yang is the thang

My sister, who is also a highly regarded environmental psychologist, recently wrote asking me if yang therapy was just for boys. I replied: "Though men and women have different yin/yang balances as do individuals there is an element of interpretation at work here. For example shopping for an expedition feels much more yang than doing the weekly tesco run- but the activity is the same. Men may love being asked to fix broken bookshelves but loathe having to vacuum the house- but both are just household tasks. Can you con yourself into yanging up the yin? maybe- up to a point. Whether you are male or female, if you feel you need more yang in your life then you probably do."

quote of the day

"WORK, for example, is a far more actual source of misery for most of us than legislative politics."-- Hakim Bey 

how to cure exam nerves and interview nerves

Sick with fear before an exam or interview?

Try this old Samurai trick- it looks and sounds weird but it really works. If you have to be on stage or on TV it works for that too.

First get a disposable wooden chopstick or a similar size stick.

Next wet both earlobes either with water or spit- just so you can feel them cool.

Then stare in the mirror and shout incredibly loud- anything will do- oi! is pretty good.

Then immediately snap the chopstick and storm off to the exam or interview- you'll be unstoppable.

The technique comes from the Hagakure, an ancient Samurai manual and I think it works because it takes your mental focus away from the interior out into sensing your skin, your breathing and your physical power.

success and the polymathic perspective

Success is great even though you might have to suck cess to achieve it. Sucking up all that cess from the numerous cess pools available may make you a tad queasy, a little green at the gills. What’s the alternative to being chained to the success machine day and night?

Change.

Yep. Change your clothes, house, car, job , place of residence, whatever. Humans get a buzz from change just as they get a buzz from success. But buying change is or can be expensive. Holidays and travel aren’t cheap.

How do you build change into your life?

One way is to adopt a polymathic perspective. Polymathy, is not, for those new to the term, a weird kind of perversion stemming from an abuse of arithmetic, it is choosing to study/learn/practise many different things, especially mixing physical pursuits with artistic and intellectual endeavors. It is being a jack of a number of trades and maybe a master of more than one.

A polymathic perspective allows you to exalt in things being various. It allows you the freedom to dabble, to try different things, to break out from the specialist’s straitjacket. Isn’t that dilution? Courting failure? Spreading yourself too thin?

It could be. You’d have to find out what worked for you. How many different activities you can fit into one life. It is certainly true that at any one time trying to improve in more than two areas of your life is very difficult. However, maintaining an area without trying to improve in it is easy. The key is to be sequentially polymathic. Spending viable chunks of time on each area you want to achieve expertise in.

Expertise. We are lead to believe that expertise can only occur in one area. Why? It takes 10,000 hours to master a subject – a good enough estimate based on surveys of high achievers. Work a 50 hour week for a year and you clock up 2000+ hours. Do that for five years and you will have achieved mastery. A career of 40 years allows up to eight areas of mastery.

Extreme? Maybe. But the possibility exists. Maybe it’s enough to just know that monopathic specialist success is not the only way to live.

michael phelps is transparent

I have just been reading one the best sports biographies I have read for ages. Michael Phelps- No Limits- a thoroughly inspiring tale of the man with size 15 feet who munches on 12000 calories a day. Except he doesn't. Most of the freak stuff was just slightly exaggerated. In fact his feet are size 14 and the aussie gold medalist swimmer Ian Thorpe had size 17 feet...I digress. The book is an excellent view of how, by remaining transparent-ish, one can achieve immense goals. By this I mean, all the tantrums and ego of most sports heroes are laid aside in pursuit of goals and doing what others can't and won't do. That lack of self pity, that willingness to take responsibility for what he does, that rare willingness to let actions always speak rather than words- all that is an element of transparency, of reducing baggage, to a minimum. Everyone has baggage- Phelps parents divorced when he was seven and he had slight behavioural problems at school- the ritalin they put him - the drugs - he weans himself off through a decision of his own- no one elses. He has superb mentors in the figures of his mother and his coach- but it's Phelps in the pool, not them. As his coach puts it- "I can get you in ballpark- that's all." What I love about the way he goes about things is the utterly stripped down simplicity of it: you want X, Ok- to achieve it you will need to do Y by this time and Z by that time. In the world of Olympic swimming 1/100 of a second divides the winners from the losers. It's almost absurd. What isn't, is the way setting seemingly absurd goals, if you attack them with a no-baggage, utterly realistic and disciplined approach can allow you to achieve them. No one will be the worse off for reading this book.

big yang therapy

I was down at my local bookstore, which is called Volume One, when I realised, as if a diamond bullet had struck me between the eyes, ie. I had an idea, that the modern world is too yin and most men need to indulge in Big Yang Therapy.

Yin and Yang – the ancient Chinese dichotomy of energies in the universe. Yin is quiet, inward looking, nest building, reflective, passive. Yang is outward looking, loud, action oriented. As a person who spends most of his day in front of some kind of screen - like many people- I am way over in the Yin end of the spectrum. Time to change!

Big Yang Therapy is all about indulging in extreme masculine pastimes in order to switch the yin/yang balance. Why? Because I firmly believe, no, I know, that when men get too yin they get sick- mentally maybe, physically, certainly. Throw the Big Yang switch now!

OK. Back home with my very yin purchases- a book and a newspaper in French…I return to my theme. Yang up everything you do:

Yang food:- cook on an open fire in the backyard, preferably not a barbecue. Use wood you have split yourself with an axe you have sharpened yourself. More info on axe work elsewhere on this site.

Yang hobbies:- take up pistol shooting with live ammo at a range. In these troubled times gun ownership is probably rightly seen as abberent- so no need to bring the gun home or even own it. The essence of Yang therapy is in action not possession of goods. Bang bang bang then back home feeling…good!

Yang exercise:- forget the gym- build a climbing wall in your home- a traverse wall- and never let your feet touch the ground. Extreme!

Yang working:- Decide instantly. Do it now. Stop chewing things over and just get moving! Take responsibility. Other things being equal, when faced with a yin and a yang option, always take the yang, man.

Push the Yang lever to the max and leave the Big yinnies way behind…

two approaches

People are often convinced, for a while, by strong opinions; or at least a little scared by them which leads to respect, of a kind.

You could spend time honing your opinions, making them increasingly impressive and deadly when deployed in conversation...

or you could spend time getting rid of permanent opinions and look instead at what is really going on.

Of course, since being opinionated is still fun you could at parties still voice the strongest of opinions, maybe about things you have an opposite view about.