RyanHoliday.net:

You want praise from people who kick themselves every 15 minutes, the approval of people who despise themselves?

Or, the other translation:

The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius By Marcus Aurelius, Meric Casaubon

Credit or Influence? When it comes to the two, I'm not really sure it's even a question. Because credit really, doesn't mean anything. The people you'd be seeking it from--if the analogy stays true--are precisely the people who had to fight so hard to prove wrong. It seems almost comical then that the ultimate validation would be for them to finally endorse it. That doesn't make any more right. All throughout school, I was one of the smartest kids in the room but people rarely knew it. Look at where I ended up for college. Normally, the standards or the incentives would keep me quiet. But sometimes, it'd get shown and everyone would see. And guess what? It didn't make me feel any better and it certainly didn't improve the quality of my work.

Normally, it just made me angry and disillusioned. It was like "Now, you're our equal. Welcome." What good does that do me? What good does it do anyone? Boyd is totally right. At some point, you'll come to a crucial point in your life when you have to decide if you want to be someone that does stuff, or talk about doing stuff, if your goal is action and progress or credit and accolades. I decided a long time about which route I was going to take every time I came to that fork. It puts you at peace and it saves you from the slavery of other people. The first thing you learn when truly open your eyes and look at the world as it is, for what it is, is that the people who you seem so willing to tie your happiness or correctness too, are stupid, unexamined and hypocritical.

Source: Two really good posts on Credit vs Influence and Contrarians always losing.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 04:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I was thinking yesterday about subjects I'd like to learn about it. My thought process was if I was given a grant to study anything I wanted, what would I like to immerse myself in? And, what peculiar questions would it be cool to have answers to? These are some of the topics I came up with. If anyone has any reading on the topic, or wisdom to add, please do.

[*] The Philosopher's Burden.

[*] It's pretty easy to see how today the media blows things out of proportion and tends to overestimate the importance or significance of events or movements. Is history different? What are we missing? Who because they were media or social darlings got overvalued and what true mover has been ignored?

[*] The Psychology of Tattoos: What makes people get them? What separates the people who get one or two and the people who coat their body in them?

[*] Is there a fallacy about betting on people who have already been successful, even though probability would state that since success is rare, the likelihood of doing it twice is even more rare? [Sort of like the conjunction fallacy, I guess]

[*] Entrenched Player Dilemma. I know a little bit about this, but I've yet to find a really good write-up.

[*] From Dawkins: Was it possible to be an atheist in an informed way before 1859? Or was it just as speculative or without evidence as religion?

[*] Paternalism has disastrous results socially, economically and politically. The record of communist societies is objectively unsuccessful. What evolutionary tendency drives us to that time and time again? Why does the issue seem so clear to some people but intellectuals continue to insist optimistically that it will work?

[*] In The Gift of Fear, Gavin De Becker talks about how we subconsciously perceive threats to our safety and that if we were more in-tune with those feelings we could prevent it. What if that perspective is just the hindsight bias that we use instead of admitting how vulnerable we really are? I suspect that a lot of it is just a coping mechanism.

What would you like to learn about?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 06:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Lately, I have been really interested in what traits it takes to be successful. My question and ultimate hypothesis was that certain cognitive imbalances might be crucial to achievement and going the distance. What is it then, that makes people get back up and keep going in spite of the knocks and the opposition. Why do some people born in the gutter rise to the heights of power, disregarding countless obstacles and life-and-death problems? But then others, born in privilege and loaded with ambition, why do they get derailed by an unsupportive parent or some slight misfortune?

The answer that I came up with from my reading: It is all how you look at life.

Explanatory Style:
It's a way to explain the world around you. It is a psychological term to describing a patients instincts for dealing with a problem. Good or bad, when something happens do you take responsibility for it (internal), assume it to be permanent (stable), conclude that it will affect your entire life (global). Pessimists--and by default, the less successful--tend to do this for both positive and negative events, or with good fortune, they'll attribute it to external causes and never themselves. Optimists are not as even-handed, instead they take credit for success, believe it will be lasting and all encompassing. But when it comes to failures, they blame others, consider it fleeting and limited to a specific sphere. This inconsistency is a pretty obviously example of cognitive dissonance, perhaps even delusional. But that might just be what it takes.

Wikipedia:

Not all of the dogs in Seligman's experiments, however, became helpless. Of the roughly 150 dogs in experiments in the latter half of the sixties, about one-third did not become helpless, but instead somehow managed to find a way out of the unpleasant situation in spite of their past experience with it. The corresponding characteristic in humans has been found to correlate highly with optimism; however, not a naïve pollyanna optimism, but an explanatory style that views the situation as other than personal, pervasive, or permanent.

