Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.
– Bob Marley
You are not an ideology.
Isms, ives, ists and ians are for proles.
Isms, ives, ists and ians are what the classes sell the masses.
Often times from beyond the grave.
Marx has been dead for hundreds of years.
Yet his ideology lives on…
With hundreds of millions of people being killed in it’s name over the last hundred years.
And hundreds of thousands of men still misidentifying themselves as Marxists.
And all those deaths, every single one of them, was in vain.
But the concept goes well beyond Marx, it applies to all ideologies.
The truth is…
You Can’t Be An Ideology.
You’re the Spirit incarnated into a human body, you can’t be anything else.
It’s not possible to be an ive or an ian.
To be a progressive or a libertarian.
And beyond the individual level, your tribe can’t be an ism because tribes are made of people, not ideas.
And for them to be your people they have to know your name at the very least.
You’re a Spirit incarnated into a human body and you can’t be anything else.
Sure you might call yourself an entrepreneur as a short hand way of communicating to others.
But you have to know that you’re merely a human who does business.
It seems like a small difference, but it’s a big difference.
Especially when it comes to ists, ives and ians.
In this election cycle I saw people fighting and dying in the streets over isms.
Over movement leaders who don’t even know their name.
Because they believed they we’re an ist.
And that an ism was their tribe.
But it was all in vain.
Because isms and ists are mental viruses.
You are not an ist and your tribe is not an ism.
All philosophy starts with first premises, and the premise that you’re an ist who belongs to an ism is not even possible.
You are the Spirit incarnated into a human body to play the game of life.
Your tribe is the people you are close to, who know your name, and who care about you.
Thinking otherwise is mental slavery.
And is intellectually lazy.
When you identify with an ism, you signal that other people are doing your thinking for you.
To the point where some people will literally answer questions with:
“I’m a conservative, so I think this or I believe that…”
“I’m this concept, so I believe X, because a thought leader in my ism believes X.”
When you follow this line of thinking it becomes very easy to find yourself in situations that are counterproductive to your self-interest.
Identifying with isms, ists, ives and ians hurts you in many ways.
Identifying with an ism can lead you to spending all of your free time-consuming content related to your ism and being angry and outraged at the current state of affairs.
In social situations, identifying with an ism can get you into a heated debate at the water cooler or to ruining Christmas dinner with your family.
On social media, identifying with an ism can get you de-platformed, de-monetized, fired, or even being denied entry into certain countries, this is especially true if your ism is politically incorrect.
In the streets, identifying with an ism can end with you fighting and dying at the hands of someone who believes just as strongly in another ism.
That’s the downside, but the upside isn’t much better.
You don’t get social status, money, influence and respect from your peers – that goes to the thought leaders in your movement.
All you get is to be a pawn in some rich man’s game, often times a game he’s still playing from beyond the grave.
Here’s what should matter to you: your health, wealth, relationships and lifestyle.
Movements and movement leaders aren’t going to pay your rent. Or get you out of a depressive state. Or find you a loving girlfriend. Or build a business for you. Or do anything for you that actually matters – you have to do those things for yourself.
What should matter to you is creating and living your ideal lifestyle.
Or even simpler than that, creating a life where you consistently experience as many pleasurable moments as possible, and minimize as many painful moments as possible.
You can call this Randian self-interest, but you’d be wrong, that’s just another ian.
Moving towards pleasure and away from pain is what every human already does every single moment of the day.
Or at least they try to, but most people aren’t very good at it and actively end up doing things that sabotage their happiness.
This is because they live unconsciously, don’t examine their beliefs, don’t make happiness a priority, and allow their mindshare to be hijacked by mental viruses.
Mental viruses work by hijacking your billion year old brain.
A brain that was designed to live in the small hunter-gatherer tribes we lived in for the bulk of human history.
Where we knew each others names and our leaders cared about our survival and the survival of our tribe.
And we had a common belief system to help us predict our reality and deal with the elements.
But 10,000 years ago we experienced the most monumental change in human history, the agricultural movement.
From agricultural we learned to grow crops and settled into cities.
And being able to mass produce crops we were able to develop large cities.
And for the first time we lived around people who weren’t our kin.
And those large cities created anonymity.
And out of that anonymity came crime.
And so we gave part of our power away to leaders to protect us from that crime.
Leaders who weren’t our kin and who didn’t know our names.
Leaders who weren’t part of our tribe.
Leaders who sold us on their movement.
And that system continues today.
But that system continues well beyond politics.
Today people identify with hyper-fractionalized isms, ians, ives, ists and identities.
To the point where people identify with what they eat and choose their tribe along those lines.
People mistakenly identify themselves as carnivores or vegans and fight each other along those misguided tribal lines.
While the thought leaders of those movements sell products online and get mindshare, influence, money, fame and power from people who buy into their movement.
