Artful Prudence

“Silence is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous.”

That you should not hesitate is important, even in your preparation to write. You shall not masturbate the notion too long. You need not hit the brake before you start. There are among aspiring artists countless misbeliefs that deter the possible writer from doing what his heart desperates for, in an attempt to start, perhaps, on strong or otherwise solid basis. This demand for sublimity at dawn of your art is pointless. A more obsessive, less calculated mode of creation would, from my experience, yield more promising results. But I can only speak for myself when I say you need an uncommon vigour and curiosity to reach the crest of excellence with your spirit still longing for greatness. Though I believe I have in my possession the ability to write and compel, I am not the most fanatical of writers. To be truly spectacular in this way, you must grow so monstrous that in the presence of your aptitudes, onlookers can’t help but remain paralysed in disbelief.

For much of my day, I daydream of writing as if it were a distant paradise. I ponder possibilities, I compose ideas which are haplessly discarded before appearing on paper. I begrudge my thoughts as if they were one with my self. I condemn my work. To the point where no appetite is left. I sicken myself by vanity. For a while I thought holding myself to a high regard will lead to some kind of high excellence, but instead it harboured dissatisfaction when a certain expectation or other failed me. I don’t have and didn’t in the past, the courage to admit to myself, that my tendencies with writing have, for as long as I can remember, been rather deviant and unnatural, in the sense that I was ever hardly obsessed with it as much as I told myself I am. I turned to it when I felt impelled in my heart to do so. But perhaps, I have told myself, such a deviance could have been broken off had I not denied it in myself for as long as I did. If I were to continue to be honest with myself, I would also reveal that the reality of my denial made me resentful, that it dissuaded me from creating art. It felt, furthermore, as if I was trying to rebel against my natural ways to prove a point to myself, and that seemed to me a demonstration of some persisting insecurity or weakness, and I knew, without question, that no beauty or art could come of it if terrible force is needed to erect it.

I tended to writing almost haphazardly, spontaneously, in accordance with my passions, in a manner that obviously lacks organization and discipline. In this way, one could assume that I wrote sporadically with no powerful aim in sight, and while that is partially true, it isn’t true in its entirety. What I do however despise with certainty is the rigidity and narrowness of premeditated writing that is, in my eyes, devoid of magic. When some of those writers write, they write over their writing so incessantly that the natural and spontaneous rhythms of their thoughts are so watered down that they are stripped of their character.

The more I matured in my writing, the more I saw; that to be honest with oneself, to the point of complete humiliation, to the point of complete self-transparency, is the only sensible means to create beauty out of one’s own disfigurement. The courageous act of unrelenting sincerity, at its culmination, delivers me from unending disgrace, and in spite of my flaws I have destroyed denial, that lies at the helm of deception and dishonesty. This path I have resolved to pursue has no definite end and is always open to be transformed at any moment. It is the constant struggle of reconciling myself, but in its difficulty lies the eventual and ever unexpected liberation from one’s own fear, doubt, panic.

At every turn, there is always the possibility of catastrophe, of letting off an explosive on myself without being able to forsee its impact or landing. The mere act of bringing to light the darkest of thoughts, I am open and liable to be destroyed; for that reason, I am permanently on edge, waiting to be lit up, burnt down, brought back to light. I am no longer playing with fire, I have become the fire, and in no longer assuming a form, I have formed anew. I have thus realised, and continue to realise, that seeking light in the darkness demands the unleashing of one’s darkest night, for once it is let loose, it lights up in flame.

For there to be ascent within myself, I must be ready to die, not only figuratively, but spiritually. And though the thought of death still kindles fear in my heart, I nonetheless dare to be blown up, holding firm in faith that even in my trembling over the ashes of consequence, I find strength and courage to weather it, and I will. Even in my darkest hour of panic, I don’t lose consciousness. I have always made it through some way or other, but because the possibility that it may happen in the future is always present, the fear of the worst unfolding arises, largely in my head and consequently, in my body.

When faith speaks to me, it tells me that even when the consequences of truth scare me witlessly, and the word that would rather remain buried becomes manifest, the terrors that follow are more than sufferable. They are critical. And in their fruitfulness, they are completely delirious. In light of that realisation, I feel partially liberated with greater enthusiasm, prepared to come out of the trenches, mowing down the falsehoods that were left running with no true faith or aim, but merely as a decoy to permit me time to find a secure hiding place away from the theatre of war. I will burn down the empty coffins that impede my way, and the bridges that were built for recreation.

I will, above all, make myself vulnerable, and in my vulnerability strong enough to withstand the consequences of it, with the higher aim of creating and being something that borders on beauty, and breathing clean air; and more life than I can endure in my lifetime.

“The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others — the living — are those who pushed their luck as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.”

Living Dangerously

When I mull over of my writing, I often realize how faulty a judge I am of my art. At the same time, I can’t seem to fathom how any keen artist can preserve an accurate judgment of his genius or lack thereof. So if he is sufficiently free from vanity, he may ask a discerning fellow or an old master for critique, with the aim of perceiving his own standing. Many a time, I cast doubt on what I write, for my sentimentality often perpetrates a great deal of my more seductive poeticisms and leaves my fellow men questioning whether I am painting a promising picture, or perhaps counseling a way of life or philosophy to the art of being alive. Inevitably, a certain obscurity emerges, and leaves readers wondering if I’m talking of quixotic notions, or heartfelt actualities.

