If you’re reading this, I dare imagine that you’re smart, because in this age of mind-numbing, brain-destroying TikTok videos, who still reads? Apart from the few souls on this earth who still possess a shred of intellect.

And since I don’t want you to be unhappy, today I’m tackling a question that took me three decades to resolve: escaping the misery. Escaping the IQ Hell.

What is IQ Hell?

It’s when you’re cognitively intelligent enough to have a broad understanding of the world. But that very understanding makes you fatally unhappy. To the point where your own intelligence becomes a curse that traps you in a mental hell.

The vast majority of people with a sufficiently advanced cognitive state are stuck in IQ Hell. Because they have a well-defined understanding of the world. Because they have the cognitive abilities to identify and solve many problems. But the reality of this world bears little resemblance to their logical mental description of how it should be.

A simple example: There is more than enough wealth produced in the world to feed everyone every day. Fact. A vast majority of the world’s population is starving and living in poverty. Fact.

There is a disconnect between what is possible given our technological advancements and the state of the world. And this disconnect creates a deep sense of unease. These disconnects are countless and everywhere. And the smarter you are, the more capable you are of noticing, understanding, and solving problems. The smarter you are, the more you will be able to notice the problems. And the cycle is the ball and chain that keeps you at the bottom of the water.

A second simple example: Famous files have shown that criminal networks are trafficking children and young girls to the highest echelons of several governments around the world. With the collusion of certain artistic and scientific circles. No one is being held accountable. No one is in prison.

Children and young girls have been abused. Fact.
It’s public knowledge. Fact.
No one is being prosecuted, and some of the people mentioned are walking free. Fact.

You, being smart enough to see the glaring inconsistency in this messed-up situation. There’s definitely a missing piece to the puzzle. Because it seems simple, doesn’t it?

Child traffickers and those who prey on young girls should be behind bars, right? The entire nation should rally behind this single cause, right? We should prioritize protecting our children, right? We should publicly shame everyone involved in these networks, regardless of their position in society, right?

But that’s not the case. They’re free as a bird, some, even in leadership positions, and you’re a prisoner of your own disbelief.

Now let’s imagine you have an IQ between 110 and 130. That allows you to see the vast majority of the world’s problems. To identify them and understand them. Now let’s imagine that dozens, even hundreds, of problems are piling up. And that there are contradictions within each one of them. Of course you want to shout to the world:

On top of the macro problems, you’ll have to add the micro problems you’ll encounter in your own life. Like that person who stays in a toxic situation and tells you every day that the other person is bad, even though they stay with them. Or that person who complains that their life isn’t where they want it to be, even though they smoke weed every single day.

And to these micro-problems, you’ll have to add the ceiling of your intelligence. There are problems that will require a level of intelligence beyond what you’re capable of solving. You’re able to identify the problem, to understand it, but intellectually incapable of solving it, even if you think you’ve solved it. The dissonance between reality and your solution isn’t reality’s fault. It’s because of your limit in understanding and solving that equation.

The icing of the cake is morality, which intrudes on different worldviews. I deliberately chose my first simple example to be this one. Because some people, who call themselves human believe that a human being, if they are alive, isn’t supposed to be guaranteed minimum of food to survive. That if they starve to death, it’s their own fault, and that they should have worked harder to avoid starving to death.

People who are far more intelligent than I am believe it doesn’t matter if children are starving or dying under bombs all over the world. Intelligence is no guarantee of any level of morality. Many genocidal regimes included some of the most brilliant scientists and intellectuals. That did not prevent them from being infinitely cruel.

As Rabelais said: “Science without conscience is the ruin of the soul.”

So you are a rational, capable being, yet tormented by a multitude of simple equations that remain unsolvable. + equations you think you’ve solved, but which you actually cannot solve. + a moral dimension that also shapes all your perspectives. And an intellectual battle you must wage against people who are smarter than you, but who aren’t morally aligned with your worldview. All of this exhausts you and makes you miserable.

When you can’t sleep, you sometimes tell yourself: ignorance must be bliss.

Recently, there was this tweet that went viral.

And all week long, I had fun reading the comments. Team Blue is wild. Trying to prove to the whole world that they’re right by any means necessary. In my definition of IQ Hell, Team Blue is exactly the category that suffers the most from it.

They have a definition of the world. There’s a dissonance between what they think is real and reality itself. And they’ll fight with all their hearts to prove they’re right. For some of them, the problem isn’t even the dissonance, it’s their limited intellect, which prevents them from seeing beyond the blue paradigm.

I’m not going to address the blue/red issue because escaping IQ Hell requires, precisely, that we stop trying to explain our point of view to the world. Escaping IQ Hell means stopping the debating, the justifying, the explaining. It means simply taking action. It means stepping out of the theoretical world and into the world of practice.

I realized that the world had become clinically retarded in 2020.

There was this virus. And violent state propaganda with restrictions on freedoms never before seen in our modern democracies, imposing a violation of your physical integrity in the name of restoring some freedom.

I am not anti-vaccine. I love science. But I have read enough propaganda books to know how it works. I know the shock doctrine perfectly well. And even before 2020, there were patterns of states using this tactic on their people to subjugate them.

My logical response was that a dignified human being, who loves their body and is intelligent enough, would understand that they cannot allow a state to gain access to their body, the only possession they truly have. Because that would set a precedent. And in the future, a malicious state could use that precedent to impose further violations of your physical integrity.

My logical response was that any normal human being could see that states uniting in a single movement, silencing any alternative path to force you to accept a solution devised in a state of absolute emergency, was inevitably a danger to the common good of all.

My logical response was at odds with reality, since over 90% of the people in my country got vaccinated with something created in a matter of months and pushed by the most aggressive propaganda of the early 21st century.

Back then, I was still stuck in IQ hell. I was completely dumbfounded and at a total loss. My problem seemed unsolvable, and on top of that, I was under pressure from the government, a bunch of scientists, my family, and my friends, who all thought I was a complete idiot.

And if you’re vaccinated and think I’m a complete idiot, fine. I don’t care. And I don’t even want to convince you of anything. I’m sharing a worldview that I believe is right, and I don’t hold it against you if you don’t share it. Have fun with your 10+ boosters and go back to your TV.

In the end, that time was a blessing. Because it showed me the exact way out.

The way out is to give the world the middle finger.

Whatever you think; whether it’s good, bad, stupid, or smart; that’s what you think. And even if the whole world is against you, they can go to hell.

The solution to IQ hell is to convince yourself that the world is wrong and you’re right. But not just to convince yourself. To truly believe it. And to make it an unshakable core belief. It’s extreme. But extreme problems call for extreme solutions.

What’s the point of explaining things to people who will never understand? You’re wasting your time. Wasting your energy. And anyway, in 2020, society has proven to you, in practice, collectively, that they’re just a bunch of cowards, spineless and without an ounce of dignity when it comes to defending themselves.

Cognitively incapable of understanding that one cannot sacrifice certain fundamental freedoms because doing so poses a mortal danger to what might follow later.

It’s happening again today. The whole world is once again subjected to a ritual humiliation, with their elites raping children and no one going to jail.

That sets a precedent. If no one goes to jail, if there’s no justice, where does it end? They could keep raping, looting, and killing, and it wouldn’t matter. They could keep bombing all the children in the world. It doesn’t matter. Because the world is clinically retarded. It allows itself to be psychologically abused and endures one ritual humiliation after another.

This moment is key to understanding our future. It has proven to you, based on facts, that you cannot trust your peers. And that your peers are even a danger, capable of exerting violent pressure on you.

Some of the blue team would gunshot you to push blue. Just like those who wanted to lock you up in your home or strip you of all your freedoms for the greater good a few years ago. None of the red team would, because they don’t care which button you press.

Some defend child rapists in positions of power. Some defend states that destroy and kill entire populations. The only thing you can do is speak your truth and move on. But don’t beat yourself up over the fact that they can’t see the light.

Yes, you have the ability to solve problems. But no, it’s not your fault that, as a whole, the world is incapable of solving simple problems. And the state of the world is definitely not your responsibility. You do what you can, and that’s enough.

All you have to do is tune in to your spider-sense as soon as there’s a consensus. Because the media and the scientific community, can even work hand in hand with the government, to establish a single, dominant ideology. And to exert intense social pressure on anyone who falls outside of it. On any topic.

• The blues are winning in the poll… spider-sense on the blue position

• AI will create enough wealth for everyone to just chill… spider sense

• A certain country is at war with several nations, and they now want to pass laws to ban any criticism of that country… spider sense

The only thing to do is to build around your vision. Those who share it will join you organically.

No need to fight anymore. No need to overthink. No need to prove you’re right. No need to debate. No need for dissonance. Your worldview is the right one. Period. And you’re ready to prove it by moving beyond theory, taking action, and having skin in the game.

You don’t change people by explaining things to them. You change people by inspiring them. And the only way to inspire is to embody the change.

The catch with this mindset is that you’ll sometimes look like a complete idiot. And sometimes, you will be an idiot. Blinded by your blind spots. But that’s far from a bad thing. It’s the price you pay to break free from intellectual prison. And not take the risk of letting a bunch of idiots make decisions for you.

This meme is cool but innacurate.

The reality is more like this.

Most great geniuses have been mistaken for fools. I like to cite the example of Nietzsche and his Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The book was a total failure, met with scathing criticism from his contemporaries. It took decades for his genius to be recognized.

Or Victor Hugo. Les Misérables is one of the most human books in history, a golden gift from Victor Hugo to all of humanity. And yet, the reviews were violent upon its release.

Christopher McCandless, who rejected modern life, preferring to go into the wilderness to die there. A genius or a fool?

Diogenes, rejecting all social conventions, settled into his barrel in the middle of the city and taught his lessons, standing alone against everyone. Genius or a fool?

Thoreau, who preferred civil disobedience, chose not to pay his taxes and go to jail rather than submit to the government. Fool or genius?

The Spartans, numbering about 350, defending a narrow pass and their vision of freedom against tens of thousands of Persians. Fool or genius?

It takes a whole lot of retardation to become a genius.

How many great scientists, authors, painters, and artists have sacrificed themselves on the altar of their vision without ever receiving any recognition?

From the average person’s perspective, that’s idiotic behavior. If it doesn’t work, you have to give up and seek security. And that’s exactly why all the idiots will always be much closer to the truth than the geniuses. Because geniuses will be the pioneers who dare to defy conventional wisdom.

I’ll wrap up with the story of that cousin I shared yesterday.

It’s not one, two, or five years he’s spent taking photos just for fun. And family, friends, and everyone on Facebook making fun of him. It’s twelve freaking years. My cousin, if you talk to him, you won’t feel like you’re talking to an intellectual.

He’s lighthearted. He’s always smiling. He cracks dirty jokes like your old, drunk uncle at family dinners. But as a person, he’s a gem. Loyal. Sincere. More valuable than any of these hypocrite cockroachs. His artistic vision is absolutely brilliant. Cray cray but brillant. I’ve been following his work since years. It was often odd as fuck. But always cool. It’s his complete disconnect from today’s world that makes him a true genius.

For twelve years, he didn’t give a damn that you thought his art was “useless.” Or bizarre. That his art didn’t put food on the table. He was happy just to have fun and keep doing what made his heart beat.

Life is unfair. Because he could have stopped in his tenth year. But luckily, he didnt. But how many people stop in their tenth year when it’s the twelfth that would have been the one to change everything? Tragic. They will never know they were some goats.

Some stop at the first year. Some stop on the third try. They would never know that they weren’t wrong. They would never know that the world, outside the small circles that know their art, would find it absolutely brilliant.

The heart of what I want to tell you is that your individuality is supreme. That your art, your thoughts, your ideas are supreme. And that you don’t need the world’s approval, which may never come, to live them, think them, and put them into practice. And to be a goat.

You love to draw. Draw.
You love to sing. Sing.
You love to cook. Cook.
Whatever you love.
Just do it.
Because the world don’t know shit.

And as soon as you dare to follow your path, you are a goat. Because most humans will bend.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t challenge your own views as much as possible and strive to continue growing intellectually, because the goal isn’t to shut yourself away in a solitary echo chamber. But having enough self-confidence and resilience not to give in when, despite the challenge, you end up thinking the world is still wrong.

You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Especially not to the average fool who always chooses safety and comfort. Just let your thoughts align perfectly with your soul and your heart.

Dare to be a fool long enough for the world to recognize your genius. And even if you die a fool… who cares?

Free yourself from the weight of others’ judgment and their failure to understand your actions. Stop debating your vision of the world and instead embody it.

With love.

I met the most amazing girl of the universe on Substack. But for now, we can’t live together. So we do what we can to see each other on video calls.

These days, I’m not doing great. Life keeps molesting me. A violent downward spiral that seems to have no bottom. Our video calls aren’t the happiest. I have a kind of high-functioning depression. It’s been there for decades. I can function, but I feel empty, often.

This isn’t the coolest thing to read. But I’m always trying to be raw. There are millions of writers out there who have no problems at all and want to teach you how to live lives. I don’t know how to do that.

If you ask me how to excel in a particular field, no problem. I have all the keys to help you perform at the very top because I’ve done it many times. But when it comes to simple things, I struggle like a mortal.

I would have loved to be that flawless figure, a modern-day superhero, invincible, with all the answers to everything. But my cracks are everywhere, and it’s impossible to contain the darkness that consumes me.

My sweetheart, seeing me sad during one of our recent calls, told me,

I guess she’s right. But she doesn’t know where I’m from.

Two incidents come to mind, separated by two decades.

• Six-year-old, alone, terrified, in an empty house, not knowing when an adult would come home. Having to make my own dinner, survive on my own, go to school alone and overcome my fears alone. For years.

• My 26-year-old self, terrified, in an empty house, but this time emptied by my ex, who had decided to move out and leave me with two babies.

The people I loved most, with all my heart, abandoned me at pivotal moments.

