I feel like I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, and I feel a need to pen them down, to summarize them, to synthesize them- a bit of mental housekeeping, if you will.

My most fundamental obsession is to live my life effectively, to make good decisions, to get things done, to create something of value, to accomplish great things, and to live with peace and fulfillment.

After much trial and error with various approaches, I find it best to start with the fundamentals. The most basic things I can think of are hydration, nutrition, sleep and exercise. There is nobody who cannot improve the quality of their lives by paying attention to these things.

Hydration is by far the easiest– if you’re reading this, you’d have access to drinking water (and it’s sobering to realize that there are still people in the world who do not).

You most probably aren’t drinking as much water as you should, so you should go and get yourself some water right now. Good things will start to happen- it diminishes fatigue and clears your mind, which puts you in a better position to make better decisions in everything else.

If you don’t know what to do with your life, spend a month sorting out the basics. It might seem really boring and lame, but hey- if you’re not doing it right, you’re screwing yourself over! Think about anything that you’re passionate about and/or good at, and ask yourself this- how good are the best people in the field when it comes to the bare fundamentals? Anybody who’s good at the impressive, tough stuff got there by getting the fundamentals right. So if you want to kick ass at Life, it makes a lot of sense to start at the most basic, biological fundamentals! Wax on, wax off, motherfucker.

Make sure that you’re always properly hydrated, take long walks, push yourself hard physically from time to time (I like to run, play basketball, box, or hit the gym). Get lots of good, quality sleep. It might *seem* like a waste of time, but it’s a bloody good investment- you’ll find that an extra couple of hours of sleep a day (I’m assuming you’re as sleep deprived as I used to be) more than doubles or triples your productivity and alertness for the rest of the day- you get things done a lot faster, and the very act of being awake is much more pleasurable. Being alive is a lot more pleasant when you get enough sleep, water, nutrition and exercise. All else is built on these foundations. Get them right, seriously. I can never repeat this enough.

From all of those things emerges a single fundamental idea- that there is nothing more useful than effectively managing your mental state, because your mental state influences absolutely everything. Everything. I challenge you to come up with an example of any scenario where having a superior mental state wouldn’t be preferable!

What else affects our mental states? Emotion, and everything that’s tied to it- your finances, your relationships, your personal world-view, books, music, movies.

What I’m presenting here is a point-of-view, a way of looking at things that I feel is a good starting point for anybody who’s not sure of what to do with their lives, and a valuable frame of reference for anybody else too, to compare and contrast their own frameworks against.

What I’m fighting for is a marginal revolution– I hope to ultimately make the world a more effective place, where better decisions are made, where accomplishment and fulfillment is more accessible to everybody. If we get the fundamentals right, everything else should fall into place. So let’s get the fundamentals right.

So suppose you’ve mastered the principles of hydration, nutrition, sleep and exercise. (You liar, I know you haven’t.) But ah well, I believe in holistic and systemic understanding, so you get to find out what the next steps are, because I’m nice like that.

Self-awareness and self-mastery. It’s a lifelong process, obviously and you’re not going to become Jesus or Buddha overnight. So you’d better get started now! Technically, if you’re interested in working out the fundamentals, you’ve already got some degree of interest in some sort of awareness and mastery. I like to think that everybody likes to know things, and everybody likes to get good at things. You might say that you’re not interested in learning or getting good at anything, but I’ll bet that you’re definitely proud of everything that you’ve learnt and mastered so far. The difference, usually, is that people don’t like to learn about things that aren’t somehow important or relevant to their lives- which is why most of formal education is such a pain in the ass if you never figured out how to make it interesting and relevant for yourself.

The important questions are- “How am I feeling right now?”, “What do I want?” “Why do I want that?”, etc. Aim to be skeptical, but not cynical- first be honest with yourself and figure out where you stand. I started out as an arrogant, egoistical bastard, so I found it useful to play the role of antagonist and rip my own flaws and weaknesses to shreds. I enjoy it when I kick my own ass. This doesn’t work equally well for everyone, though- I have friends who don’t have such an inflated sense of self-worth, so they cripple themselves with criticism. You want to find a healthy, sustainable balance that lets you keep moving forward.

You want to work towards accepting yourself unconditionally, and to work towards self- respect rather than self-esteem. It’s not easy, and I don’t think I’m even halfway through myself, but it’s been tremendously fulfilling for me so far, and I can’t see why it should be any different for you. Actively seek out the inconsistencies in your own views, and correct them.

Pay careful attention to the connection between your mind, your body and your behaviour. Examine your emotions carefully and pay attention to them. Seek evaluation and feedback from friends and people you trust, and pay careful attention to the areas where there is a disconnect between what you think of yourself and what other people think of you. Identify your priorities. Write your own eulogy, figure out your vision for yourself and others, and set some goals. All of these things will help you figure out more about yourself.

Others-awareness and others-mastery. This is simultaneously easier and harder than self- awareness/mastery, and I think the two are inseparable- because we learn a lot about ourselves by observing and working with others, and vice versa. The threads running through both ideas are the same- people, both ourselves and others, have pretty much the same basic needs, albeit different preferences about how they would like them fulfilled. The idea here is to get yourself acquainted with

We’re talking about power here. I’m trying to empower you. Remember, first and foremost, that you can have no dominion greater or lesser than that over yourself (da Vinci). He who will not obey himself will be commanded. (Nietzsche)

I’m quite a big fan of Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power, but I don’t like the way he describes them- as schemes, cunning, devious- obviously meant to appeal to his target audience- but they can be perceived in a far more positive light. We shall discuss that separately.

Others-mastery is essentially political savvy- about getting what you want without offending others.

You will have to learn to deal with greed, envy, lust, hatred- boiled and simmered. Outwardly, you must learn to respect the niceties, but inwardly, unless you are a fool, you learn to be prudent, and to do as Napoleon advised: Place your iron hand inside a velvet glove. You will be able to attain the heights of power when you are able to make people bend to your will without their realizing what you have done- and if they do not realize what you have done, they will neither resent nor resist you.

Being perfectly honest will inevitably hurt and insult a great many people, some of whom will choose to injure you in return. No one will see your honest statements as completely objective and free of some personal motivation. And they will be right, even if you don’t realise it. The use of honesty is indeed a power strategy, intended to convince people of one’s noble, good-hearted, selfless character. It’s a form of persuasion, even a subtle form of coercion.

Even genuine naivete is not free from the snares of power- children, for example, may be innocent and naive in may ways, yet they often act from an elemental need to gain control over those around them. Children suffer greatly from feeling powerless in the adult world, and they use any means available to get their way.

If the world is like a giant scheming court and we are trapped inside it, there is no use in trying to opt out of the game. That will only render you powerless, and powerlessness will make you miserable. Instead of struggling against the inevitable, instead of arguing and whining and feeling guilty, it is far better to excel at power. In fact, the better you are at dealing with power, the better friend, lover, husband, wife and person you become. By following the route of the perfect courtier, you learn to make others feel better about themselves, becoming a source of pleasure to them. They will grow dependent on your abilities and desirous of your presence. You spare others the pain that comes from bungling with power- by playing with fire without knowing its properties. If the game of power is inescapable, better to be an artist than a denier or bungler.

That’s just the way it is, okay?