Thoughts From Overseas

While having traveled a bit in the past, I was never really anywhere outside the US long enough to be immersed in other cultures or appreciate economic differences.

• The importance of family seems to be stressed much more over here than it is in the US. Although we got here less than a month ago, a local blogger already mentioned my wife. I am trying to bug Gio into making some blog posts here too, but she also works on lots of other websites.


• Lots of meat on a stick here. Which is perfect. :)


• Food for the Gods is aptly named.


• Boba drinks have fruit and multiple boba types in them. Again, surprisingly good. Quickly offers a sweet milk tea boba. I would really love a 24 hour boba delivery service. If you know of one please let me know.


• The warmer climate leads to weight loss. I think I have lost about 15 pounds since coming over here without doing much working out.


• Badminton is big over here. I love virtually all racket based sports, and am hoping I can get my mom to play when she comes over.


• I have yet to play any tennis and am afraid that when my step dad comes over he may beat me again, effectively cutting my ego, self worth, and self image in half. It took years to regain composure after the last time he beat me.


• Malls are super-saturated in Manila. Sometimes at 5pm if you buy something store workers will tell you that you were the first customer all day long. Some malls have a food court with about 60 different vendors. And more malls are being built.


• A few of the malls have pirated media download centers, bootleg brands, and security guards to check you at the door.


• Arcades are a functional business model over here. In the US most arcades are not well maintained unless they are drinking arcades for adults.


• Labor is so cheap here. Even with current gas prices a half hour cab ride can run $2. Even McDonalds has a 24 hour delivery service. But you have to spend the $4 minimum to qualify for delivery service.


• Some of the cabbies try to shake me down for more money because I am white, especially if I am leaving a local hotel because they think I am a tourist. One tried to charge us over 3 times the normal price.


• There seems to be more micro parasitic economics over here than in the US. The cabbie that tries to shake you down for double price, cops that try to pull you over just to get a few books off the record, etc. In the US there is much more macro parasitic economic behavior. For example, MBNA, a credit card company, rewrote the US bankruptcy laws to favor themselves and screw consumers. For the average person macro parasites are probably far worse than micro parasites.


• The dollar has been going down brutally. Yesterday the local paper put the Canadian Dollar above the US Dollar, and online there was an article about gold being at a 28 year high. When we first got here the exchange rate was like 46.6 pesos to a dollar. Its down to 45 to 1 in a couple weeks, which is a noticeable difference if you are paying for a wedding at the best hotel in the country.


• I really understood the DVD zoning after seeing new DVDs on sale for about $4 here. And we saw a movie at a great theater in the Mall of Asia. Together our tickets cost less than $5.


• Traffic is really thick in Manila. Each week day 20% of the cars are not supposed to drive based on their license plate numbers. I suppose there is an arbitrage opportunity in there somewhere. :) In spite of more traffic there are far fewer wrecks over here than in the US.


• And in other news... Cops, soldiers clash with MILF

Why I Still Blog (Though I Would Make Far More if I had Time to do Other Things)

Thank you Aaron. I have spent the past couple of months looking at home business options over the net. It's really been taking it's toll. Everything just seems like a scam. Pressure selling, my email box full of the same shit (just different flavours), and they all want to take what little money I have. To arrive at your site, via About.com, and be treated to your hospitality has, literally, restored my faith in humanity. Your email links, Wikipedia too, advice offer and actual free info. As opposed to F*R*E*E offers with the last minute credit card authorisations. This morning I was in tears, thinking the whole world has gone to hell. Surely I can't join this industry of voltures, and add to it. You have lightened my heart with your thoughtfulness. I wish you every joy in your future, you beautiful person. Yours sincerly, ______ _________

I guess knowing that I give other people hope gives me hope that I can make the world better.

How it is

I used to be quite unhappy because I let people walk on me.
After a few years of telling people what I thought I finally became happy.
That may make it easy for some people to hate me, but that is just the way it is.
Life is too short to be dishonest with yourself or your friends.

Magical Kisses

So one time I kissed my girlfriend at a restaurant. A security guard came up and said that wasn't allowed, claiming this was a family restaurant.

Yesterday another girl totally lost it when my girlfriend and I were kissing at a little bistro. She said Jesus rent a room and other stuff like that. As we ignored her she got louder and violent sounding. She tried saying that it was wrong to kiss in front of her kid who was nearby...but when she was saying it was wrong her kid never noticed us until AFTER she started yelling, and then the kid saw her mom yelling violently and smoking.

If you are worried about setting an example for a kid, is it worse to have the kid surrounded with love or hate? I guess asking these sorts of questions are what makes me and my girlfriend so abnormal...in a good way :)

Kind Generous Fake Gentleman

I am told that I am loved because I am not what is expected. Rather than fitting the mold I am somewhat real....and that is much better than behaving like I should.

Golfer Guy or Driver Dude?

My girlfriend loves going golfing, so I am taking to it. I bought a beginner set of clubs today. Hurt my back. Was on too good of a roll there and probably deserved a bit of slowing down.

Before I whacked my back I hit a 9 iron with killer loft, straight as an arrow, for a sweet 175 yard swing. I think many professional golfers do not have that kind of range with a 9 iron.

I am sure my short game sucks...so hopefully I will learn that quick.

Text is Too Boring...

images and videos coming soon.

Awake

My last post may have sounded negative, but I am just really self critical. Am pretty happy right now.

Still up at 6am from last night. Too hard to sleep as is. Just passing time until I see you again.

Frustrations

Recently...

I got told to pick up my glasses and when I went they said they were broken and reordered. Lovely.

Pulling away from not getting glasses, I backed out my new car slowly and straightly (parked closely next to a tall vehical that probably was not a compact car) while this other car like 2 or 3 spots over backed out quickly and at a huge curve and almost backed into me. Then the lady started cursing as though she wasn't the careless person rushing and nearly wrecking my new car. I had to flip her off on principal.

I was supposed to get my contact lenses delivered via Fedex. They said they would deliver them today and did not. By the time I called to ask why they were not delivered today (as promised yesterday that they would be today) the spot to pick them up was already closed.

