Mind the Beginner

How often have you heard the line “Fake it until you make it”? It’s a very common phrase used to create confidence and to make others perceive you as something you’re not. A better version of you or something. And now don’t get me started on what “better” is.

And that is exactly my problem with this. Why would you want to hide who you truly are from others? Claims of being authentic are nice and all, but why do you need to tell others you are authentic. It’s the same as me telling you I am a blogger. You have eyes don’t you? You have a brain, and you can think for yourself. I don’t need to tell you anything about me being authentic. Likewise why would you need to tell others what you are about or cover up who you really are.

Being Authentic

I could go on endlessly about authenticity but that’s exactly what I want you to stop doing. I don’t want you to fake anything or boast with all kinds of claims about who you secretly want to be. Being yourself is much more powerful because you no longer need to spend energy in pretending to be someone else you can use every bit of energy you have to good use in being who you are!

Stop faking

Who are you, and what have you done with the real you? How long have you been pretending to be someone you’re not just so people would like you or believe you. Wait a second, in order for people to believe you you have to lie to them? That is what faking it means, no matter how you look at it, it’s nothing more than a big lie. A means to an end you might say in defence. A great way to build confidence if you don’t have any yourself, or to get out of a cycle you’re in. Just pretend it’s not there right?

Reality check

Pretending is not reality, pretending is not the truth. As long as you present you will never realize what’s inside of you waiting to come out. Be authentic but do not make claims about it. Just keep your mouth shut and be who you actually are, we all have eyes and a brain, we’ll know the truth when we see it. And if we don’t, that’s our problem, not yours. Be you.

Who are you?

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards – Soren Kierkegaard

In my previous post the Truth had a central role. In this blogpost again the Truth is an important thing. The Truth after all is what is right now, this very instant. And as soon as you think about it you’re thinking about the past. You can’t even pin the word “now” to actual now before it becomes past. Trivial though it seems this means that you can’t capture the moment. All you can do is accept it and live in it without trying to fight it.

So many people out there are constantly looking towards the future or the past to identify the perfect moment to do something. Mostly that moment was in the past and if you’re lucky you might find a moment in the future that’s perfect for what you want. The problem with that moment in the past of course is that you can’t relive that moment although you might understand the lessons and take that with you into the future. The problem with the future is that it’s distracting from the now.

Living forward is all there is. One moment after the next, following each other at instant speed. Trying to understand is dealing with the past, trying to look into the future is distracting from what is happening. We continuously hunt down the precious moments in our lives, but we’re always late or early.

Living without dealing with past or future robs us of all meaning it seems. I recall a fellow student of Cheng Hsin a few years ago who described trying to be perfectly in the now, the more he tried the less he was actually doing because almost all tasks were either dealing with something from the past or preparing for the future. Eventually he decided to give up in being perfectly now because it was boring and unproductive. He took things so far that he wouldn’t even brew a cup of coffee because brewing was preparing for the future event of drinking the coffee. This lasted for only a few hours before the decision to give in and act “normal” again. Possibly it’s the caffeine addiction that pushed him over the edge.

Preparing for now is impossible, preparing for the past senseless, preparing for the future a shot in the dark. That shot in the dark is your best guess out of the three options and is a very good idea indeed. Study the past and understand, prepare for the future and brew that cup of coffee, just don’t forget about this moment.   …to late… it already passed.

A bit more reading on the subject:

-Time-place dissonance and the quick fix

-The prison of the mental world

A blind man left his village and followed the winding path through the forest. He was on his way to see his friend in the neighboring hamlet. After his arrival, the two friends spent many happy hours together. At last, it was time for the blind man to return to his village.

“Here,” his friend said, “it is already nightfall. Take this lantern with you.”

“Lantern? What good is a lantern to a blind man?” he asked.

“It is to avoid accidents. It will help other travelers on the narrow path see you coming.”

With this thought in mind, the blind man took the lantern; thanked his friend, and went on his way. While plodding along the meandering path, he enjoyed the cool, fragrant mist which enveloped both him and the sound of chirping crickets. However, imagine his surprise when nearly home, he suddenly collided with a huge man.

