Simplicity

Orgasmic Writing

Neil Strauss’s The Game was a massive success. It brought to the light a lair of extraordinary men who could seduce any woman at will. I started reading it as a PDF but soon bought the printed version. It was addictive. It was seducing. It was pick up on paper.

I started to think whether Neil was using his skills as a pick up artist to keep the reader interested. Every chapter was an emotional ride. From joy to sorry, success to sheer incredulity, it was all there in precise, exact words, all meant to elicit a response: not stop reading.

I was a writer myself. Could I learn from his books, not pick up, but the most hallowed of all arts - writing? Perhaps I could.

So I started analyzing. Some of the methods he uses are more or less straightforward. At the end of a chapter, put a peg of something more interesting to come. How to pick up Paris Hilton for example could make me keep reading for many more chapters and then another peg would be introduced.

However, there are other more subtle tactics which he utilises. The author’s story is the most sane in the whole book. The reader, thinks pretty much the same way. We all think we are extremely rational and emotionally tempered people who would laugh at the crazy acts others around us perform. Neil is that same person. That gives us a strange familiarity. He is telling us a story in which he is reacting in ways we would respond (at least that is what we think) in the same situation. This means, he is one of us. Like attracts like.

Another of his potent tools is repitition. In his other books as well, he has used it with massive success. By repeating a line or a phrase again and again in different parts, if provides great pacing and subtle control of the reader. We know it is coming but we want to make sure that we are right. Be keep on reading. Like attracts like.

The last one is stacking orgasms. When you read his books, there is a sense of climax, every few chapters or even every few paragraphs in some cases. Yet the climax isn’t the one you quite expected. You keep reading because you have already established a connection with the author. You want the climax to be the way you imagined. And the hope of another one, in the distant pages, which just might be the one you imagined makes your keep reading. 

In summation, what Neil brings to the reader is a weird sense of familiarity in a world the reader is not really a part of. Yet, we know what is happening. We feel emotionally connected with the adventure. We feel we would do the exact same things if we were in the author’s position. Like attracts like. 

7 Little Things That Make Life Effortless

Post written by Leo Babauta.

Life can be a huge struggle, most of the time, and for years it was a struggle for me.

I’ve gradually been learning what causes that struggle, and what works in making life easier, better, smoother.

Life can feel effortless, like you’re gliding along, if you learn to swim smoothly, to glide, to stop fighting the waters of life and start using them to buoy you up.

I stopped thrashing and fighting, and started gliding and enjoying the swim.

I’ve written a new book on this topic, called The Effortless Life, which I’ve now published digitally. Some interesting things about this book:

• It was written publicly, on a public Google Doc, while the world watched. That was tremendously fun — normally writing is a solitary act, but with technology I was able to make it a public act.
• I allowed the world to edit it, as I wrote. That was incredibly scary, giving up control as a writer. When I was done, I had written it in a blur, as everyone edited it … and so I had no idea what changes had been made. I thought I should figure out what changes were made, and whether to keep them or not … but then I just decided to go with the wisdom of the crowd, and kept it as is.
• It’s a compendium of some of the most important things I’ve been learning recently. It builds on some of the things from my previous books, The Power of Less and Focus, but takes them further.
• I’m allowing readers to buy it at any price you like. Pay what you think it’s worth, and what you can afford.

Today, I thought I’d share a few things you can do now, to make life feel more effortless.

Take what you want from this list. I find these things work, but your mileage will vary.

1. Do less. This is my productivity mantra, and it’s counterintuitive. I actually don’t believe in productivity, but instead believe in doing the important things. Do less, and you’ll force yourself to choose between what’s just busywork, and what really matters. Life then becomes effortless, as you accomplish big things while being less busy.

2. Having less is lighter. Start asking yourself if you really need everything you have, or if you just have it out of fear. Start to let go of what you have, so it doesn’t own you. And then, as you have less, you feel lighter. It’s wonderful.

3. Let the little things go. People who struggle often fight over little things. We obsess over things that don’t really matter. We create resistance instead of letting things glide off us. Let the little things go, breathe, and move on to the important things.

