The Savage Philosopher

Connecting. The human species is a very fragile and weak creature when are compared to all the other animals on the planet. We do not have thick skin, claws, the ability to run fast, climb, or thrive in environments beyond a very small range of temperatures. Our situation is even more dire when we are first born. The species family unit must maintain hundred percent vigilance for the first couple years of life just to be able to survive. By all rights, the human species should’ve been destroyed by everything else on this planet. So why are we still here?? From my personal experience, I believe it is because of our ability to collaborate with one another and work towards a common goal through task specialization and delegation. It is impossible to be all things to all people. Our natural talents and disadvantages automatically make us better at some things and worse at others. Through task specialization we can become more useful to those around us and becomes a key reason why others

Risk. I have come to believe that the only denominator of ultra successful people is their ability to accept and manage risk. This factor above all others is the one thing that determines when you are ready to take your destiny in your own hands. This factor determines the type of job, school, significant other, and an infinite number of other things that you choose. So what is risk? In my humble opinion, what we deem as risky is a logical interpretation of our emotional fear of the unknown. That means when we say something is too risky, we are justifying our fears. If that is true, then what separates the risk takers from the security takers is their ability to act in spite of their fear. They don’t conquer, overcome, or squash their fears. They feel the fear and act. THEY FEEL THE FEAR AND ACT. In an attempt to take my own advice, I finally pulled the trigger and started my own business. It is registered with the state, has a business account, business structure, and by the end of

I am beginning to wonder if there is a difference between malignant and benign influences. Without getting into a full debate today about the relevance of good and evil; I want to highlight an observation: An unseen power flows through repeated messages. Only recently I have begun to watch TV again. After five years overseas there was no point to watch the local cable stations. And now that I’m back in the states, over the last two weeks I have been taking advantage. I have concluded that those who have chosen the programming do not know what they do. As the word suggests, programming is a deliberate intent to create actions by convincing the cognitive space. I understand the economics of advertisement and the systems that employ them. I do not think that those who schedule the programs really understand how they affect the cognitive space outside of purchasing a consumer product. Being reborn into this environment I was not prepared for the psychological battle I would h

For those who are following along my little journey, here are my results: Feat 1: Education. The goal was to have everything done so that I can start school.  I’ve completed 75% of what I need to do. All my transcripts have been sent except for the last school I was going to. I still need to send them back the books from my last classes, which of course are in one of the many boxes in my garage from the move. A perfect intersection of this feat with Feat 3. Feat 2: PMP Certification. I have ordered the hardcopy book to study from and have it with me now. This week I will put my hours in the PMI website, and next week I can schedule the test. So I’m at 30% here. Feat 3: Home Ready for Guests. We have squared away about 25% of the boxes. Unfortunately the items in the boxes have not been completely put away yet. Once that is done, then we can work on the boxes that are in the garage. Feat 4: Write a Book. I am at 0% complete. Feat 5: Conquer Life Admin. OK, me and the wife hav

One the best pieces of advice my father gave me when I was a young man was the value of taking action. At the time, I didn’t really understand where he was coming from. I didn’t understand the struggle that he had in his life. And I did not understand how desperate he was trying to provide me with some of his lessons learned. But now I am at the age in which he provided me that advice and I understand. Through my own struggles of deflated dreams and hollow words, I understand that words are cheap and the only thing that has value in this world are actions. In fact I believe that actions create the value and is the cornerstone of our success. To experiment with this concept I am going to execute a massive action plan for the next two weeks attempting to accomplish more than I ever thought possible. This experiment starts with accountability of this blog and will end with the completion of five feats. (things I have been putting off because I fear their failure) Feat 1: Education.

Rule one, don’t suck! Sounds easy, but actions speak louder than words. There are just times when we are not feeling it.Times when we want to lay in bed rather then come up with the reasons to care. But then again, this is the struggle that us humans are blessed with. For the last couple weeks I have personally been struggling with finding my path and with finding reasons to be awesome. Being mediocre is so easy. It barely takes any effort at all. I have been trying to dig deeper into myself and I realized that I need more reasons to put in the effort. I need hope, I need the dreams, and I need to be inspired. When I don’t have these things my thoughts range from apathy to chewing on bullets. Deep down I know that I am not alone with these thoughts. I know that others are suffering in silence seeking some sort of glimmer of light in the darkness. So what to do about it? I have chosen to enact my divine right of choice. I am going to choose a higher purpose to believe in and ex

