Die Well

Men today are stripped of the great deliverer that once blasted life down to one flash – death. Read to the end.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
Rudyard Kipling

Men today are stripped of the great deliverer that once blasted life down to one flash – death. Skim the newspapers, watch TV, and you see this is true. Everything is about how to make life more comfy, less stressful. About how to avoid death.

This is a great thing, you say. Yes and no. Sensible steps should be taken to avoid death. But not to the point of fear of any little struggle. The modern world wants to remove struggle. And in the process death runs farther and farther away. So human beings are no longer draped in the source of life. They are no longer connected to death as men, or as a society, and the structure can only crumble from there.

On the Fear of Death and Nations

Fear of death becomes fear of action. So in Britain it’s now illegal to carry a knife on the street. A good thing? I don’t know. But I will say this - If you see a mugger out a-mugging all the wise councel you’ve taken from the state plays out in your brain, and you do nothing. Because that’s what you’re meant to do right? Only muggers can be armed. Stopping them is for the cops, right?

That is mediocrity, though it be called moderation Nietzsche.

The fear of death that turns whole nations into little forts of mediocrity. Because the onus to remove criminals is on the state, not the person, people who risk a clash are viewed with wariness. It’s ‘unnatural’. Who chases the criminal? Crazy people. Risk takers. But the main reason why the criminal isn’t fought is simple – fear. Fear of injury. Fear of the unseen. Fear of action. All coursing around the central point – fear of death.

Because of waning faith, society no longer has a strong link to death once toughened every Sunday. Because of peace and calm, man is no longer bonded to death by risk. Because women don’t go through the rigors of childbirth early, they lose the One Thing that binds them to the world of life and death, and instead fritter around the point.

Men of today have little in common with the dead. Burial customs have become a so-so, bureaucratic affair, with few links to the beyond. This leads to a coldness towards the past. The ‘long democracy of the dead’, as Chesterton said, is no longer listened to. Whole nations gorge themselves on the amassed resources of the dead, frittering it away on vast welfare states that egg on idleness; or pointless wars; or in importing masses of people who have no tie at all to the corpses they live off, and care even less.

But returning to life and man (politics tires me). Few deaths are dramatic. Few come from noble feats, or from man living at his edge. Most die being eaten, slowly, by smaller creatures. For most of our history that happened in the ground, out of sight.

Hobbes on Life?

But still, this is a good thing, you say. A sign of progress. Life is no longer ‘nasty, brutish and short’, and that’s a great thing. But was life nasty and brutish? Happiness indices show that most people in the world, rich and poor, are basically happy. Buddha just said that people were miserable, he never asked them. Nor, to my mind, did Hobbes.

A question.

Which is better, a life closer or farther from death? Think about it.

You’ll find the moments you felt most alive were the moments when you were closest to the edge. The ringing laugh above the abyss. Because that’s all you can do in the face of death – laugh. Those moments make you feel alive because life is brought back to the moment.

The African.

Gary Brecher, the War Nerd, talks about death a lot. To the War Nerd African tribesmen live a better life than him, and have a grander death. His life is boring. Theirs is interesting. His life has computers, cars and box office blocks. Their life has great tropical forests, animals, and earth. His life has sports television. Their life has battles, betrayals, contests of iron, and a quick death as a healing possibility. The bullshit we read about politics – who is connected with who, who said what when, crap that doesn’t effect our lives in any way, is actually lived by them. Connections, links, and news to that effect, matter to them, and have a direct effect on their lives. And best of all. They. Die. Well.

Imagine a young African footsoldier. A kalashnikov bullet rips through his chest. He falls, clasping around, spitting blood. He has eaten shit all his life. He has AIDS. He has been betrayed countless times. He has never seen an office block. But he has seen mainly sunlight and greeness. His workplace is the pretty garden we retire to only at weekends He has lived every moment as a moment. He expected this moment. It’s no different from any other. He lies on the ground, looks up to the sweet foliage that has flanked his life, mumbles a prayer picked up from his mother before she was killed, and then sinks into a cosy oblivion. Who led the ‘fuller life’ – him, or you?

We only feel exhileration when things get tough. Because living a tough life is imprinted on our genes. We feel ennui when things are easy, when everything is provided for.

Fearless men entice women.

