Tag: philosophy

Bud Grant, philosopher

I only met him once, but I still love the old man. He defines old school common sense and toughness:

The MMQB: If Marv Levy hadn’t lost four Super Bowls with the Bills, your team would’ve been the NFL benchmark for almost winning it all, over and over again. Do you feel more pride in having reached four Super Bowls, or ignominy for having lost them all?

Grant: We got paid. We won. We came back, and we won again and again. But you have to remember one thing: Football is entertainment; it’s not life or death. Once the game is over, you’re already talking about next year and the draft. It’s just entertainment. It’s like going to a play: When it’s over, you walk out the door and it’s over. There are no residuals to it. You’ve got to start all over again. If winning or losing is going to define your life, you’re on a rough road.

There you go. You cannot let winning or losing define your life, whether it is a paralyzing fear of failure or a psychotic need to win at everything. Do the best you can, train hard, and when you line up for the playing of the national anthem, you damned well stand up straight and in a straight line.

And after the game, whether you win or lose, you face your opponent and you shake his hand. If you can’t even do that, then what good are you?

A world of niches

Mike Cernovich explains the true meaning of “be yourself”:

People ask me why I do what I do on Twitter. The only reason my antics seem “off” is because you’re comparing me to others in my genre. You have a vision based on how I am supposed to act. That vision is based on how others act.

What good would it do me to act like everyone else?

But there is no one else like me online. I’m more than a troll. I combine a unique blend of mindset, masculinity and trolling with a nuanced discussion of sensitive issues.

If I played Mr. Reasonable, I’d be another fungible good. There are hundreds of other people saying the same stuff as everyone else. Why join a conversation only to be like everyone else?

If I played up the Mr. Self Help Guru game, I’d have to get Botox like Tony Robbins and pretend to like people in order to take their money. I’d rather call out assholes than kiss up to them for cash.

You gotta play your own game.

How can you find that game? As cliche as it sounds, you must first find yourself.

In like manner, I often have people telling me how much more effective I would be if I was more patient, less contemptuous, and played more nicely with others.

But that’s not who I am. Just as Mike is a cheerful brawler who gets in people’s faces, I am an arrogant, solitary creature of the night who silently broods about things and makes plans while other people are sleeping.

A study recently came out that said intelligent people are happier if they don’t spend too much time with their friends. I think that’s largely true. I am one of the happiest people I know, which is somewhat remarkable in light of how it’s hard not to see violence, bloodshed, conflict, and war on almost every horizon. But I’m happy nevertheless because I only spend time with my favorite people and otherwise doing exactly what I want to be doing… for the most part. I rather like the niche in which I have found myself; dark lording suits me.

That being said, paperwork is the bane of my existence. You have no idea how much paperwork is involved in running the Evil Legion of Evil.

And from the Christian perspective, how can we serve God if we are trying to be someone else, and play someone else’s role? Play your own game. Don’t try to play someone else’s, because it rings false, it won’t suit you, and you will not play it well.

The left-wing mind

An explanation of it from a red diaper baby now in recovery:

For the millions raised as leftists, it is not an ideology; it is a culture. Since childhood, they have lived and breathed it every day in the home. They know nothing else. Like any culture, it is a way of speaking, thinking and acting, with its own narratives and rituals. Narratives are held sacred, repeated, reinforced and, over time, added to. That which challenges sacred narratives, even reality itself, is met with confusion and hostility. As with any aggressive, intolerant culture, if you enter it, it enters you.

Contrary to opinion, leftism isn’t just about hate. Leftists are more complex than that. From my time as a red diaper leftist, I can tell you that a whole range of emotions are involved. Hate, anger, fear, bitterness, jealousy, envy, rage, greed, pride, smugness and paranoia (not technically an emotion, but it is widespread among leftists).

With such a parade of negative emotions, it is no surprise that so many leftists suffer from chronic depression, often from a young age. Even if they lose the anger, they still retain the attitude: that the government must fix everyone’s problems, regardless of cost and that there is an enormous right-wing conspiracy that is just around the corner.