People using bad grammar criticise how hard my book is to translate due to poor grammar. Why are they translating my ebook anyway?

An asshole from the UK (they seem to try to be more direct and ruder over there) requested a refund for buying my ebook. In addition to being too stupid or lazy and not reading that my book was an ebook he bitched about that and said my book was not for professionals, yet it has been used as college course text and one of the top 5 book publishers in the world offered to publish my book.

Some idiot created a list of sites to hack and included my site on it.

A guy created a blogspot blog for doling out outdated versions of my blog.

Some idiot stole my about page then tried to pawn the move off as smart marketing. What a desperate loser.

As SEO has gone mainstream my interactions with customers and others have been less positive recently. Lots of other rants I could post, but the good news is I am still really happy right now.

Third Person

Many of the things I write in third person are about me and from me. Many of the things I write in first person are not about me or from me.

I am...

too shallow
too short
too self-absorbed
unappreciative
arrogent and
wasteful

I need to start leveraging my assets better. Take care of the brand equity you built Aaron. Don't waste it just because you can. Stream of conscience bullshit is just that. Use subheaders. Structure your thoughts. Write often. Aim early in the learning cycle. Don't just what if. Start doing. Proactive not reactive. Use consistant formats. Be emotional. Make people laugh and smile. Be remarkable.

Friendly Email

email I wrote to a friend today...

good morning buddy

you got me feeling shitty about all the web2.0 hype... it is the new
email spamming or 300 page long sales letter. lets hope it has a short
shelf life, but I am not certain it will

my identity is quite confused at the moment too. I recently got a
girlfriend who loves me to bits and, well, I find it all so confusing
how pure it all seems when I am generally sooooo pescimistic. and how do
I justify being such a shithead for so long when people can be so
beautiful and things can be so pure?

trying to do too much, and change too quick, to. and at the last
pubcon there were like fans of me... which also fucked up my sense of
identity quite a lot.

Funny How Busy I am

Today...

got heating oil
getting heater fixed
paid bills
bought and sent a christmas gift
wrote a letter
paid rent
fixed the contact and order interfaces on a site
wrote numerous blog posts
kept up with email
catching up with another email account
minor link building for a site
working with copywriter on getting new salesletter on site
found Ipod charger cord

need to...
work out
finish redesigning a site
do a bit more link building
finish catching up on corporate email account
close a lead or two
buy cord for charging cell phone

you know you are too busy when...
you have to put eating on your to do list.

I wish I could send someone I love one of these sweeeeet pillows...but I don't think they are on the market yet.

Alpha Male Asswhole (Beta)

So...

I played tennis with my girlfriend last Saturday. She was beating me...which on some fronts fell cool, but also felt very wrong. So I stepped my game up a bit and started trying to serve fairly hard.

In the first set I came up from down 3-2 to being up 5-3. At that point it was my serve and I said lovey lovey. And she was like awwww. Then I served at about 85 miles an hour with a sweet curve on the serve. She stood in shock and said "there was no love there." And then on the next serve I did the same thing again.

I have only ever played tennis about a dozen times or so and have had no training. Sweet on me for the victory, but as it turns out I threw my back out. I am too damn competitive...to the point of being self destructive. I really ought to work on that!

Caring is Creepy

The post title is the title to a cool song, but recently I have been amazing and inspired with how much people have been willing to trust and rely on me.

Less than a month after launch the ad network idea I came up with is probably already worth well into 7 figures. Some advertisers loved the idea so much that they told me they wanted to do bulk orders. I have not looked into the numbers yet, but I think it is probably already making many thousands each day.

My AdSense site that a partner is building (with my guidance and funding) has had its monthly income go from $600 to $6,000 in the last 6 months, and is still growing quickly.

One kid is quitting his job and moving to another country to live with his family so he can work for me.

At the conference I recently attended many people treated me as though I was a star, but I am just me.

One of my mentors recently asked me for personal advice...which feels backwards because he is MY mentor. :)

A girl who activated portions of my brain that I never knew existed cares enough about me to invite me over for the holidays and she asked her mom all about how I can be so crazy and how to smooth it out.

So many good things are happening that it is hard to keep up with it all.

Incomplete

Less than a half a day away and I am not even back to the grind of working again and I already miss you more than I would like to admit. But I already tell you everything else. Actuary all I can do is think of made up words that make me feel like you are beside me.

Leveling Up

So if you believe in subjective reality then you sorta get to bring what you want into your life. But sometimes to level up you need others at a higher level to help lift you up.

In the last few months I probably leveled up about 11 times...to where many of my past value systems are completely arbitrary on every level. I am not lazier now...I just care about different things.

Less than 3 months ago I was on the lowest level of consciousness possible and since I have changed so fast (I think about 11 levels) that the world is a mixed up place. If you try to grow too quickly invariably you will be crushed by it because there will be so many internal conflicts. You have to unlearn so much of what you learned. So I am sorta trying to level off and maintain while I figure myself out a bit.

I also tend to be quite open with lots of people which means lots of people tend to be quite open with me. That leads to an improved sense of humanity and empathy, but it also puts a lot of weight and confusion on me because I learn of so many conflicts in the lives and minds of people I look up to...the people who have helped me grow and become a better person let me in on things that are holding them back, and I wonder how much responsibility I have for helping them back, and if their faults are my own if I am unable to help them...or if those faults are only in my mind or misunderstanding what they say.

People, ideas, social structures, jobs, value systems, business models, material things, just about anything in the world... at one point in time any of those may help you grow or may hold you back depending on where you are. And some things that help you grow at one point WILL hold you back at others.

And if you are growing really fast it is going to be hard to find influences that will be able to keep pushing you and will still love and understand you as you change. I think I have found some, but feel I owe them so much more than I have to offer at the moment. Not sure if that is a feeling of inadequacy, awe, inspiration, or hope.

Mango Yogurt = Yummy

A glassie of lassie
never would have thought it was so yum or fun
who knew, you?

hehehe

The Error of Errors

Nice abstract title there, eh?

So, is it a bad thing to have really screwed up worldviews for a long time if you are later able to change them? Or do you enjoy the world more realizing how fucked you were for so long before finding your passion?