When I say you should fall in love young, recite poetry, write outside, or drive at high speeds while inclining toward the promise of death, I mean it in earnest, not in a pensive utopian light, which too has its magic. In actuality, there is nothing so practical as unpredictable about speeding down the highway late at night. However, thrill-seeking men who speed down the highway don’t have practicality in mind. Truth be told, none of them do. That would defeat the pleasure of relishing the rapture of a fleeting high. To permanently live within the limits of safety is tedious and in due course leads to a sterile existence. No women, either, desires a man who is fundamentally lifeless, insipid and dulled by fear. You must wonder why such a monotonous man is so concerned by safety in the first place. Is it motivated by fear, or the danger of being irresponsible or unprincipled? In my experience, no lively and bright-eyed man has an acute fear of danger – this is not because he is irresponsible, but because he understands that for any man to undertake a rich experience, he must occasionally be careless of his duty. A sufficient measure of negligence is appropriate to rejoice in life’s rhapsodies. For that reason, he finds a thrill in doing things which fondle with death. 

As you mature into your mettle, you often, without realizing it, become a sober and inordinately responsible man. The child that once hankered to play is now incarcerated by your impotence to slacken the liabilities that govern your everyday life. You no longer know how to enjoy yourself, you deadened the child with lifeless shelter. An automaton who has more in common with machines than living beings. No man is more mad than he who is sane all the time. On occasion, you ought to lose your mind, fire your own imagination; for that is where passion, energy, and life sprout from. So when I say you must live dangerously, I don’t mean it as a fetching notion, but as a passionate and loving counsel. You weren’t called forth to be a rigid cadaver, a barren body which is largely wooden. Rigidity, stiffness, and tautness are indicative of death, not of sentient beings with a capacity for touch, awareness, and emotion. If you aspire to find balance and natural contentment, you must work toward a certain suppleness of the body, adaptability of the mind. That’s what gives birth to vigor, zeal, drive. Then, you learn to give yourself permission to live unconfined, allowing the child to amuse himself from time to time. 

Excessive shelter, safety, and protection eventually stifle your spirit. Later, the real problems become visible; misery, despair, depression, you name it. Most people tend to refuge out of an uneasy disquiet, not out of sensibility. I would go so far as to say that no man is more sensible than he who knows how to live dangerously, for he can tell you something about being alive, unlike those responsible bastards who shun any dance with death, yet are inwardly expired– they seldom dare to expose themselves to the raptures of adventure or the search for the truth, but are seemingly unbothered by the dying of their spirit, which continually taunts them to depart from the sanctuary. Their existence has grown to be a mere sanctum, a safe haven, where good things are quickly deteriorating while nothing beautiful is bursting forth – a waste land of possibility, all given up in a spirit of freedom and false virtue.

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”

“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

“By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”

Like Nietzsche, some of the most profound thoughts come to me when I was walking. For a while, I have attempted to figure out why that is precisely, but such a question still sparks my curiosity to this day. When I sit down with the intention of writing, there is a natural anticipation which arises out of its own will, which almost always prevents finer, more heartfelt thoughts to gush in and make themselves noticed. Such a pattern is always a cause for frustration if you are disposed to write, but any practiced writer can tell you that there are moments where the incapacity to do so overpowers your necessity to write. I find myself in a state where I am forcing myself to think, anxiously, impossibly, with the impassioned hope that the thought I desire to provoke grips my soul and at once equips me with the appropriate words to articulate it. More often than not, this doesn’t succeed as I would have intended, and leaves me with a feeling of small vexation. 

Quite ironically, it is when my mind is stretching its legs without interference that it happens; the thought presents itself in a gleaming, sophisticated fashion and I am abruptly endowed with the construction and expression. As far as I know, I have never stopped thinking, for a long time I have thought about things to preposterous extents and for extensive periods of time, and I continue to do so. There is a sure madness about it, and I have grown restless more times than I can count as a consequence. To call it mere overthinking, though, does not satisfy. It is more like thinking over things that on the surface may seem insubstantial, but at an intramural level, are reasonably serpentine. There are people who overthink without harvesting new insights, then there are artists, poets, and philosophers who think things over and collect new jewels. Such treasures become refined paragons of excellence, gifts that the world could and will benefit from. I think that is where true, pure beauty emerges. At first glance, such thinkers seem like overthinkers who are enfeebled or diseased – and you could certainly make the case that they have an underlying affliction and darkness  – but their brilliance lies in their madness, and to strip them of their blizzards is to render them inferior to the genius that bears fruit in the midst of their natural delirium. 

When I’m taking the air by the ocean, an outlandish tranquility moves my emotion. I feel beset by a loss for words, yet in my speechlessness, my mind opens like a bud and blossoms, running uninterrupted and steady, an outpouring of glory, ecstasy and darkness intermingled together. There’s a profound and curious sense of escape, as if I got perforated by an arrow and blood leaked out the orifice. Likened to a leakage, a discharge of successive thoughts rush out, and I, the observer, find myself in a state of wondrous bewilderment. As I carry on with walking, puzzled and inquiring, there is no difficulty to be found, no blockage or alarm. The pandemonium that surrounds me is strangled by a flashing light, by a love that could only be expressed as transcendent, perfect, and melodious. The gleaming lights of nightfall are permeated by a rich vividness, like a painting strengthened by luminous whites clashing with the approaching darkness. 

The feeling of being by yourself, in deep utter contemplation, fastened to experience itself, overcome by vision and insight, is an eternity in a moment. If anyone were to ask where my most abstruse thoughts come from, I would say they come from the most cavernous seas that impregnate my soul while walking down the promenade. That is one of the few instances I feel thoroughly at ease with myself, still like a mill-pond I prowl on my imagination and it yields… a stupor of knowledge that I am convinced is otherworldly. My doubts are dispelled, my convictions are buttressed by understanding, my fears are proved vain, my standing timely. Call it divine providence if you will. 

