NEVER SIT

What is the weirdest and most bizarre thing in modern-day life? Enclosed spaces, sitting?

Achilles

One visual I really like from the movie Troy, with Brad Pitt as Achilles, is when he’s in his little hut, sleeping with his beautiful babes, and he’s woken up by the kid who tells him that he needs to fight this really steroided-out barbarian fighter.

The first thought… I think the reason why people love camping so much is that it is far more natural and naturalistic; essentially, all day, you’re outside, and even in the evening, you’re al fresco by the fire… hanging out!

And this is the bizarre thing… what is modernity? The preference to be indoors, with weakening air conditioning, or the preference to sit, instead of the preference to be out and about, traversing the outdoor terrain?

Ideas

I’ll give you examples: the enclosed modern-day gymnasium. Now, about a year without a gym membership… I’ve discovered how bizarre it is.

First, if you think about the naturalistic gymnasium of the ancient Greeks, it was an open-air gymnasium. Pretty much like a huge massive plot of dirt or sand, and a bunch of naked dudes working out, doing bodily combat exercises, training, hanging out talking shop, etc.

I think the problem in today’s world is that we have commoditized everything. We’ve even commoditized the human body, and we have applied both capitalistic and consumerist notions to the body.

For example, weight. Weight, like calories, is the most insanely foolish idea.

For example, let’s say that you are 6 feet tall and 300 pounds. Now this is different if you are 80% body fat, a morbidly obese man, or if you are 5% body fat, and you look like a demigod. Imagine someone like Ronnie Coleman without the steroids.

This is very pernicious with women; I think this is the bizarre contradiction: men are always trying to gain weight, while women are trying to lose weight.

If we think about this from a modern-day capitalistic productivity perspective… with money, we are always trying to gain it, never lose it. But if we thought about money like weight, the analogy starts to change a bit.

There is nobody on the planet who likes to lose money. Nobody. Also, almost universally… Everyone likes to gain money.

Also… it seems that people also like to spend money.

But the bizarre irony is that the moment you spend money, you lose money. Then the thought is, that is OK… I’ll just keep working harder, in order to earn more money, in order to spend it more.

White people make money don’t spend it

I almost feel like Kanye West almost figured everything out. Of course, not everything, but a lot.

Here are examples: to me, the notion of golf is insanely bizarre. I never really understood the appeal. But then again, after talking to my friend who is a contractor named Donnie… He told me that the reason why he loved golf so much was that it was the ultimate stress reliever. Makes sense. Being out in the open, alfresco… And I think most people when they’re playing golf don’t do it with headphones on. They also like to be around the serene grass, and to just focus. I also suppose golf is good because you do it standing, not sitting.

Even nowadays… The reason why Pickleball has become so insanely popular is that it involves standing up, running around, hitting something, making loud noises, and also the funny nuance… being able to hit it really hard and feeling really tough, and the rally goes on!

I think this is what people don’t understand about Pickleball, especially tennis players… Note, I played varsity doubles in high school, number one.

The number one most difficult thing in tennis is to keep a rally going if you’re wanting to play for fun. Assuming that you’re trying to win, obviously you don’t want the rally to go on; you just want to win!

Also, this is why tennis is such a great sport, because once again, you’re not sitting on your butt!

Why almost every modern-day job is bad

All modern-day technology jobs are bad. Why? They all promote sedentary sitting behavior or non-moving behavior.

For example, if I were a major tech CEO or whatever… or some sort of Director or C-level executive… I would almost make it a mandate that all meetings must be done outside, while walking! Even at the new Apple spaceship campus, there is this wonderful Zen garden pond in the center, in the spirit of Steve Jobs. And let us remember, Steve Jobs was all about walking. He did all of his meetings while walking.

Apparently, when little kids want to talk to their parents about serious stuff, the codeword is, “Mom… Do you want to go on a walk?”

The reason why I think this is so important and significant is that walking has become seen as a positively bad, unconstructive waste of time. Instead, it seems that people are more about “running,” or “going on a run.” Running might be the worst modern-day insanely brain-dead invention of all time. First, I think people do it in order to “exercise.” Secondly, in theory, it should be the most egalitarian open thing… you don’t require any excessive equipment for it, in theory as long as you have bare feet, you should be able to do it.

But now the problem is, essentially, there is this running industrial complex that happens from the loser Nike corporation, which tries to eventually get you to purchase their foolish loser $300 sneakers.

Think about the ancient Greek. Think about Achilles versus Hector. I think the whole time, they just wore sandals. Like the ultra-ultra-minimalistic sandals that I think the company “Xero” sells — literally just a flat thing on the bottom, and just some sort of laces to tie it to your feet.