One of my biggest problems to wrap my head around is that most of the best things in my life have came out of some of the worst things in my life and you really can't isolate one from the other.

At some point you need disconnets to move on, but it feels weird when you think you are prettymuch lucky on every aspect of life, including experiencing all the bad stuff that your environment and bad decisions brought upon by you...because invariably that somehow drove you toward that which you love.

The tragedy of life leads you to beauty and maybe toward appreciating beauty more. How do you isolate the experiences? Or is it better that you can't?

Buttons & Social Awkwardness

Once upon a time Aaron was always socially awkward...even when blogging in third person in past tense when he should be writing in present tense first person.

I think in some ways I enjoy awkward pauses because they are so memorable and funny and are shared bonding points.

But I bring them about so often that you would think that it was entirely intentional. Even when I am not trying to on any level I still create lots of socially awkward pauses. And they go from a wide range...from my shirt buttons to my shoes to how I walk to my speech to my sight. Bizarre. But fun.

I Love You...

I love you
I love you
I love you
etc.

It is funny how words can have no meaning for so long, and when people tell you them they have meaning that if it exists is not transfered, and then to meet people who change your worldview and outlook on life so much that formerly meaningless words suddenly have lots of meaning.

Fear and Anxiety

So yesterday a friend told me they were afraid of something, but they were talking to me fresh out of waking me from a dream and I was all happy and blissful, and was so carefree that I could not even see the reasoning behind their fears and anxiety. Today I woke and thought about it...I feel more than an adequate amount of both. Gulp.

Life Goals...

Everyone should have life goals. And they should change from time to time. Methinks, anyhow.

So my recent life goals were

• get past self sustaining (done)
  
• move closer to friends (December)
  
• stop eating shite food (done, outside of rare lapses)
  
• get fit (80% of the way there methinks)
  
• get happy (done)

And for more longterm goals (why not be ambitious with them?)

• take my current temporary happiness and condition myself to make it permanent
  
• help others be happier (generic goal, but if one were too specific then one would give away business models and verticals and make ones goals much harder)
  
• redefine what the word Patriotism means (and other associated words) in a way so profound that it prevents many wars from occurring
  
• create and/or promote self reinforcing business models that help redistribute wealth and opportunity down the socioeconomic ladder
  
• destroy privatized central banks (by spreading mass outrage by learning more about them and teaching people just how shady they are)

My living philosophy is generally summed up with be happy and make the world better place. Given how much time and potential I wasted, and all the people I have pissed off, I am going to have to do some pretty good stuff to make up for it all.

Happy Stuffs

One person told me this today

Honestly u won of kindest man I have come across online :)
May Almighty shower u with his mercies

and yet today two other people told me things which felt even more lucky and special. I am wondering if my general happiness is here to stick as a way of being. If it is I am going to go from crazy creepy aaron to crazy happy aaron...a good change.

Permanence

It really hurts to be passionate because you end up having to become somewhat hypocritical to become successful, and then when you look back over your own work you realize how much better it could be, but that it can't because the market is disinterested in your true potential and rarely cares about the things that drive you...most people would rather be sold the idea of a pot of gold at the other end of the rainbow than to have to learn and work hard.

Due to flaws associated with humanity it is easier to push something that is slightly above average than it is to keep your work as good as it could be, especially when your customer base is nearly infinitely wide, the "appropriate" techniques in your industry constantly evolve and are never clearly spelled out, and the field you are working in is redefining marketing and what it means to have authority or a profitable publishing business model.

Just about any idea or piece of information is true given some set of circumstances during some point in time. But rarely is an idea universal, profitable, and specific. What % of people do we hurt in an attempt to help others? And where should we draw the lines?

Sometimes I wonder how I would have turned out if I wouldn't have had a persistent nagging sense of inadequacy from birth. If I didn't have it, I would probably be a happier person, but one who cared less, and maybe I would even be a bit less passionate.

I wish I could keep learning as fast as I did a couple years ago while being able to afford enough time to be able to spend that much time learning without selling watered down stuff or feeling some sense of guilt about balancing work / play / learning / mental health / social health.

So far one friend quit their job and just works for me, and another may do so soon as well, but as markets expand in size further specialization is needed to keep your head above water. Business isn't life. Marketing isn't life. I think I just need to be around people a bit more.

And as you gain more freedom and desire more human interaction and your curiosity wanders how long can you hold on to what you are doing. Most every opportunity I have has come out of what I do and yet I somehow feel a need for a break now and then...but I think if you really find what you are meant to do there should never be a need for a break.

Virtual Bad Ass

So I have done quite well on the web. But I have done so while fucking real life up hard core. Being sedentary, socially isolated, and poisoning my body even with the food I eat. It is pretty fucking pathetic, but for the longest time I believed that I had to be unhappy to have the drive necessary to do well...a feeling of a lack of contentment with myself to keep myself improving. And so I used bogus chemicals, poor lifestyle, and other such things to hold me back on some fronts so that I would have the drive necessary to succeed on others.

But that is sorta bullshit...pretty much on every level. I am doing well right now and feel like I am high as a kite. I felt a bit cool and it felt great. I felt a bit warm and it felt great. I saw the colors of the leaves on the trees after coming out of the gym and nearly cried out of happiness. And I still think I can do cool things, in spite of recent happiness.

I also tried helping my brother out recently, and I am not sure if I failed because he was unwilling to change, or because I was so hollow that I had no business trying to help others until I unfucked myself. But him coming here for a bit was probably a great thing for me. He helped strengthen a past social relationship and helped remind me that things do not have to end on a bad note.

The main problem with my perception of the world is, and this is one of the things that Thom Yorke said which smacked me in the face and hit me harder than even his music does...

I definitely had a real moment after OK Computer when I heard other people imitating things that we had done and really didn't like what it sounded like, and really like ... oh my God this is really self indulgent. Have I been responsible for this? That's really awful.

A lot of what drives me in music is depression and personal things, but there seemed to be this indulgence I never wanted to go near again. And also I think more to the point I suddenly realized that a lot of the problems I had weren't actually internal, but they were external. They were to do with my immediate environment, my upbringing, my ... the way I saw the external world. And I had spent a lot of time internalizing it because that was the only thing I knew how to do.