How do you explain to a six-year-old that they can ask for help when there’s no one there? That there’s no point in hoping, and that no one will come to save you from your fears. You’ll sleep with them. That you have to survive on your own. And that’s just the way it is.

I don’t even know if there’s a fix for this.

My whole life story is rooted in loneliness. I’ve been alone, always. And it’s impossible for me to shake off certain demons. That convinced me that life is nothing but a solitary experience, with a few people occasionally coming into your story. But they all leave, eventually.

I don’t know where this reluctance to ask for help comes from, but I know that’s where it stems from. Now, i’m lost in some kind of narcissistic quest: “Hey, look, you’re gone, but I’m thriving. Look how I don’t need you. Look at everything I’m able to accomplish without you. Hey, would you please acknowledge my existence. Look at everything I won. Look how cool I am. Even though no achievement, no trophy has ever been able to fill the voids inside me.”

Anyway. Maybe life is trying to humble me by saying, “Yeah, but at some point, you’re going to have to ask for help. We are social beings. You need others.” And maybe I’m just a stubborn jerk who’d rather suffer than do that.

I can’t figure out why I feel like asking for help is humiliating. Since everyone on the internet seems to have a PhD in psychology, if you have any explanations other than that I’m a proud Saiyan heir, I’m all ears.

Life has turned me into a lone wolf. I can’t connect with anyone. I avoid any kind of relationship so I won’t get hurt again. I keep friends at a distance. I keep family at a distance. I’m not bitter at all. I think life is cool. I think life is beautiful. I can still love. But from a safe distance.

Many fantasize about the life of a lone wolf. After three decades of living it, I don’t want to spoil it for you, but it’s far from the dream it’s made out to be. Young man or young woman reading this, perhaps the best path is to heal your wounds rather than follow this solitary path.

Yes, there’s a good side, the freedom. But that freedom comes at a price. The price of having to rely solely on yourself. And the risk of finding yourself trapped, isolated, and alone when one of life’s traps snags one of your paws.

You’re out there, in the cold, bleeding on the ground, and your only hope is that someone will pass by, notice you and have the mercy to set you free. But for some, they’ve gone to places too far away. Where no human has access. Once trapped, no hope left.

We all know how the story ends.

This Sunday morning, I wasn’t planning to write about this topic, but it keeps popping up in my feed, and with all our nations facing massive economic challenges, now is the best time to do so.

A few days ago, Elon Musk posted this tweet. Since then, the debate has been raging.

If you’re not up to date on the concept of basic income:

This isn’t a new idea. Serious economists and philosophers have been theorizing about it for decades. Trials have even been conducted in certain cities around the world to see whether these microcosms could benefit everyone or not.

Elon Musk’s twist is that he isn’t proposing a Universal Basic Income, but a Universal High Income. Not a basic income, but a high income, which will arise from the wealth created by the army of robots and the AI wave that our modern societies are about to face.

According to him, everyone will be able to be rich and free. Thanks to human progress. And to the tech giants and the government, who, hand in hand, in their great magnanimity, will share with you the resources generated by this vast automated industry.

His tweet generated hundreds of thousands of reactions; for, against, mixed, and extreme; and it has at least one merit: opening the debate. But the vast majority of the criticism or praise misses crucial points, one of which is major and is never mentioned.

My main criticisms boil down to a few points

• A universal basic income provided by the state is a Trojan horse.
  It could be conditional on many things. It would be the best way to buy submission. There would be a risk that your income could be cut off and/or reduced if you do not comply with the rules in force. Submission would become the norm. If there is ever a universal basic income, it must come from a human-led, decentralized initiative, not controlled by the state, that succeeds in distributing wealth without distinction or prejudice.

• Capitalism has never redistributed wealth.
  It is a vertical extraction system that will continue to extract. We are living in the wealthiest era in history, yet with the most extreme inequalities in history. Throughout its short history, capitalism has driven efforts to cut and reduce human costs. Technological progress is the final step. Human needs, reduced almost to nothing, become de facto useless. Tech companies, heirs to this predatory system, will not redistribute wealth within the paradigm in which we live.

Universal basic income is not a bad idea. But under state control, it is a tool for hard-core totalitarianism with no way out.

One of the recurring criticisms of UBI was that humans would lose their “meaning.” Capitalism has ravaged minds by associating work with the meaning of life. As if serving coffee or filling out Excel spreadsheets, glued to a screen, were a way to fulfill one’s soul.

And the argument: “Yes, but we can choose whatever job we want,” is now obsolete.

Many professions that require 5 to 10 years of study will be completely wiped out in record time. Passionate people have spent years of their lives learning a skill that will become obsolete.

Capitalism isn’t designed to help you find meaning in your life. It’s designed to extract the life force from a trade, where one side will always try to milk the other as much as possible. And if you have found meaning in your life within this system, it’s purely by chance that your search for meaning aligns with the economic interests of a predatory market.

We can’t afford it.
Final criticism often leveled at UBI. Many economists have pulled out their calculators to prove, through simple math, that funding all of this would lead to massive inflation and that we can’t redistribute wealth. I won’t bother refuting them. Treating humans as statistics and engaging in nitpicky calculations is fundamentally against the human race.

We can afford it.
We can finance a UNIVERSAL HIGH INCOME. And not in the way Elon Musk does. The solution to this problem lies not in economics, mathematics, or progress, but in philosophy. A choice that humanity must make to give itself a chance to build a bright future, not just for some, but for all of us. And yes, it will require an investment. But it’s an investment that will pay off in countless ways.

Unused. Endless diamond mines that are right there, at our disposal.

I’ve studied human genius over the past decade. One question haunts me: how do geniuses become geniuses? And the common factor is simple: infinite iterations in a field that fascinates them and fulfills their purpose.

The perfect blend of passion, obsession, and a lifelong quest. It opens the door to realms of genius unique in human history. Our biggest problem is that, in our modern societies, human beings have no chance to tap into their genius. We are crushed by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

They must find shelter, feed themselves, plan for an uncertain future, and trade their precious time and human energy in a daily grind. Modern humans live in a paradigm of fear, whereas human genius is attained in a paradigm of security.

Human genius is literally being stolen from billions of people for the profit of corporations. Yet if these people were cared for and their basic needs met, they could devote themselves to tasks that inspire them and fulfill their souls. Genius that they would put to work for the benefit of humanity.

There are billions of untapped areas of genius at our disposal. These areas of genius could propel humanity forward like never before across every field. But they are sacrificed on the altar of capitalism. The greatest waste in the history of humanity. We are sacrificing what could benefit everyone for the economic gain of a few.

The missing link in the equation is here: the untapped potential of a humanity that could work as it pleases on what it is passionate about without fear of starving the following month. This would create an unprecedented amount of wealth. And new knowledge in every field of human history.

We can create our utopia, but it is not AI or robotics that can do it. The answer lies within ourselves. But it would require us to collectively shift our paradigm. To love one another, to value one another, to rely on one another.

To realize just how much genius there is in each of us, and to trust one another as a whole, supporting one another so that everyone can go find their own hidden gem which will benefit us all. To prioritize humanity by collectively deciding that it is time for every human to have the right to live decently, under a roof, and to be fed.

Idiots will think this is communism or socialism. And yet, it’s an investment. Which would have infinite returns. You’d be taking care of people, who could finally work on the tasks that humanity truly needs. And who would no longer be forced to trade their genius just to survive.

We would collectively benefit, at breakneck speed, from a wealth of new knowledge and wealth created by the advancements of hundreds of billions of geniuses who can finally put it to use.

It is a myth that humans, once they have climbed Maslow’s hierarchy, want only to be entertained. Many are immensely wealthy and continue to become so precisely because they keep working on what they want to do, not what they have to do.

And countless geniuses have brought innovation to humanity, even though they still had to spend part of their time just to survive. Imagine how much of their genius was wasted simply because they were afraid of not being able to pay their rent? Their legacy to humanity could have been far greater.

The solution is already right before our eyes. Of course, some will use this free time for entertainment, but who cares? Because the millions of others who can now use their genius will be a large net positive.

These paradigm shifts can only take place when we collectively decide that it is a philosophical crime against humanity to force a soul to trade their lifetime in an exploitative system that benefits only a few. That it is a crime against humanity to deny a person the opportunity to safely explore their purpose by thrusting them into the midst of a situation of immense economic violence.

The paradigm shift will only occur when we care enough about humanity to ensure that everyone, regardless of race or political affiliation, has access to quality food, decent housing, healthcare, and education. Humanity cares for its own so that humans can care for humanity.

We can build our utopia. We are not on this earth to suffer. To wage war. To starve. And to live in fear. We can build our utopia. But that can only happen when we are brave enough to collectively put our faith in one another. Once we have enough trust and love for all of humanity. And for ourselves.

Your words must always align with your philosophy. So, no, I can’t offer a basic income, because I don’t have trillions of dollars. But what I can offer is my genius to others, in the hope that they will use it to improve the world in which I live.

My publications are now free. All paywalls have been removed. I have hundreds of posts on innovative philosophies to help you in your lives. I have hundreds of posts that can help you become better writers in my other publication.

I truly believe that we can all win by freely sharing our genius. And if you’d like to support this publication, feel free to do it.

Imagine giving your all for years on end. Doing everything you can to achieve your goals. Learning the ropes. Putting in all your hours. Staying up all night. And then it doesn’t work out. How would you feel?

We always talk about the winners. We never talk about those who keep trying, tirelessly. And who, like a wave crashing onto a beach, keep breaking on the sand, always rolling back.

They touch the shore, they cling to it, they want to stay on dry land. But the water pulls them back. As if solid ground is not their home. And all they can have is struggle in the ocean, amidst predators and storms. The salt eating their skin, a little more, each day. In the heart of a starless, pitch-black night. They want to walk, they dream of running, but they’re destined to drown.

Sometimes, they tell themselves that maybe it would be better to stop struggling. Too hard. Too painful. Too exhausting. Maybe drowning is a better fate than this constant struggle. Maybe peace is better than this feeling of constant danger. In the middle of the ocean with the depths beneath their feet, every movement becomes an effort.

What is the maximum amount of pain a human can endure?

No idea. But we surely all have a limit. And once it’s reached, everything breaks. We don’t want to suffer anymore. We don’t want to cling to yet another beach. We don’t want to be disappointed anymore. We don’t want to feel solid ground only to find ourselves swept away, once again, relentlessly into those terrifying zones.

In the middle of the ocean, with no stars to guide me, it’s time to stop the struggle. I lie on my back, let myself drift, and contemplate the void. I try to understand the meaning of pain. The meaning of all these things that have none.

I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know where the wind is taking me. But I know I’ll have to get back on my feet. Yes, the latest failures are painful. Yes, the latest failures have taken a toll on my morale. But no, I won’t let them defeat me.

Someone once told me:

So I suppose today, I don’t have much to do. Just take this latest failure. Look it in the eye. Learn from my mistakes. And prepare to start swimming again.

I have nothing to leave to my children or to this world. Only my words and a state of mind. That of a terrified swimmer, in the heart of darkness, tired, exhausted, without strength, but who will not give up. My will is all I have. And I intend to defend it until the very end with all my soul.

Unfazed.
Unbroken.

Until death, all defeats are psychological.

Hello friends,

I’m picking up the pen this Sunday to talk about something that quietly ruins lives. I’ve lived it. I still see it everywhere. And it’s a tragedy.

There are people who make efforts for weeks, months, even years, and make no progress. Sometimes, there are small breakthroughs, but they always fall back to the same place. As if they were trapped in cages with invisible walls. At some point, they even start wondering if they are cursed.

Many give up at that moment, telling themselves: “I made the effort. I tried. It didn’t work. Why inflict more pain on myself? I might as well accept my life and just survive without disappointing myself.”

It’s a shame, because their analysis is biased and entirely wrong. They think they made the effort. They think they gave it their all. Yes, maybe they sweated. And worked hard. But they did it the wrong way. They failed to understand a fundamental principle:

Any other effort is like a fool standing before waves, trying to cut them with a sword. He could spend his days slicing through waves. Come back exhausted from his battle. But he will never manage to wound the water.

So the question is not “Am I working hard enough?”
The real question is “Where is it blocked?”

Once that is said, problems need to be addressed. You need to step back, look at the bigger picture of your life, and identify what is stuck. And what is stuck is often a bottleneck.

Imagine pouring more and more water into a bottle with a very narrow neck. No matter how much you pour, the flow stays the same. Not because you need more water, but because you need a wider opening. That’s what a bottleneck is: the single point that limits everything else.

You can work more, learn more, push harder. If you don’t fix the bottleneck, you are just increasing pressure, not results.

And our daily problem is that our bottlenecks are major, sneaky, and insidious. They don’t look like bottlenecks, and yet they ruin everything.

• Sleeping six hours feels normal. Everyone does it. But it quietly drains your energy, your clarity, your ability to think and act. One missing hour can sabotage an entire life.

• A toxic relationship feels normal. But it eats your time, your focus, your identity. You stay because it’s familiar. And it slowly destroys everything you could have built. It slowly destroys you.

• An average diet feels normal. But your body pays the price. Your brain slows down. Your chemistry collapses. And no amount of effort can compensate for that.

These are not small problems.
They are structural limits.

You can optimize everything around them. Better tools. More discipline. More hours. It won’t matter. Because life does not reward effort equally. It rewards leverage.

Fix the bottleneck, and everything accelerates.
Ignore it, and everything stays stuck.

I took simple examples. Things that affect everyone. I could have added phone addiction, all those hours we lose to compulsions, or even self-love.

Self-love might be the biggest bottleneck of all. When you don’t love yourself, your entire kingdom shrinks. No confidence. Doubts about the people around you. Difficulty owning who you are. Inability to feel like you deserve good things. The lack of self-love is a black hole for your future.

I’ll finish with an example from my own life. A few years ago, I was severely stuck in terms of revenue. I couldn’t grow, and I couldn’t understand why. My work was good. My clients were happy. Why was it so hard to progress?

