LIFE UNCIVILIZED

Dating And Life Advice For Men

Archives for September 2016

2 Polar Opposite Psychological Tricks For Destroying Approach Anxiety

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IT’S EASY to allow our minds to wander. On the way to the bar, we’re feeling confident and ready. Then, shuffling in the queue making idle chit chat, thoughts begin to creep up on us.  Am I attractive? Do I know what to say? Negative outcomes begin to gestate in our mind’s eye and by the time we see a woman we want to approach, we’re left leaning on the bar saying ‘maybe another time’ as our fluttering heart and sweaty palms leave us without a prayer in the world.

It’s far from ideal. Nervousness, worrying and anxiety are normal, and when walking up to a woman for the first time, it’s only natural that these phenomena are going to rear their heads. But instead of allowing ourselves to be swept up in sensation and thought – what techniques can we utilize to put our best foot forward, and ensure that when it comes to approaching women we’re attracted to, we aren’t our own way.

DONT TRY TO RELAX

 You’re nervous. The moment has come and anxiety has caught you unaware. Physiologically you’re all over the place, and psychologically you’re not much better. Something has to be done. So you do what anyone would do in your predicament. You tell yourself to ‘calm down.’ But it doesn’t work, and not only are you trapped within your own anxious hell, but your only escape plan just went bust.

What are you going to do? Well, it’s actually pretty simple.

Consider the elevated heart rate, the constricted breathing and the prickling skin – these symptoms, hallmarks of anxiety, are also the calling card of another; excitement. Taking this foundation, research from the Harvard Business School demonstrates that the attempt to calm ourselves is less surefooted than we would believe.

In a study comparing the attempt to calm one’s nerves versus reappraising them as excitement, it was shown that the reappraisal won out each time, resulting in a confident handling of whatever caused the initial anxious response. The reasoning here lies within arousal congruence ­– essentially a harmony between thought and feeling. Whilst ‘calm down’ seems like the fine idea, it bears little resemblance to our current experience, but rather than remaining hopelessly flurried a simple case of ‘I am excited’ may be the solution we’re looking for.

KILL YOUR WORRYING

In our brains, the prefrontal cortex dominates our ability to analyse and prepare for the future. The large and overdeveloped size of this region of our brain is one of the key reasons we’ve come to dominate the natural world.*Where most animals struggle at elementary problem solving – humans regularly pre-plan their day, imagine conversations and create entirely fictitious events that they then record in novels and movies. But this incredible cognitive power isn’t without its dark side. Whilst our brain is adept at planning and foreseeing positive outcomes, it is equally (and some cases, more so) adept at planning and foreseeing negative ones. If these are future events, this is called ‘worrying’ (duh.); past events are called ‘rumination.’* And not only is your brain great at this, but it’s also constantly doing it.

“I’m gonna freeze up.”

“I’m not good enough.”

“She won’t like me.”

Y’know, that sort of stuff.

So what can we do?

Well, the answer lies in nothing, rather than something. Studies show that practiced mindfulness decreases worry and rumination – as well as other numerable benefits. But just short of adopting the lotus position under an old tree, mindfulness can be actively practiced  – techniques like focusing on the breathing, paying attention to the senses and observing what is happening right now are shown to reduce stress and in turn worrying and rumination. This is something that can be done at any moment.

These two strategies may on the surface appear counter intuitive but this isn’t always the case. Worrying can compound over time into physiological anxiety, and allowing yourself to return to the moment gives you the sturdiest foundation from which to reappraise your anxiety.  This can allow you to get out of your own way and put your strongest foot forward in your approach, instead of being trapped inside your head, and constricted within your body.

Or, if this doesn’t work, there is a third trick, one that you can use for just about anything – just do it.

*A sperm whale’s brain weighs 17lbs. A human brain clocks in at a featherweight 3lbs.

*The same technique works for rumination.

How Con Artists Can Improve Your Dating Life

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IT WAS 1969 when the authorities finally apprehended him. Living on the sun-drenched Mediterranean shore of Montpellier, Frank Abagnale Jr probably thought he had escaped. A serial con-man, Abagnale owed roughly 2.5 million US dollars in fraudulent cheques, and among his many impersonations, spent time masquerading as a pilot, physician, and attorney. A gifted judge of character and nimble snake through organisational hierarchy, Abagnale had fashioned a life for himself that was completely based on untruths.