If you’re earnest about writing, and you’re concerned with the profound and eternal, you should go on frequent walks, preferably in nature, and by yourself, journal and pen in hand, ready to think up and formulate. A thought strikes often when you least expect it and catches you by surprise. Those who carry some paper are always ready to jot it down. You should never miscalculate your capacity for thought, you will be pleasantly impressed with yourself when you find that you’re more expressive than you assumed. It’s simply that you never tried to actually write something eloquent, pregnant with meaning. Too concerned with perfection, you fail before you start. Thoughts are irregular at the start, no matter how heartfelt, they only shine after, when civilized by style. Write down something, anything! it doesn’t have to be great, but you have to write it down if you want to work out its merit. The profundity of a thought is ambiguous until it’s been enriched by revelation, it only assumes its lawful colors when the potential depth of the thought has been unearthed, ascertained, and consolidated.

In the words of Kafka, “Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.”

“Substance is insufficient, circumstance is also vital. A bad manner ruins everything, even justice and reason. A good manner makes up for everything: it gilds a ‘no’, sweetens truth, and beautifies old age itself. How something is done plays a key role in all affairs, and a good manner is a winning trick. Graceful conduct is the chief ornament of life; it gets you out of any tight situation.”

“A great man’s conduct should not be petty. You should never go into minute details, especially with unpleasant things, because although it’s an advantage to notice everything casually, it isn’t to want to inquire into every last thing. You should normally act with a noble generality, which is a form of gallantry.”

You hear a lot of men nowadays insisting on what style and grace ought to look like, they talk of machismo, being an asshole, perhaps arrogant, apparently uninterested, selectively aloof. You hear men who’ve been terribly wounded in the past by some woman or other counsel against niceness, not to be a so-called pushover, a coward, a quaking mess. I will, therefore, attempt to insult your sensibilities by offering you a different perspective on the art of chivalry, as I believe most of these devices are nothing more than frangible outs to a deeper problem. Men who’ve had their heart broken move from one severity to another, from leniency to mercilessness, they cover up terror with undue savagery and believe in their hearts they’ve learned their lesson. They let pain dictate their future treatment, but they fail to puzzle it out by reason and thus also fail to be what they actually are. They first falsify their nature for a woman, then they get hurt, then they falsify themselves a second time, discover its partial utility and conclude that they have the answer. That’s not precisely how it works.

There is still a rancor of bad feeling underlying that sense of effrontery which at its heart is still frivolous. Even if women are responsive to its apparent allure, you know you’re lying to yourself – you do it not as a consequence of who you are, but because you want to safeguard what has already been ruptured. There’s no charm, no grace, no elegance in that. A waste of taste and worldliness that is far more arresting. Being polite and well-mannered is indicative of excellence, not weakness. The problem arises when there is no profundity of character to offset it, no charm, no nonchalance, no boldness. The notion that you need to be a perpetual asshole to women to disarm her is low-resolution thinking. A refined taste in speech, manner, and dress is a form of royalty, and lies at the height of a man well bred – presentable, clean, sharp and eloquent. Do not mistake niceness with good manners, for they are different things, and achieve different ends. There are many nice men, ostensibly civil, but they lack backbone and ingenuity; they fall short of being integral, all-embracing. 

A man well-mannered must epitomize an element of urbaneness, who effortlessly consolidates his grace and firmness, who speaks persuasively yet saves his calmness, who reacts impassively yet tempers his urges. Judicious in his speech, he doesn’t betray all his cards, but delicately spurs on a woman’s need to talk about herself – and lets her do so. It is easy to counsel a man in machismo, and it is usually the same: nag her when she least expects it, humourise her insults to establish authority, sexualise her remarks, insinuate, and so forth. This is all well and good, and may prove effective in numerous situations, but what happens in between is pivotal. Counseling a man who isn’t socially calibrated will soak up this unseemly guidance and make poor use of it. Erroneous judgment, incongruous timing, impudent demeanor. Before you get ahead of yourself, you must lay the foundations; polish your taste, sophisticate your manner, hone your word, refashion your closet. Naturally, these amendments take time, but are far more worthwhile than merely becoming a graceless self-centered narcissist whose every word stinks of vulgarity. Some women find it appealing, but those aren’t the women of an honorable man. Elementally, man becomes chivalrous for himself, not for womanly appeal. 

Most men have no sense of style, their taste is graceless, their judgment feeble. Even in our lenient complacency, we have grown uncivilized, like domesticated animals we succumb to transient urges and allow them to determine our exploits. The mob have no definite conception of beauty, they can hardly unravel its luster or abiding element. When you speak to them of grace, they don’t grasp what underlies it, the timeless and immortal soul that merges the divine with the material, the eternal with the perishable. They speak of courtesy, of respect, but even such pictures are muddled in hollow ideals, defiled by the ostentatious ignorance of the herd. They say one thing, and do another. They behave one way, and believe another. Their existence is a masterclass in hypocrisy – in their civility, they are the least civil of all. Argument is vain, opinion is cheap, truth is whatever they feel at any given moment. Truly, we have become so profoundly hampered by passion that no truth could ever stand the test of time in our books.  

