RyanHoliday.net:

Why are reporters so lazy? Why don't any of them bother to their jobs? I do a lot of reading about PR and for a while I was shocked at how delusional PR people were to think that the press release was an effective way to spread the word. I just realized why they use it: Reporters let them get away with it.

Take Facebook's recent launch of the Facebook Platform. The trained eye can easily see how the reporters are reading off the same document. What document you ask? The official Facebook Press Release:

Facebook and Amazon.com teamed up to develop an application called "Book Reviews" that lets Facebook users write and display book reviews on their profile pages. Facebook users can then click on the "Buy at Amazon" button to go to Amazon.com and complete their purchase

Now look at a few of the articles (I've looked at at least 10, they're all the same)

MSN :Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook said that, for example, it teamed up with Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) to develop a book review application where users write and display book reviews on their profile pages. Facebook users can then click on the "Buy at Amazon" button to go to Amazon.com and complete their purchase.

SJ Mercury News: Amazon.com's `Book Review' application will allow people to write and post book reviews on their Facebook profile pages. Friends whose curiosity is peaked by a book review can then click on the "Buy at Amazon" button, which will take them directly to Amazon.com to complete their purchase.

SF Chronicle: Facebook members, for instance, will be able to write Amazon book reviews and post them on their Facebook pages. If their friends read the review and want to buy the book, they can click on an Amazon button and connect directly to the online store.

Techshout: Facebook and Amazon teamed up to develop "Book Reviews" an application that lets Facebook users write and display book reviews on their profile pages. To visit Amazon.com and complete their purchases users will have to click on the "Buy at Amazon" button.

VentureBeat: Facebook and and Amazon have also worked together to develop an application called "book reviews." (These applications are going live tonight, around midnight, so no URLs yet.) Facebook users can write and display book reviews on their profile pages, then follow a "buy at Amazon" button

...and more and more and more...

So how do we know they didn't all just see the application and think the same thing? BECAUSE IT DOESN'T EXIST. It simply is not real. It hasn't been released, it's not out. Look on Facebook, search for it on Google. You cannot add it to your profile because you can't find it. I went ahead and looked at every single application released to date. Check out these searches, it won't appear. (1, 2, 3) Maybe it will come out soon, but not today (and not a week ago when the Platform launched.)

What we have here is reporters who got swooped up in the buzz and the excitement. They went ahead and reported on something they haven't seen. Not only that, they acted like they had--like they'd tooled around on it and found it satisfactory and implied the audience could do the same.

Even then, that might be excusable. But instead they plagiarized the press release nearly word for word. That report after report is worded exactly the same is not a coincidence, it's laziness. And then people wonder why the media isn't trusted and why companies continue to launch crappy products. How hard is it to gloss over major flaws when the reporters aren't going to bother to look anyway? Why focus on creating a quality product if a one page document can sell a journalist on just about anything. Why don't the reporters just go ahead and reprint press releases each morning if they aren't going to do any original work themselves?

These journalists got caught hook, line and sinker. They took a corporation at its word and asked no questions. Sound familiar? Where has that dereliction of duty led us in the past? Try Enron and the tech bubble. When the press goes around taking press releases on their face, without inspection or corroboration, we are all at risk of manipulation. Companies claims must be checked and rechecked--and in this case, seen to be premature or nonexistent. Blog are one thing, but for MSN or Businesswire, this negligence is unacceptable. They are call the 4th Estate because they are a check to power, not because they bow to it.

Sensationalism is dangerous. They owe the audience an apology and a greater dedication to accuracy.

It's up on Digg, vote for it here

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Hollywood on Pirates of the Caribbean and the box office

"Summer ain't over," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers, who predicted Hollywood could bring in record summer revenue topping $4 billion. "You've got a record number of people in theaters seeing all the trailers and marketing materials for these upcoming films. I've never seen a summer so well positioned."

Robert Greene on the OODA Loop.

Whatever success you are now experiencing will actually work to your detriment because you will not be made aware of how slowly you are falling behind in the fast transient cycle. You think you are doing just fine. You are not compelled to adapt until it is too late. These are ruthless times.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I posted the books I'd read from Sept 15th to March 30th, but since then I have been struggling a bit. I keep getting bogged down in some less than interesting stuff or distracted by school and work. I'd appreciate it if anyone has any recommendations (and I don't mean that patronizingly, I almost ALWAYS read what people suggest, first throwing them up on my Amazon Wishlist to track what's next. Check it here.

Anyways, here's what I've done since the last list:

'Till Death Do Us Part--Vincent Bugliosi
Helter Skelter--Vincent Bugliosi
Man's Search for Meaning--Viktor Frankl (Again)
Words that Work :It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear--Frank Luntz
Unhooked: Why young women pursue sex, delay love and lose at both--Laura Sessions Stepp
Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning--Viktor Frankl
The Prince--Machiavelli (2x)
What Makes Sammy Run--Bud Schulberg
And the Sea Will Tell--Vincent Bugliosi
Reveille for Radicals--Saul D. Alinsky
The Predator's Ball--Connie Bruck
The Republic--Plato
Leviathan--Thomas Hobbes (large chunk)

Notes:
-I recommend just about all of these.
-Unless you're really dedicated, you can probably get just as much out of the Hobbes wikipedia page as you do out of the book
-Luntz--Words that Work--is a really interesting guy. He actually wrote The Contract With America. Problem is, the book is boring and dry. He so wants to be liked by the media that he castrates himself and wants you to desperately believe that everything he does it motivated by true belief. The book's value suffers under the constant rationalization, but the guy still has a lot to say.
-Bugliosi is AMAZING. Read at least one of them. These came Tucker recommended and I would call Bugliosi the greatest lawyer since Clarence Darrow.
-Unhooked would be better if it focused more on the reasons why the college sex scene is bad--as opposed to merely asserting it is bad because it offends Christian morality.
-The Predator's Ball is good too, if you have the time and energy to suffer through the first 100 or so pages. Again, this is why financial books are often difficult to read. The author assumes we want to know HOW Milken accomplished everything in terms of mathematics and numbers as opposed to WHY and WHAT for. Other than that it's fascinating and a good picture of the 80's.

So hit me with your recommendations.

Edit: I read American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis too. And it's really good but the movie sucks.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Last month I wrote about why you ought to find a mentor. This week I thought I'd write a little bit about how you go about getting and maintaing one. Let me preface this by the fact that I am by no means an expert but now I have at least been on both sides of the table. Lately I've been getting a bunch of emails from kids (many my own age) and time and time again I see the same mistakes. Many of these errors seem to be common sense to me, but I nevertheless understand the tendency to make them.

Here are a few don'ts and a few dos.

