But you wouldn’t know that (and you definitely wouldn’t feel that sentiment) if you were plugged in and connected to social media all day.

The Algorithm Wants You Scared

These days the algorithm is flooding my timeline with Epstein files drama, World War 3, advancements in AI that will supposedly replace 90% of the workforce because it can do all these wonderful things, yet there’s still no real-world examples or proof of any of these incredible “1 person, $100 million, 100% AI” startup companies.

And yes, I’m also not ignorant of the fact that right now we’re dealing with the highest levels of inflation, political scandals, mental health problems, low birth rates, and a global migration crisis…fuck… you name it. But in terms of opportunity, it’s hard to argue that right now is not the best time to be alive.

However, mainstream media wouldn’t have you believe that. It would rather have you scared, pessimistic, and glued to the TV, continuing to tune in to their fear-mongering doomer program.

Why We’re Wired to Doom-Scroll

We were not meant to be consuming this much content and be this informed about every global affair. Yet somehow we were tricked into believing that we have to stay up to date with every current event or else we’ll get left behind. I think it’s part of our biology and part of our nature to want to stay informed. Even in ancient civilizations, long before the printing press, we were conditioned to seek gossip because every piece of information you got could have been life-saving.

Oh no, Genoese ships are unloading plague corpses in Messina — bar the ports and head inland before the Black Death spreads! (1347 — killed 30–60% of Europe.) [1]

Oh no, Diocletian’s tearing down churches and executing priests — deny your faith or flee the countryside! (303–311 AD — the bloodiest Roman crackdown on Christians.) [2]

Oh no, the legions are coming back from Parthia covered in pustules — quarantine the camps or the empire collapses! (Antonine Plague, 165–180 AD — likely smallpox, killed 5–10 million.) [3]

Oh no, a black cloud of locusts is blotting out the sky — harvest everything now or abandon the fields! (Ancient locust plagues — one swarm could eat a year’s crops in hours.) [4]

But now we have an overabundance of information, and it is interfering with the clarity of our thoughts. And unfortunately, the news is not here to provide us positivity and optimism. It is here to keep us scared, because that is what keeps people tuned in and this is what keeps these news outlets paid.

But honestly, I had to ask myself this a while ago… Do I really give a single fuck if Israel and Iran are throwing missiles at each other?

Do I really care what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine?

Do I care at all about Venezuela and their dictator president getting snatched up by Trump’s military?

And truthfully, the answer to all of these global events is absolutely fucking not.

Maybe I’m just a heartless selfish capitalist, but truthfully, unless it is affecting my immediate community and family, or it is something that’s going to have an immediate effect on my sovereignty, freedom, or economic purchasing power, then to me, this is all one big distraction. And my attention is better spent on dealing with the immediate problems around me right now that I actually have control over and can fix.

Problems of Abundance

Back then, our ancestors faced problems of scarcity. Not enough food, water, or shelter; a constant battle with the elements and nature, invading tribes, and definitely not enough information to help prepare them for all of it.

But now it seems we face the complete opposite problem: problems of abundance.

To quote Naval from one of my favourite podcasts ever made back in 2019 — which oddly enough becomes far more relevant year after year:

Most of modern life, all our diseases are diseases of abundance. Not diseases of scarcity. In old times I may have starved. In old times I may have gotten some sugar and that was a wonderful thing. I should have eaten all the sugar I could have gotten my hands on. If I had gotten a piece of news or gossip that was interesting data that could have helped my life and move me forward. Now

these are all diseases of abundance. We are overexposed to everything. In order to survive modern society, you must retreat from society and become an ascetic. Too much society everywhere you go. Society in your phone, society in your pocket, society in your ears…everyone’s trying to program everybody. The only solution is to turn it off. — Naval Ravikant, The Joe Rogan Experience #1309 (2019) [5]

The Gatekeepers Are Gone

So if you’re like me and lately you’ve been feeling like you’ve been losing your optimism, your childlike sense of wonder; I think maybe it’s time to unplug for a little bit.

But also… reflect on how fucking far we’ve come and how lucky we are to be alive today.

The meta-opportunity nobody talks about: the barrier to entry for almost everything meaningful has collapsed. Starting a business, publishing writing, learning a skill, reaching an audience, accessing capital, building software, creating music — all of these required enormous institutional gatekeeping even one generation ago. The Medici had to fund your art. A record label had to sign you. A publisher had to accept your manuscript. A bank had to approve your loan. Now? The tools are available. The platforms exist. The knowledge is accessible. The cost is a fraction of what it was.

This pessimism and nihilism that modern society is facing is real, but it’s essentially an information processing failure. The negativity bias is biological — we’re wired to pay more attention to threats than to opportunities because that’s what kept us alive on the savanna. [6] The algorithm exploits that bias because attention is the currency. But the actual material reality of being alive in 2026 is staggeringly, almost incomprehensibly good compared to any prior era.

The Stoics would have called this act of doom-scrolling exactly what it is: a failure to see clearly. Seneca wrote about this exact phenomenon; people surrounded by abundance who convince themselves they’re suffering because they’re focused on the wrong things. [7] The cure isn’t less information. It’s better attention. And ironically, the tools for that are also better than they’ve ever been.

Log Off

I’ve disappeared for more than six months at a time. Each time I’ve come back, the world is almost exactly as it was when I left it. Okay cool, after this last 6 month hiatus there’s now a new tool called Claude Code and apparently we’re all vibing, building cool shit and we’re basically all wizards now. But has it had the cataclysmic effect that everyone online is making it out to seem?

No.

And I would argue, life is even better now with that tool readily available to all of us for $20/month… there is no going back to the old world now.

Life is actually great, but the fucking algorithm made me worried, pessimistic, and anxious… and that is why I logged off. And maybe you should too.

Here’s something I do every now and then, a mental exercise. Whenever I catch myself spiralling into pessimism from too much online consumption, I sit somewhere quiet and actually think about what we have access to right now. We can talk face-to-face with someone on the other side of the planet for free, learn any skill ever documented, and access more knowledge in five minutes than a medieval scholar could gather in a lifetime…all from a device in our pockets. We live in an era where we’re editing genes and curing diseases that wiped out entire civilizations. Pharaohs died from infected teeth. Medieval kings couldn’t heat their own castles. A scholar in 1400 would have spent his entire life trying to access a single manuscript that we can download on our lunch break for $0.99 on Kindle. We are living better than every emperor, prince, and robber baron who ever lived, and we’ve been convinced by an algorithm — designed to keep us angry, anxious, and glued to a screen — that everything is falling apart. It’s not. The doomer porn on our algorithm isn’t reality. It’s a business model. Try it. Step away long enough to see what’s actually in front of you, and you might realize that the problem was never the world. It was the lens.

Sources

[1] Ole J. Benedictow, The Black Death 1346–1353: The Complete History (Boydell Press, 2004). Estimated death toll: 30–60% of Europe’s population.

[2] Timothy D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Harvard University Press, 1981). On the Diocletianic Persecution, 303–311 AD.

[3] R.J. Littman & M.L. Littman, “Galen and the Antonine Plague,” American Journal of Philology, Vol. 94, No. 3 (1973). Estimated 5–10 million deaths.

[4] Various ancient sources including Pliny the Elder, Natural History, and Old Testament references to locust plagues in the ancient Near East.

[5] Naval Ravikant, The Joe Rogan Experience #1309 (June 2019).

[6] Rozin, P. & Royzman, E.B., “Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion,” Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2001).

[7] Seneca, Letters from a Stoic (Letter 2 and Letter 78 in particular address the restlessness caused by consuming too much without purpose).

a square?

would my younger self look at me today and say “what happened?… you used to be cool… you used to have dreams and this intense passion to explore all your creative ideas and projects…”

but now… it seems like all you care about is making money and staying ahead of the “AI DOOM curve”…

The Night I Realized I’d Traded My Identity for a Revenue Target

it was 3:22am… it was one of those nights where i woke up at 1:40am and I was sleepless, looking up at the ceiling, thinking about how long it had been since i opened up Ableton Live to finish one of the many songs i had sitting on my hard drive collecting dust…

I had gotten so lost in this pursuit of money trying to build and scale my newly formed agency that nothing else mattered… and in that process i lost a big part of myself.

My entire identity up until i was 28 years old was being the “music producer guy”… or more precisely that ‘80s Synth-wave Dude.”

Although i was making a decent income already (NETting around $65k/year in a country where the average salary is $7k/year) i still felt like i wasn’t making enough… like i should be making more. After that COVID spectacle, I spent too much time consuming content on geo-politics, economics, and entrepreneurship — and i became susceptible to this DOOMER mentality that the world was ending soon and the window of opportunity to get rich was closing in on us.

It was at this point in 2022 that I decided to explore a new industry to pivot into. I saw Creator & Talent Management as something i could do… it was a perfect storm of all this red-pill content peaking in 2021–2022, convincing me i had what it takes — and so i decided fuck it… let’s go into that…

Well… long story short. I found some success. i am talking about my income jumping from sub-$70k/year to, in my first year, NETting more than double that — and the year after, double again.

It was insane… i had never experienced this kind of money before. I didn’t think this kind of money was even possible… but… i kept comparing myself to other big players in this space… the guys that were making $500k and $1M/month… they were in a whole different league and i kept thinking to myself… why was I so far behind?… wtf was I doing wrong?… not taking in and reflecting on how far i’ve already come from my early humble beginnings of entrepreneurship — charging $25 CAD/hr (really only NETting half of that due to studio rental fees) and doing mixes and masters for $100 CAD for my artists… to now… literally being at a point where if i only made $1k NET in the day, that was considered a shit day and i would begin to panic a bit and wonder wtf was wrong with the business?…

And so, as the old adage goes, “comparison is the thief of joy”… and i too got lost in this endless hustle culture that truly leads nowhere…

It had been over 2 years since i last opened up Ableton Live…

why?

It felt IRRESPONSIBLE to open Ableton Live and indulge in one of my “passions” and “joys” in life. Yes, i’m talking about my childhood “hobby” turned “business.” The one that financially backed this new enterprise, which was now responsible for the livelihood of 5 other full-time employees. I could never enjoy a moment to myself again since i always felt this pressure to be continuously looking for new tactics, strategies or any information that could take my business to the next level of hitting $100k months and eventually $1M months… even when i DID have free time in the afternoon… this insane guilt that i wasn’t doing enough would overwhelm me and i would stop what i was doing and go back to consuming some Alex Hormozi or Global Economics video to “stay on top of things” and to “always be ready” and “prepared for the worst to come”…

Year after year i felt myself forgetting who I was and finding life to be quite dull and bland…

How Steven Pressfield’s Two Books Snapped Me Out of It

I was about to turn 30 years old and i can only describe this as being some weird mid-life crisis while i was on a little vacation in Santa Marta, Colombia…

something felt off…

i kept thinking to myself… is this it?

Is my life simply going to be “pursue more money?”

when is enough considered enough?

truthfully… i reached a point where i wasn’t motivated by making any more money…

NETting over $300k in a year in a country like Colombia basically makes you a millionaire… i was already eating at all the finest restaurants and staying at the best hotels and Airbnbs… and it all felt meaningless…

the WOW factor and the dopamine wore off quicker than i thought it would…

How much better could my life be if i was making $500k NET?… or a million? would i even give a fuck?

