MasterSelf Year One Page 8

  Eventually, some of these animals gained self-awareness and learned to build, stretching their dominion to encompass the planet. In the process, wars were fought, cities were created and razed to the ground, people lived and loved and had families and died, and entire cultures arose and were wiped out. Somehow, despite all of this chaos, you have survived, in an unbroken line of life leading all the way back to the beginning. Your specific chain of nucleic acids, wrapped up into chromosomes, has managed to withstand the depths of the seas, the coldest winters, the conflicts and diseases and predators that ravaged so many others that failed to make it. Many times extinction came, but never did it touch you.

  Your microscopic strands of acids have continued to strive and survive for as long as life has existed, all to provide you with this moment, having a mind that has learned the ability to read the words on this screen, having developed the most complex and articulate hands that you’re using to touch your computer or phone, having developed a mechanism to take the oxygen out of the air and feed the chemical reaction within every cell of your body that allows life to take place. Beyond all of this, you are aware of it and can question it. Your mind is capable of observing and contemplating the environment, then devising ways to understand and alter it- consciously. No other species evolved is equipped to perform such a miracle- and all of this is miraculous when you reckon the infinite many that failed to endure or gave in before ever being given such a chance.

  Now, knowing this, imagine what Nietzsche spoke of. If you were to live this life, this life that statistically, shouldn’t have happened, again, what would that mean? What if, out of the countless infinite possible universes, that this life, yours, is in fact the best life that has ever been lived? What if at some point you had been given the choice to do anything, and this life is what you chose?

  You, now, are living this life-

  and you must choose to make it the best life that has ever been lived.

  One Year of Practice

  One year ago, I bought a cheap nylon guitar from Second and Charles to practice on. This actually was the third guitar I ever owned, but I had never even learned a single chord before that day. The first one was a steel-stringed acoustic that I got as a Christmas present from my grandparents years before. Admittedly, I would have appreciated much more now than I did then. Ah, what a fool I was. The second was a very cheap, very heavy used black electric of some unknown make that I bought in high school. At the time, I was convinced I would be able to start a metal band in no time. As you may have guessed, that didn’t work.

  I’m not a hundred percent sure why I bought the guitar, but it turned out to be a great choice. I had just come back from a contracting gig in VA, and my other employer ended up not taking me back, so I had a couple of months of unemployment before it was time to go contracting again. I ended up with almost literally nothing to do but sit around and “play” guitar all day. I use the word play not in the context of someone who plays music, but in the way that a toddler plays with one of those tiny Peanuts pianos.

  When you start something new, you are going to suck, and you are going to suck for a pretty long time. I will reiterate- this is the most important thing that you need to know when starting anything, whether it’s playing an instrument, writing, running a blog (hmm, seems like there’s a theme here, better switch it up,) painting, singing, or pretty much anything else for that matter. I personally don’t believe talent exists- it’s an excuse for people who can’t do something to make themselves feel better for not trying.

  Hold on! Don’t freak out- it’s a good thing. If talent doesn’t exist, then that means there’s nothing separating you from Eddie Van Halen, John Petrucci, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Tosin Abasi except for practice. Well, shit- that’s the catch, you just have to practice. However, I have never been much of one for practice, and especially not one for lessons. I took a piano class for a few months in college but stopped going when the lessons took the fun out of it. It’s a shame, because I actually really liked playing the piano until then.

  With that thought in mind, I was determined to figure out how to play guitar by myself, in a way that made it fun. The guitar I bought came with a book that had all kinds of crazy stuff in it like clawhammer picking and jazz chords (which are insane and mind-boggling), but the only part I cared about were the basic open chords. It took the better part of the first two months to get the open chords down, but once you get that, you can start trying to play a lot of stuff. This is the next big takeaway: playing vs practice.

  I don’t practice the guitar- at least, I try not to. Sometimes, when you’re learning something tricky like alternate picking or scales, you’re going to have to actually practice repetitively. That’s just the way it works. Most of the time, though, I just play around with it- try doing a song you like, or improvising on top of the recording. Making up your own songs is fun, or adding little flourishes and stuff to a simple melody. The mentality difference is important, and it’s the reason I hated piano class yet ended up loving learning guitar. When you see what you’re doing as practice, more often than not, it’s a chore. However, play is fun, and you should figure out how to have fun with what you’re doing, otherwise, why do it?

  I always like to go hang out in music stores- even before I could play anything, it was just something I enjoyed. One of the cooler moments in the past year was when I went to the great ProSound Music in Colorado Springs. I was checking out the acoustics and trying to play the intro to Hotel California (poorly,) when one of the guys that worked in the shop came up and started to play the rhythm section. I had never played with another person, let alone someone who knew what they were doing, and that was just such a great feeling. If you’re interested in learning an instrument, know that the fun of playing with another person is one of the coolest things in the world.

