#well here's a pithy quote for you: “stupid is as stupid does”

[semperintrepida]

What I encounter in workshops and drafts and sometimes even in published pages is a cooly objective first-person narration, stories and novels told from an I lacking both explanatory power and the impulse toward explication itself. The deracinated I is a filmic projection, dancing on cinema’s halogenic glow, but lacking the charisma and poetic force of cinema qua cinema. The first-person narrator without interiority, subtext, and indeed the very capacity for thought or judgement is the purest expression of the passivity that organizes much of contemporary life. This passivity extends from the realm of the aesthetic into the realms of the personal and the political. We have a generation of writers who have watched more movies, television, and footage of human life than they have experienced of that life firsthand. Even their understanding and experience of their own inner lives originates in skits, memes, and video essays. They have no philosophers or prophets. They have YouTubers and influencers, and in this shallow, highly processed and highly mediated experience of consciousness, there is no thought. Merely the telepathic beaming of image from the screen to the interior of the person’s mind.

—Brandon Taylor, "against casting tape fiction"

[master-sass-blast]

Winter Stay-cation.

*insert pithy quip here*

Summary:��A massive squall hits New York City. The snow, combined with a deep freeze, brings the city that never sleeps to a standstill once the police issue travel bans. Fortunately, you and Piotr know how to keep yourselves entertained during your impromptu stay-cation.

Pairing(s): Piotr Rasputin x Reader, Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson, and Ellie Phimister x Yukio.

Rating: G for fluff.

Word Count: 3.4k.

Set after “It’s Truly Magical.”

A/N: The movie quote from Day Five is from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window.”

Taglist:  @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @super-darkcloudstudent, @dandyqueen, @leo-writer

“—continuing into the middle of next week, if not longer. Expect heavy snowfall and temperatures below freezing, with windchill taking things below zero over the weekend.”

“Good grief.” You shake your head as you watch the weather report on the morning news. “It doesn’t get that cold when I fly full speed.”

Piotr, your husband, hands you a cup of coffee and shrugs. “January is ugly month.”

You smirk into your mug. “Bet this doesn’t compare to Siberian winters.”

“Not really,” he admits with a chuckle.

“The Chief of New York City’s Fire Department has issued a statement reminding residents to be careful when using their fireplaces and to monitor children and pets.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you quip, “Don’t use fireworks as kindling, we got it.”

Piotr snorts.

“In addition, the Police Department has issued a travel advisory in light of the predicted precipitation and sub-zero temperatures. All none-essential travel is restricted until the cold snap passes.”

“Groovy. Tell that to half the city.”

Piotr grins, shakes his head again, then turns the TV off. “Looks like we will have to keep ourselves occupied here this week.”

You cast a disparaging glance outside –where the snow is already up to Piotr’s knees—then say, “Like we were going anywhere else.”

 ***

 Day One

 There’s an upside to when the “deep freeze” hits. It’s already winter break, meaning there’s no coordinating classes, figuring out how to pick up students that don’t live at the mansion, or having to get up at the balls-ugly hours of the early morning in the stupid, frigid cold.

The two of you wake up at your leisure, around nine o’clock. You laze around in bed for a bit, snuggling and chatting and smooching, then head downstairs for breakfast. You wind up setting up shop at the dining room table, catching up on grading and filling out end of the semester report cards.

“Can you check these for me?” Piotr asks, handing you a stack of essays from his art classes. “I already made content-based marks; I am just not sure about English grammar.”

“Fun fact: most native English speakers aren’t sure about their grammar, either,” you joke with a smirk.

Piotr snorts, then checks his computer clock before standing. “Is about lunchtime. I was thinking soup and sandwiches?”

You nod. “Sounds tasty.”

“Would you like anything in particular?”

“Surprise me.” You make a contented hum when Piotr leans over the table to kiss you, then smile as you watch him head to the kitchen.

You really are the world’s luckiest woman (a sentiment you feel even more keenly when he comes back with a fresh cup of hot cider for you).

 ***

 Day Two

 “We should clean.”

The two of you are sitting on the couch. Your laptops sit on the coffee table, displaying the completed efforts of uploading grades to the online gradebook that the school uses. Two mugs that once contained coffee sit next to either laptop.

You look up at Piotr. You’re tucked against his side, head leaning on his shoulder while his fingers trace designs on the sleeve of your sweater (which is technically his sweater, but that’s neither here nor there). “Huh?”

“We should clean,” he repeats as he scrubs at his face with his free hand. “House could use it.”

You crane your neck to look over his shoulder. “We don’t really have that many dirty dishes.”

Piotr snorts, then raises an eyebrow at you. “When was last time we vacuumed? Or deep cleaned bathrooms? Or washed windows?”

“We can see out the windows just fine!”

Piotr grins and shakes his head. He stands, holding his hand out to you. “Come on, myshka. Clean home, clean mind.”

“I’ll have you know that my mind is nothing but dirty, and I’m offended that you would dare insinuate otherwise.”

Piotr laughs and helps you up. “We can start upstairs and work our way down.”

 ***

 Cleaning with Piotr isn’t so bad. He carries his fair share of the workload, does things to their proper doneness, and is a firm supporter of blasting tunes while cleaning.

“Take! Me! On!” You bounce up and down in time with the beat while you clean the sliding glass doors in your bedroom that lead out to the balcony. “I’ll… be… gone! In a day or two!”

Behind you, Piotr laughs. He’s hauling out a trashbag from the bathroom –no doubt filled with the sheer amount of crumpled paper towels it takes to get the place sanitary again. “I see you are enjoying yourself.”