In my head, I have for a while envisioned many a paradise, but later came to the modest realization that no words will ever suffice to precisely articulate this picture. Nonetheless, I will attempt to give it depth for your own meditation; a paradise in solitude is one where the beauty of love finds itself binded by the grace of one’s own cultivation, overlooking a boundless ocean of promise, uncertainty, and choice, where sublime food is being relished in the mediterranean tropical, where fine ladies are wedged to smirking gentlemen puffing cigarette, where passageways are occupied by tapering eating houses and stalls of lively exotic fruits, where antiquated balconies are engaged by bracing couples gloating over red wine, eating indelible carbonara, making love at the converging nightfall. One man or other poking fun at life’s odds, speeding down the highway in a cloud of smoke, tickling death itself, wagering existence. Beauty is terrifying, it’s an arbiter that casts a shadow on the dull, for they have nothing to show for it and are at once eclipsed by its eternal brilliance.

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!

Let me ask you something… If there was no such thing as money, how would you spend the rest of your days? In other words, what mission would you devote your life to? Would you resort to painting, writing, travelling, capturing moments? When most people are asked this question, you start to get a more faithful idea of where their passion lies in their life.

But with that, another realisation follows, namely, that most people are too frightened to pursue it, because as one may naturally presume, carving an impressive career would demand serious sacrifice, commitment, and loneliness. And really, you’re still devoid of guarantees, because you don’t know what the final outcome will be. Most people abandon the dream almost in advance; they have a feeble mindset and a lack of skill that needs honing.

They have a vague interest in pursuing the dream, but they are trapped in comfort and mediocre living. They live through a stable job and mundane relationships. They lack intensity and can’t tolerate pressure. They are apparently ambitious in their reasoning but not in their efforts. They speak of ‘what ifs’ and ponder to themselves how profoundly gratifying it would be to live like you’re playing, to find a calling so amusing and immersive, that it feels more like playing than like working.

If you ask me what my notion of paradise looks like, I would say it is to lead a way of life that doesn’t hinge on preservation without expansion. That is to say, it isn’t a vicious cycle of working to survive and surviving to work. This is not living, this is to go on existing under that wishful notion that one day, you’ll have enough money for retirement, and then finally you’ll be fortunate enough to wallow in youthful pleasures.

Not that I want to break it to you, but by then it will be to no avail, and this will only make itself evident once you get to the finish line, because you’re going to feel cheated. You were waiting for this day your whole life, and then that monumental day arrives, but there’s not much excitement to it. You missed the whole point of the dance! You were meant to sing, play and delight when the music was being played, but instead you were busy struggling for a youthful paradise that can’t be enjoyed when you’re older and sapped of that careless vitality.

I say, you must learn the art of enjoyment while you’re doing something you intensely enjoy. As I see it, there is little time to spend your days here doing things that make you feel miserable, like you’re incessantly fighting to survive. There’s no playful aspect, it is working for the sole purpose of working, rather than working for the purpose of living. You see, living the so-called good life requires a degree of subtlety.

You can’t possibly conceive a harmonious and gratifying life if your paradigm is such that you think it’s necessary to burden yourself with unpleasant tasks to feel like you’ve earned something worthwhile. That’s is nothing more than an egotistical snare that acts as a device to reassure the insecure that they’re worth something more for their hard suffering.

Certainly, suffering is a necessary precursor to growth, but your outlook shouldn’t be one that reasons as such, “This is more difficult because it’s more worthwhile than that, which is less difficult, even though it brings me more present joys.” How do you know it’s more worthwhile? Who told you that difficulty is always synonymous with worthwhileness? Why are you infatuated with the phenomenon of suffering, is there a masochism underlying your inclinations that deceives you into thinking “I am alive, and therefore I must suffer, even if this pleasure doesn’t warrant it.” You can enjoy many things in life without having to suffer for them. Now, that is not to say that there aren’t pleasures worth suffering for – that’s another matter.

But the most beautiful pleasures tend to be profoundly ordinary, common, everyday. We simply grew so accustomed to them that we’re no longer struck by awe or wonderment – that’s our ignorance speaking. As time progresses, so does our forgetfulness make us ignorant to the beauty that encircles us. Then it is no longer gratitude and wonderment that overcomes us, but a certain dullness to our senses. We must always restore our senses to comprehend what lays before our eyes.

I advise you to really become sensitive to the little things. If you’re going to pet your dog, immerse yourself in the act of petting him. If you’re going to make love to your woman, be completey there, as you clasp her waist with both hands and mindlessly indulge her, if you’re going to work, learn to move with the motions of execution like a surfer riding a wave – use the wind to enable effortlessness, engage boldly, fluidly, no hesitation, no forethought.

This too is the way of Samurai and Zen, where one develops not only a sensitivity to the present moment, but a presence of mind that is both absent and immersive, clear and swift. The what ifs must be extinguished once and for all, for if you desire true mastery, you must be fully committed.

Titans who climb the mountain tops didn’t ‘kind of’ want it and struck good fortune. No. They lost their mind, quite literally, over the idea of conquering a peak, and then, in a swift convergence between opportunity and chance, the thunder struck the titan, and there was conquest.

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.”

When one talks of Mastery, one is inclined to associate it, quite reasonably, to some kind of self-improvement. It has been said that the greatest face of self-mastery is command over your emotions, and on the other hand, the prowess over an express craft. However, it is pivotal to acknowledge the vehicle that drives us to this understanding; knowledge. Of oneself, of one’s abilities, of one’s limitations. It is rather a cliche when people say knowledge is power, but it is precisely the truth; it excavates your most vigorous aptitudes and sophisticates the world as it appears before your eyes. It unravels the truth and creates order from chaos – the chaos of a lack of knowledge or understanding. The chaos which muddles the truth and perplexes your reasoning. The chaos which keeps you anxious of things which, if sufficiently understood, would save you the convulsions of unease and fear. The true power of knowledge, though, doesn’t lie in its acquisition, but in its application. That’s where it truly matures and comes to fruition, that’s when it starts to take the form of mastery, competence. 