  Another important thing I figured out in the past year: when you’re learning something new, you have to wax and wane. Expand outward- try a song with weird chords or something else challenging. Then, focus on just doing that new thing as well and possible, until you can incorporate that new thing seamlessly into your repertoire. Once you can do the new thing well, without having to force it, then you can keep moving forward.

  The biggest non-guitar takeaway here is definitely this thought: what do you wish you started a year ago? After teaching myself guitar for a year, I’m realizing how much time I wasted in my life not learning something useful. Think about how much time you spend watching TV (trick question because you can practice guitar at the same time,) scrolling through Facebook (hopefully because you’re looking at the MasterSelf page,) or doing something else mindless. Now imagine that you spent all that time learning a skill or improving yourself. I personally think you would be amazed with yourself if you only knew what you were really capable of.

  With that in mind, go find a hobby! Learn a skill, play with an instrument, and get ready to suck at it. Eventually, you’ll be good, because everyone sucks at first. I look forward to seeing where we’re at next year!

  The Value of Self-Education

  Imagine, if you will, two people. One of them has just received a degree in Business Management from a prestigious university, the other dropped out the day before graduation. Both people went to the same school, had similar grades, and learned a comparable amount. Where’s the difference?

  For one, the person with the degree will have an easier time showing others that they know something, but, as we saw earlier, the first individual knows as much as the other. Fundamentally, the only difference between the two is a piece of paper backed by the reputation of the prestigious university we mentioned earlier.

  I touch on this subject to illustrate a larger point. In this day and age, with the cost of an education rising, is it really worth spending the money for that piece of paper? Between public libraries and the internet, you, as an individual, have access to just as many high-quality educational materials as the university student. If you’re passionate eno
ugh about the education itself, there isn’t really any reason that you wouldn’t be able to give yourself the same quality of education as the people paying for the piece of paper, right? With the exception, perhaps, of access to instructors and facilities being the only difference- and is that enough to justify such a cost?

  I am a believer that the greatest teachers (and the best students) are those who find ways to make difficult material interesting, who turn a challenge into an opportunity, and who can fan the flame of curiosity that everyone has inside of them, somewhere. Unfortunately, far too many have that flame snuffed out somewhere in their years in the educational system. I still remember, as a child, watching myself become more apathetic and disinterested in school, year after year, until I finally resigned myself to doing the bare minimum and just skating by. Why should this be the case? Learning new things is fun, and every child is born knowing this.

  Education shouldn’t be a chore completed under the duress of requirement, and it shouldn’t be a task for the attainment of the recognition of others. Education must be an end in itself- we learn best when we are curious, and we enjoy learning the most when it’s what we want to learn. Therefore, we should become our own teachers, and accept that we must also always be students,because the world has so much for us to learn.

  Now, before you go and make some objections, here’s a list of some people who lacked a formal education. Maybe you know a few?

  Writers:

  H.P. Lovecraft, Terry Pratchett, Herman Melville, Ernest Hemingway, Louis L’Amour, Ray Bradbury, Alan Moore

  Musicians:

  Frank Zappa, Hanz Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Arnold Schoenberg, Keith Moon, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Noel Gallagher, Django Reinhardt, Dave Grohl, Nas, Eminem

  Filmmakers:

  Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Kevin Smith

  Architects:

  Frank Lloyd Wright, Gustave Eiffel, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Timothy L. Pflueger

  Inventors:

  Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, The Wright Brothers, Henry Ford

  Scientists:

  Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, Buckminster Fuller, Steve Irwin

  Others:

  Sean Parker, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, Julian Assange, Christopher Langan, Abraham Lincoln, Steve Jobs

  What are you waiting for? Take responsibility for your self-education and get yourself on this list!

  FasterSelf I: The Fasting and the Furious

  If you were expecting an article about how to run faster, you’re out of luck. Go for a run. If you were expecting an article about The Fast and the Furious, well, stick around. At the very least, I’m going to make some (by some I mean as many as humanly possible) F&F puns. If you don’t like the sound of that, you’re out of luck. Go for a run… in the rain- because puns are great. If, on the other hand, you somehow guessed that this was the beginning of a series about fasting- damn, you’re good. Give yourself a pat on the back, you majestic beast, you.

  (Technically, this is a continuation of my In the Desert series.)

  Without further ado, let’s get down to it. As I write this, it is Friday, March 23, 2018, and in two days I will be beginning a water fast of an unknown length of time. ‘Water fast’ here means that I will only be drinking water and taking some iodized sea salt in the morning as an electrolyte. In 2016, I did a 40 day water fast, and until recently I have not managed to maintain a fast for more than four days. (The four day fast failed because I happened to go on a tour of the Coors brewery in Golden, CO- and I’m sure you can guess where that went wrong.)