The victim narrative of the Left is very infectious. You are always the victim and you are always owed something. The wealthy are always evil, while you are always good and wholesome. Converts are often more intense than those born into it. My father, raised a leftist, eventually mellowed and began to question some leftist beliefs. My mother, not raised a leftist, but having become one, never mellowed.

Leftism encourages and is driven by the most negative, damaging
emotions. It harnesses together childish emotions and paranoid thought
processes. Its narratives are a filter that reality has to try to
struggle through, often failing. The child-like thinking
solves all problems without pesky details and facts interfering, leading
to delusions of intellectual brilliance.

It’s an interesting glimpse into what, for me, is an entirely alien mindset. I find it easier to understand those from very foreign cultures, including the English, the Italians, and even the Japanese, than I do a left-wing 2.0 American. While I correctly noted their fixation on narratives and the childish nature of their magical thinking, I was always mystified by their delusions of intellectual brilliance.

I put it down to their education and credential fetishes, but the author makes clear their belief in their intelligence is actually due to the fact that they are so deluded, they believe they are actually producing the solution to all the various problems they encounter by virtue of repeating their magic mantra: more government spending.

Of course, their concept of government is childish too; it is essentially a magic combination of a 365-day Santa Claus with a friendly Sunday School god whose got the whole world in his hands.

This is useful, as it provides several clues for rhetorical triggers that should prove devastating. It also explains why it is not merely my high intelligence, but my willingness to openly flaunt it, that reliably enrages them. This confirms my belief that if you assume emotional projection when attacked by a rhetoric speaker, you’ll be given the key to dismantle the attacker’s psyche.

Do we need God?

It is not an exaggeration to say that of all the books that comprised the critical response to the initial onslaught of the New Atheism, the most effective was The Irrational Atheist. This was due to the fact that, unlike most of the other books on the subject, it directly addressed the various arguments presented by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and others. Since then, the New Atheism has largely subsided in the public eye, and yet, if the relevant statistics are to be believed, Western society remains heavily influenced by the inept secular philosophy that provided the foundation for the New Atheist wave, secular humanism.

The first noteworthy thing about C.R. Hallpike’s book, Do We Need God to Be Good, is that the reader is nearly two-thirds the way through the book before he can reasonably ascertain which way the author would be predisposed to answering the titular question. Nevertheless, I must admit that Hallpike’s book is even more effective than TIA, because instead of refuting the atheist arguments used to attack religion, it targets many of the philosophical foundations upon which those arguments are dependent.

Hallpike is an English anthropologist, and if Wikipedia is to be trusted, apparently one of more than a little note. This is unexpectedly relevant to the topic, because, having lived with the primitive tribes of Papua New Guinea for years, Hallpike has amassed, and published, considerable first-hand evidence concerning the way in which pre-civilized societies are actually structured. And it is through the expertise he has acquired that he effortlessly demolishes a vast edifice of pseudo-scholarship that has been erected under the name of “evolutionary psychology”:

Normal science proceeds from the known to the unknown, but evolutionary psychology tries to do it the other way round…. It cannot be sufficiently emphasized, therefore, that our profound ignorance about early humans is quite incompatible with any informed discussion of possible adaptations. Ignoring these drastic limitations on our knowledge has meant that many so-called ‘adaptive explanations’ are merely pseudo-scientific ‘Just So Stories’, often made up without any anthropological knowledge, that have increasingly brought evolutionary psychology into disrepute.

Hallpike provides one devastating example, cited from the Proceedings of the Royal Society, in which it is claimed that humans lost their body hair and took to wearing clothes as the result of sexual preferences expressed over one million years ago. He then points out that while our ignorance of primitive sexual preferences is complete, “at least we know they could not possibly have had clothes, because these have only been around for a few thousand years.”

