LifeHack by James Altucher

I'm not going to give you the usual lifehack stuff. Sure, using Evernote, sleeping a lot, learning to listen, being grateful, all works for many people.

I don't like the word "lifehack". It takes a lot of work to be really good at something in life. To get good at something you need: a teacher, a passion, to read a lot of books, to practice 3-4 hours a day for many days.

There are shortcuts to learning something. But if you follow the last paragraph, you will learn those shortcuts and it will still take you a long time.

Here's the rule of thumb of hacking anything in life BUT then, that all said, I will give you my four favorite lifehacks:

It will take you 1 year of serious study to be in the top 60% of anything in life.
It will take you 2 years to be in the top 50% (the learning curve slope starts to flatten)
It will take you 3 years to be in the top 30% (where you will start making money at your passion)
It will take you 4 years to be in the top 10-20% (where you will start to make real wealth)
It will take you 5+ years to be in the top 10% where you will make real wealth. I've switched careers many times. Even if you have every lifehack in the book, this is what it takes to be GREAT at something you love doing. Great enough to make a living or even wealth at it.

This is true no matter what field. And by serious study I mean 3-4 hours a day with breaks in between.

So instead, I'm going to tell you some other lifehacks I do that I have fun with and has made life A LOT smoother for me.

FOUR LIFEHACKS THAT WORK FOR ME

- $2 bills. I have thousands of $2 bills. I always tip with $2 bills. How come? Because then people remember me. They always say, "whoah! I've never had one."

And then the next time I come into an establishment, I'm remembered. This is good for restaurants, dates, poker night with friends, even for paying at the local deli.

I also find whenever I move to a new town this is a quick way to make friends. I'm very shy and this gets people talking. This has been also very good on dates. Nobody ever forgets the guy with a roll of $2 bills.

- Doctor's coat. I wear a doctor's lab coat most of the time. Like in airports, restaurants, walking around town.

The reason?
   a. It's comfortable.
   b. The big pockets let me put any electronic devices I might need (an ipad mini, for example, plus waiter's pads (see below))
   c. People actually do treat me like a doctor. If someone said, "I need a doctor" I would not be able to help (unless it's easy stuff in which case I can say, "I'm not a doctor" and then perform CPR or mouth-to-mouth or Heimlich, which are all easy to learn.

   But the reality is, people move out of the way if you are an airport and walking around in a doctor's coat?

Is this unfair? Well, I never claim to be a doctor. I'm just wearing a doctor's coat because I like how it feels, looks, and the functionality of it. But if it has other benefits, which it does, I'll take it.

- Waiter's pads. I have about 300 waiter's pads. I order them for about 10 cents a pad in bulk on restaurant supplies website.

How come?
   a. I like to write ideas on pads. I write down at least 10 ideas a day. The idea muscle is a muscle like any other. If it's not exercised, it atrophies. If it's exercised then within six months you're an idea machine. Try it. It's amazing what happens. Don't keep track of the ideas. Just become an idea machine.
  b. Why a pad? A screen messes with your dopamine levels. I like the visceral experience of putting pen to pad.
  c. Why ten ideas? Four or five ideas on any theme is easy. It's the final five or six that makes the brain sweat. This is how you exercise the idea muscle.
  d. Why specifically a waiter's pad?
       i. It forces you to be concise. A waiter's pad is small lines. You can't write a novel there.
      ii. It's a great conversation piece in meetings. Once I pull out the waiter's pad someone always says, "I'll take fries with my burger" and everyone laughs. Again, I'm shy so it's a good way for me to break the ice.
     iii. In restaurants, when you pull out a waiter's pad, guess what? Waiters treat you better.
    iv. The other day in a cafe I was working and someone potentially violent came up and asked me for money. I held up my waiter's pad and said, "I'm a waiter, do you want to order something?" and they sort of looked at me and grunted and then walked away.

- Watch standup comedy before every meeting, date, dinner, media appearance, conversation, public talk.

  I watch Louis CK, Daniel Tosh, Anthony Jeselnik, Jim Norton, Andy Samberg, Seth Rogen, Marina Franklin, Ellen, Bo Burnham, and maybe a dozen others.

How come?

  I have a lot of inhibitions when I meet people. I'm scared and somewhat introverted. Standup comedians are the best public speakers in the world and I think they are the most astute social commentators on the human condition.

So the reasons I watch them before most social encounters (personal, professional, media)

  - it gives me a boost of energy. My "mirror neurons" are going to feed off of their boost of energy for at least 1-3 hours after I watch them.
  - it gives me material. I won't steal from a comedian. But the reality is: good artists plagiarize, great artists steal. And at the very least, I often improvise based on material I heard a comedian said. I'm not competing with them. I'm just on a date. Or a business meeting.
  - Studying the subtleties of how comedians get laughs: their timing, their voices, their silences, the way they look at the audience, the way they move across the stage, the way they benefits from the comedians who came before them, AND their actual commentary about life, helps me in my many interactions with people.

All of the above may make it seem like I'm a loser in many respects. I don't deny this. That's why I need lifehacks.

And they work.

Source: Somewhere in the following post on Quora (What can I learn/know right now in 10 minutes that will be useful for the rest of my life?)

• owner_cinh Vault

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A zen koan and the answer by Ashtavakra.