4. Clean as you go. I haven’t written about this for a long time, but early in the life of Zen Habits I wrote about the habit of cleaning as you go. Instead of letting the cleaning pile up, put things away when you’re done. Wash your bowl. Wipe the counters clean as you pass them. Sweep up dirt when you notice it. By cleaning a little bit at a time, as you make messes, cleaning up becomes a breeze, and it’s never difficult. By the way, this applies to everything in life, not just cleaning.

5. Make small, gradual changes. Most people are too impatient to follow this advice — they want to do everything at once. We have so many changes to make, but we don’t want to wait a year for it all to happen. As a result, we often fail, and then feel crappy about it. Or we don’t start at all, because so many big changes is intimidating and overwhelming. I’ve learned the hard way that small changes are incredibly powerful, and they last longer. Gradual change leads to huge change, but slowly, and in a way that sticks. And it’s effortless.

6. Learn to focus on the things that matter. This is implied in the items above, but it’s so important I have to emphasize it. Swimming (or any physical activity for that matter) is best done when you do only the motions that matter, and eliminate the extraneous motions. Stop thrashing, start becoming more efficient and fluid. You do this by learning what matters, and cutting out the wasted activity.

7. Be compassionate. This makes dealing with others much more effortless. It also makes you feel better about yourself. People like you more, and you improve the lives of others. Make every dealing with another human being one where you practice compassion.

5 Elements of Great Design

Every great design has a few things in common. We can all see them and feel them and subconsciously get attracted towards them but when it comes to incorporating those elements in our own designs we do not know where to start.

Here are 5 elements I have identified which can make your future designs much better.

1. Delete the unnecessary:

Michelangelo said,

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.

By keeping only what is necessary, every part serves a purpose. No element weighs down the design unnecessarily. Take a look at the MacBook Air. The reason it looks so beautiful and has such beautiful design is because they have focused on minimalism and reducing the unimportant.

2. Simple lines:

If you look at the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the CN Tower and the WTC, there is one thing common between all of them. They all can be represented by using very few simple lines.

This factor is often overlooked but is perhaps the single most important factor of great design. By keeping the lines simple and few, your audience would easily grasp it and remember it.

3. The Golden Ratio:

This one is quite common and has been written about quite a lot. However, I couldn’t really move on without writing about it since I absolutely love it. The golden ratio is one of the many things I am awed of. Every great design across nature has this ratio. Beautiful and precise, if you follow this ratio, you will naturally bring a pleasing design in front of your audience’s eyes.

You can also play with the reverse. If you want chaos in your design, try and choose your ratios as further away from the golden ratio as possible.

4. Functionality:

It is very easy to lose ourselves in designing something beautiful but compromising on functionality. In India, we have a phone company called Micromax who use Swarovski elements in their phones. It looks very catchy and beautiful but their phones are one of the worst in the world. So you must make sure that every great design should be backed up with great functionality.

5. Emotions:

Your design shouldn’t just be an intellectual concept. It should make others feel differently. Once again, we turn to Apple. If you see their products, their ads and everything attached to them, they really make you feel differently. I remember when I first held the iPhone in my hand. It not only looked stunning, but it also made me feel calm and at ease. There is something zen-like about the Apple products and that is not a fluke. It is designed.

So go ahead and design some great stuff and remember I love receiving gifts. :)

Do share on twitter or stumble upon if you like it. Cheers…

How to Start Making Money Right Now…

Making money online has always been difficult and filled with fluff. To really make money quickly, what you need is a product.

1. Make an eBook about something you know and are truly passionate about.
2. Research your keywords through Google Keyword Tool.
3. Buy a domain name which has those keywords and make a SEO site and make a sales page there.
4. Open a Paypal merchant account and an e-Junkie account and use e-Junkie to host your PDF file and sell it.
5. Pay $4 and get 1000 views of your ad from adfly and other such advertisers.
6. Set up Google Analytics and see who is buying and why are they buying.
7. Use Adwords to setup your campaign.
8. Enjoy the money…

Why I am crazy and you should be too…

I am quite crazy. Most people who have known me for any length of time can attest to that fact. But, what others see as craziness, in that I find my happiness. Let me give you a few instances.

Doing headstands in the middle of the night when those around you sleepily wake up to have a sip of water can be quite frightening to be honest for them. And yet, I felt like it. And once I have finished it, I feel a spike of happiness.