His critique of secular humanism is even more effective, as the sins of the evo-psych enthusiasts can be reasonably put down to a combination of observable ignorance with a predilection for writing fiction. It is one of the more powerful refutations – to say rebuttal is simply not strong enough – one is likely to encounter in print, as Hallpike not only highlights the philosophical competence of the secular humanists, but casts serious doubt upon their self-professed motivations as well.

Given the importance that Humanists ascribe to science, and the revolutionary claims of modern biology about the nature of Man, it is quite striking that the only interest they seem to have in biology is using it to attack religion, not to reflect on what it has to say about Man. Yet if one takes the claims of evolutionary biologists seriously, especially their denial of consciousness and free will, it is hard to see how the very idea of human agency and moral responsibility could survive at all. Although Humanists prefer to ignore these issues, in the words of Francis Crick, ‘tomorrow’s science is going to knock their culture right out from under them’, and they need to come to terms with the obvious incompatibility between their liberal Western values and a genuinely Darwinian view of Man.

It is remarkable that despite the fact that his critique of evolutionary psychology is well within his professional wheelhouse, Hallpike is at his most effective when criticizing secular humanism by its own professed standards. After tracing its intellectual history back to the 14th Century, Hallpike reviews the foundational work of two influential humanist philosophers, A.C. Grayling and Paul Kurtz, and points out the conclusively damning fact that none of the qualities of the ideal secular humanist nor the detailed program of what all proper secular humanists should believe have anything to do with the principles of science or secular humanism!

We are also given a detailed programme of what all rightthinking people should believe about human rights, sexual morality, abortion, euthanasia, parenting, education, privacy, crime and punishment, vegetarianism, animal rights, separation of church and state, and government. This seems a remarkably detailed set of conclusions to draw from the two simple premises of ‘no supernatural beings’, and ‘thinking for oneself’, but in fact none of it follows from these at all. What we are actually getting here is a highly ethnocentric summary of the fashionable opinions of Western secular liberals in the early twenty-first century, and who in Britain would read the Guardian.

Humanism is a prolonged glorification of Self, success, and the gratification in every possible way of ‘the fat, relentless ego’, which is why it has a particular loathing of religion. 

Having executed the sacred cow of secular humanism in a manner brutal enough to make a Chicago slaughterhouse butcher blanch, Hallpike proceeds to examine other modern belief-systems, including Objectivism, Behavioralism, and Collectivism before proceeding to directly address the question posed in the beginning of the book.

While his answer is a reasonable one, it is not exactly straightforward. His answer is ultimately yes, that Man needs God to be good because the moral significance of God is the provision of a worldview that provides men with objective value and moral unity as God’s children, elevates spiritual values over purely material ones, and justifies personal humility in the place of self-worship.

I highly recommend Do We Need God to Be Good to anyone who appreciated TIA. It’s intelligent, well-written, and highly-accessible; I would have loved to have published it. And I am very pleased to be able to say that Dr. Hallpike will be the guest at the next Open Brainstorm event, which will be Tuesday night at 8 PM Eastern. I will be sending out the initial invitations to Brainstorm members later today, and provide the registration link to everyone else tomorrow.

Brainstorm members, please note that you will be receiving a review copy of the ebook with your invitation to the event.

The price of truth

Rollo explains the price:

One tenet of that build-a-positive-fantasy-life mental model is the clichéd notion that you should surround yourself with winners and blow off the losers in your life. It’s a simple aphorism that rolls off the tongue easy; associate with winners and that winning will rub off on you. What they don’t tell you to do is how to cut out the unhappy and unlucky persons in your life who also happen to be your oldest friends or closest family members.

This is one of those painful truths that will set you free, but still stings like a bitch.

But eliminate them, or marginalize them you must. Most guys know this, or they come to know it as the first thing once they unplug. There’s a cost to Red Pill awareness.

That being said, the cost isn’t quite as great as most people fear. While it’s true that neither liars nor those comfortable being deceived like being around those determined to seek the truth, the fact is that it’s really not very enjoyable being around either sort.

