest possible personal value, to overcome mishaps like this. I bear no resentment to the girl in question.

This leads me to this posts title.

The mission of this blog is to teach young men how to get the most out of the world, by taking control of their own destinies and increasing their value as a person.

If you’re wondering, yes this means some people are worth more than others, but your personal worth changes according to how you use the tools god gave you: mind, body and willpower.

Those three things are all we really have, and are the only three things in life worth cultivating and taking seriously.

Everything else is just gravy.

Lifestyle Report: August 2012

Last month I outlined my long term goals for this year. This LSR is to track my progress and set sub goals and mini projects to aid in progress.

Sleep

Most drastic improvement this month came from G Manifesto. His hangover cure is popping a multivitamin before bed. I decided to try this as a counter to early morning grogginess, suffice to say it works very well. Combined with a zinc tablet makes for a very good nights sleep and a good mood in the morning. Progress brah.

Work

No progress on work related goals, because I’ve been to busy doing actual paid work. The change I’m testing this month is not allowing myself to do any “leisure activities” apart from sex until after 6pm.

Read

Nearly finished 4 Hour Body.

Money

Slowly but surely I’m chipping away at my overdraft. I’m currently looking into freelancing as well as using wizpert. Once I’m out of debt I’m gonna begin a project in affilate marketing. More info on this to come.

Health

Convict Conditioning begins this month. I’m doing this first because it should aid in progress to other fitness goals. My other project is gonna be eating 4 meals a day rather than 2, and taking protein shakes.

Sex

1 new bang. My project for this (which will probably take more than 2 months, given how I don’t go out much) is to do 100 approaches. Social circle lays count towards my goal of 12 more girls, but don’t count as an approach. Only girls I’ve never met will count as an approach.

Write

Massively neglected. I aim to work upwards so the aim for this month is to write for just 20 minutes a day.

Lifestyle Report: July 2012

I’m gonna change.

This is a goal setting lifestyle report. I’m setting long term concrete goals for my 7 beneficial habits, to be achieved by a year from now. I aim to reach these goals by implementing specific behaviours for a trial period, then continuing them if they work for me.

Here are my goals for each of the 7 beneficial habits, to be achieved by July 11th 2013

Sleep

• Get up by 7:30 normally, 11:30 after nights out.

My plan for this simple – got to bed progressively earlier over time, nap and meditate.

Work (non paid work and GTD)

• Get a first (>70%) in my second year of uni.
• Get blog to 2000 unique visits per day.
• Play 50 shows.
• Release another EP.
• Play a show supporting a famous band.

Gonna have to turn up and work hard to get 70%, but I’m determined not to have a repeat of this year. The blog promotion will be achieved by writing regularly and promoting my blog in a way that still contributes to the manosphere, the other 3 will just take some serious band hustle.

Read

• Read 20 books.

I have a reading list I’m burning through, just finished Sex 3.0 and about to start 4 hour body.

Money

• Clear overdraft.
• Reach total savings goal of £10k.
• Earn £50 per hour.

The first 2 will be achieved by taking all the over time I can get my hands on over summer, combined with student finance and careful budgeting. The third will be achieved through the development of passive income businesses, affilate marketing and whatever else I may learn through the year.

Heath

• Be able to do 100 push ups, 100 squats, 100 sit ups and 20 pull ups straight.
• To reach intermediate level 7 on convict conditioning exercises 1 – 4, and level 3 intermediate on 5 and 6.
• Reach a bodyweight of 90kg.
• Have visible abs without tensing.
• Have a resting heart rate of 60bpm or lower.

The first will either be done with those android apps, or by adding a rep each day – I’ll dabble with both until I find something that fits. I’m restarting CC from the beginning. I’ll be experimenting with various diet and supplementation changes to succeed with 3 and 4. Goal 5 will be down to gradually more frequent walks and some form of high intensity cardio once a week, as well as reduced smoking and drinking and a paleo diet.

Sex

• Don’t masturbate.
• Have sex with 12 new girls.

The former requires the maintenance of my current unfenced relationships, the latter requires, to be blunt, going out more.

Write

• Write for 2 hours per day.

This will be achieved by gradually increasing the amount of time devoted to it, and doing it first thing every morning.

read more …

Lad Culture

For those of you who aren’t familiar with lad culture, take a quick look at this website.

Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

First observations? Nearly a quarter of a million likes on facebook. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t envy that kind of web presence, so well done to them in that respect. There is one small problem:

They are promoting a toxic set of beliefs.

I’m not gonna criticise them for what they normally get criticised for. I wholeheartedly support their right to make rape jokes and fat jokes and I’m glad that they are promoting masculinity over being a bitch. The problem I have is that, to be blunt, they have a pretty shitty definition of masculinity.

Broadly defined, masculinity is the combination of strength, courage, mastery and honour.

This definition is broad and abstract because it goes past the arguments over whether a good father or a master seducer is more manly – it’s chalk and cheese bro. But I digress, let’s see how the values uni-lad promotes measure up to this objective standard.

The Good

• Learning  game. (mastery)
• Competition, albeit mainly on FIFA. (mastery)
• Bros before hos. (honour)

The Bad

• Extreme binge drinking.
• Any hole is a goal.
• Idol worship of men with a higher social status than you.

I’m not one to criticise getting intoxicated, and having low standards is kinda subjective, but I can’t get my head around the last one.

I get the distinct impression that a large proportion of young men aren’t going out, getting smashed and hitting on girls because they want to, but because they want to impress the top dog in their group. It’s something every lad knows, but no lad will admit.

They also encourage lying.

From How to Get a Regular Shag

Get yourself back home. Clean your room. Hoover your room. Put posters of mean looking rugby players everywhere. Buy two rugby balls; put one on the pillow and one on your desk. Eighty percent of girls at university are attracted to the ‘rugby lad’. Today, you are one of them.

If you were to put that much effort into being worth fucking rather than seeming worth fucking, you’d get hit in the face by a low flying vagina every time you stepped out the door. (H/T Frost)

This leads to the crux of my problem with that site, and with lad culture in general:

The manosphere promotes becoming better in order to gain progress towards a goal. Lad(ism?) promotes pretending to be better in order to gain approval from your mates.

My message to lads everywhere is this: there is more to life than clubbing and FIFA. Read a book, chat up women during the day (the whole needing alcohol to talk to girls thing is ridiculous),  climb a mountain, write a blog, start a business. It doesn’t matter. But you and others like you are setting yourselves up for the prescribed life plan trodden by so many now divorced and unhappy men before you.

Normal kid at school -> uni partying hard and trying to shag lots of girls -> leave uni with a 2:2 and moderate alcohol dependency -> job -> dating -> wife -> kids -> more alcoholism -> divorce -> premature death.

You know why this happens? Because you seek approval. You didn’t stand out at school and reach your potential because you wanted to fit in with everyone else, now your every action is determined by what the lads will think and how many lad points downing that pint of piss, or having someone else’s shit rubbed over your face will win you (both of those happened to a rugby lad I know). As you get older you will live on the approval of you boss, your girlfriend, your wife and your kids. This is not masculinity, this is weakness. In particular a weakness that makes for a depressing and unfulfilling life.

There’s a lot of potential here, young men have realised that being a feminized little fag is wrong for the majority of them, but we need a better alternative than the current binge drinking, approval seeking culture we have now.

In summary – It’s good to promote masculinity, but you gotta be a man about it.

P.S. Stop promoting The fucking Game as a decent resource for getting laid. Neil Strauss doesn’t know shit, look into some Roosh, Heartiste, Alpha or Sleazy.

You are a Bullshitter

When did you last tell a lie? Just now, a few minutes or hours ago, yesterday?

According to psychologist Richard Wiseman, 25% of survey respondents claim to have lied in the last 24 hours. Some other figures include 90% of people claiming to have lied on a date, 80% during a job interview, 50% to their boss and, most appallingly, 40% of the population are happy to lie to their friends. (source)

I find this disgusting. To think that 40% of my friends would be happy to lie to my face is an extremely disconcerting thought.

I have a history of being uncomfortable with lying, but perhaps ironically I’m pretty good at it. I can bullshit my way out of most situations. This is all well and good except that afterwards I feel like an absolute bastard.

As I got older, I got more proficient at lying, but also felt more uncomfortable with it. So I eventually decided to (almost) entirely purge it from my life.

If you are in a similar position, here are some tips for how to put a stop to it.