My personal theory is that back then, if you were fighting in ancient Greece, in the summertime, and it is insanely hot and humid, you don’t want to be like a medieval knight, all armored up. Apparently, back then… there was a notion of a Linothorax — imagine just armor or body armor made out of 100-fold linen, which could actually stop the penetration of an arrow or a spear. I can personally attest, when you’re in a hot and humid climate, linen is amazing.

Remote work

The ideal is to just have an iPhone Pro, the small one, no case, have Verizon 5G, and whenever you need to do any sort of phone call or meeting… doing it audio-only with your AirPods Pros on.

I’ve actually seen people do this… Do walking meetings at the beach, or while hiking in the hills or the mountains, etc.

The reason why this is so beneficial is that it would actually increase the quality of your ideas and, in some ways, be beneficial from a productivity and innovation perspective.

So… if you really want to make your company great again, release your employees from their little beautiful glass cube cages!

Freedom?

Reading some marketing for the Porsche 911 car, essentially the funny idea is that you want to purchase a car that symbolizes freedom. But does it actually give you freedom? No!

Let us think about how bizarre this idea is: you work yourself to death, you grind your nose against the grinder, and you keep your head against the pavement floor, in order to extract maximum productivity and maximally increase your income-earning potential.

Then, the idea is to earn and save enough money to buy a Porsche 911 Turbo S. Or a 911 GT3 RS. Let us assume it is $100,000, or $250,000.

You fools… Don’t you know you get a bomb-ass apartment in Phnom Penh for only $500 USD a month?

Then do the math: even with $100,000, how many months of rent can you live? And there, food is so cheap… Practically free.

So let us say that a solo individual person wants to retire to Vietnam, Cambodia, or Thailand, and your whole living expenses might only be about $1000 USD a month. And you live life like a baller. You never have to work again, never have to check your email, never have to do boring-ass meetings, and you could essentially just hang out and live your best life all day every single day, always eat out, pursue your athletic and mental pursuits, etc. Isn’t this the dream?

So what is holding most people back? I wonder if some of it is just lack of knowledge, like nobody ever told them that this was an option, or maybe some sort of hesitation because the person has never left the country, doesn’t have a passport, etc. My personal suggestion is to just troll Kayak and Google Flights, looking for cheap direct flights to somewhere in Southeast Asia or even more locally in other parts of the world, like Mexico, Central America, or even Cuba.

I think the reason why the modern-day American is so miserable is, truth be told… The fact that we have the most productivity and the greatest productive nation on the planet comes with a price. For example, what the typical German or European or French person doesn’t understand is that for the most part, the structures do not even allow us to travel. For example, the culture in America is very anti-vacation; the ideal for the typical hard-working tech individual is to never take a holiday, in order to get that raise or promotion or whatever. If you take a week or two, it is seen with chagrin, everyone is secretly jealous or envious of you. And therefore the whole structure is “No, you are not allowed

to take a holiday because we are all miserable and suffering here; I refuse to see you happy.”

I joke about this. I was only employed for 10 months of my life, and it took me almost 10 years to unlearn this behavior.

Am I the only person who checks my email every six months? Or never checks it? Am I the only one I know that doesn’t have Gmail or Apple email? Am I the only one I know that has no notifications besides FaceTime enabled?

The cold is evil

I think the reason why I loved living in Vietnam and Cambodia so much was that the weather was always perfect. Never cold.

The downside about the cold is that it prevents you from wanting to go outside. You would prefer to be indoors, with your heater on, but the point of life is to be outside, in the real world. In the elements.

People often complain about the heat, but this is because they have too much body fat on them; they are overfat. They run hotter. This is why I feel the cold so intensely; at around 5% body fat, I have no natural insulation. And yes, I prefer having my six-pack!

We must go further

As a simple exercise, I think the last year has been a bit tricky… Always starting a new beginning is difficult.

For example, not having a gym membership and my typical hypelifting environment. I literally toured all the gyms in LA, and all of them suck, including Equinox. Even the really bad thing about Equinox, they have terrible $10 made-in-China barbells! Suggestion to Equinox: buy some Texas power bars!

Anyways, my new activity is for me to just wear my 60-pound weight vest and go on a long walk. I think it might be the single best, most portable, most effective, and efficient form of exercise possible.

First, it improves my posture. Before doing this, I always found myself hunched over. Now, I’m very good at standing up straight, chest up, shoulders back.

Second, it gives me more time to flush thoughts out on my iPad Pro. 100% of my writing is all done by voice dictation on my iPad Pro, and I think while I get a bunch of typos, the upside is that the quality of my thoughts, or the type of my thoughts, are far more interesting.

Isn’t that the point of philosophy, thinking, and life: to gain interesting, unique, substantive ideas?