The liars constantly engage in preemptive attacks to discredit you so that they’ll take less damage in the event you call them out for their incessant shenanigans, and the deceived react angrily every time you say anything that might threaten their cherished illusions.

For most men, finally walking away comes as a great relief.

The mask comes off

Revealing the alien philosophy it concealed. It only took a few hours for the Transamerican School of National Identity to declare that disenfranchisement of actual Americans in favor of Ameriboos was desirable.

accordingtohoyt
This is VD’s bullshit. I can see it taking several generations to being fully civilized because part of it is a genetic selection thing, but in THAT case we’re all about somewhere close, myself included. Several generations to be fully American? Oh, take a powder. You need to be an idiot to believe that.

Amanda
I will take Sarah and all those like her who want to come to this country, who do so legally and who take all appropriate steps to become a citizen any day of the week over someone who looks down on them because they were not born here. Right now, Sarah looks much more “American” than you.

thewriterinblack  
“The immigrant becomes a citizen. The immigrant lays claim to now being American. Only by law, Sarah.”

This statement demonstrates that Sarah is more American than you are. Because she believes in what makes America, America. And you don’t.


Stephen W. Houghton
My paternal ancestors have been here since before the war of independence. I say Americans are those who take the oath and stand with us. Traitors, those what ever their blood who do not…. Go and lick your Donald’s hand, may your chains lay lightly upon you, and may our posterity forget that you were our countryman.

Randy Wilde
Meh. She’s more American than many people born in the U.S. She actually believes in the ideals on which the country was founded.

Paul (Drak Bibliophile) Howard
Nope and by my standards, you’re not a Real American and Sarah is.

Nicki  
You’re a fucking moron, and you don’t DESERVE the citizenship of this great nation.

jccarlton
Here’s the thing, Vox, YOU don’t get a say in who’s an American, not anymore. You’ve given that up for a villa in Italy. I imagine that you enjoy it, that means that you no longer have to deal with America’s problems. All your problem are the problems of Europe and you are welcome to them. As for REAL Americans, I would rather have some of the people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing over the years than somebody who is as childish and cowardly as you, Vox. You ran from America’s problems and then had the unmitigated GALL to say that Sarah isn’t good enough to be an American.

My, these transamericans are certainly entitled, aren’t they? Not only can they tell Americans what Real Americans are and are not, but they are going to kick out everyone who doesn’t think like they do, no matter whose posterity they happen might be! Nations aren’t genetically-related peoples, after all, but mere collections of similarly-minded groupthinkers.

Notice that I never said anything about Sarah being good enough to be an American. I never said anything about being American being something good, or even desirable. What I stated is a simple fact, one no more controversial than Sarah being female. She is Portuguese. She is not American. Becoming a U.S. citizen is paperwork; the mere fact that one has to become a U.S. citizen is sufficient to indicate that one is not an American. As it happens, I even know a few Americans who are not U.S. citizens.

Amongst all the emoting, hissy-fitting, posturing, and outrage, only one commenter, Ironbear, was sufficiently perspicacious to note how “the proposition nation” is not only ahistorical fiction, but in practice, must be intrinsically opposed to the genuine Rights of Englishmen on which the original Anglo-American nation was founded.

Is there a way to maintain and defend a nation of ideas without disenfranchising those who demonstrably don’t share those ideas, even though they be born here?

Saying that “We were able to sustain a nation of ideas as long as America remained a melting pot,” is true, but not useful in that context. The America that was is dead dead, and toxic ideas introduced, propagated, and made colour of law and custom by our supposed fellows murdered it – using the power of the vote, among other weapons.

I find Mrs. Hoyt’s concept of a prospective nation formed of ideas, ideals, and based upon shared experiences and principles to be aesthetically pleasing. I also see it as being extremely vulnerable, and demonstrably difficult to defend – unless one is willing to go all the way to the walls in eradicating ideas that are toxic to it, which our relatively recent ancestors didn’t. (I strongly suspect that they didn’t truly see the danger and the toxicity of Marxism until it was too late, or even really recognize what was killing us even then.)

