Everyone reacts to inflammatory opinions on the internet. Never before in society has the invisible battleground of ideas been so visible. And what’s not to love about the invigorating, almost tribal feelings behind stepping up to correct the “errors” of all who disagree with your group — rising to displace their slander with your facts. And we think we’ve come such a long way from the times where groups didn’t need reasons to be at odds with one each other, they just did. Now we spar in ideaspace with weapons of logic and reason, right? And you’re Ironman out there, pushing it all forward.

Well, I don’t think so (when I’m reasonable). I think the moral progress from pissing contests among alpha-males to organized debates of orators is negligible.  At best we’re just cheering on the representative of our group as they lay down the tracks back from the conclusion they’ve already reached, applauding louder the better they do. At worst we’re getting in the way of finding some truth, of growing and learning how we all fit together. Because people are wealthy with words these days, they are impoverished in understanding. Why look elsewhere when rationales for your current position are so easy to collect?

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It’s really hard to understand how people change their minds about something big without having done it yourself. And you need to go all the way. The only opinions that are worth changing are the ones that you must sacrifice some commitment to break free of. Everything else is just a diversion. Part of that is tying it to your identity, then using it as a filter through which you view reality. Or committing yourself to this idea with time, money, and energy. Then calling it all for not, abandoning ship, and starting over. That is the trip.

But if you immediately cling to the opposing view, switching sides with elastic force then you’ll miss the golden opportunity: to find the middle and to see both sides with clarity. There’s no credit to be had in whoring yourself out to every cause in vogue, dabbling in every religion, rooting for every politician, or cheering for every team. You’re easy and your commitment is shallow. But finding a way to cross through the vulnerable middle opens you up to all the axes that you need to explore. The perspective on your position is made complete.

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The thing I’ve come to understand (and I believe it’s backed up by modern research, ancient wisdom, and sales books everywhere) is that people don’t change their mind by argument, they change it by emotion. You can’t roar into a conversation, violating all of your audience’s triggers, and expect them to be open to you. And you can’t reasonably know those triggers without quite a lot of experiential information.

Of course there are subversive ways to manipulate emotions to reach a goal, but the real way to change someone’s mind is to completely understand their perspective and approach it strategically like a general on home turf. But here’s the paradox: you can’t completely understand their perspective until you’re in it, and once you’re in it you probably aren’t even considering changing your mind. The better equipped you are to do the work, the less motivated you are to do it.

And that’s why I think some people are quiet. They understand the beautiful complexity of the issues of mankind and care deeply about them, but know that no one is going to run forward with a magic slogan that flips everyone’s switch. And it makes me irritated (and mad at myself) when we are obstinately loud in asserting the stupidity of the world at large. Not because I think the point is wrong, but I think it’s careless and lazy. We’re opting for the low-effort, low-effect means of working towards our goal rather than mastering the proper route of persuasion: listening and speaking softly.

Make your words count.

It’s been said that the soul travels at the pace of a camel. You can move to Amsterdam but it’ll take a few months before you’re really there. I’ve been in Seattle for almost two years now, but it feels like I’ve been alive here forever.

Moving really slows down time, which is good because it feels like everything is speeding up. I’m almost certainly making this up but I looked at my watch a few days ago and I could see time passing by more quickly, as if I had some sort of external reference by which to verify that claim. My emotional response was almost the same as a kid who realizes that the blanket he used to love is really small.

Is is truly liberating leaving everything behind. When I initially moved up here I stayed in hotels until I found a Craigslist house that would take me, then hunkered down and tried my hardest to adjust. I budgeted for six months of loneliness (it’s oddly satisfying to allow yourself to feel negative emotions) and let go of all the social pressures that suggested that I was failing if I didn’t have a full schedule every night. I’m happy to report that I’ve got a lot of budget left over. Initially I knew no one and loved it. I rode the bus because I wanted to, not entirely because it was cheaper, or really more convenient, or anything. I played videogames on my phone while sitting in line, stared out of windows, and walked everywhere. I ate a lot of canned food and microwave meals. I just didn’t care; I did what I wanted. And I did fine.