1) Don't be presumptuous. I can't tell you how often I am literally appalled at the balls on some people. Whatever you're asking for, it's probably too much, so scale it back. If it's a question they'll answer it. If it's "Will you sit and listen to my life story?" you've crossed the line. Obviously the relationship is centered around getting something from them, but you need to space that out over time. Perception changes everything, so consider that asking for everything up front as opposed to a little advice every couple weeks could mark the difference between learning a lot or nothing at all.

2) Don't compliment yourself. Don't insult yourself. Both extremes are equally detrimental. They are the ultimate distraction from the issue at hand. The former, they have to (if anything at all) take you down a notch. The latter, they have to waste their precious time reassuring a complete stranger. Either option leaves you spending capital that is already in short supply. Once you've finished writing your email, scroll through and find out all the affirmative claims you make about yourself and delete them. Remember what Ralph Ellison said about power--that it was "confident, self-assuring, self-starting, and self-stopping, self warming and self-justifying." It does not need to make claims, they are implied. That the issue is even being addressed says the opposite about you. And on the other end, if you're lacking the confidence to get it done, why should someone bother putting any energy into you?

3) Don't be obsequious. Compliments are one thing, being full of shit is another. A person worthy of mentoring you is going to be self-aware enough to realize the majority of their flaws and faults. For you to come in and pretend those don't exist shows that you either are too oblivious to accurately judge situations or dangerous brown-noser. They want to relate to you on a real level, and that's impossible if you approach them as something other than a real person. So it is imperative that you let them know why you respect them, but they are not the second coming of Christ--and they know it.

4) Whatever you do, do not insult them or what they stand for. I got an email a little while back where someone pretty ruthlessly insulted Tucker, and then the guy wanted something from me. Now aside from the fact that I would consider TM a friend and someone who has helped me enormously, how does it benefit anyone to insult my boss (and indirectly me for working for him)? Understand that people hold certain things to be sacred. You need to find out what those are and treat them with the reverence they deserve. Let me say this again, being brutally honest doesn't make you stand out, it makes you a dick. If that's the route you want to take, go for it, but people don't often mentor dicks.

5) Stay in the picture. You are easily forgotten, remember that. The key then is to find ways to stay relevant and fresh. Drop emails and questions at an interval that straddles the fine line between bothersome and buzzworthy. Even if they don't respond, that they saw your name again means a little. If they forget your name or what you offer them then the relationship is pretty much dead. And it's easier to keep something alive than it is to revive the deceased. I get an email from one kid every couple weeks and it's perfect, they are always short little emails and I almost always see through them--but at the same time, I respect the ingenuity.

6) Bring something to the table. Anything. Quid pro quo. Even if it's just energy. Even if it's just thanks. You cannot ask and ask and not expect to give anything in return. The bigger the payoff you can offer, the longer they'll take you under their wing. Figure out what you can offer and actually give it. Here's a freebie: Find articles and books that relate to their field and pass on a recommendation and then they won't have to waste their time searching.

7) Apologize. When you screw up, more likely than not, you'll realize you did it immediately after saying or emailing it. Don't wait for their reprisal, or the token period of silence. They'll forgive your errors (within reason) if you indicate a propensity for identifying them. I know when I've crossed the line and you probably too. Reproach can be softened by mutual understanding.

Note: If any of these things reference something you think you might have emailed me, chances are it's not. They've all happened multiple times--and some of them are ones I've made myself.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My old Digg account got flagged for some reason, so I got a new one. I appreciate everyone who added my old account and if you wouldn't mind, it'd be a big help if you could do it again. My track record is pretty solid (almost ten front page stories in 6 months) and I couldn't do it without you guys.

Add me here

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My Book Quotes and Passages list has topped 10,000 words and no longer fits into a single entry. I've had to split it into two pages so I could continue adding to it. As of now, the A-P is one the first page and R-Z is on the second. I'm updating continuously so keep checking back. Oh, I also began adding Amazon Affiliate Links so you can purchase the books and I get a small referral fee.

Here, wrote Ziporyn, was a classic sociopath, a man whose huge ego "exists solely to satisfy his own appetite for existence. His answer to the question "What is one allowed to do" is "What one can get away with." His answer to the question "What is good?" is "What is good for me."
Robert K. Ressler
Whoever Fights Monsters

"There was morality before the Church; trade before the state; exchange before money; social contracts before Hobbes; welfare before the rights of man; culture before Babylon; society before Greece; self-interest before Adam Smith; and greed before capitalism."
Ridley, Matt
The Origins of Virtue

"In every important way we are secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of a number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable--which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live."
Robinson, Marilynne
Gilead

There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world's mortal insufficiency to us.
Robinson, Marilynne
Gilead

I think they must also be a preeminent courage that allows us to be brave--that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that previous things have been put in our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.
Robinson, Marilynne
Gilead

"There seem to be two kinds of self-conscious self-made men, those who dwell on the patriotic details of their ascent from the newsboy or shoe-shiner at two bucks and peanuts a week and those who take ever new level as if it were the only one they ever knew, rushing ahead so fast they are shamed, afraid to look back and see where they've come from. One is a bore and the other is a heel. Sammy may have had other faults, but he had never been a bore."
Schulberg, Bud
What Makes Sammy Run

"It left me sick to think what a tremendous burning and blinding light ambition can be where there is something behind it, and what a puny flickering sparkler when there isn't. Sammy's flame was deceptive because you were always looking at it through the powerful magnifying glass of his own ego. But when the telephone wires failed to transmit the magnetic current it was like standing off and looking at a small cold star."
Schulberg, Bud
What Makes Sammy Run

"When a moving picture is right, it socks the eye and the ear and the solar plexus all at once and that is a hell of a temptation for any writer. Hollywood may be full of phonies, mediocrities, dictators and good men who have lost their way, but there is something that draws you there that you should not be ashamed of."
Schulberg, Bud
What Makes Sammy Run

"I had been waiting for justice to rise up and smite him in all its vengeance, secretly hoping to be around when Sammy got what was coming to him; only I had expected something conclusive and fatal and now I realized that what was coming to him was not a sudden pay-off but a process, a disease he had caught in the epidemic that swept over his birthplace like a plague; a cancer slowly eating him away, the symptoms developing and intensifying: success, loneliness, fear. "
Schulberg, Bud
What Makes Sammy Run

"Nothing, to my way of thinking, is better proof of a well ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where is and pass some time in his own company."
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

Inwardly everything should be different but our outward face should conform with the crowd. Our clothes should not be gaudy, yet they should not be dowdy either. We should not keep silver plate with inlays of solid gold but at the same time we should not imagine that doing without gold and silver is proof that we are leading the simple life. Let our aim be a way of life not diametrically opposed to, but better than that of the mob. Otherwise we shall repel and alienate the very people whose reform we desire; we shall make them, moreover, reluctant to imitate us in anything for fear they may have to imitate us in everything.
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