Lying isn’t a uniquely human phenomenon. Our closest thumb and fore fingered relative, the Chimpanzee, has a talent for deception which it seems to enjoy. Stretching further, the behaviour has also been noted in the disparate lives of stomapod crustaceans, whose poker like bluffs often ensure their continued survival and reproductive success. It would appear then, that deceit comes as naturally to life as it did to Abagnale’s.

And this is certainly the case, in your own life it’s likely that you’ve been employing lies for self interested reasons from the age of two. To give that age context, that’s when you were just learning to jump or more impressively, achieve a tower of ten blocks as opposed to a meagre eight. Lying, a foundational human skill has seemingly been with us for a while – and in that, has inbred with our social and social sexual strategies in ways that often are less beneficial than they appear. When we doubt our own worth, it’s easy for us to conjure a false identity to impress others – only to end up reinforcing and compounding the deeper issue that motivated us in the first place. But lying isn’t something we can wish away, and in the vein of Jung’s shadow, the finest way to interact with our flaws is to embrace and learn from them; and what better teachers than Abignale and his con-men ilk – who wore near perement veils of untruths. Let’s see if we can put the world’s finest falsifiers to good use.

Although famed for their silver tongues, a con-man’s chief weapon is actually his ears. Dextrous listeners, fraudsters approach a conversation like forensic scientists to a murder. Often citing those who ask questions as their hardest marks – con artists take care to sniff out the kind of individual who responds well to questioning. Their preferred prey, individuals open to questioning leave the con artist room to dance through a rigour of investigation – aimed at discovering, and pinning down the emotional pulse that thumps at the heart of this person’s decision making. After all, the end point of any con is to have the mark make the decision you want. In your dating life, this means paying attention to what is being said beyond just raw information, and discovering the emotional needs that motivate this person, as it is the emotional core that you can connect with.

Called ‘confidence men’, charlatans like Abagnale manufacture illusions of superiority and superficial charm. Working on the knowledge that people respect those who they think can do what they can’t –con artists create an impression of capability and excellence, that seeks to influence their mark by making themselves appear more dominant in that person’s mind. Feeding off the understanding that humans respond to emotions first, and logic second – the illusion of confidence exists to intertwine with the emotional core of the person, creating the belief that the con-man, and the con-man alone, can solve their problem. This technique is the foundation of selling, however, in your dating life connecting what another person needs, to what you can offer can often be a hallmark of approval seeking, neediness driven relationships. So whilst this behaviour is best sidestepped, what we can do is learn to spot when we are selling ourselves, when we are trying to impress, so that we can adjust to a more psychological healthy and natural form of expression – otherwise known as our genuine identity. In this instance, confidence exists within the shoes of a buyer, not a seller.

But no illusion is conjured without effort, and despite their continued attempts to shirk the demands of a socially responsible life, men like Abagnale are often tireless workers. Prior to his charade as a Pan American Airline pilot, Abagnale would pose as a plucky high school journalist and interview various pilots and airline professionals, employing rich questioning that allowed him to amass knowledge that would gift him the gab he needed to swindle his way into free flights. Abagnale shows us, that despite appearances, the precious ore for the silver tongue is mined after all, and that the charm you seek in your dating life is born from the preparation you do beforehand. Diverse and rich reading grants you a wealth of conversational depths to plumb, vast and uncommon life experience gives you wisdom and assured calm, and an attention to human behaviour and desires opens the door to fun, wit and satire. Emjois and cat memes can also be helpful.

That first one gets me everytime.

Now, this article isn’t a rallying cry for the sociopathic pursuit of deceit, but instead a mirror to the own ways you may improve your efforts in your own life. In the hurricane of our own wants and desires, it’s easy to misplace the knowledge that the sturdiest ground to be on is that of the listener and that the unfortunate habit of ‘waiting for our time to speak’ leaves us knowing nothing we don’t already know.

Prone to insecurity and self-doubt, we can often forget that it’s not always necessary to feel confident, but we can always do with appearing confident. And, as research shows, the former is often born of the latter. Or, to borrow a cliché; the walk is followed swiftly by the quack. Not to be confused with falsifying an identity; appearing confident is a defiance in the face of anxiety, leveraging a knowledge of human body language to put our best step forward. The caveat being here, that it is ours, and not our inventions’.