There was a lot of talk about “Have-Nots & Have Yachts” in 2023… but i don’t want a yacht… or a Lambo really…

i don’t really even want that big of a house… too much of a liability, it’s costly to maintain and it makes you a TARGET… All i ever wanted was ultimate freedom… and in my mind… and from a spectator looking in… i already got it…

…so what the fuck was i stressing out for?

i’m not sure who or what YouTube channel led me to Steven Pressfield’s work — The War of Art and Turning Pro…

I was bored and my mind was in a receptive state looking for answers to this meaning crisis i was experiencing. These books didn’t look like long books so i thought fuck it. Let’s read these and see what they are about… and something in these books deeply spoke to me and resonated with me.

This idea of RESISTANCE was what was stopping me from opening Ableton Live every day.

RESISTANCE is that voice in my head telling me i am being an irresponsible CEO and leader if i continue to pursue my art.

This book made me realize i wasn’t alone in this. There were many others like me who felt life calling them to abandon all their joys and stay in “survival” mode…

I realized… i couldn’t go on living the rest of my life like this… and so…

i decided…

Pressfield writes that professionals have a dedicated time and place for their work — and so for me… i knew… the only time i could create without disruption was early in the morning. I already had a pretty sweet music studio setup just waiting for me to get back at it.

I knew that any time between 8am and 8pm it would always be some kind of fire i needed to put out, some problem to solve for my team… and so…

I started waking up early as fuck…

i’m talking 4am — sometimes as early as 3:30am — out of sheer excitement to create.

I gave myself a 2-hour time limit and after that i was not allowed to go back and open Ableton for the rest of the day…

these were my rules… and what i knew i could realistically sustain.

and what were the results?

Two Years In — What Actually Changed

2 years into this 2-hour creative morning routine and i can honestly say… i’m still going strong.

I did multiple BEATS EVERY DAY CHALLENGES where i went 132 days straight making a new beat and posting a behind-the-scenes on social media. I also find myself with added joy and a bounce to my step whenever i start the day off creating something beautiful that i am proud of.

I’m also more present for my team — since i already CREATED something that day, i could just focus on the work in front of me that needed to be done for my business, and not have that “guilt” slowly creep in as the days would go by without creating anything new.

I also stopped consuming YouTube.

This was definitely the hardest thing to let go of.

I found this to be my only vice and i justified it for so many years because i thought it was a far higher quality platform compared to brain-rot content on TikTok or IG.

Since uninstalling it, my clarity has returned.

i’m no longer “fearful” of the future.

I still remember everyone shitting their pants in late 2022, early 2023 when ChatGPT was made public and everyone was saying my industry — as well as many others — would be obsolete by now… and i only see the opposite happening.

I understand now that these AI DOOMERS have a financial vested interest to continue posting this fearful content.

Since abandoning old vices and waking up a little earlier… as it turns out… I always had the time…

i just didn’t allocate it correctly and made excuses that it would be irresponsible of me to continue my artistic pursuits, passions, and expressions.

Since “Turning Pro,” my 2-hour creative time block has evolved beyond just making music — into now studying philosophy and even writing these Substack articles.

I never would have imagined calling myself a “writer” and i still would not consider myself a writer in the traditional sense. But here we are.

The muse was calling me for years and i ignored her.

This abandonment of my creative pursuits was eating away at my soul… i was becoming a shell of who i once was…

I wasn’t present for my team or even my loved ones.

I was in constant dread, living in my head, dwelling on the past and being nihilistic about the future.

Give Yourself Back Your Hours

4am works for me.

It might not work for you.

You might thrive around 11pm or 1am when the world is fast asleep.

the point is.

make an intentional effort to give YOURSELF time to revisit old projects, hobbies, interests… your true authentic self…

don’t get lost in the pursuit of money like i did…

every year that goes by, you believe your time will “eventually” free up, but it never does — and it only gets scarcer as your obligations increase…

and uninstall apps like YouTube that are disguised as productivity — that instead take up not just your precious limited time, but BANDWIDTH in your mind that could be better used to CREATE and bring BEAUTY back into the world.

BRB…going back to make some art.

You won’t believe it’s real until you see it on your lock screen.

Up until that moment… you thought it wasn’t possible…

You thought that all these people online were just bullshitting and faking it.

But once you see that first PayPal notification on your iPhone lock screen…

You might not realize it yet… but you just took a hit of a drug that will literally change the trajectory of your life…

What drug?

FREEDOM

• FINANCIAL FREEDOM

• GEOGRAPHICAL FREEDOM

• TIME FREEDOM

ALL IN ONE!

I didn’t know it at the time, but 9 years later (2017), after my first online sale of $200 for a “Calvin Harris Type Beat”—which ironically enough was called “Freedom Finders” that I marketed on my YouTube channel—I knew… I could never go back… never go back to my old way of thinking.

Some random stranger on the internet just paid me for my creativity… paid me for a problem they wanted to solve. They wanted a specific sound for their upcoming album… they couldn’t find it… but once they stumbled across my YouTube channel… they found what they were looking for and bought a lease to one of my beats…

The rest… as they say… is history.

Money Isn't Everything... until you don’t have any.

Everyone is looking for the antidote to their suffering. And I think most people’s suffering is baseline and comes from financial problems and poor health. Today, I will focus only on finances since health is a whole other can of worms I don’t want to get into right now, but I do intend to write on that topic in a different article.

Most people are living paycheque-to-paycheque and geographically tied to a job that they might not find outside of the “big city.”

They think that the solution to their problems will come from hopefully working their way up the corporate ladder, get more seniority and try to earn a better salary that can hopefully outpace this insane inflation…

Then there’s another whole subset of people who have already opted out of the “rat race” and think that sitting down and meditating or manifesting themselves into happiness—or at least less suffering—is the solution.

I have yet to meet one of those people who I didn’t think was completely full of shit and actually miserable deep down. These are the kinds of people that sit around in random parks on a Tuesday afternoon listening to “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle… but… you look deeply enough at their lives… and they literally can’t go one day without sedating themselves with some substance like magic mushrooms or weed…

And I know… money isn’t everything in the world… but it is when you don’t have any of it.

I remember being SO DAMN BROKE in my early 20s as I was trying to figure out what the fuck I was supposed to do with my life.

I didn’t have the grades to get into a good school, and I definitely didn’t have the interest to get into some STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) field… I knew… I was meant to be a creative… but how could I show the world I had any value, and how could I survive off of my creativity?…

Every year that went by felt more bleak as I was trying to find the answer to this problem.

I would see my friends who I went to high school with get into good universities… then starter entry-level positions… then work their way up to higher positions with better salaries… then buying their first house… then beginning to have children… all while… I felt stagnant… and actually worse than stagnant… it felt like I was getting further and further behind as I aged and people started to look at me like, bro… what are you doing? How are you still in the same place you were at 18 when you’re now 25?…

It was cool being a complete brokey at 18 living in a shitty basement apartment when you are so young and everyone is looking at you like “ahhh he’s a young and ambitious man, he’s got time…”

At 25, almost turning 26, people are now looking at you like… “wow… where did it all go wrong?”

But… they didn’t see all the gruelling hours…

The tens of thousands of hours that were going into developing my skill as a music producer, trying to figure it out… hoping the world would recognize my genius and that it would all work out in the end…

Working countless side-gig jobs (dish washing, cook, serving, bartending, security, construction, valet, D2D & B2B sales, retail, even selling my body for science experiments… yeah, true story) while trying to financially back this passion project to finally get some traction and hopefully get to the point where I could do this full time.

The Shift: From “Artist” to Business Owner

The solution to this stagnation and deep despair came to me when I stopped trying to be an “artist” and started to think like a “business.”

How do I monetize this skill that I’ve developed and dedicated the last six years of my life to?

Around that time, somebody just put me on to selling beats online…

Up until that point, I still only had ambitions of being a headlining DJ/Music Producer and making my money through DJ gigs and streams.

I thought my life was tied to Toronto, Canada, and that I had to stay in the city to get into the best venues and to get connections in the city to hopefully “make it.”

I had also just started engineering at this tiny studio called RPM Studio in Scarborough and could officially say that I was finally making some money off my music production skill and making a little dent and finding some success in the industry.

However, I was making SHIT money—only charging $25 CAD an hour (half of that going to the studio owners for letting me use the studio space)—so I was making less than minimum wage, offering my producing and mixing skills to help local rappers in the city. I noticed these rappers coming to the studio with these simple hip-hop beats that they bought online…

One of my clients showed me it was possible to make some sales online from beats…

I thought, fuck it… why not give it a go.

The beats he showed me were so simple (in comparison to my overly produced EDM music I was making at that time)—I thought… oh, I could do that…

Wow… people are willing to buy this simple hip-hop beat that I could re-create in 20 minutes?…

And so I went for it…

And at first… I had no clue what the market wanted, and so I would upload these EDM/Flume trip-hop inspired beats that no artist could possibly ever rap or sing to…

Sure… they were technically “impressive,” but being an impressive producer doesn’t pay the bills…

However, once I let go of my ego and I tweaked my sound until I found the right balance of simple yet interesting enough to not be so repetitive, that’s when I finally caught a glimpse of what the future could actually look like. I also realized… I didn’t have to make “Hip-Hop Beats” and that there was already a growing community of artists looking for R&B and Pop sounding beats—which at the time I really enjoyed producing… Then that is when everything changed.

The $200 Notification That Changed My Life

I’ll never forget the feeling. I was in my mom’s dark and dingy basement getting a haircut from one of my boys (to save money, of course). We were preparing to go out and see some friends for my birthday… and as I get off the uncomfortable wooden chair that I had been sitting in for the past hour from getting a patchy fade, I hear a weird notification ding that I’ve never heard before on my phone… I look at my lock screen and I see a PayPal notification for $200… I thought, wtf… did someone give me this for my birthday? Who in my friends or family even knows about my recently registered business and PayPal business account that I just opened up a few weeks ago?… I look inside and I see it… “$200 for the Unlimited Lease for Freedom Finders”… from some dude or chick in South Korea who I didn’t even know how to say, pronounce, or even spell his or her name…

…

My heart sank…

I got this deep sinking feeling that I could only describe as a combination of blood rushing to the head as I felt this wave of pure euphoria and optimism… but also… CONFIDENCE.

Up until that point in time, I thought… I wasn’t good enough.

No one would ever buy my beats.

No one would ever invest in one of my $29–$100 leases… let alone a $200 lease for an instrumental I produced.

I would never be able to do this full time, and I would have to be stuck in Toronto doing these shitty low-paying recording sessions with artists working on music I didn’t like…

I didn’t realize it then, but that one sale gave me the FIRE to go all in and eventually make this a legit business that gave me the freedom to leave Canada back in 2020 and live abroad for almost seven years now and be financially free.

What That First Sale Actually Means

Making your first dollar online is no small feat.

You were able to bring a product to the market that was good enough to stand out in the sea of noise and actually get someone to invest their hard-earned dollar into YOU and YOUR PRODUCT.

It may not be a beat or instrumental lease like me, but it could be something else like web design, copywriting, coaching, a digital product, or any type of freelancing service. Either way… you have separated yourself from the masses… you are now a PRODUCER and slowly moving away from being a CONSUMER.