1. Realise that not lying and radical honesty are two very different things. The former is not saying things that are not true, the latter is removing the filter between your brain and your mouth.
2. Start small. The most common types of lies are minor white lies used to preserve other people’s feelings. If you’re violating the basic, moral principle of truth, you are a bullshitter. This kind of bullshitting is done by weak people who value themselves as lower than the person they are lying to, and thus don’t want to upset them. Excuses are for pussies, false excuses are for lying pussies. If you don’t want to do something simply say “no, thank you” and leave it at that. If they press for an explanation tell them the cold hard truth. They may be upset at first but they’ll get over it and it may even strengthen your relationship.
3. Start close. The first people you should stop lying to are your friends and family. Then your acquaintances, then eventually everyone. This approach allows you to tackle the problem where it is most destructive. I’d feel much more uncomfortable lying to my best friend than I would to a stranger.

It takes time, but eventually you will find yourself being instinctively honest with people. They will be surprised at this, but warmed to you at the same time. They will also generally reciprocate your honesty.

Lifestyle Report: June 2012

Hello, yes I am still alive. No my exams are not going well, but never mind. I want to talk about this site, and it’s direction in the coming months, before dropping my monthly accountability bomb.

PLANS FOR SUMMER

• New layout and updated blogroll
• Move house.
• Set up a SiME tumblr for all the stuff not meaty enough to be posted here.
• Follow the Roosh program.
• Get this site up to 1000 hits per day.
• Dabble in free-lance writing with the possibility of quitting my supermarket job.
• Monetise the site in a way that does not adversely affect the reader’s experience.
• Launch an information product to be sold through this site.
• Read a ton of books, fuck a ton of girls.
• Experiment with magic truffles/mushrooms, LSD and Nootropics.

That should keep me pretty busy then, onto the lifestyle report.

Sleep

No more sleep problems! I sleep 7 – 9 hours a night and although I sometimes go to bed at like 4am, this doesn’t cause problems the night after. The secret? Disco naps, meditation and zinc tablets.

Work

I’ve built my focus using the pomodoro technique, which is really helping with exams. My actual paid work is dull, hence the various money earning goals in the above list. The one I’m most excited about is freelance writing, essentially being paid to practice blogging. Neat huh. My next step in this area is going to be looking in to fixed schedule productivity.

Read

I was so sleep deprived last time that I forgot this bit. I finally got round to Frost’s revised version of F25. All I can say is that it’s much better than the first. This book has also started a friend on his own red pill journey. If you have any friends that need a bit of red pill therapy, but don’t want to force it down their throats, recommend this book to them. I also decided to read a psychology book called 59 seconds. This book is interesting in that it is a self help book where the advice is based on empirical, repeatable studies. This is a cool concept and offers some very insightful and interesting advice. The best part is the chapter on attraction. Any “game aware” guy reading this will see the core concepts shining through, as well as the clawing attempts to reframe them in a politically correct way. I’m currently finishing up Sex 3.0, review coming soon.

Money

All fine and dandy, I just want more of it. The site already runs google adsense, my intention is to add a “bookshelf” page of the books I’ve read and intend to read, with affilate links through which readers can buy the books. Once this is set up along with a new layout, I’m going to divide my time between freelance writing and growing the site’s audience via regular posting here (1 post every 2 days), tumblr (daily posts), twitter, the forum, and writing guest posts for other blogs. Once I’ve reached the goal of 1000 hits per day the promotion will continue, but with time spent on creating a saleable information product for the site.

Health

This part of my life is going very well. I’ve quit cigarettes for good, and have struck a balance with weed where it doesn’t affect my drive or ambition. I drink far less now. I’m eating SPFY as before, but now with the addition of eating liver a couple of times a week. Dat nutrient dense organ meat. I’m eating by a (rough) meal plan to help with gaining a bit of weight. Children’s multivitamins have joined the ACV and fish oil in my supplement regime. As for exercise – convict conditioning is slowly progressing. I’ve added a daily mini routine: 100 push ups, sit ups and squats, and 20 pull ups, per day, spread through the day. The eventual goal is just a straight set of each every day, but I’m not there yet. Over summer I intend to add a daily protein shake into the mix, along with doing a short, daily yoga routine. My only reservation here is whether eating to gain mass when doing convict conditioning could lead to poor results. Time will tell.