“Absolutely not. I’m suffering endlessly. I’m going to die any minute now.” And then, to prove you point, you flop to the floor dramatically (taking care to use your powers to cushion your landing).

Piotr lets out a choked gasp, then clutches at his chest. “You keep scared me!”

You look up at him and laugh. “You know I can catch myself! You’ve seen me do that before!”

“Changes nothing!” He lets out a ragged breath, hand still pressed over his heart. “I could have heart attack.”

You giggle, then lift yourself off the floor with a swirl of wind. You land nimbly on your toes before him and wrap your arms around his waist. “Aw, now who’s being dramatic?”

“I fail to see how concern for your well-being is dramatic!”

You suppress a grin, opting to pop up on the balls of your feet and kiss him instead. “I’m very sorry I scared you, baby.”

“Is okay.” He kisses you gently, then gazes down at you with a rueful smile on his lips. “What am I going to do with you, myshka?”

“Dance with me?” You flash him an impish smile, then start bouncing in time to the music again.

Piotr chuckles, then takes your hands in his and bops along with you.

The two of you dance around the room –well, as much as what you’re doing can be called dancing. You sing the lyrics of the song to each other, not sticking to any particular key or tempo.

You laugh when Piotr lifts you into his arms, bridal style, then squeal in delight when he spins the two of you around.

It’s perfect.

 ***

 Day Three

 You wake up to the sound of Piotr’s phone chirping –because, even on vacation, he still keeps a daily morning alarm.

He groans as he comes to, then laughs when you roll over him and shut off his alarm for him. “Well, good morning to you, too.”

You set his phone back on his nightstand, then straddle his hips and plant your hands against his brawny chest. “You’re not making me clean today.”

Piotr smirks up at you, bushy eyebrow raising in challenge. “Oh?”

“We’re spending today in this bed,” you continue. “Just you” –you tap his chest—“and me, and as few clothes as possible. Sound good?”

He pretends to mull it over, even has he takes off the shirt he’d been sleeping in. “Are we allowed bathroom and meal breaks?”

“I’ll allow it.”

“Ah, very generous. Thank you, benevolent myshka.”

“You’re very welcome.” You giggle when he grins –then let out a delighted yelp when he rolls suddenly, pinning you between him and the bed. You sigh as he kisses you, eyes fluttering shut. You arms wind around his neck, holding him against you while his hands smooth down your body.

 ***

 Day Four

 Cabin fever starts setting in between the third and fourth day. There’s only so many chores you can do, only so many papers you can grade (and you’re out of papers to grade, which doesn’t help your case), only so much sex you can have before you’re gonna start losing your mind.

Fortunately, Piotr is well-attuned to you and your mental states –meaning he notices that you’re getting twitchy before you dip into pyromania to keep yourself entertained.

“We should do something fun today,” he says during breakfast. He spreads some sour cream over his plate of blinis, then adds cottage cheese and sausage meat. “Perhaps play some video games. Ellie has been pestering me to play some multi-people games with her and Yukio.”

“Could be fun,” you say before stuffing your mouth full with Nutella-covered blini. You swallow, then ask, “What did she want to play?”

“Ah… she had two. I think… Falling Guys and Among Us?”

A slow, wicked grin stretches across your place. Fuck yeah. “Let her know we’re in.”

 ***

 Piotr, unfortunately, turns out to be none too good at Fall Guys.

“No!” He wails, then flops back against the couch when he gets thrown off a platform and into the slime. “I could not run away!”

“You have to anticipate the enemy’s movements,” Ellie says over Discord. She’s already qualified and is spectating you and Yukio. “Predict their strategy, then counter.”

“I think it is less strategy and more ‘giant hands do not play nice with tiny controller,’” Piotr grumbles good-naturedly.

“Or maybe you got your butt kicked like a scrub,” Ellie fires back.

“I never contested that,” Piotr chuckles.

“Alright,” you say, eyes glued on your pink and yellow striped player. “I’m almost there, there’s plenty of slots left –no, you fucking pigeon! Let me go!”

“Language,” Piotr murmurs between bouts of laughter.

“It’s always a pigeon!” Ellie groans. “Fucking skyrats.”

“Language, NTW.”

You qualify for the next round (no thanks to the damn pigeon, who qualifies, too). Egg Scramble is next, and you wind up facing off against Ellie and Yukio for the win.

“Damn it!” There’s the sound of something hitting the floor –most likely Ellie throwing her controller—when she and Yukio get booted out. “Yellow always loses!”

“Is that it?” you ask while the loading screen plays. “Are we at the final round yet?”

“There’ll be one more,” Yukio says. “To finish whittling down the competitors.”

Sure enough, there’s a round of Tip-Toe –which you get through by the skin of your teeth—and then you and eight other players are sent to the finale.

“Okay, Hex-A-Gone. You’ll want to just hop from tile to tile,” Ellie advises you while the level loads. “It makes the tiles last longer.”

“Don’t be afraid to drop a couple levels at first,” Yukio adds. “You can carve out one of the lower levels, meaning anyone that falls above you will have further to go and will be more likely to get out.”

“I appreciate it, but don’t expect any miracles,” you say, laughing self-deprecatingly.

Piotr kisses the top of your head. “You can do this, myshka.”

You follow the girls’ advice; you let yourself drop down two levels, then start hopping from tile to tile to start carving out the platform.

“One guy’s already out!” Ellie announces. “You’ve got this!”

“Shit! I fell!”

“That’s okay,” Yukio reassures you. “Find a decent mass of tiles and hop, don’t run. Make them last.”