Your ideas have been tested against millions of others who are competing for the same space and market share… and you won… even if it is this little battle…

The INSANE CONFIDENCE you will get from this will literally change your brain chemistry.

I hope you don’t forget this win or that feeling, as it will be there to provide fuel for the inevitable dark days that will come when you go a few days without making any sales… maybe even weeks… as you slowly turn this pursuit into your full-time gig…

Having the ability to make an income that is not geographically tied to any country can then give you the opportunity to leave your city—which probably has an insane high cost of living—to then move to a country where your monthly living expenses can get cut in half, or even be a quarter of what you are used to paying (like me living in Toronto, ON, and then moving to live in Quito, Ecuador & Medellin, Colombia). You are able to save so much money… and with that… save your time. Time to think about what you value most in life…

Maybe what you value most is family, and with this big change you realize… nope… I gotta live close to home so I can be around my family more… I can’t do this nomadic thing… and so then you move back home…

Cool… well, at least now you know.

Or maybe it’s sovereignty and freedom… and this was really the only path to take.

At least you tried…

Even if you don’t decide to turn your passion into your full-time income—which I’ve actually written about extensively in a different article where I say it is overrated and you would be better off preserving your art and not “whoring it out” and instead, finding something else that even remotely interests you and seeing if you can make a dent in that—I still think it is a worthwhile pursuit that everyone should at least try once in their lives.

Even if you manage to make some sales but later on you realize this just isn’t for you, you at least developed skills along the way as well as an irreplaceable confidence in yourself, proving to yourself that you are capable of anything if you just put your mind and energy into it.

And that level of confidence… is quite literally life changing.

“It’s all just one big show with really bad actors. The only difference is one group is just a little better at acting, and the other really enjoys their PEDs…”

He said this after I came off a really long rant at this restaurant called Ritwal in Medellin. I was going on about why liberals were the cause of all of Canada’s problems. How we should vote Conservative next time. How Justin Trudeau should be thrown in jail for his crimes against humanity—freezing the bank accounts and crypto assets of Canadians who donated money to the protestors during the Freedom Convoy in 2022.

As he patiently heard my passionate speech, he smiled and asked: “So how much money have you sent over to the freedom convoy yourself?”

I paused.

“Well… none. But I was well aware of it while I was living in Ecuador and was staying up to date with what was going on back home.”

“I even lost a few friends over this topic who were still riled up about Black Lives Matter. I was debating them on how that was a complete scam. I even pulled up FBI statistics in the group chat to prove my point. These vaccine mandates are a far more concerning matter—”

Then he cut me off: “Do you plan on going back to Canada to live there any time soon?”

I said: “Well… honestly, with how things are going… no.”

But to be completely honest, by this point, I had already been living in Latin America for almost four years—three years in Ecuador, and 1 year in Colombia. I had no intention of ever going back to live in Canada. Not because of the “political” situation, but because my quality of life was just so much better in South America. I couldn’t even imagine going back to paying 3–4x the rent, energy, and food prices only to be living somewhere with much shittier weather. LATAM was already my new home…

Then he said: “If you don’t live there now… and if you have no intention of living there again… why do you waste your time and energy looking into problems that are almost 6,000 km away from where you are?”

“Do you depend on Canada for your income?”

I replied: “No. I don’t generate any income from Canada. I have an Ecuadorian bank account and I have an LLC in the USA that I use to operate my online business.”

I paused for a moment to find a reason why I cared so much about it. Then I replied.

“Well… my family still lives there, and it is my home. So of course I’m going to care about what is going on back home for my friends and family.”

“Oh, how noble of you. Do you have people who are dependent on you in Canada?”

No.

“What political position does your family hold on all of this?”

Well… most of them were actually in support of Trudeau freezing the bank accounts of anyone who donated to the trucker convoy ... and they found his decision just—

“Oh… well. If they accept that the direction your country is heading is correct, why do you worry for them? Aren’t they all fully grown adults? Do you think they’re too stupid to not see the truth? Do you think you’ll be the one to enlighten them and set them straight?”

Probably not. They’re all adults and set in their ways—

“Okay. So why do you give it so much of your energy? Why do you also care about what is happening with the Russian-Ukrainian conflict or with Palestine and Israel? None of these matters directly affect you. Why do you put so much energy into this?”

Well… shouldn’t we care? Shouldn’t we know and stay up to date with what is happening in the world around us?

“Sure, you can do that. But what has that accomplished for you? Have you made any dent in changing the course of history in swaying public opinion to vote right or left?”

No.

“Do you ever intend on being a politician?”

FUCK NO.

“Would you staying up to date with every political event in the world be of any benefit to your family and loved ones?”

Probably not.

The Real Question That Changed Everything…

“Okay. So maybe—and hear me out here—would you focusing on your business and being as selfish as humanly possible with your time, energy, and attention to level up into someone that is completely anti-fragile geographically and financially… wouldn’t that do more to help your family and friends?”

…

“Being the dependable rock and patriarch that your family can turn to when shit hits the fan… or do you think taking your attention away every day to focus on events that you have zero control over is really the better move here?”

…

I knew he was right. I tried thinking of a clever comeback right before he slapped me with:

“Well, Dan… with all that being said. If you truly understood who runs the world and that most of these ‘politicians’ are just pawns in this big chess game that you couldn’t even fathom and are so insignificant in… and when you realize that it’s really just a few people at the top pulling all the strings… and if you were to read a bit of history and understand the cycles of civilizations and that all great empires inevitably go through what Polybius described as ‘Anacyclosis’—which is that all civilizations not just fail, but fail in the exact same way—then you would understand that this is all one big WWE match. One big reality TV show for this global stage. And you are the sucker that, unfortunately, instead of having a clear mind and using your creativity to build and create more value for the world… here you are, being pulled into this world of politics. Wasting what precious time and energy you have on something that has almost no effect on your life—while you have even less effect on changing even a fraction of the current situation."

I then pulled out my phone and asked Grok what the fuck is Anacyclosis and who is Polybius.

“There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.” — Harry S. Truman

The Algorithm Wants Us Distracted and Divided

Deep down, I've always known this was all a big waste of time.

The worst part? Every time I get a little “taste” of politics in my YouTube or X feed—one of these videos slipping through the cracks of my highly curated Explore & For You Page—and I click on the video, all of a sudden my timeline is filled with 3–5 more videos on more political matters. And then it SUCKS YOU IN AGAIN.

The algorithm WANTS us distracted and divided.

Since 2016 when Trump won the first elections—which I think for many was our “awakening moment”—I have been pulled into this bitter world of politics and have wasted countless hours thinking I was being productive. Only to find out almost 10 years later that I am being just as retarded as the average simpleton WWE viewer.

Nothing in my life has gotten better for knowing more about what is going on with the Left vs. the Right. Democrat vs. Republican. Liberal vs. Conservative.

I am just more divided and withdrawn from the general population now. When really, we should all be in arms together if we all truly understood what is going on and who is socially engineering us into eternal mediocrity and slavery.

Controlling our FOCUS

I realize that focusing my attention on things I have zero control over is one of the worst time wasters in life.

At least with wrestling—or hell, even vices like drinking or gaming—I can find some joy in the entertainment and community built around them. But with politics, your average circle of consumers are just more bitter, resentful, and nihilistic people thinking they’re being productive for staying up to date with world politics. These same people are typically tribalistic and hateful with anyone who doesn’t match or support their political stance.

3 years of rejecting politics…

It’s been almost three years since I’ve had that conversation with my mentor, and I still think about it to this day.

Every time I hear someone mentioning something current on the news like:

• “Trump invaded Venezuela and got rid of Maduro 😱”

• “Trump is talking about taking Greenland next 🛢️”

• “The UK just lost their free speech rights and people are going to jail now over tweets they made 10 years ago 💂🏻‍♂️”

• “Epsteins list just got weirder and now apparently they’re eating babies and Bill Gates gave his wife an STD from fucking a Russian Hooker 💊”

I have to now ask myself: does this directly affect my life?

If the answer is no, I go “okay”… shrug it off, and move on to the next action that does.

As Jim Rohn—or what I think Tony Robbins once said—“I don’t pay attention to the news. If something really is that big and important, then it will inevitably reach my ears just through the small talk going on around me”

So… are you one of these intellectuals that spends most of their day consuming content on geopolitics?

Or are you like me—waking up to the reality of the situation and now fighting to reclaim back your attention and energy towards more productive things?

Hopefully, to put yourself in a real position of power and freedom that you could actually positively affect those around you in case shit really hits the fan…

Footnotes:

[1] Polybius was a Greek historian who wrote about Anacyclosis—the theory that political systems naturally cycle through stages: monarchy to tyranny, aristocracy to oligarchy, democracy to mob rule, and back again.

[2] Up to 210 bank accounts holding about $7.8 million were frozen under the financial measures contained in the Emergencies Act CBC News

As I’ve entered my 30s, I’m beginning to realize that people we consider to be the “higher educated class” or those with fancy degrees are actually the true midwits of society.

Having lived, worked and attended events with these “higher educated people” and seeing how blindly they “trust the science” or how they like to overcomplicate certain topics has led me to believe they are the TRUE midwits of modern society.

These are actually just midwit idiots cosplaying what they think a smart person looks like. — Alex Becker

These are the kinds of people who would rather read a book or watch a video on martial arts and fight technique than just put the gloves on and get punched in the face by an acne-faced 16-year-old at the local fight gym.

These are the kinds of people who think they are the authority on health and nutrition science because they have a fancy “medical degree,” yet they spent less than 25 hours on nutrition science during their 4 years at medical school. They themselves haven’t seen their own six-pack since pre-med and have no idea how their own hormones function in response to the intake of the vitamin-fortified processed food they claim is “good for you.”

These are the kinds of people who think they are experts in relationships because they majored in psychology, but if you look closely at their personal lives, they have a failing marriage and a small social circle of people who can barely stand to be around them.

These are the pompous academia nerds who spout “trust the science” and “don’t question the science” when that is the most anti-science statement you could possibly make.

These overthinkers are the types of people Nassim Taleb would call “The Fragilistas” who fall for the Soviet-Harvard delusion—the (unscientific) overestimation of the reach of scientific knowledge.

They would rather take a handful of pills (like the most famous modern midwitter Bryan Johnson famously known for taking 100 pills daily) to make up for their nutrient-deficient plant-based diet and get all the booster shots and peptides rather than just eat some steak, get some sun, and do some moderate exercise or weight training 3x a week.

These are the same people who are in medical, economic and social planning fields that makes you engage in policies and actions, all artificial, in which the benefits are small and visible, and the side effects potentially severe and invisible. — Nassim Taleb

The funny part is, they are so unaware of this because they are so cooped up in their little methane-filled academia bubble.

They have surrounded themselves in this tiny circle of the “higher educated class” who indulge in the smell of their own farts and echo-chamber their ivy-league pre-programmed beliefs, thinking they are the “ascended chosen ones” and that the rest of us uneducated plebs are just the ants on the ant farm who are incapable of free and rational thinking.

2 surgeons.

1 dressed like a surgeon, the other dresses how they like.