If you are told something long enough you start to believe it. And it takes a long time to unbelieve it.

• Growing up - my 3 siblings (all roughly 6 years older than me) taught me that I was a piece of shit, my dad wasn't really around much, and my mom was overworked and overstressed...too busy
• School - I was never engaged...was typically an outsider. While I got decent grades I did not respect them at all because it was too easy.
• Vision - I was legally blind until half way through high school and did not know it...talk about a nice way to add conflict to your ability to learn and interact with others...and to seed endless self doubt in your mind. Having a somewhat photographic memory while being nearly blind really REALLY fucks with your mind and makes you over-analytical about your errors in how you perceive the world, and helps further make everything your fault.
• Navy - where everyone is taught they are a piece of shit right from the first day...then basic human needs like social interaction, nutrition, physical activity, hopes, dreams, purpose, and sunlight are placed into the unnecessary wants category. No matter how bad it gets you are told both that you are lucky it is this easy and that you deserve whatever you got because you signed up for it.
• Leaving the navy - you are other than honorable and have failed in this life...better luck next one.
• 1st Job after navy - no matter how efficient you were productivity could ALWAYS be better. and they fucked up my pay for a while, and lots of other bad shit happened to where I was financially fucked up. My mom sent me $300 and I returned it to her with a letter about how pissed off I was at the world. My mom cried from that and my grandmother sent me a letter about how I was the biggest piece of shit in the world.

But was all that my fault? Should I have internalized all that and tried to destroy myself with poor life choices, bad social relationships, drugs, and alcohol?

Another way to have that same drive is to appreciate the world more and interact with people more and care more for the world.

When I feel really happy I like to listen to music from people who committed suicide (accidentally or intentionally) to remind me how lucky I am to be alive and still able to experience emotions as vividly as I have been. I also like to read dystopian books which also give me the needed self doubt to keep learning and make me want to work harder to become a better person and to make me want to care more about the future of our planet and those I have been able to meet thusfar.

Some of the people who have helped me change my perspective of the world

• my sister - she has loyalty which would make a dog jelous
  
• my mom - when I was thinking of how to commit suicide and was silently crying with a pillow over my head she somehow knew that I was not doing well and came over and hugged me
  
• alex - my step dad...by making my mom so happy he showed me that unhappiness was not a life choice made at birth
  
• my grandma - she still seems quite happy, even after my grandpa died...she makes me less afraid of social relationships
  
• Tim Berners-Lee - for making the web and for responding to the email I sent him
  
• Scott - helps me believe in myself more and makes me realize that the past is the past
  
• Giovanna - thusfar she cares enough to listen to my craziness
  
• Werty and Daniel - both listen to my craziness too...and I think they both struggle with some of the same issues I struggle with (but probably not as bad as I do)
  
• NFFC, Patrick Gavin, and Andy Hagans - made me much better at business than I would otherwise be.
  
• the dentist - he has been so kind to me, helped fix my jaw (making me think maybe I can undue some of the past), and had a sore back and had to cut my dental appointment short...further reminding me that even if your job is to help other people that if you don't take care of yourself first you can't help others very much
  
• all the people on the web who believed in me when I never did

If I keep up what I have been doing recently I might change from a virtual bad ass to just a bad ass...and hey that would be cool. I just need to get a tattoo now. hehehe

When You Match Wits With Idiots...

you are not holding yourself to a high enough standard.

Neato Dreams

So I had a crazy dream where these people were talking to me about what was worth paying attention to in life and what I should be ignoring. This one person was big at seeing the small details in things. Part of what lead them to that postion is that they were somewhat immobile in that they had a wheel chair and were often in positions where they could look at things deeply because they looked at them so long. But after giving that talk the person who was in a wheel chair was able to turn into an exotic bird and fly wherever they wanted to exceptionally fast. It seems as though I wasn't supposed to notice them do that after we said goodbye and parted ways, but because I was listening to what they were saying I somehow paid attention to the right things at the right time, which is often different than my typical approach.

Quite crazy maybe...but it is always cool to remember dreams.

Happiness vs Laziness

So I generally have had a sense of inadequacy or guilt for one reason or another most of the way through growing up. But I really don't care to think or feel that way at the moment.

Recently I put together a website, a glossary, and have a couple other things that I need to do, but after they are done, I will be prettymuch caught up on the things I feel I have to do.

I am doing well on my own scales and am not so worried about what others think. It is weird though to take a day and do nothing without it being a vacation or something. Like I think if I get too happy that I get quite lazy in nature, but then is it even legitimate to consider working at least 12 hours a day 6.5 days a week normal? That isn't living.

I know I need to keep learning, but I am really not too interested in business for the sake of business at the moment. If I am not learning from what I am doing it is really hard to stay engaged...especially when I lose my (formerly) persistent driving sense of inadequacy that drives me. It is quite a big shift to lose that though...and it would be easy to fear that I need it to stay successful, but I don't think I need to...my market timing was too good (ie: great luck) and there is just too much opportunity.

Equal Parts Beef & Cake...

So I went to the gym today, and was too happy to do my uber aggressive cardiovascular stuff that I normally do.

I went to do some stuff like benching. Recently I have usually done that sort of stuff after the cardio stuff, and in spite of getting in way better shape, I have felt weak...largely because I would be burned out before lifting. Today I was doing like sets of 20 for things that 10 were hard to do in the past.

Stupid me. But I learn. Eventually. Sometimes.

If I Were More Like You...

Sorta interesting and fascinating how interacting with some people change our perceptions of the world so much that those same people view us as being far different than we view ourselves as being...to the point where we start to become what we want to be because others see it in us.

It is even cooler when that is somewhat reciprocal, and you can hear the difference in their voice...and when they do not notice the holes in your personality / self esteem / ego because they don't exist when you are around them.

I have numerous friends that I talk to where I sorta get that sense...George, Giovanna, and Scott...and then maybe even Daniel and Andy from time to time. All for vastly different reasons though. And all great, at least thusfar!