'What progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend.'
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with. I shall send you, accordingly, the actual books themselves, and to save you a lot of trouble hunting all over the place for passages likely to be of use to you, I shall mark the passages so that you can turn straight away to the words I approve and admire."
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

"Count your years and you'll be ashamed to be wanting and working for exactly the same things as you wanted when you were a boy. Of this one thing make sure against your dying day--that your faults die before you do."
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

He should be delivering himself of such sayings, not memorizing them. It is disgraceful that a man who is old or in sight of old age should have wisdom deriving solely from his notebook. 'Zeno said this.' And what have you said? 'Cleanthes said that.' What have you said? How much longer are you going to serve under others? Assume authority over yourself and utter something that may be handed down to posterity. Produce something from your own resources.
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

Show me a man who isn't a slave; one who is a slave to sex, another to money, another to ambition; all are slaves to hope or fear. I could show you a man who has been a Consul who is a slave to his 'little old woman', a millionaire who is the slave of a little girl in domestic service. And there is no state of slavery more disgraceful than one which is self-imposed.
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

They are begging you to extricate them from this awful vortex, to show them in their doubt and disarray the shining torch of truth. Tell them what nature made necessary and what she had made superfluous. Tell them how simple are the laws she had laid down and how straight forward and enjoyable life is or those who follow them and confused and disagreeable it is for other who put more trust in popular ideas than they do in nature.
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

Wouldn't you think a man an utter fool if he burst into tears because he didn't live a thousand years ago? A man is as much a fool for shedding tears because he isn't going to be alive a thousand years from now.
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

You want to live--but do you know how to live? You are scared of dying--and, tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different than being dead?
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

As it is with a play, so it is with life--what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is. It is not important at what point you top. Stop wherever you will--only make sure that you round it off with a good ending.
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

In the meantime cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity and always take full not of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do.
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

Life's no soft affair. It's a long road you've started on: you can't but expect to have slips and knocks and falls, and get tired and openly wish--a lie--for death.
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

Let me indicate here how men can prove that their words are their own: let them put their preaching into practice.
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

We are attracted by wealth, pleasures, good looks, political advancement and various other welcoming and enticing prospects: we are repelled by exertion, death, pain, disgrace and limited means. It follows that we need to train ourselves not to crave for the former and not to be afraid of the latter. Let us fight the battle the other way round--retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet the thing that actually attack us.
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

No man's good by accident. Virtue has to be learnt. Pleasure is a poor and petty thing. No value should be set on it: it's something we share with dumb animals--the minutes, most insignificant creatures scutter after it. Glory's an empty, changeable thing, as fickle as the weather. Poverty's no evil to anyone unless he kicks against it. Death is not an evil.
Seneca
Letters from a Stoic

"Occasionally I wondered if these girls ever took time to be out by themselves and reflect, apart from their girlfriends. They swarmed in clusters on the quad, in the coffe shop and in the dorm--piling in threes and fours onto a single bed and laughing at all the crazy stuff they'd done that day. They sent instant messages to each other on the computer and text-messaged each on their cell-phones a dozen times a day. They'd go on Facebook..."
Sessions Stepp, Laura
Unhooked

"Hallucinations are bad enough. But after a while you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing. But nobody can handle that other trip-- the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted"
Thompson, Hunter S.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

"I hate to say this" said my attorney as we sat down at the Merry Go Round bar on the second balcony "but this place is getting to me. I think I'm getting the Fear"
"Nonsense " I said. "we came out here to find the American Dream, and now that we're right in the vortex you want to quit." I grabbed his bicep and squeezed. "You must realize" I said "that we've found the main nerve."
"I know he said. "That's what gives me the Fear"
Thompson, Hunter S.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

"The face that people are poor or discriminated against doesn't necessarily endow them with any special qualities of justice, nobility, charity or compassion." Saul Alinsky as quoted by
Thompson, Hunter S.
Hell's Angels.

"To see the Hell's Angels as caretakers of the old "individualist" tradition "that made this country great" is only a painless way to get around seeing them for what they really are-not some romantic leftover, but the first wave of a future that nothing in our history has prepared us to cope with. The Angels are prototypes. Their lack of education has not only rendered them completely useless in a highly technical economy, but it has also given them the leisure to cultivate a powerful resentment...and to translate it into a destructive cult which the mass media insists on portraying as a sort of isolated oddity, a temporary phenomenon that will shortly become extinct now that it's been called to the attention of the police"
Thompson, Hunter S.
Hell's Angels.

"No more self-defeating device could be discovered than the one society has developed in dealing with the criminal. It proclaims his career in such loud dramatic forms that both he and community accept the judgment as a fixed description. He becomes conscious of himself as a criminal, and the community expects him to live up to his reputation, and will not credit him if he does not live up to it." Frank Tannenbaum Crime and Community as quoted
Thompson, Hunter S.
Hell's Angels.

The Angels don't like to being called losers but they have learned to live with it. "Yeah I guess I am, said one. "but you're looking at one loser who's going to make a hell of a scene on the way out"
Thompson, Hunter S.
Hell's Angels.

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man" Dr Johnson as quoted by
Thompson, Hunter S.
Hell's Angels.

"Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free and freedom depends on being courageous.
-Pericles
Thucydides.
History of the Peloponnesian War

"If one has a free choice and can live undisturbed, it is sheer folly to go to war. But suppose the choice was forced on one--submission and immediate slavery or danger with the hope of survival: then I prefer the man who stands up to danger rather the one who runs aware from it. As for me, I am the same as I was, and do not alter; it is you who have changed."
-Pericles
Thucydides.
History of the Peloponnesian War

"So long as poverty forces men to be bold, so long as insolence and pride of wealth nourish their ambitions, and in other accidents of life they are continually dominated by some incurable master passion or another, so long will their impulses drive them into danger."
-Diodtus
Thucydides.
History of the Peloponnesian War

"That war is an evil is something which we all know, and it would be pointless to go on cataloguing all the disadvantages involved in it."
-Hemocrates
Thucydides.
History of the Peloponnesian War

"When we went to war in the first place we all, no doubt, had the idea of furthering our own private interests, and we have the same idea now that we are attempting, by a process of claims and counter claims, to arrange a settlement. And if things do not work out so that everyone goes away with what he considers his due, then no doubt we shall go to war again."
-Hemocrates
Thucydides.
History of the Peloponnesian War

"For it is more disgraceful, at least for those who have a name to lose, to gain one's endsby deceit which pretends to be morality than by open violence. Straightforward aggression has a certain justification in the strength that is given to us by fortune"
-Brasidas
Thucydides.
History of the Peloponnesian War