Always choose the latter. They got there by skill, not by conforming and wearing a costume metaphorically.

— Nassim Taleb

I would rather be a RETARDMAXXER that hangs out with a based blue-collar dude at the bar than spend any amount of time around these academia MIDWITS.

The era of the “Academic” is coming to an end.

ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini has already replaced you and your “memorization” skills that can quickly recall any study or article to support your biases.

What we are starving for is “The Battle Tested Wise Men.”

The ones who are GENUINELY curious about topics and ideas and who go out and test their ideas in the real world and report back with their own results. (To which I will give Bryan Johnson some credit, but he has still overcomplicated the fuck out of everything and on top of that…has been exposed for lying about his reporting to support his anti-aging protocols and over-priced supplements)

The ones who actually DID HARD SHIT and can talk from experience.

It’s unfortunate that most of these individuals couldn’t be bothered to build a “personal brand” since they are actually living life and not giving a fuck about what is going on online in this digital influencer space.

I think it’s safe to say we’re all tired of these shallow and flashy influencers clogging up our algorithms.

We want the REAL and the RAW.

Battle-tested entrepreneurs giving hyper-specific niched advice on YouTube.

Actual successful married couples with healthy happy children giving advice on relationships rather than these “Sadia Khans” relationship gurus lying about their psychology degree and relationship success, only to find out she is the current side-chick home-wrecker who is not fit to give ANY advice on relationships... or really ANYTHING besides being a good fucking liar and learning how to make money off of it on the internet.

Doctors who are GENUINELY SHREDDED and JACKED who have an aspirational body that men can look up to. Not some doctor that can barely do 10 push-ups but tells you your cholesterol is too high regardless of the fact that you’re built like a greek God from lifting weights 3x a week and eating carnivore, that somehow, you should stop everything you’re doing, go on statins and being monitoring your cholesterol…

Anyways, that’s enough of that for today.

I just came back from a networking event and had a dinner with a doctor who was freaking about the amount of salt that was used to cook the ribeye steaks we were getting served only to have him gasp at me generously season my food with salt and as I observed him telling me to reduce my consumption of sodium, I couldn’t help but think…”but you look like a bitch…you have titties and noodle arms…why the fuck would I listen to you…”

For the longest time, I admired these academia nerds and thought they were smarter than me in every way since I didn’t have the “intellect” or attention span to get good enough grades to get into one of these ivy-league schools. Only to later find out most of these academia nerds are incapable of any free, critical, and rational thought and are really only good at memorization and being programmed to think what these Soviet-Harvard professors told them is the truth.

I know better now…

There is really nothing special or actually impressive about most of these individuals.

You’re probably better off trusting your intuition and gut instincts than trying to take advice from any one of these false “experts”.

Rant over.

Oh what? You mean that simple civilization that has refused to use electricity, the internet, focuses on family and community, builds houses, and makes babies all day? Those people?

…yes… those people.

The Proof Is in the Numbers

Before I explain why, let me show you what 300 years of “rejecting modernity” actually looks like.

Superior Health

The Amish have certain health advantages that make the rest of us look pathetic. Studies have found lower rates of cardiovascular disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes compared to the general American population.

A notable study of the Old Order Amish in Lancaster County found obesity rates around 4% compared to roughly 35% nationally.

Their lifestyle involves substantial daily physical activity—farming, manual labor, walking instead of driving—which translates to far more movement than the average sedentary office worker or city dweller.

One study using pedometers found Amish men averaging 18,000+ steps daily and women around 14,000, compared to the often-cited 5,000-step American average.

Superior Bonds

Amish divorce is essentially nonexistent—rates are estimated at less than 1%, with many communities reporting zero divorces across generations.

How are we fairing? The most recent numbers are around 40-43% (down from the often-cited 50%), but that’s due to what?

No one in this day and age is even wanting to get married anymore. That’s how bad it’s gotten.

Our numbers on paper are “recovering,” but the reality is marriage rates have fallen drastically because of how fucked up our current dating and sexual marketplace is. Our western civilization is fading away in real time...

“But… but… but… MISOGYNY?”

Sure, low divorce rates don’t necessarily equal happy marriages. Some Amish marriages undoubtedly involve people staying in unhappy or even abusive situations because leaving isn’t a realistic option. The metric captures stability, not satisfaction.

But how are we any more satisfied with our current marriages in modern society?

I’m sure that outdated 50% number is just the ones that pulled the trigger and decided enough was enough—it was not worth it anymore dealing with the nagging or the infidelity. Even the “Cheaper to Keep Her” adage for many men is often not enough to keep the marriage going.

How many of the current 50% of successful marriages are actually satisfied?

Why This Matters Now

Now, here’s where I’m going to indulge in some mental gymnastics with you.

If we follow the natural progression of where we are going with all of this AI doom porn flooding our algorithms these days, as well as the declining birth rate in our western societies, the doomers are predicting AI will be the end of the world.

We will own nothing, be given our UBI (Universal Basic Income), be forced to eat ze’ bugs, and we will be happy… assuming we don’t repeat the same horrific societal collapse of the “Rodent Garden of Eden“ experiment done by John B. Calhoun back in the late 60’s.

The Universe 25 Experiment: In 1968, researcher John B. Calhoun created a mouse utopia at the National Institute of Mental Health—unlimited food, water, and space. No predators. No disease. Paradise. The population peaked at 2,200 mice, then collapsed into violence, withdrawal, and eventually extinction. Calhoun called it a “behavioral sink”—when purpose disappears, so does the will to survive.

The only natural path to escaping this mediocrity? Basically living off the land, hiding and running away from our own timeline’s version of the TESLA SKYNET BOTS… looking to hunt us down and put us back in our rodent cages.

A Mental Exercise

Now, that is an extreme scenario. But I’m playfully choosing to indulge in this idea as a simple mental exercise to see what the worst-case scenario would be, how it would affect me, and how I would adapt my life to this highly unlikely, yet totally possible outcome.

The reality is, it may never actually get to this point.

The most probable version of reality is that we just have a smaller population size that uses AI as a tool to further our advancement in science, art, culture, and civilization.

But even if the doom scenario never happens—what are you doing with your life now?

Is there any real meaning to any of it?

Are you working a safe salary job, barely scraping by in hopes of one day being able to have enough money to buy a house before inflation completely prices you out of your local market? But for argument’s sake, let’s say you manage to do it and hopefully use that “investment” as your safety net and retirement plan.

You are spending 8-10 hours a day (plus commute) working at a job that you don’t entirely hate but you know deep down is a complete waste of time. But… it pays the bills just enough to not completely hate yourself, so you tolerate it…

How is that any better or any worse than a more simple life?

Spending more time outdoors. Working with your hands. Being surrounded by family. Building a REAL community, not some SKOOL online community bullshit. Getting to enjoy the fruits of your labor with your loved ones…

I don’t know…you tell me? is that so bad?

Why the Amish Rejected Modernity

The Amish way of life stems from deeply held theological convictions and a rejection of modernity for their own survival.

They knew if they allowed modernity to enter their tribe, they would lose their community faster than the church could hunt them down and kill them all.

The Amish understood that they needed to prioritize:

• Keeping families together

• Working side by side

• Maintaining bonds that urban industrial life tends to fragment

This is clearly obvious in our current urban, technologically advanced state that pushes isolation, nihilism, and tribalism.

The Amish have been steady at it since the 16th century. So technically, we are just taking a little while to catch up to them… but we eventually will.

The Worst-Case Scenario? Still Not That Bad.

So let’s say the doom scenario happens. What then?

Instead of us fearing persecution from the church for not wanting to baptize our babies, we are instead going to be running from Terminator Tesla Robots infused with ChatGPT Mark 33, hunting us down for disobeying our tyrannical overlords—for not wanting to put hormone blockers into our children and refusing to have them eat the Bill Gates lab-grown meat, bugs, and gruel that the WEF wants us to eat.

The Amish are already there. They’ve been preparing for this shit storm for over 300 years.

And honestly? I don’t think that version of reality is so bad.

Why?

Well let’s see… Chopping wood. Making babies. Reading old books. Eating REAL FOOD. Living surrounded with more animals than humans. Getting to be in nature all day.

Honestly sounds like a beautiful life to me…

“But What If They Find Us and Take Away Our Land?”

Oh… well… I guess I should do a better job next time hiding more effectively.

We’ll just move somewhere else and start building from scratch again. Good thing I have 15 children and a community of like-minded individuals around me to help out with the workload.

I have PURPOSE and a will to be FREE instead of waiting for the government to give me my rations of bug slob and my weekly allowanced CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) to pay for my subscriptions to watch mindless entertainment all day since there is nothing better to do with my life.

Where the Amish Got It Wrong

Now, I’m not saying the Amish have everything figured out.

300 years of marrying within the same gene pool has created some real health problems—genetic disorders that wouldn’t exist if they’d been more open to outsiders. Ellis-van Creveld syndrome, maple syrup urine disease, various metabolic disorders. Their entire population descends from a small group of 18th-century immigrants, and they’ve been marrying within that same pool ever since.

But here’s the tension: the same insularity that causes their genetic issues is also what preserved their way of life. Open the gates too wide, and you risk losing everything that made the community work in the first place.

It’s a trade-off they’ve chosen to accept.

How We Fix This in Our Hypothetical New Tribe

We can solve this limited gene pool problem in our hypothetical new community by allowing outsiders in who simply share and adopt our beliefs for wanting to live a better, more free & meaningful life outside of the rodent cages.

The Amish required shared faith through bloodline.

We require shared faith through principles.

Shared beliefs and principles will keep our community together. Any outsider who begins to infiltrate with their modernity woke-think that caused the collapse of the previous civilization? Excommunicated. Pushed out of our new garden of Eden.

I’m well aware that this can only go on for so long before mob-rule throws out our strong leader who was able to create this fragile and short lived utopia in the first place…

And so… as Polybius would say… “the cycle of civilization repeats itself again.”

“Monarchy first changes into its vicious allied form, tyranny; and next, the abolishment of both gives birth to aristocracy. Aristocracy by its very nature degenerates into oligarchy; and when the commons inflamed by anger take vengeance on this government for its unjust rule, democracy comes into being; and in due course the licence and lawlessness of this form of government produces mob-rule to complete the cycle.” — Polybius, The Histories, Book VI

The Bottom Line

There will never be a true lasting utopia anyway.

It’s in our human nature to be discontent and find some way to gloriously fuck shit up for everyone else…

So why worry?

The only thing we should focus on is figuring out where we are on the timeline and finding a way to capitalize on that—making the best move on the chessboard that the current situation presents us.

Either way, I think there is no need to be a DOOMER and stress over something that hasn’t happened yet and may never will.

If you preserve your agency and look for opportunities in every scenario, you can still live a decent life… and maybe even a far more fulfilling one that isn’t living in the rat race, living to work and pay rent.

Or what it seems like where we are headed—all of us living in this perfect “utopia” of never having to work again, where everything will be given to us.

Well… I think we know where that road leads.

The Amish figured out how to opt out 300 years ago.

Maybe it’s time we caught up.

brb…looking for wilderness and survivalist courses ASAP.