It seems that having an optimistic explanatory style is crucial in avoiding the pitfalls of Learned Helplessness. This is the phenomenon of victims of repeated trauma who suddenly accept that they have no control over the events surrounding them. And that because of this, they give up. The Skinner experiments on conditioning--shocks, random starvation, inconsistent incentive systems, seemingly random punishments, harshness--to me seem a lot like life. Look at the system, does it not function on whim and unexplained traditions? Good ideas are regularly squashed by entrenched players, people hate so much that they enjoy other's failure, innovators are forced to endure ridicule and the successful are often punished proportionally to their level of accomplishment. Life it seems is a potential breeding ground for learned helplessness.

Depending on your explanatory style this life can be as dark, brutish, and short as Hobbes supposed it was. As Oettingen said, a pessimistic explanatory style is linked with depression because it holds that the future will be a place with an "abundance of negative events, where positive events will be hard to come by." So the lethargy of learned helplessness is a natural result of our world, but how then, do you explain the people who persevere and succeed? A lopsided explanatory style.

How do you get there?

Well a lot of it has to do with your upbringing. Evidence indicates that those with faith in something (religion or natural forces or a destiny) are more likely to be lopsided in the beneficial way than evenhanded in a detrimental way. It works because it gives you something to attribute negative events to, it makes them appear that they had purpose and when be lifted when "God" feels it is right. But I was talking to Dr. Rob and he believes that you can shift in a positive direction based purely on will and effort. He has his patients check and challenge their SIGs (stable, internal, global) to avoid depressive impulses. So it seems that you can break the cycle.

But the most important factor is your cultural and life structure. A study of Eastern and Western Germany during communism found higher rates of the pessimistic explanatory style on the socialist side of the Wall even though they had almost identical customs and identity. Since under the Soviet government successes were rare--and when they occurred, never to the direct credit of the individual--people never developed the ability to create a positive self-identity. Since the dogma was so pervasive, the tendency to attribute things globally and stably was a natural extension. Their devaluation of religion and faith and competition had the same effect. And finally, the idea we're all equal and must simply endure our fate ultimately lead to the despondency of learned helplessness.

There is some great news. Shortly after the Wall fell, researches returned to find things had changed. Even though the economy of Eastern Germany was worse, the people were happier and more lopsided in their explanatory style. Which shows that if you're in a work culture that punishes you for success and tells you that unhappiness is the norm, breaking out can absolve of that burden.

So do certain delusions or biases help with success?

I was dealing with an artist recently who felt like giving up. He sent a big, melodramatic email expressing his disillusionment with the process and ended with "What's the point?" This, Tucker and I concluded, was the most illustrative statement. It probably wasn't going to go all the way. The Executive agreed. His point was that with all the bands and stars he's worked with, only the narcissists have made it. Only the people with the seemingly endless lust to continue and almost complete obliviousness to decorators punched through. That is what it takes, there can be no "but it's hard" or "what if it never gets better" only fortitude and it appears, illogical self-centeredness. Because think about the attitude it takes to be rejected in audition after audition but still believe that the whole world will love you. And again, I'm not claiming to know from experience, but this is what I've aggregated from people who have been there.

If you want to be one of the dogs that didn't lay down and wait to die, you just have to have faith. Faith in your abilities to 1) Create Success 2) Know that failure lasts only as long as you want it to. If this was just having thick skin, it wouldn't be anything new. Instead it is about trying to avoid the pessimist's cycle of internalizing negativity and letting it overwhelm you. There is no question that such an attitude is detrimental to success and that its opposite--taking credit for positive and convincing yourself that it can continue--is the ethos of our most inspiring leaders.

It might seem a little extreme to brush off negatives, but you simply can't concern yourself with that. You must keep moving. That was the problem in Eastern Germany, their doctrine was so pervasive that it blocked that and forced them to wallow in grimness. Being born with that attitude helps, but there is no reason you can't create it now. That is the attitude I try to wake up with each morning.

The Catch:
As the authors of Overcoming Bias pointed out last week , accepting certain biases for their apparent benefits is a risky business. If I told you that thinking that cars couldn't kill you was the ticket to the top and you believed me, it would all be moot when you died crossing the street. Which of course is the cliche example from Driver's Ed: "having the right away doesn't matter in a fatal crash." The positive benefits from the lopsidedness don't help if they prevent you from connecting with the world around you or relating to people. So narcissism or an explanatory optimism might be the only way to make it through the dip but those attributes do not come without downsides. They can also be your undoing. Actually, extreme lopsidedness can be as dangerous as extreme even handedness because they are both are their core radically departed from reality. It only takes one mistake--one overstepping of your bounds--to make it all meaningless, so is it worth it?

Edit: I forgot I talked a bit about this before.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

I like to stop and assess and compare. Where was I a year ago? I remember moving into my new place just days after being dumped. Everything felt cold and empty. All I recall is this smell like cleaning supplies--sterile. I slept with the TV on every night. I was positive, positive that I would never recover. That the root of all my progress this far had very little to do with myself and everything to do with the false confidence the relationship had given me. But I kept going. In Atlas Shrugged they call it motive power. The force that keeps you going, it was the only thing that made me get up each morning. I thought of just wanting to die. I didn't have anybody. I remember thinking, there isn't any amount of money I wouldn't pay to stop this. For a solid month, there wasn't a day that I was able to fall asleep under my own volition. I finally got a handle on things but it took a long time.