"But success goes to the man who sees more clearly when the enemy is making mistakes like this and who, making the most of his own forces, does not attack on obvious and recognized lines, but in the way that best suits the actual situation. And it is by these unorthodox methods that one wins the greatest glory; they completely deceive the enemy, and are of the greatest possible service to one's own side."
-Brasidas
Thucydides.
History of the Peloponnesian War

"Then, too, when people attack their neighbors in a spirit of great confidence of their own strength--as is the case with the Athenians now--they usually march all the more boldly against an enemy who makes no move against them and only defends himself on his own ground, but when they find someone who comes out to meet them outside his own frontiers and who will, if the occasion arises, take the initiative in attack, they are not so ready to come to grips."
Pagondas
Thucydides.
History of the Peloponnesian War

"This is the safe rule--to stand up to one's equals, to behave with deference towards one's superiors, and to treat one's inferiors with moderation."
-The Athenians
Thucydides.
History of the Peloponnesian War

"This is the way we've won our empire, and this is the way all empires have been won--by coming vigorously to help of all who ask for it, irrespective of whether they are Hellenes or not. One does not only defend oneself against a superior power when one is attacked; one takes measures in advance to prevent the attack materializing."
-Alcibiades
Thucydides.
History of the Peloponnesian War

"When a True Genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. Jonathan Swift- "Thoughts on various subjects, moral and diverting"
Toole, John Kennedy
Confederacy of Dunces

We started talking about what it feels like to be young and have ability. You feel like you're going insane, and you're always afraid of empty or quiet rooms for the flashes of nebulous shit buzzing around you. You never feel truly alone. There is whispering in your ear and you can't tell anyone about it. You never have control over the energy around you and no one else even knows its there, and when you slip into sleep its with white knuckles and sweat because the things you see on that plane between your eyes and the rest of the world are getting clearer every day. But like any fear, with age it dissipates.
Tyler, Erin Leigh
The Bunny Blog

Whoever reads history with a mind free from prejudice cannot ail to arrive at a conviction that of all military virtues, energy in the conduct of operations has always contributed the most to the glory and the success of arms.
Von Clausewitz
On War

But war is no pastime; no mere passion for venturing and winning; no work of a free enthusiasm, it is a serious means for a serious object.
Von Clausewitz
On War

The reason of this is, that we do not gain all our experience at once, but by degrees; thus our determinations continue to be assailed incessantly by fresh experience; and the mind, if we may use the expression, must always be 'under arms.'
Von Clausewitz
On War

Firm reliance on self must make him proof against the seeming pressure of the moment; his first conviction will in the end prove true, when the foreground scenery which fate has pushed on to the stage of war, with its accompaniment of terrific objects, is drawn aside and the horizon extended. This is one of the great chasms, which separate conception from execution.
Von Clausewitz
On War

Therefore, far from making it our aim to gain upon the enemy by complicated plans, we must rather seek to be beforehand with him by greater simplicity in our designs.
Von Clausewitz
On War

What the hell happened to all these songs of the rich in Wally's generation, these well-brought-up boys who went off to private schools? These damned schools were producing a new kind of scion of the elite: a boy utterly world-weary by the age of sixteen, cynical, phlegmatic and apathetic around adults, although perfectly respectful and maddeningly polite, a boy inept at sports, averse to hunting and fishing and riding horses or handling animals in any way, a boy embarrassed by his advantages, desperate to hide them, eager to dress in backward baseball caps and homey pants and other ghettos rags, terrified of being envied, a boy facing the world without any visible signs of the joy of living and without...balls...
Wolfe, Tom
A Man in Full

The bank might end up ruining Croker, wiping him out utterly or it might not. But one thing the bank couldn't change. The bank couldn't change history. There was no rewriting the fact that Charlie Croker was a man who had come from out of nowhere and built up an empire. The empire might crumble and disappear. But so what? So did Napoleon's. Who does the world remember and respect? Croker had something that [he] Raymond Peepgass did not possess--or, rather, something he had never been willing to let off the leash...A certain red dog. Every man had that red dog inside him, but only real men dared let him loose.
Wolfe, Tom
A Man in Full

Power can be enjoyed only when it is recognized and feared. Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it"
Wolff, Tobias
This Boy's Life

All of Dwight's complaints against me had the aim of giving me a definition of myself. They succeeded but not in the way he wished. I defined myself by opposition to him. In the past I had been ready, even when innocent, to believe any evil thing of myself. Now that I had grounds for guilt I could no longer feel them"
Wolff, Tobias
This Boy's Life

Knowing that everything comes to an end is a gift of experience, a consolation gift for knowing that we ourselves are coming to an end. Before we get it we live in a continuous present, and imagine the future as more of that present. Happiness is endless happiness, innocent of its own sure passing. Pain is endless pain."
Wolff, Tobias
This Boy's Life

"When we are green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and that falling and dying are for quitters. We live on the innocent and monstrous assurance that we alone, of all the people ever born, have a special arrangement whereby we will be allowed to stay green forever"
Wolff, Tobias
This Boy's Life

"To be a writer was to escape the problems of blood and class. Writers formed a society of their own outside the common hierarchy. This gave them a power not conferred by privilege--the power to create images of the system they stood apart from, and thereby to judge it."
Wolff, Tobias
Old School

"Don't tell me about science Frost said. I'm something of a scientist myself. Bet you didn't know that. Botany. You boys know what tropism is, it's what makes a plant grow towards the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don't have to chase down a fly to get rid of it--you just darken the room, leave a crack of light in a window and out he goes. Works every time. We all have that instinct, that aspiration. Science cant--what was your word? dim?--science can't dime that. All science can do is turn out the false lights so the true light can get us home"
Wolff, Tobias
Old School

"I understood that nothing stood between me and my greatest desire--nothing between me and greatness itself--but the temptation to doubt my will and bow to the counsels of moderation, expedience and conventional morality, and shrink into the long slow death of respectability."
Wolff, Tobias
Old School

"It is not for the conquerors to surrender their arms..."
Xenophon
Anabasis

"The only things of value which we have at present are our arms and out courage. So long as we keep our arms we fancy that we can make good use of our courage; but if we surrender our arms we shall lose our lives as well."
Xenophon
Anabasis

"If anyone did him a good or an evil turn, he evidently aimed at going one better Some people used to refer to an habitual prayer of his, that he might life long enough to be able to repay with interest both those who had helped him and those who had injured him. It was quite natural then that he was the one man in our times to whom so man people were eager to hand over their money, their cities and their own persons."
Xenophon
Anabasis

"This seems to me to be the record of a man who was devoted to war. He could have lived in peace without incurring any reproaches or any harm, but he chose to make war. He could have lived a life of ease, but he preferred a hard life with warfare. He could have had money and security but he chose to make the money he had less by engaging in war. Indeed, he liked spending money on war just as one might spend it on love affairs or any other pleasure. All this shows how devoted he was to war."
Xenophon
Anabasis