One day, I tested ads. And the more ads I ran, the more results I got. I didn’t have a quality problem. I didn’t have a client problem. My problem was that my offers weren’t seen enough. I just needed more eyes on them. That was my bottleneck. Once solved, my revenue started to grow fast.

The problem with bottlenecks is that they hide in our blind spots. Or in our deepest fears. Some people have terrible lives because of their addiction. And they will work on everything except the addiction. Years will pass. They won’t understand why they are stuck. And yet, they will remain stuck until they address that one specific problem.

You cannot outrun a bottleneck.
You cannot outwork it.
You cannot ignore it.
You can only face it.

All I wish for you is the courage to do that. Because that is the difference between people who stay stuck and those who break through. It’s not about luck. It’s not about working hard. It’s about facing life, naked, and being brave enough to say: enough. I know this thing is ruining my life. I’ll stop being a bitch. And I’ll take care of it.

All I wish for you is to have the courage to attack your bottlenecks. It’s not easy. But that’s why heroes are heroes. Because they are brave.

So…
Be brave.

See you next Sunday.

If this resonated, or you’d like to support my work, you can subscribe and unlock three years of archives. Have an amazing Sunday.

Oh oh oh oh… my friend. I never give advice. Because I know that every piece of advice gets blamed when the outcome turns bad. People turn as quickly as the wind. And I’m not going to risk putting myself at odds with either you or your parents if the outcome turns out unfortunate.

But when someone shares a situation like this with me, I still have a small legend, one that was told to me a few years ago, that I like to share.

Since I learned it, it has helped me in many situations. I hope it helps my friend. I hope it helps you. If you too are facing a problem that seems impossible to solve. I’ll share the version that is most faithful to my memory.

There was a time when an ancient city existed: Gordium. Known for its intelligent men. In that city stood a chariot we still talk about today. Its legend began one morning, when it was left in the middle of a street. Nothing unusual. Except that on it was a knot. Tied to wooden posts. The person who found the chariot tried to untie the knot. But nothing worked. So he called others. But no one could undo it. And soon, the entire city was trying to untie the knot.

The knot looked like an infinite tangle of ropes, woven in a deliberate way. So complex that no one could tell where it began or where it ended. The rope twisted into itself like a riddle designed by the Universe, a challenge as much of the mind as of patience.

For years, a few men, appointed by the state, tried to solve the knot without success. The street was closed. The chariot remained there, untouched. And no one even approached it anymore. Convinced there was no solution.

A prophecy even began to spread.

The legend could have ended there. A forgotten chariot in a forgotten street of a forgotten city. But its fate changed when Alexander the Great conquered Gordium.

Quickly, his men told him about the knot. He went to see it. Examined it. Smiled. And said to his men: “I give you one week to solve it. Or I will do it myself.”

All his greatest scholars got to work. They measured. Compared. Examined. Tried. Drew. The most intelligent men of the greatest empire of that era attempted to solve the impossible.

Days passed, and nothing worked. The knot resisted. It even seemed to tighten every time someone pulled on one part. When the week ended, the men returned to Alexander.

“Alexander, our greatest minds have failed. We doubt you will succeed. And if you do… show us.”

A massive crowd had gathered around the chariot. Because Alexander had said he would solve the riddle. And watching an emperor fail in public is a rare spectacle.

Alexander stepped forward. He smiled again. In one swift motion, he drew his sword and cut the knot. A shiver ran through the crowd. Silence. Alexander walked back to his quarters.

No finesse. No elegant solution. No hidden mechanism revealed. Just a clean, decisive act that bypassed the problem instead of getting trapped inside it.

The prophecy did not say how the knot had to be undone. Only that it had to be undone. And maybe that is how Alexander became the ruler of Asia.

We like to believe that life’s problems are like that knot. That if we just think a little longer, analyze a little deeper, wait for the right moment, a clean and satisfying solution will appear.

But most of the time, it doesn’t.

Instead, we sit in front of our own Gordian knots. We let them sadden us. Torture us. Weigh us down every single day.

A career choice postponed for months. A relationship we don’t dare define. A project we delay because it isn’t perfect yet. We tell ourselves we are “figuring it out,” when in reality, we are avoiding the cost of choosing.

Because choosing is violent.
Choosing cuts away every other possibility.
Choosing closes doors.
Choosing exposes us to consequences we can no longer avoid.
So we hesitate. We analyze. We wait.
And the knot tightens.

I told you last week: not choosing is still a choice. And often, it’s the worst one. Because it slowly strips you of your power. It lets time decide for you. It lets circumstances write a life you never consciously chose.

Indecision doesn’t keep doors open. It slowly closes them all
You don’t need more clarity.
You need to cut.

A decision almost brutal in its simplicity. One that doesn’t solve every detail, but moves you forward. One that breaks the illusion that everything must be understood before action.

There are moments where subtlety is a luxury you cannot afford.

Moments where the only way forward is a clean, imperfect, irreversible act.

Send the message.
Say what you need to say.
Start the project.
Say no.
Say yes.

Cut the knot.

Because most problems are not solved by intelligence alone. They are solved by courage. The courage to act without guarantees. The courage to accept that every path closes others. The courage to live with the consequences of your own decisions.

Alexander did not become great because he understood everything. He became great because he refused to be stopped. And sometimes, that’s all it takes. Not more thinking. Just a sword.

If this resonated, or you’d like to support my work, you can subscribe and unlock three years of archives. Have an amazing Sunday.

I love chess. Because every game represents a life. With its beginning, its middle, and its end. And an infinity of chess metaphors can be found in our lives. One of my favorites is zugzwang.

Zugzwang is a strange and cruel position where every move you make worsens your situation. The best choice would be to do nothing. Stay still. Wait for your opponent to do something. Because every move you make will weaken your position.

But the rules of the game forbid it.

You must play.

The problem in this situation is that every move feels so dangerous that a massive hesitation takes over. Every move seems a mistake. What should you do? Doubts flood in except… the clock is ticking. Urgency and panic takes over you. And the more time you spend hesitating, the less time you will have for the rest of the game.

This concept is fascinating because it doesn’t just exist on a chessboard, but is one of the fundamental situations of life.

Life is a perpetual zugzwang.

No one asked to be on this earth. And here we are. Every day. We have to move. Because the principles of life dictate that entropy is death. We are living organisms with a biological need to evolve. We need movement. But life often paralyzes us. We don’t know what to do. We’re afraid. We hesitate. Everything feels too hard. Everything feels too complex. Every decision carries risks we are not ready to take. Every decision implies a loss. Every door opened closes another.

Right now, war, the endless stream of bad news, AI disrupting jobs, the uncertainty of the future are literally draining our energy. They push us into situations where we don’t know what to do. And beneath that, so many life situations feel like impossible knots to untie. Should I keep trying? Keep doing this job? Say what you feel, or preserve a fragile peace? Study this? Keep these people in my circle who don’t do me any good? Should I follow my dreams? Believe in myself a little more? Live more?

An infinity of questions that paralyze us daily.

So you choose inaction, because action feels too costly. You move forward, or you delay again. And slowly, something shifts: you’re no longer searching for the right choice. You’re just trying to pick the least bad one. Or you’re not moving at all. Giving up in the game of life.

Yet, like in zugzwang, one thing remains impossible:

Not to play.
Because not playing is still a move.
Usually the worst one.
The one where you give up control.

This is the true human condition. We are thrown into a game we did not choose, with rules we did not write, and a clock that never stops. Doing nothing is an illusion. Time plays on your behalf. Things evolve, whether you decide or not. Staying still is still moving, but without control. So we wait. We wait for the right moment. The right decision. The clear signal that will confirm it’s the right move.

But that moment almost never exists.

The tragedy is not that every move has a cost.
The tragedy is that not moving has one too.

Life is not a problem to be solved with enough thinking.
It is a system that only reveals itself to those who participate.

Good chess players understand something fundamental: In a zugzwang position, the goal is not to find a perfect move. There isn’t one.

The goal is to play anyway.

To stay active. To create movement. To make the least bad move. To learn from the position, even if it’s uncomfortable. Because a bad move still contains information. Inaction contains nothing.

Scenario 1: You don’t move. Your clock runs down. You panic because you know you’re in danger. Every second spent hesitating reduces your chances of winning the game.

Scenario 2: You move. You know it’s a bad move. But that’s life. And suddenly, an infinite window of possibilities opens. Maybe your opponent makes a fundamental mistake. Maybe your opponent gets destabilized because you keep moving forward with confidence while being in an extremely uncomfortable position.

Life works the same way.

You don’t need to be certain to move forward.
You don’t need everything to be aligned to act.
You only need to move.

A bad choice teaches you.
An imperfect action transforms you.
A hesitant step reveals more than a thousand reflections.

Being alive means playing a game where passing your turn is not allowed.
Some days, the board will be favorable.
Others, every move will feel wrong.

But the rule never changes:

You must play.

So play.

Look at your life, honestly.

What decision have you been avoiding for weeks, even months, because no option feels perfect?

It’s not clarity you need.
It’s movement.
You won’t find the answer by thinking more.
You will build it by moving.
Not tomorrow.
Not when you’re ready.
Today.
Clarity is not found before action.
It is forged by it.

If you want to take back control: Play.

Make the move. Even if it’s imperfect. Even if it’s uncomfortable. Cut the Gordian knot. Because in this game, there is only one way to lose:

Stay still for too long.

With love.
Have an amazing Sunday.

If this resonated, or you’d like to support my work, you can subscribe and unlock three years of archives.

People sometimes tell me that I have confidence in myself. That they envy my ability to stay optimistic. It always makes me smile, because behind the confidence they see today are years spent bathing in my deepest fears.

For years, I felt like I wasn’t good enough at my job. That my work wasn’t good enough. When I started writing, it was the same. I was terrified. Every time I had to publish an article, my heart would race as I clicked the “Publish” button.

You might think it doesn’t matter, but in my day-to-day work, my lack of self-confidence has almost killed me. I didn’t dare charge high fees. I was the busy entrepreneur. The one who was always swamped with work but always broke. Paradox. I’ve come close to bankruptcy several times, even though all my clients praise my work and I’ve received nothing but good reviews.

Lacking self-confidence is a fundamental flaw in one of life’s pillar.
One that will always threaten to bring everything crashing down.

It cost me years of personal growth. Countless times, I couldn’t say no because I lacked self-confidence. Years during which I could have grown, done better, and become a better person, but instead, I was trapped by limiting beliefs that imposed glass ceilings on me. That lack of self-confidence ruined a good part of my life.

Fortunately, it is not an incurable disease. And even though it took a while, things are better now.

My life changed when I started to have confidence in myself.

Today, the things that terrified me yesterday have become trivial. I was not born confident. I learned it. And fortunately so, because if there is one cheat code in life, it is self-confidence. It carries one of the highest energetic signatures. The way you behave in the world often determines the way the world treats you.

Self-confidence is one of the most desired qualities in the world. We notice it immediately in certain people. They seem to move with assurance, make decisions without hesitation, and act as if their place in the world were obvious.

Many of us assume that these individuals possess something we lack. A natural disposition, a personality trait, perhaps even a psychological talent.

But that is false.

Self-confidence is not a mysterious gift. It follows a much simpler mechanism, almost scientific. It is built through a precise chain of causes and consequences.

I have gathered everything I have learned from a lifetime spent trying to excel in many different fields. How, starting from nothing, I built reservoirs of confidence that I can draw from every day.

We will see why confidence is almost never the starting point of action, but rather the result of an invisible process. And once you understand this process, self-confidence stops being a mystery.

It becomes something you can cultivate.

But also all the reasons why it’s vital to keep building your self-confidence.

1. The Signals That Shape Reality

Let’s begin with a simple observation.

Read more

Last year, I started playing chess again. I played a lot for three months and reached the top 3%. I’m not writing these lines to brag (or maybe a little), but because the method I used to improve was interesting.

Before this breakthrough in progress, I played chess for years. I played a lot. I was stagnating. My progress was chaotic. During this last session of a few months, I changed one small thing.

After each game, I analyzed it systematically.

In chess, after a game, there are systems that can tell you precisely:

• This move was brilliant

• This move was good

• This move was average

• This move was bad

• This move was a disaster and it’s the reason you lost

Every move has its rating scale. After each game, you can find exactly where you played brilliantly, but also where you failed. Some moves improve your position. Others waste time. And sometimes, with a single mistake, the entire game collapses.

By analyzing everything systematically, I was able to work on my weaknesses and gradually eliminate them game after game. The progress became exponential.

After a few months, I thought to myself:

Because every action we take is a decision that will affect the trajectory of a life. Most of them seem small, almost invisible, and yet each decision also has its own rating scale.

• Decision that strongly influences your trajectory

• Good decision

• Neutral decision

• Bad decision

• Decision that is a costly mistake

Imagine that every day, you only sleep five hours. This single decision is a costly strategic mistake that will affect every domain of your life. You could make a lot of effort in many other areas, but this mistake pulls everything downward.

Imagine that every day, you take a small walk at a normal pace. You will burn around 3600 calories each month, roughly half a kilogram. This impacts your physical health but also your mental state.

These two small decisions lead to completely different trajectories.

Except that daily life is not one decision, but dozens and dozens of them. So I created a system that, just like in chess, allows you to evaluate the trajectory of your life in real time, every single day.

Each day will be rated, just like in chess where each move is rated. And each day will fall into a category that allows you to clearly see the trajectory of your life.

I designed it to be simple and clear, because we need simplicity to move forward smoothly, and complexity creates too much friction.

This system is based on three elements:

• The four pillars of life

• The daily score

• A ranking system inspired by the ELO used in chess

If you have reached the point where you truly want to change your life and you are ready to do the work, this system is for you.

