Groundhog day

I feel weird coming back here to blog about my recent experience of running into a community guy. As much as I like to make fun of guys in the community, I feel sorry for them, for doing the same shit, day-in and day-out, for years and not waking up from the nightmare they call life.

In retrospect, my experience of spending time with other community guys was a learning process, of discovering myself, who I am, what I can do, and ultimately, a lesson of what not to be. My recent run-in with this guy, who has been in the community for nearly 10 years, confirms to me of why this blog existed, to steer people away from the community. This person has spent tens of thousands, living in an apartment, made no progress of becoming a better person, for nearly a decade, he still wanted me to go "sarge" with him.

This was foreshadowed in how I saw him, with another community dude, dressed over the top, standing at the edge of a party, talking as though they are two gay dudes trying to figure out a place where they can go suck off each other. Instead they hovered for nearly 30 minutes without making progress of befriending people around them, and from my conversation with this community dude, the other guy turned out to be his instructor, with this attitude. Sure, I didn't dressed as sharp as this guy, but I was among friends, having a good time, and surrounded by girls. Whereas this instructor, with no one else around, was giving me attitude. Seriously, when will these social retards wake up to discover, they are not the clever guys out to get girls, they are the outcasts from the social life of society?!

The statement that sent me laughing and posting here again was the student's statement to me: "Hey dude, let's hang out..." which I hesitantly responded "Sure, what do you want to do?" Yes, you guessed it, he replied without blinking, "Let's go sarge!" Uh, sure man, let's go hang around with a bunch of socially awkward retarded dicks, talk about game, when we have absolutely no girls around and if I were to bring them any girl, they would hound the girl like crazy and creep her out. To them, every night is the same old thing, going out, creeping girls out, pissing other people off, in the mean time, these idiots think they are gaming society, and of course, they end up going home as how they came out, alone. Keep it up! Because they would get to suck ea other and screw ea other, as a community of gay brotherhood of sargers.

What makes us tick...

I haven't blogged in a long time because I haven't felt the need to write until I just read a recent post from Cameron Teone on Identity & Purpose. I feel if we do nothing else in life, we should at least pursue this one mission, the difficult journey that many would rather avoid & seek simple easy solutions, to find our own identity & purpose.

There will always be new fads, new ideas, new methods,... but they don't address the core fundamental issue, which is identity & purpose, who we are and what we want to do with our lives. There are many ways of searching for them. Some work and most don't. How I discovered my purpose is to examine what I do daily and what I do if no one is watching or paying me to do.

The problem with people seeking self-help in general is that they don't look within themselves for answers. They constantly seek outside for help (which is ironic when you think about it) and they search for leads outside instead of addressing the true cause of their unease, unhappiness. So they go from one method to another, one guru to another, and never really spend the time required to look deep within and to discover that they should be their true self & pursue their true purpose.

A celebrity-obsessed culture that belittles us all

Perhaps it's my upbringing, that I learned early on to draw strength from within and inspiration from immediate people around me, rather than celebrities. Are people's lives so empty that they would become devastated that a hyped-up media star passed away?!

Sure, we all admire talented individuals, but to see people crying, the endless tweets and facebook status updates that go on and on about the recent passing of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, I have to wonder, do people live their own lives anymore?! Yes, it's tragic that someone died, but when we place celebrities above us all, we have, in effect, allow them to have undue influence on our lives. If we start to examine our own lives, what we can do to improve ours and those around us, then we would have a better, more cohesive and harmonious world. Instead, at least in America, we are constantly goaded by the media, to celebrate, to aspire to, and to dream to become among these celebrities.

When I started this blog over two years ago, I was sucked into this whirlwind of becoming somebody, when in reality, I was and still am somebody to people who care about me and vice versa. Why are we so obsessed with seeking approval from others?! A celebrity-obsessed culture is the hallmark sign that we have taken the wrong turn, we don't value each other and those around us, but we constantly chase this image that marketeers conjured up and profiteers use to hustle us. Think of memorabilia, think of what media companies will make off his death by selling us more craps that we don't need by playing on our emotions.

We all should take a step back, re-examine our lives, re-prioritize our goals, and re-evaluate our progress, instead of getting whipped into this media frenzy. Think about what is important, be with people who accept us already, instead of getting herded into the mosh pit to grief for celebrities who really should not be that influential in our lives. I know there is a downside to not wishing to become celebrities, there will be fewer starlets, fewer porn stars, and more responsible adults. May be, just may be, we will have a more productive society that doesn't squander our time and energy but to focus them on those immediately around us and who we really are, rather than what we are told to be.

Living on the backs of idiots

I came across an article that says that in America, there are more outlets for pay-day loan lenders than all MacDonald's and Burger King combined! This got me thinking of a whole slew of things we benefit from idiotic and/or irresponsible adults.

Back when I got my first credit card a long time ago, it has a very low interest rate (by today's standards) and Discover card was the only card company that had this new gimmick of giving 1% cash back (only if you fulfill their long list of requirements that few people do). Now, there are so many credit cards out there with free miles, free points, and even cash back > 1%! Then I realized that credit card companies are not becoming more efficient with the 2% that they collect from merchants, but rather, they are making money off idiots who are carrying balances from month to month at a 20something to 30% interest rate. Of course, let's not forget the huge finance charge and late fee!

Then I look at the whole self-help industry, and especially the seduction community. Here we have a relative large population of guys, who were born book smart, studied a lot, worked hard, and are making a decent salary. With their excess income, they spend on cars, clothes, and condos, but none of that bring them happiness, and guess what? A few geniuses come along to tell them, "Hey, what you are missing in your life is girls! Can you imagine if people love you, respect you, and even have sex with you instead of cursing you each time their computer crashes or program freezes!"

So these guys buy into the whole belief system that they can be somebody, pay their way into an endless supply of pussies, and buy their way into the hearts and minds of people, yes, by becoming PUAs! This is almost like guys going to pay-day loan office because they can borrow a huge sum without having to work for it. Or guys who think that credit card is a cheap and easy way to get a loan, to borrow against their future without having to put in the hard work!

While all that is going on, these self-hype gurus are thriving on the stupidity of these IT guys. Yes, I'm singling IT guys out, and I'm sure that only guys will well-paying jobs can afford to take bootcamps. Sure, there are some inspirational stories of guys scraping by to take workshops, the reality is that only guys with extra money can afford these workshops. So they think they can buy happiness, respect, admiration, love, and sex. What they don't realize that all of those can be achieved the old fashion way, being that social connector, being that guy who is great with everyone, and life is so much easier when we don't have to support these leeches on society by becoming victims of self-hype gurus.

The end and the new beginning

When I started this journey two years ago, I just experienced a very personal loss in my life, no, not because a girl dumped me. That loss has left a wound in my life, thought it may never heal but it has continued to serve as a reminder to me, how I must cherish life and to value all those around me. However, I made one critical mistake in my state of grief, I gave up my own identity in trying to change into someone else.

A recent loss reminds me that once again of what is important to me in my life, it's about what I do that defines who I am. This blog was started less as a chronicle of my transformation but more out of frustration in discovering who I am, in developing a specific set of social skills. In the past two years of my journey, I have learned a great deal about myself: who I am, how others are, and more importantly, how we each play a role in two specific spheres, society and the market economy.

In blogging for the past 2 years, I had some insights just from writing and even more from interacting with readers & commentators. Of course, I also developed some lasting friendships. But starting today, I am moving on from this blog, I feel this blog has served its purposes and I might revisit some topics that I've discussed here. My focus in my new blog is more about what I do regularly: examining issues in depth, look beyond the marketing hypes, challenge what we are told, and determine the underlying motive, mechanism, and how we can use that to benefit ourselves.

Once I've finalized the new blog, I will redirect readers & visitors there.

Consistency, not fantasy

Every year, people knowingly make resolutions and few if any of those resolutions stick. Rather than chasing the impossible, we all would be better off in establishing simple habits so that we work gradually toward a final goal.

One of my many goals for last year was to develop a budget and stick to it. I have used Quicken on and off since 2001 and I have never been able to keep track of all my expenses. The first habit I establish was to learn to record all my expenditures. This habit took me nearly 1 year to develop and I have been able to do that consistently by setting aside a specific time in my schedule every week to get caught up on all my receipts.

Once I have established the habit of recording my all my incomes and expenditures, then I was able to see a pattern in where my money was going by grouping items in my record into categories: e.g., rent/mortgage, insurance premiums, utilities, and groceries into essential expenses, and then non-essential expenses such as shopping, movies, dining out, trips, etc. Along the way, one motivation that drove me to keep recording and working on my budget sheet wasn't the reward in how much money I saved but rather learning how to use Excel.

Part of my new job at that time was to process large-scale datasets within Excel and do further analyses inside databases. By combining work with what I do for fun at home, I was able to learn some new skills while saving money at the same time. People in business would call that synergy, I was just being lazy by combining two projects into one.

That's the trick with establishing habits, there must be incremental and immediate reward for habits to stick. Take losing weight for example, this isn't something that can be done overnight and for many people, this is a lifetime of struggles and most fail. The reason they fail is that most of them don't see the immediate and incremental reward. I started my workout regimen with a few buddies, many drop off because they couldn't stick to it, but those remain, we became very good friends in the process. Part of that workout regimen was the social aspect of hanging out with friends so the workout process wasn't tedious.

Back to the budget, after I have tracked my incomes and expenditures for nearly 1 year, it took me another 6 additional months to gradually taper down my non-essential spending to within my budget. Finally, the reward is to see how much I have increased in my savings and the interest I earn on a monthly basis. Another secret to having goals is to maintain a pattern of continuous improvement. Now that I have substantial savings, my next goal is to invest what I've earned into higher yield investment vehicles. That's another reason why people fail to loose weight, imagine that they have lost all that weight, what's next? For almost all of them, if they don't have any idea of what to do next, I'm sure they will revert back and regain all that weight.

As human beings, we improve by making incremental and continuous changes into habits. We establish habits by having consistency and self-discipline. There are tricks we can play with how we perceive ourselves. Instead of striving for lofty fantasies, we are better off taking small steps slowly.

Unnecessary mental gymnastics

Most of you probably know about Steve Pavlina and his blog. From his writing, I suspected that he is aware of the PUA community and not surprisingly, he started blogging about polyamory and his reasons for his participation. He went on and on and on to justify his interest, the real reasons are rather simple.

Let's be honest about our interest in having sex. There's really no need at all to justify our desire for sex, it is genetically programmed into us. And if someone has the opportunities to have as many sex partners as possible, and for many web-celebrities, bloggers included, why not? Why go through the whole Cirque du Soleil mental contortions of logic to present his case?! His desires don't require a rocket scientist or a neurosurgeon to explain. A 13-year-old boy can express them. What is interesting is that a 13-year-old boy probably doesn't realize that with money, Pavlina has acquired the power in his current marriage to exercise his desires. Imagine if he was a wannabe-PUA living with his current wife and 2 kids without his current 6-figure income, do you think she would let him to fulfill his desires?! That's how many celebrities (including but not limited to Hugh Hefner) have been doing for years. With fame and fortune, sex is readily available.

Another more sinister reason is that he is trying to generate traffic to his blog. Like all blogs, experiments and problems generate drama, that emotional discordance causes people to engage in more discussions which naturally will draw in more participants. I remember when I first started this blog, just the fact that I blogged about tidbits on how lame the real seduction community really is was enough to draw in readership. So with this new year, I will continue to blog, with a keener and more skeptical view on what goes on in the world, not just the blogosphere and the community.

The best way to get girls is have fame and fortune, short of that, most guys will end up with other losers and try to seduce each others. With that in mind, I will start blogging about other subjects that I have been pursuing.