It’s true. A reckless man is very attractive. Agnostic has proof.

The Great Deliverer

Death is the great deliverer. Death breaks the chains of habit and sloth. Like a bull rushing a man off a cliff, the risk of death forces man to cut the weeds and commit himself to this moment. Most of life is weed. And most of us know this.

What is the deadline effect? When you’re given a deadline, odds are you’ll finish the project by the deadline. It could be 3 months or 1 day, but you’ll finish by the deadline. Why does it work? Because it cuts the weeds. Dallying is not an option if the deadline is tomorrow. It is if the deadline is 3 months. So you blast the whole project down to the basics. And you finish. You feel a great spurt of life, dig up new means of doing things, and become a hundred times more fruitful.

And that’s what living is! This is how life should be! In every moment. It used to be that way. Were cavemen able to delay hunting prey for the next couple weeks? Hell no. It was life and death. If they delayed, if they didn’t strike on the spot, their story ended. They doubtless weren’t ready. Maybe their spears needed further sharpening, or more traps needed to be set, or the camp needed guarding. Didn’t matter. It was life or death, they had to move now, even if they ‘weren’t ready’. And that’s a great secret. Do things before you’re ready.

What would you do if this was your last day? This question is now cliché, but it’s a good cliché. Last meal? This is usually something simple, something your mom or dad made. For me, sex didn’t enter into it. Oh, I’ve had a couple ‘last days’ in my life.

You’re already dead.

But the trick is to act as if you were dead, and this is hard to put into words. So here’s what the Hagakure says:

The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one’s aim is to die a dog’s death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one’s aim.

Walk around as a corpse, it’s all you are. Grasp this and you’ve grasped a great deal. But let’s put it into stouter, Christian words. From General George Gordon:

How difficult for any one to be circumcised from the world, to be as indifferent to its pleasures, its sorrows, and its comforts as a corpse is! That is to know the resurrection.

STOP!! Gordon just showed you a grand secret. What does he say you shouldn’t care about? Sorrows, yes. Every dime-a-dozen guru says that. “Ignore the bad stuff, don’t let it get you down, yadayadayada.” But not just sorrows. Gordon says ignore the pleasures and comforts of life too. Or at least be indifferent to them. This is very hard to do. Most people live for the good things, and would otherwise kill themselves. But the true heroes ignore the good moments too. The true heroes don’t have worries, for sure. That would destroy them. But there’s another thing the truest of heroes don’t have: hope. Hope is a terrible thing. Hope is mind rubbish. Imaginary garbage. No different in substance from worry. Do animals have hope?

Do you know how Gordon died? Gorgeously, fighting to the last. Torn apart and beheaded. To Gordon, do you think the moment of death was any different from getting up in the morning in a palace with servants at his call? Probably not. For the true heroes, one moment is the same as any other. And even evil men can die well. Saddam died beautiful.

Oh, don’t worry, you’ll see it yourself… at moments. Deathflash moments come to everyone. You get an image of a strange Empyrean. At the deathflash all you can do is laugh. Laugh at the absurdity of it all, tip your hat, utter a “that’s that”, and be done with it. Return to the day. Or the night, if it’s really the end. At the top of the hill, life and death hold hands.

Die Well,

Sebastian Flyte.

Update: Translating Razib

Razib responds.

The comment section was helpful, as always. Knowledge was shared and few rows ensued.

Matt McIntosh linked to a great Orwell article on writing good English.

Razib said that latin words were a feature of nerd speech, which got me thinking: if that's true, then why do nerds usually rate Lord of the Rings as their favorite book?

Whence this strange combination of medieval mysticism and all things science? Nerd culture is obsessed with cold, long words, as Razib says. The more abstract the better. But they also love wizards and magic.

On first reading LOTR the nerd feels a rush of cool air on his face, because he has never read such clarity before. He grasps all the words, instantly - they don't require the usual mental adjustment/translation. All the words are warm and strong: they touch him in a deep place. Here is Tolkien's great climax.

The earth groaned and quaked. The Towers of the Teeth swayed, tottered and fell down; the mighty rampart crumbled; the Black Gate was hurled in ruin; and from far away, now dim, now growing, now mounting to the clouds, there came a drumming rumble, a roar, a long echoing roll of ruinous noise.