I) The Four Pillars of Life

Almost all life trajectories improve when four fundamental dimensions progress consistently. These pillars create compound effects over several years. They influence your skills, your energy, your opportunities, and your influence.

1) Creation

This can be building a product, designing something, coding, producing content, or advancing an important project. Creation transforms ideas into assets.

A person who creates every day builds momentum. Over months and years, these small actions accumulate and become a powerful lever.

Creation moves your pieces forward on the chessboard.

2) Learning

Reading, studying ideas, analyzing strategies, or exploring new concepts strengthens your ability to make better decisions. Knowledge develops silently but powerfully.

A person who learns every day gradually develops an intellectual advantage that becomes visible over time.

Learning improves the player, not just the move.

3) Physical

Energy, focus, discipline, and emotional resilience are deeply linked to your physical condition. Moving, walking, exercising, or training maintains the system that allows you to act consistently.

A neglected body will always weaken the mind that depends on it.

The physical pillar keeps the machine running.

4) Relationships

Opportunities, collaborations, and breakthroughs often come from conversations, partnerships, and networks. Strengthening relationships, helping others, or creating new connections increases the impact of your actions.

Relationships expand the chessboard far beyond what you could accomplish alone.

II) How to Score Your Day

At the end of the day, you evaluate each pillar with a score from 0 to 5.
You therefore assign a score to each of the four domains:

• Creation

• Learning

• Physical

• Relationships

The maximum score of a day is 20 points.

1) The Scoring Scale

Each pillar is rated from 0 to 5 using the same scale. The goal is not to reward intentions, but real progress.

0 — Nothing
No meaningful effort in this pillar.

1 — Minimal effort
A very small action, almost symbolic.

2 — Light progress
A short action that slightly moves things forward.

3 — Solid progress
A real effort that clearly improves your position.

4 — Strong progress
A significant action that creates visible progress.

5 — Exceptional move
A major action that strongly advances your trajectory.

Example

I’m simplifying for the sake of the example.
Imagine a day like this.

You worked one hour on your project.
You read 30 pages of a book.
You took a 40-minute walk.
You had an interesting conversation with someone.

Your score might look like this:

Creation: 4
Learning: 3
Physical: 3
Relationships: 3
Total: 13 / 20

This is a good day. A solid move.

2) The Quality of the Move Matters

However, rating your day is not simply about counting actions. The real value of a decision depends on its strategic quality. The whole system collapses if you evaluate your moves poorly.

The system only works:

• If you know what strategic actions you need to take

• If you know how to evaluate them correctly

The first part could be the subject of an entire blog post.
For the second part, I have a little grid to help you perfect your scoring.

To judge this quality, we can analyze important decisions through five axes. These axes help us understand whether a move truly improves your position or simply creates the illusion of progress.

Alignment

Does this decision truly bring you closer to the objective you claim to pursue?

My goal is to become a more visible writer. Publishing an article, improving a title, or building an offer is highly aligned. Spending an hour modifying my profile banner for the third time this week might feel productive, but strategically it is questionable.

Alignment measures whether your actions actually move you toward the direction you want to reach.

Compound Effect

Some decisions increase in value over time.

Reading regularly, training your body, building assets, or learning repeatable systems create benefits that accumulate over months or years.

A single session may seem small, but repeated consistently, it becomes powerful. Compound effects transform small moves into long-term advantages.

Leverage

Some decisions make future decisions easier or more powerful.

Creating a template, setting up a routine, organizing your workspace, clarifying a strategy, or automating a task may seem trivial in the moment. Yet these actions improve the efficiency of dozens of future actions.

Leverage improves the board itself.

Reversibility

Some mistakes are easy to correct. Others are not.

Missing a morning is recoverable. Losing six months in a bad project can be extremely costly. Decisions that involve your time, reputation, health, or credibility must be evaluated carefully.

The harder a mistake is to repair, the more strategically dangerous it becomes. Reversibility measures the risk of a move.

Structural Energy

Even useful actions can weaken your system if they destroy your attention, your sleep, or your focus.

Your energy, discipline, and mental clarity form the engine behind all your moves. Some actions reinforce this engine: walking, sleeping properly, eating well, finishing a difficult task, or cleaning your environment.

A long game cannot be won if the player collapses before the end. Structural energy protects your ability to keep playing.

3) How a Real Day Looks like

I will use my own example to illustrate.

Creation

• Did I write?

• Did I publish a daily reels?

Learning

• Have I read 30 pages?

• Did I do my daily journaling session?

Physical

• Did I do my 20-minute workout?

• Did I take my daily walk?

• Did I get 8 hours of sleep?

• Did I eat healthy food?

Relationships

• Have I nurtured my most important relationships?

• Have I made myself more visible today?

I rate each answer from 0 to 5 and then calculate an average for each category. Simple and effective. No need for a long list of things to move forward efficiently.

4) Interpreting the Daily Score

Once the four pillars are rated, the total score reveals the quality of the move you played.

0–4 → Lost day
5–8 → Weak day
9–12 → Decent day
13–16 → Very good day
17–20 → Master move

The goal is not perfection.
The goal is consistency.

A single exceptional day changes nothing.
But a long series of good days can transform an entire life.

III) The Life ELO System

To track your progress over the long term, we use a system inspired by the chess ELO ranking.

Your Life ELO represents the average quality of your days.

Everyone starts at 1000 ELO.

Each day slightly modifies this score depending on the quality of the move played.

• Score 0–5 → −15 ELO

• Score 6–10 → −5 ELO

• Score 11–14 → +5 ELO

• Score 15–17 → +10 ELO

• Score 18–20 → +15 ELO

Over time, your ELO becomes a very accurate reflection of the average quality of your days.

1) What Your ELO Reveals

A single day does not change a life.
But a month often does.

Because when thirty days accumulate in the same direction, the effects begin to compound. Habits stabilize, energy shifts, momentum appears, and your perception of yourself begins to change.

This is why your monthly ELO variation matters so much. Over a period of thirty days, your score can theoretically move between –600 and +600 ELO.

• A perfect month of strong days can add +600 ELO.

• A disastrous month can subtract –600 ELO.

This spectrum allows us to divide months into clear zones of trajectory.

Example: A Week of Moves

Let’s see what this system looks like in practice.

Imagine a week where you evaluate each day using the four pillars and update your Life ELO.

Starting ELO: 1000

• Day 1 → 6/20 → −5 ELO → 995

• Day 2 → 10/20 → −5 ELO → 990

• Day 3 → 13/20 → +5 ELO → 995

• Day 4 → 14/20 → +5 ELO → 1000

• Day 5 → 15/20 → +10 ELO → 1010

• Day 6 → 15/20 → +10 ELO → 1020

• Day 7 → 13/20 → +5 ELO → 1025

After just one week, your ELO has moved from 1000 to 1025.

Nothing dramatic happened. No life-changing event. Just a series of slightly better moves.

And this is how real progress works: not through one perfect day, but through the quiet accumulation of strong days.

2) The Monthly ELO Zones

This is not simply a bad month. It is a month that attacks the structure of your life.

Discipline disappears. Energy collapses. Important routines vanish. The feeling of control fades and chaos begins to take over.

A single month in this zone does not destroy a life, but repeated months here will.

Here, the position is clearly deteriorating.

You are still functioning, but progress disappears. Many days are weak, momentum fades, and small neglected habits accumulate into real regression.

This is the zone where people often believe they are “busy”, while in reality their position is slowly weakening.

This zone represents slow erosion.

The month is not catastrophic, but it lacks direction. There are occasional good days, but they are not consistent enough to create momentum.

Over time, months like this quietly steal years without dramatic warning signs.

In this zone, your life maintains its position but does not move forward.

Things are stable. Nothing collapses. But nothing truly improves either.

Many people spend long periods here because it feels comfortable. Yet stagnation over long periods becomes its own form of loss.

This is where progress begins to return.

Good days start to outnumber weak ones. Discipline improves. Energy stabilizes. The feeling of direction slowly comes back.

This zone does not transform a life overnight, but it restores movement.

Here the trajectory becomes clearly positive.

Habits strengthen. Work accumulates. Energy improves. Confidence grows as visible progress begins to appear.

This is often the stage where people start to feel that their life is genuinely moving forward again.

These are the months that change trajectories.

Strong days accumulate with very little interruption. Momentum becomes obvious. Discipline becomes natural. Results begin to appear across multiple areas of life.

A month in this zone often creates a psychological shift. You no longer feel like someone trying to improve your life.

You feel like someone who is moving in the right direction. Aligns with his goals and purpose in life.

3) The Real Meaning of the System

Your ELO is not simply a number.
It is a reflection of the average strength of your days.
And the average strength of your days eventually determines the direction of your life.

Some months slowly weaken your position.
Some months maintain it.
And some months move the entire board in your favor.

The question is not whether you had a perfect day.

The real question is much simpler.

In which direction did this month move your life?

We are not trying to achieve a perfect ELO. At the very least, we want to remain in the neutral zone. Ideally, we want to move toward the growth zone.

IV) If You Are Lost

I already know that some people will say:

If you don’t know what you want to become, don’t try to solve your entire life in a single reflection. Simply start by answering a few questions.

Your direction often appears when you observe what already attracts your attention.

Ask yourself:

• What subjects or activities naturally attract my attention, even when nobody asks me to focus on them?

• What activities make me lose track of time when I do them?

• What unhealthy habits do I know I have that I should avoid at all costs?

• Who are the people I admire, and what exactly do I admire about them?

• If I could become exceptional at one skill over the next ten years, which one would I choose?

• What problems in the world genuinely frustrate me or make me think “this could be done better”?

• What kind of work would I still find interesting even if nobody applauded me for it?

• If my life improved dramatically in three years, what would concretely be different?

Your answers will not give you a perfect plan. But they will often reveal a direction worth exploring. Once that direction is found, you can translate it into daily actions across the four pillars.

Start walking the path, and the path will reveal itself.
From that moment, you can start your game of life.

The Game of Life

People often believe life changes through spectacular decisions.
In reality, it changes through the silent accumulation of ordinary days.
When you consistently create, learn, strengthen your body, and build relationships, your position gradually improves.
The chessboard slowly begins to tilt in your favor.
And every evening, only one question remains.

Did I play a good move today?

Every day can be played terribly by stacking mistake after mistake.
Every day can also be played like a grandmaster.
You are the player.
Now, it’s your move.

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It is not a lack of money.
It is not failure.
It is that one day, his children may find themselves alone.
Confused. Fragile in the face of the world.
And that he will no longer be there to guide them.

We can give them an education, comfort and love.
But when everything shakes, when the world becomes unstable, what remains?

Only an inner structure.
A way of thinking.
A way of standing firm.
A way of acting when no one is watching.

I searched for that structure for decades in philosophy, in honor codes, in chivalry, in the discipline of warriors, in the lives of those who stood upright in unstable times.
Then I stopped searching.
And I built.
Not a philosophy to admire.
A philosophy to live.

The Path.
Not a dogma.
Not blind obedience.
But a voluntary discipline.
A resilient, fluid philosophy of life and action.

If I could leave only one thing to those I love, it would be this.

The Path

The Path is built in layers.
Each layer strengthens the next.
Together, they form a coherent life.

Step Zero - The Subconscious

If you believe you are incapable, you will hesitate.
If you believe you are inconsistent, you will prove it.
If you believe discipline is not for you, you will avoid it.

The Path cannot stand on a foundation of quiet self-doubt.

Before anything, there must be permission.

• I allow myself to change.

• I allow myself to begin again.

• I allow myself to forgive myself.

• I allow myself to be more than my mistakes.

• I allow myself to become someone new.

• My past does not dictate my future.

• My direction remains mine to choose.

The Path can only begin when you allow yourself to choose a new direction.

I — The Spine

• I will honor my word.

• I will be better than yesterday.

• I will refuse what weakens me.

• I will not betray my future self.

• I will build and care for my body.

• I will produce more than I consume.

• I will seek truth, even against myself.

• I will take responsibility for my actions.

• I will leave things better than I found them.

• I will learn from my mistakes and rise beyond them.

II — The Mind

1. The World Is Neutral

The world is not designed to save you or destroy you. It is a field of possibility. Every obstacle contains leverage. Every constraint hides a lesson. The posture you adopt determines what you see. The world becomes what you make of it.

2. Identity is built

You are not what you say you are. You are what you do. You become what you repeat. Identity is carved by daily action, not by intention. Habits build character, and character builds fate.

3. Attention is direction

Energy is limited. Attention is finite. What you scatter weakens. What you direct grows. Focus is not restriction, it is amplification. When you concentrate your effort, progress compounds.

4. Consistency Outlives Intensity

Intensity feels powerful, but it fades quickly. Consistency may seem modest, yet it endures. Small actions, repeated daily, reshape the body, sharpen the mind, and strengthen the will.

III — The Heart

1) The First Breath

Every day is a new day. It is a blank canvas waiting to be painted. From the very first breath, we take back control. We do not let the world dictate our state. We choose.

Breath regulates the nervous system and lowers internal turbulence.

From the moment we wake up, we breathe slowly. Slow inhale. Full exhale. We fill our lungs completely. We empty them completely. Ten deliberate breaths. The day begins internally, not externally.

You choose your state before the world does.

2) Movement, Walking, Reading

Most routines are impossible to sustain over the long term. Too long. Too intense. Too exhausting. We follow them while motivation is high. The moment motivation fades, discipline collapses.

We choose cumulative simplicity.
One hour per day, divided into three blocks.

• 20 Minutes of Movement

Squats. Situps. Push-ups. Planks. Rotate according to your level. For twenty minutes. Every day. An immensely simple routine that engages the entire body without destroying it.

• 20 Minutes of Walking

Walking is the alchemy of thought.
An intentional walk, without distraction. We take our time. We stay present. We reconnect with our foundations. Our ideas reorganize themselves. Our mind settles.
Daily walks are both physical and mental purification.