"You are well aware that it is not numbers or strength that bring the victories in war. No, it is when one side goes against the enemy with the gods' gift of a stronger morale that their adversaries, as a rule, cannot withstand them. I have noticed this point too, my friends, that in soldiering the people whose one aim is to keep alive usually find a wretched and dishonorable death, while the people who, realizing that death is the common lot of all men, make it their endeavor to die with honor, somehow seem more often to reach old age and to have a happier life when they are alive. "
Xenophon
Anabasis

"But by night the Greek practice is for the slowest part of the army to be in front. This way the army is least likely to lose cohesion, and men are least likely to stray off from each other without knowing where they are. When a force loses cohesion, it often happens that detachments fall foul of each other and, through mutual ignorance, damage is done on both sides."
Xenophon
Anabasis

"Now in my view it is more painful and a more dishonorable thing to fail to hold all these conquests than it would be never to have won them; just as it is harder to sink into poverty from riches than never to have been rich in the first place, and more painful to appear as an ordinary person after have been a king than to have never been king at all. "
Xenophon
Anabasis

Heraclides, no doubt, thinks that there is nothing serious in life compared with acquiring money by every means possible. I, on the other hand, consider that there are no nobler and more brilliant possessions that a man, and particularly a man who holds power, can have than honor and fair dealing and generosity. A man who has these is rich in the possession of many friends and rich in the fact that many others want to become friends of his. If he is successful, he has other people who will share in his happiness; and if things go wrong with him, he is in no lack of people to come and help him.
Xenophon
Anabasis

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I changed up my workout a bit this weekend and added sprinting. And I got back a familiar feeling that I really missed: taunt muscles in the morning. I absolutely love it when I wake up and feel the lactic acid firmly a hold of my legs. It's good because it reminds you that, yes, yesterday you accomplished something. From there you can build on the foundations of literal physical labor. I see it as the foundation--as though whatever mental or spiritual work you do is then made more legitimate by its predecessor.

In fact, I think I am rearranging my schedule to fit sprint regimens in each weekend. And from this, I'll start each week off with a solid base of sweat and toil. Everything after that simply adds on exponentially.

But back to the why. Why am I still running? Adding each week to the tally of miles and blistered feet so bad that sometimes I can barely stand? I'm down to an 8.1 bmi (or fat percentage) so it's no longer really about health. At first it was to fill the hole, to plug that dearth of self-worth with a regular activity. Now that it proceeds in spite of having long moved past it, I would say is something I am incredibly proud of. Instead of being an indication of emptiness it is the manifestation of a certain contentment; a commitment to myself and to labor.

So I don't want to push anyone else down the same path, it's not about that. Running might not be for you, in fact maybe it's not physical activity at all. But still, there is something to be said for that feeling of sweat build at your temples, clogging your pours until it tips and slides down your face. And having the wind catch your shirt and tug at it until your take it off and glisten in the sun. That glorious feeling as you coast to a stop and your body jerks quickly towards blackness, nearly fainting, but catches consciousness again at the last second. Music pounding through earphones that finally deduce the earth around you to a serene quietness. Here, I find peace, among other things. Mainly a full sense of being a man--or at least well on the road to becoming one. I find purpose; definitive goals that I force myself to reach, acting like destiny is a top I can spin on my palm. Here, I relish in the truth of the Von Clausewitz aphorism that "of all military virtues, energy in the conduct of operations has always contributed the most to the glory and the success of arms." I look around to find myself alone on the track or the street, no competition or marks for comparison, just the energy and the passion that I brought with me.

So when you find that activity for yourself, cede control and pour into it. Allow the current to latch and pull you and there you will find a certain level of happiness that I have not found elsewhere. To the point where when you skip a day, you feel restless and hunger for it. And you pace rooms, eager for the freedom to get out there--alone--and do what you wish. From here you'll find that overwhelming glory and comfort that people seek from religion--only more meaningful when you realize it comes from within. And then everything else becomes intermittent interruptions from your inner-peace that you really don't mind. You'll be enveloped by that calmness that Jack and Durden cherished after Fight Clubs. If there is something else that makes life more worth living--more human than that--then, as far as I can tell, it's just an added bonus to what I've already found.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Actually my second because some douche from Dartmouth stole the exact format of my Tucker Max article. (Compare the two here and here)

Anyways, this guy (who I won't link to here, but I'll show you if you email) took myFight Club Moments post and tried to pass it off as his own. He even changed the part about Rudius Media to "As I learned from my time in the Navy..." And then later he topped the whole thing off by stealing a post from Robert Greene and then another one from me.

Of course I want to freak out and get pissed, but aside from emailing him, I don't think I will. Although I can't come close to grasping the lack of self-respect it takes claim another's work as your own. I mean, cheating on a test is one thing, but to pretend, with little incentive, to own credit on a creative work you had nothing to do with is low and lame.

Here's the advice I got from Tucker last time and if I was smart enough to come up with something better, I would.

"Dude, welcome to the creative arts. This is life. Plagiarism happens, and you aren't a big enough or good enough writer yet to have enough weight to stop it on your end. Life isn't alway fair Just keep writing good stuff and get big enough that next time, you do."

Related: If you're dealing with plagiarism, this is a good site to help guide you through legal action.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

A few days ago I wrote out my essay outline format for a paper I had to write. It actually ended up helping me out a lot and I did 8.5 pages in less than 3 hours.

Here is what the introduction--following the format--ends up looking like:

Since understanding often induces simplification, it is no surprise that the study of global religion is found lacking. Indeed, it seems that Christianity and ethnic religions are so diametrically opposed in their philosophies that the subjection of the latter by the former was inevitable. As author Joel Tishken points out, the current definitions for what constitutes religion regularly ignores "huge portions" of the world. (303) From this he asserts that scholars must rid themselves of the bias that world religion is "evolving" towards a monotheistic, Christian-like faith. Vine Deloria in his book "God is Read" begins with similar assumptions and adds that the evangelical nature of Christianity has set it on a crash-course towards domination and conversion of native peoples. The views of both authors are exemplified in the oral history told by Lin Custalow's "The True Story of Pocahontas." This book--serving as a microcosm of the conflict between Christian settlers and the indigenous people of American--shows the great chasm between ethnic and evangelical religion, and how their coexistence seems unlikely. Ultimately, Christianity and ethnic religions look at the world in vastly different ways and thus it seems inappropriate and even condescending to attempt to place the two in a singular category.*

I put the thesis in bold. In the comments section of the last one, someone argued that the thesis should actually go at the bottom of the introduction, which I think is a huge mistake. Since a paper is about make a clear point and then supporting it, don't you think that means, logically, your clear point must come first? Your thesis is the constitution of your paper and then your support is the democratic practices. One is meaningless without the other preceeding it. Boldly stating your point and then elaborating why that is true makes a great impression on the reader than stating, first, what your evidence is and then later, what it means.

