The Stories You Tell Everyone has an excuse for what they fail to do. What stories do you tell yourself? Until you know what they are, you won’t be able to change. Maybe you get nervous in bars and clubs because you feel inadequate – that you aren’t fit or tall or interesting enough. Maybe … Read more
Demographics Demographics are important. John the 35-year-old Computer Engineer, who doesn’t work out and writes poetry in his spare time, shouldn’t go to loud parties to attract a girl like Jenna, who is in college. But demographics are not fixed. If two years prior, John the Engineer joined the gym, buffed up, wore contact lenses … Read more
Receptivity Rejection is painful, but it’s good. It keeps people who are not good for each other apart. Guys don’t understand that if a woman rejects him for his hair or personality, then he wouldn’t have wanted a relationship with her anyway. Don’t approach a woman you don’t find attractive. It’s not practice, it’s desperation. … Read more
“The only thing that’s Capital-T True is that you get to decide how you see things.” – David Foster Wallace Chapter 1: What Attracts Women What do women want? No one knows for sure, not even Sigmund Freud, who spent decades trying to figure it out. Manson points out that for men, the ideal woman … Read more
Bigger Leaner Stronger by Michael Mathews was rated one of the top books in the fitness genre, so I decided to give it a go. There are some faults with the book, especially with organization, but overall, the author was knowledgeable about nutrition and training, and cites enough research to back his claims. I think … Read more
Summary How Not to Die by Dr. Michael Greger is about the health benefits of eating your fruits, vegetables, nuts, and spices and the dangers of eating too much meat, or any meat at all. In the same way that smoking was ignored as a health hazard for so long, many people today are ignoring … Read more
In Thoughts Without a Thinker, Mark Epstein makes the case that what is missing from psychoanalysis is Buddhism, that the two are complementary. Psychoanalysis is a reversion to the past, but a study of the past, while necessary, can be infinite and ineffective. There must be a focus on the present, this is the idea … Read more
“The sadist doesn’t create a masochist, he finds him ready made.” – Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death Masochism in Modern Man explores the psychological roots of masochism from an interesting perspecitve. When I read the final chapters of The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, I was struck by an interesting discussion about sadomasochism, … Read more
The Denial of Death is about man’s primal repression. Freud believed that man’s basic repression is sexual, but Becker argued that it is the denial of finitude, creatureliness, and mortality. Becker makes this argument based on the work of Otto Rank, Norman Brown, Soren Kierkegaard and Sigmund Freud. Freud observed that man’s neurosis was a … Read more
One of the main things that move man is the fear of death and heroism is a direct response to this modern rediscovery. Our primate ancestors ignored the cowardly and deferred to those who were extra-powerful. Man has elevated animal courage into a cult. The ceremonies of Christ’s rise form the death is a symbolic … Read more