  Now, let’s tackle the elephant in the room. If you have never fasted and are unfamiliar with the practice, you’re probably asking a number of questions right now.

  “How can you go 40+ days without eating?”

  -The body burns fat by converting it into ketones.

  “Don’t you get hungry?”

  -After the first three days (or earlier, using my method,) hunger disappears.

  “How do you have the energy to do anything?”

  -Ketones are actually a vastly superior fuel source, and they make you feel amazing and super energetic all the time.

  “I could never fast, I’d be too hungry.”

  -If I was hungry the whole time, I definitely wouldn’t do it. It’s really not that hard, once you get started.

  I also highly recommend that you read Dr. Jason Fung’s series, Fasting, A History, it’s the primary resource I used for both fasts.

  Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional and nothing I am writing here should be construed as professional advice, a prescription, or in any way should you try anything here because I told you to do it, nor should you attempt to blame me or implicate me in any way for anything you choose to do as a result of this series out of your own free will. You are responsible for your own actions- don’t drag me into that shit. Consult a medical professional to see if fasting is right for you- or don’t, still your problem and not mine.

  Okay, with that out of the way, I’ll explain my method for getting ready for a fast.

  To prepare for this fast, I first started with 10 days of total sobriety– no alcohol or caffeine. Yes, to some of you that probably sounds much harder than the fast itself, I get that. However, it really isn’t too bad. The reasoning behind this is because caffeine is an appetite suppressant, but as it wears off, it actually increases your appetite to higher than normal. If we’re going to be getting ready to not eat, we have to eliminate sources of possible binges. That brings us to alcohol, which is probably the third best source of binges, after holidays and grandmothers.

  The importance of doing this for 10 days is in the fact that it establishes the ten day schedule and a method of building up your willpower. From the start, you’re already exercising the willpower muscle by using restraint towards anything that isn’t food or water. This is important, because during a fast, you obviously can’t have anything that isn’t water- and no, even though your favorite beer is mostly water, it doesn’t count. Now, there is an exception here for tea and black coffee (they have 0 calories and will not break your fast,) but I personally find that to be cheating. If you want to, go for it, but I don’t do it and don’t recommend it.

  Now, once we’ve managed to get the first 10 days out of the way, we’re going to start intermittent fasting (IF.) IF is actually really good for you in itself, but in this instance, we’re going to use progressive levels of IF to continue building your willpower.

  I’ll add a 10 day segment here for those of you who want an easier progression: skip one meal a day (assuming you eat three,) for 10 days. Now, I don’t use this 10 day challenge as part of my method, but it can definitely make it easier if you’ve never done anything like this before. Breakfast is the easiest to skip, by the way, but dinner is the most beneficial to skip. Up to you.

  The next 10 day segment is “Sunup to Sundown (SUSD,)” which means you can only eat an early breakfast and a late dinner. This is important, because it will teach you to avoid food and food thoughts during the bulk of your day, and it’s easy because you know you have a meal to look forward to at the end of the day. This is similar to the fasting used in most religions, although here you will absolutely be drinking lots of water throughout the day. If you feel hunger, drink water. Make that a Pavlovian circuit in your brain- hunger=drink water. It is very important that you get in the habit of drinking water all the time, because a large part of the water your body receives is from food. Without food, you have to drink quite a bit more to stay hydrated. Again, drink tons of water.

  Here’s another intermediary step you can add if you feel the need: 10 days of dinner only. As with the earlier step, I don’t include this, but it may help you if you’re having trouble with your willpower or are feeling nervous. When you’re doing these 10 day progressions, after two or three, you’ll start feeling extra confident and accomp
lished- and rightfully so. Because of that, it’s actually nowhere near as hard as you think, because you have the momentum behind you, pushing you from goal to goal. However, if you need to take it slower, definitely do so.

  The next 10 day I do after the SUSD fast is every other day fasting. This means that I’m doing a fasting day, then a day of SUSD. The idea here is that you’re teaching yourself to skip dinner, which is arguably the hardest meal to miss. However, the key here is to remember that as soon as you go to bed, you’ll be able to wake up and eat a big breakfast. That thought is the secret to getting over it, and by the time you’ve hit two or three of the full fasting days, you’ll be ready for more.

  Now we move to two days of fasting, then one day of SUSD, then another two days of fasting, and so on. Normally, I actually do this for the second half of my third 10 day cycle, but you can make this a whole 10 day if you feel the need. This is the last step for one important reason- day three is the hardest. The third day of fasting is your body’s last cry for glucose and glycogen (blood sugar and stored sugar, respectively,) and as such, you’ll feel the most hunger here. Because of this, there’s no point in doing it more than once, you’ll just be making yourself miserable.