I eat meat and vegetables but my identity is not defined by the food I eat, and my tribe is not defined by people who eat the same foods as me.
Think of the insanity of creating an identity based around the foods you eat, and believing that you’re part of tribe of millions of other people solely on the basis of eating those same foods.
Some people will actually ruin Christmas dinner by attacking their family members for their food choices. Family members who know them, love them, and are part of their actual tribe. This is total insanity.
Not only is it insane and counter productive, but it’s a waste of precious time.
How can anyone justify spending their precious time promoting identity politics when they’re poor?
Time is the one thing you can’t buy back and you only have so much of it.
And the prime of your youth is the time when you have the most energy.
That precious energy and time needs to be devoted to building your financial freedom.
This is especially true if you plan to have a family of your own and plan to take care of your parents in their old age.
And surely you want to be able to help your close friends succeed in their business goals so you have like minded guys to enjoy your success with.
How can you possibly justify LARPing as an activist on twitter when you’re not financially free?
When your future, the future of your close friends, the future of your potential partner and children, and the future of your parents depends on you succeeding.
Where success in our world depends on money. Even a child knows that this is an economic planet. Having money either solves or dramatically helps you with every problem you might face. And without it, you’ll have a very difficult time trying to enjoy a high quality of life.
Not to mention all the time it takes to look after your health, get in shape, get your style together, build your tribe, create your ideal lifestyle, and potentially raise a family (if you choose to have kids).
With all those goals and obligations, how can you possibly justify wasting all that time playing identity politics?
Not only will joining a movement not help you, you’ll be worse off because of it. You’ll have devoted the prime years of your youth to a cause instead of taking care of business.
Think how many elderly parents are going to suffer because they’re children misguidedly tried to pursue some sense of significance through identity politics.
Think how many children will suffer through living a subsistence-level lifestyle because their parents spent the prime of their youth trying to force people to only eat certain foods.
Movements give you nothing and ask everything
Not only do you not get the mindshare, money, power, influence and fame of a movement leader but nothing of consequence will change because of your participation.
The minimum requirement for a seat at the table of change is a billion dollars or an army of your own. And not a twitter army, a real army with real guns. And even with those things behind you, you’re wading into a war. And war is misery for everyone involved.
If you don’t have either of those things, you don’t matter, at least not on the political stage.
But I’ll tell you who you do matter to – YOURSELF.
And that’s the person you should be living for.
For your happiness and the happiness of the people in your actual tribe, people that know and love you.
That’s why I’m not selling you on a movement and I never will.
My goal is to liberate you and give you the strategies to live your best life
That’s why I chose the name Will Free Men.
I’m not trying to change the world and I never will.
I’m trying to change your life and the life of everyone else reading this article.
If you know me and love me, I consider you a part of my tribe.
But there is no movement I’m trying to sell you.
Instead I sell self improvement products to help you live a better life.
And I promote those products through creating free content, in the hopes that you become a customer.
In return I get the satisfaction of helping others, as well as money, influence and status.
But it’s a transparent exchange of value.
I offer value without shaming you into acting against your self-interest.
Without hijacking your amygdala through fear.
Without me pretending to be a self-sacrificing martyr who doesn’t care about profit.
Without trying to make a mental slave out of you by implanting your mind with an ism, ian or ive.
Instead I sell you on yourself and give you strategies for living a happier life.
If I give enough value, I get paid with money, influence, respect and status.
If I don’t give enough value, you’re free to discard me and my content.
These are the types of value exchanges you need to start making for yourself.
If you’re going to give your mindshare and money to someone, make sure you get value out of the exchange.
Amazon’s kindle library is the greatest storehouse of knowledge in human history.
You have a near infinite supply of articles, audios and videos to choose from online.
All the greatest ideas of the last two thousands years are available to you at the click of a button.
And you’re free to pick and choose the ideas and beliefs that serve you best.
You can even keep many of the same beliefs you have now as you move beyond isms and ideologies.
Including ideas you learned from movement leaders.
Just don’t take their ideologies with you.
Movement leaders are not necessarily evil people, although many ruthlessly and shamelessly exploit movements for personal gain while believing in nothing more than their own self-interest.
Others are true believers and are as much of a slave to the mind virus as their followers.
You can learn from either, in the same way you can learn from historians, scientists, actors and entrepreneurs (even though those aren’t real identities either).
And you can pick which beliefs and ideas serve you and discard the rest.
With that said, if you’re able to move beyond ideologies, don’t expect other to do the same.
The First rule of fight club is don’t talk about fight club.
You can still use the words other people use, just as long as you understand the difference.
In fact I would recommend that you do use the words other people use.
And that you play the game of being a normal person with strangers, distant relatives and clients.
Especially with clients because clients give you money.
Do not make the mistake of talking about fight club.
Do not think people will be happy with you when you try to kick out the identities they stand on.