I am blown away of how we are attracted to stories and images of sex, tragedy, and beliefs. Another celebrity sex tape and I am left wondering why such a story so important to the human population? Is it simply our procreative instincts kicking in? Or something deep down in us that reflects our species worldview? Or maybe it is a welcome distraction… Maybe it is too much to ask to be curious why the president of the United States is in India, the impacts of a giant volcanic eruption in Indonesia, or debating melting over 3 million weapons currently held by Americans. When I compare and contrast events that may have a direct impact on my life, a celebrity sex tape doesn’t even register. I am impacted by trade agreements other countries. I am impacted by volcanoes spewing tons of ash into the atmosphere further the cooling of the planet. I am impacted by the fear in political discourse that may shape my kid’s future. Neuroscience teaches us that the brain deliberately attempts to co

Be warned, this post may offend. I wish that the visions of Ghandi and Dr. King were the mainstream belief systems of all the people in the world. Unfortunately, they are our inspired outliers. They lift us up in their vision because the truth of the matter is that we are savages. Humans, like all animals on this planet, fight for survival and resources. We are violent opportunist, and our ability to apply our skills has allowed us to remain on the top of the food chain. We will become prey the moment we do use our ability to apply violence. While this may not be the ideal version of the human race, it applies to the mass majority. The tools of our violence have evolved from fists to nuclear weapons. The purpose of the tools is to ensure our survivability. When you look at the human species from a global perspective we create all the violence because we are struggling to survive on a global scale. This struggle is played out on the micro and macro levels. The recent school sho

The Frog. Moving back to America. I am currently moving back to America after spending five years overseas. Moving is hard anyway. Moving over an ocean with a family has an undescribable difficulty level. It has been done by many people before me, and will be done by many more after. None of that takes away from the personal stress of having to do it. And then to add complexity to the issue, I decided to buy a house. A thousand things to do. As with any move there are many things that need to be done. While still overseas, I need to worry about everything from closing out with the current landlord, shipping cars, insuring all the utilities are going to be paid, ensuring my current organisation has everything they need for me, and have a temporary place to stay before I fly out. And of course I am simultaneously doing all the paperwork required to buy a house back in the States. To accomplish everything, I need to rely on many people and things I don't have control over. Doing

All authority must be given and cannot be taken. Those in charge may be disillusioned that somehow they ‘forced’ their authority, but in reality it was a choice by the person being ‘ruled’ to choose to be ruled. This begs the question, “how is control obtained?” What is it that the ruled do to specifically give others authority over them. My answer: Obligation When we agree to an obligation we are giving over our control to the obligation. We give over our control in our; promises to ourselves, promises to others, and promises to God. The promises we make to ourselves generally fall into changing the type of person we are. We want to be a better person, a healthy person, or a charitable person. Every day I strive to be a better friend, parent, and spouse. I’m not always as successful as I would like, and when that occurs I feel like a ‘failure’. I feel that I failed to live up to the obligation I set before myself. This pain is a point of control. I make stives to eat well,

What does it take to make the impossible look possible? Elon Musk at SpaceX have given us a glimpse of that yesterday (25 Jun 2017). SpaceX flawlessly launched the Falcon 9 rocket with a multiple satellite deployment and returned the booster to the floating dock in the pacific. It is hard to put into words how impossible this was just a few years ago. This may be a turning point in human history. The place in time where we look back and say, “This is when we started to make a difference in space operations.” The only thing that has been prohibiting us from doing this sooner was cost. The cost was too high to go through the failures that are required to achieve breakthrough technology. SpaceX have effectively cut the current cost in half and the next phase of tech will cut it down to almost ⅕ the average. This will allow for more launches and more opportunity to improve on the technology at a faster rate than anyone else. Here is an excerpt from SpaceX on the launch ye

The world is a dangerous and hostile place. It is filled with people who are different; they act different, talk different, and believe different. This difference has divided the world into two tribes The tribe of ‘us’ and the tribe of ‘them’. In one moment two people are in the same tribe as co-workers and in another, they are in different tribes as sport fans. This is all the work of our animal instincts to survive our hostile world. Our animal instincts are designed to do one thing, ensure our survival. Using the Reticular Activating System (RAS) it determines if something is a threat or an opportunity. The RAS basically filters out all the noise in the world to help us focus on what is important. Things that are new are immediately highlighted as a threat first, and then a possible opportunity. This is why we subconsciously choose to dress like our friends or end up wearing the same colors with our significant other. By matching, our animal feels safe and secure. If the n