Inside the cautionary tale of the con-man beats an all too human heart. Where their ability to influence others leads them to a life behind bars – a look at their techniques from a moral perspective is a lesson in applied empathy. In the routine of dating it can help to have an anchor to the traits that are going to propel us towards the outcomes we desire, and in this instance, a look within the penitentiary may offer a sturdy fluke. A researched silver-tongue, a rich emotional understanding married to a confident self awareness – that results, I would hope in this case, of a mutually beneficial result for all.

As opposed to just another fraud for us to tell stories about.

The Do Nothing Paradox – Why Your Brain Needs To Be Lazy, And How Your Hard Work Is Actually Crippling Your Success

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SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA LIVED A TROUBLED LIFE. After enjoying twenty-nine years as an insulated, ill-informed Indian Prince, legend has it that he strode from his palace gates to meet his subjects. Driven by an intuition that the limitless material goods his father supplied would offer him no contentment, he sought to experience more of the world, specifically seeking enlightenment itself. Discovering the elderly and the diseased for the first time, the (previously unknown) associated concepts of mortality and degradation caused Siddhartha to vow to surmount these fates through strict asceticism (that is, eschewing the pursuit of pleasure and instead pursuing only spiritual goals).

After denying his father’s offer of the throne, and then pursuing life as a begging mendicant, Siddhartha pursued an understanding of yogic meditation. With his ultimate goal as enlightenment itself, Siddhartha swiftly moved up the ranks of Alama Kalama’s esteem, eventually being asked to be his successor. Declining this, Siddhartha moved onto the school of Uduka Ramaputta where he once again developed with such grace that he was asked to be his successor. Siddhartha declined. His consciousness, though broadened by his mastery of yogic practice, yearned for more. Siddhartha, despite all his efforts, was no more satisfied than during his days a prince. Enlightenment, as ever, remained elusive.

Disheartened, but not relinquishing his pursuit; Siddhartha sought enlightenment once more in the world of extreme austerity and deprivation. Shunning the pleasures of the world, it’s goods and the nourishment of its foods, Siddhartha life was lived to near starvation through a diet of one leaf and one nut per day. Any momentary pleasure was snatched away through the deliberate practice of self-mortification. Eventually, these extreme measures caught up with him and Siddhartha was found half-drowned in a river by a young village girl. Nursed back to health by a milk and jaggery pudding, Siddhartha looked down upon his withered and corpse-like body (indeed, so inhuman that the girl believed him to be a spirit) and began to reflect on what he had achieved, eventually coming to reconsider his path. Casting his memory back to his days as a boy, he remembered a moment of serene bliss and focus when watching his father work a plow. Maybe his goal was closer than he realised, and existed in the simpler acts of living, than the more extreme routes he had been pursuing.

Experienced in the disparate concepts of awakening and asceticism, Siddhartha began to seek a middle ground that existed between the poles of self-indulgence and self-mortification. To the shock, and consequent abandonment of his followers, Siddhartha let go of his strict acts of austerity and came to settle under a broad-leafed, thick-trunked, pipal tree – where he allowed himself to do absolutely nothing. Sat beneath the sprawling fig tree, Siddhartha sought the truth, and after years of effort and pain and starvation, he finally found what he was looking for. It was here that Siddhartha Gautama, now known as the Buddha, found enlightenment.

Or so the story goes.

DESTROYING THE MYTH OF HARD WORK

In our own lives, it’s easy to get lost in the pursuit of what it is we want. Now whilst I’m confident that many of you aren’t looking for ‘enlightenment’ per se, I’m sure all of you are looking to achieve some kind of result that enhances your quality of life. Sex, money, power, fame, independence, health – whatever it is you want, the elements of focus remain the same:

If you want X you have to do Y.

The entire self-help industry hinges on this concept. Countless boardroom slides dance across office screens, bold text headings blaring ‘productivity’, ‘time management’, ‘performance indicators.’ The idea at the heart of the capitalist engine is simple – put in the input, receive the output; the input in this instance being one’s ability to use their allotted time correctly and the output being, usually, money.