“Fool! Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” the big man shouted.

“Why didn’t you see my lantern?” asked the blind man.

“Lantern? Oh, yes, . . . Well, the candle is out!”

An interesting story, but you might wonder what the significance of it all is. Well, see the lantern as the Truth, it enlightens everything around it. All is good until the lantern gets handed down the line for the ones recieving it can’t see the lantern for what it really is. Claiming to carry the truth but it’s no longer enlightening. Is it the same latern anymore, having lost it’s function?

Exactly this is what happens all around us, we get something handed down but don’t know what it really is. We just assume it’s right (a burning lantern) and blindly we follow it, never seeing that the lantern in fact is no longer enlightening us. What’s more we tell others that it’s the lantern of Truth and hand it down to them, further and further it goes, but what is actually passed on?

Assuming that what we are being told is the truth is all around us. If we didn’t assume things teachers would have a very hard time trying to teach. All we can do is assume they are right. But should we always take it for the truth? Who says the ones teaching us know the Truth? Sometimes it’s better to experience for yourself. Nobody can teach you the taste of coffee, the pain of hitting a wall or the loss of subscribers because of a sales pitch. Some things you’ll just have to experience for yourself in order to know what is and what isn’t true.

Question what others claim to be true and experience for yourself, it truly is the best way to learn and it makes a far greater impact. The best lessens in life are learned this way.

Money, both a blessing and a curse on this planet. For better or for worse we’re stuck with it and it will dominate our lives in one way or the other. Only relatively recently I started learning about money and how to manage it. Now you probably know that there are numerous brilliant blogs about money management and frugality online. They all have the four noble truths about money in common. In this blogpost I’ll try and give you the basics of money all in one simple overview. You could see this blogpost as “Money 101″. Once you know this stuff money will be your friend.

The First Truth: Money can be spent

Well, this is very obvious and you probably do it every single day. Getting you to part with your money is what it’s all about for just about every part of the world economy. Spending more than you earn is a definite way to trouble and spending money on things you want but do not need are a sure-fire way to get more and more clutter in your home. Minimalism can not be maintained this way and if you like minimalism it’s a good idea to have a good hard look at your spendings. If something really a need? or is it jut a want and could you easily do without. Now I don’t want you to never indulge in impulse buys, just keep them in check and know when an impulse buy is only that, an impulse. Gaining control of this is very powerful and will reduce clutter (and spendings). Leaving you with more money in your control.

The Second Truth: Money can be saved

Saving money is almost always a good idea and it’s the natural choice if you end up spending less than you earn each month. Saving money can get you one of two things: a bigger reserve that will earn you interest (and we all know the power of compound interest) or a larger amount of money that can help you get something big you unexpectedly need (a washing machine for instance), note how I’m not saying something big you want. A buffer so to speak.
How far you take the savings is up to you but if you’re really into saving you might reach the crossover point one day. That elusive point when the yearly interest on your savings is enough to pay for all -yes all- your needs. How cool would that be, being able to pay the rent or mortgage with nothing but the interest on your savings. It would mean you’d have the option to stop actively pursuing an income and sit back and relax knowing that you’ve crossed over.

Reaching this point is mostly for those who work hard and save hard. Relaxing after reaching crossover almost always makes these people miserable so they choose to keep working and saving.

The Third Truth: Money can be invested

While saving will make you roughly 3% on a yearly basis if you’re lucky, investing money can and most often does generate a more significant interest rate. With some experience and know-how you could generate 10% a year, but that would mean you’d have to actively (let someone) manage your money. Investing can be done in “paper” (stock-market) which seems to be a rather iffy idea at the moment. You could also invest in real-estate, a slightly sounder idea sometimes. You could think about “flipping” homes. That is, buying a house for x dollars, spend y dollars fixing it and then selling the property asap for x+y+z where z is every last dollar you can squeeze out of it. After that you can choose to invest in another property, adding z to your investment sum. A tried and tested way of making money for anybody willing to do the hard work and taking the gamble of buying a lemon.
Investing money is roughly translated as “letting money work for you”, where saving is just letting it sit there. A bigger gamble but with potentially greater rewards. Of course flipping homes is just an example. You could invest in very small things, perhaps dabble a bit in stocks or help someone with a start-up, becoming a stakeholder or angel investor if you can. Investing is a risk, you might make a loss and you can’t have immediate access to your money. If those things don’t form a problem for you, investing is the way to go in trying to reach crossover. (They should have called it game-over…)