Many a time, we prevent this fortune by our petty little egos. You can’t stand the fact you’re ignorant about many things, and there’s a great deal of learning and experience to be taken before you’re perfectly ripe. Though this is an especially good thing, many of us think otherwise – we think it’s daunting to have such a lingering road ahead, and that failure to confront it means a worse suffering. Before sabotaging yourself for not knowing enough, you should have affinity with yourself, so that you’re not driven by intense self-criticism and hate – it will make you resentful towards yourself and others, awakening the ogres of envy, jealousy, rage. Many of us, it seems, are not fit to live in another’s world, and conceive the disparity in outlooks and one’s sense of being. In other words, we are not capable of momentarily shutting out our ego and understand what lies at the core of another’s interpretation, without being too impetuous in condemning them and finding some flaw in their view. Sensitivity in this respect is necessary. 

Everyone has opinions, but they represent an inferior form of knowledge, as it doesn’t require responsibility or comprehension. All it requires is for one to be plain. It doesn’t, for instance, require one to seek truth and bear the willingness to accept it, regardless of what the truth may be, regardless of prejudice. To contrast this subservient mode of being, empathy establishes a togetherness that is vital, symbolic of a higher mode of being, transcending ego, demanding a purpose that is superior to self-understanding. Such a mode demands sensitivity and good perception, for without them, there is no rapport, no harmony, no insight.

When one learns to be empathetic in this way, you enter the other person’s spirit, you engulf yourself in their emotions, you conceive the feeling without becoming prey. To remain in a position of assistance, you must not feel their feelings so deeply that you lose yourself in the process, you must retain a sense of composure to preserve and nourish stability. The insight into another’s world, that’s consequential – it furnishes you with the knowledge you need to orient yourself aptly to allay their weaknesses.

As that saying goes “When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword. Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet.” Similarly, then, do not make the mistake of speaking a different language to someone who is better off being understood in his own. Empathy, then, is the art of speaking another’s language without bullying them into speaking yours. Above all, this puts you in a position to puzzle out the finer subtleties of character, parse out their intent, determine their value, and so forth. This is a form of mastery of its own, and demands greater sensitivity than merely holding an opinion and foisting it in the hands of another. Knowledge, though a crucial vehicle that compels success, takes the shapes of its handler, and moves at speeds determined by the intelligence of its driver. 

There is nothing more amicable and hostile than man. He is unfriendly by wickedness and congenial by character. Dare you may say you are unencumbered by wrong for having to deal with the immorality of others, but they too were upbraided for sin who tormented the villains. Two choices: you either abominate the sinful or follow their example. Both recourses indicate menace – if you become a monster, there are many alike; if you despise the many, you find much disparity.

Accordingly, if your soul is not made lighter to the pressure of the load, carelessly moving about only swells the strain, in the same way a cargo is more steadfast and less disruptive when strapped in position. More injury is inflicted by moving the victim about. You unsettle his sickness and worsen his shape. For that reason, it is not sufficient to retreat from the crowd or move to another state. You have to depart from the rabble’s features that lie within yourself: it is your self that you must identify and regain. In his Odes, Horace says: “Why do we leave for lands warmed by a foreign sun? What fugitive from his own land can flee from himself?”

If we are taking responsibility to live without the help of fellows, we ought to make our contentment hinge on ourselves. We have to slacken the fetters that bind us to others. This is your power: to master your rule and learn to sincerely live alone, wholly content and at ease. You have lived amply for others, assisting their interests while compromising your own. Now you must learn to live for yourself, fetching your beliefs and thoughts back to your own good health and prosperity.

When the Barbarians ravaged the city of Nola, Paulinus [The local Bishop] grew poor and was incarcerated. But his prayer betrayed an appreciable single-mindedness: ‘Keep me O Lord from feeling this loss. Thou knowest that the Barbarians have so far touched nothing of mine.’ The means that elevated him and the favourable goods that made him righteous remained unharmed. Paulinus shows beyond doubt what it means to pick out unbribable riches; secreting them in a place no man can invade or reveal. Before everything, man should have vigorous health; as well as children, spouses and worldly goods. Still, we should not grow cemented, making our contentment pivot on them.

Lay aside a room only for yourself, devoid of hindrances; there you will bring sovereignty into being, your foremost peace and refuge. Inside, your usual dialogue should be of yourself, with yourself: so acquainted with ourselves that the external world finds no place within its confines. You should converse, chuckle and marvel as if you had no family, belongings or lovers. Ergo, when the time of loss draws near, it shall not be a novel and insufferable circumstance to sustain yourself in their absence. Our soul is intelligent and adaptable, it can bear its own companionship and has the means to assail and protect; to give and be given. In such isolation, let us not dread bending in burning indolence.