The extremes required to protect those ideas from those who would destroy them with toxic ones are unpalatable as well, and not the least bit aesthetically or otherwise pleasing to me. I find that to be depressing, and without hope of a resolution that is not borne of fire and blood.

He is correct to be dubious. Their “proposition nation” is not even theoretically possible without the sort of thought police that their self-definitive ideals must reject. Defining a nation as a proposition is as intrinsically absurd and self-negating as feminism or communism or open-borders libertarianism. These transamerican idealists consider themselves to be intelligent and well-educated, and yet they have observably failed to even begin to think through the necessary consequences of the very values they erroneously claim makes one American.

And that, my dear Sarah, is one thing that you really should learn from me: ruthlessly thinking through the logical consequences of your foundational assumptions. As it stands, her core position is fundamentally illogical. On the other hand, at least she does seem to have changed her mind about my finally understanding Europe.

He’s become European through and through. He doesn’t wish the US well (doesn’t take much reading to see him gloating at potential destruction of the US. And all I have to do to attract his attention and unhinge him is say the US will survive, even though I don’t direct it at him.)

Under those circumstances for any American to follow his lead on things like presidential nominations is insane.

I don’t wish VD any harm — in fact, he’s pretty much irrelevant to me, in any way our paths intersect — and his ideas might yet win out in Europe. For America they’re a poison pill and as bad as Obama’s.

(Spreads hands and smiles.) Unhinged? Quite the contrary. Sarah and her commenters have beautifully demonstrated exactly what I intended from the start. Their naive USian ideals are fundamentally and functionally antithetical to the historical American ideals they ape so clumsily.

Depending upon how one reckons it, we stand on the verge of the fourth America. I count them as follows:

America 1.0: Constitutional America 1789-1865
America 2.0: American Empire 1865-1913
America 3.0: Republican US 1913-1941
America 3.1: Early Imperial US 1941-1965
America 3:2: Latter Imperial US 1965~2033 (est)
America 4.0: Post-US~2033

Sarah and her defenders are confusing America 2.0 for America 1.0, and are completely unaware that they living in an America 3.2 that is rapidly laying the groundwork for the Post-US. And while I still value the ideals of America 1.0, with a very few exceptions they simply don’t exist in the USA anymore. As for what Sarah calls my “ideas”, they will win out in both the USA and in Europe for the simple reason that they are not my ideas, they are simply my observations of what is already happening.

It is easy to know that I am much more likely to be correct than they are. Lacking imagination – ironic given how many SF writers are there – they assume the future will be the status quo extended into the future. And it will not be. Whatever it will be, it will most certainly not be that, not after the largest invasion in human history.

On the existence of gods

Dominic and I have decided two things. First, we are going to publish the three-round debate with an introduction by him and a conclusion by me as an ebook and audiobook. Second, AFTER the book is published, we are going to continue the debate. Two or three rounds more should be sufficient. Then we will combine the two debates into a single print edition.

Anyhow, I’m interested in the three judges getting in touch here for two reasons. First, to see if they are interested in reprising their role as judges – and I’m talking about the SECOND Christian judge, not the first one. And second, I’d like to know if the Agnostic judge still has his notes and would like them to be included in the book.

It was very interesting to re-read the debate again, since I had forgotten most of it, after reading Umberto Eco’s exchange of letters with Cardinal Martini. And frankly, I thought our debate was not only more interesting, but more intellectually demanding.

Sadly, the impact of my point about the scientific perspective being intrinsically temporally limited by the speed of light being shattered was reduced, though not at all undermined, by the discovery of the CERN researchers that a loose fiber optic cable was to blame for the neutrinos showing up faster than expected.

Neoreaction and the failure of democracy

A very good, very intelligent article called “What is Neoreaction” by Clark, formerly of Popehat.com, at his new group blog Status 451:

Why democracy doesn’t work

In what ways does democracy fail?