The Fourth Truth: Money can be donated

Yes, that’s the last option you have. (We’re not going to discuss stuffing it in an old mattress) Giving money away directly through charity can be a very fulfilling way to make an impact with your money and it’s just for this reason that a lot of people who can manage it do give away money. If you have enough anyway why not, right? You could also opt for the giving away of presents if you don’t like to give away “numbers”.

Spend it
Save it
Invest it
Donate it

Every choice has it’s benefits and disadvantages. It’s all up to you to decide what you want to do with your money. Just remember, it’s always up to you what you do with your money and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. If you want to save, who are those people from the marketing department to tell you that you -need- that latest gizmo.

I’ll tell you one last secret about money (and things in general): If someones opinion is that you don’t matter just because you don’t own this-or-that. You should ask yourself how important that opinion is to you. You are not your possessions, never was and never will be. Walking down the path of materialism will never reach an end: One Hummer will be beat by two Hummers or a Ferrari. A Ferrari is of course nothing compared to a yacht. It’s a never ending race of ridiculousness and false needs.

Identify true needs and spend what is needed. Save, invest and donate what you don’t spend. If you consistently spend less than you earn you’re on your way to crossing over and have a buffer for a rainy day. That’s money for you, and actually it’s so obvious that I keep wondering how I managed to spend so many years not knowing.

Now you know the four noble truths about money, it’s your friend.

I had a very interesting lecture today on Artificial Intelligence, I’d like to share a few ideas from that lecture that inspired me. They were all about uncertainty and started out with two terms that seem to be the foundation of uncertainty in all endeavors:

Either uncertainty caused by ignorance, or by laziness

Ignorance is coupled with not knowing because you simply don’t have a way to get the knowledge. The winning numbers of the lottery is one such event where you’re simply always going to be ignorant of the truth. And if you somehow end up certain about a future lottery, please do drop a line…

On the other side of this coin is laziness or in other words getting certainty is just to much work. An example I got in lecture was centered around pathology. Lets say you’d be able to reach certainty in a medical diagnosis but you’d need to perform 2000 tests. On the other hand you could be 90% certain with just 20 tests. Now those numbers are fictional of course but you get the idea.

Uncertainty doesn’t change anything about the truth values. Statements are always true or false, it’s the agent who isn’t certain.

Read that line again please and realise what it means: truth by it’s very nature is complete, we (agents) are the ones who distort it, doubt it and often even reject it. This -does not- change the truth however, just our perception of it.

So far it’s black and white, now a small sidestep into fuzzy logic. A logic that allows for an infinite number of grayish colors. Take the statement “This car is fast”, while it’s certainly true for an Austin Martin, it’s “more true” for a Koenigsegg. Gradual truth if you want to think about it that way. By themselves both statements are true but one seems more true than the other now doesn’t it?
It’s a very down and dirty simplification of the truth about uncertainty but at least it provides a fresh perspective on how we think. After all, artificial intelligence tries (among other things) to make a machine act like a human would in the same situation.
Handling uncertainty comes down to a few pointers:

• Don’t be lazy (Do the 2000 tests)
• Keep the cost-benefit trade-off in mind though
• We can’t solve the ignorance problem. Relax about that

Asking yourself questions about what you think is always a good practice I might add. Uncertainty is one of those subjects that really benefits from regular scrutiny. A few questions that might help you here are:

• How uncertain are you at any given point?
• How certain do you want to be at that point?
• How does the uncertainty increase and decrease?