This theory stands to reason. I’m sure you’ve often heard the 10,000 hours theory or some celebrity tell you have they’re the hardest worker in the room, or the last person to get off the treadmill – but does this concept of relentless work and effort actually mesh with the human condition?

Called ‘mystical’ by his critics, Rainer Maria Rilke was intensely gaunt, with a wolfish cast and wispy beard. A prolific writer, possessed with an inexhaustible creative instinct Rilke conjured some of the fiercest and most influential writing the German language had ever seen. Through poems, letters and stories Rainer’s work cut a lasting and formidable legacy. Clearly, this was a man of hard graft, and surely so; a glance across his collected works conjures the image of a wild man, hunched in a fury over a journal whittling pencil after pencil into leadless woodchips across torturous days of labour and craft. But is this actually the case?

In Letters on Life, Rainer wrote “I have often wondered whether especially those days when we are forced to remain idle are not precisely the days spend in the most profound activity. Whether our actions themselves, even if they do not take place until later, are nothing more than the last reverberations of a vast movement that occurs within us during idle days.

In any case, it is very important to be idle with confidence, with devotion, possibly even with joy. The days when even our hands do not stir are so exceptionally quiet that it is hardly possible to raise them without hearing a whole lot.”

Contrary to our theories of effort, it would appear that like the Buddha, Rainer often found what he was looking for when he cast aside trying. However, this idea isn’t some new epiphany. The ancients had long known of breakthroughs in progress arriving in moments of idleness. Modern thinkers too, like Bertrand Russel, espoused the virtues of idleness, and Joyce, in his conception of epiphany goes on to state that they are inadvertent revelations, discovered entirely at random.

By now, I’m sure you’ll agree that the idea ‘if you want X you have to do Y‘ has lost much of its brawn and is in need of a touch-up. After all, hard work without breaking new ground leaves you going in circles.

But that issue extends beyond that. Taking an eye to our cultural reverence of the hard worker, the concept of hard work itself becomes a tricky one. Scanning through the annals of history, the institutionalised idea of ‘hard work’ owes a lot of its origins to serfdom, peasantry, and slave ownership – where a ‘lower class’ of individual worked hard for the benefit (and incidentally, idleness) of a ‘higher class’. Even now you’d be hard-pressed to find an individual who doesn’t think a King should be paid the same wage as a ‘normal man.’ The concept is dirtied further when lifted from slavery and serfdom into the post-industrial revolution, manufacturing age – where hard work was commissioned en-masse to bolster production capabilities of the wealthy industrialists. The difference here is that the hard work was voluntary employment rather than enforced slavery; a step in the right direction, but certainly no gold star. Unmasked, the reverence of hard work carries the echoed reverence the wealthy lords and ladies espoused the, as they called them ‘honest poor.’ A lingering stench, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Looking at the concept on its merit alone, consider the words of Bertrand Russel when he said: ‘the fact is that moving matter about, while a certain amount of it is necessary to our existence, is emphatically not one of the ends of human life. If it were, we should have to consider every navvy superior to Shakespeare.’ Hard work is not in itself merit.

PRACTICAL LAZINESS

The human brain is a notorious mess of conflicting impulses and inclinations, and the echoed narratives of iron-willed focus and graft offer little in the way of practical advice. As Rainer discovered, idleness is useful in the pursuit of goals – but like Siddhartha, a middle ground must be discovered.

Andrew Smart, the author of Autopilot is no stranger to the benefits of laziness he writes that “chronic busyness destroys creativity, self-knowledge, emotional well-being, our ability to be social — and it can damage our cardiovascular health”. In fact, science is increasingly discovering that letting your brain do less, actually allows it do more. There are countless studies demonstrating the benefits of meditation, walks in the forest, napping or even warm baths – more interestingly though was a study undertaken by the Harvard School of Business.

Studying the effectiveness of always working hard, clocking in 65 hour work weeks, the results showed that in fact people worked just as hard and were, in fact, more engaged if their hours were reduced and they were allowed to take sporadic time off. Instead of taking the occasional week long holiday (which suffered diminishing returns), it appeared that frequent breaks to the work week were actually far more beneficial.

Laziness it appears is actually quite useful and has often been seen as a sign of success. Former General and ardent opponent of the Nazi regime, the fantastically named Kurt Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord once said: ‘I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually, two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent — their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy — they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent — he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief.’