“The pigeon grabbed another player,” Piotr marvels, shaking his head.

“Yeah, well, they both died, so fat lot of good it did them,” Ellie mutters.

You keep going, bounce from brightly colored hexagon to brightly colored hexagon.

“Only four left!” Ellie lets out a whoop. “Holy shit, you’re gonna make it!”

“Don’t jinx me!” you laugh as you dodge another player’s attempt to grab you. “Don’t jinx me!”

“Three left –two! It’s just you and one other guy!”

“You’ve got this, Y/N!” Yukio cheers.

You dive for a clump of tiles –and miss. “No!” You groan, then laugh as your character plummets into the pink slime. “Damn. I’m never going to do that good ever again.”

Piotr wraps an arm around your shoulders in a conciliatory hug. “You did wonderful job, myshka.”

“He’s right. That was really good. The winner fell a few seconds after you, so it was basically a coin toss as to who was gonna get the crown,” Ellie says while the winner’s animation plays on screen.

“Yeah! Great job!” Yukio congratulates you.

“Wanna do another round?” Ellie asks as she flicks between skins and accessories for her avatar.

Yukio laughs lightly. “Baby, we were going to get lunch.”

“Oh, right.”

“Perhaps we can try other game after lunch,” Piotr suggests. “‘Fall Guys’ is okay, but makes me too dizzy.”

“Yeah, sure. Text me when you guys are done eating.”

***

 Among Us doesn’t go much better for Piotr, if only because he doesn’t adhere to the strategy of the game. He does his tasks without fail –which usually leaves him alone, and thus a prime target for killing or pinning a murder on. He’s also a terrible liar, which makes it easy to tell when he is the impostor.

You laugh as Piotr’s little red spaceman goes floating into space. “I honestly feel bad.”

“I don’t,” Wade says (he and Nate hopped on the Discord call when Yukio sent them an invite). “Pay for some acting classes, Chrome Dome! Give us a challenge, at least.”

Piotr starts grumbling in Russian, but it gets cut off when the round starts up again.

(You all still wind up losing because Nate’s the other impostor and racks up bodies like nobody’s business.)

“I’m still waiting for when Ellie and Dad get the impostor role together,” you comment as the defeat screen flashes on your laptop screen.

“What, so we all die in five minutes?” Wade grumbles. “So we can suffer the agony of betrayal and not honoring trust again?”

“It’s just a game, Wade,” Nate sighs. “And I apologized already.”

“Is our relationship ‘just a game’ to you, Natey? I gave you an alibi –and then you shanked me in the shower like rejected prison bitch!”

“Language, Wade,” your husband pipes up, voice world-weary. “Please.”

You all start another round once Wade calms down –which, admittedly, takes a while and a great deal of coaxing from Nathan. You grin when you see that you’re an impostor alongside Yukio –then giggle to yourself when a plan pops into your mind.

You start stalking Piotr around the map. You fake doing tasks alongside him, acting as his shadow as he treks around the map. On the corner of your screen, you watch your kill timer wind down, then wait for the right moment once it runs out, and—

Downstairs, in his art studio, your husband lets out an indignant scream when your character murders his.

You fall back onto the bed and cackle.

 ***

 Day Five

 The squall rages on outside. The world is practically buried in snow. It’s a sea of white outside your bedroom windows, blinding and sterile.

You peer at the swaths of snow blanketing every inch of ground, every tree branch, and every shrub, then nestle further under the blankets. “Ugh. I don’t even want to get out of bed today.”

Piotr chuckles, then wraps an arm around your waist. “How come?”

“Have you seen what it’s like outside? It’s disgusting!”

“I thought you liked snow.”

“I do. That’s how you know it’s bad.” You sigh as you eye the fat, fluffy flakes falling from the sky. “I wish I could, like, go outside. Go to a store or something. Leave the house.”

“Is not safe to drive yet.”

“I know, I know.” You sigh. “Is it bad that I miss the color green?”

“Nyet. Is normal.”

You smile, just a little, when Piotr kisses the back of your head. You roll over to face him. “Can we build a blanket fort today?”

He raises an eyebrow. “What… here? In bedroom?”

“Yeah. We can make it look all pretty, and snuggle in bed, and watch movies, and have sex…”

“Bozhe ty moi.” Piotr snorts, then takes a moment to study your face, your eyes. “You really want blanket fort?”

“Kind of, yeah. I just… I want something new to look at.”

The corner of his mouth turns up in a soft smile. He presses his lips against your forehead. “Alright, myshka. Let’s make fort.”

***

 “When a man and a woman see each other and like each other, they ought to come together. Wham. Like a couple of taxis on Broadway.”

You let out a content, relaxed sigh, then wriggle closer to Piotr.

The fort, admittedly, is simple –but you don’t mind. While you were taking a shower, Piotr assembled the whole thing, just to give you a little surprise.

He’d brought up a couple floor lamps from the main floor, then clipped some fairy lights to them before draping the largest quilt in the house over top to make the room. He’d pinned some throw blankets to either side of the quilt to make the sides, then made the bed and assembled the pillows so the two of you could have a nice, cozy, comfy den to watch movies in.

The recurring, delighted thought of ‘he made it for me; he made it for me because he knew I wanted one’ loops around in your brain like a bumblebee drunk on fermented crab apples. You grin, then loop your arms around Piotr’s neck and kiss his cheek.

He grins, cheeks flushing ever so slightly. “What was that for?”

“You made me a blanket fort.”

“You asked for one.”

“Yeah, but you made it for me. You could’ve just waited until we could both work on it.”