When do you stop trusting self defeating worldviews and accept that they don't have to be that way? How much do you allow yourself to trust other people who change your perception of the world? What happens if and when you fall out of favor with those people? Why should I worry about potential downsides when I should just be enjoying life and the cool friends I was lucky enough to meet?

ostentatious

one of my favorite words

my friend just used that word talking to a designer...I didn't think people used that word in real life.

The Phat Rail of Coke Progam

Cocaine is not something I ever did much or have done recently, but recently I feel like I just had a phat rail of coke like all the time most every day. These are some of the contributing factors:

• I went from eating trash to eating healthy food.
  
• I went from sedintary to exercise guy.
  
• I talk a lot to a really cool girl.
  
• It would be hard to imagine me getting (or even wanting) any more business opportunity than I have right now.

I even feel as though I have a bit of purpose right now. Yesterday I slept four hours. Two hours the day before. ... Craziness...

The Perception of Self Worth

I generally think I have held a quite low perception of self worth throughout my life. I feel great now, and as though I am closing the gap between how I view myself and how others view me...which makes me appreciate how fucked up my worldview was even more...and how I was able to do well in spite (or maybe because of) it.

I think one of the best gifts anyone can be given in life is a handicap or large perception related error (compare with those around them), because

• with each filter through which you view life you get to live another life
  
• if you don't fit well under other's value systems you are more likely to create your own
  
• if you overcome HUGE errors in your worldview or the way you live you are going to more easily relate to other's problems - and thus you can really help people, and better understand the driving psychological forces driving many markets

Of course there are trade offs, and there is a risk of self destruction or not being able to get past you biggest handicaps or errors, but if you get past them you get to live another life. Two for the price of one.

Happiness Check

This is a funny "stat" but it is what it is.

I used to be in the military and have a bank account associated with being in the military.

When I am slothlike and depressed and go to the post office a guy who works there asks me "were you in the military"?

When I am happy and exercising and go to the post office a guy who works there asks me "is your dad in the military, or was he in the military?"

So in essence I go from old guy who shows his age to an obvious college student when I am neither. :)

Why I Do Well On the Web

I think naturally I have many talents that I typically chose not to appreciate or acknowledge. Or, when I do acknowledge them, I usually chalk them up to being a result of luck or naturally given - nothing more. Ever!

And I think nearly everyone suffers from being a genius who poorly communicates their genius. Many power structures and value systems largely exist to PREVENT you from finding out how to express your true genius. Many aim to cure you from being human, or exist just to divert your attention away from reality.

On the web, due to an exposure to a timeshifted aggregated audience I play down the effect of anything I may ever say or do. Largely my actions are purely selfish, because I want to understand me (how do I do well with some stuff and why do I screw up life so bad on other fronts). I am largely expressing my thoughts only (or at least primarily) for me, so I can write with a clarity that I can not easily match when I speak. Writing to myself allows me to erase self doubt.

When I talk to others in person I forget what a meshwork human language is, or what pieces of my experience may overlap with others. For example, I consider many words to be filler largely because based on my set of experience they were words that lacked their intended traditional meaning when used.

Don't get consumed by false stats. Just say no!

What I do find though, is that the more you try to figure yourself out, the more others will appreciate and identify with you. Even if you are embarassingly immature, naive, or ignorant. Everyone starts from somewhere.

Generally people will only find things interesting if it is easy for them to identify and relate to what you are saying. In small groups the nonverbal feedback is so powerful that it is hard to be bad at communicating if you pay attention to the people you talk with, but as the group size scales that gets harder, and it is easier to seem selfish if you take random stabs at reality instead of ebbing and flowing with the group. And I tend to create many akward silence moments.

For example, out of a group of about 12 people the only person who was interested in hearing more of my story about how I accidentally dialed 911 was another person who did the same thing. The web allows you to throw out a lot of "dumb ideas" and let audiences self select the value and relevancy of your information.

But if you can break down your successes, or the successes of others, it is easy to replicate that knowledge and those patterns into new fields you once considered beyond your reach / knowledge / understanding.

As long as you realize you are not growing as quickly as you should be, and have wasted potential the world is going to be an ugly place where your eyes are black, the tide is out, and you reach for artificial engery sources.

But if you can understand how to replicate success, create your own value systems, and can passionately communicate them to others then some of the best things in the world will just come to you...dreams, hope, passion, purpose, business deals, amazing friends, knowledge, self-respect, love, happiness, etc. And they will do so at a faster and faster rate so long as you keep learning and do not let success go to your head. You can have endless growth, as long as you are willing to be uncomfortable and keep redefining growth on your own terms.

Goals, etc.

I just noticed I exceeded a goal. Yippie.

When I first made this blog I had this message in the admin area

Hi author of this blog. You are the greatest! Keep writing and eventually it will be in a book.

How funny that it took me this long to consider myself to have reached that goal. I never noticed that I passed that goal when a huge publishing company offered to publish me, I never considered that i achieved it when I turned them down, and I never considered it done when I sold way more than the average published book.

It took me until now...when I recently spent a while ignoring my marketing, and spent a bit of time learning from mentors and reaching outside of my industry for me to realize how lucky I have become. How often can you ignore your work and have it provide you enough freedom to go anywhere or learn anything you want to?

I love messages that you see so often that you forget them, and then only noticing it by accident to realize that you predicted your own future. It makes me feel far more inspired, and like I should aim much higher, but it is time to change the message to a new (and better) one.

I think every website, every business, and every relationship should have a passion driven goal associated with it that you can forget and come back to down the road.

Of Significant Insignificance

Sometimes I get pretty down on myself (especially after I act immature, irresponsible, or hurt someone else's feelings), but one of the best things for me when I start to get too self critical is to realize just how short life is and how small we are in the role of the universe.

Feeling insignificant is liberating because it makes it so much easier to be flawed without drawing on the flaws so much that they become the focus of your life, and a source of endless negative energy.