• 20 Minutes of Reading

Genius functions through association.
It is the combination of knowledge accumulated over a lifetime. To feed your mind daily with new ideas is to feed your capacity for insight. It gives you the chance to elevate what already exists within you.
Alternate fiction and non-fiction.
Keep the mind moving.

3) The Sacred Hour

Whenever I ask someone what they would truly like to do, the answer is often the same: “I don’t have time.”

We all have time.
We choose to waste it.
That excuse ends here.

Each day, one hour belongs entirely to you. Not to others. Not to consumption. Not to distraction. It is dedicated to construction or preservation.

During this hour, you build something that moves your life forward. It may be intellectual, physical, professional, or creative. Boundaries protect it: no notifications, no passive scrolling, no divided attention.

This hour may also be used to care for yourself. To meditate. To breathe. To read. To cook… To do what sustains your equilibrium.

The Sacred Hour is the daily reminder that your time belongs to you. That you decide what to do with it. That you are allowed to prioritize yourself. That you are allowed to take care of yourself. That your hours and your life belong to you and not to others.

4) The Compass

Before sleep, each evening.
A notebook.
A pen.

• What was the best memory of my day?

• Where did I fall short?

• What can I do better tomorrow?

A small ritual that crystallizes the best parts of your life daily, while recalibrating your direction. Your night compass.

Five to ten minutes, before bed, that will protect your path.

IV — The Soul

The mind and the heart guide our daily movement.
The soul directs the larger path.

Choose one objective.
Not three. Not five. Not ten.
One.
Simplification through elimination.

The first answer that comes to mind.
The goal that would make you proud.
The one you have dreamed of pursuing for years.
If you know it, good. That is your next mountain.
Climb it.

We do not climb multiple mountains at once.
We climb one.
We set a coherent timeframe for the mountain to be climbed.
Between three months and a year to keep us moving.
Once we reach it, we move to the next one.
We stay in movement. Always.

Climb all the ones that set your heart on fire.

V — The Body

The Body is not aesthetic.
It is structural.
It exists to support clarity, strength, and endurance.
The best philosophies in the world implode in bodies that are too weak.

Its principles are simple:

• I protect my sleep.

• I eat what strengthens me.

• I move every day.

• I regulate stress through breath and recovery.

The body is the container of your will.
When the body weakens, negotiation begins.
When the body is stable, pressure loses power.
When the body is strong, everything becomes possible.

VI — Conduct

This is where integrity becomes visible.

• I refuse gossip.

• I listen fully.

• I speak honestly.

• I encourage sincerely.

• I express gratitude.

• I maintain meaningful relationships.

• I do not force one-sided bonds.

• I support those who support me.

• I say no when necessary.

• I protect my energy without hostility.

• I bring order to my environment.

Strength without generosity becomes arrogance.
Generosity without boundaries becomes weakness.
Balanced conduct builds respect. Respect builds trust. Trust builds community.
You do not dominate your environment.
You become one of its pillars.

VII — The Voice

To walk this path requires commitment.
Restore importance to your words, your values, your vision.
I do not ask you to follow this code blindly.
If it does not resonate, adapt it or build your own.
But if you choose it, honor it.
Nothing can be built without commitment.

VIII — If You Stray from the Way

You can always return.
The path excludes no one.
If you drift, if you lose yourself, if you step away and wish to come back, renew your commitment.
That is all you need to begin again.

IX - Philosophy of the path

• The Spine holds. You stop negotiating with yourself.

• You stop negotiating. The Mind clears.

• The Mind clears. Focus sharpens.

• Focus sharpens. Effort concentrates.

• Effort concentrates. Progress compounds.

• Progress compounds. Confidence grows.

• Confidence grows. The Body strengthens.

• The Body strengthens. Pressure loses power.

• Pressure loses power. The Soul chooses boldly.

• The Soul chooses boldly. Energy aligns.

• Energy aligns. Action becomes decisive.

• Action becomes decisive. Character becomes visible.

• Character becomes visible. Trust expands.

• Trust expands. Your word carries weight.

• Your word carries weight. The Spine strengthens.

I plan to write several more pieces in the coming weeks to explore this philosophy in greater depth.

The name I chose long ago, Viam, means “the way” in Latin.
Some things take years to understand.
Some paths were already written beneath our feet.

Whatever path you choose to take.
You do not find it.
You decide to walk it.

They won’t know that a few years earlier, I was too sick to work.
That everything I had built had collapsed.

Luck is what disciplined probability looks like to the untrained eye.
They won’t see the thousands of hours.
The repetition.
The system.
They will only see the finish line.

It’s human nature to rationalize someone else’s success.
It’s more comfortable than confronting your own inaction.

Yes, some people are lucky. Some are born in the right place, at the right time, with the right connections. That’s reality.

But what do we do with that?
Those of us born in the shadows.
With nothing handed to us.
Do we stare at cosmic injustice?
Or do we fight probability itself?

I chose the second path.
As the Stoics taught: control what is within your power.
The rest is noise.
Luck is not mystical.
It is the byproduct of controlled inputs compounded over time.

For those willing to play the long game, I’ve distilled thirteen laws you can apply daily to increase the surface area of luck.

Be warned: If you follow them, people will start calling you “lucky.”

Some of the laws are fundamental.
Some of the laws are amplifiers.

Law of Surface Area

Luck requires exposure. You cannot encounter opportunities that never enter your perimeter. Most people wait for change while living inside the same physical and social radius every day. If you want more luck, expand the surface where luck can meet you.

• Leave your comfort zone.

• Attend events in your field.

• Join communities.

• Start new conversations.

• Don’t be afraid to share about your skills.

I met a few people this week. I told them about my upcoming book. Almost all of them told me to send the link once it’s available. Maybe they’ll buy it. Maybe not. But I did my job.

Law of Volume

Luck is a probability game. The more attempts you multiply, the more statistical opportunities you create. Most people underestimate how little they try and overestimate how unlucky they are. One attempt is hope. Repetition is strategy. Volume turns randomness into mathematics.

• Apply more than feels comfortable.

• Test multiple ideas instead of perfecting one.

• Launch before perfection.

• Follow up more than once.

• Increase your weekly output in all domains.

I started publishing consistently again. I gained new paying subscribers. Cause. Effect.

Law of Visibility

Hidden talent has no leverage. You can be skilled, intelligent, and capable but if no one sees your value, no opportunity can form around it. Visibility is not vanity, it’s distribution. If nobody knows you exist, you don’t.

• Share publicly what you do.

• Be clear about what you offer.

• Make your work easy to find.

• Show proof of results.

• Make it easy to contact you.

People are lazy. People want solutions. Recently, I started posting one reel on Instagram every day. Clear positioning. Clear offer. More contacts. More sales. More connections. All in exchange for a bit of daily work.

Law of Preparation

Opportunities do not adjust to your level of readiness. When the moment comes, you either have the capacity to seize it or you don’t. Luck rewards competence under pressure. The more prepared you are, the more often randomness becomes advantage.

• Improve one core skill deeply.

• Build a portfolio ready to present.

• Study your field consistently.

Right now, I’m focused on becoming better. I have readers, that’s amazing. But if I improve, I increase my chances of having more. Of triggering that snowball effect. I’m improving the volume but also its quality. Imagine if every person you meet recommends you? Your circle of influence grows exponentially.

Law of Cognitive Performance

A tired brain misses opportunities. A distracted mind overlooks patterns. Luck often looks sudden, but it’s the result of fast recognition and sharp judgment. Improve your cognition, and you improve your ability to detect probability.

• Sleep 7–9 hours consistently.

• Train your body weekly.

• Walk daily.

• Eat mostly whole foods.

• Reduce excessive digital stimulation.

This is the simplest list and the hardest to respect. We all sleep and eat poorly. We train once every full moon. We doomscroll. Then we complain about results. We put ourselves in states where our brains cannot be fertile.

The quality of your thoughts correlates with the quality of your health. Before trying to debunk that, approach your optimal BMI and see how much sharper you feel. And no, optimal doesn’t mean zero fat. The dose makes the poison.

Law of Speed

Opportunities fade with time. The longer you hesitate, the narrower the window becomes. Fast execution transforms potential into momentum. Slow reaction turns luck into regret. Hesitation advertises weakness.

• Reply quickly.

• Decide faster.

• Reduce overthinking.

• Organize your tools.

• Act when aligned instead of delaying.

I can’t count how many sales I’ve secured through speed alone. The most underestimated qualities in the world. Our world moves fast. If you solve problems faster than your competitor, people will pay more for the time you save them.

Law of Emotional Stability

Emotional volatility clouds judgment. Rejection, stress, and pressure are constants in any ambitious life. Those who remain stable see clearly and act rationally. Stability extends your time horizon and increases long-term probability.

• Cut toxic people.

• Don’t engage in unnecessary conflict.

• Avoid useless drama.

• Think long-term.

How can you be lucky when you have a soul-and-joy vacuum next to you every day? Impossible. Just as we can act to increase luck, we can also decrease it. You want to reach the sky but you’ve got balls and chains at your feet. Gravity always wins.

Law of Social Capital

Luck travels through people. Opportunities rarely arrive alone, they move through networks of trust and reputation. The stronger your relational capital, the more probability circulates around you.

• Be reliable.

• Protect your reputation.

• Represent value consistently.

• Become expensive to lose.

Most people who buy from me come from recommendations. Do your job perfectly. Your advertising budget will shrink dramatically. The highest quality is competence.

Law of Financial Optionality

Desperation reduces choice. When you lack runway, you accept poor decisions and miss strategic opportunities. Financial stability increases patience, and patience increases decision quality. Optionality strengthens luck over time.

• Save consistently.

• Reduce debt.

• Avoid lifestyle inflation.

• Build emergency runway.

• Lower fixed expenses.

I lost a lot of money last year. Right now, I don’t have much capital to invest. I missed some unique opportunities. Violent multipliers that would have been easy to seize if I’d had the cash. Opportunities don’t wait. Some are unique. Having the opportunity is one thing. Having the ability to seize it is another.

Law of Consistency

Luck accumulates over time. Short bursts of intense activity rarely produce structural change. Staying in motion increases long-term probability. Endurance multiplies attempts, and attempts multiply opportunity.

• Show up daily.

• Track progress.

• Don’t disappear after setbacks.

• Stay visible during slow periods.

• Commit to long-term cycles.

We never know how close we are to our breakthrough. Time compounds exposure. Staying in the game is an unfair advantage. The key is building a system of output we enjoy so that our daily life becomes a constant accumulation of possibility. You can’t lose a marathon that you’re happy to run.

The previous laws manipulate the external board.
They increase surface area, speed, capital, and leverage.
Anyone can apply them.
But the real magic to amplify these external changes is internal changes.
You can engineer probability and still sabotage yourself.
Not because you lack discipline.
But because you are internally misaligned.
You say you want growth, but you tolerate mediocrity.
You say you want expansion, but you protect comfort.
You say you want opportunity, but you fear visibility.
Strategy cannot compensate for self-betrayal.
Your internal beliefs are not up to the level of your ambitions.
Any chance you might have through your actions is diminished or nullified by your internal dialogue.
Luck is mechanical but ABOVE ALL structural.
This is where probability becomes personal.

Law of Alignment

True luck is not forced.
It is the byproduct of structural coherence.
Not less effort.
Not passivity.
Not escape from discipline.
Coherence.

When your:

• Identity

• Actions

• Decisions

• Standards

• Environment

move in the same direction, friction collapses.
Energy stops leaking and the signal becomes clear.

What people call “luck” often manifests as:

• Precise timing.

• Unexpected access.

• Relevant information arriving early.

• Doors opening without resistance.

Nothing mystical occurred.
You simply eliminated internal contradiction.

Alignment accelerates signal detection.
You recognize opportunities faster because they match your trajectory.
Misfortune is often dissonance made visible.

Alignment requires elimination.
Not everything can remain in your life.
Not every relationship.
Not every habit.
Not every ambition.
Luck favors precision.
Coherence demands sacrifice.

Law of Conviction

Alignment organizes your internal system.
Conviction weaponizes it.

Most people operate in hesitation.
Half-decisions.
Soft standards.
Reversible commitments.

When you move without internal debate, your execution accelerates.
Conviction reduces negotiation with fear.
It increases risk tolerance when risk is asymmetric.
It signals competence before results exist.

I built my conviction over years. It wasn’t innate. I used to doubt myself constantly. Then I forced myself into competitive environments. Sports. Strategy games. High-pressure arenas. I lost. I adjusted. I repeated. Over time, performance replaced hesitation. And repetition built trust. Conviction is not personality. It is accumulated evidence.

Law of Detachment

Most people sabotage their luck through neediness.

They need the deal to close.
They need the message to be answered.
They need the validation.
They need the breakthrough.

Need creates distortion.

When your emotional stability depends on the outcome, your judgment shifts.
You over-negotiate.
You over-push.
You over-explain.
You force timing.

Life is simple and fluid.

You execute fully.
You prepare thoroughly.
You commit intensely.
But you do not cling.

You accept rejection without collapse.
Delay without panic.
Silence without self-doubt.

When you are not attached to the outcome, you negotiate better.
You decide faster.
You walk away more easily.
You radiate stability.

People sense it.

I’ve gotten back on track. I don’t hesitate to say no as soon as I sense the energy is negative. There are millions of people in the world. We align ourselves with those who align with us. We remove from our orbit anyone who poses a threat to our trajectory.

Control inputs.
Release outcomes.

This was dense, not because the ideas are complicated, but because real transformation is structural. You can revisit this whenever friction appears. These are not productivity tricks or motivational slogans. They are internal reconfigurations.

Luck is not random, it is the visible perimeter of your internal order. The more coherent you become, the larger your operational field becomes, and the larger that field, the more probability circulates around you. What people call magnetism is often disciplined coherence sustained over time.