He shrugs, lips curving into a soft, pleased smile. “I wanted to see look on face. You were very happy.”

“Correction: I am very happy.” You kiss the tip of his nose, then his lips. “I love you, Piotr.”

“And I love you, Y/N.”

 ***

 Day Six

 You know it’s bad when you wake up before Piotr.

You look over at your husband, who’s still slumbering away next to you –and sawing some logs, no less—then out at the winter hellscape outside, and decide there’s only one thing for it.

You’re channeling your inner Great British Bake Off contestant and demolishing the kitchen.

***

 Piotr comes downstairs around ten in the morning –which is a miraculous amount of sleep in time for him—but by then, the damage has already been done.

There’s a cake cooling on the counter (you’d found a box of cake mix in the back of the pantry and decided to use it as a warm-up. The mixer is working overtime on a double batch of sugar cookies –plus there’s already chocolate chip cookie dough chilling in the fridge.

You look up from the cookbook you’d been perusing –you were thinking pie next—and flash your husband a slightly sheepish grin as he gapes at the kitchen. “Uh… good morning?”

“Myshka…”

“I made cake.”

“I can see that.” Piotr drops his heads into his hands and makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a laugh. “Why?”

“Because being trapped inside is stressing me out and I want to cope by eating my weight in desserts.”

Piotr sighs, then lifts his head. He eyes the mixer, then the increasingly sheepish expression on your face. “How much is that?”

“In the bowl or in the fridge?”

“Bozhe ty moi.”

“Look, the way I see it, we can share—”

“You have that much correct. We do not need five million cookies.”

“Excuse you, I’m only making three million. Also, do you know where the lard is?”

Piotr’s face scrunches up. “Lard? Why—”

“I wanna make pie.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “We already have cake. And goodness knows how many kinds of cookies.”

“But those aren’t pie.” You smile impishly at him. “Plus, like, pie has fruit, so it’s good for you. You like fruit. Think about how good it’ll be to eat something with fruit after all the cake, and the cookies…”

“Or I could just eat fruit.” He sighs, resigned and slightly frustrated, when you bat your eyelashes at him. “I will check pantry.”

***

 Day Seven

 “—as of today, authorities are lifting the ban on nonessential travel—”

“Yes!” You launch yourself into the air, twirling around and pumping your fists before landing lightly on the couch once more. “Finally!”

Piotr laughs and shakes his head. “What, is staying inside with me so terrible?”

“Absolutely not.” You crawl across the couch and into his lap, then give him a loud smooch. “I have enjoyed every single day of your company. However, you’ve got about fifteen minutes before I start repainting the walls out of sheer boredom.”

Piotr bursts into raucous guffaws. He puts a hand over his eyes, shoulders and stomach shaking with each laugh. He sighs, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes as minute giggles slip past his lips. “Well, we do need to restock on food. And flour and butter, since someone decided to open bakery yesterday.”

You pointedly ignore the pies and full cookie jar sitting on the kitchen counter. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He snorts, then pats your thigh. “Get dressed, myshka. We will go shopping.”

“Fuck yeah!” You zip up the stairs.

Downstairs, you can hear Piotr start laughing again.

[teshknowledgenotes]

PODCAST: Naval Ravikant & Tim Ferris Podcast - NOTES FROM TRANSCRIPT I FOUND WORTH WRITING NOTES ABOUT

Tim Ferriss: Well, this would be great. The one I’m going to read would be a great one for people to get really upset about. Or I would find it comical to look at the comments of people are upset, but the line is this: Imagine how effective you would be if you weren’t anxious all the time.

Why did you put this out? And have you seen highly anxious people become people who experienced very little anxiety? Is that something you’ve seen, but first, why did you put this up? What was behind it? And then have you seen anxious people become largely, I guess an anxious or non-anxious people.

Naval Ravikant: Yeah. Most of my tweets are not very deliberate or thought through. What’s happening is I’ve been thinking about some concept for months, years, whatever it’s been percolating. And then all of a sudden it’ll come to me. It’s sort of like one pithy sentence where I’m like, oh, this is how I will remember this thing. This is how I can distill this down into a pointer for myself, so that when I need to make decisions, I can retrieve that whole line of reasoning.

And so where this comes from is basically everybody, after a certain age, I am taking responsibility for my own happiness and peace and quality of life. And one of the things you learn after you make money is that money doesn’t make you happier. It takes care of your money problems, but it’s not necessarily going to put you in a place where you’re in some kind of bliss all the time.

In fact, there’s nothing out there that will make you happy forever. So you sort of have to take responsibility for guiding yourself in such a way that your mental state ends up where you want it. And so I’ve been working on my mental state and I have—working is a big word. I don’t even want to say I’ve been working on it, but I would say my mental state has gotten to a place which is much better than it used to be.

And people will often say, “Well I don’t want to do that because it’ll take away my ambition. I want to succeed right now.” And so I’ve thought about that a fair bit. And is that true or not? Well, it certainly, for me in the last few years, since I’ve become calmer, my effectiveness has gone through the roof and I’ve been more successful, but it’s hard to disambiguate that from, well, also, maybe you just later in your career, you’re in a better position for it and that’s a valid criticism.

So one of the things I’ve been trying to figure out is like, would I have been as successful and it’s hard to do the counterfactual obviously if I wasn’t as anxious, because anxiety comes from fear and it’s also a motivator. It makes you get off your butt. And one of the ways to make the anxiety go away, at least until the next piece of anxiety comes along, is to go do something about it.