Few months back I came across a zen koan that gave me hard time understanding the underlying principle. All of the zen koans are like this but this one bugged me for months. I recently, in fact today itself found the answer to it. So I am going to talk about it and how I came across the underlying principle in this post. The koan is by Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) and goes like this,

Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

Even after a single reading one can understand the question. The question is simple yet the depth is infinite. I would recommend at this point to stop and think about it for at least a day or two but if you are eager then at least re-read it and give it 5 minutes to sink in.
        According to Wikipedia a zen koan, "is a story, dialogue, question, or statement, which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and test a student's progress in Zen practice". Its like an answer wrapped around inside a question. You have to think about it and let it sink.
        I spent almost a month thinking about it then gave up but it kept coming back to me in one or the other forms. Today I saw a TED talk about non-dualism (link at bottom) that lead to another video that to my utmost amazement gave the answer to the question. So now lets think about this disturbing yet irresistible question. It can also be thought in many other ways for example,

1. Am I dreaming right now and this universe, you , this post and everything else is just a figment of my imagination?
2. And my death is just the actual me waking up from the dream?
3. Or am I just a variable in some simulation code that holds different values at different times based on what the programmer wrote?
4. Or may be everyday I wake up as a different person with all the past memories filled in my head as if I have lived that life? and many more...

        Right now I am highly desperate to write the answer but it would be a complete injustice to the question and the answer if I write it. My ego is telling me to write it by myself, you know to prove that IT IS ME WHO GAVE YOU THE ANSWER but I am in no position capable of explaining it. So I will provide the videos below, please watch as it is in the same order as I am posting.

The first talks about the basic underlying principle without keeping the question in focus.

 

Following videos take up the question and tell it in the form of conversation between king Janaka and Ashtavakra. i don't know why Blogger is not allowing to add the video itself so I am posting the links only:

PART 1:

Swami Sarvapriyananda at IITK - "Who Am I?" according to Mandukya Upanishad-Part 1

PART 2:

Swami Sarvapriyananda at IITK - "Who Am I?" according to Mandukya Upanishad-Part 2

So to sum it up, lets rephrase everything:
Question:
Given a white paper with a circle filled with black color drawn on it. Now is it a black circle on white background or a black background with white painted on it?

Answer:
According to Advaita (non-dualism) none of these is true. They are all different ways to visualize the white and black on the sheet. The only truth here is the EXISTENCE of the system. The whole system here is a witness of its different forms. The system in itself is the sole truth here. The only statement that is true here is that "It exists". Existence is the ultimate truth. And that is why in Hinduism (a very subjective and mostly wrong word to use here) it is said that, "You are eternal".  You just take on different forms even after death.

Source: Goodreads: Zhuangzi, Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang-Tzu

• owner_cinh Who AM I

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The loneliness we carry.

There is a thought experiment that goes like this,

Suppose there are 2 individuals each given a box. Each one of these boxes contain an object that none of them has ever seen. Each individual can see whats inside his box but not inside other person's box. Now they are asked to describe their object to each other without actually showing it. Now the question is, Is the description given by the owner sufficient for the complete understanding of the object by the listener?

As you are not supposed to show the object to the other person so you will have to explain the nature of that object verbally. Just for the sake of explanation lets suppose that object is a tennis ball. You will explain that the object is of spherical shape, green colored and of the size of a cricket ball. The listener will start imagining, he will try to relate whatever you tell to his past experiences. He will possibly create an image in his mind of a spherical shape that will closely match the cricket ball.
        As you explain further that the ball has a thin white stripe of rubberish stuff that goes over the surface of the object without cutting itself, the listener will create a white strip on his mental image that with high probability will differ from that on a tennis ball. So as you keep on explaining the listener will keep on imagining and creating based on what he thinks is the correct representation.
So the whole process can be divided into 3 parts, the object itself, the way you explain it and they way listener reconstructs it. In light of the third part, it is very obvious that if there were 2 or 3 listeners then they all will have different reconstructions in their minds. The way you explain it is also very important. Suppose you forget to tell (or may be choose not to tell) that the object is hollow from inside, then absence of this fact will lead to a totally different understanding of the object by the listener.
        Up till now it has been very obvious explanation. Lets take it to the next level, what if the object also chooses to hide its true nature(for example if the object were a chameleon and the box was of green color, you will never know that the object can change its color unless you put him in some other colored box). then from the start itself whatever you tell can be wrong all along. This raises yet another question, "Is our understanding of this world complete or are we missing something important?"
        Every time there is a mismatch between what is explained and what is understood the amount of error between true and perceived nature increases. The only way to reduce this error is to show the listener the object, let him touch and let him understand the object himself, thus reducing the margin of error. But this might also not be possible every time specially in case you can not comprehend the object in your five senses.
        So not drifting away from the title of the post lets take a turn towards the human nature. What if I tell you that each one of us is carrying such a box full of objects others have never seen. That box is your mind and the objects are sadness, happiness, remorse, frustration, love and so on. So lets say you love someone and telling that person how much you love him. The other person can only imagine or relate to whats actually happening inside your head . He can relate it to the love he had for someone else, or for you. He can only estimate the love by comparing it to the maximum love he ever experienced. May be he has experienced more love than you are experiencing for him.
        Suppose you cut your hand and the severe pain you are feeling is clear from your face even then the others can only relate. No one can understand what you are exactly going through. I recently saw a video in which a woman deaf since childhood was operated and heard a sound for the first time, her own voice for the first time. Noone can understand the feeling she is having, we can only relate. So my point is,

Most of us often don't understand the loneliness we are carrying within.

You must be wondering, why write a long post just to increase loneliness? Well, after all its a conversation I never had. ;)
Thanks for reading. :)

• owner_cinh Thought Experiment

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