 
### Prometheus Unbound

Copyright 2014 Jeff Katzman

Published by Jeff Katzman at Smashwords

Version 2.1

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Table of Contents

Dedication

To the Reader

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: Art of Living

Chapter 2: Death

Chapter 3: Being

Chapter 4: Eternity

Chapter 5: Enlightenment

Chapter 6: Economy

Chapter 7: Power

Chapter 8: Discovery

Chapter 9: Individual

Chapter 10: The Power Game

About the author

Dedication

I dedicate this book to the six most influential people in my life:

To Mom, goddess of inspiration.

To Dad, god of reasoning.

To Dr. Bellon, god of encouragement.

To Courtney, goddess of beauty.

To Nicki, goddess of love.

To Jill, goddess of wisdom.

To the Reader

For humanity, life is a game -- a power game. Prometheus Bound aims to come as close as possible to hitting the nail of reality on the head by exploring the timeless elements of the human condition from the perspective of society toward the individual.

Prometheus Bound represents the executive summary of my entire research and education -- it is Part I of the two books that I wished I had had when I was making the transition into adulthood at the beginning of my college years. Since it is impossible for my title to help me in this way (since it didn't exist during my formative period years ago), it is my hope that Prometheus Bound will serve to guide you in your formative years and beyond. This book explains the forces _beyond_ our control that have a major impact on our lives.

Prometheus Bound is especially for college undergraduates who are focused on one particular subject in either the humanities or social sciences who want to form a clearer picture of the _other_ disciplines and how they interact with one another. This book is also for anyone else who wants to have a better model and understanding of the world going on _around_ them _as we all play the power game in our own lives_.

Prometheus Unbound is Part II of the books that I wished I had had when I was making the transition into adulthood at the beginning of my college years. Prometheus Unbound explores the timeless elements of the human condition from the perspective of the individual toward society. This book explains the forces _within_ our control that have a major impact on our lives. This authoritative book illuminates why we employ the strategies we do as we all play the power game of our lives.

Prometheus Unbound proves invaluable for those who want to undergo a meaningful and lasting transformation in themselves -- college undergraduates, people in recovery, or for anyone else seeking guidance who wants to convert from _being human_ to acting like a _human being_.

Prometheus Unbound is for those who _desire_ to form a clearer picture of themselves and _to enrich the quality of their lives_. This book is also for anyone else who wants to have a better model and understanding of the world going on _inside_ of them _as we all play the power game in our own lives_.

Acknowledgements

Most of all I would like to acknowledge Prometheus -- the Greek titan, god, and muse who represents the treasure trove of all past human achievement. When we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, we stand on the shoulders of Prometheus.

As a species, humanity still would _not_ be all that interesting if each generation were only passing on its limited experience to the next _verbally_. We only became interesting when we switched from conversing amongst ourselves to conversing with the ancients. The best of these conversations are the ones in which the wisest men and women who ever lived followed the great chain of being and wrote collections of the best ideas of all time.

I too have followed this great chain of being starting with Homer and following it to the present. In particular, I would like to thank Nietzsche, Thoreau, Hesse, and Emerson for being the best guides in my life and providing me with the wisest ideas on the timeless elements of the human condition.

Cover photograph: Caspar David Friedrich's "The Wanderer Over the Sea of Fog," 1818. This painting is currently housed in the Kunsthalle art museum in Hamburg, Germany.

Introduction

Come sit with me

By the sea.

Feel the ebb and flow

Of eternity.

Bask in the glow of Apollo.

Let his warmth inspire,

Fan your flames,

And set your soul on fire!

A silhouetted seagull spirals

Round the sky, a solitary flyer.

Follow it in flight,

And soar ever higher!

Listen to the voice within;

Defy your defiers.

Chase your dreams;

Fulfill your desires!

Become who you are;

Set yourself free.

Immortalized in language,

you'll live infinitely!

Come sit with me

By the sea,

Where waves whisper your name

For eternity.

Introduction to the Trilogy

This book is a love poem to life and a giving thanks to being alive. It is also the one book that would have made my life much easier and my understanding of the world much richer had I absorbed everything herein in my youth. My hope is that this trilogy will guide _you_ on _your_ journey through life.

The Prometheus myth inspired me to write this book. Prometheus was the ultimate rebel -- an ingenious and impious titan who accomplished many daring deeds to grant gifts to his favorite creations -- human beings. Prometheus's most famous accomplishment was stealing fire from the gods and gifting it to humanity. Zeus was so angered by Prometheus's revolt that he ordered Prometheus to be chained to a mountain for eternity. However, wily and clever Prometheus outsmarted and overcame Zeus and freed himself, going on to become the savior of humanity.