So what is the role of anxiety? Well, firstly, I noted that pretty much everybody’s anxious all the time. It’s a rare human being who isn’t anxious and it makes sense. We’re alpha predators. We took over this earth and domesticated or killed all the other animals. And we did that by being the most paranoid, the most fearful, the most angry predators this world has ever seen.

So anxiety is built into the core of who we are. In fact, you could argue that all the mind does all day long is fear-based scenario planning for survival, and then maybe a little bit of green for replication. So anxiety is at the core level of who we are, but certainly some people are more anxious than others. There’s no question. And some people seem to get much calmer about it.

So which is more useful for effectiveness? So assuming that your goal is your motivation is intrinsic. You’re doing the thing because you love it or because you really want it, and you can separate that motivation from anxiety. Then I think you can take on certain superpowers. And we kind of all intrinsically know this. If you look at Samurai warriors, Miyamoto Musashi is in a duel with somebody else, you know that the person who is calmer is going to win.

In all those movies, it’s the one who’s incredibly still then swipes with a sword incredibly quickly, and is then still again, that’s the winner—the one who has a zen sense of mind. Similarly in The Terminator movies, part of the reason you fear the Terminator is because he’s a robot. He’s unstoppable, he’s implacable. You can’t argue with him. You can’t communicate with him. You can’t make him slow down.

And he has no remorse. He just keeps coming. Or in that old Clint Eastwood movie Unforgiven. The guy who wins the gunfight is the one who doesn’t flinch. He’s just keeping his cool while he’s loading his gun and shooting. He’s not like all over the place running around. So I just think we waste so much energy through anxiety that if you can be calm and still go about your business, it’s a superpower.

And I realized this myself recently, where I was in a conflict situation, business. It was a high conflict situation. It was unfortunate. We, I think we’ve solved it. But as I went through this high conflict situation, I’d been through one like it years before where I was much more anxious. And I remember that time period. And I remember how much I was sweating it and how nervous I was and how I went through bouts of fear and anger and how it kind of worked up I was the entire time, intense and didn’t get much sleep.

But this time I was incredibly calm and I was almost enjoying it because it was like practicing my craft. Now, of course it’s easy to do now because I have more money. But at the same time, it just didn’t bother me. It was just very mechanical. And because of that, I can be very effective about it and it can be effective about it while doing lots and lots of other things. My mind wasn’t constantly spinning in a whirlpool taking on 10 different problems and just fear-based scenario planning all the time.

Most of these things were never going to happen. So I do believe that being calm and still going about your business is the superpower. Now yes, if anxiety is your only motivator, then you have a problem. But I would argue the pure motivations don’t come out of anxiety.

Tim Ferriss: So let’s talk about attribution here. To what would you attribute the, I know this, that it’s difficult to isolate variables, et cetera, but if let’s just say like you have a family, so let’s just say one of your kids comes to you is like, “Dad, I’m suffering from a lot of anxiety. What should I do?”

Or you observe it and you want to help your kid out. What types of recommendations would you make? Or might you make? Another question if you prefer it is what has helped you to go from the whirlpool experience of anxiety in high conflict experience, round one versus calm Naval, and high conflict experience round two?

Naval Ravikant: Yeah. It’s really hard to separate all the pieces out. I mean, it comes from a combination of a philosophy, yoga meditation, and getting older, having kids. Like you, I’ve had some psychedelic experiences, but those are very far back in the past, just a distant memory at this point. But I would say the number one thing that has been very, very important for me is meditation.

And it’s a stupid thing to say, because so trite, everybody just says it now. But when I say meditation, I don’t mean sitting there and watching your breath or chanting a mantra. I mean, self-examination and meditation is a great way to do that self-therapy. It’s sitting there with your thoughts. So anxiety, this pervasive nonspecific anxiety where we’re just constantly on edge about everything, that comes from an unexamined life. I think it was Socrates who said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” I forget who said that quote—

Tim Ferriss: Something like that.

Naval Ravikant: But it’s—

Tim Ferriss: Aristotle, Socrates—

Naval Ravikant: One of those smart philosopher types, but it’s correct. It’s your unexamined life that is causing the problems. And you can examine it in multiple ways. You can examine it through you can have some crazy mushroom trip where it all comes out one night. You could do a lot of meditation sitting there with yourself and letting your mind run crazy.

And then seeing what’s actually in your mind that your mind wants to tell you, and have you listened to, and have you resolved that is unresolved. It could be through therapy. It could be through reading lots of philosophy and reflection and long walks. So there’s many, many ways to tackle it, but it’s that spending the time with yourself to examine why are you having these thoughts?

Think about it this way. We spend so much time in our relationships. Our relationships with our wives, our relationship with our colleagues, our relationships to our business partners, our relationship with our friends, the most important relationship you have is with yourself. It’s with this voice in your head that is constantly rattling every waking hour, it’s this crazy roommate living inside your mind who’s always chattering, always chattering, never shuts up and you can’t control these thoughts.

They just come up out of you don’t even know where, and those quality of your thoughts, those conversations you’re having in your head all the time. That is your world. That is the world you live in. That’s the worldview you have. That’s a lens you see through, and that’s going to determine the quality of your life more than anything else.

And if you want to see what the quality of your life actually is, put down the drink, put down the computer, put down the smartphone, put down the book, put down the headphones, just sit by yourself, doing nothing. And then you will know what the quality of your life actually is because that’s what you’re always running away from.

That’s why people, when they try to meditate they sit down, “I hate it. I can’t sit still.” Why? Because your mind is eating you alive. Your life is unexamined. Your mind is running in loops over things that it has not resolved. And because they’re not resolved when you run around your normal life. It’s not that those problems have gone away. It’s that they’re just there, they’re there, but they’re provoking anxiety.