“In lonely places, be a crowd unto yourself.” – Tibullus, IV

Why do we take a stand against Nature’s laws, enslaving ourselves by making our pleasure depend on others, thereby handing over our vital power? To disagree with nature is to grow impotent. Do not paralyse your force by ensaring yourself in other people’s laces; it’s catastrophic. And among other indulgences, you must abdicate the fulfilment that comes from others’ assent. By your resolute nature, even your hideouts ought to be illustrious and admirable. Constancy is unwavering even when nobody is gazing; virtue does not falter when it is solitary and does not seize the chance to disparage its own good when tempted. Further, a man with nothing to add should desist from taking. We must draw in our strengths and retain them within; and those who can upturn the burdens of love and let them flow inwards should not be reluctant to do so. During that degeneration that makes an insistent man a futile impediment to others, allow him to skirt round becoming a futile impediment to himself; allow him to spoil, adore and restrain himself – regarding in his reason, concerning in his moral sense. He can not lose balance in their company without sensing disgrace. Respectable men are few and far between in this day and age: “It is rare for anybody to respect himself enough.”[Quintilian]

Move, then, to the extemities of delight but guard yourself against that mingling agony of going too far; if you don’t know when to hit the brakes, you will meet the inexorable suffering of superabundance. As Persius says in his Satires, “Let us pluck life’s pleasures: it is up to us to live; you will soon be ashes, a ghost, something to tell tales about.” But we clutch our shackles and take them with us, still gaping at the things we casted aside in times bygone. Indeed, your liberty is not absolute and your imagination not absolutely enlivened. Really, the masses are willing to trade their most dear pleasures and life itself for the people they care for. And seeing that their intimate dealings don’t sufficiently awaken trouble, they start battering and bullying their head with the worries of their nearest relatives. Those chains you carry must be unfettered and from this point onward, lash to nothing but yourself; let the stand be yours yet not too affixed that it cannot pull apart a bit of your self. For as Montaigne says, “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to live to yourself.”

“That mind is at fault which never escapes from itself.” – Horace, Epistles

Young man are to be instructed; developed men are to engage in heroic exploits; aged men are to depart from civil and soldierly duties and live the remainder of their life as they desire, unhindered by fixed burdens. When Pliny the Younger instructed his friend Cornelius, he said ‘I counsel you in that ample and thriving retreat of yours, to hand the degrading and abject care of your estates over to those in your employ, and to devote yourself to the study of letters so as to derive from it something totally your own.’ The sages impartially enlighten us to extricate ourselves from traitorious cravings and learn to discriminate good pleasures from those raptures weakened and fused by suffering. It has been said that most joys stroke and cuddle us only to stifle our composure, just like the Philistae [termed by the Egyptians – meaning thieves].If a hangover preceded insobriety, no man would tipple in surplus – pleasure tricks us by walking at the fore rather than behind, thereby secreting her course.

The severity of their law is flattened by custom – their sexual cravings are spurned and pacified by self-denial and nothing can safeguard them save application and utility. The delights and ecstasies of this valued existence will truly deserve our relinquishment in another perennial lifetime. But if you can resolutely blaze your soul with the zest of a high-spirited trust and aspiration, you will have found a reality filled with the finest pleasures. So, bother yourself over what you say to yourself, not over others’ say of you – depart inwards, but arrange to embrace yourself, as it is folly to delegate yourself to yourself if you are incapable of self-rule. Let us take Propertius’ word, then, and “Let each man choose the road he should take.”

Don’t fear anything in this life or the next. Live dangerous, move violently, feel beautifully. If you’re ever going to live well, you’re not going to live in fear; of losing some woman, worrying about betrayal, or trembling over death. Let it be as it may, and whatever the outcome, assume it is the right one, because there’s no way to rectify it, anyway.

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When you think of a powerful man, what comes to mind? Definitely not one who is perpetually anxious and on edge, and definitely not one who is always outcome dependent. In general, dependent men are difficult to have faith in, because their whole life revolves around what other people can or cannot do for them. This isn’t the right model to follow if you’re a man. There is more to you than merely depending on other people for your own sustenance. True power, in my eyes, comes from self-sustenance, or self-reliance, to be more precise.

If your own survival depends upon the survival of another person – a woman for instance, or your parents – then not only is that person more self-sustaining, but he needs you less than you need him. He can’t depend on you if he’s the one who needs the help, he’s been busy furnishing you with support and nourishment, yet when he meets adversity of his own, you can’t come to his aid, because you’ve been running on the fumes of his own toil.

If you are or have been in this position yourself, you know there is a sense of embarrassing shame to it that leaves you feeling utterly uncomfortable with yourself, as if you’ve never shouldered the burdens that come with maturity. You got too comfortable in the warmth of another’s home, and you cowardly held back from building your own. That’s when reality hits you like a ton of bricks, as it should. You weren’t invited here to sit at someone’s table your whole life, like a halfwitted coward. Just because there is a natural ease and coziness to it, doesn’t mean it’s right. Many things in life feel right, even when they aren’t. People’s gut instincts are not always right, as many people long believed. When someone’s utterly deluded in his senses, any feeling is right, no matter if it’s in the gut or in the head.

So, be extremely cautious with dependence, because it catches up to you in time, as many things do in this life, and it won’t be a jolly day for you, my friend. When you’re young and dumb, it’s normal to be financially dependent on your parents. When you’re old and responsible, it’s a curse to your family and community to be financially dependent on your parents, or worse, anyone else who is not blood-related. You must start building early, before sunrise. And you must retire early, before dusk.

Being early with your duties is the only sensible way to be on time, because there will be periods in your life when circumstances are more severe as nature necessitates, and everything slows down, perhaps even drive you off the rails for a while. Living is full of surprises, that’s what makes it uncertain and rather capricious, but it’s what fundamentally gives it a gripping effect, making little things more precious, and big things more memorable. No period in your life should be taken for granted, not even your most mundane moments, for they are free of misery yet still sacred; not even your most critical battles, for they have made you.