They will most certainty shoot the messenger.
If you try and take a fanatic progressive to task for allowing an ism to hijack their reality, expect the response to be white-hot rage.
It’s better to keep some things to yourself and your close, like-minded friends.
I can talk about this stuff on my site and my channel, but that’s because I’m speaking to my guys.
In my real life, I don’t talk about the deeper truths of life with anyone but my close friends.
Forget about trying to force the truth down people’s throats, it’s a waste of time and potentially dangerous
Focus On Playing the Game Of Life To The Best Of Your Abilities
Although nationalism and nations are ideas, you still have to pay your taxes because jail is real.
Although nationalism and nations are ideas, you need to follow the law because guns are real.
Although capitalism, communism and fascism are isms, I’d rather live where people believe in capitalism.
I go where I’m treated best and have no plans to move to North Korea.
I prefer to live where people believe in money instead of a place where people believe that the state owns all the goods and services.
But just because I prefer to live in a country where other people believe in capitalism, doesn’t mean I identify as a capitalist.
I identify as a human who does business by selling goods and services in the free market.
That’s my reality, being a human who produces and sells content online.
A decade ago I mistakenly considered myself a libertarian, today I know better.
But I still want to live in a country that has low taxes and a healthy respect for free enterprise.
Or at the very least, a country that doesn’t tax foreign sourced online income.
Even though I know that nationalism is just another ism.
But I respect Other People’s beliefs and you should too
Don’t make the mistake of being dumbsmart and blurting out truths that don’t serve your best interests.
I was born on a part of God’s green earth where people identify as Canadian.
I know that Canada is an idea and that’s defined by lines on a map.
I know that the map is not the territory.
I know that I’m not a Canadian, and I’ve discarded all the baggage that comes with nationalism.
But if a stranger asks me my nationality I’ll say Canadian.
Because I’m not going to start a fruitless conversation with a stranger about isms, ives, ian, and ists.
Not only will it not go anywhere but most people will find my line of thought rude or annoying.
And that goes against my strategy of creating happy experiences for myself and others.
When you’re in the matrix, use the matrix’s words, even if you can see the code.
This is especially true when you’re speaking with powerful people.
The police officer who pulls you over is not going to want to hear a lecture on ideologies.
Neither is the customs officer.
When the customs officer asks for my passport and Nationality, I will respectfully give him what he wants.
I give the people with all the guns what they want because I like not going to jail.
I don’t pick fights with powerful people and neither should you.
Nationalism and governments might be ideas, but the guys with guns are real.
The same logic applies to powerful people aligned with other movements and ideologies.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that other people’s rules don’t apply to you because you’re smart.
Follow the laws of the land, even if you don’t believe in the rules.
You’ll find that most of the laws are things you would do anyways when you align your wants with your happiness.
When you align your wants with your happiness, you won’t want to do things that hurt others.
So don’t worry about handing your passport over to customs and don’t make a fuss.
A player in the game of life doesn’t pick battles with powerful people.
Be a player in the game of life.
Not in the sense of picking up another ideology.
But in the sense of playing the game of life as a strategy for maximizing happiness.
When you see the game of life for what it is, it becomes crystal clear that you either play or get played.
And that playing for happiness is the most logical thing you can do.
Not fighting unnecessary battles because you let your mind get hijacked by an ideology.
Or because you removed yourself from an ideology and think you shouldn’t have to play the game.
A player in the game of life always aims to play the right card at the right time.
A player in the game of life chooses the path of least resistance to get to his destination.
In Summary…
You are not an ism an ist and ian or an ive.
Those are traps that get you nothing and take everything.
You are not the country you were born into.
The country is a map of the territory you live in.
The territory is the direct experience in living in that particular part of God’s green earth.
You’re not even your job title or your car or the money you have in the bank.
Those are merely tools to get you a better quality of life.
You are the nameless, formless Spirit.
And through the miracle of creation you incarnated into a human body.
Your tribe is the people who know you and love you.
You are here to directly experience reality as a human being.
To think, feel, hear, touch, taste, smell and see.
Your life is nothing more than series of state changes from moment to moment.
And state is a combination of the thoughts, feelings and sensations that come to you through the body.
As a human you will naturally want to experience as much pleasure and as little pain as possible.
This is what every person on this planet wants, but most people struggle to control their state.
They indulge negative beliefs and allow ideologies to hijack their mind.
They allow those negative beliefs and ideologies to spoil the natural, happy way of living they had as a child.
Since you naturally want to experience pleasure and avoid pain….
The most logical way to live is to create a lifestyle based around living in the best available state at all times.
And being able to extend that state and that lifestyle to the people who know you and love you.
I call this the playing the game of life.
Not in terms of empty hedonism because that’s another ism that ends in unfulfillment.
But in terms of maximizing joy.
Because in the game of life, he who has the most joy wins.