Sex

One new notch, a one night stand. Went radio silent on me for a week then texted me at like 2am, when I was asleep. Now she’s back on silence – never mind. The only bad point is that she is one of those “no means yes sometimes” girls. That’s kinda hot but when a girl goes silent on you after sex, and says that shit the night before, paranoia about false rape accusations sets in. Obviously I was over reacting, I probably just didn’t make her come. Outside of casual sex, I’m maintaining 2 or 3 unfenced relationships with those rare girls who are chill enough to let me do my thing.

Write

As you can see, I’m doing fuck all writing. The consequence of this is a file on my computer called “post ideas” being absolutely huge. I can’t wait to be back writing properly again.

Adios hombres, I’ll be free soon.

Lifestyle Report: May 2012

From a blogging perspective, this month was interesting. I published a series of posts that made April 23rd my busiest day ever, then making the 25th even busier. I was pretty chuffed that people were reading and commenting on my shit. (Thanks to Ferd at in bona fide for all the linkage).

But unfortunately reality is a bitch so I’ve had to put this site on hiatus for a bit. These lifestyle reports are the only posts that’ll still be published before my exams are over.

My band also released an EP, the launch party was sick.

So how’s the rest of my life coming along?

Sleep
As I write this I’m in a sleep drain. It’s where you deliberately skip a nights sleep then go to bed early the next day to reset your sleeping pattern. Its not fun but it works, Breaking Bad is carrying me through. Yes, this demonstrates that I still cannot sleep right.

Work
I have a job as you all know, I got some tax back recently too. Regarding uni I’m still chipping away with my 3 hours hard focus a day – as well as using a lot of goal setting and planning techniques I picked up from the book I’m currently reading. Things are going pretty well in this department.

Money
Had to front a bit for the EP launch, and a handful of people owe me some cash. Around £100 total. Thankfully  I have a glorious interest free student overdraft, and a job. So I’ve basically got this handled too.

Health
Doing convict conditioning, taking it very slowly and enjoying every rep. My diet isn’t as good thanks to a delivery kebab shop and my impulsive nature, but I’m just gonna rationalise that as the “fuck you” element of Frost’s SPFYD.

Sex
Regular but no new notches, not leaving the house enough. Flaked on by social circle prospects. The plan is to finish exams and ten follow Roosh’s 9 step program over summer.

Write
Hiatus suxorz.

Dulst’s Journey to… Sigma?

Happy shame the beta month.

I’ve decided to join in on Mentu and Ashur’s fun by detailing my own journey of relative betatude, and how that compares to now. I don’t identify as an Alpha, so I’m going to talk about how I became what I call a Sigma instead.

This could be a cool tattoo.

Once upon a time, I was 13 years old. This was when I got my first proper girlfriend. We never had sex, although recently we caught up and I have now finally slept with her. She has actually read this blog and is coming to visit again this weekend.

Even at this tender age I was quite the narcissist, but as far as I knew there was a correct way to act around women. This was to supplicate and cuddle your way into their vaginas. My one saving grace was that I was persistent because I was horny as shit (high T levels + being 13 = lethal). Between my 13th birthday and the age of about 14 and a half, I had a string of typically teenage relationships: lots of fooling around but no sex, starting out feeling cool and being nice, ending up jealous and needy. I emphasise that at this age I acted that way because I thought I was supposed to – I was not acting through my own intentions. However, nearly 6 years later I found out that I had unknowingly “played girls off” against their friends. Pimp in the making? Probably not. Deez bitches be over analysing my shit.

Over time, the learned nice guy behaviours became internalised. I actually became nicer. At the age of 14 and a half, things really changed. I met a girl on a school trip to Italy (romantic init). I liked this girl a lot and fell pretty quickly. I was still a nice guy, but I had one saving grace – I still had strong personal boundaries. I think this came from my argumentative personality and getting my fair share of shit in school.

I was 14 (and a half) when we started going out. We were together for 3 years and 8 months.

I became a massive beta over this time. She was a headstrong “independent” girl who, although she was nice, spent a lot of time telling me how I should act and feel. The worst part was that I listened. I lost my virginity to that girl, so I felt like I was invested and should listen to her. She was also a year older than me so I thought she knew her shit.