Gratitude is always timely, there is never a moment in your ordinary life where it is not justified. You have been endowed with innumerable blessings, but you’ve been distracted by things which aren’t as important as they are irrelevant, and therefore should not be permitted to obscure the sensational and providential. The ungrateful are miserable: they don’t see what’s in front of them, they keep complaining about what’s behind them; traumas, pains, heartbreaks, etc. Traumas are battles only the fittest learn from, everyone else is either crushed – and never recover – or annihilated. To conceive those terrible depths of suffering and preserve a high spirit, proper judgement, and a sense of meaning in that onerous war; that’s the mark of a hero being carved and fashioned. Remember, sincere acknowledgement of what is good in your life, no matter how slight, is how you compound it.

It is not the numerous problems you contend with that matters, but what sustains you beneath that, for that is what makes things more bearable in the end, and adds to your overall well-being. It would be rather deplorable to complain about one and dismiss the other. You know what’s ideal? To stop complaining, learn to sustain yourself, heave a burden responsibly, build a lodging place for solitude, choose good company, and confront life with a violence that knows no fear, no apology, no apathy, only intensity, passion, spirit, love, and presence of mind.

Above all, become dependable and trustworthy, for that is how you prime yourself to be a decent husband and father, who your woman could confidently lean on without fear she’ll fall flat on her face, and who your children could idolise and emulate. Your self-reliance is pivotal as a man, and its flourishing casts a beaming light on every person who is restored or served.

“Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.” – Nietzsche

Many people have useful insights to share, but few are actually competent at articulating them. There is an art to conversing that is often poorly observed. We mustn’t forget that a person who can’t hold a conversation or engage in a profound and stimulating discussion is tedious company. And soulless exchanges are usually fruitless, you’re better off relishing your own solitude than trying to carry a barren conversation. 

A great conversationalist will wield boredom to cultivate something productive with another person, but a poor conversationalist will simply close himself to heartfelt discussion. He’s inept, not only at getting his ideas across, but also at asking the right questions, listening attentively, and being genuinely interested in what the other person has to say. A deep and profound conversation requires two people with a shared interest and intellect. Only then is a nourishing and penetrating discussion possible, one that isn’t being carried along in a spirit of forcing, but rather in a spirit of mutual fascination, passion and intent. 

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Notwithstanding, the importance of having these purposive exchanges could hardly be emphasised in an age of terrible superficiality, flimsiness and soullessness. To have a heartfelt exchange with a person capable of nuanced thought is a privilege, a pleasure often neglected by people who are incapable of acknowledging his depth of thought in any case. There is a reason why the clever man doesn’t engage in extensive exchanges with men who will not only fail to fathom his insights, but are rendered too inept to expand on or contribute to what was said. Cleverness ceases to be what it is when it engages in the foolishness typical of the imbecile to make a point and deliberately convince him of it – it’s all to no avail. 

This is partly why a fool can’t value a profound discussion, because he can’t understand the content and meaning, and is thus ignorant of its merit. No amount of shaming or blaming will make him understand. A fool doesn’t know what to value, and if he happens to value anything which is apparently ‘righteous’, it is certainly because it is endorsed by the crowd. It is not so much because he is good that he upheld something as valuable, but because his beliefs are rooted in the crowd. He need not even understand why something is fundamentally good or bad, if he picks it out in the crowd, it’s a reasonable justification for him to support it. This is how an idiot rationalizes things, and that’s why they make the worst, most dim conversationalists. 

If you befriend such a man, you’re doing yourself a disservice, while being of no service to him. No man who values profound discussion unreservedly befriends everyone to amass a circle of friends – this is a dense move in my estimation. A man with a sophisticated intellect doesn’t desire many friends, only a tight-knit selection of thinkers who can grapple and fathom and dance. Then, even a brief conversation bears more substance than a lengthy wrangle – which often turns into a fit of rage from the side of the fool – with a dimwit. The price you pay for cleverly selecting your combatants is more solitude and superior company, which isn’t at all troublesome if you properly dispense with your time and have a rewarding social life. 

You know you’re having an immersive discussion when you don’t want it to end, and like a sublime piece of musical composition, there was never need of a concluding peak to feel like you’ve effected a substantial aim – there was no predetermined point of arrival which was crucial. More like a dance between distance and deepness, you were harmoniously gazing at each other’s chasms, and regardless of what stood out, there was a significant use for it. 

The aim was never agreement, either, far from it, the only point was the respectful struggle between reason, perspective and interpretation. It is precisely this intimate connection that makes a discussion memorable and fruit-bearing. Agreement is irrelevant when two critical thinkers are capable of engaging in meaningful discussion without prematurely imposing their will on each other or growing in a passionate rage in an attempt to prove a point. 

“To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”

― Fyodor Dostoevsky

There’s always been a kind of conundrum surrounding successful people, because we can never truly come to grips with what makes them thick. You could surmise and speculate of their abilities and habits and thoughts, but when you really come down to it, you can’t properly lay a finger on it because the implications are often too complex. Successful people have numerous common qualities, but they have numerous differing qualities which award their distinction. There are many people who have been endowed with a strong work ethic, for instance, who aren’t necessarily successful in the sense we usually ascribe to it. That tells us that industriousness alone is not adequate to success, but it sure is necessary. 