References

Amish Health & Physical Activity:

• Bassett, D.R. et al. (2004). “Physical activity in an Old Order Amish community.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. PubMed

• Klemm, A. (2018). “Why Amish People Stay So Healthy As They Get Older.” TIME Magazine. Article

U.S. Marriage & Divorce Statistics:

• U.S. Census Bureau (2024). “U.S. Divorce Rates Down, Marriage Rates Stagnant From 2012-2022.” Census.gov

• Modern Family Law (2025). “Top 10 Divorce Statistics You Need to Know.” Article

Universe 25 / Behavioral Sink Experiment:

• Calhoun, J.B. (1973). “Death Squared: The Explosive Growth and Demise of a Mouse Population.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine.

• Wikipedia. “Behavioral sink.” Article

• The Scientist (2024). “Universe 25 Experiment.” Article

• Atlas Obscura. “The Doomed Mouse Utopia That Inspired the ‘Rats of NIMH’.” Article

Polybius & Anacyclosis:

• Polybius. The Histories, Book VI. Full Text

• Anacyclosis Institute. “What Is Anacyclosis?” Article

Why do we respect men like Marcus Aurelius or Miyamoto Musashi more than either the pure philosopher or the pure warrior? What does the combination produce that neither can alone?

Could it be that their philosophy emerged FROM action, not despite it?

Marcus didn’t philosophize instead of ruling and fighting—he philosophized about ruling and fighting while doing both. He fought Germanic tribes by day and pondered Stoic ethics by night. The fact that his philosophy was forged in a tent during wartime, not in an Athenian garden, gives it a different weight.

Maybe it was the physical danger that clarified their thinking.

Proximity to danger and death strips away abstraction. Anyone who has stepped into the ring—whether for a wrestling, jujitsu, or boxing match—understands this exact sensation. When it’s only you and your opponent in front of you, there is NOTHING else on your mind other than DON’T DIE!

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645)

Undefeated in 61 duels. Killed his first opponent at age 13. Then became a master painter, calligrapher, and sculptor. Wrote The Book of Five Rings on strategy and Dokkōdō (The Way of Walking Alone) on life philosophy. His ink paintings are considered national treasures in Japan.

I think if we were to ask these legends today whether they saw a contradiction in their persona—or what some would call their “niche“—they would have been baffled. Our modern assumption that intellectuals are soft and warriors are dumb is a recent phenomenon, afforded to us by our comfortable lifestyles.

These warriors’ sophistications weren’t decorative. Musashi didn’t paint because warriors should have hobbies. He painted because the same principles—presence, economy, decisiveness—governed both the sword stroke and the brush stroke.

The Pure Sophisticate: All Theory, No Skin in the Game

Before we dive into what the Sophisticated Savage looks like, let’s be clear about what he’s not.

Let’s talk about the pure sophisticate. The all-theory-no-action intellectual. The guy who’s read every book on courage and watched every video on YouTube about fight technique but has never once felt his heart pound before doing something that actually scared him.

You know this guy. Maybe you’ve been this guy. I know I have.

He’s got opinions on everything. He can endlessly quote Alex Hormozi and Naval at the office. He always seems to be “working on himself,” but that work somehow never involves sweating, bleeding, or risking anything real. His self-improvement exists entirely in his head and inside his journal.

He theorizes about what it means to live fully... from his couch.

He critiques the “system” and talks about what’s wrong with society... but has never built anything himself.

He knows exactly what other people should do with their lives.

History’s Armchair Philosophers

History is littered with these men. And here’s what’s interesting—we remember their ideas, but we don’t admire them. Not really. Not the way we admire the philosopher-warriors.

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote endlessly about freedom, resistance, and radical responsibility. “Man is condemned to be free,”he declared. “We are our choices.” Pretty bold, I’d say... Revolutionary, even.

Where was Sartre during the actual French Resistance? Parisian cafés, mostly. Writing plays. While others were dying for the freedom he theorized about, Sartre was chain-smoking and debating existentialism with his intellectual circle. His biographers have documented how he largely avoided any real risk during the Occupation. He wrote about resistance. He didn’t resist.

Then there’s Jean-Jacques Rousseau—the man who wrote Emile, one of the most influential books on education ever published. A treatise on how to raise children to become free, virtuous, natural men.

Rousseau had five children.

He abandoned every single one of them to The Paris Foundling Hospital, which meant almost certain death for his offspring. Didn’t raise a single child. Didn’t even try. The man who literally wrote the book on fatherhood and education couldn’t be bothered to father or educate his own kids.

This isn’t ancient gossip. Rousseau admitted it himself in his Confessions.

He regarded children as a considerable inconvenience; abandoning them was a socially acceptable way to relieve oneself of it. Problem solved.

Let that sink in. The guy whose theories on child-rearing shaped Western education for centuries... was a deadbeat dad. His philosophy floated completely free of his actual life.

This is the cost of sophistication without savagery. Of theory without skin in the game.

You Can Feel When a Man Has Never Been Tested

And here’s something I’ve noticed after years of boxing sparring rounds and wrestling competitions: you can feel when a man has never been tested.

It’s hard to articulate. It’s not about size or muscles or how loud he talks. It’s something subtler. An energy that’s missing. A groundedness that isn’t there. When you’ve been in the ring, when you’ve had your will tested against another man’s will, you develop a kind of radar for it. You meet a guy and something just feels... off. Hollow. Like there’s no weight behind his words.

You don’t feel that quiet confidence—or what Gen-Z likes to call “Aura“—that radiates from a man who knows what he’s capable of because he’s actually had to find out.

Women sense this too. They can’t always explain it, but they feel it instantly. They call it “the ick...” That unexplainable recoil from a man who should be attractive on paper but somehow isn’t. Often, what they’re sensing is this exact disconnect—a man who has never inhabited his own body, never tested himself, never earned the right to the confidence he’s performing.

This disconnect always shows.

Maybe not immediately. Maybe not overtly. But something rings hollow in the words of a man who has never tested his ideas against reality. His opinions feel weightless. And on some primal level, people can tell.

Nassim Taleb calls this the “Intellectual Yet Idiot”—the credentialed class that can theorize about risk but has never taken one. Who can explain economics but has never made a payroll. Who has opinions on violence but has never been punched in the face.

There’s a reason you’ve never seen a motivational video in your YouTube feed featuring Sartre or Rousseau.

Nobody’s making TikTok edits of Rousseau quotes set to the same lame Interstellar/Inception theme music.

No one’s getting Jean-Paul Sartre tattooed on their forearm... or at least no one I personally know... thank God...

We don’t admire them. We study them, sure. But admiration? Inspiration? That we reserve for men who lived their philosophy. Who bled for their ideas. Whose theories were forged in action, not invented to avoid it.

Meanwhile, the Marcus Aurelius quotes keep going viral. Miyamoto Musashi keeps selling books 400 years after his death. Bob Ross—a drill sergeant nicknamed “Bust ‘em up Bobby” who spent 20 years as a drill sergeant screaming at recruits before picking up a paintbrush and speaking in the softest voice television had ever heard—keeps getting millions of views on YouTube, long after he passed.

Because we can feel the difference between a man who wrote about courage because he had to summon it daily... and a man who wrote about courage because it made him sound interesting in some lame Twitter thread or at a dinner party.

The Real Cost of Living in Your Head

The pure sophisticate mistakes knowing for being. He thinks that because he’s read about discipline, he has discipline. Because he’s studied courage, he is courageous. Because he can articulate what a good life looks like, he’s living one.

He’s not.

He’s hiding.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: consuming content about self-improvement is often just sophisticated procrastination. Reading another book on productivity instead of doing the work. Watching another video on confidence instead of doing the thing that terrifies you. Building an identity around knowing stuff so you never have to face the fact that you haven’t done anything.

The pure sophisticate has a bias against action because action is where you can fail. Theory is safe. In your head, your business is always successful. Your confrontations always go perfectly. You always say the right thing.

Reality is where you find out what you’re actually made of.

And that’s terrifying.

So he stays in his head. Keeps reading. Keeps theorizing. Keeps “preparing” for a life he never starts living.

Meanwhile, his body softens. His courage atrophies. He becomes—exactly as Plato warned 2,400 years ago—“melted and softened beyond what is good.”

We don’t need more armchair philosophers.

We need the Sophisticated Savage.

Plato’s Answer: Train Both the Body and the Soul

Twenty-four hundred years ago, Plato solved a problem we’re still fumbling with today.

He was designing his ideal society in The Republic, and he arrived at a question that should haunt every modern man: How do you educate someone to be both dangerous and good?

His answer was elegant. You train both the body and the soul—simultaneously, from childhood. Not one then the other. Both.

Plato believed Utopia must begin in the body of man. The first ten years of education should be devoted to athletics and physical training because—and this is crucial—you cannot lead a nation of unhealthy and incapable citizens.

But Plato wasn’t building an army of brutes either. He believed musical education was equally necessary because music taught the soul harmony and rhythm—and even a disposition toward justice. His question rings across the centuries: “Can he who is harmoniously constituted ever be unjust?”

Plato believed that learning to feel rhythm, to sense when notes resolve and when they clash, to understand tension and release in a melody... this trained something deep in the psyche. Something that later recognized harmony and disharmony in life itself. In relationships. In decisions. In one’s own character.

He called this μουσική (mousikē)—and it encompassed far more than what we call music today. It included poetry, literature, drama, and all arts governed by the Muses. This was training for the inner life. Paired with γυμναστική(gymnastikē)—training for the physical life.

Plato didn’t see these as separate departments. He saw them as two expressions of the same education. The same discipline that teaches your body to endure teaches your soul to persist. The same sensitivity that hears dissonance in music feels it in an unjust act.

“He who mingles music with gymnastics in the fairest proportions, and best attempers them to the soul, may be rightly called the true musician and harmonist in a far higher sense than the tuner of the strings.”

— Plato, The Republic

The Mere Savage: Strong but Incomplete

Pure gymnastikē. All body, no refinement.

This is the guy who can deadlift 495 pounds but has never read a book that made him uncomfortable. Who can throw a punch but can’t articulate why he’s angry. Who has physical power but no internal compass for how to wield it.

He’s capable of violence but not of creation. He can destroy but cannot build. Strong but not wise.

Plato saw this man as unfit to rule—or even to advise those who rule. His “ferocity and hardness” make him dangerous in the wrong way. He’s a weapon without a wielder. A body without a soul steering it.

You’ve met this guy. Maybe at the gym. Maybe in a bar. He’s intimidating until he opens his mouth. Then you realize there’s nothing behind the muscle. No depth. No reflection.

He’s half a man pretending to be whole.

The Mere Sophisticate: Wise but Weak

“The exclusive devotion to gymnastic produces a sort of ferocity and hardness, and the exclusive devotion to music renders men softer and weaker than is good for them.”

— Plato, The Republic

Pure mousikē. All theory, no capacity.

This is Rousseau abandoning his children while writing treatises on fatherhood. Sartre theorizing about resistance from the safety of a café. The modern “intellectual” who can critique capitalism but has never built—or at least started—a company. He can explain power dynamics but has never been in a fight. He has opinions on everything and has risked nothing.

He critiques the world from a chair. Understands harmony intellectually but has no vitality to act on it. He’s “melted and softened beyond what is good.”