Where am I now? A pretty similar situation--moving again, into a new place. But all those fears are gone. That I wouldn't be able to get up, that it was over, that it had been a fluke, that was all bullshit I'd been convinced was true. Once I got it out of my system, there isn't a day that goes by that I am not happier and better. A year later, my attitude couldn't be more different. I got my shit together. I'm in a relationship with someone that doesn't disappoint me--that supports me. I've surrounded myself with people who have expectations for me that are higher than my own, that I have to rise to meet and satisfy.

Of course, to have expected these things then would have been ridiculous, incomprehensible. But I knew that something was around the corner and that all I had to do was make it there in one piece. It's easy to wallow at that point, to make excuses for behavior to "distract yourself", or start spending time doing things that were you in a position to do otherwise, you would decline. All I know is that from my experience, you have to push through and stay intact. It can always get better and it almost always does.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

This post from Ross Mayfield's blog absolutely blew my mind:

Do we really understand exponentials? In 1626 Peter Minuit bought Manhattan for $24 of trinkets. Who got the better deal, Peter or the Indians? If you invested in 7.5% interest it would be worth a hell of a lot more than all of Manhattan today.

I did the math: (24)*(1.075)^381. Manhattan compounded yearly would be worth $22,224,711,000,000. Or compounded quarterly: 4.73442004 × 10^13 ($47.3 trillion). To put it in perspective, the entire yearly GDP for the United States today is like 13 trillion. If you'd put that money in the account and then took it out in 1790 and invested it into the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, or the New York Stock Exchange two years later, we are looking at such an ungodly amount of money that it's not really even worth doing the calculation for (although I'd like to see it).

Which brings me to my ultimate point. We are just not meant to consider numbers and concepts of this magnitude--or at least not with any sort of ease. The reason that it feels "good" to believe in God is the same impulse that drives you to believe right off the bat which side of the land deal was better. It could probably be debated either way--because 1) New York obviously wouldn't have been industrialized by native peoples 2) The wealth that that has brought in returns each year probably needs to be added to it's worth today--but I have gone my entire life not considering it from that perspective. And I imagine that you have too; it certainly wasn't mentioned in any of my class textbooks. Is it then pretty understandable that people have all sorts of absurd superstitious beliefs, unreal political dogma or cling to heuristics that are often wrong? And I think that's why you can't always win by rational argument or the presentation of evidence.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

But it does:

But there's a deeper point here. When we manage stuff for short-term profitability, we often kill their long-run productivity. We stopped doing it to people a long time ago - now maybe it's time we stopped doing to...lots of things.

It goes along nicely with the Freakonomics discussion on the future of the music industry. As I have heard numerous times from people who are in positions to know in the music industry, it's failures have almost nothing to do with illegal downloading and everything to do with utter mismanagement.

Think about it, each year the album charts look like a long tail graph. The very, tip top of that peak are that year's hits. But the meaty part--the mass--is old stuff. Or at least it was. The problem is that there isn't any new "old stuff." They call these catalog albums. For instance, Back in Black goes Gold about every 365 days. There is a factory in Sweden or Switzerland (I forget) and all it does is manufacture copies of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. But in ten years from now, Fall Out Boy probably won't, just like the boy band CD's of the late 90's hardly move anything. And this was a purposeful decision by the powers that be. They decided to invest in short term profits instead of long term gains--and now that time way off in the distance is here. Before, the strategy was to finance the next generation off the previous. As in, The Beatles paid for Springsteen to struggle and find an audience. But when it switched to the approach that a band be self-sufficient from their debut forward, they lost the ability to develop talent. That was the tradeoff--immense profits from new acts in the 90's, to huge losses today. Classic tortoise and the hare.

From what I've seen, the problems of the record industry are also structural. Otherwise, downloading systems like iTunes would have been extremely profitable. The .99 cent pricing is aimed at replicating the normal pricing of CDs (12 songs X $1= MSRP of a disc). In what other business would a producer get upset that technology suddenly came around and got rid of all their distribution costs and overhead? One that had a stake in those distribution "costs". Due to the clusterfuckery of Hollywood finance, most labels were actually making money on transaction costs and things like jewel cases, shipping, and inserts. They'd deduct from the profits, say 15 cents for manufacturing costs of the case even though they owned the factory and it'd only cost them 10. That is instead of admitting their vertical intergratedness, they pretended it didn't exist and pocketed a piece of the artist's money each step of the way. So the point is that even if legal downloading had risen to meet the void left by falling CD sales, they'd still be running a loss because it's just not as profitable. Well that's not my fault and it's certainly not your fault--it's the product of bad business.

