Ryan Holiday, Author at RyanHoliday.net

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Lessons from Public Transit

On Friday I took a bus in LA (which of course I didn’t pay for–tragedy of the commons my friends) and I ended up talking to one of these ladies. Miss Mercy, actually, a famous groupie from the 60’s and 70’s who slept with Chuck Berry, Al Green, Johnny Otis, Frank Zappa, Brian Jones (of the Rolling Stones) and a whole bunch of others. She was best friends with Pamela Des Barres who wrote “I’m With the Band” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” and a couple others. In fact, there is a while chapter dedicated to her in the latter book. As far as girls in LA and the party scene, they were IT and everyone knew so.

But let me tell you, Mercy is haggard. Absolutely haggard. At the risk of making a straw man argument, I did a lot of thinking about her. These groupies were products–if not the idols–of the Sexual Revolution. These were the role models and exemplars for an entire generation of teachings about sex, gender and health. When we were told “women are just the same sexually as men” these are the women they used as proof, or when they said “gender is a social construct,” this was the living, breathing, contrary information. “See, once we through off the yoke of sexual conservatism, we can all be happier.” Well, Mercy didn’t exactly turn out that way. In fact, it drove her to speed, heroin, LSD and the poverty, darkness and waste that comes ‘long with them.

The most fundamental declaration of evolutionary psychology is that, theoretically a man could have an infinite number of children a year–each ejaculation inside a woman is a potential pregnancy. A woman, even with the same of amount of sex, can only have one child a year. And that, leads to profound evolutionary implications. It simply creates a different system of pressures and rewards. A male has an incentive to be able to mentally handle multiple partners, where as a woman need only handle a substantially smaller number. It’s not good or bad, it’s simply fact and it is one that must be acknowledged.

Well it wasn’t acknowledged (in many cases it has yet to be). The idea that these women could sit down and write sexual conquest lists as though they were expecting Christmas presents is one of the biggest lies liberalism has ever created. I forgot to mention something about Mercy, she doesn’t just look haggard–she works at Goodwill. Is that the sort of case-study we want to emulate? Trust me, there is more than just a correlation with the drug use and alcohol. These are mechanisms that exist almost solely to drive and rationalize the engine they were tricked into riding on.

Step into a Women’s Studies department at any university in America and you will hear what are essentially the same delusions that they have been teaching for nearly a half-century. Concepts that have been widely contested–that STDs affect all sexual orientations equally, that gender doesn’t really exist, that gender roles are the product of modernity, that it’s merely a coincidence that across all societies ever men who had promiscuous sex were exalted while women who did it were derided, that rape has no sexual traces to it at all, that men and women think in the exact same way, and on and on and on. Of course it is very difficult, sometimes heartbreaking to admit these things. But is it any worse than the veil of righteousness used to blind people into pursuing lifestyles that ultimately end badly? Ask Dr. Drew, Samantha from Sex and the City did not see her happy ending in real life. Look at Mercy–she wasted years of her life in homelessness at the depths of a crack addiction because popular culture and academia glorified something they shouldn’t have. (To preempt a Tucker mention, there is a very key difference that I won’t get into, but even then there is a reason that that is not my life.)

So what’s the tie in to the internet? Well there is no “internet,” only life. And the key to getting past all the bullshit is listening to that little voice inside you over the mass of noise coming from the “experts.” They are wrong, almost always. But that voice? Well its served your genes for hundreds of thousands of years, and since you’re here thinking about it, it’s done a better than average job. If you’re in college, and you like what you’re doing, then by all means continue. But if you don’t–if you’re having doubts–well then fucking quit. Just because that’s how all your friends act, doesn’t mean they’re happy and it certainly doesn’t mean it will make you happy. Just because they tell you they’re having a good time doesn’t mean they actually are. And just because the Campus Health Center says a behavior is healthy doesn’t mean that it is. If you’re in a business and it all seems counterintuitive and hollow, then it probably is. For one of the few times in history, these major industries are faced with the possibility of having to start completely over again. This is your chance. More importantly though, new generations of revolutionaries have a terrible track record when it comes to being correct. So you can drink the kool-aid and become the next Mercy or you can think about it intelligently and emotionally and choose the sustainable, healthy and fulfilling path. This isn’t about sex or lifestyles–it’s much bigger than that. It’s about understanding that very often the things people say a more a reflection of what they want to believe as opposed to what they actually know. If we’re capable of tricking ourselves about sex, capable of deceiving ourselves into defecating into a bucket because Chuck Berry says so, what aren’t we capable of believing?