Once you think of yourself as being insignificant in the grand picture it makes you more willing to seek and explore and find what you really should be. You can think of yourself as being like an item an auctioneer once described to the bidders... "only a little bit broken." :)

And for most people, the broken parts are just as likely (if not more likely) to help you find purpose and happiness instead of being a source of depression or isolation, at least if you leverage your broken bits correctly.

Everything is broken. Everything is recycled. Everything is in a constant state of change. But that is what makes life interesting. You have to leave your comfort zones if you want to grow.

Pics....

http://picasaweb.google.com/seobook/

Time for a Wardrobe Change

As many readers know, I am known to wear internet t-shirts. I have recently decided to build out my wardrobe to deemphisize internet. My wardrobe now consists of 3 equal parts: internet, Nintendo, and Radiohead.

More to come, soon... :)

Honest Early

So Saturday my brother is flying back to California. The day after he said he was NOT coming here I bought a ticket to go on a vacation touring Europe for a few weeks. Then a few days latter my brother showed up.

He lived here for about 2 months and I was gone for about a month of it. I never would have planned that to happen. I am somewhat disappointed that this town is so far removed from what he wanted, but it was sorta the same for me when I first moved here. Leaving him here was a somewhat shitty thing to do, and even when I was here, I was usually too busy working to be human.

That too busy to be human shit is for the birds as well. It is not really living. I need more outlets, and I know that I am busy, here is $20 doesn't say I love you. Not nearly enough, at least. And it never did. Ever.

I would have loved to been able to show him more of the world and help him more, but there were too many conflicting emotions running through my family. Everyone had a separate piece of advice and way to help him or me (or both of us mutually), and ultimately I think he and I were tore up from typical conflicts associated with being brothers, and the concept of everyone thinking and saying how I was to help him (also seemingly forgetting that in many ways he was trying his best to help me).

Given all of that, him not being around the person he loved most, him having AIDS and needing medication soon, the web job I gave him being so boring and isolated, (and him getting off of doing some bad things while I still occasionally may do similar things from time to time), if I were him I probably would have resented me (and the associated hypocricy and the whole situation quite a bit too).

I hope I helped him while he was here, but ultimately it is up to each of us to change how and when we want to. If we want to. You can pour endless energy into trying to help others, but if your help is not what they want (and you yourself are far from being who you need to be), or they perceive the world in a far different light than you, then there is going to be some rough patches.

I realized it wasn't working out as well as either he or I may have wished for, but I decided to be honest early and ask him if he wanted a trip back. His plane leaves tomorrow. I am giving him a couple grand so hopefully he can use it to get some stability in his life. He thanked me for giving him stability, but he seemed exceptionally focused on instant gratification (and I guess using drugs for a long time might train you to be that way). I am not sure if stability is what he wants? And, of course, stability is not enough if there are others you love. And realistically I would rather love and be loved in a gutter somewhere than have stability, emptiness, and missery coupled together.

I am fairly certain we are parting on good terms, which might not have been the case if I asked him to endure another couple months of my mixed up and overworked schedule in a town that he did not fuse well with.

All relationships eventually end. People move away. People die. People break up. You just spent a minute of your short life reading this post. The Sun will eventually burn out. Stuff happens. I think it is important that I have social relationships that end on a positive note. So few of mine from my childhood seemed to have. Best of luck Jim. Stay safe.

See ya down the road.

Love ya bro,
Aaron

The Day I Grew Up

Yesterday I turned 27. While I like acting like a kid, the fact is that some of the things I do which once helped me succeed are arbitrary, antisocial, and probably hold me back from the person I could become.

How many days out of the week do I put poison into my body? Probably at least 6.5. And that is pathetic. I know better.

Rather than trying to make perfect sense of the world, or trying to make the world fit what I want it to be, I should spend a bit more time being a person worthy of the resources I waste. And it is only a waste if you do not enjoy it to its full potential. Which I don't on most days. And that is shameful given the resources and opportunities and friends I have.

I have the freedom to be able to travel the world. Even while I was on vacation I think I made more than it cost to be on vacation. Thousands of people read what I write and give me feedback when I am fucking up. I have dozens of amazing friends who are only isolated by geography.

Sure I like a blissful excursion now and again, but how can I tell others that we should live with passion and then sit on the cusp of burnout, poisoning myself each day?

It is overwhelming sometimes to think how we can be so good at some things and so bad at others. But beyond the idea of natural gift the more common flaw is being led by fear. Or just a lack of experience.

Fear, like blinding belief

I need to stop building things up and knocking them down and building them up and changing what I think to fit my flavor of the day emotions. I need to actively raise my baseline such that I can find a way to cross expression and passion in a meaningful way almost every day.

So today there will be: No poison. No judgement.

And more importantly you can't do what you want by only stating what you do not. In absence of purpose poison becomes appealing. Thus today my goal is to appreciate the world more than I did yesterday. And hopefully try my best to do that everyday. Hopefully this is not a passing fling.

I am Way Too Needy

I am too needy of an individual. It is a really bad trait when you combine it with a bit (or maybe a lot) of emotional instability, social isolation, being constantly overanalytical, and a history of mental abuse (mostly self inflicted hehehe).

This poem is about having relationship problems with the world, and how trying to see the world too differently than what others see can be suicidal.

The title of that poem is "The Crash" and the content itself is about different types of crashes most people go through

• a mental one from putting too much stress on yourself, or letting others do it to you
  
• an emotional one from realizing how much of your life and potential you wasted
  
• an emotional one for feeling that it is too late to change your broken ways
  
• an emotional one for realizing how you should appreciate life more than you do
  
• an emotional one for realizing how much you will hurt other people if you don't start caring more about living
  
• a social one from not being able to communicate clearly
  
• a social one from expecting others to be more understanding
  
• a chemical one from using too many drugs
  
• a physical one from poor diet or exercise
  
• a physical one from when the emotion / chemical / mental instability finally catch up with you in the real world
  
• death or suicide when you have had too much of any or all of the above

At the end it says "he wasn't clever enough to make it look like an accident" which is another way of saying that rarely are the results of our actions or inactions an accident or surprise, but that when we go against the grain and against the odds eventually the odds catch up with you.

The World of Words

How many different ways can you write similar glowing messages about a holidy you largely ignored for much of your life before it starts to chip away at your soul.