This is simply the inevitable route of ignoring the future for the present. It doesn't come without consequences. The music industry isn't going go away and band's aren't going to starve, but all the bad people--the ones that made these decisions--they're going to be gotten rid off. Unfortunately, the people sided with them have to die too. It's called Capitalism. When you ignore its rules or pretend that you're above them, you're eventually going to find yourself faced with the horrors of a Malthusian Catastrophe.

It probably goes without saying, but just about everything functions the same way. Are you going to invest in activities that benefit you today and today only, or ones that will pay off consistently? Is it worth it to get caught up in what is working now at the expense of not planning for the future. They say the best way to judge an employee's value in a company is by the time horizon he is paid to consider. Power then, is found by saying no the positions that feel good now but have no longevity. At least...that's my thinking.

Addition: There are some other interesting factors too. People used to listen to music in their cars, now people talk on their cell phones. People watch music vidoes late at night, now OnDemand makes it possible to watch prime time TV, whenever. People used to have to change formats and update their libraries every few years, but DRM free MP3's don't ever need to be replaced. You have to buy a new CD if you scratch or break it, but short of the firesale in Live Free or Die Hard, all my files are safe forever.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I was working on something for Robert Greene recently for his new book with 50 Cent. One of the hustlers from his crew said something that really stuck with me--something that you can see powerful people living by. He said "If you aren't going to say 'I'm the best' who will?" Respect is the same way. If you aren't going to demand that you be treated with it, who will? I certainly don't have some protector who walks around fighting my battles and setting the standard of how I'm treated--I do that.

Recently, with my career choice, my family had a bit of a meltdown. Some latent feelings of resentment and loathing surfaced in a shockingly overt way. So I'm done, at least for the meantime. If they can't be in my life in a healthy and positive way then they don't need to be in it at all. They are free to disrespect me if they wish, but never with my consent. From afar, they can be however they want but I don't have time or the desire to be torn down or hurt by people I have allowed to access my vulnerabilities. They can take it or leave it and we'll see what happens.

That's the thing. You, and you alone are they only person who wishes to see you respected. Why would it be anyone else's priority? The state of nature: People will get away with whatever they are allowed to get away with. And really, you don't control how people treat you, only who you allow to treat you. So the key is to only deal with people who will treat you well.

I've said this before, if you have a friend who lies to you or is perpetually late or makes you uncomfortable, find a new one. With women it's ridiculous, every one I know has a bunch of creepy guys in their life who they appear to hate but tolerate anyway. There are some primal or evolutionary impulses that pressure that, but seriously, I think it's time to move on. If you have a guy who pretends to be your friend but alarms you with his body language or his calls--just cut him out. If someone is a loser and you don't want them around, then don't.let.them.be.around. If don't want a guy to bother you with text messages and late night phone calls, then don't give him your phone number. If you're tired of suggestive or annoying posts on your Facebook wall, tell him to stop or just block him. The people who matter will respect that decision. It is your life, protect it. One of my favorite lines in Meditations is "Am I afraid of death because I won't be able to do this anymore?" Do you value life so little that you allow it to be stolen away from you by the hour by thieves you can't stand? There is simply no reason to wake up and frequent the company of people you don't want to. In business perhaps, in your personal life, never.

I do not spend time with people I don't like. Sometimes, yes, I end up chilling by myself or with my girlfriend but that makes me happy. And it makes spending time with my real friends all the more enjoyable. I went on a people diet a while back just got rid of everyone I found myself complaining about. I didn't make a big scene or confront them, I just stopped concerning myself with their existence. Mine is more important. All I know is that in a rather finite amount of time, I will be dead. I certainly won't, as I approach that date, be consumed with regret at having not endured more bullshit or assholes.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

This is one of my favorite quotes ever. I found it on The Bunny Blog my senior year of high school, one night at 3 or 4 in the morning when I couldn't sleep. I remember sending it--on the verge of tears from understanding--to a friend saying THIS is what I was trying to explain. I am taking it so ridiculously out of context but it doesn't matter, the literal interpretation is better.

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.
Erin Leigh Tyler
The Bunny Blog

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I've been running a long time. I started in second grade, I was a natural. Before I turned twelve, I'd peaked and lost heart. Of course, that didn't stop me from doing it. Been going pretty much non-stop since I started. It's been almost a year exactly now since I stepped it up and fell in love again.

