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Maybe check out the book "Rules of the game" by Neil Strauss. It's a 30 day challenge and good for trying to overcome AA
I have it, but haven't read it. I'm halfway through the Mystery Method, though.
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Hmm, you sound like someone who might one day become a pupil of mine. Ambitious and determined in life.
I appreciate that you see that.
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Perhaps you recognize the following feeling:
Soon she started more to hold my hand, to kiss me every now and then, and I could tell that, requiring patience, things were going the right way (again). We sat down at a restaurant, where she asked me: "Just how can you be so confident? Your amount of self-esteem is so overwhelming that I´ve asked myself if it is an act." I looked her clearly into the eyes and said: "Do you know where I take my confidence from? I will tell you. You don´t know what it is to succeed at everything you do, to have so much vigour and potential, and still to remain unsatisfied because this one element of your life remains unfulfilled. For four years, I looked around me and saw happy people. Even very simple-minded people who never read a book in their lives, and they are happy simply by being together. And none of your friends or family understands this void that you feel because they only see your outward appearance: They only see your strength, your stamina, your drive and your knowledge. What they don´t see is the emptiness you feel inside. And so, my confidence comes from knowing exactly what I want. As soon as I see something, I know immediately how much it´s worth to me, how much I would sacrifice to get it."
Yesterday I read this thread, had too busy a day to reply, but fuck me, this segment hit me hard. Emphatically, it it is how I feel, but why it hit so hard is that I could never articulate this into words. You posted this yourself from your ability to discern my post, so I know you know
exactly how I feel. You don't sound like you have the difficulties I have, if I may be so presumptuous, but there is comfort to found in that you recognized it.
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To be honest, if you failed before due to lack of action, you will fail again. Action is in your Character (thymos), or it is not. In my life I've met hundreds of persons who said they would do thing A or thing B to improve, achieve their goals, excell. In the end, only two of them pulled it off. Doubt you're going to be one of them. Prove me wrong. People talk all this time about improving and the goals they put for themselves. This is not a "trick" you can master. Are you ready to give every little bit of energy that you have, deprive yourself of eating and sleeping and if necessary travel to the end of the world to accomplish your goals?
True and fair statement.
It is easy to forget that not many who set out to better themselves succeed. I bore this in mind when I went out yesterday, the field report will follow.
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Without Character, you will not be a self-convinced person, but instead will rely on social approval like a nursing-calf. I read a lot of narcisism in your thread. Get rid of that and be humble for now. Basically, since PUA´s don't have Character, since their lives don't revolve around goals they hold to be important to themselves, they imitate things thought up by others. They read books written by others that teach them how to be themselves.
I find it hard to be humble. Really. I am very confident in how I speak, walk, go about affairs. The person I want to be is super confident, like this, but in all spheres. However, I think you might be on to something - I might have to tone it down. Again, I appreciate we are busy people, but I will post a field report right after this and it draws on this.
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Instead, read deep, high quality books that make you think of great thoughts, great deeds, and make your soul burn inside from passion and erudition. Here are some suggestions: "The Republic" by Plato, "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley (make sure to get the original version as it is very eloquently written). "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand is also a good one since it contains many well-written conversations. Or "The Pilgrimage" by Paulo Coelho, although not erudite still a rather inspiring story. After you read these things, speak about the thoughts that you get with your friends, teachers, whoever. Develop yourself to be an erudite person. I invested 22 years of my life in this, and I am the greatest conversationist alive today.
It's not a coincidence that well-read people are often the most well-rounded and developed characters you meet. I am a reader, I do dabble, and I also believe you are absolutely on the money as reading certain (mainly fictional works) books, often the more flamboyant and immersive stuff, always makes me more reflective and aware.