It might be a small instance but there is a lot going on if we study that carefully. Our happiness is mostly like the stock market. There is no steady rise and steady fall. There are those microscopic peaks and valleys which fill the entire line if you zoom in closely. Our total happiness is actually like that.

If we go on a vacation and come back happy, we tell others, “I am so happy and refreshed I came back from the vacation.” But is there all to it? Are we happy because of that entire vacation or because the small things, like waking up and seeing a different window, riding in a cab where the driver looks different and speaks another language, where the morsel we place in our mouth the reasons behind the happiness. I am sure you will agree that the latter is the case.

Now, when we are not on vacations, how can we achieve those same spikes we mentioned earlier? The answer dear reader lies in craziness. Craziness brings about a certain unpredictability which surprises even yourseld and as long as that craziness doesn’t involve you jumping over a cliff, you shall experience spikes of happiness. And if you keep doing them, there is no real reason why your overall hapiness shouldn’t increase. Try dancing standing on the sides of your bathtub or walking on your hands. You will see what I mean.

The second part of this conundrum is happiness leakage. Our happiness leaks away like water from our cupped hands. You know it to be true. You had been very happy after your first boink but then you realised that it doesn’t stay at that level. I mean your happiness dufus, not your pee pee. Anyways, what is happening here is once your dopamines slowly get washed away, you then slowly go back to defaults which I think is a state where you are neither happy nor sad. You just are.

To stop this kind of leakage I think what Eckhart Tolle says in his book The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, about focussing on the Now and focussing on your inner body really works. I have read all kinds of spiritual books but this is the only book which I have seen to be of any real help in this regard.

Thus, keep on surprising yourself with small acts of craziness and do it everyday. You will soon see, you will also learn to laugh at yourself and become much more relaxed, a better person in short…

Top 5 Rap Albums of All-Time

Rapping is crazy they say
Here we go again with some of the hardest hitting rap albums out there
Coz as proved through time and through history, rap is here to stay…

Jay Z: The Blueprint

The King of flow is here for you now
With the most loyal and gritty rap sound
The album will drip all around you like snow
And make you scream for more

2Pac: All Eyez on Me

Long live the true legend they say…
And let me tell you if I may
In his short life he made some of the greatest music till ‘day…
This album will make your head spin round ‘n’ round…
And make you look at the moon and bay!

Notorious B.I.G.: Life after Death

Biggie Biggie Biggie can’t you see
Sometimes you just hypnotize me
Now that we have begun, this is the album which will make you go gee!
I should have heard this’a’long time back, why couldn’t I see…
B.I.G.’s final album is just stunning and will make you just relax and be…

Eminem: Recovery

Now I know what y’all are sayin’
This album is not worth paying
Slim Shady has made more stuff, which is great and raving…
But listen carefully mates…this is his soul talking
All his experience comes together to make this album the greatest and I ain’t B’Shitting…

Dr Dre: The Chronic

G-Rap after all is the shit
Which was the beginning of Dr Dre and his producing grit…
If you don’t hear this you are doomed…for thru this album
Will your rap’s ear bloom…

Top 5 HTML 5 Web Resources

HTML 5 is the coolest new markup language. And those of you who want to dip your toes in this refreshing new stream of tags and elements, here are Top 5 websites which deal in HTML 5 and all its coolness.

1. HTML 5 Doctor: I just love this web site’s design and especially its brilliant code snippets and Elements Index. Look around and you would soon learn a lot of things extremely quickly.
2. W3 Schools HTML 5 Tutorial: If you want to learn HTML 5 and many other languages, this is one of the best sites. Very easy to breeze through and some very lucid explanations and examples.
3. HTML Rocks: Brilliant. Just Brilliant. It has code playgrounds, which is like a sandbox, side-by-side tutorials, samples and all the elements of coolness attached to it. 
4. HTML Gallery: If you want some inspiration, this will give you plenty. It showcases some great websites which use HTML 5 in all its glory.
5. Dive Into HTML 5: This is slightly lesser known but is one of the best websites on the subject and I love the design. Must Check!

Shoe Hurling: A major source of corruption?