August 7, 2007 by Ryan Holiday

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The Power Broker: How Power and Personality Interplay

Last week I finished The Power Broker by Robert Caro, an enormous tome on the effects of power, vision and drive. It took me 15 days to do all 1,165 pages of the hardcover monstrosity that chronicled the rise of Robert Moses. You’ve probably never heard of Robert (I hadn’t), because his philosophy was very similar to Boyd’s–that you can get a lot done if you let others take the credit. Like Boyd, you might not know him but you know of him. Moses built Shea Stadium, Lincoln Center, Jones Beach, the United Nations headquarters in New York, the 1964 World’s Fair, Jones Beach, the Henry Hudson Parkway–fuck, he literally invented parkway–the Central Park Zoo, Bryant Park, the Triborough Bridge and just about every other major modern construction project in New York city with the exception of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Subway.

He was the “Master Builder” and as the book describes him, his achievements are on the level not of any Roman emperor but of Rome, and not so much of any generation but of entire civilizations. He had more power, more money, more tangible, physical property to his name than just about anyone…ever. His vision was majestic, inspiring and immortal. He turned swampland into world powerhouses and slums into pristine parks–congested streets into towering highways. As an unelected, untrained and salaryless public servant he molded perhaps the greatest city in the history of the world to his view. The public couldn’t stop him, the mayor couldn’t stop him, the governor couldn’t stop him, and only once could the President of the United States stop him.

But ultimately, you know where the cliche must take us. Robert Moses was an asshole. His vision, although appearing heartfelt, was simply an evolutionary tactic that gave him the means and justification for his drive for power. He was different, but not that different. He may have had more brain, more drive, more strategy than other men but he did not have more compassion. And that was his undoing.

“For once Moses came into possession of power, it began to perform its harsh alchemy on his character, altering its contours, eating away at some traits, allowing others to enlarge. The potential had always been there, like a darker shadow on the edge of the bright gold of his idealism. With each small increase in the amount of power he possessed, the dark element in his nature loomed larger.”
It is an absolutely fascinating book–both from a strategy and human-study perspective. You MUST read it. (I’ll even link it again) But if you don’t, I think a few of the themes of the book are worth looking at:

–Above all else, You Cannot Lose Touch. Moses took to power because he understood the complexities of his industry. He’d studied more, read more, knew more than anyone else. In fact, he regularly capitalized on the fact that funding goes to the person with the plans right now as opposed to a vague vision for tomorrow. But what served him well on the rise was forgotten. The man who designed ALL of NY’s highways didn’t even know how to drive. He’d never even been in a traffic jam. He didn’t visit the neighborhoods he was renovating, nor did he listen to the emissaries who had. As Caro the author writes “The mind was brilliant, but even a brilliant mind is only as good as the material–the input–fed into it. Bob Moses climbed so high on his own ego, had become so hidebound in his own arbitrariness, that he had removed himself almost entirely from reality and had insulated himself within his own individuality.” His problem was simply that he lost the grasp of the world that had delivered him his power.

Which is something that applies not just to government but to nearly every other part of life. It’s a mantra that Hollywood has forgotten, universities have never really had, and many other businesses have but a tenuous hold on. If it happens to me–well then, I deserve every bit of the fall–because I read it and understood it here at 20.

–Resting too much is an inefficiency, but not resting at all is the greatest inefficiency. Moses never stopped. Ever. And it was probably the biggest contributer to his downfall. He rose to power because he had a vision and a reason. But when the power came he lost it–and the power eventually followed. As the author put it: ““Robert Moses had never, since he has first come to power, allowed himself any time for reflection, for thought. Reflection, thought, is in a sense no more than the putting to use of a mind, and the unique instrument that was Robert Moses’ mind could conceive wonders when it was put to work that way.”

“Why?” was not a question often asked by Robert Moses. It is no wonder then that the results of his life look like a cocktail of addiction, rage and lust. How can a direction or purpose of been the result when it was never part of the process? Humans–like all things–are limited by the law of diminishing returns. Impetuousness becomes stupidity when there is no rest between battles, and snap judgments becoming increasingly less accurate when their results are never looked at empirically. It was the unexamined life that Socrates so adamantly warned against. To think that an extra hour in the office is more important than half of that spent in reflection is the mind of a menial labored and not a leader.