*Let me make it clear that I don't necessarily believe what I wrote, although it was the correct interpretation of the works. I make this point because I just had to sit through a fellow student use the same logic to actually defend cannibalism in Mesoamerican tribes; which of course is absolutely idiotic.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

But what says Socrates?--"One man finds pleasure in improving his land, another his horses. My pleasure lies in seeing that I myself grow better day by day."

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seth Godin's blog is really good, he looks at marketing from a common sense consumer perspective. So I thought of him today when I saw what can only be described as the least effective form of advertising I've ever seen.

I'd parked my car on the street and as I went out to run, I saw I had a ticket. Screaming obscenities, I walked over to look at and found that it wasn't a ticket. It was a yellow advertisement for a sandwich shop purposely placed face down to trick me, which I promptly tore up and threw on the ground.

Clearly somewhere along the line things went horribly, horribly wrong. No such thing as bad PR right? Let's make an exception here. What do you gain by making your customer feel like a jackass? What good is it to associate your name with fear and anger? Why would I ever want to stop by and get a sub-sandwich at a place that goes around trying to fuck with me?

This is a bit of a litmus test that I think more marketers ought to use. What good is getting noticed if you have to manipulate or piss someone off to do it? For instance, you might be hoping to get someone to read an email you've written. Well, you could employ some less than ethical techniques to ensure its opening--URGENT, or RE: or whatever. But why bother if you can't deliver? Why try so hard to make sure I check out your flier, if I am going to be angry shortly there after.

The point is this: More than anything else, the customer wants to feel RESPECTED. That's why transparency is so huge right now, people are tired of feeling worked over. So it seems to me that you gain more by having a few pleased and happy customers then a whole bunch of pissed off ones.

I'd like to hear your guys' most ridiculous stories about bad marketing

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

I have a ten page paper due in 3 days and I'm not worried about it at all. In fact, I haven't had to worry about a paper since before high school. I've developed a formula for your academic paper or essay that has been so successful that in almost every English class I ever used it in, the teacher printed it out and taught it as curriculum. So far I've been hesitant to teach to more than a few friends, but I figured I can give it away here.

Let's begin with a bit history to lay the foundation. The tactics of Spartan general Brasidas are an apt analogy here. Brasidas stood apart from his Peloponnesian comrades due to his rhetorical skills and ability to see war--as Von Clausewitz put it--as the extension of politics by another means. In other words, he fought with ingenuity and a level of elegance unseen in the rest of the brutish Spartan ranks. Particularly in retreats, Brasidas would bring his troops together in an outward facing square with their supplies and wounded in the middle. As they moved away from unfavorable ground, the men would defend their side stepping out only slightly to meet their attackers and then retreating immediately back to the safety of the shape. And thus they were completely impenetrable, able to travel fluidly and slowly demoralize the attacking army.

This essay format works similarly. Consider your introduction as the creator of the shape, and then the following paragraphs making up each side. They venture outwards when called to but it never abandon entirely, the safety of the formation. It is a process of constant realignment, maintaining the square at all cost. Your thesis--like the intro--imitates the square, so it so it always a point of return. Chuck Palahniuk calls these "chorus lines" and you can see in books like Fight Club, how whenever the plot skitters too far to the fringes he immediately comes back to one--"I am Jack's sense of rejection." And so the reader is once more protected in the center of the squared troops and doubt is successfully fended off.

So let's look at the outline for a hypothetical five paragraph paper:

Introduction: (see an entire one here)
1. Begin with a broad, conclusive hook. This will be the metatheme of the paper. Ex: "When citizens exhibit a flagrant disregard of morality and law, societies quickly crumble."
2. Thesis. This needs to specify and codify the hook in relation to the prompt/subject. Ex: "This atmosphere as shown in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby"--with blatant corruption and illegal activity--eventually seems to become all but incompatible with a meaningful incarnation of the American Dream."
3. One sentence laying foundation for first body paragraph. (These are mini-theses for each point you will argue.)
4 sentence for second body paragraph.
5. One sentence for third body paragraph.
6. Restate the hook and thesis into a single transition sentence into the first paragraph. "The 1920's as the epitome of excess and reactionism symbolized a sharp break in the American tradition; one that no one seemed to mind."

Body #1
1. Rewrite first body paragraph thesis.
2. Support the mini-thesis with evidence and analysis.
Tips:
-Begin with your strongest piece of evidence
-Introduce quotes/points like this: Broad-->Specific-->Analysis/Conclusion
-Always integrate the quote, and try to incorporate analysis into the same sentence. As a general rule never use more than 5-7 of the author's words. Normally you can use even less: "It was Jay, who despite the corruption around him, looked forward to what was described as an 'orgastic future.'"
3. Restate body paragraph thesis in the context of thesis as a whole.

Body #2
1 Rewrite second body paragraph thesis.
2. Support mini-thesis
3. Restate body paragraph thesis in context of the paragraph above and thesis as whole

Body #3
1. Rewrite third body paragraph thesis.
2. Support mini-thesis
3. Restate body paragraph thesis in context of the paragraph above and thesis as whole

Conclusion
1. Restate hook/metatheme.
2. Specify this with restatement of thesis once more
3. One sentence for each body paragraph, surmising its assertion
4. One sentence for each body paragraph, surmising its assertion
5. One sentence for each body paragraph, surmising its assertion
6. Rewrite hook and thesis into a conclusion sentence.
7. Transition to general statement about human nature. "The American dream--and any higher aspiration--requires a society that both looks forward and onwards as well as holds itself to corrective standard."

Consider how well--if done right--this format addresses every possible angle of the subject. The thesis is buttressed at the top by your metaphysical hook and at the end by your look forward. The middle then, is simply dealing with reality, the easily quantifiable part.

Consider too, how easy this is. The thesis is the entire paper--as it is, and always should have been. Once that is written, everything else falls quickly into place. The metatheme, logically, is deduced from your primary theme just as your mini-themes are. All that is left to the writer is to simple decide a theme and record it to paper. And like Palahniuk, when we venture too far from it, remind the reader with a chorus line.

And if you object too much to rigid structure, consider the freedom this truly allows you. Once you've disregarded--or been able to reduce to the subconscious--the actual form of the paper, all that is left is the ideas. Isn't that what is truly important? Would you rather parrot back plot summary or take the theme not only to a new level, but an understandable one? If a professor can't respect that, what does their grade even mean? All I know is that this technique has allowed me both to remove any sort of stress from paper-writing, and even better, given me the opportunity to put to words, concepts I'm grappling with.