First, as noted above, many people vote as an expressive act. The typical Obama voter knew nothing of his policies, but wanted to be “part” of “something”. There are all sorts of cultural and emotional connotations associated with Team Pepsi, and people want to affiliate themselves with those signals. Team Coke is no better: many Republican voters are in favor of a culture of God, Flag, and Apple Pie, and cast a vote for the GOP as an expressive act, without knowing or caring the actual positions of the candidates they vote for.

Second, we are rationally ignorant: even if every voter chose to vote based on policy, not emotions, our individual contribution to the outcome of an election is insanely close to zero, and — at some level — we all know this. Thus, almost none of us bothers to educate ourselves about the candidates and their positions. This is, individually, a smart choice.

Third, democracy has the principal-agent problem: we voters send politicians to Washington DC for — well, for whatever purposes we have. We hope that, once there, they will do our bidding…and we expect to motivate them to do that bidding by using the threat of our future votes and future campaign donations. But a lot is hidden in that “voters hope to motivate them”. Because voters don’t have time or inclination to monitor politicians, and because they tend to vote for expressive purposes rather than policy purposes (think of all the anti-war Democrats who support Obama and his various undeclared overseas wars), politicians need only do just enough to appear to serve the voters, while actually pursuing their own policies.


Fourth, we humans are hyperbolic discounters. Given the
promise of one marshmallow now over two in five minutes, we choose the
one now. Is it any surprise that we, en masse, repeatedly vote for the
politicians who promise us bread and circuses today, and a bill that
won’t come due for … a while?
Fifth, democracy has the public choice problem. There are many
issues which affect each of us very little — ten cents per person in
extra taxes for program X, or three dollars per person more in the price
of a commodity because of trade barrier Y, or a slight bit of extra
hassle in doing thing Z. These hassles, collectively, destroy a lot of
value in our lives, but individually, harm us very little. However,
these small barnacles did not randomly accrete on the body politic —
each is placed there by the dedicated lobbying of some group that
benefits quite a lot from the tax, regulation, or trade barrier.
Ethanol in our gasoline harms all of us a little, but helps a small
influential group quite a lot. The outrageous salaries of some tenured
public school teachers harms all of us a little, but helps a small
influential group quite a lot. As long as one small group benefits from a
regulation, they will be motivated to secure an outsized influence on
politicians. And they will succeed.

However, I would note it should be kept in mind that what the author means by “democracy” here is “representative democracy” and not genuine direct democracy of the sort practiced in Greece, US state referendums, and European national referendums of the sort in which Great Britain is presently engaged. But regardless, a very good article.

My opinion, as I have previously expressed, is that the problems of “mob rule” of which the Founders so famously warned have proven to be considerably fewer and less problematic than the problems of establishing a political elite that uses the illusion of democratic approval as a protective shield. Now that technology makes it viable for larger polities, direct democracy is a moral imperative in any society with a government that is justified by the will of the people.

How can I help?

That is the question we should be asking ourselves regularly, advises Mike Cernovich:

Luck rules our lives, although we can increase our odds of winning – of getting lucky – by taking more spins of the wheel. Thus you must stay busy.

Your life is the sum total of your activities and the people in your life. Be useful to other people. Find ways to meet market demands. Be good to your friends. When is the last time you emailed a friend to say, “How can I help you?”

People are doing poorly at being useful as they believe simply being around a person adds value to their lives. Yet many people are vampires.

Too many people are out for themselves, trying to extract as much value from others as they can.

That’s one way to live, but it doesn’t work for me.

I find ways to be useful to other people, and it works for me.

Instead of wondering why people don’t reach out to you or old friends fall away, why not stop working angles on people, being a manipulator, and simply saying, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Too many of us practice a warped secular churchianity, where we congratulate ourselves for donating a modicum of money here and there to savages we don’t know in lieu of helping our friends and allies.