Engineer your inputs. Align your system. Act with conviction. Detach from outcomes. When identity, action, standards, and environment move in the same direction, friction collapses and timing sharpens. You become the one capable of accelerating your timeline.

Build the structure.
Let the world call it luck.

A few days ago, I was reading this. A tweet that went viral.

Not criticizing the list at all; some things make sense. Even if there is a fundamental problem with the list. Many elements refer to physical appearance when the aura is cultivated by our charisma. The part about clothing is funny because you could dress like a clown but have much more aura than someone in nice clothes.

Diogenes dressed and lived like a tramp, and 2,000 years later he is still talked about as one of the ultimate figures of defiance against established authorities and fabricated societal values.

Despite everything, he is mainly right about taking care of yourself, cultivating your strength and physique, because we live in an era full of indiscipline. Discipline will be a charismatic trait. I’m just pointing out that it’s not the alpha and omega of charisma. And that nuance is needed when talking about charisma.

Charisma will be reflected in your actions. And there is one thing greater than your physical appearance, and that is your courage. I can’t think of a single quality that is more charismatic than courage. If there is one to cultivate, it is this one.

Look at this woman. In the middle of the hearing, she gets up and shot the murderer and rapist of her little girl. Infinite aura point until the end of time. She doesn’t need to lift incredible things. No need to perform superhuman feats. However, when courage was required, she didn’t hesitate.

If you wish to develop your aura, it’s not your physical appearance you need to cultivate, but your heart. And by cultivating your heart, you will naturally want to take care of your physical appearance. But if you only cultivate your appearance, you will be nothing but an empty shell.

It may not seem that important, but it is. Because society is launching, every single day, violent attacks against your identities. And the only way to protect yourself from it is to have enough courage to trust yourself. Telling yourself that everyone else is wrong and that you’re right. Standing your ground even if you’re the only one who thinks that way.

Your courage is your protection against the dangers of this world. Harmful trends will continue to emerge every day. Social media platforms act as a form of giant brainwashing. We are constantly bombarded by signals that perfect lives exist on our screens.

We are at a pivotal point where AI will become sentient in the near future. And it will take immense courage to maintain your humanity in the face of the invectives of these new beings who supposedly know everything about everything.

It will take legendary courage to resist these siren songs.

I’ve been thinking about how to cultivate one’s heart. I’ve prepared a short list. Very personal. If you have things you consider important, I’d be happy to read them in the comments.

• Have the courage to follow your heart

• Accomplish things that your entire bloodline has never done

• Broken by life, still remain a delusional optimist

• Does not drink or smoke

• Does not do drugs

• Don’t be afraid to tell the people you love that you love them

• Don’t be afraid to show them that love

• Don’t be afraid to admit when you’re wrong

• Be the one who breaks the cycle

• Apologize first when you are wrong

• Carry the weight without becoming bitter

• Don’t let the harshness of the world change who you are

• Never betray your words

• Play with kids

• Compliment people without expecting anything in return

• Speak the truth even when it disadvantages you

• Walk away from disrespect without announcing it

• Be happy for friends and family who surpassed you

• Refuse to gossip

• Stay calm in risky situations

• Unpredictability, no one knows your next move

• Your energy reassures those around you

• Many people hate you, but you don’t hate anyone

• Not being afraid of solitude

• Call your grandparents every week to listen to their old stories

• Become the first person your loved ones call when they have a problem

• Visit people in the hospital who have no one

• Help others rise without needing credit

• Never be afraid to defy the odds

• Create peace wherever you enter

Whatever list you follow. If you’re doing it to impress others, it’s stupid. And the guy who visits sick people in the hospital to try to get social points deserves to be punched right in the face. That’s the secret of aura farming. Heroes aren’t heroes because they want to be. They’re heroes because they are.

All lists are obsolete.

What is your vision of heroism?
What makes your heart beat faster?
What ignites your soul?

Answer these questions and you’ll be on the right track.

We all watch superhero movies. They inspire us. And yet. Why not become superheroes? Because we don’t have superpowers?

But we do.

• Love is one of them. Your ability to listen to someone is a superpower. Your ability to comfort is a superpower. Your ability to encourage is a superpower.

• Courage is a superpower. Your body and your will to dare to do what is necessary are superpowers.

• Resilience is a superpower. The world keeps breaking you, and yet you remain standing. Just because no one sees it doesn’t mean you’re not a hero.

• Discipline is a superpower. It’s the bridge that allows you to shape the realities between all the possible versions of yourself.

• Imagination is a superpower. From nothing, you have this ability to imagine a better world tomorrow. And to act on that vision.

The list goes on. Human beings possess so many abilities that can transform them into heroes. But it takes the strength to dare to become the hero you want to be.

That’s all I wish for you.

With love.
Take care.

I just read a headline:

I wanted to punch the author. But since I can’t do it with my fists, because I don’t know where he lives, that I get out of breath when I climb stairs these days and mainly because we live in a civilized country, all I have left are my words.

These authors and all those people who give advice with stern authority as if they were prophets holding hidden truths are unbearable. Immensely arrogant to think that you can publish statements like this based on your life experience.

These authors guilt trip you with flawed thinking, making you believe that your salvation lies in following their wisdom. Their father or mother once gave them a little slap on the cheek because they were already little brats, and after two decades of psychoanalysis to come to terms with this infamous act, they tell you that you should forgive your parents too. If they had the strength to do so, who are you not to have it too?

The icing on the cake is when they end their article with “private consultation” if you want help freeing yourself from the anger inside you.

Honestly, I don’t give a damn whether you want to forgive your parents or not. It’s too personal, and I wouldn’t venture into that territory. Who am I to ask you to forgive your father if he was beating you every single night? Who am I to ask you to forgive your mother if she destroyed your self-esteem when you were a child?

Every individual has their own childhood, their own experiences, their own limits of tolerance, and their own way of dealing with trauma. Some will find salvation in forgiveness. Others in anger. Others in indifference. There is no single miracle method for dealing with trauma. Do what you think is best. Try everything if you feel like it.

If I’m starting this diatribe, it’s not really to talk to you about your parents, but about all those “You must” statements. All these invasions of our personal lives that we have to put up with every day.

Daily injunctions that we’ve all been subjected to all over the internet, but also from our friends and family… As if life had a giant instruction manual and as soon as you strayed from it, you are wrong.

Damn it, Sarah. I eat steak once every full moon. And you really have to ruin this moment when my knife cuts through my meat and my saliva flows on its own. I’m not telling you that the way you do your eyebrows looks like two distant lands merging into one. So stop breaking my balls.

John. FFS. You fly 15 times a year. I’m just trying to go to the bakery while avoiding you because every word exchanged with you is a penance.

Breathe. Should I headbutt my uncle who has eaten poorly his whole life? Or should I finish my caramel pie first? Uncle, please, our ancestors died at 25 because they cut off part of their finger with a rusty tool. If they could taste a caramel pie, they would kill you for one.

What if I want to conquer the world? That’s my damn problem. I know all of Alexander the Great’s battles by heart, and you think I’m going to calm my ego down because Mr. I Can’t Go Without Weed for 11 Hours Straight tells me to? I plan to change Western philosophy. So fck off.

I can. And I will. Just because you put limits on the words you want to use and barriers in your manners doesn’t mean everyone else is the same. I’m not a hypocrite. If you piss me off, I’ll tell you. You can be the king, my mother-in-law or an authority figure. I’ll bitch at you if you cross my boundaries.

We’re joking, we’re joking. But you get my point. We live in a kind of polite era. Unbearable. Full of endless injunctions. And they come down on you like moral judgments.

Antithesis of the philosophies of freedom that humans have spent so much time building over the last few centuries. We are free. And the only law we should submit to is our own.

So free that we must also be free to ruin our lives if we want to. Free to not forgive anyone if you don’t feel like it. And you’re even free to be a jerk if you feel like it.

I know that a lot of people will raise their pitchfork. “Oh, so we don’t even have to obey the law?” It’s a take that not everyone can understand. Especially if you’re flirting with double digits in terms of intellectuality.

Some people place the state above themselves. Some place themselves above all human laws because they know that humans are stupid.

If you want to obey all the laws written by people who don’t obey them themselves, my humble opinion is that you’re an idiot with an added dose of cowardice.

I’ll leave you here. I have to get ready for work, trade my time for half my salary to pay for a two-bedroom apartment, pay taxes, so that my elites can buy brand new children in their 37-bedroom mansions accessible only by private jet.

And on top of that, mentally preparing myself to defend myself against the idiots who defend people who hate them with all their heart and soul.

With a bit of luck, I’ll manage to bait a law zealot into a verbal joust. I’m dying not to read his comment and just reply: “Go put your mask on at the beach, bitch.”

PS: Dad, Mom. Just in case you read this. I love you. I don’t have to forgive you. Because I know you did your best. I apologize for having been that teenager and young adult who was far too angry because he was still immature. I love you with infinite love. And all your mistakes have been lessons for me. Thank you for doing your best.

PS2: To my children. I ask your forgiveness for my shortcomings. I know I haven’t always been a good father (and I baked you some cookies this morning, must count for something right?). I will try to do better. I love you. Forever.

PS3: I finished a book.

Morning everyone

In one of my previous posts, I described a little bit about everything I’ve done in my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to do many things at a very high level in many different industries and sports.

Someone asked me: what’s the secret? I could talk about discipline, motivation, desire, purpose in life… but the only valid answer can be summed up in two words: sexual transmutation.

That’s what makes the difference between those who create their own world and those who endure the world created by others.

It’s the beginning of the year. You want to achieve your goals. And that’s perfect, because this transmutation is the energy that is the basis of everything in our universe. The desire for life flows through us. Then we redirect it. Either sexually. Or by transmuting it. And it’s immensely important to understand that this energy is fundamentally limited. That whether you use it correctly or not determines your life and the achievement of your goals.

Let’s get started:

Why not use the infinite magic that lies within us?

The subject of sexual transmutation is fascinating. The problem is that it’s discussed by many people who don’t understand it or who have never used it. Or who uses it as a weapon.

Some use it to proselytize: “Stop masturbating and your life will magically change.”

Others to control you and make you feel guilty: “These sexual desires must be repressed. They are dirty.”

Others fight it using medicine: “Yeah, but my doctor told me I should ejaculate at least eight times a week…”

Others by modernity: “Our bodies are free. We are free to have as much sex as we want with as many people as we want. And that’s a good thing.”

And in between, a whole lot of extremes and nonsense.

Me, I’m just going to talk about dynamics and common sense. I’m someone who, for years, has managed to create art for dozens of hours a day for months on end. I have reached the top 1% in many disciplines. I have written millions of words online in just a few years. You’re free to think I know what I’m talking about or not.

If you are still here. Let’s discuss about our magic.

Magical Beings

We are all creative. We wake up one morning, we’re horny. The shortcut is to think we just want to have sex. But the real definition is: we want to create. What’s inside us is a life force that wants to reproduce. Ready. Powerful. Taking control of our thoughts and changes our physiology and our mood. This force is capable of the most incredible magic: giving birth to a new life.

You have a magical power within you that can create new worlds. A whole new human being who could do so many things. It is the magic of life that drives you.

Every time you are horny, it is your desire to create that courses through every vein of your body. Desire is the genesis of will. Being horny is your creativity awakening. Someone who is horny feels desire. A desire to be active, to expand. But above all, a desire to create. Energy flows through their body. And wants to come out.

A good thing, but one that can ruin your life. If you become his slave.

Because what are we going to do with this desire? Some of us waste it. Some of us use this force to create. And the way you manage your creative energy has a fundamental impact on the way you live your life.

The masses seek to satisfy their desires in any way possible. Conscious beings seek to give them form and meaning. They say no to the consumption of sex for sex’s sake. They try to be beings endowed with willpower. Not beings incapable of controlling themselves.

Most common scenarios for the release of our sexual energy.

• You are alone, you masturbate.

• You are in a relationship, you have sex.

• You are in a relationship, you transmute this energy.

I distinguished between points 2 and 3 because they are extremely different. Many of us are in relationships BUT do not transmute our sexual energy. It is just two bodies masturbating together, and the energy is lost, but we will come back to that.

Scenario 1

You are horny. It drives you a bit crazy. You masturbate. Most of us to porn. The energy is wasted. No transmutation. Energy sacrificed, not redirected. Life force completely wasted. The post-nut clarity hits hard. A little shame and disgust after it. Wtf are we doing with our life.

Scenario 2

Sexual relationship. With someone who isn’t necessarily the right person. Your energy is drained by the other person because you give them your energy, but they don’t give it back. It can even become an energy drain that saps your vital energy.
Easy to know if it’s the right person or not. How do you feel afterward? Strange, demotivated, or a weird feeling impossible to put into words? Chances are your energy is being stolen. Sorry.

Scenario 3

Sexual relationship with someone you feel good and safe with. It’s an exchange. An experience. A moment. You give your energy, but the energy flows between you. The other person returns some of your energy as well. Your energy is transmuted through them. You aren’t tired, but energized, inspired, in a good mood, and ready to create new things. That’s the goal. To find someone who can take your energy, transform it, and give it back to you enhanced.

Main problem

Most of us fall into scenarios 1 and 2. Either because we’re single, or because we’re in average relationships where we don’t feel secure or with selfish energy vampire. These sexual activities become energy drains.

If you’re in scenario 3, great, that’s perfect. Have as much sex as you want; it will only enhance your creativity.

From now on, I’m addressing 1 and 2. The goal is to find the relationship to be in the scenario number 3. And until success, there are challenges and pitfalls along the way.

Because your horniness is correlated with your level of health.
Imagine you’re someone who said to yourself: “Okay, I’m going to take care of my life, my well-being, my mental health. Eat better, exercise, be creative, manage my finances…”

A few months go by and you’re diligent. The side effect will be your libido becoming uncontrollable. No need to be Einstein to understand the mechanism behind this. You become a healthy human being. And the universe wants to reproduce its best specimens to improve the species. Trapped in your own human nature, it is the very power of the universe that drives you to expand. You just wanted to be happier. And now, every morning you’re filled with boundless energy.