Maybe this shouldn’t be surprising. It’s not like there aren’t hoards of people out there telling you to be yourself (and exactly what that looks like). But epiphanies are personal, and growth doesn’t happen in lecture halls. I was deathly afraid of leaving my social net because I didn’t know how far I would fall. What I failed to compensate for was that there were nets underneath.

The thing is that social connections have this way of keeping you the same. Even if inside you’re churning and changing, the shell of you remains consistent. Which is good when things are great. But at some point it doesn’t make to sense to hold on to a shell no longer your own. Friends are not just wrappers waiting to be shed off as you blossom; that’s not the picture I want to paint nor the life I want to live. But there are situations where temporal disconnects can make all the difference in becoming who you are. I think I needed one.

And if there was a more perfect setting for shedding skin, I know of none. Seattle is beautiful year round. I knew coming up  here that this was going to be the case and I have resisted the pressure to become bored of the scenery. The trees, colors, mountains, lakes, people, houses… all lovely.  The mountains here are like a cute girl you liked in junior high, where you plan out these little glances all day because they make you feel immaterial and you want to go back as soon as you turn your eyes. It makes sense that people would want to live in a place that’s beautiful. It’s like the primitive human in you suggesting that this is a good place to stay for the moment. And when that voice dies down and the sun is low you gather your energy from everything else, soaking it all in. I try hard to be happy and it just works.

If I’ve discovered anything from the past couple years of my life, it’s that everything is negotiable if you have the momentum to push. Start small and build steam. Things don’t “fall into place” in the lives of those who work for it: they tumble in delightful reverence for life done right. Don’t forget to breath every day.

Unedited. Will probably clean this up in the future.

I’ve danced with my mortality from a young age (perhaps because I’m deranged), and I think we all encounter our mortality on a regular basis. A car accident. A death in the family. A shocking injury. All of these things becon you to “live like you are dying”. But I think that’s a horrible way to live. What is it about the decisions made by dying people that make them so vastly superior to those made by people who are fully alive? I’m not sure. Minimizing my deathbed regret is not how I will optimize for my living days.

Mortality always comes up when I’m thinking about the future, and that topic (the future) seems to occupy a fair amount of my time. As you grow up you become a better builder: instead of piecing together time segments that are hours of a day, or days of a week, you start to put together projects and trips and experiences that can take years. Tack a few of these together and pretty soon you’ve exhausted the space available. You slam into the finite wall of life. It’s like the grey figure of mortality strolls right into the center of the frame as you try to photograph your perfect life, stares directly into your soul for a brief moment, then walks up to you and shakes you by the shoulders saying “this. is. not. real”.

Of course mortality is no dummy, he’s not talking about reality. “Reality is not real” is a statement that no character of my imagination would dare toss out. No, the statement has more to do with the constructs: experiences, places, jobs, things, ownership. The pieces with which you’d build a perfect life if you chose to build one. I’ll come back to this.

But first: I don’t want to own a house. Mostly because I don’t want to “own” a mortgage. But part of it lies in this same concept. Whenever I tangle with the idea of owning a house, I’m not thinking about how many walls I could knock down without anyone’s permission. The first concept is how long it would take me to pay off such an investment, which inevitably leads to me straight into the finite wall of life, which drops me back into thinking about reality. If ownership is transitory, then how do we draw the distinction to renting? Aren’t we all just borrowers of everything we “own”? What do I earn by adopting a construct that ties me indelibly to a massive, singular point in space?

But if we dump all these artificial constructs that we use to slice and dice and make sense out of life, what are we left with? Well, nothing really. You can’t go on without them because your ability to reason about the world depends on them: they are important. Yet if we can scrape the meat off the bones that hold everything together, I think something stunning emerges.

Life isn’t about experiences or trips, jobs or people, places or sounds. All these things imply arbitrary divisions of space and time that are not intrinsic to the human condition. Life is about moments. But these moments aren’t sunsets and feeding at the soup kitchen or trips to Spain. They’re moments where what you feel inside connects vividly to the world which it attempts to run from most of the time. Maybe it’s that vapid disconnectedness that follows a big deadline, the mania that accompanies a defiance of expectaction, or that tender moment where you relate to another individual on a surreal level. Connectedness.