And a Few Words From Our Sponsor

I think the hard part is realizing that in our own unique ways at all times we are all commercials, marketers, actors, etc.

And if I wasn't selling so much would I live a happier life?

Because I am ok at self preservation it does not mean I have reached anything near my potential.
Quite shameful really.
Spirituality needed.
But I rely on commerce.

Buying. Selling. Hoping. Dreaming. Dying.

And because we are all emotional humans there is great waste associated with that cycle.

Everyone else wants to draw the line for you. But if you draw your own, you get to be Picasso.

I so need an artistic outlet!

Happy Bday to the trose.

Undermining Authority Figures and Changing Worldviews

I love learning about things which cause me to change my worldviews and value systems.

Typically the type of information that does that is stuff which questions authority and the way it has always been. We are taught from a young age to subscribe to an authority trusting worldview so that we can be exploited for various forms of profit.

As you peal away the bogus layers of authority and associated fraud you get a much better view of humanity uninhibited by the fraud and arbitrary contraints associated with those who want to exert extreme coercive persuasion over the lives of others. And it gives me hope that I can help think up ways to live life more fully than I have, and if I am lucky sort out ways to undermine bogus authority on a grand scale.

People act in quite predictable ways. Many of the fraud business models bank on people not seeing beyond a framework that is set up, or having no reach for their message if they do see beyond it. The web allows you at least somewhat of a workaround to those problems, and search allows you to intercept the minds of people dealing with serious problems (perhaps problems far greater than my own trivial garbage I rant about). I am always one in need of some greater purpose to be happy, but at least for a little bit I think I got one again. Yippie.

But then again it is not enough to just tear things down, you have to help think up ways to build things back up. Which is hard given my limited and biased worldview.

I used to kinda hate the idea of learning, teaching, and doing marketing because I think that ultimately most marketing is about manipulating others for personal gain, but what if you could find a profitable and scalable business model that enriched participants in the depth and quality of their lives? Not saying I could do it. Just that I think it would be cool. And love when others do it to me.

I also know when I am excited and motivated because I read and type letters in the wrong order. I think we all have some natural baseline level of dyslexia that comes out more or less depending on our congruent moods.

Spectacle

So last night a guy called me, who seemed like a fan. Quite weird that to me...that someone would think highly enough of me to be a fan.

I am so fucked up with life on so many fronts, and that is most likely largely because I tell myself that I am and then act the part, but it still is quite odd to me that some people like me that much.

I know I need to like myself more, but I think one of my biggest problems is that most of my self improvement initiatives are contrived bullshit where I try to make a spectacle of myself rather than taking a holistic look at what I really want out of life.

I should be beyond thinking what I want to do yesterday today or tomorrow. And maybe if I spent a bit of time away from the web I will find what I want. Weird that typing text is about my only expressive outlet or social connection with other people. But it is truthfully quite arbitrary. Electrons flow. It means nothing more than that. And never will.

I can't expect others to like me and for it to mean anything until I learn to like myself and have expressive outlets that do not involve the web or drinking or other ways of acting stupid.

Why Do Moods Change Quickly? And do They Usually Have Reason?

You are what you tell yourself and you get what you want.

Not sure if it will always be that way, but for me all I have to do is tell myself to stop living pathetically when I am doing shitty at something and then willfully desire to change it...and then magically it changes :)

Like right now I still am socially inept a bit (or maybe a lot) but I have went out a few times recently and had fun. I probably drank a bit more than I should have ;) but even after drinking a bit I was turning down free drinks from the bartender, which shows that I don't have to be a jackass when I go out and drink, and that I can (at least sometimes) accept and know my limits.

I have been working out quite a bit recently. Mostly just shooting hoops and doing the elliptical machine. Yesterday I did tons of ab stuff. I was almost certain my abs (which used to be stupidly stupidly stupidly strong - in bootcamp I could do way more sit-ups than the guy in the division who became a SEAL) were sorta shot forever after a few years of being an office chair warrior. But when I did exercises I was able to do a near infinite set of sit ups on the lean back bench thingie.

The next day I am a bit sore, but not too bad really.

And I eat bunches of sea food - something I never would of thought I would do much.

And recently I have also replaced garbage oversugared yogurt drinks with carrot juice and tomato juice.

...and the post is finished on day 2...

Things I may still want to fix:

• be awake during the day more (why am I making this post wide awake after midnight)
  
• eat a bit more vegies
  
• not push people away so much
  
• For as good as I feel right now, I still think life is pretty pointless. The worst part about that is that as I become more successful I feel that life has less purpose (and generally have less faith in humanity). I am thinking about doing some traveling and soul searching away from the computer.

When I exercise a lot I feel life has purpose, but it seems that even after just one day of physical inactivity life quickly loses its purpose again. Which sorta shows that I am didn't know what I was talking about when I wrote most of this yesterday.

I think a cool project for someone more artistic than I would be to write pieces of things one day and then finish them at different points in time and see how much their worldview has changed since they started writing it, and then try to figure out the reasons for the mindshift.

.... 6 hours later ....

Am really happy again. And, of course, without reason :) Or maybe I told myself to be happy. Or maybe it was The Eraser.

I am Soooooooo Shallow...

I have a history of drinking way too much way too often, but so long as I am really happy before I drink that rarely happens. If you drink way too much it is easy to become very primal where core level (perhaps reptilian) thoughts control your actions. Obviously that is no good. So moderation is my friend who I should learn to hang out with more often.

So tonight I went out and was bored to tears. I only had 3 drinks total over 3 hours, deciding to be happy and reasonable and not an uber lush. My biggest problem with the town I am in as far as nightlife is that the clubs either have nobody in them or they are so packed that it is quite hard to just stand.

While I often tell myself otherwise (ie: lying to myself to justify my own stupidity and past actions), I think if I am actively engaged I am quite good at nonverbal communication. It sucks though when all you can do is stand around though. It is totally useless.

And I so have to rely on nonverbal communications to meet new people because I am self employed and meet few people AND my verbal skills are quite poor.