Aeschylus, an ancient Greek poet and playwright, wrote a version of the myth that took the form of a trilogy of plays -- Prometheus Bound, Prometheus Unbound, and Prometheus Triumphs. Only Prometheus Bound remains with us -- for time has destroyed the two final volumes. In honor of Aeschylus, my version completes the trilogy while offering a fresh interpretation of the Promethean myth.

Just as the Olympian gods' triumph over the titans represents the triumph of the clever over the strong, the triumph of Prometheus over Zeus represents man's ability to triumph over the forces of nature and life as he redeems himself. The moral of the myth is that we must learn to embrace and to love our fate since fate has supreme and eternal power over us.

Prometheus suffered in secret seclusion to see to humanity's success -- making us out of clay, giving us fire, wisdom, knowledge, language, mathematics, art, technology, domesticated animals, medicine, and the Promethean shield. This shield is the veil of life -- it obscures death and offers blind hope to us all.

As a young adult I had an accident, cracking my skull and shattering my Promethean shield. From that day forward, the most defining moment of my life has been my near death. The negative results of my head injury remind me daily of my own mortality. At the same time, I was extremely fortunate that my head injury was a temporary setback from which I recovered long ago. Prometheus granted me a second chance at life. Since that fateful day, every day has been holy -- an opportunity for me to master the art of living and myself.

This trilogy calls for a revolution -- not against the ruling class, or the powers that be, or against any other authority. This revolutionist's handbook calls for a revolutionary transformation in yourself and in the way you view the world. It explores man's battle against the forces beyond his control (Prometheus Bound) using the forces within his control (Prometheus Unbound) to triumph over the human condition by triumphing over himself (Prometheus Triumphs).

As you read Prometheus Bound and Prometheus Unbound, picture an eagle soaring high in the sky. The eagle starts circling thousands of feet above the earth and slowly spirals down. The eagle starts in Prometheus Bound, hovering in the lofty realm of nature; then it spirals down through life; then through man's ancestry; then through humanity; then through the estates of the church, the economy, the state, the academy, and the family. Finally, the eagle hones in on you and explores your deepest depths in Prometheus Unbound. May you too fare well on your journey through life as you master the art of living and yourself.

Love,

Jeff

Introduction to Prometheus Unbound

Prometheus was chained high in the dark recesses of the Caucasus mountains when we were last with him. Here he was to remain imprisoned for eternity. Eons passed until it finally dawned on him that he and only he had the power to free himself. On the day after his epiphany, he patiently awaited the arrival of the vulture that gnaws at his liver. Just as the vulture arrived, he tore himself loose from his chains, tossed them over his shoulder, leapt down from the mountain, and slayed the vulture with his bare hands.

Released from the prison of his past, Prometheus rekindled his creative fire and began showing human beings -- his favorite creatures -- how to get the maximum power and joy out of their lives. Prometheus -- the Great Liberator -- established new codes that teach the way to overcoming, to creating, and to forging a masterpiece out of your life here and now.

Prometheus Bound taught us that there are forces beyond our control that impact who we are, and that none of these forces cares about us. The vast majority of the events in our lives are those that happen to us. Our demise is of no consequence to nature, life, or humanity -- for our lives will have little to no impact on those around us or our progeny.

Humanity is not going anywhere in particular. We are locked in orbit just as the earth is around the sun. Besides endlessly cycling around the same circle perpetuating the human race, we as a species have no other goal. As we learn more about the universe, the more meaningless and absurd it and our role in it appears. Instead, we have invented our own tragic-comedy, one where each generation passes on the same farcical script for the next generation to act out.

In an age where we are converted from compassionate beings into cogs, where educators use cookie cutters more frequently than cooks, where the previous generation attempts to clip our wings before we even have a chance to fly, where our entire existence appears meaningless and absurd, where society drifts without a destination, we must provide the goals to our lives.

Precisely because you are of no consequence to nature, life, or humanity, you are free to create the goal of your life. You exist; you are here now; and you will decay and eventually die. You have the rest of your life, however long that may be, to seek and find the meaning and purpose to your existence \-- so stop wasting precious time pondering unsolvable riddles and get to work on the problems that you can solve and resolve.

You are like every other one of nature's beings -- you represent a single toss of the dice, a unique congealment of genes and environment, the likes of which the world has never known before and never will again. You stand on the seam that sews together the special and significant series of events that will happen to you and only to you. You are free to interpret the meaning of these events, and you are free to adopt your own attitude toward these events. Do so in such a way that no matter how dreadful an event is, it only serves to make you more powerful and better prepared to handle the next random draw that nature throws in your way.

As you travel the path of life, your sole duty is to find the path to yourself. Once you find your path, you will find the harmony within, and inner peace will come to you and along with it joy in living and joy in yourself.

You are here once and only once. Life can be brief and bleak, if you let it be. You only have a few decades to perform your magic and to show your wondrous talents to the rest of us. