The Art of Confidence

I was inspired by a friend of mine. He's a kind of twitchy immature young soul. Every tells him to 'be more confident'. He tries, but can't seem to get a grip on it. The more he tries, the worse it gets - its only a poor imitation; a copy of a copy. Without a firm foundation his attempts just seem to wash away into nothing. Again he receives the command: Be more confident.

First Telling someone with a lack of self-assurance to be more confident is like telling a homeless person to 'make more money'. Confidence is a word that groups many traits together into a single defined meaning. Confidence is a sum of multiple products, not a thing unto itself. If I had to nutshell confidence into being the product of just a few things, I would say that it is a culmination of the following three traits:

a) Power
b) Control
c) Respect

Power is the raw materials at hand that you can apply to a given situation. Muscle can be power, Good looks can be power. In my work, I have found that the most absolute and undeniable power comes from knowledge. Perhaps this is because I am not overtly muscular, nor incredibly good-looking. I take care of my body because it holds my mind, and serves as the interface between my mind and the world. I have found that one can have all the good ideas in the world, and know exactly what needs to be done, but it all means nothing if the body cannot carry out or convey the instructions. The more you learn about the world you live in, the more raw materials you have at hand to apply to a situation when you need it. Study is something that is beyond a classroom, we are all students, learning from life, if you want to get an 'A' one must start doing thier homework. Find your interests and pursue them relentlessly. Do not be ashamed of what interests you, it interests you for your own reasons. Dont let anyone, anyone dictate what should or should not be important to you. Adulthood means that you are responsible for your own life, no one else, ensuring that you and you alone are the only person in the world capable of making that judgement.

Control is the ability to effectively apply power. Study causes and effects, study levers and pulleys. A small amount of power applied effectivly can accomplish much more than just brute force. More importantly, know when to stop applying power. Know when your efforts are being wasted, and learn to walk away. Control is about wisdom, interaction and detail. Take a single, simple object and learn it intimately. Find ways of applying observations about something small to a bigger picture. By practicing this technique, you will learn how to take one aspect of knowledge and apply it to a completely different field, increasing the usefulness of Everything you already know.

A poor fighter seeks to accomplish only a single task with a specific movement. A punch hits, a dodge evades. A Master accomplishes many things with a single movement, a punch hits and blocks, a dodge evades and hits. If you and I do the same number of things in our lives, but my moves do three things while your moves only accomplish one, I will achieve three times as much in my life as you will. It is important to think about this.

Respect is about giving appropriate value to things. Social behaivior is about exchanging thoughts and ideas with others. A good exchange is where you have something of high value to another person, that is of lesser value to yourself, and vice versa. By exchanging our specialties, both parties increase the overall value of thier holdings. This is true for all interactions between people.

When a person needs to be comforted, that comfort has a high value to them at that moment, it easy for a caring person to comfort, and costs them little. In return they recieve appreciation, which the caring person needs very much (which is why they enjoy being a caring person in the first place). Both things are given at a moderate value, but they are recieved at a high value. The exchange is a beneficial one, and those people recognize the benefits of exchange by conducting more exchanges in the future. Real true friends are such because the frequent exchanges back and forth between those people most often result in positive outcomes for them both.

BUT!

Imagine if you did not assign the proper value to things. Lets say in the above, that instead of meeting a caring person, the person in need of comfort exchanged with someone selfish and bitchy. The comfort given would come at a high cost to the self-centered person, because it is not thier speciality. On receiving a moderate amount of appreciation, they would feel ripped off because self-centeredness means that appreciation from others means very little. After the exchange, the nasty person would feel ripped off because they did not recieve something of equal or higher value in return. They would demand more from the person who needed to be comforted, and if the demanding person was powerful, they would psychologically browbeat the other person until they recieved a fair return on thier emotional investment. At that point, the person in need of comfort has now given too much, and at the end of it all feels manipulated and abused, because they have been. You can easily see how that person would need more comfort, and if these people were forced or tied together, how it would begin to revolve in a circle straight from the depths of hell.

The key to proper respect is to acknowledge that a) not everyone's emotional goods are of equal value, and b) an incorrect value assigned to yourself will result in poor trades. Learn to assess your feelings after a social transaction. If you are feeling ripped off, there is a reason. Re-evaluate what you expect and what you will give to others. When you learn to assign value appropriately and well, your socail tranactions will begin to be emotionally profitable for yourself and everyone around you. People will be driven to you, because being with you and the people around you literally makes thier lives better.

Through the studying and mastering the abilities of Power, Control, and Respect, we become more effective and reliable as human beings. We gradually learn to exert more and more influence over our surroundings, and learn to take unexpected and difficult events in stride. That's what confidence is- the ability to meet any social or physical challenge with a steady, unwavering spirit. Because it is the culmination of many talents, it is a universally desired and respected trait. Go, and do thou likewise.

On Sex and Power

I believe I have learned that the pursuit of sex trains one well for the pursuit of power.

Think about it, it has all the angles of the corporate climb. You have bars, clubs and different hangouts to build networking skills, the ability to slip in out amongst friends and those who aren't so much. Anyone knows to get laid consistently you need a reputation as a generally nice guy (with a subtle edge so you wont be taken advantage of), willing to help, who people can talk to. Same for rising through the ranks of a large business. You need to learn when to pursue, and when to hold still. You learn how to market yourself, how to watch your 'optics' (the way you look, move and present yourself) and how to distinguish between friends who will be fruitful, and those just hanging out to kill time or your money.

The reason we insist that people shouldn't judge others is because people are universally guilty of it. Some are more open to changing those initial impressions than others, but everybody decides at least a few things about you the moment you meet. It takes an average woman less than 90 seconds to determine on some level whether or not she would be willing to have sex with that type of man, it takes an interviewer the same amount of time to determine whether they want you for a particular position. You can easily talk yourself out of an opportunity, but it is a rare thing indeed to talk yourself into one.

Seduction is just a facet of social interaction. You give a little of yourself, and you get a little bit of them. In simplest terms, the amount of influence you have on the people and the world around you is the true measure of your power. Financially, socially and personally. The attainment of Power is an art, and an art must be studied and practiced in order to be performed well.

Because sexuality is such in integral part of human behavior, the way people relate to sex is almost always the way they relate to social situations in general. Thus by learning all the little intricacies of sexual behavior (on not just the in and out bit) a person becomes exceedingly adept at manipulating and predicting the majority of human behavior. The ability to apply knowledge correctly to a situation increases the effectiveness of those decisions and thus amplifies the potential of any given human being.

It is inevitable that a human life will end, meaning that the number of decisions that a person is capable of making is finite. Making each decision count, making sure that each is the most effective decision possible, is key to any type of success, be you hippie or corporate warmonger. The key to making an decision efficient is in knowing how it will impact a system, be it live or machine. Much of this knowledge is empirical, being obtained only through direct observation, so it behooves those who seek effectiveness to directly experience as many kinds of social interaction as possible.

I’m not going to try to apply my own ideals of morality here, that's up to the individual. One can focus thier power to benefit or destroy as they see fit. Power in and of itself is not fulfilling, it is the direction or application of power that produces results, either positive or negative. Power is a multi-purpose tool, it can be a paintbrush or a switchblade - all depending on the hand that wields it.

All action, good or bad, involves the use of power, thus power itself stands outside of virtue or morality. Most of our 'virtues' like patience, kindness or forgiveness relate in some way to making small adjustments in our use of power in relation to another person. Because of this, it could be said that power is the only virtue, and the things we term as 'virtues' are merely facets to its application.

We think in terms of right and wrong, of love and disgust, in all the subjective ways that are the emotional signatures of humanity. But think of people you hate- do they help you organize and influence the world they way you want it, or does thier influence and will run counter to yours? Think of substances that literally taste foul like feces, are they good or bad for your body? Think of your friendships, do they support you or go against you?

We attach emotional values to things because we instinctively know how they will influence and affect us. We like the positive and avoid the negative. This system is so ingrained in our behavior that if we see someone who likes something or someone who is obviously bad for them, like heroin or a wife-beater, we say they have mental or emotional problems. What we are really gauging is the ability for that person to effectively manage thier lives and make appropriate decisions. There is nothing, nothing that you will ever do that does not involve power in some way. Because it is inherent in all action, the ability to use it well is paramount.

On that note however, if you live your life solely for the pursuit of power it would be empty, because power without direction is meaningless. However, you cannot exercise your free will to its fullest extent without the power to make that decision a reality. The less power you have, the more you are forced into position by the world around you, meaning that there is a higher probability that they will not be beneficial to you. As the power you wield increases, events are more likely to shape themselves to your will, and you are able to achieve more of those things you want to.

So explore the opposing sex, or perhaps merely the same one. Learn thier moods and undulations. Learn about friends and traitors and the extras that play in the movie of your life. Learn about being honest or deceitful, learn what makes people tick. Have a good experience, have a very bad one. Learn, for the love of god, learn. Your life has no final exam; how well you do depends entirely on the practical.

On Friends and Monogamy

I think most people fall within two catagories when veiwing thier forming relationships. Open and Closed. In the closed view, a beginning relationship precludes all other feelings for all others of that type, meaning if you've got 'boyfriend/girlfriend' feelings for someone, you wont have them for anyone else. In fact you'll go out of your way to avoid putting yourself into situations that may bring about those feelings for someone else, just so that your heart can remain 'pure' as it were. This veiw is almost always a product of cultural conditioning, movies, media and the like, but is still very real to the one who has that view.

The second view is that you can feel a variety of things for a variety of people simultaneously, and one relationship or set of feelings does not come at the expense of another. You can really really like someone, say up to the point of making out with them, and still have those feelings for someone else. In western culture it is generally considered 'uncool' to have two similar physical relationships (cheating), since monogamy is pounded into our heads since the very first time we saw a flick or read a book in which the guy gets the girl, or the girl gets the guy. The basic idea is that you cant have 'True Love' with two people at the same time.

Here's the problem; if every intimate relationship came at the cost of all others, then we would only ever have one relationship- entering into it at a very young age and keeping with that partner until death. We are also encouraged to find the right person, in fact the 'perfect person' to have that relationship with. You cant find the 'perfect' person without playing the field, so the ideas of finding True Love and holding to the Closed view are mutually exclusive. Thus everybody finds a balance. Closed view people tend to have a list of things which if the other person violates, the relationship is deemed over (cheating, or being intentionally hurt, for example) Open view people will start mini-relationships while still in thier current one to test the waters before jumping ship.

In the big picture, this means that Closed view people will jump from relationship to relationship with distinct gaps in the middle, because they haven't started anything before they break up. They are also more afraid of leaving a bad relationship because they have nothing to fall back on when its over. They are far more likely to go back to old girlfriends than be alone, because thier conditioning says that its not right' to be alone, which is why they are Closed view in the first place. Beware the rebound girl if you are a closed view person, she only looks tempting because her horseshit is better than being alone- if you broke up once, there was a good reason, and it's best to find someone else.

Open view people rarely find themselves alone, because they already have little starter relationships all over the fucking place. Their lives are not so much a start and stop type thing, but an ebb and flow of thier existing ties to other people. As one relationship takes a turn for the worse,or even just remains the same, they focus on another, and that relationship grows as the other falls away. They are very fickle, because they are driven to seek perfection, and have enough self-confidence to drop or damage a relationship because of a few minor things. Since they are masters at beginining new relationships, they have no problem in letting a current relationship go because there is always a new one on the horizon.

Thier achilles heel however, is that they find self-worth in how they relate to other people, and often find themselves adapting to the people around them, rather than holding true to thier own individual character. As odd as it seems, they are easy prey to domineering and controlling partners, because they feel an intense pressure to live up to the expectations of those around them. If you dont live up to what they want, you're gone in a heartbeat, but if they can't live up to yours, they are driven to redefine themselves until they do.

Two basic strategies, and two answers to the same question. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Small wonder they are so common.

On Us and Them

Heres the thing, everybody, man woman and child, are completly analog and unique identities. To relate to someone effectively, powerfully, you have to bend your mind to comprehend and understand what someone else is really saying. Im not talking about understanding the definitions of the words that are coming out of thier flapping yap. Im talking about the connotations. Lets face it, 'Have a nice day!' can mean anything from, 'It was nice meeting you' to 'Fuck off and die fucking fucktard' Depending where you were raised, what your parents talked like, what cliques youre in, words and phrases are going to have entirely different meanings from person to person. Think about something red. Got it? Now was that blood-red, Fire-engine red, barn red, slutty high-school girl lipstick red, the list goes on. What most people never catch on to, is that no matter how detailed, people will ever only understand about 80% of what another person is saying. The rest is just stuff they make up themselves to putty in the gaps.

In groups of close friends you can see where theyre used to the way each other express themselves. A simple 'd00d!' Can mean 'Hi!' or 'What the hell did you call my girlfriend for at three in the morning when you were drunk last night, and dont pretend you dont know what Im talking about.' Its because these people are already synched up in terms of context, verbal cues, and thought patterns that the exchange of info becomes uber-efficient. Being synced or not synced is how our brains determine 'Us' from 'Them'. If youre looking to become one of 'Them', you'll need to sync up.

Know why hot chix sleep with a-holes who really even arent that good looking? Cause theyre following the little trail of verbal breadcrumbs that tells them exactly what to do. Fear is the fucking kingsnake of all social behaivior. They are, like all humans, conditioned to want to acheive the state of being 'normal'. Yes, even messed up goth chix are questing to be normal messed up goth chix. But the raw deal is, everyone is unique. Normal doesnt actually exist, its just something the people around you agree on. So most people spend thier lives being controlled by the fear that they are not normal, and try to adapt to those around them because it makes them feel comfortable. This is the achilles heel of every single person you will ever meet. Ever. When the cues to adapt are defined and clear, those people who find themselves usually confused enjoy the understanding of what they are supposed to do so much, they will do almost anything it requires of them, yes even sleeping with badly-dressed poorly mannered retards.

Again, when talking about sync, normal is defined by the people that person thinks of as 'Us'. By conciously entering sync with them, you become part of the 'Us' and now, because youre the evil monkey who knows all this is going on, can control the ideas of normal, and do what youd like. Be warned: this technique is only good in 1-on-1 conversations. A group will have its own idea of normal, and the person will not be nearly as influenced by your will. (Which by the way is why the first thing domestic violaters do is cut off their sig other from seeing thier friends, so they can be the ones to mantain what is considered normal.)

Remember, the two keys of becoming an 'Us' are imitation (which is why humans have a natural need to conform) and predictable progression. (omigosh, I just knew you were going to say that!) Be gentle or you'll break the spell, but dont be meek and mild either. Always remember, since you have the kingsnake well in hand, there be no need for nervousness or embarrassment as you are the one defining what is normal. Go for the gold.

On the Origin of The Zombie

Zombies, when good things happen with bad timing.

I think most of the legends of the undead fall into this realm. Back in tha' day (pre 1500) It was pretty hard to tell sometimes when a person was really dead. There werent a lot of doctors to speak of, the mortician was more likely a carpenter than a scientist. The barber was in charge of a lot of medical crap as well. These people basically gathered round like three rednecks peering under the hood of a broken jeep going "Yep.. Shore looks dead.. Hyuk."

In fact it was common enough for 'dead' people to come back that there are a few rituals based on this. A wake, for example, is designed to be one last helluva noise to spur Corpsey McCorpserson back into action. They used to install small bells in tombstones and have a string leading down to the coffin, so the occupant could ring it if they awoke: hence the expression "saved by the bell".

Most likely zombies came about for two reasons, one was stories of weirdass rituals being practiced in the carribean islands, as boats going back and forth from there to Europe became possible. These stories became folk tales of derring do, told by sailors and repeated by story tellers everywhere as they were the LOTR of thier day. The second is the Plague, which killed so many people they started burying them in shallow mass graves. Because the plaugue is slow and excruciating, as well as coming with a high fever, passing out and comas were more common than usual. Heat fever also nukes a good portion of fine motor control and speech. So Uncle Bob would wake up after being buried for a few days, at night because the cold has shocked him into revival, and claw his way through rotting corpses, decomposing soil and muck. His skin is falling off his body because his lymph nodes have gone crazy and popped, covering him in pus, blood and black goo. His hair is falling out, and his frontal lobe and bits of his cerebral cortex are destroyed by fever, so he pretty much has to drag one leg and his arm flops around as he goes.

Now the grave is close to town, because they havent completely figured out germs yet, and no-one wants to drag each of a thousand corpses eight miles out into the boonies. Uncle Bob sees familiar territory and starts to drag his ass home. He is spotted immediately, and since wild superstition and tales of the devil (not in the least embellished out the yang by story tellers) are at an all time high, Uncle Bob must have been raised by evil spirits, eaten corpses to survive and is back to wreak vengance upon the living. They cant get to close, because Uncle Bob had the plague, and no one wants that shit. So they pop an arrow or two into him, but Uncle Bob has had most of his nerves decayed by the plague, and is probably in such agony an arrow or two makes little difference.

He keeps coming. Somebody gets the bright idea to either take his head with a sword, or plock a few fire arrows into his chest. They immediately set the corpse on fire, cuz it cleanses the evil spirits, naturally, and Uncle Bob writhes in agony until he is finally down for the count. Wash, rinse repeat a few hundred times in different settlements all over Europe, reinforce with new and fantastic voodoo tales from the Carribean, and bundle it all up in the embellished story telling that passed for legitimate knowledge back in the Dark Ages, and you've got yourself the birth of the modern day Zombie.

On People I Hate

I hate people who take advantage of a good nature.

Way to fuck the world, asshole.

On Pondering a Campfire

- Campfire –

A bright and twisting Flame
Quests quietly over a kindling branch
Seeking only to last another moment
It cannot go back
Along the trail of ash it leaves behind
But must move ever forward
Hoping that a new chance comes
To save itself from its own nature
The dancing held within the light
Will end
Warm your hands while it lasts

On Being Caught in a Rainstorm

- Caught in a Rainstorm –

The air is hot and wet
Leaves glisten with anticipation
The forest grows hushed and silent,
Pressure building slowly in your ears
Rain begins to wash down gently
Droplets caressing your cheek
The clouds open wide sending
A raging torrent to pound against the earth
Lighting tears a path from ground to sky
Cataclysmically connecting as
Thunder shakes you to your core
The storm begins to break,
Sunlight scatters in the waning drizzle
Adding a glowing touch
To a green and vibrant world

On Equality and the Politically Correct

If men and women were truly equal, we would all be called men. If all men were equal, we would have no word for boy, or leader. Political correctness is a vague yet prevalent evil, teaching us that somehow we are equal to those we know are somehow less or more than us. This prevents us from achieving true power, as we are slowly conditioned to believe it is not our place. Why do you think its called 'political' correctness? What is it within that technique that uniquely applies to politicians? If it was a process that was truly proper and worthwhile, wouldn’t it just be called 'correctness'? The term is equivalent to being 'almost-rightness'- as sad as it is, if you are almost right, you are still not right, and therefore must be incorrect. Obviously then, 'political incorrectness' would be a more apt term to describe this method of speech, however the term seems so redundant and so applicable to so many things, its definition is of no use to us. Begone ye foul linguistic emanation; never darken my door again.

On Preparing to Give a Speech

Its all about Pavlov. That is to say, attaching a stimulus to your practice session.

If its a speech you yourself wrote, then the language should be more or less natural for you. What won't be natural are the pauses, the place finding etc.

If you are allowed to have it in front of you, bold the sentances that provide the main topic, so if you get a brain freeze, you can easily find what you are supposed to be talking about. A written speech should be practiced no less than ten times. Use a mirror to test the effectiveness of your facial expressions. Read it out loud, in a moderately toned voice, to hear exactly what it will sound like, and give you a heads up on when you need to breathe, and how you will wrap your tounge around the words. Too many amateurs think that practice is simply reading and re-reading thier speech; most people dont realize that thier mental narrative voice is different from thier speaking voice, in that it will use or skip or difficult to pronouce words, and insert an understanding of that word, rather than its actual pronounciation. It is only by speaking a written work aloud that you can appreciate and use all of its inflections properly. A good practice is to run through it three times, then take a fifteen to twenty minute break. DCome back to it, read it over once mentally, then practice three more times. Dont be afraid to make small mark on your sheet to tell you when to breath or pause for effect. After the third time, start going over especially difficult sentances, until they flow like water. after about ten minutes of this, return to reading it from the top.

If you have the time, or merely wish to go for the gold, read from the top everytime you make an error or mispronounce a word. By the time you finish the piece in its entirity without error, you will have read it out loud many many many times. Do the same thing starting from the middle, and when you get to the end, read it from the top. This is to ensure that the last part gets practiced as much as the intro part. When you have polished the last section perfectly, take a ten/twenty minute break, and return to your speech. Read slowly and deliberately from the top, all the way through. Once this has been completed, execute your speech flawlessly three times in a row. Practice one final time in the morning before your presentation, and speak quietly to yourself to limber up the muscles in your mouth and throat.Stay away from coffee for that morning, soft drinks work out okay.

What I mean by attaching your stimulus, is that by setting a physical mark, you can return in your mind to your practice session. Wearing a rubber band on the wrist is classic. Snap it lightly just before you begin each full run of your speech. Then, as you step up to your podium, or front of the classroom, and start to feel nervous like everyone is watching you (because they are) snap it lightly just before you begin. Blank out the people in front of you, seeing through them instead of looking at them, and remember back to a good run in front of the mirror. If you have practiced diligently, you can pretty much just imagine yourself back in your practice area, and the audience dissappears.

Being afraid is natural if you are unprepared, you are facing the unknown monster without any weapons of your own. Being properly prepared takes away a lot of the unknown variables, thus limiting the power social fear and anxiety has over your performance.

Good luck.

On the Nature of Evil

I recently saw an article which talked about the first case ever of a street gang being charged with acts of terrorism. Basically under the new legislation passes after 9/11, the law allows for much harsher penalties and more agressive takedown tactics. Search and seizures for example, are completly legal under the Act, as long as there is evidence of possible terrorist activity. For the first time, a law designed to inhibit the actions of outside influence has been brought to bear on denizens of its own native homeand. I think thats extremely funny. More so because there is so much division on whether it was right or wrong.

"Its an abuse of power!"
"Hey, they killed a girl, you dont think its right to kill a girl do you?"
"Burn them!"

I like how people always think that fascism or totalitarianism or even just plain evil is going to come up and say, "Hey dude, Im evil. Im here to smack your bitch up."

The evil you see is there to distract you; to lull you into a sense of security that you can spot it with few problems. The real evil is the stuff you dont see, like a government willing to put forth extreme reactionary legislation, and then enforce it once the initial crisis is all but forgotten. America just made a comparativly small comprimise to it's civil liberties, and the authorities now have more power. It was done right, without a fuss- they made the people hunger for it, beg for it, demand it. And now its done.

Evil is not one thing, it is a host of things. It begins with reasonable comprimise. One by one offensive and hostile radicals (such as gangs) are pointed out, and denied thier freedoms to do as they want. The population backs the denial of freedom for these people, of course they do, its clearly wrong. But the law is absolute and applies to everyone. Eventually ensuring everyone is chained so that no-one causes trouble.

Evil will never be a rock that falls from the sky, but rather a host of snowflakes, each seemingly innocent and gentle, that eventually caves in the roof. It just amuses me that as a whole people are more concerned with making sure thier doors are deadbolted against an unknown and highly unlikely evil, rather than checking to see if its snowing outside.

Absolution

Im wondering what the point of absolution is.

If you look at the I Ching, it seems to indicate that in order for a human being to progress through life, they need to be in a state of adaptive change. The past is done, and cannot be changed. It warns against the ego, the sense of personal wants and desires that go against the grain of social responsibilty. It is a darker instinct, based on selfishness, and indicates an unwillingness for a person to accept the world as it is. It is this unwillingness to accept the natural flow of the world that causes issues in the way an individual relates to the world around them. It is only by letting go of the past, letting go of the way you wish the world was, that you can enter a state of mind that is willing to accept the true nature of the world, thus adapt to it completely and without reservation.

The purpose of Absolution then, is to have a tangible action to mark letting go of the past. The past has already happened, it cannot be changed, the experiences have taken place, their impact has already been felt and caused whatever changes in a person that they will. To move forward, one must first accept they way they are, and apply a new principle, such as the betterment of themselves and thier fellow man, to future behaivor. This new application of faith will affect the new growth and changes in that individual, providing the foundation for even more spiritual and personal growth in the future.

Confess, be at one with your past
Be absolved and put it behind you
Dedicate yourself to proper principles
Grow into the future.

This is the Way to a better life.