His body is an afterthought—a vehicle to carry his brain from coffee shop to bookstore. He’s never felt the primal satisfaction of physical exhaustion, never learned what his body can actually do under pressure, never discovered who he becomes when things get hard and there’s no more thinking to be done.

He’s also half a man pretending to be whole.

And here’s the uncomfortable part: the pure sophisticate is often more dangerous than the pure savage. The brute only damages what’s in front of him. The ungrounded intellectual can damage entire generations with ideas he never had to live by.

At least the savage has skin in the game.

The Sophisticated Savage: The Integrated Man

Now we arrive at the integration. The man Plato was actually trying to build.

The Sophisticated Savage isn’t a balance in the sense of doing a little of each—an hour at the gym, an hour with a book, checkbox complete.

That’s not integration. That’s scheduling.

Real integration means the physical and the intellectual inform each other. They become inseparable.

Physical capability grounds philosophy in reality. When you’ve actually been exhausted, actually been hit, actually pushed your body past what your mind said was possible—your philosophy changes. You stop theorizing about discipline and start knowing it in your bones. You stop having opinions about courage and start understanding it as a felt experience.

Aesthetic training elevates action beyond mere survival. When you’ve learned to create beauty—whether through music, writing, craft, or any art—you develop an acute sensitivity. You start caring about how things are done, not just whether they get done. Your actions gain a quality that pure pragmatism can never achieve.

And the harmony Plato speaks of emerges: an internal rhythm between doing and thinking. Between the body’s wisdom and the mind’s vision. Between the capacity for violence and the cultivation of peace.

This is the man who can fight but chooses not to—not from weakness, but from genuine understanding of what violence costs. This is the man who can build and create, not just analyze and critique. This is the man whose philosophy has been tested by friction with reality.

He’s not half a person anymore.

He’s complete.

So…how to you become a Sophisticated Savage?

How do we encapsulate this paradoxical yet complementary ideal in our lives?

“Courage and gentleness”—the combination that seems all too rare in this modern era.

Now, I don’t think it’s realistic to try and replicate Plato’s vision of his Utopia in The Republic by taking our young boys away from their mothers at the age of 10 and throwing them into a sort of Ivy League Boot Camp where they spend all day training, sparring, playing music, and studying philosophy for the first decade of their lives.

But perhaps we could throw ourselves into our own modern version of warfare and harmonious education?

The Sophisticated Savage Isn’t a Destination

Start that business. Join that local MMA gym. Pick up that instrument collecting dust in your closet.

You don’t need to enlist and get deployed overseas to become a modern-day Sophisticated Savage. I think simply entering the arena of life and taking actions that require genuine courage—entrepreneurship, creating content for the world to scrutinize, willingly walking into a fight gym to get punched in the face—this is enough. It might pale in comparison to Marcus on the Danube frontier or Musashi slicing through 61 duels. But the inner confidence and peace you develop will make you unrecognizable to who you were six months ago.

Business is hard.

Combat is hard.

Creating and sharing your ideas with the world is hard.

But if you were to ask me what’s harder?

Watching life pass you by. Never developing the courage to have those hard conversations. Never taking that leap of faith. Never feeling comfortable in your own skin because you’ve never tested what you’re actually made of.

The Sophisticated Savage isn’t a destination. It’s a direction. And the opposite isn’t being “average”—the opposite is being half a person. All theory and no skin in the game. Or all action with no reflection on what you’re building or why.

Both are ways of hiding.

A Note from the Walking Pad

I’m not writing this from some mountaintop, by the way. I’m writing this on my walking pad + standing desk setup in my studio while in the middle of taking another big financial risk scaling my online Creative Talent Management Agency. Some weeks I’m all savage—grinding, building, fighting & training with my coach—and I forget to read, to reflect, to sit with anything longer than an Instagram caption. Other weeks I’m all in my head, theorizing about “the good life” instead of actually living it.

Maybe Plato wasn’t describing two separate educations—athletics and music. Perhaps he was describing one education with two expressions. The same discipline that gets you to the gym at 5am gets you to the blank canvas. The same person who learns to throw a punch learns when to hold back from throwing it. The savage and the sophisticate aren’t taking turns. They’re the same person.

Somewhere right now, there’s a guy reading Meditations or The Book of Five Rings on his phone between rounds at a Muay Thai gym in Bali. There’s a CEO out there building a company during the day and learning piano at night—not because it’s “productive“ but because something in him needs to create beauty, not just value.

They’re not trying to be philosopher-warriors or even philosopher-kings.

They’re just refusing to be incomplete.

Welcome to the Sophisticated Savage Club.

The Decision That Changed Everything

Following your dreams and your passion is overrated as fuck.

There. I said it.

I probably could have come to the same realizations and elevated myself to the same level of consciousness without so much pain and suffering. All I had to do was pick any other industry that wasn’t the music industry and maybe just be a little less emotionally turbulent along the way.

But I didn’t. I couldn't…

And what followed were ten dark years of pain, self-doubt, anxiety, mild depression, and almost losing myself entirely.

The day I went all in…

I was 19 years old, sitting in my Marketing class at George Brown College in Toronto. A midterm exam was in front of me. I was working toward a Business Administration degree.

And then it hit me.

I started going through what I can only describe as mild PTSD. I was thinking about what would my life look like working in a corporate environment. Sitting in an office every single day, wearing a suit and playing the game of corporate politics for the next 45 years of my life.

It shook me to my core.

It was a visceral reaction. So visceral that I literally walked out mid-exam and didn’t look back. I didn’t even bother going to my locker to pick up the old textbooks and backpack I had in there for my other classes.

I knew what I had to do. I couldn’t live in peace with myself if I didn’t do this.

I had no clue the next ten years would be some of the most depressing and dark years of my life.

Everyone in my circle told me pursuing this music dream was crazy. They said I should find something “safer” to get into. But I was so stubborn. So adamant on proving everyone around me wrong that I stuck to it.

Even though all the signs told me not to.

13 years later, after finding success in the music industry, I am here to report:

It was single-handedly both the best and worst decision I ever made in my life.

The Trap of Turning Passion Into Work

I turned something I loved—music production—into my full-time job.

I was able to make a full-time income off my creativity. That was both liberating and entrapping at the same time.

Here’s the thing most full-time producers or creatives don’t tells you.

This pursuit can rob the joy and wonder of creating music/art. I had to work with artists I didn’t like. I had to work on music that didn’t resonate with me. All just to survive.

Creating music eventually became a burden.

Something I once enjoyed. Something I loved. Something I did simply for the love of the art form. Something I had spent tens of thousands of hours doing for free for over six years before ever making a penny.

It became my prison sentence. One that I had to repeat day after day.

What was once a source of joy and creative expression now became a chore. A source of anxiety and despair.

“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” is a half-truth at best. The full truth is: “Do what you love for money, and you might start hating what you once loved.”

The Golden Cage

As the years went by, I began to feel the need to evolve. I wanted to be more than just the label of “music producer.”

But the rules of this social media game locked me into this tiny niche. If I tried to pivot and experiment with new creative expressions and art forms, I could lose my business.

I became trapped.

Because I was so locked in and deeply invested, it felt wrong to jump ship and try something new.

How long would it take me to pivot to another career?

At this point, I was around 28 years old, about to turn 29. I had been doing music production full time for almost 4 years already. But I could project into the future and see that this was just another job. One that was going to slowly kill the joy and childlike sense of wonder I once had.

I was not getting any younger. Every day that went by, I felt this pain and wave of anxiety slowly creeping in. Especially if I wasn’t actively trying to find a solution before I turned 30.

The Paradox That Made It Worth It

However, along this path, it opened up a whole world of self-development and elevation of my consciousness. For that, I am eternally grateful.

I have long since moved on from being a freelancer. I’ve ascended up the ranks of entrepreneurship by moving into agency work and team building for a talent management agency. I’m also slowly moving into a humble form of venture capitalism. (more on this later)

Moving away from freelancing and into scaling a creative agency was the next natural progression on my self-development path.

Had I listened to everyone’s advice and gone down the “safer route,” perhaps none of this may have ever happened.

It’s a paradox I often think about. And I’ve come to accept that everything needed to happen the way it did.

I don’t think it would have been possible to reach this level of growth were it not for all those years of pain and suffering just trying to survive in the ruthlessness of the music industry.

“In order for your business to grow, you need to grow.” — Alex Hormozi…or some other online guru I think…

I just wish I could have controlled my emotions better along the way. So I wouldn’t overreact to setbacks that would put me in a frenzy and lead me down to self-destructive behaviors.

There were so many days I would panic to certain situations. A client not paying me on time. A nightmare client who I knew I shouldn’t have been working with, but I accepted because I needed the money. Clients who would put me in revision purgatory for their projects, taking up so much time. Time that could have been better spent looking for better clients.

These setbacks would lead me down a path of indulging in my vices. Overeating by snacking on junk food. Or feeding my sex addiction by going out with multiple girls just so I could get a nut out…or two that day.

The Ultimate Game

PLAY THE GAME TO BEAT THE GAME SO YOU CAN FINALLY BE FREE OF THE GAME — Naval Ravikant…on that Chris Williamson podcast I think…

I wish I had other interests. But the only thing that could hold my attention for any prolonged period of time back then was music. And I got pretty good at it, so it was logically the only option I had.

I wish I could have just had even a slight interest in real estate, mechanics, engineering, programming, law, accounting, day trading. Or even just a genuine interest in making a shit ton of money.

Anything but this music game. Which is literally one of the hardest industries to break through.

Music was the only thing I could think about day and night. During my early 20’s, a successful day and a fulfilling life meant waking up each morning, opening Ableton Live, making a few beats, finish editing a few vocals for my clients, and having just enough money to pay for my basic living costs.

For a few years, I got exactly what I wished for.

But I soon realized there is so much more to life than simply being a good music producer and making just enough money to get by as a creative.

As I continued down this path, trying to figure out how to make this a sustainable and profitable pursuit, I discovered new worlds. Health and fitness. Journaling. Reading. Writing. Business development. Philosophy. Psychology. Leadership. Economics. Finances.

It was inevitable. I had to evolve.

But here’s the paradox: Would I have evolved if I had just played it safe and gotten a “safe corporate” job with a guaranteed salary?

I could spend all day thinking about that question. But my mind has concluded, for the sake of not dwelling on the past like a midwit, that no—it would not have been possible.

And for that reason alone, I say it is still worth going after the pursuit of “chasing your dreams”. Because along the way, you need to level up if you plan on getting any kind of success in your field. Especially for something as outlandish as breaking through the music industry.

Why Entrepreneurship Is the Ultimate Game

You need to leave behind old habits, interests, friends, and even deep-rooted limiting beliefs that have been pre-programmed into you by society. Society doesn’t want you to wake up and discover your unlimited and untapped potential.

Making the decision to enter the arena of entrepreneurship will shake you to your core. It will test your inner will and soul to see if you got what it takes.

I truly believe it is one of the most interesting games of life that you could play. Most people never get a chance to even become aware of it.

Society has beaten that idea out of them. It’s told them that entrepreneurship is dangerous and they should just play it safe. Go down the tried and true path that everyone else around them has done. Go to college, get a “real job” with health benefits and a retirement plan, etc…etc.