Last but not least there is always the trade-off between Utility and probability: How strongly do we want/need some result (utility) and how certain are we to get it? (probability) A probability of 100% although very nice is very hard to come by. Is it always necessary to reach this value? I sure don’t hope so, imagine the costs that would bring, and is the benefit really that big? Also imagine the stress it would bring if we always wanted the truth and would not accept any amount of uncertainty.

It’s always good to want less uncertainty and seeing as the truth is out there we can choose to go look for it. Don’t be lazy, accept ignorance and above all don’t worry if you don’t have perfect certainty yet.

If it’s not ignorance that’s stopping you you’ll get the truth in the end if you are prepared to make the costs.

Happy hunting

If you’re a bit like me you’ve probably been told you’re crazy on a lot of occasions. Sometimes it’s a bit more subtle and you’re “just” called unrealistic or a dreamer but it can even go as far as being called totally insane. From time to time you come across others who have the same thing.

The Internet is one such place, a place where you can be yourself without getting into trouble for being crazy. You might be called eccentric but most likely you’ll be a unique voice and if you start blogging you’ll be sure to gather a lot of subscribers. The benefit is Internet instantly becomes clear: there are more people like you out there. If only one in a thousand people think like you do chances are you will hardly ever meet one in real life yet set up a blog on the subject and in no time you’ve got yourself a little tribe.

The truth is out there

But is craziness really crazy? Or is it just the opinion of the way a minority thinks. It’s out of sync with the norm and so it’s somehow wrong. The truth is not always the opinion of the majority after all.

The minorities however are on the rise. Talking with fellow students or colleagues probably will get a few raised eyebrows on the subjects of personal development and lifestyle design. The four hour workweek gets some laughs and looks of disbelief, the whole idea of passive income streams is all but ignored. Ignore the crazy folk.

Talking online and blogging however you can’t deny that these topics are definitely getting more and more attention. It might just get mainstream soon and in doing so it’s going to get harder and harder to be heard. Because that’s one of the benefits of being crazy. On the one hand you don’t get listened to because you’re crazy, on the other hand you do find yourself part of a tribe that does listen. Once that tribe gets to big it’s going to be a tough job staying one of it’s leaders.

Little league

A simple example: I blog about personal development, lifestyle design, minimalism and zen. ….ever heard of Zen Habits? Illuminated Mind? and of course the blog of Tim Ferris. A small time blogger like myself couldn’t possibly compete with these huge guns in the niche. Maybe if I started a few years ago I’d be one of them but as things are we’re down here. Proof that these ideas aren’t that strange after all although when looking at real life experiences only you wouldn’t know you were sane.

The Internet offers us so much. In real life our ideas might be called crazy, we’re the only ones we know who have them. While on-line there are so many people talking about the subject that we have a tough time making ourselves heard through all the twitter and chatter.

What can we do about that one? Either way it’s hard being heard. But what if you implement the lessons from real life into blogging? Write about something that seems totally crazy on-line. After all, it’s just another environment you’re in and in that perspective no different than your real life chats with people.

• Being crazy makes you stand out;
• standing out gets you noticed;
• getting noticed gets you heard (eventually);
• getting heard lets you share your ideas.

You meet all kinds of cool people who share your ideas or at least have an interest in what you’re writing. The world is big enough to build your own group around just about any subject. If you thought of it it’s certain others think the same. Blogging is the game of finding those people.

Call me crazy, but that’s how I see the on-line world. Millions of people, and we’re all crazy in one way or the other. Don’t be ashamed, it’s the place to be to find like-minded people. Speak up about your thoughts and you will be heard. Be yourself, be crazy and enjoy talking to the other crazies.

A lifetime ago (well actually 70 years to the day) a horrid part of modern history started. The second world war. Millions died and millions more were scarred for life.Today I’d like to give you my view of a few factors that played a role in the onset of this war that are still alive today and we all struggle with.

