My favourites:

• You’ll spend your entire life listening to people tell you how much you owe them. You don’t owe the vast majority of people sh*t.
• As a young man, you’re on your own. Society divides and conquers. Unlike women who have advocates looking out for them (NOW, Women’s Study Departments, government, non-profit organizations, political advocacy groups) almost no one is looking out for you.
• Know that few people have your best interests at heart. Your mother does. Your father probably does (if he stuck around). Your siblings are on your side. Everybody else worries about themselves.
• Don’t be afraid to tell people to “F**k off” when need be. It is an important skill to acquire. As they say, speak your piece, even if your voice shakes.
• Acquire empathy, good interpersonal skills, and confidence. Learn to read body language and non-verbal communication. Don’t just concentrate on your vocational or technical skills, or you’ll find your wife f**king somebody else.
• If your girlfriend doesn’t make you feel good about yourself and bring joy to your life, fire her. That’s what girlfriends are for.
• Becoming a woman’s friend and confidant is not going to get you into an intimate relationship. If you haven’t gotten the girl within a reasonably short period of time, chances are you won’t ever get her. She’ll end up confiding to you about the sexual adventures she’s having with someone else.
• When you become a man in full, know that people will get in your way. People who are attracted to you will somehow manage to step in your path. Gay guys will give you “the look.” Old people will somehow stumble in front of you at the worst time. Don’t get frustrated. Just step aside and go about your business. Know that these are passive aggressive methods to get you to acknowledge their existence.
• Don’t be a poser. Avoid being one of those dudes who puts a surfboard on top of their car, but never surfs, or a dude with a powder coated fixed gear bike and a messenger bag, but was never a messenger. Live the life. Earn your bona fides.
• Don’t believe the crap about the patriarchy. More women are accepted and attend college. More degrees are awarded to women than men. Women outlive men. More men commit suicide. Men are twice as likely to be victims of violence, including murder. If you consider sexual assaults in prisons, twice as many men are raped as women (society thinks prison rape is funny). The streets are littered with homeless men, sprinkled with a few homeless women. Statically, women are happier than men. The myth that girls are being cheated by are educational system is belied by the fact that schools are bastions of femininity, mostly run by and taught by women. Girls outperform boys in school. It is the boys in school getting fucked over, and prescribed ritalin for being boys. Real wages for men are falling, while real wages for women are rising. Just because someone says something enough times, doesn�t make it true. You have nothing to feel guilty about.

Link

If a negative person says you’re a good listener…run, RUN LIKE HELL! They’re just getting ready to kill any chances you had of enjoying the next hour or so. Most people will complain once or twice and sort it out themselves, but negative people will piss on your battery every time they see you, until you run out of excuses to avoid them.

It’s getting to the point where I’m going to be honest and say, “I’d like to see you, but I’m sick of your constant, draining self-pity. I’ve given you enough advice, now sort your shit out.”

It’s difficult being an optimistic, positive person in our current society, because the negative people gravitate towards you like leeches to try and drain your positive energy away instead of generating their own…

Humans on the other hand are never satisfied. As soon as we’ve satisfied the three variables, we go searching for more. So we’re safe, well-fed, getting laid, and we’re happy about it for a while. Then it wears off. Now we start thinking we’re not making enough money, or that we’re not famous enough, or we’re not creative enough. So we start trying to fulfil these new variables we’ve found, but in so doing, we often sacrifice our original accomplishments in the first three.

Making more money means more work, less of a social life, which in turns leads to less sex and/or a broken marriage.

Becoming famous also creates problems, because it means sacrificing security. You may be famous, but now you’re a target. Usually because you’re rich and extravagant, in a prominent political position, or you’re simply hated for being famous.

Trying to be more creative also leads to problems if it’s taken to be more important than it is. How many starving artists do you know of? They’ve maxed out the creative variable by sacrificing the security, food/health, and sex variables. So they might bring out some brilliant work, but they’re on the path to self-destruction.

Even when a person can’t find new variables to fulfil, they often start overloading the first three instead. Overweight or anorexic people have overloaded the food/health variable. Paranoid people are quaking in their self-created ruts from overloading the security variable. And while promiscuous people might often be envied, they’re usually overcome with self-loathing from not being able to build a lasting relationship. They’ve maxed out the sex variable.

This is the curse and blessing of being human. We have the capability for great things, but only when we can find that perfect balance between security, food/health, sex, and the newly found variables we believe to be our purpose. By all means, find those new variables and work hard (and smart) towards fulfilling them. But watch your balance. If something doesn’t feel right or you’re feeling depressed and lacking energy for no obvious reason, it’s probably because you’re out of balance. And when you’re not balanced, from focusing on one area at the cost of others, then you’re building up a debt in those neglected areas. And the greater that debt becomes, the harder it is to pay back, because it usually comes with interest.

So keep your balance, before the universe decides to repossess the neglected parts of your life, leaving you wondering where it all went wrong.

Open your eyes/How to read for yourself

Reading and art should never be revered to the point of idolisation, as we then falsely perceive the things written about to be the only things of beauty in our surroundings. We should learn to see our surroundings with the master’s eyes, rather than trying to see the master’s surroundings with our own eyes. Use a master’s work to learn a new way of seeing to expand your abilities, instead of restricting yourself to the tiny fragment of human experience which the master artist has lived through.

On friendship

Friendship tends to be over-rated. A cynical and perhaps truthful view to take is that friendship is just a warm feeling of affection which may be reciprocated, and nothing more should be expected to avoid disappointment. The pursuit of affection and the pursuit of truth should be seperated. Friendship allows for affection, but you need to split your personality for it to work. You cannot be brutally honest with a friend, but in placing your thoughts on paper or a painting you can be perfectly truthful. Thus both pursuits can be achieved without intefering with one another.

On appreciating life

If your death was guaranteed in a day, week, or year; how would your priorities change? Shouldn’t they be changed now rather than procrastinating till you’re dead? How would those people who were killed by the tsunami have lived differently if they knew? Okay, they probably would’ve given the beach a miss, but you get the point.

On taking your time

If you rush through life you’ll miss out on the richness which seemingly mundane objects and events have to offer. This applies even more in our current culture of get-things-done-faster-or-you’re-just-a-lazy-sod.

How not to point fingers

When suffering, don’t blame something or someone else and give up; just accept that shit happens and move on.

Expressing yourself

Avoid clichés in expression. Though they may be tried and true, they are also old and worn. Rather be original at the risk of ridicule or rejection.

[tags]proust, books, philosophy, psychology, life[/tags]