And what you think of as the anxiety that’s kind of consuming you and you can’t identify the source. That’s just the tip of an iceberg poking out from underneath the water and underneath this giant pile of garbage of decisions that were made without too much thought of situations that you’re in, that you haven’t resolved, that you need to resolve, of problems that you have, or desires that you have that have gone unmet or unmanifested, or are being, or contradictions that you’re living in a ways that you, which you feel trapped.

So proper meditation, proper examination should ruin the life that you’re currently living. It should cause you to leave relationships. It should cause you to reestablish boundaries with family members and with colleagues. It should cause you to quit your job. It should cause you to change your eating patterns. It should cause you to spend more time with yourself.

It should cause it to change the books you read. It should cause us to change what your friends are. If it doesn’t do that, it’s not real examination. If it doesn’t come attached with destruction of your current life, then you can’t create the new life in which you will not have the anxiety.

Tim Ferriss: Or at least parts of it. Not necessarily whole cloth. So let’s dive into meditation because as you mentioned, it’s a term that is used a lot. And in the minds of most, it is represented by things that you just said, you do not do like the mantra-based meditation or following the breath. And you and I have meditated before.

I don’t know if your approach is still similar, but it is quite a—I’d hate to talk about trite paradigm shift in a sense, at least in the way that I experienced it alongside you, at one point, which was literally doing nothing for extended periods of time. I don’t know if that’s still the case, but could you describe the practice a bit because it was such a burden lifted in a sense when the pass-fail is removed.

And the experience that I had after say a week of doing this twice a day, which is not necessarily what people would do in normal life, but was pretty profound. So could you describe the current practice, which may be different from what I experienced.

Naval Ravikant: Yeah. I actually have two different things that I do, and I almost hate calling it meditation because everyone has in their mind, a preconceived notion of what meditation is. Let’s not even call it that. I would say that there are two self-examination practices that I do, and I don’t even call them practices anymore because sometimes I do them because I feel like them and I enjoy them, or because it feels right.

And sometimes I don’t because anything done routinely sort of becomes its own trap and is not going to get you anywhere. It just becomes like another spiritual high and other check box.

Tim Ferriss: Now is it fair though, to say that you’re able to opt-in and out now because you had a certain front-loading period—

Naval Ravikant: Correct.

Tim Ferriss:—of doing it consistently.

Naval Ravikant: Actually I’ll say the three different things that I do and I’ll go through them. The first, I just read a lot of philosophy, especially at night time before I go to bed.

Tim Ferriss: Which ones? Schopenhauer, Maxims? Who are we talking about?

Naval Ravikant: Yes, Schopenhauer, Western philosophy is my current favourite, although I’ve definitely moved around in that one. Eastern philosophy, I’ll read everything from Osho. I know he’s discredited and been cancelled, but fantastic—that makes me like him even more. Krishnamurti, I don’t know, Kapil Gupta, Rupert Spira. I mean, it’s all over the place. Anthony de Mello, he’s fantastic actually.

If going to start with one book. Start with Anthony de Mello’s A Way to Love or his book Awareness. They’re both really good, but there’s a ton of them. I basically read a lot of philosophers. Siddhartha, Vasistha’s Yoga, Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching. I’m always going through one of these books at any given time and usually rereading for inspiration.

And I’ll read these at night. Usually, there’ll be one or two things I’ll catch on to, I’ll reflect on it before I go to sleep. So that is a form of self-examination and it’s not done because it’s a formula it’s done because I’m genuinely interested in these things. So it’s not work to me, it’s fun. The second thing that I do is which I’ve been doing for a long time now is just trying to be aware of my thoughts and not in a sit there and be like, “Oh, I’m going to be aware of my thoughts kind of way.”

But just realizing that a lot of these thoughts that come up are unbidden I don’t control them. It’s not like I decided to have this thought. I don’t even know what I’m saying to you right now. It’s coming out of my mouth at the same time as I’m thinking it. So where is this coming from? Who is this person? What is this person saying? Is this true? Is it correct? Has it been correct in the past? Is he just being paranoid now? Is it being crazy? What are his underlying motivations? 

And I’m not even questioning so much, but more just kind of seeing it. And after a while, when you see it, you start seeing through your own BS, you start seeing how you’re mainly just justifying whatever the heck you want to believe, because it’s good for your survival. It’s good for your replication, or it’s good for your money, or it’s going to get you late or any of these various things.

Tim Ferriss: And when you’re doing that reflection is it sitting at a table, pen and paper? Is it—

Naval Ravikant: No.

Tim Ferriss: Half lotus with your eyes closed? What is—

Naval Ravikant: No, it’s really just walking around. Just walking around. It’s just life. Just if you say something to me, I’m always going to listen to it with a slightly critical filter, because you’re external to me. Applying that same filter to my own thoughts, it gives me a level of peace and distance from them and the ability to see through my own BS, which I think makes my life better.

So I’ve just found that to be a useful way of life. But there are lots of times where I forget to do it. I get caught up in some emotion, some runaway train of thought, but usually these days I can catch myself and be like, “Oh, okay, I’m in that mindset again. And having that mode of reactions again,” and when the mind sort of sees me chattering it quiets down a bit.