But you’re not a better person for helping the stranger and ignoring your neighbor. You’re a worse person, you’re a performance artist. As Jesus himself said, even the tax collectors love those who love them and even the pagans greet their own people.

Now what does it say about you if your own behavior doesn’t even rise to their level?

Just as only the strong can turn the other cheek, only those who help their own first can help others.

This is not a criticism; the readers of Vox Popoli are well-known across the Internet for their strength of support. You not only support me, but you support my allies and you support each other. But it is a reminder, to me, if no one else, that instead of waiting for others to ask if they need our help, we should proactively go to our friends and ask if there is anything we can do.

In that vein, I know there are a number of people here who would very much like to attend the Dev Game course, but cannot afford to do so. Perhaps you lost your job. Perhaps your kids need braces. Perhaps you’re a young man who probably shouldn’t be reading here in the first place, but wants to get into game development.

So, in the interest of following Mike’s lead, I’d like to offer seven free course passes to readers who would have signed up for Dev Game if they’d had the ability to do so. Write me an email today with DG in the subject and a one-paragraph description of what you’d like to do in the game industry; I will select the seven I believe will most benefit from the course and send them registration links.

And be sure you can actually attend on Saturdays before emailing me.

UPDATE: A donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, has made 10 additional seats available for those who cannot afford it. So, if you would like to utilize one of those seats, let me know.

I do not want. I WILL.

Mike Cernovich hits another one out of the freaking park.

How to go from “I want” to “I will.”

The first step from going from a day dreamer to a doer is recognizing the self-sabotaging language patterns we use as part of our self-talk.

As with all mindset training, vigilance is crucial. Stop yourself every time you say, “I want.”

When you say to yourself or others, “I want,” pause and reflect in the moment.

Do you want what you say you want?

Perhaps you don’t. I’ve caught myself saying, “I want…,” and upon reflection, realizing I didn’t want that person or thing in my life.

If you desire in your heart what your mind tells you what you want, begin creating a vision of what you want.

Create a clear vision for what you want.

I said on Twitter that the most significant event of 2016 for me was meeting Mike and Milo in Paris. It was pure serendipity; I didn’t really know who Mike was or why he was co-hosting GGinParis with us, but Mike, Shauna, Spacebunny, and I got together for dinner before the event and we really hit it off in a way one seldom does at my age.

I’m middle-aged. I’m reasonably successful, all things considered, and I’m fairly set in my ways. But Mike inspired me and caused me to need to adjust my thinking in a way that hasn’t happened in decades. Somehow, he made me realize that I’m too prone to thinking about things, and planning things, and contemplating things, and not actually DOING things.

I used to only feed on the Dark Side of the Force. I needed negativity to motivate me; I needed to feel the need to vanquish someone, or something, to really get myself in gear. I don’t think it is a coincidence that my best athletic performances have always come against archrivals or in playoff games. But since having the opportunity to sit down and spend some time with Mike a second time, in Spain, I’ve learned how to act without waiting for that motivation, without having a plan in place, and without overthinking the matter.

And I’ve learned that energy and momentum are contagious. Mike has it. I’m more introverted than he is, but I have more energy than most people my age and I’m learning to let it show so that others can be inspired and feed off it the way I am inspired by Mike’s energy.

Mike is right. Mindset is absolutely key; one of the primary factors in most of my successes has been my unshakable confidence in something, whether it is my speed, my strength, my ability to take a shot, or my intelligence. And two of the primary factors in most of my failures has been either laziness – which is a failure of the will – or a lack of willingness to expect excellence from myself or others – which is a failure of confidence.

In the end, it’s not about intelligence or natural gifts, it’s about mindset. Castalia House WILL become the dominant force in science fiction and fantasy. The Castalia Blog WILL become the leading blog in science fiction, fantasy, and wargaming. And Vox Popoli WILL pass 100 million annual pageviews. I know these things will happen because I can already see them happening.

We’re not there yet, but we’re a damn sight closer to them than we were 12 months ago.