I've never really talked about this before, but I think I got kicked off the school teams for both Track and Cross Country every single year of high school. Every. Single. Year. Funny at the time, it's a bit shameful now. Anything you can imagine, my friends and I did it. We'd order pizza in the middle of practice and eat when we were supposed to be completing a course. We bought a birthday cake once and ate it between sprints--hurling the leftovers at teammates as they passed. I remember this one kid was being a dick so we tied him down with zip-ties and beat him with sticks. I convinced the Indian kid that he was going to be deported and destroyed all sorts of other people's property. I cheated, I lied, I made excuses but I did have a good time. In the end, the only person who i truly responsible is myself, but still, no one ever sat me down and asked "Why are you doing this?" They just told me to stop. My parents sent me to therapy to learn how to control myself. Everyone made it an issue of authority instead of unhappiness. The problem with that is that it indirectly condones the behavior. It says "What you're doing is acceptable, but not here and not now." Or it accuses you of doing it on purpose because you like it, rather than lashing out at something you can't yet explain. That is, implying it is simply a matter of willpower, not awareness. What someone needed to say was that it just wasn't healthy, and only an idiot couldn't have seen that I was actively self-destructive. It was about stopping the behavior, not preventing it, not figuring out why.

Now I know why, I figured it out on my own. I was scared. Two major phases of my life have been defined by me declining to compete--choosing to be a sideshow instead of going toe to toe. If you're the funny kid then no one takes you or your results seriously. And when you didn't try, then how can you fail? It's the pathological nature of the perpetually lazy or the addicted: "If I really wanted to, I could." Well fuck you very much because until you do, it doesn't really matter at all.

But I like it again. Fuck, love it. I went through a patch a few months ago where I lost the drive but I realized that it had to do with tactics not strategy. Which is key, it is not enough to do something you love--you have to do it in a way that you love too. I hate running during the day. I like it when darkness is falling. I like to finish with the moon over head. I like to start my second shift at nine or ten, showered, fresh and ready to go again.

In the last year, I've done well over a thousand miles. A thousand miles. That might not seem like a lot to you, but for me, I sweated through every single one of them. No less than five days a week, sometimes 6, a few times seven. I didn't always want to, but I did it anyway. And no one can take that away.

It makes me giddy. Most days I hit the street at a sprint, driving towards the first crest--where the sweat pours and the heart rate stops accelerating. At that wall, I'm so excited that I have to refrain from the desire to pump a fist in the air. And as it goes on, you come to the point where you want to quit--where it stops being fun and starts seeming like work. Hills, on Murphy's cue, like to show up here. "Motherfucker, Motherfucker..." and you push through it. If you've ever swam competitively, there is no feeling quite like the one of hearing cheers, cut, cut, cut-up with each dive back under water. Except this: Breath. Silence. Breath. Silence. And the drums carry the beat through each dip. Squinted eyes, gaping mouth. Melodrama that seems a lot cooler in your mind's eye than it looks in person. I like it when the shirt goes translucent, when you're soaked and wheezing. I like to listen to the same song over and over. It's normally something terrible too; I just turn it up to turn the world down. On repeat, you get to know all the valleys and fills. You know when the chorus comes, when the song peaks and where it gives you a little shot of emotion. The second wave of sweat starts here, as you approach the end. And when it comes, it really comes. Then you stop after the last kick, normally more energized and inspired than you were when you left. I don't think I've ever returned, unhappy with my choice to have done it--and if I have, it was so meaningless that it has faded from memory.

Ever since I decided to compete again, I've been better at everything. I don't mean that I started racing, I mean, since I reentered the field. When you stop acting like you're better than the rest of the world or too different to be compared, you can finally appreciate yourself. Success becomes something you have earned, progress is something that you can see. Every single good idea I've had came from it. I must have written 80% of this blog in my head, running. Emails that formed life-changing relationships were vetted through this filter and traveled with me stride after stride. I've left my house, confused and bewildered, only to return centered and calculated. Most of all you get proof--"Here is something I tried really hard at and good came of it"--that transfers over to whatever else you like.

Which of course is fantastic, but the real lesson is hidden a little deeper. It's not one week of effort that matters, or even a few months, but the continued pursuit and dedication. A lot of people can do the first part but not many the last. You realize that it running yesterday or all of last week doesn't mean anything if you don't do it tomorrow and the week after. I was never strong enough to make that commitment before, or even ambitious enough to try. It was more satisfying to abstain than to consider not succeeding. But now if I do it and fail, I'll at least know I did everything I could to try and prevent it.

*You wanted a running post for the relaunch and here it is.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

In Jodie Foster's newest movie, as her character enters her office, you can see the Ronald Reagan memoir Dutch on her windowsill.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A few weeks ago I got in a few hour discussion with Tucker and my girlfriend about sexual abuse. My question was: We know that with relative certainty sexual abuse fundamentally alters a child's development and influence things like sexual orientation, propensity for drug abuse, a tendency to recreate trauma, promiscuity, and success. So what impact has that had throughout history?

What I meant was that we look at Britany Spears and quietly assume that her current escapades are a result of missing her childhood, perhaps early sexual abuse, selfish parents and her recent divorce. But then we look at someone like Caesar or Alexander the Great and hold them up as unitary actors who were simply motivated to great things. Are we deluding ourselves when we exclude those motivations and subconscious factors?