You’re in danger because you’re horny all the time. And there’s no one with whom to properly transmute your energy. This is when you’ll be most vulnerable to any kind of addiction. Because that energy has to go somewhere. And in this universe, everything is channeling and transformation.

From this point on, you understand that you’re horny; it’s your creative desire coursing through your veins. You also understand that masturbating is wasting that creative desire and killing it.

So:

• Avoid porn like the plague

• Deliberately delay masturbation

• Don’t have sex with people who steal your energy; be brave enough to protect it.

• Create

Find something to do. There is an endless list of things to do on this earth. And if you don’t know what to do, explore and find something. Then, use your sexual desire color your work. It’s the best way to breathe life into your art. Your work will become more intense, more human, more alive, more honest. Filled with tension. With passion. With feelings. With desire.

The goal is not to suppress your desire but to sublimate it and not waste it. Your work is merely an extension of yourself, alive, inheriting your emotions and the subtle shades of your being. Your work is your spiritual children.

I’m not going to be the weird one by telling you how many times to masturbate. Tf is this. Only you can measure your creative cycles. And it’s up to you to test it.

Because all poison is a matter of dosage. If you have an excess of sexual energy within you and all your work is tinged with an overly intense sexual energy, it will also ruin your work. We’re going to feel your neuroses and frustration. Up to you to find the right balance of energy levels at which you are prolific and satisfied with the quality of your work.

Finally, before adressing our sexual energy issue, the first step is to become a happier and healthier person. Because the happier and healthier you are, the greater the level of energy available to you will be.

And once you have that energy available, to become mindful of how you spend it. Everything is in limited supply, and it’s a shame to spend your most precious resource on activities that will steal it from you without benefiting you.

The cool thing is that when you become happier and more joyful, you raise your vibration and attract people who are on the same wavelength as you. Your chances of finding the right person with whom to transmute your sexual energy properly also increase. It’s a virtuous circle. The better you feel, the more your self-esteem increases. The more your self-esteem increases, the more you know what you deserve and are ready to protect yourself. It is in this zone of physical and spiritual well-being that we can find those other beings who will be right for us.

This is a fundamental mistake that many of us make. We have wounds of abandonment from childhood. This prevents us from being alone. Faced with the intense fear of solitude, we prefer to stay in relationships where our energies will be sucked dry and destroyed. We checkmate ourselves by staying here.

And since everything is just a transfer, there are also people who are completely empty of energy. Their only source is other people.

They are predators who feed off the life energy of others. You think you’re just in a relationship, but your whole life goes to sht from the moment you meet this person. Because all of your energy feeds them, rather than nourishing your own life.

Life is not complicated, and energies never lie. If your partner drains your energy, they are not the right one for you. Good partners become more powerful together. Bad partners do not become weaker together. Instead, one partner becomes greatly weakened to the benefit of the other, who sucks up all the available energy.

It’s a big game of life where all casting mistakes are paid for a hundredfold.

You understand that your energy is sacred, you protect it at all costs, you nurture it, use it for yourself, and amaze yourself with the power with which you can create your desires. Or you waste it, become its slave, or let your most precious resource be stolen from you, imprisoning yourself in your life.

It’s quite long and nobody reads in this broken age. The summary is simple.

• Your energy is your life force.

• You want sex, but in fact, you want to create.

• You can waste it on all the addictions and crap that the world has invented.
  You can waste it on another person who will steal your energy.
  Or you can redirect it to create the world you want to create.

• Wasting it means stagnating forever.

• Mastering it means becoming the master of your future.

If you want to go further, I really like the sprint method. Especially if you have a lot of energy. Lock in for short periods of time, 7 to 10 days, completely focused on one goal. Keep your sexual energy intact and use it to quickly achieve your goals with precise focus. No distractions. Just focus on your work. Once you’ve accomplished your goals, you relax for a few days to reward yourself. Before starting a new cycle.

This is the method I am currently using to finish my book. And what you have just read is one of the chapters. In it, I discuss many different topics from a philosophical perspective. The book will be available on March 1st. And if you want to get a few chapters for free, just subscribe to the newsletter. I will send some in the coming weeks.

And for those who want to support me. All paying subscribers will receive a free copy of this book in their inbox as soon as it is available. See you soon.

There’s a giant trend these days.
If you missed it, here’s a short video.

This penguin is everywhere. A rebellious penguin choosing to leave its colony and head for the mountains. Lot of talk about him. His motivations. But above all: Why?

Why does the penguin leave his colony, choose his own life, and head for the mountains to certain death when he could stay and secure his future? And why would he insist on doing so even if he were returned to his colony?

First, I’m going to approach the question from a purely philosophical perspective. Because the killjoys who have forgotten that humans can dream and feel will just try to tell you that this penguin is sick and confuses the mountains with the ocean. And that’s not the point. The point is that it resonates with many humans. And that says more about us than it does about penguins.

I love this trend, and I love the fact that it resonates so much with so many humans. It shows that beneath the layers of ambient lethargy, sleeping souls can still be awakened by a penguin that forces you to face your life choices. But before diving in, there’s a problem with the name of the trend.

The nihilist penguin

That’s the name the world has chosen to give it. So our penguin friend, who chooses to live his life and go to certain death, is a nihilist?
A silly shortcut for a silly era. Because the penguin is heading towards its death, it must be nihilistic. Those who want to avoid risk at all costs cannot really understand that a world exists outside the confines of security. Probably the same people who put masks in their cars.

This penguin may be the most optimistic penguin in history. Realizing that life in the colony is not what he wants. Preferring to brave the dangers in order to have the choice of a life that is his own.

Choosing security to stay in a group and life you hate is the most nihilistic choice you could make for your own life.

This penguin does not want to die. He wants to live, but on his own terms. Perhaps, when he was in his colony, he felt dead. So a few moments of life before the real end sound like liberation.

The penguin isn’t walking toward death. He’s walking toward what he wants to become before the end. He’s tired of this direction he can’t choose. Stuck among his peers. Stuck in survival rather than living.

Because we all face these life choices. And almost all of us choose security over the audacity of wanting to discover who we could be.

Yes, the choice is terrifying because this choice represents the risk of dying. The risk of isolating ourselves, of leaving, of losing everything, of failing. Of giving up the security and comfort we have. For an adventure where we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

The risk of becoming the laughing stock of others. Because, yes, people will make fun of you. The very moment you dare to take a different path. Everyone admires this penguin online, and yet that’s the paradox. As soon as one of us acts like him and strays from the path, the entire colony will remind him that he’s wrong. That he’s taking risks. That it’s dangerous. That we don’t do that. That it’s not the way.

It takes courage to dare to pursue what you want to be. Dare to remove and undo all the programming that society has put in your heads to bring you closer to the nature that is in your hearts. To refuse to live a lie in order to dare to live your truth. It will require going against your family, your friends, your deepest beliefs…

To dare to deconstruct all the beliefs that have been imposed on our original selves.

This penguin resonates because our system traps us in shackles. We go to school. We do jobs. We put on our masks. For most of us, we find ourselves doing meaningless jobs that have absolutely no added value to humanity. Repetitive bullshit jobs that tear little pieces of your soul away every day.

And there’s always some .sshole who says, “You should have worked harder in school.” I live in a country where overqualification is everywhere. Unemployment is high. No one can find work. Everything is being replaced at breakneck speed. Antidepressants are at an all-time high. Everyone is miserable in what is supposed to be one of the richest places on earth.

So when you see a penguin who says, “Fck everything, I’m going to the mountains.” it could be us if we had a little more courage.

The penguin does not run toward death.
It runs toward life.
The chance to live.
Maybe a little before dying.

If you liked this story and you are young, watch Into the Wild.
And if you liked this story and aren’t young. Watch Into the Wild.
The world needs more free spirits.

I never knew. And I was always jealous of those young children who answered without hesitation: “I want to open a restaurant” or “I want to be a firefighter” or whatever they wanted to be.

I would have hoped that things would have worked out 30 years later… but it’s still the same. It’s as if nothing really excites me. I don’t know, and that led me to try thousands of things. Jobs that might surprise you. Selling fireworks. Selling socks. Selling lingerie… Selling personalized mugs… Selling sandwiches… Selling poker accessories… Selling old video games… Becoming a chess teacher… Being a semi-pro video game player… Having a semi-pro video game team… And I’m forgetting lots of other things.

At one point, things were going well. I was making a good living. But man is never satisfied. And I had the urge to become something else. It’s hard to do something every day that doesn’t excite you. We search for meaning that we can’t find. So I embarked on new paths without really being sure what I wanted to be. And after a few years, I destroyed almost everything.

I didn’t become the other things I wanted to be. More failures. All while destroying my core work. Today, I find myself rebuilding that core work, just so I can continue to live.

In a few years, I’ll be 40. Which is well into the halfway point of my life. Sad to reach that age without really knowing what I’m dying to do on this earth. That’s how it is, and that’s okay.

I have always told you to follow your dreams. And that will never change. But if you do, don’t make the mistakes I made. Many times.

I have a PhD in failure, failed attempts, and self-sabotage. If only I could prevent a few others from graduating in the same subject as me.

Every time I took a leap of faith into a new career, I failed. And the reason seems pretty obvious to me today. In fact, there are not one, but two reasons.

• A lack of personal investment

These new things you want to do, you’ll have to put your heart and soul into them if you want them to succeed. And maybe I no longer have the strength or the desire. Or maybe I don’t want to succeed enough. But without unwavering dedication to your dream, it’s doomed to fail.

With more discipline and organization, I could have made my dreams come true. But I lacked energy. And common sense. The mind scattered across too many things.

• I haven’t burned my bridges

I’ve always kept backup plans open. I’ve never stopped working on other projects alongside my own. But time and energy cannot be divided infinitely. It took me almost 37 and a half years to understand that you can’t make something succeed by dividing your attention between too many things.

I don’t know what you want to be. I just know that whatever it is, if you want to turn it into your income or your main career, you’re going to have to focus and give it your all.

It’s foolish to try to become many things at once. That’s the best way to become nothing.

This also applies to our goals. At the beginning, we set ourselves thousands of goals to achieve. Then we are surprised when we don’t accomplish any of them. We should set ourselves just one or two big goals and no more. So that we can really devote our energy, time, and attention to them.

Or don’t sort through it all. Try to do everything at once. I hope you succeed anyway. But for me, it didn’t work. I exhausted myself. I lost almost everything professionally. And I find myself once again building from scratch at an age when normally, we should already be well on our way.

I love you because I love humans, even though they are often unbearable. So, I’m just trying to give you some good advice so that you don’t make the same mistakes that cost me so many years of my life.

Good luck in everything you wish to do. We only have one life. I suppose it has to count.

The year has barely begun and we are already facing a violent tragedy. This fire in Switzerland ravaged a nightclub full of young souls. Could have been anyone, just celebrating New Year’s Eve.

Also horrible because these were young people who had their whole lives ahead of them. I read a lot about this tragedy. I listened to parents, friends of the victims… Infinitely sad. No parent should ever have to bury their child. Even less so under these circumstances.

Reading about it, once again, social media turned into a circus, where everyone became an expert on safety and everyone had an opinion on everything. Some criticized parents who let their young children celebrate New Year’s Eve. Others wondered why no one reacted quickly.

These people are surely perfect and probably don’t know that in situations of extreme stress, it’s easy to freeze before making a decision. And that this tragedy lasted about a minute. But this morning, I didn’t want to talk about these exhausting pseudo-experts giving lessons.

But a drawing that sparked controversy two days ago. There is an editorial team, known for its… poor taste… cartoons, which has published something new.

Backstory, a few years ago, this editorial team was the victim of an attack because of a cartoon. At the time, everyone sympathized with them and said that freedom of expression has no limits. “I am Charlie” was everywhere. Which was obviously normal. Freedom of speech must be protected at all costs.

Since yesterday’s publication, it seems that freedom of expression has found its limits. Everyone is outraged by this publication and says that this cartoon should never have been published. Those who were Charlie yesterday are no longer Charlie today.

A few years ago, I remember a cartoon they published that I found really shocking. I’ve never been a fan of their drawings. Poor taste. Not funny. Uninspired. Talentless. But it’s a free country. (right?)

So even a caricature of a dead baby is their right. Many of their drawings cause quite a stir. And the latest one has been featured in many French media outlets over the past few days.

The latter is bad. I won’t even comment on the drawing, because I don’t really understand the author’s satire. We have a tragedy that is still fresh in our minds, and a drawing that is in very poor taste to talk about it.

Despite everything, I still believe that nothing should be banned and that people, whoever they may be, should be free to publish, write, and draw whatever they want. It may be despicable, it may be vile, we may find it scandalous, but as a society, we must maintain an absolute right to satire and caricature, even if they are in terribly bad taste.

I am a believer, but I also support the right to blasphemy. We must retain the right to criticize everything, especially religion. Our Western societies have fought hard to secure these rights. Even today, in many countries, you can be imprisoned for something you have written.

This tragedy is terrible. Infinitely sad. This cartoon is despicable. But I don’t think it should be banned. Because we have a lot to lose as a society if we start putting limits on what we can say, draw, and express.

The risk is in setting the limit. And that in the future, other people will seize on these limits and expand them. Once we lose a right, it’s almost impossible to get it back.

Our society is in grave danger. With the internet in our pockets, we are now humans ruled by emotion. And we are literally experiencing a new wave of witch hunts 2.0 on social media.

I’m afraid that one day, a huge tragedy will occur on a human scale. And, carried away by emotion, we will sacrifice our rights in favor of security and a polished society where it is forbidden to make any waves. The internet, in your pocket, can become a tool for total moral domination.

A sanitization of consciences where thought crime returns.