We Indians are fascinated by shoes. Perhaps due to our lack of shoes earlier, we have grown quite attached to this new form of comfort during the post-colonial era.

This aspect of our fascination became public recently when someone hurled a shoe at Rahul Gandhi, the son of Sonia Gandhi, grandson of Indira Gandhi and great-grandson of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Understandably,  Veronique Cartelli, his girlfriend who is a Spanish architect living in Venezuela became quite outraged by such displays of affection and ordered a thorough enquiry which the Congress party shall now carry out. We all know that the women run that household. 

George Bush had famously said:

One is not a man if he cannot dodge a shoe.

Okay perhaps he didn’t but there is something inherently funny about this whole incident. 

First (firstly is wrong), a thorough enquiry? Really? An enquiry into the shitloads of black money which the politicians have stored in offshore accounts? Lets start with that shall we. The guy who threw that shoe,  Kuldip, is already in your custody so slap him a few times and let him go. Not an enquiry surely. 

George Bush’s spokesperson could have publicly said that, “We demand an enquiry.” But, no, these things are not spoken out. 

And furthermore, if someone throws a shoe at someone, he deserves it. Rahul Gandhi knows this of course and he said:

I would not run away, throw one more shoe at me.

And it is true. If someone is taking the effort to come to a rally, avoid security and hurl a shoe towards you and then court arrest, there is obviously some huge amount of pain you have caused to that guy, or that guy is mad. 

And if that Kuldip is a member of BJP, then anyways you can’t do much. 

Second (secondly is also wrong), if people get this idea that hurling shoes at anyone is the correct way to protest, then they are dead wrong. Shoe hurling does nothing really. And furthermore if people get this idea and more and more shoes are hurled towards Rahul Gandhi, just imagine the amount of corruption there will be. BJP will start storing shoes in their Swiss Bank accounts. 

And then Ramdev (“Ramdev. He is a criminal.” - Party general secretary Digvijay Singh) would move on from “Kala Dhan Nikalo” to “Kala Joota Nikalo”. Atleast now some raging maniacs are conveniently sticking their cock out during those mass gatherings as soon as they hear the famous “Kala Dhan Nikalo.” 

So, take it easy and if someone hurls you a shoe, remember, Kala Dhan comes first. Only then is Kala Joota.

Open Marriage: An oxymoron?

Newt Gingrich has made open marriages rise to the top of the chart in Google. I have seen many open marriages in the real world as well as read about them in the virtual world and there are a few things which strike me as quite odd and I am sharing them here.

Open Marriages by definition allow the partners in the marriage to seek emotional as well as sexual connections from other people. 

I feel that definition seems fine for open but for marriage? Marriage is again by definition the opposite of that and it is quite similar to Apple’s structure of high walls and internal satisfactions.

Steve Pavlina, who is one of the most popular and famous bloggers in the world experimented with open marriages and polyamory and it seems that even he couldn’t make it work. And I mean that in a good way. He is one of the most courageous and honest you can find and it eluded him as well. He has given some very good reasons for his divorce with Erin Pavlina and you can read them here: Separation.

I feel that if you are married to someone and you really love that person, it would be quite difficult for you to balance both the marriage and your other relationships. There are just too many complications because in such a situation you are constantly trying to make sure that your partner understands and is cool with what you are doing. 

As humans we are basically jealous and we get upset not because of the sex or comfort which your partner receives from someone else. Imagine if you will your partner is going to a parlor where they have a virtual reality device which lets her/him have sex with a virtual person. Will you still get jealous? I am sure you will.

The true reason of jealousy is because we feel that our partner is getting things which we should be providing and perhaps are, from somewhere or someone else.

Polyamory might work better than open marriages, as the relationship begins with the premise that both would not expect all of their sexual or emotional needs met by each other. But open marriages, especially the ones which begin as usual marriages, do not have that foundation. Hence it tugs at our comfort zones and when those comfort zones lie within our heart and play with our natural evolutionary instincts, things get ugly.

So, if you are planning to get married, know that it is a full time affair and it is based on the express understanding that 100% of your needs will be fulfilled by your partner. 

As for open marriages, as far as I have seen, they do not work, unless they are not truely open marriages but merely polyamorous relationships cloaked in that term. Decide for yourself.