A journey of self-discovery has ended. I have defeated the main boss, received the treasure, and now back in the ‘real’ world. I have been changed on a fundamental level and I can no longer do the things I did before as this hero’s tale has come full circle and I bring my boon back home. The Boon. The treasure I gain by defeating the main boss of ‘undisciplined action’ and ‘small vision’ is a new sense of purpose and an upgrade in self-confidence. I learned that if I want to have a huge impact in the world I cannot do it alone. More than just building a team around myself to propel my career and success, I need to build other people’s teams to propel THEIR career and success. Only by developing other leaders into leaders can I even hope to achieve any sense of world-wide impact. This new purpose came with it a serious increase in my own self-confidence. Confidence is the gravity that pulls the universe inline with your goals. I originally thought that this idea was bulls

My journey so far has been one of self discovery. Over the last couple of days, I realized that I will need something more than self discovery to succeed evolving into something greater. I need to completely change everything I do and the way I do it. Every moment of every day needs to be aligned with the desired life that I want to live. To include the actions I take and the habits I form to support my long term goals. The truth is that life is only what we make it; to quote the Great movie series ”there is no fate but the one we make.” I also have a confession to make. I have been holding back on all the things that I am doing to prepare myself for my next step. In this post I'm going to rectify that error. Bottom line: I have chosen to embrace suffering and pain so that I can know myself on a deeper level. This is done through newly formed rituals and habits: I only take ice cold showers. I don’t mean that at the end of a hot shower I rinse off in cold water. I mean

I took a couple of days off from this series to build up some successes (or failures) that were worthy of talking about. Our last discussion was very bland as I started to engage into a more optimal battlerythm. We left off with some simple goals of increasing the number of blogs and getting the dishes done. Well, with such low goals, I can say with complete confidence that over the last couple of days I had complete success….yea me. I did though begin to stretch into a couple of different areas and techniques that I think are pretty cool. I started to do some of my blog posts from my phone. I have the ‘blogger’ app on my phone and when I combine it with the voice-to-text technology, I am able to produce a 300-400 word blog without a keyboard. This freedom from the computer will allow me to blog more when I am not home and only have access to my phone and wifi. Another thing I started was drinking MCT Oil (C:6,C:8) with my coffee in the morning. So far I am very excited about

That’s right, I said it. Don’t be a pusillanimous! You need to take life by the axle and twist it for your advantage. If it was easy, anyone would do it. But it is not. You simply have to make a choice on what kind of person you want to be; pusillanimous or heroic. When a situation presents us with an opportunity we have about five seconds to take action. Five seconds until you will choose inaction over action. I learned this concept from Mel Robbins ( www.melrobbins.com ), and she is spot on. You know that I don’t just take anyone’s word for anything. I want to see it in action for myself, so I experiment with the different ideas I’m presented with. The five second rule is a thing. Just ask Mel. What this means is that our natural state is to be a pusillanimous. Or, at least we have a very small window to be heroic. Perhaps this is why we admire heroes. We think that they are awesome because we could never do such things. And as long as someone else does it, we won’t have to.

I see myself as a Savage and a Philosopher. I try not to shy away from the brutality of life, but use the opportunity to learn. These past couple of days have been brutal on my psyche as I am no longer distracted by the normal rhythms of routine. I dig deep into what drives me, I need to accept what I find as my truth (at this time). Then, if I choose, I can change. I spent the most of the day yesterday in a couple different types of meditation in an effort to get to my core, or at least into a deeper part of my subconscious. Results: I am truly happy when I am teaching. The topic of the book I’m going to write is on ‘Small Team Leadership’. I need to understand how to set up systems. Review of Yesterday. Overall, a lot of adulting got done. The dishes, bathroom, laundry, and some of the rooms were tidied up. I wish I could take the credit for all the activity, but to my surprise my kids decided on their own to chip in. They took care of the bathroom and living

Yesterday was mostly successful. I have found that eating one meal a day is very difficult unless I am with people that eat one meal a day (or by myself). Other than that, I did get a couple of blogs out and had the time to research how to write a book and the volunteer opportunities in my area. Every day I seek to learn more about myself and the reasons why I do what I do. Yesterday I struggled to keep my cool while my pre-teen daughter did what pre-teen daughters do, drive their fathers crazy. I was good initially and then got tired of the attitude and then realized that I simply did not have the skills to handle it. So I called the Mom. She brilliantly deescalated the situation and we made it through the rest of the night. What I learned is that I still have some learning to do. So I will add building a stronger relationship and reducing the frustration between me and my daughters to the list of accomplishments I want to have on this reset. Review of Yesterday. As I ment