–You can find power anywhere. For Moses it was in Parks. He found that no one was against parks, and thus their controller would largely go unchallenged. It is the same in all things. Where there is the lowest demand, you will find the lowest prices. You can kill yourself in the high cost, low margins game of politics, military or Law or you can find the uncontested niche and turn it into your domain. So why follow the masses and fight the traffic, when you can carve your own path and watch as they have to turn around and come to you? Does this sound familiar?

–It’s easier to keep something going than to start something new. I’ve written about this before, and it is the way that almost all people govern their lives. Moses’ most successful tactic was grossly underestimating the cost of a project in order to get funding and then laying its foundation. Politicians, who answer to the people, cannot afford to spend money without results and thus they were obligated to fund it until completion. It may not be the most ethical approach but all the “doers” will tell you that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. If you can play loose with fact to get approval, you’ll find that they’ll be more likely to continue yours then to start something new. Remember, as Moses did, that this is bet on your own predictions and you better be confident of a payoff.

–Use a table instead of a desk. I am going to do a full entry on this because I liked the advice so much.

This book is something you just have to read. I think you’ll find a renewed faith in the 48 Laws after you finish. It might be long (and way too heavy to carry around) but it’s worth it. But more than that, it is a confirmation of the necessity of the search for meaning. Ambition is an admirable thing, but does it trump self-discipline and self-respect? It’s like that hole that Doc Holliday talks about in Tombstone–you’ll never be able to steal, kill or hurt enough to fill what is left in their absence. Like I was talking about earlier in the week, what does this mention of Moses even mean? Does it alleviate the self-loathing and hatred that permeated his existence? Does the grudging respect and physical immortality make up for the lives he ruined and the people he hurt? These are just words, those buildings are just concrete and steel–none of it, NOTHING trumps being a good person. And Moses might be rare in that he could DO, but rarer still is the man who can DO and BE. But he never tried.

(If you want to read the rest of the quotes, they are here)

August 4, 2007 by Ryan Holiday

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Recenter on Success and on Failure

In June, I wrote about how when I get off track I like to pick up The Meditations and recenter. In fact one of the primary messages of the book is that you cannot despair at every slipup, flaw and gaff–and that all you have is to get up where you’ve fallen and try again. And in reminding yourself of this you can stop the self-perpetuating slide and regain traction.

Well I like to go through the same process when things are going well. After a few successes–no matter how small, I like to flip through the pages and recenter. Remind myself the answer to a few major questions: Why? What for? How? And with who? We find that time and time again, ego is more destructive than low esteem, that we lose our vision the closer we come to attaining it.

Soon you’ll be ashes or bones. A mere name at most–and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, trivial.

The chase toward immortality is alluring–even more so when you’re young, idealistic and inexperienced. So that cannot be the “Why,” life cannot be the means to that end. When you break down those things you covet–truly see them for what they are–they lose their gilded varnish. I like to read this not to corrupt the dreams but to temper them. It prevents exaggeration from overcoming hope, and allows you to more fully examine what you’re after. Is it fame? Or is it a chance to influence from that pulpit? Is it adulation or is it respect? Is it freedom from or freedom to? Is it to be or to do? It must always be the latter options.

“Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust or lose your sense of shame or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill-will or hypocrisy or a desire for things best done behind closed doors.”

The “How” and the “With who.” My favorite piece of advice ever–do what you love and be a good person, that is all you have. So now, as a clean slate, I try to preserve those more than anything else. What value is there in learning this young if you refuse to make it your foundation? Epictetus once wrote that knowledge–like strength–must be measured in what you’re about to construct with it, not simply what you can life. Anything else is vanity, hypocrisy. Again, as real, life-lasting decisions become more apparent, you must increase the stringency of this benchmark. Do I get red in the face when I think about someone discovering what I’ve done? Then I probably shouldn’t do it anymore. Have I been totally honest about my intentions–either maliciously or out of shyness? Then I must stop now, and be blunt. Am I more empathetic today than I was last month? Then I am traveling down a bad road.

For now, I’m please to say that this standard has not been violated. As I predicted, I am happier AND finding that others are equally pleased with my work. My advice here is to be as temperate in your relative successes as you are in your failures. Never use a good mood as an excuse against introspection. And never let the downhill–the momentum–dictate your speed. However you recenter is up to you–it doesn’t have to be Meditations, in fact it probably shouldn’t be. But find a rock to which you can return, be it a person, a book, a quote, an image, a thought, and use it maintain control. Prevent straying from Siren or by despair, for they are equally dangerous.

August 2, 2007 by Ryan Holiday

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