project mojave blog - Latest Comments in Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Jade — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:19:27 -0000

Thanks for helping me figure out where I am. Stepping stones.

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Seamus Anthony — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:47:00 -0000

Dude, you are totally unreal, no doubt about it.

I loved this post. It makes me feel better about being a freak. Thank you :-)

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Vishnu — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:11:48 -0000

Enjoyed reading...looks like you have found a great context for your life...especially the point about not trying to actualize someone else's reality. I was in that rut and am still to a large extent...I am gradually shifting to things I love from things that would have made others proud of me.

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Blake@YoungDough — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:06:17 -0000

This was a much-needed jolt to get me back on track! Have you heard of the song 'Real World' by Matchbox 20? It reminds me of this so much, since the real world seems to put up a good fight as we try to escape, but it's completely worth it.

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Nathan Hangen — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:51:08 -0000

Good article. I believe it is our duty to free people from being "real people," especially our family and children. The world is never going to wake up as long as we keep living for someone else.

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

anmari — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:36:06 -0000

Great post! I like the audio. I'm curious now if everything I have done in my life makes me a real person or unreal person... :) For me, whatever works, whatever makes me happy.

Happy blogging!

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Laurie — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:48:33 -0000

Thanks for making the distinction between

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Dave Navarro — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:40:57 -0000

Regardless of all the real/unreal debate, I think the key thing that stands out here is that you need to take responsibility with where your life ends up.

And that means ignoring the conventional wisdom and doing what you are passionate doing. It means saying "why the hell not?" when someone says "it can't be done."

I've always enjoyed the guidance of that timeless movie, The Princess Bride:

Buttercup: "The Fire Swamp? We can't go in there - we'll never survive!"
Westley: "Don't be silly. You're only saying that because nobody ever has."

Decide what you want, set your own rules, lather, rinse repeat.

Works for me. :-)

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

chris — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:55:13 -0000

Man, everything about me is "real". But I do a lot of "unreal" things...

This is a good philosophical topic. Like Vered said, you are a thinker and you have a knack for making people think about their situation, which any good philosopher should.

I'm curious to know whether you think the U.S. Constitution is a product of "real" or "unreal" people...

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Liara Covert — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:34:00 -0000

As I was growing up, I used to believe that adults had this thing called "common sense." Then, when I became an adult myself, I realized this kind of general, widespread mindset is not as far-reaching as I thought. The idea of "real" or "normal" people is relative. Some people are apt to make categories and place themselves in them. Other people will resist categories or simply not fit into existing ones. Who cares?

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Andr — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:32:16 -0000

Ramana Maharishi has a lot o really good Anti Hacks!
Robert Anton Wilson also.
The best blog in my view.
thanks

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Justin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:32:10 -0000

"stepping stone lives" This is exactly the term I've been looking for to describe so many of the folks I used to hang out with -- they've disappeared into the real world.

Great write!

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Slade | Shift Your Spirits — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:24:38 -0000

Clay,

I believe this makes me a "surreal person" -- "unreal" maybe? Either one, I'll take it.
:-)

I too like your expression "stepping stone lives" and I understand your point. But I also believe that you can only find peace, joy, and your next great opportunity when you are in alignment with whatever step you are on/in at any given moment.

It's the tendency to always be looking at the "next step" -- or looking too many steps into the past or future -- that really creates the dissatisfaction.

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Scain — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:29:23 -0000

Are

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Brad — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:02:19 -0000

For those content being "real" people:

"I do not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not; but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them." - Thoreau

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Thankfull — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:14:47 -0000

Thank you. I have been bogged down for months after losing my shitty job as a manager for gamestop...I just read your article. Consider my mind blown! I never really thought about it like this.
om

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Gabe — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:53:40 -0000

I liked this post. What I take from it is not so much that being "real" is inherently bad. What is bad is when we rely only on "real people's" criteria when deciding what to do with our lives and fail to consult our heart in those important matters. Being "real" may work perfectly fine for some people, and no one but them can determine that. We basically just need to try to decide how we define a life worth living without focusing exclusively on what society expects of us because none of us wants to end up like Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyich, on our death bed and finally realizing that everything that we worked so hard for was shallow and meaningless and not what we really wanted out of life.