Tucker made it very clear (and rightfully so) that the things that can utterly ruin a child today would have had little impact 600 years ago. And that much of which we currently abhor and think damages a child has less to do with the act itself and more to do with the emotions it represents. For instance, it's not the physical blows that plague the person for the rest of their life, but the fact that they had an unloving parent that would do such a thing--not to mention that such feelings taint all other interaction between child and parent. So pederasty because it was more about mutual love than submission or projected self-loathing wouldn't have had the same effect on Alexander as it did to Michael Jackson.

Freaknomics pointed out some disturbing stats today:

1) 25 percent of victims are 10-14 years old; 23 percent are nine or younger.
2) 22.5 percent of the offenders are family members. Only 8 percent are strangers.
3) 25 percent of sex offenses reported to the police lead to an arrest.

So my question to you is: What impact do you think sexual abuse and childhood trauma has had throughout history? Have some of our greatest successes and most catastrophic failures been guided by these changes in early development? And lastly, what impact do you think the above statistics will continue to have on the next generation of people?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

"Magazine ad pages have been down slightly this year, and newspaper revenues have been tanking. But the problem might not be the medium, the readership or even that pesky shift of reader attention and marketer dollars to digital. It might just be the poor quality of print ads..."

This is an interesting article, even if you don't care at all about advertising. It is becoming increasingly clear to me (and too slowly to the people who matter) that this is all about quality. Not delivery, not distribution, or speed or connectivity, but quality. Those are important but they aren't the ultimate motivation.

What I am seeing over and over again is that it is not the medium but the message that has failed. This a common theme for everyone, old and new. Remember the number one complaint about online video is quality. OnDemand Cable and TV offer essentially the same benefits as the internet--24/7 access--but the problem is that there simply isn't that much great stuff to access. The internet hasn't solved that problem, only offered a little bit of hope.

Ultimately, what we see if that the ONE thing Hollywood has always offered monopolistically is broken: Their ability to cultivate and recruit talent. That political bloggers are even being compared to newspaper reporters is enough of a victory--after all, they did it without the prestigious editors and filters and credentials. That new niches are being discovered and markets served contradicts the notions that Hollywood and Madison Avenue have their finger on the pulse. The message to artists was always this: You can't do it without our help. And the small semblances of success these people have had online has blown that perception away. Where many people go wrong is in thinking that no help is needed at all. Idealism like that is unfounded, they just don't need help from the current ruling elite. Why else would 62% of Americans say TV is getting worse? But that doesn't mean that Robert Scoble gets to take over either, he is just as clueless. Who does? I don't know.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm very easy to get in touch with, I check and answer my email constantly. Please, contact me about anything related to the Rudius Media Network, PR, Literature, Writing etc.

Email: ryan.holiday@gmail.com
AIM: RyanClarkHoliday

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Posted by ljheidel at 04:50 PM | Permalink

The new design is up. It took a little while, but it was clearly worth the wait. Bunny is the genius behind the designs and Luke is tech mastermind. For the record, the picture is not of me. But if you can tell me who it is, I will be impressed with your knowledge of obscure music.

Couple of notes:
-Why a site? I don't write in the same way or even on the same level as most of the other writers. But my goals are a little bit different. I don't want to get in the business of 5 part series, and I will be more of a typical blogger than you're used to seeing.
-The old links still send you to the old design. So you might need to readd them on delicious or StumbleUpon if you did it before.
-All the contact info from before is now under the Contact page. If you want to add me on Facebook, or Myspace or Digg or StumbleUpon, go ahead. I don't bother people with notes and bulletins every two days.
-The Reading List is still there and I should be updating it shortly.
-Since I haven't been living in my own place for the last four months, all my books have been in storage so I haven't been able to update the Book Quotes and Passages section. Updates coming there as well.

It is very easy, after the fact to go back and create a chain of events that led to an accomplishment. You can sprinkle the path with delusions of foresight and determination that never really existed. For me, getting a Rudius site is not that. I remember vividly sitting in a high school classroom and thinking "I can do that." I felt there was a connection between the way Tucker and Sadler and some of the early messageboard posters looked at the world. I bet there are at least a thousand other people that felt the same way. I have seen their applications. But I went out and did it. Almost everything I have done in the last 4 years was in someway connected to making that a reality. It wasn't "I can do that now" or "I deserve that today" but that it was withing my range. And so I made it happen.

No question, there are a whole bunch of people who deserve more credit than I. And that in the big scheme of things, there are way more important milestones than being absorbed into a blog network. But this way something that was important to me and I fucking wore myself down doing it. Everything I read, all the people I talked to, all the times I made a fool of myself or set myself up for disappointment--all of it was for this goal.

And in the process I learned two crucial lessons:
1) Don't talk, Just Do. This post is probably the first time Tucker ever heard me express how far back my desire for a site goes. The only person that needed to know was me. There is that cool line in Hustle and Flow, about how people who talk are too busy to walk. There were all sorts of steps I had to take beforehand and anything else would have been a distraction. And quite frankly, it's a lot easier to Get Stuff Done when you keep your goals to yourself. Look at Law #3.