And that is perfectly fine. We are not all meant to be high-risk takers and disagreeable unemployable people. We wouldn’t have a functioning society if we all thought this way. We need our cogs in the machine and worker bees to keep this system going.

But if you have read this far, and you have some kind of inner desire or vision of a project or business idea you want to take off the ground, one that keeps you up at night…

Then I don’t think you can classify yourself as one of these cogs.

I think you know deep down you are one of the chosen ones. You were meant to pick up the sword and wander into the vast land. Like a depraved wretch in Elden Ring or Skyrim.

The Depraved Starter Build

You have a map that is completely shrouded in clouds and undiscovered. You only recognize the little bubble you were pre-programmed into.

You have no skins, enchanted weapons, armor, guilds, alliances, or even specialized stats that you could use to your advantage.

You are starting depraved from zero. Not just with known unknowns that you are already in the process of discovering. But also unknown unknowns at every corner looking to take everything away from you.

It is the ultimate game.

Because unlike Elden Ring, where you can respawn unlimited times by the fire after you have died (while maybe only losing a few items along the way), in this game of entrepreneurship, most people only get a few respawns.

And then that’s it. The game is over.

I am talking literal life or death.

There are some who literally un-alive themselves after suffering severe financial loss. After long periods of high stress and emotional turbulence. After everyone around them left because they couldn’t see the vision during the dark years. Years of not just no returns, but literally putting themselves into massive financial ruin all in hopes that they will catch their lucky break.

This game is not for the faint of heart.

The First Taste of Success

But here’s the thing.

If you do manage to even get just a small piece of success—like simply making enough money from your creative pursuit to pay the bills and just scrape by—the amount of inner confidence you will develop is insane.

The next iteration of your character that you will have unlocked can now handle bigger and harder boss fights with ease.

It becomes addicting.

You’ve gotten a taste. You are no longer watching your older bro hog the controller to the PlayStation, playing the game you want to play.

You now have the controller in your hand.

Your palms are sweaty. Your heartbeat is slightly accelerated. You’re focused intensely on the screen because you are now in a state of flow where the challenge is just enough for your current level.

You are now in control of all the actions you see on the screen. Instead of just passively sitting by watching someone else play the game you want to play.

You have now become the main character.

You are literally operating at a different frequency. And after this evolved iteration, you can’t just sit by and watch anymore. You need to be the main character. There is no other version of reality that you can fathom where you are sitting by watching someone else enter the arena.

This is what happens when you decide to muster up the courage to “follow your dreams”.

The Ones Who Come Back

Most people fail once and decide this game is too hard. It’s not meant for them.

But for the select few who experience that first failure yet had so much damn fun along the way? They are already looking forward to getting right back in that game. Even as they go back to working their full-time or part-time job to help get them out of the debt they probably just put themselves in from their first failed business endeavor.

They are counting down the days to recoup enough savings so they can get right back into the arena.

This is the beauty of the game of entrepreneurship.

…is there an end to this game?

Well, yes and no.

There may be an end to your original business idea and how far you can naturally scale it. You first achieve a certain financial goal that keeps you satisfied and saving enough money for the rainy days. Then you scale your business big enough to a point that it is sustainable, profitable, and perhaps not worth the headache to try and scale it out further.

Many would say this is the end of the game. And for many, it would be.

But maybe you are a “true gamer.”

You beat Resident Evil 4 in “Hardcore” mode. But you want to dabble and play the same game in “Expert Mode.”

Or maybe you just want to play a whole new game altogether. Maybe a whole different business in a whole different industry or niche, like me. Or maybe that’s it. You accomplished what you set out to do. And now you want to play the game of parenthood.

The beauty of life is that you, as the main character, get to pick and choose which game you want to load up in your console.

But at least you played it. And you can either choose to go back to your comfy and idle lifestyle. Or maybe you’re like me. You got a taste. And there is no other version of reality for you other than to pick up the longsword, jump back in, and start swinging.

13 Years Later

I chose music production as my path. I wish it could have been an easier industry to get into. But it was the only thing that caught my interest at that time. So I chose this path.

Years later, after leaving the music industry and now building new businesses—my talent management agency, and looking to break into a traditional brick-and-mortar gym business within the next two years—the beauty is I can go back now and make music anytime I want. Without restrictions. And with a whole new financial backing to see projects to their fullest forms.

Which I have.

(Shameless plug: Check out my Apple/Spotify profile with my latest release. I’ve also got a new album I’m finishing up right now which I’m really excited about and is scheduled to be released by the 5th of May this year! Please follow if you want to get notified of its release!)

It took almost 13 years to be in this current position of full creative, financial, geographical, and time freedom.

But I had to eat dirt for over six years. And then another three years of doubt, stress, and uncertainty to actually make any significant income to get to this point.

That is something you will need to deeply consider: Are you prepared to go through the 10 dark years?

The Framework: Surviving the 10 Dark Years

If you’ve chosen a similar path—going into a creative field that many would consider “a childish dream”—but you know deep down this is something you must do, then here’s what I’ve learned and what you could expect if you take a similar approach as mine:

Phase 1: The Leap (Years 0–2)

This is the phase where you gotta get out of your head, grab your nuts and just fucking go for it. Stop pondering. Take whatever projects you can get. Work with absolute imbeciles if you have to. You must build out your portfolio so you can eventually be discovered by higher quality clients. You also don’t know how the economy is going to change in the next three to six months or how many projects you’ll be getting for the next month, two months, or three months. Accept this uncertainty and be grateful for what ever work comes your way.

Phase 2: The Trenches (Years 2–5)

This is where you eat dirt. You’re doing your craft not for the joy of it, but for survival. You’re working without health benefits, social security, 401k, or stability. The passion becomes a job. The job becomes a burden. But this is what is required to evolve into the next iteration of yourself.

Phase 3: The Breakthrough (Years 5–9)

Maybe you get lucky like me and you find some success. Maybe you get to a level of income where you can pick and choose the clients you get to work with, you’ve doubled or maybe even 5x’d your prices from when you first started and you have wonderful clients that pay you well and don’t make your life a living revision purgatory hell. Life is fucking good now and you get to enjoy the fruits of your labour…Or maybe you get bored of the repetitive nature of freelancing and start to feel the longing to build something bigger. Or maybe you take an arrow to the knee unexpectedly—AI replacing your technical skill, an employee sabotaging your business, or some crazy black swan event like a plandemic forcing you to shut down. Either way, you can say you fucking did it, you “escaped the matrix”…even if only just temporarily… and no one can ever take that away from you.

Phase 4: The Transformation (Years 9–13)

If you've made it up to this point, you will have transformed and become completely unrecognizable. Assuming you were dedicated to mastering your craft and you were consistently reading and absorbing high quality content that could help give you the next tactic to make your business more profitable. Levelling up your social circle with other ambitious and like minded individuals. Discovering you need HIGH ENERGY in this entrepreneurial game to beat your competitors so you go down the rabbit hole of health, fitness and nutrition to maximize your cognitive and physical performance. You started saving some money and you want to start investing so then you stumble across the world of finance and crypto and realize… money isn’t real and you need to find a place to store your hard earned cash so it doesn’t devalue over time…

You’re no longer the same person who walked out of that exam college classroom or steady salary job. You’ve developed anti-fragility in almost all domains of life. You can go back to your craft with childlike wonder again—or you can pick an entirely new game to play. Either way, you’ve won.

The Big Lesson

“Choosing to play the game of entrepreneurship—even if it is for something as ridiculous as being a music producer—is really the ‘safest bet’ you can make in this modern day and age of economic uncertainty.” — Dan V

Even in the most grim scenario where you tried but failed once, or twice, or like me, three times before finally getting some traction and consistency—this path will put you down a road of self-discovery and anti-fragility in almost all domains of life.

This legit pain and suffering along the way is what is required of you. It will make you uncomfortable. It will keep you up at night because you have too much month at the end of your money and you don’t know how you’re going to pay next month’s rent if you can’t land another four projects within the next 6 days.

This game will force you to be better. It will force you to adopt new, healthier habits so you can be at your most optimal state to perform for your business admin tasks and deliverables to your clients—deliverables that are far better than your competitors’.

The Final Word

If you don’t give a fuck about “hobbies” “dreams” or “passions” and you’re just here to make some money and don’t care what industry it is in, then I envy you.

I wish I was as motivated as you when it comes to making money. Life would have probably been so much easier if I had a genuine interest in real estate which is what my mom wanted me to get into, or some form of trade that was steady and high paying.

But if you are not that person, and you know deep down this is the only choice you’ve got…

Then fucking do it.

You know what next actions you must take. No need pondering over this any longer.

Just be aware: You won’t come out of this game unscathed. You will have some scars. You will have lost some friends, family, and old-world paradigms along the way. You may even end up hating your craft because you’ve now enslaved yourself into another job.

But that’s the price of reclaiming your agency and being the main character.

Don’t expect to come out unscathed from this.

Good luck, fellow wanderer.

I believe in you.

— Dan V

“Men ought to know that in the theatre of human life it is only for Gods and angels to be spectators.” — Francis Bacon

I've been reading some Sir Francis Bacon lately, one of England's greatest philosophers, and I felt pretty inspired to write this short article after reading his thoughts on academia nerds and how they hold society back.

Bacon, a philosopher and statesman, believed knowledge should be applied to action, not just studied for its own sake. He valued both contemplation and action. His philosophical works, though little read now, “moved the intellects, which moved the world.” He made himself the eloquent voice of the optimism and resolution of the Renaissance.

“Was any man so great a stimulus to other thinkers?” — Will Durant

In this modern day and age of mindless brain-rot content and this new wave of AI slop, I think we are long overdue for a digital renaissance.

But this renaissance will only come if we stop behaving like midwits and contributing to the decay of civilization by the continuous spreading and consumption of hate and doom online.

Social media has made us so distracted. Instead of making us more enlightened, social, and united, we have become more nihilistic, tribal, and conflicted.

Bacon came during a time when philosophy and science had stagnated. Academia nerds who had never actually practiced their own observational science were deemed the end-all-be-all truth to science.

Bacon’s influence is evident in those who transformed Europe into a centre of art, philosophy and science. He believed in the limitless potential of humanity, advocating for a united effort to overcome nature’s obstacles rather than fighting amongst ourselves.

Him, like Goethe, scorns knowledge that does not lead to action. Bacon believed that studies alone could not be either the end or the source of wisdom, and that knowledge unapplied in action is a mere academic vanity.

It gives me a lot of pain to admit this but for over ten years of diving into personal development content, I've found myself drowning in contradictory information to the point of paralysis by analysis.

There's so much contradictory 'science' out there that there's literally an argument to be made for anything these days. Including 'seed oils are actually good for you, according to new studies'… Seed oils. The toxic sludge that was originally meant to lubricate engines in WW2. Somehow better for you than butter from a cow that we've been eating for millennia. Why are we still in the dark ages when it comes to health and nutrition science?

Well, I think it’s time we took a page out of Bacon’s book and began applying his philosophy to our lives…

I thought I was better than the retards who doom scroll on TikTok…until I realized I am just as dumb.

I for the longest time prided myself for not being some normie NPC who consumed TikTok short form content all day.