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

vered — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:19:08 -0000

I have a confession to make: I am a real person. I am married to a real person. We were both raised by real people and are currently raising two real little people. :)

My two cents: you need to know yourself and know what makes you happy. Some people are happy being "real" and in fact, if you keep at it long enough and are successful enough, you do gain not only financial independence but also freedoms such as taking long vacations, deciding how long to work each day, and deciding when to start your day and whether to work from your home or from the office. You are also free to take risks and chances and change direction, because you are financially independent. So in a way, if you "give" those 10-15 years to the system, you do get to take back - and you're even young enough to enjoy it.

But of course, life IS structured when you have a "real" job, "real" responsibilities and real kids that go to a "real" school.

You, Clay, are incredibly smart and talented. You are also very ambitious which is good, because some philosophical types (you know you are! You are a thinker) lack in the ambition department which does not bode well for success in life. You are young, but you are old enough to know yourself and know what you need in order to be happy. Being "real" will make you miserable. It makes a lot of sense for you to be unreal, and it is my opinion that you WILL succeed - in real people's terms. You are already on the path to achieve "real" success, on your own "unreal" terms. That's just awesome.

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Shooter Gunderson — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:46:47 -0000

Clay

This is a really inspiring post. The Stepping Stone concept really drives it home. For most of us, completing a series of goals revolving around credentials and acquisitions has been seared into our brains since we were kids.

Even when you create your own reality or live an alternative, off-the-grid life, it can be easy to gauge your own success using society's measuring stick.

On a side note,

Two guys are in a canoe, canoeing across the dessert in the sand. Guy #1 turns around to guy #2 in back and says,

"Wears the paddle"

Guy # 2 says,

"Yep"

---
I actually know Jeremiah Nelson - a really nice guy but absolutely no semblance of any sort of a memory. Perhaps he's a folksinger by trade because he can't remember anything besides his own schizophrenic lyrics...

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

gavin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:15:34 -0000

A few years ago, when my business was struggling and I was courting governement customers, I found myself in the city, in the precinct inhabited by mining companies. It was hot, my shoes were tight. I got a juice and took off my shoes and sat in my suit and tie with barefeet on the steps of a big bank in the shade and just paused to reflect. I wasnt trying to be in anyway provocative. But in some strange way I was, judign bythe horrified looks of the passersby, it was then I realised. I even saw two guys I know from the 'old days' when I used to work for the same mining compaines, they turned their heads away.
Thats all it took, take off your shoes and suddenly your not in the real-club anymore. That day to this, I have never put my shoes back on (figuratively at least). I left the club that day and stopped trying to find my place on its endless ladder of despair.
I don't regret it.

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

bflophil — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:13:58 -0000

Good thoughts. - In my meek efforts i've done the following.

1) Moved within walking distance of my job.
2) Made a digital antenna and got rid of cable.
3) Got rid of cell phone (actually pay as I go - cost < 100 year)
4) made a rocket stove
5) cancelled newspaper
6) don't pay for sports events

looking for other ideas now

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Unreal Post — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:04:44 -0000

Awesome post, I really enjoyed it. While people need to be aware of the consequences of becoming "unreal" (you need to make sure you don't also become invisible), there are often benefits to stepping out of the lives that are expected of us (and that most people expect for themselves).

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Katie — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:44:22 -0000

Absolutely fantastic. I have been enjoying your writing so much lately. The last few entries especially have coincided so well with what I have been experiencing in my life the last few months. It's wonderful to see the thoughtful expressions of someone who was fortunate enough to leave the school system so early.

I've been reading a lot of John Taylor Gatto recently, which always helps to shake things up in my head so that I don't feel so resigned to structuring my life according to how other people/institutions think it should be. The article linked above is a basic introduction to why modern schooling actively cripples children and how you can move away from that. Even though I found out about him after I had already graduated high school, and quit college, he helped make sense of disquieting feelings I had about the whole experience that were hard to put my finger on. I left college so I could think. Sounds like a crazy paradox I know, but the longer I've been away from school, the more right I know I was. I don't need someone else to tell me what I should think about, or how I should think in general.

This is one of the main things I think school does, makes you dependent on outside forces, be it people, advertisements, or "expert" opinions, to define every last aspect of your life and who you are. It made me laugh when you mentioned how the forces trying to make people "real" go into hyper drive in their mid-twenties. I am now 27, and the last couple of years I have made even more of a concerted effort to try and define my life and my mind for myself. It has been a very difficult struggle, with long bouts of depression and feelings of intense emptiness while I let a lot of things go.