Naval Ravikant: Oh, before we finish that topic, very important people find the people that it doesn’t take work to be around. The best relationships don’t feel like work. You make the other person happy being yourself. They make you happy by being themselves, everyone’s honest, no one’s putting on an act that they can’t carry on for the next decade. Same thing with friendships, the best friendships are friendships that were formed over nothing. It’s not because you went to school. It’s not because you studied on the same things. It’s not because you’re working together. It’s not because you enjoy rugby or whatever. It’s because your chemistry matches, your temperament is similar. You can be friends with this person for 30 years, 50 years. The compound interest in relationships part ironically means that the best relationships, whether they’re friendships or family or love, are the ones that you don’t have to work too hard at them so you don’t have to sustain that workload for the rest of your life and you can do it effortlessly.

Tim Ferriss: Yeah, totally. Well, one of your quotes that I think of often, and I might be paraphrasing this is: if you want to avoid conflict, rule number one is: avoid people who are constantly involved with conflict, right? I mean something along those lines.

Naval Ravikant: I mean, well, for example, when you’re in a relationship, just watch how the other person treats their worst enemy, because eventually they’ll just redefine you as enemy and you’ll get to feel that behaviour. I think the number one criteria I look for in a relationship is that person has to be kind. They just have to be a nice person. Because, eventually they’ll, in a certain context, you can always be reclassified from friend to enemy. You just want to see the boundaries of someone’s ethics. If you see someone being bad to a server or someone engaging in unethical behaviour or suing other people or fighting other people all the time, it’s only a matter of time before they fight you. Just stay away from these high conflict people. Everyone has conflict, no one is clean, but that said, there are definitely people who engage in conflict and do it regularly and then make it a part of their lifestyle. Just walk away. It’s not worth it. You’ve met people who are low conflict and easy to get along with.

Tim Ferriss: Yeah. Low conflict, low maintenance, who can also be brutally candid when necessary. Right? Which doesn’t equal conflict.

Naval Ravikant: Well, the one thing I’ve noticed, and I haven’t written the tweet on this because I’ve had a hard time figuring out how to say it, but the people that I want to spend time around these days, when I look at what the common characteristic is, they’re highly self-aware. They’re very, very aware of themselves. They’re not running on autopilot. They don’t get angry easily. They don’t get unhappy easily. They don’t take themselves too seriously. They have a certain separation from their own thoughts and personality that prevents circumstances and their personality from overwhelming them. They don’t have a victim mentality. They’re not caught up in some story of what happened to them when they were younger. They’ve had those issues for sure, but they’ve just gotten past them and been like, “I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be trapped in that mindset.”

They’re not trying to signal all the time how important they are, or who they know, what they’ve done.

Tim Ferriss: How virtuous they are.

Naval Ravikant: How virtuous they are. They’re not virtue signalling or bigoteering. They have low egos. Generally, I can literally plot on a line the more self-aware somebody is, I guarantee you the more attractive they are to a large number of people. To the degree that I’ve achieved any modicum of fame and fame is a trap, and I’m going to pay for this. I know I will pay for this, but any modicum of fame that I have achieved, I think is because I am one of the few people who has been successful in business that thinks out loud in public. Because I’m willing to think out loud in public, that’s a risk that I take on, it improves my thinking, but other people say, “Oh, yeah, he’s somewhat self-aware, he’s thinking about himself.” I think that helps inspire other people to also say, “Okay, it’s okay for me to think about myself.” I just find hanging around self-aware people is a lot easier than people who are running on autopilot, almost like NPCs.

[theaveragekenyan]

And Justice For All...

Cameroon 0 – England 3.

I’m a big believer in, that no matter whatever happens within a football game, the above result will be the only long lasting importance. To the real purists, it can be distilled even further to simply, England beat Cameroon, verbatim.

The Women’s World Cup 2019 will be no different to any other major Footballing competition, they come, they go.

That said, the game between Cameroon and England was a real treat. The football game was excellent, but the actions of the Cameroonian players during the game was by far the best entertainment. They cried, they argued, they spat, they threatened careers, they looked silly and yet, amongst all of this, they played some nice football.

This is what former USA footballer, Hope Solo, had to say.

“This Cameroon team, they don't have the resources. They don't have the quality coaching in their country, they don't have the experience like England or somebody like Phil Neville. We have to try and understand that. Perhaps they weren't even told about the rules, the laws of the game and the evolution of the game. So, your heart has to go out a little bit to this Cameroon side. They played with emotions and brought this emotion to the tournament. As much as we want to see a little bit more class from Cameroon, they did bring that beautiful emotion and packed this entire stadium, You have to look at it both ways”

It’s such a diplomatic way of looking at the game, and largely I agree with it, however, just which resources are required to educate a football team about spitting, elbowing, shoving the ref, the off-side rule? Let’s not even go there with the stereotypical view that women don’t understand the off-side rule, many football fans don’t understand the rule. It is a rule that whichever way is tweaked, in an attempt to make it easier to implement, will mutate into something more complex.

“Perhaps they weren't even told about the rules, the laws of the game and the evolution of the game” Whilst the evolution of the game right now is VAR, the introduction of the off-side rule came in 1863. Every decision made by VAR concerning the off-side rule was 100% accurate.  

The Cameroon team were visibly shaken by the off-side rulings, crying, arguing with the officials, huddling together in the center circle, claiming FIFA is racist, essentially the team “blew their shit” and wasn’t prepared to accept a decision go against them. It was if they were not prepared to accept the rules, as if there was perhaps another way to get the decision overturned, sadly that option was not available to them.

I can’t say it was a macrocosm of African life, because I haven’t lived within enough African cultures to speak for the whole continent, but the Cameroonian Ladies attitudes definitely resonated as far as Kenya.