First off there’s the laziness of humans. If possible we’d like others to think for us and to decide for us. We then eagerly follow those people, becoming a tribe blindly following the leader of the pack. Shut down all rational thought and agree with the leader. How often does this happen in daily life? In board rooms where management sits there quietly and agrees with everything the CEO has to say. Or on a smaller level just following whatever plans the biggest kid in class has to say in fear of being beaten or just because he’s the biggest boy and so it seems logical to sacrifice individuality just to become part of his tribe.

Secondly we have a terrible habit just about everybody has: blame someone else for your own misfortune. After all, you can’t do anything wrong right? You’re perfect, it was the other guy. Admitting your own mistakes is hard, apologizing to others for your mistakes is even worse. And because we don’t like this feeling (it makes us feel weak or something) we just blame others and hope nobody catches on and realize the mistake was our own.

A tribe leader can combine these two traits into a terrible mix. Blame someone else and tell the tribe how to deal with those others. Well, we all know how this ended. On a far smaller scale however it still happens every single day.

Same old, same old

70 years on, we still make the same mistakes, almost on a daily basis. The only difference is mass-media (at near instant speed) that can be used to keep others in check. Something like the second world war can’t happen again. Modern weapons are to powerful and -in the Western world at least- there are to many controlling agencies, laws and agreements between countries. Wars have a totally different playing field today. With the push of a button a whole city can be obliterated, thousands of kilometers from the front. I wonder how the war would have ended if after invading Poland someone would have pushed that button and reduced the whole of Berlin to ashed, including the tribe leader.

Because of mass media people do think a bit more for themselves. On the other hand, Internet has given minority groups (like those people with the white pointy hats in the USA) a way to communicate and distribute their ideas far more effectively than “the moustache” could ever dream of.

The danger of ignorance

Something often heard is that the German citizens had no knowledge of the camps whatsoever and no knowledge of the systematic destruction of the Jews. I do believe those people, I see no reason not too. If the web existed back then however, there would have to be some very powerful restricting to be done in order for this news not to get out there. I can think of only one country trying to limit Internet access nowadays (China..) and although they try, they don’t succeed totally. Every now and then news does get out and information does go in.

Would the tribe still follow it’s leader if they knew about the camps?

We will never know.

All I know is that the Internet is both a blessing and a curse. We can get all the information we want, but at the same time there’s all that info we don’t want. It offers hate groups an easy way to spread their hate.

I just hope that people who find information on the net keep thinking for themselves and don’t believe a single source of information.

70 Years, and still we make the same mistakes. If I live to see another 70 years I hope the lessons will be learned but I doubt it, history has a way of repeating its self.

Sorry for the rant, somehow this just rolled out and seems to have some value to it. It’s not a perfect post, I didn’t do any editing and wrote this one down in one go trying to capture my thoughts as I was going along. I hope it makes some sense to you, if not please do join me in discussion.

If you’re wondering what the photo is, it’s a part of a monument in the Westerbork concentration camp, each star represents an individual who stayed at Westerbork and died in a German camp.  102.000 in total… A single star for every life.

I’m sure somehow the title got your attention. How often is this true for something we do. Even in the face of better ways we stick to our old ways. A little while ago I had a discussion about being annoyed with other people, even when those people were no longer there. You know how that goes… Someone in the street decides to block your path with their baby stroller and cause a small traffic jam. Half a block later you’re still silently cursing the woman (or man, who says men can’t walk with a stroller) for being in your way.

Well, the person I was with has this habit of complaining about such things. People who don’t go aside, are rude or otherwise annoying. Public places are hell for him because of all the annoying people.

There was a major difference in how we dealt with the situation. He was constantly agitated and on edge, ready to snap a quick comment at just about anyone “annoying”. Most of the times he did make a comment I was left wondering what it was about. Only after asking did I realize his thoughts were still half a block in the past.

As much as I tried however, I didn’t manage to get this clear to him. Why be agitated about such things, they won’t change and all you end up doing is winding yourself up. Not to mention getting on my nerves because of the constant complaining about other people.