Update: I posted on this topic again, and fleshed out the entire introduction for a paper I wrote.

Update #2: Xenophon vastly improved Brasidas' tactics, which I discussed here

For more tips on writing papers and writing clearly, subscribe.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

I just got a Macbook, something I swore I'd never do. It's lighter, cheaper, faster, and easier to use than my PC--so why wouldn't I? And honestly, if Apple stock wasn't obscenely overvalued due to the iPhone, I'd load up on the stock too. The generation that is in college now is switching over to Macs--and not because they're douchey hipsters, but because they've been presented with no viable alternative. i don't think we'll see them stay at 10% for much longer.

I was thinking about it, and with the exception of Word and Winamp there wasn't a single application that I used that wasn't either web-based or totally unimportant. I grabbed a Mac license for Word off a friend so I'm set. And even then, I use Google Docs now, so it wasn't a huge deal if that hadn't come together. Which is why I think you'll see a lot less brand-loyalty when people start getting new computers. Even after 2 days, I'm hooked on all the features.

Speaking of which, as a person who has never had a Mac before, what do I need to know? What are some programs I MUST get? Any good shortcuts? Underrated tips etc?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Two must-read books for PR/Web people:
Reveille for Radicals andRules for Radicals by Saul D. Alinsky

You wouldn't think that an activist's handbook for organizing labor unions and social justice movements would have much resonance in Web 2.0 but it does--more than any contemporary book I've read in a while. Alinsky was all about utilizing communities and how an outsider can never truly work efficiently with one. The point then is very similar to what they're calling PR 2.0, which is to no longer be an outside. The key, he says, is to become familiar and accepted by the community you're working with.

This is where most PR people and organizers fail. They look at communities as collections of inferior people who they can manipulate into consuming their product. That's not going to fly any more, the Diggs or Myspaces are too powerful. Why would DailyKos take the scraps some newspaper throws at him when he has a daily audience comparable in size? Why would a blogger respond to some canned email I send him--when he has plenty of real users who give genuine tips to him all day long?

No competent general would ever fight on land he has not familiarized himself with. Alinsky asserts that in organizing, the group's "traditions are the terrain." To do your job properly, you MUST acclimate to group and not the other way around. The traditional press release then is dead. The personalized email filled with anecdotes, proof of readership and a meaningful connection is the new way.

Brian Solis of PR 2.0 has written about this extensively. But his basic point is very similar to Alinsky's. You cannot afford to be an outsider unless your only goal is cheap and temporary stimulus. Why bother? Why not just buy advertising? I would assert that in the future, when you apply for jobs in PR and management, the most important part of your resume will not be your job experience but what communities you're a part of. What audience can you bring to the client? How quickly can you learn and be accepted into a new environment? So when you dick around on the internet, keep that in mind--the forums you post on or Myspace groups you belong to, those don't have to be just distractions, they can be priceless assets for a career.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday I went out to the driving range and hit balls for a couple hours. As I was doing it--and listening to my ipod--I realized why I like it so much.

It gives you the ability to immediately correct your mistakes and institute improvement.

I've always been solid with the seven iron. It's been my club since I started as a little kid. So I always start there, and work my way downwards. As I start regularly hitting with the 7, I move to the 6. Then after the 6 is mastered, I move to the 5. All the way down to the woods. This allows you to progressively implement improvement and ratchet up success. In track in high school, my favorite workout was pyramids. Normally, 200-->400-->600-->800-->1200-->1600 and then back down again. I see this as sort of an equivalent, only with one small change: When I start to lose that momentum, I immediately turn back to the seven and start over.

In this way it becomes a comfort club, or a chorus that you turn to for guidance. You can quickly regain form and composure instead of going further and further off track. Since golf is all about calmness and the fluidity that follows it, this works perfectly.

Within that cycle as well, I always like to set back after each mistake and run through practice swings. Always turn inwards, breathe and regather. Which is how you--or at least I--should look at life. When you start to lose control, when you feel is slip from your grasp, step back and envision what you need to do. Running through it once as practice, often makes all the difference. Got to stop the slide.

But on a bigger level, I like to progress and learn via the same pyramid-like system. First, begin with comfort and control. Then venture slightly outwards in unknown areas. Each time you feel the grip loosen, return once more and until it's back. You'll notice, as I do at the range, that your mean score is higher each time. Success is absorbed and becomes natural. Fingerspitzengefuhl.

Of course, there are always benefits to running fast and hard and loose. Chaos and speed can be an asset. But this is how I like to learn and explore. It instills self-discipline and prevents irreversible errors.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Just posted new book quotes for And the Sea Will Tell and Till Death Do Us Part by Vincent Bugliosi, Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning by Viktor Frankl, A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe and What Makes Sammy Run by Bud Schulberg.

Check them here.

My favorites:

"Usually, the very first thing I think about when I get on a case and begin to learn the facts is: what am I going argue and how can I best make the argument to obtain a favorable verdict. In other words, I work backwards from my summation. Virtually all of my questions at the trial and most of my tactics and techniques are aimed at enabling me to make arguments I've already determined I want to make."
Bugliosi, Vincent
And the Sea Will Tell

"I had been waiting for justice to rise up and smite him in all its vengeance, secretly hoping to be around when Sammy got what was coming to him; only I had expected something conclusive and fatal and now I realized that what was coming to him was not a sudden pay-off but a process, a disease he had caught in the epidemic that swept over his birthplace like a plague; a cancer slowly eating him away, the symptoms developing and intensifying: success, loneliness, fear. "
Schulberg, Bud
What Makes Sammy Run

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 04:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm doing 3 books for the Rudius Media Book Club for the next few weeks. The discussion is now open, and we're looking at A Man in Full, The Meditations and Epictetus.

Here are the questions we're addressing, at least initially

1) What is a 'Man in Full?' What do the Stoics tell us about being a "man?" (or woman) In the book, who is the true man? Is it Croker or Conrad?
2) How do you handle misfortune?
3) Where does meaning come from? How do we fulfill our nature? Where does one find the benchmarks to define themselves by?

Check it out.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm not going to talk much about my religious beliefs here, but if you've looked at my Reading List, it's pretty obvious where I fall on the spectrum. The inevitable question that always comes up when you debate such things is: if we rid ourselves of the old system, what will take it's places? Anarchy? Meaninglessness? Rampant immorality? These of course are questions that indicate a fear of change more than anything else.

But, anyway, I've been reading Hobbes lately for a class. Here we have a man who almost certainly would have been an atheist if he were alive today. An author who not by coincidence is using a biblical term in an ironic fashion as a title. A man who wrote some of the darkest philosophy--not just for his time but for all time. Who talked of man's brutishness, tendency to do evil, etc.

And what was his ultimate rule?

Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thy selfe.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Part of being involved and branding yourself on the internet is posting comments on people's blogs. When you read a post, comment on it. At least, that's what I try to do. Let the writers know that you're out there, consuming information and have something intelligent to say. But it's a little deeper too; Aurelius said that "you cannot quench understanding unless you put out the insights that compose it." Which means two things: 1) Knowledge must lead to action to create understanding. 2) You encourage understanding in others when you send out your own perspective.

Today, I got this email:

Hi, Ryan. Thanks for the comment. It's so smart. And thanks for adding me to your feed. I feel really lucky to have such smart readers :)
Penelope

I emailed her back about it and she responded with:

Thanks for this email. some days i think i'm nuts for responding. but then i think, what am i doing blogging if i don't want to have a conversation? it's a conundrum. today i am glad ot have met you. today i like dealing with the comments :)

If you have a site, you can learn from this. Understand that winning fans is a constant battle. It's responding to each comment, it's emailing the readers that have made an effort, it's respecting the reader above all else. I've seen my traffic slowly grow as I took the time each day to respond to people's emails. I've tracked down book quotes, given advice, said thanks a million times, and it has paid off. But even I am inspired by Penelope and you should be to.

How to follow her example (and things I've learned):

• Set up Technorati RSS Feeds that monitor who links to you. Everyday, take the time to comment on those posts. Tell the writer that you appreciate them taking the time to read your work and the effort to add their own perspective. Tell them that you like their site (assuming that you do) and if they ever need a favor to drop you an email.


• If you don't think it is intrusive, email the fans who have taken the time to leave intelligent comments on your post. At the very least respond to them in the comment section.


• If someone takes the time to email you, go ahead and respond. Even if it's just a 'thank you.'


• If a reader submits one of your pieces to a social network like Digg or Netscape, add them to your friends list and vote on their other submissions. If they've left contact info on their profile, make use of it.


• If a forum or messageboard uses one of your pieces as the basis for a discussion, join in. Clear up any misconceptions and above all, let them know that you appreciate what they've done. Leave your contact information and tell them to ask if they have any questions.

And as a final note, I predict that her blog is really going to explode in the next few months. I've been picking up a ton of buzz about her, and a strategy like hers does NOT go unrewarded. This kind of goodwill pays huge dividends, so you'll be hearing a lot from her I imagine.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I finished What Makes Sammy Run last week and have been thinking about it non-stop since. If you haven't read it then you need to--it's very much on the level of The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald said so himself) And even if you haven't read it, you can still understand the discussion. When Palahniuk wrote Fight Club he was emulating Fitzgerald, with the narrator telling the story of his dead hero. What Makes Sammy run is like that in some ways stylistically, but morally is a bit more ambiguous.

You can grab the basic plot on Wikipedia. Essentially, Sammy is the all-American heel. He's your Ari Gold without the slightest bit of human decency. He rises through the ranks of Hollywood without ever writing a word. He is shadows and illusions, and the ultimate power-player. His story is told by Al Manheim, his older and only friend who is fascinated by Sammy's drive. The title is Schulberg's chorus line that he repeats throughout the book, and eventually answers in the final pages. Sadly, as Schulberg mentions in his introduction, the message has been perverted. Our society tends to see Sammy as a hero instead of a villain--or at least someone to pity.

So what makes Sammy run?

He's running from self-reflection, from meaning. It's fear knocking on the door that he's frantically trying to block with accomplishments. He's running because he started running and now he can't stop--too many people are chasing. Gatsby, Durden they were all in search of purpose, Sammy was fleeing from it.

He, like most Americans--like America--was just trying to fill the hole. Not consciously, because that means admitting it exists, but subconsciously, if just to stop the wind from whistling through. Some do it with drugs, some with sex; Sammy did it with it running, with doing. Hollywood wasn't his 'personal legend' so much as it was the ultimate distraction from discovering it. He's not the American Dream but the American sexual fantasy, oversized, indulgent and wholly harmful.

Sammy is an accomplished man, but not at great man--that takes ethics, purpose and principles. The punishment for that is not failure but overwhelming success. When you base your happiness on getting everything you want you'll get it all and never be happy.

I might want what Sammy Glick has but I don't want to be Sammy Glick. I might want to be where Sammy Glick is, but I don't want go the way Sammy Glick went. As Machiavelli said, you can take power with skill or luck--or thirdly, with cruelty. And there is no honor in that. There's no glory in being a rich, 50 year old boy; the same child at the child at the end of the journey as at the beginning, only with a fatter wallet. That is a life of masturbation.

Al has that symbolic dream, where Sammy was climbing a rope that never ended. Is that the life you want? He might have been on top of us, but there never was a top for Sammy. You need to look at relative vs. absolute gains. When you do, it's clear that he isn't and never was in control of his own destiny--the rope was. Sammy ran because he had to, like a rat in wheel convinced he was on some eternal, endless road. Do we respect addiction when it's in the form of a prestigious career? Is obsession no longer a weakness when it produces the things we supposedly aspire to? Can complete consumption ever really be healthy?

The world killed Gatsby, but he lived for something. Durden died so Jack could live. All Sammy did was run. I would characterize myself as ambitious--I get labeled it all the time. But I don't think I see the world like Sammy, and the second I do, is the second I 'reach for my revolver.' I'd like to learn from the dichotomy of Jay and Sammy. And as Aristotle suggested, triangulate towards moderation.

Again, maybe I'm just young and maybe I'm a not-yet-broken idealist. But I think you can wretch what you please from life--both materially and spiritually. All my life people told me that what I wanted wasn't possible, that I wasn't playing the game enough. So far I've been right and my philosophy has paid its returns. Sure, I've gotten ahead of myself and lost control--but every time it was an err on the side of hope and never on cynicism. That was Sammy's fatal flaw, and why he and Gatsby are tragic heroes of complete opposites. Gatsby tied his whole being on a single love and the world killed him for it. Sammy tied his whole being on never, ever loving and killed himself inside for it. Can self-awareness and dogged personal ethics navigate this chasm? My money says it can. Forget the strategy paradox here, for if I'm wrong--if we're wrong--at least our mind's eye was set on the ideal world and not the material.

The caveat here is the human impulse to rationalize all successful people as possessed Sammy Glick's, deluded into chasing their tails. Is Al really the hero? Are you just jealous? Where was his self-reflection? Or was it all about Sammy?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 04:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I finally tracked down the right copy of The Meditations on Amazon. I've bought 4 of this version. I'd been having trouble coming up with anything but the hardcover. This is the one we're using in the Rudius Media Book Club next Sunday.

Instead of describing it myself, I'll let this email I got do it for me:

I got the Hays translation of The Meditations and read the entire thing as the Subway made a loop around my city- it was that fucking good. Ive never been so moved by a book in my life. Thank you.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)