The petulance displayed by the Cameroon team throughout the game made me draw direct comparisons to how the average Kenyan lives life. A life that perhaps hasn’t been told about the rules, laws and evolution of life, or as more than likely, chooses to deliberately ignore them.

Upon on your first arrival to Kenya you’ll hear very quickly about authority and justice, usually from the driver as you exit the airport into Nairobi.

Every single Kenyan knows just how corrupt their country is, and yes, whilst they are all utterly ashamed and embarrassed about the ‘C’ word, we are all fundamentally enslaved by the “system”.

Recently, I’ve heard at least five friends or associates tell me of their experiences of refusing to pay Tea Tax, and how now, each and every one of them says, that will be the last time they fight the system, next time they’ll just pay the bribe.  

It took me a while to learn how to deal with “The Police” here and certainly, my first initial reaction with the police was to challenge. Why have I been stopped? I’ve done nothing wrong. Of course, that’s a perfectly natural way for everybody to act, well, not in Kenya as it turns out, there can always be something “wrong” and you’re guilty until proven guilty.

Growing up in the UK you become aware of your rights from an early age, you develop and become armed with a robust set of civil rights and unless you’ve been hacking the matrix, you’ll be able to exercise them.

Most offences you are likely to stand accused of here will be similar to an episode of Scooby-Doo, they’ll be vague, tenuous and carry little legal credibility. Had the criminals, that Freddie, Velma and Daphne caught, possessed any sense, they could have switched the legal tables around and had the Magical Mystery Bus Crew up for Trespassing, Criminal Damage, GBH, Slander, False Imprisonment, Zoinks, I doubt they even had a Dog License.

So, with this in mind, my advice when confronted by a member of the Kenyan Police Force is to be cooperative, dumb and submissive…ok mainly dumb and submissive. Act like you’re stupid, but very friendly…you know, a very stupid friendly person, we all know one of them. Act respectfully, but perhaps as if you’ve just left hospital after being awoken from a 12 year coma. Do NOT let the officer know that you understand how the road works or even what a car does.

Sorry, how presumptuous, I’ve forgotten to say, the only time you will ever come into contact with a police officer is whilst in a car.

Just answer every question you are asked, make no sub-plots, second guesses, or even worse still, fall into the trap of attempting to translate what the officer is saying into any western logic, quotes from your Highway Code are not going to work.

“But Sir, there is no sign to obey?” or “The white solid line?…errrr which white solid line are you talking about?” or “Could you please show me the exact speed I was traveling at?” that type of smart-ass clever clogs logic ain’t gonna fly, just stick to “oh” “ok” and “sorry”.

Of course, answer where you are from, respond with where you are going and NO, you don’t know why Kenyan’s are not allowed to drive on International Driving Licenses, answering “because very few Kenyans know how to drive” is not going to lighten the mood.  Just stick to the basics as listed, with possibly a “terribly sorry, I’ll never drive again” or “I will speak to God as soon as I get home” In most cases, if your car has insurance, your brake lights work and you’ve acted out your best Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber role, then you will be asked to continue your journey without any hassle.

It’s just that, when it comes to any level of confusion or reasonable doubt, that is when PC Chai will strike. Although there are much needed and continuing road upgrades occurring all over Kenya right now, many of the roads haven’t evolved well and road designation hasn’t been respected, so over time, there have been many glitches appear. When I say glitches, I mean in particular, junctions that are tenuous with their intended execution. There will be a sign missing, a marking lost, an invisible lane and this is where you’ll always find a cop waiting to pounce upon any vulnerability.

Also, whenever you’re stopped by a cop, you’d best hope it’s a male specimen. If you get a female cop you are going to jail. I can only assume that sometime in the 1990’s when women began to become more mainstream on the beat in Kenya, the then Inspector General found a book called “The Essential Guide to being a Female Officer in the East German Stasi” and based his whole outlook for Women in the KPS upon that. The Women Officers have zero personality, zero compassion, zero smile, they are Lucifer in fancy dress. It’s best to just plead the 5thamendment and demand to speak to your Ambassador immediately, good luck.

The Kenyan Police Service is now so widely and openly corrupt it’s normal. Chat to any Kenyan, Listen to any Church Service, look on any Kenyan News-site, watch Kenyan News TV, read Kenyan Transport Twitter Feeds @Ma3Route @KenyanTraffic and you’ll see video footage and photographs of cops taking bribes, cops about to be bribed or cops looking for bribes. It’s common knowledge and I’m yet to hear of a sustained plan to tackle it.

I’m not advocating for 1984, but to tackle the “system” would mean Kenyan’s being patrolled by VAR equivalents such as Speed Cameras, Average Speed Checks, Regulated Bus Lanes, Traffic Light Enforcement Cameras, Emission Detectors or even far more desirable a credible Police service. Sadly though any of that would infuriate the average Kenyan. Imagine, an automated justice system able to bypass the cops and not be swayed with a pithy excuse or any bribe or even a decent cop issuing a deserved fine, this is not 1984 just 2019.

Put simply, this would cause civil-war. There would be protests, riots, burning tyre’s (the most symbolic of all African protestation instruments), all of the cameras would be destroyed and all because the average Kenyan does not want to understand the rules, ergo the “system’ continues.

Let me be clear, It’s not just the Kenyan Police Service blighted by the “C” word, unfortunately the whole fabric of society has been riddled with the disease. The Kenyan President is very vocal in his “War on Corruption” and I hope he maintains the great work, however, to me, it still feels like the Anti-Corruption Agency has been given a watering can to put out an exploded nuclear power plant. 

For now though, let’s not judge Women’s football on one game, I just wish we could say the same about Kenya.