What energy!!!! Active verb after active verb after active verb: groaned, quaked, swayed, tottered, crumbled, hurled...The nerd falls back in his seat, defeated, dazzled.

But he doesn't now why this has affected him so much, so he keeps to his Latin. Zinsser can tell the nerd why this keeps drawing him back.

J MCT said that every word in the Tolkien climax 'leads to an emotional response in a native English speaker. The point about the latinate vocabulary is precisely, to a native English speaker, that it doesn't.'

This got me thinking. I know from talking to Germans that Tolkien is super-popular there. Is that because of the relationship between German and English. They are both very earthy, blood-and-soil type languages. Do romance language countries like Tolkien as much?

And is the abstract nature of French the cause of the ponderous philosophies they like to throw up?

Translating Razib

Razib's Gene Expression is a superb. It changed my whole world-view. I'll write about that again. But I'm learning to write better, using the ideas of William Zinsser in On Writing Well. I've noticed that to Zinsser, Razib is Sauron, he is 'the enemy' (a word he actually uses) Razib loves Latin. Any word of Latin origin. 'Why use a one syllable word when a 6 syllable word is available?', seems to be his guiding philosophy.

To further my own writing, I set myself a-translating. I picked a small post recently about politics, because it's a subject that doesn't need big words. Science doesn't either, and Zinsser can teach people to write science well, but there's a bigger excuse : phrases like 'pathogen load' can't be broken down to warm Anglo-Saxon.

Here's Razib:

Steve's review of Grand New Party is up. He suggests that much of GNP is laced with Sailerian wisdom; I think that's a fairly plausible point, though Ross & Reihan might claim other sources for the derivation of particular observations or datum. I've read about 3/4 of Grand New Party. I don't talk much about politics because I don't feel like I know much about it, and frankly, I don't allocate many cognitive cycles to the topic (though I do follow politics via my RSS, it's mostly a passive pursuit). Nevertheless, I've liked GNP mostly because the argument and perspective is relatively thickly scaffolded with data which is of a fundamentally apolitical character. I can say the same of one of the few other political books I've read in the past year, Brink Lindsey's Age of Abundance. I'll be putting up a review of GNP at my other weblog soon; I suspect it'll be the first positive review of a right-wing book on Scienceblogs, so I'll count myself a trailblazer after I click "post"!

And here's my translation:

Steve Sailer reviewed Grand New Party, a book by Ross Douthat and Reinhan Salam. He says that GNP borrowed a lot from him. I agree, but the writers could’ve got some of the details elsewhere. I’ve ran through about ¾ of the book and enjoyed it. They use plenty of facts, and the facts aren’t cherry-picked. Brink Lindsey’s Age of Abundance was the same. I’ll review GNP soon. It'll be the first positive review of a right-wing book in Scienceblogs history. Don't miss out.

It's vital I learn by doing.

Here's the idea:

I got rid of the big qualifier in the middle. I don't know much about politics adds nothing and only dilutes the message. Because Razib knows piles about politics, more than most. So why cut down your own authority?
Phrase translations: relatively thickly scaffolded , a barbarous phrase, TWO adverbs and a noun turned into a verb! 9 syllables!!! Translation: full.
I can say the same of one of the few other political books I've read in the past year, Brink Lindsey's Age of Abundance. Became: Brink Lindsey’s Age of Abundance was the same.
I think that's a fairly plausible point became I agree.
fundamentally apolitical character became not cherry-picked, a more homely phrase everyone gets.

Translating is useful. This is the only way I'll learn.
I'm using Zinsser's ideas at work too, and people say things I write are clearer and prettier.

Links

Tyler Durden on how to actually enjoy life. The last 5 points are splendid. Another very insightful Durden post: What's Fun is Mostly What You're Addicted To. Very true. There is nothing wrong with addiction and obsession. Men should always be obsessed with something in their life.

Clothes provide an illusory identity, both to others and, astonishingly, to yourself. When I wear a suit and tie to work (not required), not only do others treat me positively, but I myself feel a strange desire to work harder, as if I want to be 'consistent' with my image. High IQ blogger TGGP quotes from Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works, a superb book I must reread. I should reread a lot of books. I overlook a lot of the goldnuggets first time round, and forget a lot.