I thought I was so much smarter for being on YouTube and consuming longer-form educational content that actually brought value to my life…

But now as I have entered into my 30’s… I am realizing… I have fallen into that same trap that the average TikTok consumer is doing…

I am numbing my mind with endless information and content…

Endless information that creates this paralysis by analysis…

I am using YouTube as a form of escape because I know deep down there are actions I need to be taking, but I am avoiding them and choosing rather to distract myself with what I perceive to be “high quality” content. But instead, it’s just more of the same watered-down, regurgitated talking points that everyone is recycling.

I have become a MIDWIT…

I realize… I am highly distracted… and I myself have become a “mental masturbator.”

So finally I did it… I had to unplug… log out and turn everything off…

I realize that… I already know most of the answers I am looking for for the current problems in my life… And the ones I am uncertain of… don’t need more research… they simply need ACTION.

Now I am fully aware that the answer to all of our problems isn’t simply MORE ACTION.

(Although I would argue a majority of our problems could be cured by simply taking more action, but that is a topic for another day.)

One of the reasons why I love reading Sir Francis Bacon is because he not only understood the value of observation and analysis, but he knew that theory without practice was an academic’s form of “mental masturbation.”

Bacon understood that the accumulation and analysis of data reveal the forms, or laws, of phenomena. Understanding these forms allows us to remake the world according to our desires, making knowledge a powerful tool for both theory and practice.

“Of theory and of practice; one without the other is useless and perilous; knowledge that does not generate achievement is a pale and bloodless thing, unworthy of mankind.”
— Francis Bacon

The 10 Dark Years…

I remember when I just got started on my first business in music production and freelancing. The struggle I went through trying to go full time… I failed three times before I finally got some traction and started getting consistent clients in my studio to record and send me records to mix and master.

So much of that pain throughout that six-year process could have been avoided had I just focused on trying to get better at business and actually applying what I was learning… instead of obsessing over 100 other things like trying to create the perfect website and landing page, or get better at this mixing technique or sound design skill… that really did nothing for my income.

I knew for six years what the answer was all along, which was… put more content out there of me creating music… and the clients will come… and when I finally mustered up the courage to do so… guess what happened?

…They came.

pause.

Don’t even get me started on when I was first learning to produce, engineer and make music. How much time was spent consuming YouTube tutorials thinking I was being productive and “getting things done”. And then eventually when it came time to actually make music, how much time was wasted on searching for the right kick drum, synth, sample or compressor plugin to get that specific sound I was looking for… How many countless hours were wasted in each song because I would obsess over these tiny details that the average listener and the artist I was producing a record for would never even notice…

Same thing when it came to my fat loss journey.

I was a chubby kid growing up and eventually got pretty fat when I was in my early 20’s until I had finally decided enough is enough.

It was time to master fitness.

There was so much time wasted on consuming content. Probably hundreds, if not, thousands of hours of podcasts and long-form YouTube videos trying to figure out what the best supplements, fat loss protocol, and strategies were to burn fat and build muscle WITHOUT EVER HAVING TO COUNT CALORIES…

And as it turns out the only solution to this was… put the blinders on and begin running my own tests by tracking everything I ate, what i lifted, what my daily measurements were and what my daily steps were with ninety-day bursts to see what truly works for myself…

And in the end… I found the solution… that WORKS FOR ME that I have never heard in any podcast, reel, IG story or short form video from any fitness influencer.

It took me close to ten years to figure this one out. Only in the last eighteen months did I finally crack the code to staying lean NATURALLY… and it happened because I stopped listening to all the fitness advice out there and just ran my own tests to see how my body actually responds.

So much time wasted… and it hurts my soul knowing I was this MIDWIT for so many years.

no…not another prescription…

“To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar… Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them...” — Francis Bacon

So when do we know when we have learned enough and it’s time to act?

Honestly… I think you, the person reading this, already has the answer to that…

You already know deep down… what you need to do… but here you are reading my poorly written article right now…

(To which I will say thank you, and I appreciate your time and attention, so I am going to keep things brief and to the point so you can get back to conquering the fucking day.)

Honestly, I don’t think I can give you the answer to that.

Everyone in this online space seems to have the antidote or prescription to this question.

However, what I will suggest is this…

You are going to have to run your own tests and see what works FOR YOU.

I can only tell you what I have tested out for myself and what has worked for me and has not worked for me.

So let’s get in to that now.

First, a MINDSET SHIFT is required…

After over a decade of consuming shitty social media content and observing the changes in the algorithm, I have come to this realization…

It’s all garbage.

It is either all hyper-sexualized videos, brain rotting memes, geo-political noise, or some fucking hyper-specific ad targeted at you…

Long gone are the days of these social platforms being a cool place to hang out online with your buddies and share what you are doing with your friends and ONLY see what they were doing on your feed/timeline.

Now, everyone is too timid to post because they are scared of being judged online and having this “digital footprint” haunt them for the rest of their lives…

And the ones that are posting are just trying to sell you some product or flex a lifestyle that isn’t real…

Sixty percent of Instagram’s feed is a “Sponsored Post”… which is basically an ad targeted at you because they sold your information to assholes like me who pay for ads to target retards like you to buy my shit…

So why are you logging in only to see ads and retards behaving like retards?

Ask yourself, why are you going to spend time on that platform unless you yourself plan on using it to your benefit to post content to grow some kind of online business or personal brand?

If that’s not you, then delete it. It’s a complete waste of time and mental bandwidth that could be better used to develop other areas of your life.

The BACON Framework: From MIDWIT to Action-Taker

Here’s a little framework I recently developed after years of behaving like a MIDWIT. I’m calling it the BACON Framework in honour of Sir Francis himself:

B — Blinders On

Pick ONE thing. One goal. One skill. One problem to solve.

If you have a YouTube problem like me, unsubscribe from a BUNCH of channels first. Then get into the habit of only looking at your “Subscriptions” page, not the “Explore” or “For You” page.

I also got into the habit of ONLY watching YouTube videos on my computer so my consumption becomes more intentional. When I am watching it on my laptop, I find I am more immersed in what I’m watching and I am also prepped to be taking notes and adding them to my second brain for later use.

A — Acquire Focused Knowledge

If you have a personal goal or target that you have for your business…

PUT SOME SKIN IN THE GAME.

Just buy that course.

Stop being a brokey that is unwilling to invest in himself and just shell the cash out!

You will only take this acquired focused knowledge seriously if you had to shell out your own hard earned cash to get access to it.

Buy that course, log out of YouTube and then GO HARD powering through that course as FAST AS YOU CAN, ONLY FOCUSING ON THAT ONE THING.

C — Commit to 90-Day Tests

Run your own experiments. Track everything. See what actually works for YOUR life, YOUR body, YOUR business.

Stop looking for the perfect answer in someone else’s content.

O — Observe Your Results

After you have gone through a few iterations of these 90-180-365 day cycles, pay attention to what your data and progress tells you, not what some influencer promises you.

Your results are your truth.

N — Next Actions

By now you have already ascended to a new level of consciousness, financial literacy, health markers, business acumen, technical skills, etc.

You’ve figured out that solution to the problem that you initially intended to solve in your life.

It is now time to move on and focus your attention to your next pursuit.

And so the cycle repeats itself once again.

We are not being complete meatheads with this approach that never study or take the time to learn new things. But we also aren’t being academia nerds (a.k.a midwits) that only consume, analyze, and theorize all day without ever applying anything they’ve learned to their lives.

It is really that simple.

There is no need for me to drag this concept on for any longer.

Why should we make this any harder or more complex than it should be?

That’s all there is to it.

End of journal.

Enjoy your day.

Peace!

For years, I bought into the idea that Chinese and Japanese kids are just smarter—higher IQs, always topping the class. You’ve probably seen the memes, right? “Strict Asian parent”, punishing their kid for an A-. Meanwhile Timi, the next door neighbour’s kid started Beijing corn, a multi-billion dollar company by the age of 8 years old… yeah I guess we can say they pride themselves in being over-achievers. It’s practically common knowledge.

Growing up, my friends and I would watch these East Asian kids crush test scores in high school. We’d sit there, like, “Damn, how are they so freakin’ smart? Must be genetic.”

But plot twist—that ain’t it! I stumbled across this book, Willpower by John Tierney and Roy Baumeister. When i originally came across it I thought it’d be some woo-woo “The Secret - Law of Attraction” nonsense, but nope. It’s actually legit, diving into randomized control studies that treat willpower like a video game mana bar—depleting as you make tough choices or resist temptations. Like, keeping junk food in the house while trying to lose weight? That’s a willpower killer, making you more likely to cave in and break your diet. Decision Fatigue, Control of Thoughts, Impulse Control, Glucose Depletion and how it affects your emotion stability are all topics they go deep into and i highly recommend this book to anyone who finds those topics interesting and would like to know tactics and strategies to help maximize your Willpower. Now, the part of the book i want to get into is how emotional self-regulation & impulse-control (like not failing the marshmallow test) sets you up for success in every part of life.

James Robert Flynn, an IQ researcher, backs this up. In his studies, he found that:

• Asians make up a quarter of the student body at elite ivy-league schools like Stanford, Columbia & Cornell (all while making up only 4% of the American population…)

• they earn salaries that are 25% above the American norm

• After carefully reviewing IQ studies, Flynn concludes that the scores of Chinese-American and Japanese-American people are very similar to whites of European descent. If anything, the Asian-Americans IQ is slightly lower, on average, although they do show up more at both the upper and lower extremes. The big difference is that they make better use of their intelligence.

• People working in what Flynn calls elite professions, like physicians, scientists, and accountants, generally have an IQ above a certain threshold. For white Americans, that threshold is an IQ of 110, but Chinese-Americans manage to get the same elite jobs with an IQ of only 103. Moreover, among the people above each threshold, Chinese-Americans have higher rates of actually getting into those jobs, meaning that a Chinese-American with an IQ above 103 is more likely to get an elite job than an American with an IQ above 110. The pattern is similar for Japanese-Americans.

• by virtue of self control — hard work, diligence, steadiness, reliability— the children of immigrants from east Asia can do as well as Americans with higher IQ’s

• Chinese & Japanese culture puts considerably more emphasis on promoting self-control from earlier ages than is common in American and other Western societies.

• Chinese parents and preschools pressure children quite early in life to become toilet trained and acquire other basic forms of impulse control.

• 2 year old Chinese children are expected to have levels of control that correspond roughly to what American children reach at age 3 or even 4

To summarize, it’s not about being smart—it’s about emotional self-regulation and diligence. Meatheads are out here outpacing us because they act faster and with no hesitation. Meanwhile, the Chinese are out here moving in silence—snagging our dream jobs, buying houses in the neighbourhoods we want to live in, staying fitter than us. All while we’re doomscrolling, watching pure brain-rot content and freaking out over geopolitics…hmm…
Probably because the CHINEESE CONTROL THE TIKTOK ALGORITHM.
…HENCE WHY WE ARE ALL RETARDED…

Here’s what I got from reading this book: WILLPOWER isn’t about heroic resistance. It’s about making the right choice easy and the wrong choice hard. It’s about building systems that let you win by default. Less scrolling through political rage-bait. Less falling into vices that feel productive but drain you dry. More steady, unglamorous progress toward goals that are actually yours.