A sanitization of consciences where thought crime returns. And writing on platforms, I can tell you that this is already the case. Many words are “banned” and shadowban mechanisms exist as soon as you stray from the beaten path. Many topics are impossible to talk about, or you risk being canceled quickly. We already have an extremely polished environment with limits and things we can no longer say.

We think we are safe in our Westernized societies, but we don’t realize that these rights, acquired after hundreds of years of struggle, are only new. Fresh. Far from secure. And that dictators and would-be rulers of all kinds dream of regaining control.

So yes, this drawing is despicable. But we have more to lose by prohibiting people from drawing. Even if these drawings are the worst that humans can produce.

We are going to live through troubled times. Rights that we thought we had secured forever are going to be taken away. It is our duty to future generations to protect them. We do not want our children to grow up in a society where we have no rights.

We must defend our rights while we still can.

I am interested in your opinion on this matter. Should freedom of speech have limits? If so, what are those limits? Or should we be free to write and produce whatever we want?

Once upon a time, I was very active. I had a chat room where my readers could ask me to discuss certain topics. I was successful, everything was so easy.

I’m not very active anymore (and my success has become quite limited) but last week, boom, I got a notification.

For the first post of the year, I thought this was surely one of the best topics to explore. Because we’re here making plans, wanting things, hoping to change our lives for the better, and the vast majority of us despair at the lack of progress we make.

The years seem to pile up, sometimes without any real progress. And sometimes it’s tragic to hear yourself say, “2025 is my year.” To see that 2025 hasn’t really changed anything and to tell yourself, “No, this time it’s for real, 2026 is my year.” (lol)

At the ripe old age of thirty-seven, the only secret of life I have discovered is that you can want something with all your heart and give it all your energy, but it’s not enough.

Some of us will make every effort in the world and nothing will happen. While others barely lift a finger and the planets align. Frustrating, especially when you’re in the camp of those who don’t count their efforts. Hard not to get caught up in negative spirals when you keep giving your all and nothing changes.

I know the pain of trying endlessly and never getting to where I want to be. You feel like a bad loser. Every single day, you work hard to build an identity, and weeks, months, even years go by and you still can’t become what you want to be.

• I’ve been writing for over ten years and I’m not the writer I want to be.

• I’ve been working for over fifteen years and this year my business is on the verge of bankruptcy.

• This year, I spent a few months on another project that almost ruined me, even though I devoted all my free time to it.

Not cool. As if the universe is trying to send you a message: “Why are you trying so hard? It’s not gonna work anyway.”

Maybe. But after 37 springs, I also discovered a second secret of life.

Failures are nothing, neither the beginning nor the end, nor important. Just parts of our lives that we have to endure until something better comes along.

We are giant idiots, lost in our desires. Today, we want something really badly, And a decade after having it, you ask yourself: how could I have wanted that in my life? Human nature, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

We are evolving beings, not even knowing who we are, who we can become, what our potential is, and what lies hidden deep within our shades of light and dark.

Our only role is to play our part with as much energy as we can. But we don’t control the big picture. Even less so the script. And there will be plenty of good and bad surprises along the way, and whatever happens, we’ll have to keep playing and adapting.

We have no power and all the power.

All the power to choose our actions and decisions every day that we are fortunate enough to live.

No power in the face of life’s uncertainties that will hit you and derail all your plans in a flash.

In the end, a few thousand years ago, the Stoics already understood this “if you want to be happy law” : let’s only worry about the things we can control. But above and beyond these wise Stoic thoughts, I would add: “Magnify everything you can control.”

Life is so short. When it comes to an end, we will feel as if we were just a brief candle about to be extinguished. Violent regrets will assail us:

“Did I really spend my life hesitating, doubting, being afraid, not doing, not being, not wanting, not daring…”

At the very beginning, our friend asked us: “How can we avoid feeling frustrated when things don’t go as planned?”

Well, there’s nothing we can do about it. Because even if we try to control everything, things will not go as planned.

Faced with this reality, all we can do is let go. Start each day with our best smile. Try to make the most of it. Live each day as we would have liked to live every day. And detach ourselves from any outcome.

We may never have what we dream of.
That shouldn’t prevent us from being happy.
We may never become who we want to be.
That shouldn’t prevent us from being happy.

We are merely passing travelers. Our existence on the scale of humanity will have been nothing more than an anecdote. So no, that is no reason for nihilism. Nor is it a reason for boundless hedonism, which would only destroy soul and body.

Rather, a philosophy of “enjoyism”.

Try to find your passion and pursue it. Tell those you love that you love them. Confess your love to those who don’t know it. Enjoy the sunshine. Your morning coffee. Your outing with your friends. Eat what you love to eat. Throw away your phone. Stop trusting algorithms. And trust that life will lead you to the right place if you hang out in places that fill you with joy. Do what makes you feel alive.

That way, every day, even if nothing goes as planned, you won’t feel frustrated. Or maybe not. Who knows…

If you want to ask any questions, it’s here.

Once upon a time, I wanted to write about time. But I didn’t have enough time. Even though I had plenty of it. You can have a lot of time but lack the essential: quality time. Rich in the most valuable resource but poor in not knowing how to use it effectively.

And it is with a better-organized life that I can finally try to do my best on one of the subjects that has fascinated humanity since its beginnings.

My starting point was to be that of a physicist, which I am not. To tell you about some interesting experiments. About how atomic clocks can go out of sync and how these findings could confuse some Cartesian minds.

I could have told you about those experiences that make us feel time differently over the course of a lifetime. The older we get, the more we feel that time is passing quickly. It is not time that has changed, but our relationship to it.

But I am not a physicist or a scientist. Just a philosopher. Better, because it allows us to dream a little and interpret our realities with more latitude.

It all starts with an observation. In my middle school classroom. Those three hours of language class that seem endless. Every five minutes is torture. I stare intently at this giant clock on the wall. The hands seem frozen. Did that teacher have the magical power to bend space-time with the boredom her class induced? Maybe.

Paradoxically, those three endless hours of language class were followed by three hours of sports. Like a fish in my aquarium, why did those three hours of exercise seem to fly by so quickly?

Just before, I was dying in endless torment, and just after, in the blink of an eye, those three hours of exercise felt like thirty minutes.

I used to think that time was a fixed, stable measure. That a second would always be a second. That an hour would always be an hour. That this measure of time will pass in the same way throughout my entire life.

These childhood reflections were of little importance until adulthood struck me. And I realized that we are literally the architects of our own space-time.

Not limited to three hours of classes that we love or hate, but limited to our entire lives. We are, everyday, building the bricks of our future temporal environment. But before that, a little reflection.

Two souls.

One is joyful. Everything goes well for him. Every day seems to be a new adventure. He is happyy. Full of joy at everything that fate has to offer him.

The other is suffering. Sick. Every day is filled with pain. Every breath is a struggle. The weight of existence weighs heavily on his shoulders. Every day is a reminder of what he has lost: his health.

For each of them, five years pass in this state. For the first, these five years seemed to fly by. For the second, these five years were purgatory.

Question: Did they each live five years? If we measured their perception of time, how much difference would we find? Would the first have felt like he had lived only one year? The second, two decades.

From there, we could open up reflections to infinite paths and sub-questions. Such as: is their aging process the same? One being constantly stressed by his situation, with a heart beating much faster. The other being totally relaxed, with a heart rate well below average. They lived five years, but their physiological and psychological ages are different.

Let’s stay focused, because the subject is already too broad to explore too many sub-routes. But with this reflection, I want to make you aware that the situations we find ourselves in have a crucial impact on our perception of time, but also on the life we lead.

Our society lacks intentionality. The vast majority of people let their daily lives unfold without being in control. They let themselves be guided by algorithms that decide everything for them. What they will eat, what they will buy, what they will watch, and now even who they will love.

And they are surprised that the result is a life we end up hating, a prison in which we endure space and time. It’s as if we were stuck forever in that class we hated so much.

From here on, I want to convey the idea that we have the power. Thousands of futures exist for us. We have the power to meet them or to distance ourselves from them. Each single day. Let’s simplify.

Imagine that you want to lose ten kilos in the year 2026. There is a timeline for achieving this goal. There are also infinite timelines where you could lose more than ten kilos. Or less. Or none at all. Or even gain weight.

How do you get from point A in time to point Z in time? Our problem is that we don’t understand the mathematics of life. We do random things at an irregular pace, whereas to achieve a complex goal, we need to live our lives at a perfect tempo.

Ninety percent of people will start a diet or go to the gym for three weeks starting on January 1st and then fall back into their old ways because they don’t see quick results.

It’s not their motivation that’s lacking, but their method. (I’ll simplify it as much as possible. Of course, there are nuances.)

If you want to lose 10 kg, that’s 77,000 calories. You’ll need to calculate your metabolism to know exactly how many calories your body needs to function each day.

Then choose a method: diet. My body needs 2,500 calories per day. I only eat 2,000. It will take me 154 days to create a deficit of 77,000 calories.

Another method could be to always eat 2,500 calories per day but burn an additional 500 (i.e., an hour and a half of exercise per day).

Or a hybrid method… The idea is: mathematically, we can create the desired timelines with repeated actions.

The main reason is poor math in creating their desired timeline.

They want to lose ten kg and give themselves too little time to do so. The craziest ones say to themselves: why not try to burn 1,000 calories a day? The daily workload is too heavy. They give up quickly.

Conversely, some want to lose ten pounds, but the daily workload is too light. The process is infinitely slow. They give up due to lack of results.

Between these two extremes, there can be a whole host of other miscalculations. (Such as always eating too much.) This leaves room for the creation of a timeline that will never happen due to a lack of rigor in our plan, or a lack of knowledge.

I used the example of weight loss because it is the easiest to illustrate mathematically.

But literally ALL of our goals can be achieved through sustained effort over time with the right plan.

Our world is a finite world. Based on mathematics so that everything does not collapse into chaos. Energies are exchanged. Every result has a cause.

And often, if you don’t get the result you hoped for, it’s because you didn’t pay the price. That’s the brutal reality of a world where mathematics cannot be cheated.

We can blame the heavens, others, the divine, but unfortunately, in an infinite number of things that are within our control, we are responsible for our failures.

The complex alchemy lies in finding the right level of effort so that we can reach our destination neither too quickly nor too slowly. It’s about preparing a path that will not be impossible to survive on a daily basis.

The hells we create for ourselves are the result of past decisions. The paradises we create for ourselves are also the result of these decisions.

At a time when everyone is preparing new resolutions, I am trying to convince you that no future is too far away from you. But that it will require scientific precision in the architecture of your daily life.

There is nothing wrong with being dreamers as long as those dreams are built on bridges constructed in reality.

You can do anything, as long as you are able to stay on track with the price you are willing to pay every day.

Everyone has paths that can lead you to them. But are you ready to survive those paths?

If so, your future may be one that has the power to bend space-time positively. By living a happy life, desired and chosen, in the environment you have always dreamed of.

Or you may also live a life you did not want. Suffered. Unhappy. Painful. And which seems infinitely unbearable.

If you are ready to take responsibility and take the actions that will lead you to your desired future, you will realize that you are not just a human being.

You are a magician with the power to create timelines and bend space-time. Capable of building or destroying his life as he sees fit. Capable of living the most unique or the most generic life. Able to manipulate and influence your perception of time. All of this, as a result of his efforts.

Maybe you want to change. Really change. Not like all those years when you said to yourself, “This time, it’s for real.”

The ball is in your court, my friend. No dream is too big. No reality is unattainable. But grab your notebook and make a rock solid plan.

This could be the year that finally changes everything. If you choose to become the master of your life and no longer its slave.

With love.

What’s your most crazy dream?

I have a few. One of them, when I was younger, was to become a chess master. Not really becoming a master, but reaching 2000 Elo, which would mean a solid mastery of the game. (Only in childhood that you truly believe anything is possible. Then, adulthood…)

But let’s go back to that enchanted time. As a teenager, one day, I said to myself: what if I learned to play chess?

Don’t really know where it came from. No one in my family played chess. There was no internet at that point in my life. (yeah, i’m that old) No one to play with at first. I had to learn the hard way. With a chess set. I played against myself endlessly. It was a bit sad, and it develops a split personality where you play both sides without wanting to lose. But there’s no better way to improve when you don’t have any friends.

I went through a serious phase where I learned the basics and how to play. Years went by, and I turned 17. I started to delve a little deeper. I read the basic books for beginners. Then, once I’d absorbed that, I started reading slightly more advanced books.

At that time, I wasn’t at a high level, but I started to dream of becoming a good one day. I played a lot for a few years, did a few tournaments, even taught younger children but like many teenage passions, it faded over time.

I didn’t touch a chess piece for almost two decades until… a few months ago. No, I didn’t become a chess master at my age. But by playing like crazy for a month and a half, I regained my level and even surpassed it. I’m now in the top 3% of players ranked on chess.com

Still a long way from becoming a master. But I tell myself that if one day I manage to find a way to retire early, maybe it’s still possible. Of course, it will take at least couple years of practice and determination to hope to progress enough to reach that level. But I was quite surprised to surpass a younger version of myself, two decades later.

I don’t know what your dreams are. Or how important they are to you. I just want to tell you that anything is still possible. And who cares if you don’t achieve your dream? The most important part is to have fun along the way.

Maybe I’ll never reach 2000 Elo in chess, but in the meantime, I’m having a lot of fun. And going back to chess is a bit like going back to my roots, to the version of myself that still had drive. To symbolically tell me that if an old dream still has meaning, maybe other small parts of me still have a chance to come back.

There may be something you’ve always dreamed of learning. Or something you’ve put aside for so long. But you don’t touch it anymore for reasons of your own. New year, new resolution, new you. What if you revive those parts of yourself that aren’t dead?

It’s never too late. Every day, we have the building blocks for our future. Every day, we have the choice to change the architecture of our kingdom. It’s up to you and you alone to decide what kind of kingdom you want to build.

And it can start today.