1. quarter-life pivot
around your 20s, you begin to see the matrix glitching.
you realize that youre never going to be young forever.
"young" = living with no worries, like the start of a studio ghibli movie
and i feel it. I can no longer lift the kettlebells and barbells as recklessly as I used to without the thought of some scapula or back problem. i jumped out of an obstacle at a spartan race, and oops, suddenly i learned there's fall damage in this game called life. what happened? you used to be wolverine.
and it's not just your physique. recently i tried to learn japanese and realized i can no longer learn a language as fast as I used to. and yet when i was 19, i was able to memorize at least 100 french words in a few hours to impress a french exchange student who was volunteering at a charity i spent weekends helping at. remember when you used to be able to cram chapters worth of university STEM material in a weekend to ace the exam? impossible now unless youre an MIT janitor.
every day I also get to see a talented person feeling the decline, and that guy has a good diet, is physically active, and has a well paying job that exercises the mind.
perhaps youve also experienced a few more things: that the job you dreamed of didnt save you, that relationship you had wasnt worth it, your body no longer recovers from a fall or some accident as fast as when you were 15, or that ambitious 5-year plan you developed during undergrad might take longer.
so people panic, and pivot, especially at 30.
2. action against entropy
they take up activities to feel alive:
- running
- grad school
- lifting more weights
- rock climbing
- brazilian jiu jitsu
- joining a club to meet new people
- freediving...
these arent wrong themselves, theyre an action against entropy. a structure against chaos. even if the results suck, even if you get ghosted by your date or fail that deadlift PR. at worst, theyre forward momentum. and at best theyre identity development.
because the only real failure is inertia.
velocity is all u need.
You can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. -- Steve Jobs
too many people think about purpose or certainty. they delay their decisions, thinking about a masterplan.
you want to feel alive? to break out of the void? movement, acceleration, momentum.
you are not here to seek clarity, you are here to act. you dont sit in doubt, you punch through it. you dont seek purpose, you move too fast for despair to catch up. you were never meant to be still, for stillness are for corpses and statues.
because my fren, the meaning is to be the blur.
3. kinetic stoicism
i have a philosophy i call kinetic stoicism
why think about the meaning of life when you can just:
- gain muscle
- talk to people, dance, date
- do adventures with friends
- see another sunset
- pet a dog
- live life
- have fun
why think about certainty, or the optimal way to do X, when you can:
- say yes to a job and learn as you go
- gain direct or diagonal exposure by accepting a task
- stack asymmetric XP while people overthink
- sprint into roles youre not ready for, instead of waiting and hoping you can get promoted
- "fake it til you make it" -> No. PROVE it til you make it. you execute and learn in the trenches
youve watched too many andrew huberman and peak performance podcasts, have read too many reddit threads to find out the best way to do X.
but enlightenment is in the action, it's kinetic. real truth lives in friction.
aim to maximize the rate of learning, not the prettiness of priors. the "optimal way to do X" is unknowable until you touch X.
you dont need to wait to become an alpha male, no need to be a rich guy or get some high-value male certificate from lame manosphere influencers like andrew tate before you can date the girl who's "out of your league." this is not a checklist game, this is live combat. you get the woman by being in orbit, in the ring, with no hesitation.
do what you'd be jealous of if someone did it first
jealousy signals the life you are too scared to claim. nightclubs and beaches are full of handsome men losing to the guy who made a move. the gym is full of lonely jacked, rich men in their late 30s and 40s, all earning six figures from their career or business, yet have no woman to go home to or a solid tribe of men to rock the weekend with, because they thought they'd get it all if they get the bag first
you are not here to understand, youre here to devour.
4. risk and racecraft
look at F1 racers.
zero fear, high test, masters of flow, war artists on the edge of death and mythology with a war stare. racing like its their last day on earth. this is a realm of men, one that demands kill instinct. hesitation means death. the field only respects aggression. life is the same.
see the contrast. ask: what am I willing to risk to feel alive again?
ask a pilot if theyre afraid of plane crashes, they arent.
Why be scared? Death comes fast. It wont even hurt. -- pilots
they are not fixated in death, they are fixated in life. they dont fear death the way overthinkers do. because theyve already decided that theyre willing to risk for what they want. theyre not fantasizing about dying in their sleep at 93, they only think about what theyre going to do next.
If everything is under control, youre not going fast enough. -- Mario Andretti
5. execution-maxxxer's manifesto
execute hard, do not wait for the right moment, deploy.
like arnold schwarzenegger, do not overthink about the "optimal hypertrophy curve", when in doubt, stack reps. always bias for action.
while you overanalyze my exercise form, i've already done my workout, learned, and recovered.
i do not wait for the perfect script. i do not think about whether i prepared well enough for the job interview, i do not wait to prepare myself 100% for the task before i say yes. i go full send. FLASH.
i dont rehearse, i approach the girl once i get eye contact.
i do not optimize, i get it done. speed beats precision. never hesitate.
execution is my preparation, momentum is my advantage.
while people critique you, you are already moving on to the next task.
it's not that you become better than others, but just simply: you become way AHEAD.
6. dont think
i am not here to pitch you productivity, i am here to declare an ethos: operator vs overthinker. it's a binary choice. thinking about a grey zone is how you lose, thats how you hesitate.
1 second of hesitation scales to an eternity of saying "no".
there is no spectrum, only binary choices: 1 or 0.
people criticize atlas shrugged for binary characters, when black-and-white thinking is the proper model for life. yes the world is probabilistic, but your behavior should be binary.
dont think, just do. everyone overthinks, they think that they are mining some alpha signal or uncovering some hidden strategy while they wait and think. but thinking is for civilians, operators execute.
youve already spent months thinking about that job or gradschool application, business idea, sport to join, or opener to use to talk to that girl.
or perhaps you have a travel plan. for months youve stacked so many youtube tabs on how to get a good flight deal or make that trip "worth it" and calculating every variable.
there is no alpha, and operators dont calculate every variable. i've known CEOs and generals, and my father's a decorated general. what makes them different is they move fast, punching into the void.
7. when in doubt, move
if you arrived at my site, youre probably some STEM grad or adjacent. like most, you have...
- been rejected by your dream company
- heard an inner voice telling you that you couldve made your parents prouder
- been discounted by the system
- been discarded by people who said they believed in you
- watched AI threaten jobs while the market stays ass
they think youre done. but now we hunt. you need this win. no more dreaming, just war. youre not some startup boy, youre a ghost protocol. and yes it is worth the risk, this is a game, and this is our quest.
Flying a glider is a good metaphor here... As a rule you want to stay upwind. So I propose that as a replacement for "don't give up on your dreams." Stay upwind. -- Paul Graham
try something new. run. climb. chase. deploy. have fire in your lungs.
get masters or phd. start a business. fail. do it again.
congrats youre gaining trajectory, distance, and velocity. so when the opportunity comes, youre already airborne.
8. minimum viable lifemaxx
increase your input-output throughput for life. then aim your aggression.
for you are the postmodern odysseus. youre not a wanderer, nor a philosopher, but a tactician of experience.
stay kinetic and high test.
holy fucking shit i'm gonna tattoo that: "kinetic".
for this is kinetic stoicism. we accept uncertainty, maximize all collisions, and let the vapor trail build our identity. this is not self-help advice, but rules of engagement.
i'm not telling you to be reckless, i am preaching racecraft. to create weaponized motion. F1 drivers hit the brakes not to slow, but to go faster overall, to win the race, for velocity beats speed.
the people who'll hate it are the ones who need permission to feel alive. be the blur, move first, for everything else is theater.
this isnt our year, this is the beginning of our life
send it.