Now that we have ChatGPT, the game isn’t about how many words you can turn out. That whole 10,000 words a day idea is patently foolish now.

And this is where I think that the future will be less grammatical, more random, less proper.

For example, I built my blogging empire, and I think I got a B in English in high school?

Also note, all the truly great entrepreneurs never went to business school. Can you imagine Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos going to business school? No!

We must go further!

Distance and range — that is the new game of electric vehicles, and it seems for the most part, the more range a car has, the better.

Even now, I think the best car to get is a Prius Prime, what… I think you get 600 miles with a full charge and tank of gas?

In fact, if you really want the ultimate road trip car, range is the number one thing to optimize for. Why? If you’re in a good driving flow, you don’t want to stop for gas or wait 15 minutes for your Tesla to recharge to 80%, or have to wait in line.

But then once again, the ideal is to never sit, never be stuck in a car.

The uber-successful way to live life is simple: to always be walking, to always be moving!

Don’t hire employees, just use ChatGPT?

Assuming you have an iPhone Pro, iPad Pro, and the paid premium version of ChatGPT-4 — do you really need employees anymore?

Let us consider: ChatGPT is 100% responsive, 100% reliable, never needs motivation.

And also, I think this is so innovative because you can truly become a 100% solo entrepreneur, without having to rely on anybody else.

The ideal is, never have any employees, never have any staff, and never have any obligations in the physical realm; everything is digital, weightless, frictionless, never requiring you to be anywhere at any time!

Location, location, location, location, location!

The number one reason why living in Culver City is the best is that you could literally spend 100% of your day, your life, while just walking!

In fact, nowadays I ask people how many steps they do a day. The really, really successful ones do over 30,000 steps a day!

Just met a guy named Matt, who runs a tech food truck logistics company, and apparently, he does what I just proposed!

Just move it

Another funny thing… For kids, nobody measures their step count! As a funny thought, imagine if you gave your kid an Apple Watch or something and it tracked how much they walked a day?

The ideal is for them to literally spend every single waking moment outside, outdoors, in the elements, walking around.

Walk school

Can this be a thing?

Go long!

Extend your range — both your real and metaphorical range.

I think tracking your steps is not super useful, but maybe make it a flow or workflow thing, an idea to just always be outside every single moment, and only be at home if you need to sleep.

Cindy even had an idea for me, that maybe meals should just be eaten outside! That means, just cook a bunch of food at home, put it in a bunch of Tupperware, and just go on a walk or go to the park or to the downtown area and feast that way!

It’s OK to go to the same place twice

Also, it seems like one of our downsides is this unusual need for infinite novelty. I don’t always find this very useful.

Oftentimes, novelty and seeking novelty can be a huge distraction. For example, if you were the ancient Spartans, was your life goal to travel for the rest of your life? No! You knew that Sparta was the best; you kept your feet planted, and your whole telos of your life was to train for glory in order to defend Sparta!

I still believe that traveling, living abroad, and being a nomad are good things. Yet I think the problem happens when the whole purpose of our life is in order to travel.

No. The purpose of our life is to have kids, produce ideas and artwork, and any place that could allow you to do this best is best.

Everyone is on your team

I think there is also this funny thing that people are unnecessarily antagonistic toward other people. We always see them as a challenge to ourselves.

But what if they, in fact, were on your team, they were your Spartan hoplites, and would defend you, your kid, your wife, your family if shit hit the fan? Certainly, you would have a different opinion about them.

Local

The only useful politics or news is local, like your own city and neighborhood. Not national or international issues.

The problem with news is that it is almost like pornography for our minds; it breaks the tedium of everyday office work, and the novelty is certainly a hit of dopamine to our brains.

Also, we tend to think of, fear of missing out… or this weird ethical notion that it is our duty to be informed about all of these different things.

I would say, more important to be concerned about your upstairs, downstairs, or across-the-street neighbor, to get them free snacks from Trader Joe’s, be kind and courteous to them, always greet them kindly, and always acknowledge their existence rather than to be the typical antisocial millennial, who seeks salvation through some sort of foreign cause?

It never hurts to wave, smile, and say hello

As a very, very simple experiment… Stop driving, start walking. Whenever you see somebody even a quarter mile away from you, throw up the peace sign, or just do a simple hand wave or head gesture towards them. Just acknowledge their existence! I think the greatest tragedy of modern-day life is that we prefer cyber beings, digital people, over flesh humans.

Once again, for anybody who is antisocial but still watches TV shows, HBO Max, sports, baseball, certainly they love humans!

Better to attempt to be friendly, kind, courteous, and cheerful towards your neighbor, and get the cold shoulder rather than not to attempt it at all.

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