I dated a hybrid of Alias Clio's Amazonian Alpha and Eternal Ingenue. I preferred her Eternal Ingenue days, but she accentuates the alpha part now to climb the male status hierarchy. Sigh.

Times Previous.

On a cold, wet, Irish morning two years ago, I picked up a free, drizzled copy of the Wall Street Journal outside the college library, nestled down with a smokey coffee in a corner, and read the most touching of articles. Monica Langley chronicled the story behind a Wall Street Financier's suicide with poetic reverberation. Arthur Zankel had it all and then some. The emotion generated by Langley's words followed me all day. In the evening I gazed out at the square lake from a little balcony, at all the little guys below, and the stars. A thought came to me, I took out my phone and called an old friend I hadn't spoken to in three years.

Stubble Is Great!!

WOMEN DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY WANT!!!

This simple fact explains the existence of the whole 'seduction community' (a ridiculous title I hate). Every woman in my life told me the same thing - stubble is unattractive - shave, shave, shave. Use a frickin tweezers if necessary. But then... why do men have beards in the first place? If women ACTUALLY preferred babyfaces, even a tinsy-weensy bit, then babyfaces had a genetic advantage over beardys. Over time babyface genes would predominate, right?

You're right Sebastian, frickin right. So why do my genes have a gameplan far removed from the opinions of the women in my life? My genes desperately, desperately want me to have a beard. They lodge an objection, in unison, every morning. Hmmmm... Could it be, COULD IT POSSIBLY BE?!!!!?, that girls prefer beards, or at least stubble (an indicator of beard-growing potential).

Yes, it turns out - nature knows best. The Telegraph headline shouts it: WOMEN PREFER MEN WITH STUBBLE FOR LOVE, SEX AND MARRIAGE.

Women participating in the research rated men with stubble as tough, mature, aggressive, dominant and masculine - and as the best romantic partners, either for a fling or a long-term relationships.


Facial hair may have been sexually selected by females on the basis of associated male success, despite its threatening appearance. Clean-shaven faces therefore may suggest appeasement, as well as being an obvious sign of sexual immaturity.


STOP! Ponder the words. Let them sink in. For beardy's/stubblers: tough, mature, aggressive, dominant, masculine, success. Now, contemplate the words affixed to babyfaces: appeasement, sexual immaturity.

What women say they want and what they respond to in the real world are completely different things. Grasp this and you've grasped a great deal. Go to sleep, we'll talk again soon.

Procrastination and Success

OK guys, I’m sorry about the delay in posting. I’m a procrastinator, through and through. I also have a lot of stuff going on. Bullshit, I know, because there is ALWAYS ENOUGH TIME. Well, I do have a little excuse. I work on computers for most of the day, and get terrible headaches due to my chronic longsightedness – I was designed to be a hunter. So when I come home in the evening I don’t want to touch a computer. Anyway, I have not been following the rules of the game much recently, I got stuck in the mud at Day Nine, wherein one must approach a group of girls PLUS guys. I found this extremely difficult. That is to say my emotions told me it was difficult, when it is ridculously easy in reality, but we all do what our emotions say.

Yet I have become a thousand times more social than I was even a month ago. The cause? It’s so simple – SAYING HI TO EVERYONE. Every single person I see when I walk down the street I say hi too, especially the girls. This was the advice of Carlos Zuma, and briefly mentioned in the Game, a less outlandish take on ‘Rasputin’s’ sage opinion in the same (walk around wearing a dildo on your head, or something along those lines) Not only does it make you happier inside, but it decimates your approach anxiety. That is the right word – decimate. When you make it your mission to say hi to everyone you see during the day you quickly lose your fear of failure and embarrassment (a useful emotion at times) runs away. This is because 95% of people will NOT RESPOND. This can hurt your emotions at first, but the more you do it the more immune to rejection you become. They probably consider you crazy, but who cares?

Victories to savour: giving a girl I just met a piggy back ride to the bus stop, approaching a seated 4-set and getting told to go away, deeper relationships with co-workers. Soon, my young apprentice, you shall grow a great shell against that demon called social failure. Things that would otherwise embarrass you stop having any effect. You are socially invincible, everything is possible. That is the promise of game. You become unplugged from the matrix.

there is such a thing as strength of will which is able to haul up so exceedingly close to the wind that it saves a man’s reason, even though he remains a little queer
Kierkegaard