I live for moments, because moments are the interface between me and everything, and feeling connected to everything makes me love life.

In the world today there are a many voices squealing for your attention and a share of your mind. Ideas live and die through their human hosts and attention spans are growing shorter every year. An idea that could comfortably retire in the minds of a few can’t make ends meet these days. He must slavishly reproduce: continually racing from mouth to ear in hopes that he is not forgotten. And the young ideas do this well, their hustle is admirable. Those with money at their heels or an infectious personality have no trouble surviving in this economy. But the unemployed cannot be conflated with the undeserving. The system is geared against them in the same way that industrialization changed the fates of farmers everywhere. And who would doubt that farming is a noble trade. But under the clouds of ideas outspoken there is a dearth of new sprouts and the death of old trees. And with this shift, our world becomes venue to an unnoticed senicide that risks our most valuable possessions as humans: our accumulated ideas.

There are not many representatives of the unconnected lifestyle on the internet. Save a few homeless people who utilize libraries to update blogs about their adventures, most of the unconnected stay that way. There’s also nothing particularly “viral” about their way of life aside from maybe making do with little or failing to gorge themselves on all that society has to offer. But if this group had a representative, she would be a quiet person with a meek personality. I suspect to meet her you’d need to drive many hours away from town to discuss life as it once was. The encounter would be meaningful, no doubt, but you’d easily leave with the impression that this sort of life is simply not yours to hold for now. Maybe later. And this woman is one of many. The Quiet.

But walk into a grocery store and pan the aisles. Millions of brands, messages, colors, slogans. Not bad things, but certainly loud. On the streets outside, the loudest get to eat. Democracy is about being heard, and part of being heard is heaving a megaphone at every person in earshot. “Without awareness, we will be smothered. Join me in chorus.” The timid and cautious at work get left behind as the risk takers grab the stage. Their entrance is met by applause from the audience who were holding out for a hero the whole time. “Thank goodness he’s come; this man will right our sinking ship.” We enamor ourselves with the self-aggrandizing and make celebrities of the most vain. And to our defense, we certainly don’t leave them without instruction: “Dance. The public eye is also the hand that feeds you.”

And maybe our saving idea is already in our midst. Maybe our champion is loud and we’ve found him and our only task is to cheer him on. Perhaps we’re doing things right after all!

…but I can’t help but wonder if the Quiet Truths are walking home, bored of the bitter fights for attention and unable to rectify themselves with a world that requires they change to be wanted. I’m really not saying that change is bad and progress is our enemy. But I do think the failure we’ve hoisted is a flawed economy of ideas, simply because we have no means to measure our losses and no way to stop the bleeding.

Here’s to hoping our true idea hero hasn’t given up yet, wherever he is.

A lot of people think the key to retirement is savings: packing all those little pennies you find in your budget into an account that grows and grows through compound interest. The real key is to keep your spending from catching up with your salary growth. The temptation is to spend a vast majority of your raises. You shouldn’t do this. If you can somehow keep your hands off that money, you can add years to your retirement. Why? Because pacing yourself is key. Deny yourself now, slow down just 1%, and you’ll gain a couple years on the other end. To illustrate this, pictures! (This is for a single person with a lot of missing factors, but suffice to say the general trend continues whether you’re a family of four or currently homeless).

Look at the increase in years as spending growth tops 4.5%. This is for two reasons: you’re saving less and you’ll expect to spend more in retirement. Nobody is the “I’ll live in a cardboard box” stage straight out of college is predicting that they’ll need a giant house and three cars in twenty years in order to be happy. Moderating this compulsion is key to financial independence (which, I think, it fairly critical to doing good work on this Earth).

You can play with the Excel sheet here. Now, why do we do this? Because the sooner we can free ourselves from the bondage of spending, the sooner we can get around to doing things that we actually want to do. You can do this by foregoing the $20,000 car now or the $400,000 yacht when you’re a millionaire. Both are equally difficult, but one will save you years and years of slavery. People budget, but none of that number dumping and recording actually matters if you’re not doing the central act of saving: not spending.