I have gravitated towards phone jobs that allow you space to read and write while in between calls. Less supervision. Less responsibility. That has been one of the hardest things for me, dealing with my choice to work at a job that is not a career so that I can work later in the day and have space to think. This has been one of the first jobs I've had where I am working eight hour days and yet because I'm allowed to go to sleep late at night and wake up midday, I no longer need an alarm clock to drag myself out of bed. I have leisurely "mornings" to have tea, write, whatever, before I need to go in. This ended up meaning more to me than I originally expected, I took the late hours at first because there was a pay differential to work at night. So in that sense it is a win/win. The hard part is having people ask me what I "do" and in order to answer that question accurately, I have to focus on something other then my job. Because so often when people ask what you do, they are asking where you work, etc. My life has ended up different than that, and I am glad I accepted that's how things need to be for me to be happy.

For the last few weeks, I have been designing a blog to talk about how much I love food. Making notes about content, designing the header, choosing a color scheme, the whole thing. I'm glad I have creative projects I care about, and that I'm working on creating situations where I can express myself. I wasn't sure I would get to this place in my life. I spent most of my twenties so far working at jobs I hated and spending my free time hiding inside of an online videogame. The events of the last nine months have helped to push me to the other side of that and I feel alive for the first time in many years. I am excited about my future, I am happy about the kind of person I am. I am grateful for encouragement and room in my life to peel away all the layers that have been carefully placed on top of me since I was young that were supposed to define who I am. It is refreshing to realize I've been there all along, I just need to get down to where I am. Thank you for being another person reinforcing those kinds of ideas. Best of luck to you while you work on experimenting with your life.

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Petey Wheatstraw — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 13:08:06 -0000

This is completely wrong.

Your definition of "real people" starts out as "people who are done planning for and preparing for life and are actually living it." Ok, well, this is a canard because people who "live" life never stop learning or preparing to do the next thing.

But, forget that for a second. I know what you mean: When you are in school you often feel like you are just marking time until you "really" get to do something.

So, your "unreal" people are those who have decided to do something and are doing it. This definition is no different from your "real" people. All of this stuff about how they are "light on their feet" or can "implement structural change" is at best window dressing and at worst, also wrong (let me know how easily you could repurpose your life into raising kids if you had to...and then let me know how "light on your feet" you actually are).

The fact is, most of us never get around to doing "what we want" because we are afraid. When you get to the point in your life where you can actually do this, when you can overcome your fear of the unknown, of failure, of not knowing what comes next, then you are getting somewhere. But all you have described is people who wear ironic t-shirts and listen to shitty bands nobody has ever heard of. Once you can account for the fact that your parents have done all this shit, and your grandparents, and so forth (my folks almost got lynched in Mississippi in '64) have all been through this, without blogs or Twitter or scrabulous or iPods, then you will be on to something.
------------------
Response:
I like the part about horrible bands and ironic t-shirts.

But other than that, I really don't know what you're getting at. Just when I think I get your point I realize that I don't. I'd love to respond, and I'm sure you're onto something, but I don't understand what it is yet.

If you could boil your thesis down to something other than "this is completely wrong," then that would help me out a lot.

Thanks man.

Re: Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack

Dana Seilhan — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:00:02 -0000

I'm kind of amazed at the responses here. Why are we getting caught up in pointless semantics discussions about what "real" and "unreal" mean and getting offended when no offense was obviously intended?

I think what Clay meant with his labels of "real" and "unreal" was how *society* sees people. If you have The Proper Training(tm) and The Proper Documentation(tm) to perform a specific task, you're a "real" person. This is a very common attitude in today's culture and it is very damaging. Clay mentions homeschooling and unschooling; that's a great example. The pervasive attitude is that children have to be taught to learn by Real Teachers. Any parent out there who's spent any amount of time with their kids knows that's untrue whether they are conscious of the knowledge or not. Ever tried to *keep* your kids from learning something? It doesn't work real well, does it?

But I read Clay as defining himself as "unreal" *from the point of view of society.* As in society saying, "Hey, you don't have 4 years undergraduate education or an alphabet soup after your name, therefore you are not 'real'. You don't work a regular job for someone else, therefore you are not 'real'." I didn't read it as any reason to take personal offense at *him.* Isn't that kind of shooting the messenger?