2) Don't swing at the first pitch (unless it's the best) I had a lot of opportunities where I could have asked and almost all of them would been rejected. Maybe, I could have gotten lucky, but the point is that I am best prepared now. What I did instead was finagle chances to prove myself, then worked my ass off doing it. Like I said, I've wanted this for years. Waiting was the harder option, striking was the easy way. When it is reversed--when holding back is easy and going for it is daunting, that is the time to make your move.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 03:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

I have a bunch of new stuff written up and ready to post but I am going to wait for the relaunch to do it. It shouldn't be much longer. Hold tight, they are on their way.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:38 PM | Permalink

When I first heard about Google Books a few years ago I was excited but hardly anything came from it. Their selection was weak and you couldn't do much with it. That has finally changed.

Now you can cut and paste sections from books into images or text files. This is really, really cool. I am imagining the day where Google or Amazon contracts with publishers so purchasing a book gives you a unique access code to a digital copy of the book in their archives. This way you would be able to quickly search through current books for a passage or specific topic--instead of being limited to books with expired copyrights. What's better than the Index? A digital Index. I wouldn't underestimate how radically this could change how people read, purchase and interact with books. And Google is now poised to be the middleman in that transaction.

I could search and buy every book that mentions Herodotus. Or, hopefully with the incorporation of something similar to Amazon's tagging system, find books that have similar passages or philosophies. Or I could do my marking and flagging digitally, as to be able to access it all over the world. I could feel like a certain page is especially relevant to a friend and send it to him--where he would have the option to purchase just that section or the whole book. If a student was studying off a list of Key Terms, they could easily be taken directly to the right chapters if they owned the textbook and had a digital license. In all seriousness, the kind of money in this field is probably just small change for Google but in terms of impact, this technology revolutionizes information. And you can't help but get excited about that.

And even more helpful, Google RSS now has a search function which makes it possible to wade through your Reader in a more timely fashion. Honestly, I have no idea why this took so long to implement because it makes so much sense but it is long overdue.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As is my nature to fill any free time with stress or paranoia, I have been killing myself the last week or so, agonizing over my decision. (Which I will do a big post on later, but for now, is unimportant) I thought I was on track until I hit requisite Resistance and started the slide. The flood of emotions, the details, the considerations, obligations and promises...

"It's just life."

Why am I killing myself over it? Breathe. It hit me as I pulled into the parking space and a wave of calm had washed over me by the time I'd turned off the ignition. Isn't it made to be lived? Aren't we supposed to make big calls? And aren't some of them supposed to fail and others succeed? Either way, this is what I am supposed to do. That is, weigh the evidence, make a decision and trust that it will be OK. What if it's not--well, it is surely not going to kill me. I know that success requires total commitment and I have never had a problem throwing myself into things. But let's just say I--or you--make the wrong choice. So?

It's ironic too that the younger you are, the more important, more urgent, these things seem to be. They take on an aura of seriousness that rivals life and death--"Hey, my whole future is at stake here." Jesus Christ. I catch myself doing this all the time. Let's say I live to 70, that's a solid 50 years left. I can't even fathom that long. There is so very, very little that you cannot undo in that time, that you can't turn into an overall positive. Some investments take a long time to pay off. Just as many pay out instantly--beyond your comprehension. Sometimes, you carry a loss to lower the taxes on a gain. What does it matter? If youth is not the time for calculated risk and big plans, what time is? It would be impossible to think that you would never have to screw up, and greedy to think you deserve to insulate yourself from that process well after you're ready to deal with it. This is not excuse for failure but a certain kind of freedom. It's the basis behind the "Relax, it's going to be fine," and the "Just let it rides." The point is this: The very worst that can happen is that you fuck up, have to start over a little, and ultimately learn from it. The rest is just logistics. The rest is just logistics. And is being obsessed with logistics anyway to live?

I can tell you with emphatic certainty--at 20--that it is not. It is miserable. It will drive you into depression and anger and fear. Each worry you cut from your life increases happiness. Simple as that. And the younger you are, the less you should worry about. Listen, learn, consider, execute, evaluate and start it over again. You, I, have even less of an excuse for self-importance and reluctance than those with families, and careers, and mortgages at stake.