On the other hand, there are people out there, not at all comparable to the ordinary man, who have been graced with a fertile intelligence and a supreme aptitude in a chosen skill, who seem to have a knack for influencing the world in their favor, who go above and beyond, not only laying hold of anything they want, but cultivating it to their liking. This is not to account for their good fortune, which appears to faithfully follow them anywhere they go and anything they set their mind to – the question underlying this phenomenon could never sufficiently be answered. 

However, we ought not to concern ourselves so much with that, and instead pivot our attention to what is clear and true. Winners have one common and definite trait, and it stands the test of time: it is their frame of mind, their established set of attitudes – it is precisely this that shapes their reality in accordance with their aims. Their way of looking at the world is such that regardless of the failures and setbacks they happen to trip on along the way, they will remain ambitiously and purposely  fixated on that one transcendent goal, and until it is justifiably reached, the idea of quitting is non-existent – even the thought itself is self-defeating to a winner, it doesn’t dare cross his mind. And this is the point at which we start to discern a striking resemblance, for all winners in any field have mastered the art of persistence. There is no mistaking that. Persistence is hard stuff. It calls for a will so firm and resolute that it fails to succumb even when everything that encircles it is falling apart. 

There is, however, a clever means to make persevering more tolerable and deep-rooted; you must single out a skill you are truly passionate about, a skill which you enjoy so profoundly it hardly feels like work when you’re carrying it out. It is more like playing. You become so deeply and intensely engaged in the skill, that you slowly start to lose yourself in all its finer characteristics – there’s no thinking while executing, no sense of time, no lingering boredom, everything’s flowing as you dance in accordance with the melodies of art. Gradually, it starts to turn into an unending obsession, where every passing thought circles around that path toward mastery you are summoned to undertake. Oddly enough, you do catch glimpses of your genius at childhood, but often to your detriment, it is pushed aside or subdued by a parent or other who doesn’t actually understand the implications of doing so. 

Naturally, the art of persistence does not single-handedly guarantee conquest. It necessitates the aid of three other invaluable assets: intelligence, judgment and of course, testosterone. I do have to remind you, though, that while the latter could be cultivated, the former is unchangeable and thus a gift of divine grace. We could conjecture of multiple intelligences, a myriad forms of learning or what have you, but if we dispensed with our prejudices, we would perhaps soon realize that such theories are in vain. If you have been endowed with superior intelligence, and have adapted your paradigm for maximal leverage, you are almost certain of victory, if not at present, in the near future. 

For, a man of intelligence already holds a trump card, he already has an edge over the rest, and he didn’t even have to work for it, either. If you take it a step further and pair his intelligence with a towering testosterone, you have sculpted a monster of a man who not only has prowess, skill and power, but will be risk-taking, stress-tolerant, ambitious, ruthless and disciplined – that almost accounts for everything a man necessitates apart from passion and talent for grand conquest. Many people seem to overlook the importance of testosterone in a world that evidently lacks it. No man who is deprived of testosterone is properly attuned to his most basic instincts, and this has become an issue even on a global scale, where estrogen-infused junk is sabotaging our well-being, weakening our drive, and making of man a lazy coward, who plays video games without intermission and eats takeout every other night with his girl-friends.

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The ramifications of high testosterone couldn’t be more emphasized as indispensable for the flourishing of man’s inherent potential. Now, factor in the value of a fertile judgement, which separates the victor from the failure. A sharp perception transforms even the pangs of rejection and suffering into art, helped along by an aesthetic taste which beautifies everything it lays eyes on. A strong regard for things which are objectively significant and beautiful characterizes a rare quality among man, for there is no way to be more acquainted with truth than to suffer for a noble cause – another quality shared among men who have a pronounced capacity to not only recognise and reject ugliness, but also to arm themselves with the voice of reason even in times of acute hardship, rendering themselves competent in any situation, able to synthesize wisdom and appropriately wield it however fits. The victor is not only marked by what regards with deep contempt, but by what he stands and is willing to die for. Marked by a deliberate audacity, he confronts danger, speaks carefully and ensures – to the best of his ability – to execute his duties without the faintest hesitation.

So, who succeeds in the end? Put simply, it is intelligent people who work hard – who have everything going for them because they utilized their gifts and didn’t permit them to go to waste. And more often than not, they arrive there before everything else – they not only solve hard problems and ask the right questions, but they arrive at the solution before everyone else. Good fortune, then, is more generous with the intelligent and industrious because they fail often, learn quickly and move faster. 

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

― Fyodor Dostoevsky

This does not mean that people who were previously losers are doomed to failure – I digress from this assumption with great gravity, actually. In truth, winners have lost frequently and continue to lose, but few people come to know about them, because their victories tend to supersede and eclipse any of their previous failures, making their success seem almost effortless. What does this tell you? Well, it must mean that a loser is one who failed and immediately cut his losses without giving himself a chance. Carrying a feeble soul, he allowed a single loss to determine his frame of mind and course of life, which is tenfold more destructive than building the courage to try again. An incurable loser keeps shooting himself in the foot, and then wonders why reality is fundamentally brutal to the weak; it has to be cruel, if it weren’t that way, the alternative would be far worse – a state of affairs that presupposes a perpetual negligence towards everything under the presumption that you can keep getting away with it. This can’t ever truly lead you towards self-mastery. 

Loss doesn’t make you a loser, taking a loss personally and refusing to endure it makes you a loser. Sometimes, you ought to set your petty ego aside and admit defeat, for that is the only way to destroy your delusions and cultivate what is truly your own. Losers who don’t change their mind can’t ever become winners, because they already know in their heart that they are doomed by fate to eternal defeat. 

I would like to close off this piece by leaving you with a superlative comment by Jung himself… “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”