Similarly, the ancient Confucian Chinese idealized idleness and relaxation, with Gentleman going so far as to grow long tapering fingernails as a demonstration of their comfortable lives. Although, I think we can all do without a resurgence of that look.

The practicality of laziness is vast. Enhancing creativity, health, well-being, and focus, it would appear doing nothing at all isn’t quite the black mark that our inherited slave narratives would have us believe. Giving our brains room to breathe allows them the clarity and composure Hammerstein-Equord spoke of, we need only cast aside the culture of competition and ladder climbing, and find out those ways in which we can let our brain ‘sit around its ass eating Doritos.’

Welcome to your relaxation time. Let this wonderful 80’s classic sooooth you. 

ADVANCED TECHNIQUES FOR DOING SWEET FUCK ALL

Procrastination is not relaxation. That’s one of the first things we need to learn. On some level, we’re always neurotic about success, our dreams and the direction of our lives. We berate and hammer our self-esteem about not doing enough, and force ourselves to do more. And in between these bouts of mental self-mortification, we let what remains of our tired intellect to waste across sprawls of Facebook newsfeed, snap chat stories and shallow attention grabbing journalism – a process which only feeds the ever present arbitrator of our work ethic. But throughout all of this noise, we drown out the voice that counts – we ignore the messages of our aching exhausted body, and our tired, worn out mind – the message that’s telling us to do nothing at all. For the love of god, please, just do nothing at all.

But when we’re so used to always doing something, doing nothing can seem like a bit of a challenge. The first step is to realise when you’re overworked and just need a break – a detox of everything. General lethargy, inability to concentrate and an addiction to procrastination – this perfect storm of time wasting is a road sign for you to start wasting your time better. Mercifully, there are simple techniques that require no talent.

Switch off your technology. Aside from increasing your fear of missing out, compounding your jealousy and morphing your ability to concentrate into sludge – technology is on a basic level always keeping your brain occupied with doing something. This makes sense when you’re procrastinating, after all, if you aren’t trawling through Instagram then you should have your hands full with whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing; but if you’re doing meant to be doing nothing, then the technology kind of defeats the point. Let the brain do its own thing, rather than constantly filling it up with a constant barrage of information ordure.

Take a hot bath. Your body needs to relax, and you’ll find the experience of melting into a bath lends itself to a relaxed mind like hand and glove. You’ll also find your joints, muscles, skin, heart, lungs and organs to benefit as well. Throw in some scented candles for some Jungian worship of the Anima and you’ll have quite a full package.

Walk in a forest, or really just anywhere green. Mother nature is the mind’s bagnio, and in rigmarole existence of our concrete wild west, it’s easy to forget to purchase a room. Studies show that taking a stroll through some leafy undergrowth, or taking some time out with your backyard oak has a marked effect of reducing depression, rumination (read: worrying), and has a marked effect on long-term mental health. So in essence, you’d be crazy not to.

The quintessential technique, however, is this: Don’t try and do anything. Don’t make yourself do anything. Let go of the feeling that you have to do anything. I call this the Do Nothing Paradox. Beyond my ramblings about serfdom work ethic and celebrations of Austrian poets, a lot of the motivation behind our work ethic is that we’re worried about not keeping busy. We’re worried about falling behind. Of missing out. Or worst of all, of incurring future, negative consequences. Brains ruminate, it’s what they do. The frontal cortex is literally designed to do this. But a hallmark of a healthy mind is the relationship we have between the ruminations and our actions, and our feelings towards ourselves. This shapes the gulf between self-esteem and neuroticism. When we can’t allow ourselves to relax – what does that say about us? Unless some impending deadline approaches, does this not perhaps indicate that our relationship with work is unhealthy, and in turn, that the way we judge ourselves, as a result, is damaging?

After all, a goals worth must be taken stock if it is in itself a damaging pursuit. The unexamined scramble is best left for fools.

So next time your own quest for achievement meets roadblock or plateau – consider perhaps that nothing at all might be the wisest recourse. Relinquish the idea of self-control, and let your brain recline under the feathered fan. With so much of your personal development focused on doing something, always taking an action, always achieving – take the time to do nothing.

And maybe like Siddhartha, you’ll find what you were looking for.