Remember, it's just life. As cliche as it sounds, it's meant to be lived. It's meant to be enjoyed and it is designed around taking chances. Stress, worry, obsession, second-guessing, these are just impediments and crutches that take from you. Excise them as you would a cancer or a bad friend and wake up each morning with a lighter load and less-heavy heart. I woke up that way today and I plan to do it tomorrow.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

"The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of it it reappearance falls on a time when favourable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it. "
John Stuart Mill
On Liberty

"Who can compute what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined with timid characters, who dare no follow out any bold, vigorous, independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something which would admit of being considered irreligious or immoral?"
John Stuart Mill
On Liberty

"No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by errors of one who, with due study and preparation thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only holds them because they do not suffer themselves to think."
John Stuart Mill
On Liberty

I especially like the middle one. It took me a while to get these up to the Book Quotes and Passages Section, so I don't remember much about the book, other than that it was pretty dense. One really interesting assertion he makes in it is that while Marcus Aurelius persecuted thousands of Christians, he was at the same time, unknowingly one of its most pious followers. And that had he realized this, and made it the official religion of Rome (instead of making way for Constantine to do it much later), the world would have been introduced to a dramatically less violent and vindictive version of the faith. This of course would have altered the course of the thought in an unquantifiable way. In fact, he calls this one of the most tragic ironies of history. And he discussions on why dissent is valuable and the danger of suppression are especially relevant in an era that combines the insulation of the Bush Administration and the stupidity of Political Correctness.

Rather than read it, I'd just scroll through the WikiQuote version, you get about the same.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I posted about Seth Godin last week and over the weekend about the decision I am trying to make. I think Seth's post really converges everything I have been working out in my head:

The future is not about time at all. The future is about work that's really and truly hard, not time-consuming. It's about the kind of work that requires us to push ourselves, not just punch the clock. Hard work is where our job security, our financial profit, and our future joy lie.

It's hard work to make difficult emotional decisions, such as quitting a job and setting out on your own. It's hard work to invent a new system, service, or process that's remarkable. It's hard work to tell your boss that he's being intellectually and emotionally lazy. It's easier to stand by and watch the company fade into oblivion. It's hard work to tell senior management to abandon something that it has been doing for a long time in favor of a new and apparently risky alternative. It's hard work to make good decisions with less than all of the data.

Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you'd rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, tunnel under that barrier, drive through the other barrier. And, after you've done that, to do it again the next day.

If you haven't read it yet, you really should. The things that have been making this difficult for me: fear, stubbornness, ego, even a tinge of reverence for the status-quo, don't stand up to his spotlight. That's the thing--we put up all sorts of delusions and exceptions and "but for me it's different" instead of just manning up and doing what we need to do. Godin and Ferriss too, are saying that HOURS are meaningless. What matters is results and balls. And that clears a little up for me.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

To make a choice a hundred times in your head doesn't make up one in reality. To think you know what you want and to take it are on opposite sides of the river--the Rubicon. The die is cast. You can't unroll it but you can maybe roll again.

Can you have everything that you want? And if its offered to you, do you take it? The Resistance, fuck it. The taboo, fuck that even harder. Fortune favors the bold. And so does failure. The strategy paradox. To strike too early is almost unrecoverable. To strike too late...it's a little bit harder to judge when you're ahead of the curve.

I think you can guess the decision now. The offer came. To Do or To Be. I have the opportunity now to leave school and live in the real world. An actual job, legit money, a pass to the front of a six year line. And of course I have been driving myself insane over the decision.

Negotiate while advancing. Trade space for time. Contradiction consumes me. I'm trying to make the choice the right way--no money, no superficials. These will come no matter what. But is the choice right? That is the variable. Maxims, axioms and one-liners. God protects fools. Who wants to be a fool? But they don't mean anything. They don't help you, alone and pacing,...

I told myself that I would when the time came, it wouldn't even be a debate. School was just a means to an end. I'm sure many of you have told yourself the same thing. Or--even without knowing the details--think that you could come to a conclusion in a second. Trust me, it's a bit more difficult. Yes, these are good, GREAT, problems. That only makes them easier after the fact.

It's a hundred and seven. I am pacing outside in jeans. Sweat it out. Sweat it out. Fortieth play of the same song. Pull the trigger. Buck fever. This should be easy. Where am I happy? Never let school get in the way of your education. I started college on that note, I can't finish on anything else. I think its time. Logistics, they'll sort themselves out. Ok. I'll keep that in mind. Exhale. Prepare for the pendulum swing.

I have cleared the table of distractions. The first thing I did was look up the Sunk-Cost Fallacy and get rid of that bias. You can't let a month's rent influence you here, or time served dictate time to be served. One of my stories tipped on StumbleUpon and I'm enjoying the rush. What do I like? What do I dread? Which gives me the most of one and the least of the other?

A degree? Or a stair below the seat of knowledge? Its not about school, but about time. Where will I get the most of it? Punch it now.

I told myself I was different. But to cement that difference for the rest of your life is again, a very scary thing. Do you want to be the kid who went but didn't graduate? Do not mistake reflection for weakness. Or second guessing for a lack of commitment. The decision has already been made, I just haven't discovered it yet. Blink. I knew before I will. And though I know now, I just don't know. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Can't let myself get deluded. Refuse to let any of it go to my head. These offers say more about them than they do about me. The risk for them is probably greater then me quitting school. I can always recover from the wrong choice; this a reassurance, not a cop-out. Am I crazy? Probably, but it's served me well so far.

I think I know what I want to do. I think it will surprise everyone. But I'm putting in all the calls and hearing all the input I can.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 06:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)