Then she called a break, because I got too needy. I thought “fuck this I’m gonna chase other girls”. She didn’t like that, and we ended up back together after a week. Relationship continues as normal, but she’s now more jealous and I feel a bit more independent.

I was in 2 bands over this time. The second band was better so girls liked us more – this lead to more jealousy.

Fast forward to me being 17. She left for university and we decided to try and “make it work”. I don’t know if she cheated, but I can’t really blame her if she did. I got needy quickly. We broke up a second time, for a month. In this time I started smoking weed and became friends with Wolf, who is a textbook example of a natural Alpha. He had just dumped his ltgf because he got sick of her shit. What followed was this – he went on a fucking spree, I didn’t get laid at all.

So I got back with her AGAIN.

But she was now worried I’d “try to be” wolf. Trying to be someone is silly, but seeing a friend get laid easily is still pretty inspiring.

Then I started reading Roissy and Roosh. Shit went down.

Over a few months I came to dominate the relationship. Suddenly she was reacting to me and telling me she loved me all the time. Suddenly she was ringing me from uni to tell me she missed me, when it used to be the other way round. I was cool with her. When I turned 18 (UK drinking age for you americans), Wolf wished me happy birthday on facebook, adding “ladies, lock up your daughters, Dulst is out”. I thought it was hilarious, my girl got pretty upset.

The relationship continued and we went on holiday together, I really enjoyed this. It was a nice chill time we had in Turkey and I look back and smile – though I have no doubt that I enjoyed it because for the first time in my life I had hand in the relationship. After the holiday I went clubbing a lot and realised I wanted to get with other girls. Things went downhill from here. She realised and tried everything to keep me. Including shouting “fuck you, I could get with anyone here if I wanted!” in a club. I walked out on that and she chased.

Things slid downhill further, and I dumped her ass.

Then I went to Amsterdam. This is like August 2011, not the more recent trip. I may or may not have fucked a hooker, and I definitely had a one night stand with a slightly embarrassing girl. My friends laughed at me and mocked me, but I didn’t care – it confirmed that I didn’t need my ex to get laid. Between that ONS in mid August and going to uni at the end of September, I slept with two more girls, including a virgin. I also began fooling around with a girl I had known a long time. She was a virgin also, but not as up for sleeping with me.

I slept with two girls in my first week of uni, ending up with both as FWBs. One got a proper boyfriend after 3 weeks, I’m still sleeping with the other. Between then and now I slept with those two, the virgin I’d known a long time, a girl from my class, another ONS and the ex from when I was 13. Those aren’t Casanova numbers, but it suits me. My course load isn’t conducive to going out all the time (and I’m more responsible than this guy was).

Between Amsterdam #1 and going to uni, I learned the skills. Between starting uni and now I built the core. I’ve written a lot about sleeping with girls, but in terms of self improvement sex doesn’t mean much. I’m proud of it, but I’m more proud of the fact that at a relatively young age I changed in 4 fundamental ways.

1. I now have strong personal boundaries.
2. I like me for myself. I have real self esteem because I genuinely believe I’m good enough.
3. I don’t care what people think of me.
4. I don’t suppress my emotions, but I don’t let them control me either.

I predict that most of the journey to Alpha posts about to come out this month will, when distilled, be based on those four things. Now I’ve reached this point, sex is easy – and no longer important. It’s like food and water – you only think about it in times of lack. Whereas in September pussy used to be my sole focus, now my drive goes into uni, my band and my blog. My casual sexual relationships are a fun distraction – just like my other hobby, cooking.

Moral of the story? There isn’t one, but a bit of reflection is fun. The only problem is that the more I write the more I wonder if I’m slightly sociopathic.

Productivity Tip

I previously wrote about the importance of productivity, but didn’t detail as to how to achieve it. I believe that everyone has their own way.

Despite that, some pieces of advice are still gold. Here’s one of them.

Work for an hour, hard focus (no fucking facebook), then have a 15 minute break where you do jack shit. Rinse and repeat.

This can get you through a work day nicely and is more efficient than working for long stretches with distraction.

If the work your doing is academic, you ideally want to stop after three hours of work. Otherwise your brain gets over loaded. (I mean three hours in addition to class, not instead of).