When programming in Basic or Pascal the teachers would look at what I did and say it was wrong or dysfunctional before testing it, yet if you used the program I created it would typically have fewer lines of code than "correct" software and still work.

I remember in high school a math teacher took points off for my work even though the test answer was correct. He wanted me to show more work than I was showing, but I tend to skip steps.

The same thing occurs with verbal communication. I assume others think about the same steps that I do and make notice of the same patterns or correlations I see, when usually people are like WTF until I try to explain the steps in my thought process. Combine that with a low self confidence level, traditionally having poor vision, and most likely a near photographic memory and it becomes easy to see how I create so many awkward silence moments when communicating, especially around people I do not yet know well.

I think that is part of why I do ok with the web. The prejudice it quite dropped and people learn you over time. It is also ok to be yourself and those who want to understand you will, whereas offline I am more prone to being misunderstood and/or growing quickly frustrated.

Recently I have been getting many blog comments on my blogs telling me to fuck off. Maybe online is starting to catch up with offline. Or maybe I have a magnetic (as in repulsive) personality.

In following up with my shallowness of this post, here is my picture on hotornot.

I am at best average, and that is even when I made my hair a crazy cool color. Doah. I also do not smile that much because I always think I look weird when I do.

It is amazing how different people can look in pictures. This girl (who has nuclear and engineering as tags and goes to school in the town where I live - if only she had internet as a tag I would have to bug her) looks like a goddess in her first pic, then pretty cute in the second, and then still cute but not really to the godess level in the third.

My Brother...

Is a bit sick right now.

I have some work I need to do, but I am slacking on it. I feel sad that he is sick, and I feel even sadder that I get so caught up in petty shit that I do not allow myself to appreciate life as much as I should. I am quite pathetic in many areas for as successful as I am in others. If only I believed in myself more.

I hope my brother gets well soon. I want to hang out with him again.

My mom is at least 10 times as strong as a person as I. She flew out and is visiting him right now.

All My Friends Have Internet

I so need to make a tshirt that says that :)

I Don't Belong Here...or do I?

So I am at Disney right now. About to go out and about for a walk.

Yesterday I took a group van to the hotel, and in spite of 3 of us near the back of the van all going to the same place nobody really talked much until someone asked a quick question then I started blabbing and we talked a bit.

One of the girls asked where I was from and
I said central Pennsylvania
she said and ...
I said and what
she said who are you here with who do you work for
I said just me. I am a blogger.
she said can you make enough doing that
I was like yup

I just got my badge and it says "agency" on it. WTF was I thinking when I did that. I am not a schmoozer (although I do have a business partner that is a killer shmoozer but not here) and I have a hard time being interested in business beyond theoretical levels unless I have a deep passion in the topic. I have never been a fan of categorizing people, either...especially when I feel I only became successful when I defied categorization or pushed to create my own category.

Truth be told I am not a mixer really. I get really bored by people unless I really feel I know them, like them, am interested in them, and can trust them.

At business meetings with people you just met that trust thing is going to be a really limited resource...just because business is all about getting ahead, and more often than not it is by doing whatever it takes (to accumulate wealth or influence at the expense of others). So I guess meeting people under the whole pretense of business is kinda not my thing (it's no better than meeting people drunk, but while meeting them you are inebriated by capitalism).

And as much as there is the issue of boredom there is also the issue of feeling fake in myself. I am not all about making money really...I have enough to get by, so me getting deep into business stuff is just blah, like the motivation is not there.

I love music. It is what gets me on from day to day and I think I would like to be a musician because it would be really hard and I have no skill at all, and it is a land full of uncertainty.

I need to work on things that improve my self confidence in things outside of the web and my core business interests, but I have never really had more than a few friends at any given point in my life. Now I guess I have a bunch, but live near none of them.

Outside of business and / or being a drunk idiot I really have limited social contact with others (and I don't drink often anymore). When I do meet new people it usually has to be just a few people and while hanging out with another friend.

If groups get too large I feel drowned out and sit back too far and am too quite. Also many people do not get my jokes, like I usually have to follow them up with "just kidding" because I am too deadpan when I tell them.

I also am quality at creating awkward silence moments. I have yet to meet a person who does that as well as I do. It is not something I intentionally do, it just comes from my thought patterns.

I often skip a logical step in a sequence because I think in patterns that (from my experiences) must be at least sorta rare. I have done things like look at a set of stairs and at a glance said 15 or 33 and saw the exact number of them. Or I look at a waterfall and notice the support beams for the awning have pipes in them that run the water up to the waterfall. Weird shit like that. Why do I think of that? Why does it matter? I presume other people see things the same way that I do when I am soooooooooo pragmatic and over analytical.

I think part of that could be from having to interpret hidden meaning in things. Like not being able to see for a long time (literally being legally blind until half way through high school without knowing it). What is weird is that at times I am almost certain that I not only have poor vision but that I also have a photographic memory. Like on switchboards full of fuses I can just rattle off fuse ratings even if the data and numbers are pointless and without meaning. And this ability also creates awkward silences because other people say things and I pick up on the bits that do not match the numbers I know to be right even if the numbers are trivial in the grand scheme of the situation or story.

That sort of lens I realize is a good thing because it forced me to be able to get the bonus of living two lives for the price of one. Lenses that you can turn on and off are really cool as well, because they allow you to visualize life in multiple ways.

But social relationships also provide additional lenses, and I really am too isolated for it to be all too healthy. And I have had really good times before even at bad points in life...like when I was almost bankrupt and making about $10 a day I still met one of the coolest girls I have ever met. I think part of that was because I was hanging out with a fun friend, and another part was because I think I knew I was pissed off enough at the world to do whatever it took to make my own condition better. I was hungry and that opened up opportunities, not only business opportunities, but also social ones.

Disney is the land of opportunity...or mischief maybe? Off to walk around. I wish I could think of the world as being as magical as I used to when I was 6. I want that back.

But now I am just too fat and comfortable. Maybe I should move or do something else that is really disruptive.

I also feel the world deserves better out of me. I used to work much harder than I have recently and I used to have way more passion. I feel like I have hit a plateau and need to look for inspiration and meaning in life again.