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I meet people from all walks of life for my job and I´ve read all Epic books from Dostojevski to Ayn Rand, Nietzsche, Shakespeare, the Alchemist, whatever, I´ve travelled many lands, dated girls from a variety of nations and races, seen and done the craziest shit. Sat down at a dining table with the commissionar of the queen and with a bunch of bums at a railway station. And I will tell you this, what it all comes down to:
Girl really loves a guy. She´s totally in love with him. She told him: "I will meet you tonight and won´t hold back!" At the early evening she sits down with her friends in a restaurant, has a drink. Another one, it gets cosy and she has in the back of her mind that she´s supposed to meet him. Another drink. The hours slip by, something nags her that she has to get moving . . . And then it´s too late, because the last train is gone. The only thing she can do now is to call him and make excuses, about how badly she wanted to see him, about that the train is gone.
Perhaps she will lose the love of her life because of this, or the ultimate dream job offer. In the end, people lose because they cannot struggle against their own inertia.
This is how it always goes. In politics, relationships, business. People are overcome by their own inertia. 99.9% of the people only move because either someone holds a carrot some centrimetres in front of him, and presses a knife against his back. The 00.1% is the people holding the carrot and the knife, and they see how trivial and weak the rest is.99.9% of the people alive in our MTV-based society today would not possess the strength of will to take two hours every day to sit down and read. But knowledge is power. Reading the books that constitute civilizations will give you the ability to give shape to thoughts that would otherwise have remained formless.
I would even go as far as saying that it's better for a person to throw all of his time, passion and energy into training and studying and ignoring the whole "socialize and get drunk in disco's" and visit prostitutes instead to save time and disappointment with frivolous one-night stand girls. Because then, once you finish the stage that prepares you for life, you will be a one-man army, and life will yield to you whatever you require from it. This is super-unorthodox advice that goes against all political correctness. But hey, if someone actually did this, it would at least be Epic.
But then again, I do think that choosing such a committed path in life will take a Character that's only to be found in one in hundred-thousands. Because ordinary people are cliché, and one day they wake up, open the curtains, gaze upon the beaming light of the sun slicing the horizon, and think: "I should try to be president of earth!" and the next moment they see a commercial and they will have forgotten all they just said to themselves. I would go as far as to say that the weak Character of most people is why anything based in mass-appeal systematically undermines civilization.
Really evocative. I understand.
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We have opposite problems, as you have an attractive personality but fear going up to girls, whereas I just don't give a fuck (give me a few drinks and I will approach every girl in the room) but my personality sucks and I can't carry an interesting conversation for the life of me.
My advice is: get a bunch of whack jobs for mates, the kind that slap each other on the back, down pints of beer and do stupid shit. Then play games like shoe golf, where you kick your shoes off in public places (e.g parking lots) aiming for lamp posts, etc. Go out dressed in drag. Become absolutely fearless. Go upto any woman in a club and show absolutely no fear whatsoever. In fact, don't even feel fear, get off on the adrenaline rush - it's better than any other high. If someone tells you to do something stupid, don't think, just do.
The only problem with this of course is that you might affect your esteemed reputation that you described so maybe do some of the above stuff but tone it down a little bit, I dunno. If this bothers you, maybe go to a different town or city for a night with a different (wackier) group of friends where you won't see anyone you know. But I always find it easier to do crazy shit when I am performing for a crowd, i.e. my mates egging me on.
p.s. from personal experience, girls don't get with clowns so don't expect to pull anyone using these antics but you can apply your new found ballsiness to the social circles you already have - you will figure out how to edge in on a girl in a club (oops sorry for bumping ino you!) and then carry out an interesting conversation with the personality you already have.
Hey man. Interestingly enough, I have a group of friends like that back home. Obviously, at my University people are not like this...But just to emphasize, I do have that balance.
Now, thanks again for the advice gentlemen.
Don't give up on me, because I went out last night and listened to every one of your words.
I'm going to post my field report in a bit. From this, you will know more about me and my attributes, and then perhaps we can work on a plan from there. It was a fun night. I met many a lady...But I need you to take just two minutes out of your day to analyse my field report and let me know what was really going on.
Thanks,
R