Human mirrors

But you see, somehow the habits we don’t like in others are actually the habits we don’t like in ourselves. Other humans are mirrors to us. It made me realize just how much I complain about other people. People who slack (in a bad way Carl…), people who don’t take things seriously that are important to me, people who waste money buying useless things, people who smoke in my vicinity. What’s more, I slack, I don’t take things seriously all the time, I sometimes waste money, and.. no, I don’t smoke.

And still I believe that how I do things is more often than not the best way of doing it. I couldn’t be further from the truth!

In the course of our lives we find our own ways of doing thing. Ways that work for us and of which we see no need to change them. Or they are so habitual that we just don’t see them at all. It’s here that we can learn a great deal from others for they truly are mirrors to our habits.

• Get agitated because someone doesn’t clean as much as you? Maybe you’re a clean-freak.
• Get annoyed with slow walkers? Maybe you’re a fast walker and they have a normal speed.
• Are people saying things behind your back? And you’re still complaining about them to the person next to you, half a block later?
• Do you behave a certain way to get something done but when someone else does that it’s outrageous?

Well, you get the idea don’t you.

If ever you find yourself thinking “My way is the best way” or getting all wound up about something. Ask yourself, will this really matter in a week or so. Why am I letting this small thing get to me. What is this telling me about myself. And the grand finale: Is my way really the best way?

Just sit and count your breaths. Feel the cold air flow in through your nose and out again. There is nothing but the present, no mind, no thought.

Sounds like a lot of new age stuff doesn’t it? It’s actually the basis of zazen meditation. Now don’t skip this blogpost straight away because you don’t like meditation. Bear with me here, I promise you it will be worth it.

What is this meditation all about and why do people spend so many years of their lives meditating just to be sitting there motionless and being totally unproductive. Don’t they have something better to do than just sit around doing nothing?

For most “westerners” sitting still and doing nothing is downright torture. Deadlines to meet, calls to make, mails to answer. A constant pounding of thoughts on our daily life.

Because we have the need to feel alive we take up all sorts of strange and potential dangerous hobbies. Driving a motorcycle, skydiving, drag racing. Or perhaps we take up some kind of art, painting, sculpting or gardening. What happens when you really get sucked into what you are doing? You end up in a flow where everything goes perfectly and you forget all about time and other things. In the worst best case “you” no longer exist. There is only what is being done. There is no thinking anymore, just the physical, just being, just the truth.

We’re in a constant search to get satisfaction from life. How do we do that? We must return to the present moment because only the present can let us connect with what is real. Only through that connection can we experience the satisfaction in life we seek.

A powerful tool that is used in zazen practice is labeling our thoughts. You see, we are not our thoughts. This is vital so I’ll say it again, we are not our thoughts. Every thought that comes up during practice is a distraction from what is real. We can choose to jump on that thought train and get away from reality of we can recognize the thought as not being real, give it a label (”Fantasizing”, “conversing with self”, “feeling guilty” and so on) After labeling go back to practice. What does this labeling do? It’s disconnects us from the thoughts, we no longer see them as us, but only as our thoughts.

We believe that our thoughts are the truth most of the time. But are they really? Don’t get stuck in that mental prison. You’ll cut yourself off from the physical reality of the moment. The truth is right under your nose, it’s right there. Seems strange that people travel the globe in search of truth. As if the truth can be found in a mountain monastery far from here. I think the label “fantasizing” would fit nicely don’t you?

See through your thought patterns and enter the experiential world of the present moment. If you are in an argument, realize that your thoughts aren’t you. Label them and you will start seeing what really is going on. Why are you angry/sad/annoyed? What are both parties in the argument doing? We are not our thoughts nor are we our emotions. These stem from our preconceptions and perhaps how we were brought up. We might even end up thinking so much we get paralized by thought.

And now for a nice twist: Our senses are the doorways through which we can experience the present. But, our senses aren’t instantaneous in transferring what they register to what we (or the brain) perceive. … can we ever enter the experiential world of the present moment? Or are we always experiencing the past?

What is the truth? What is fantasy…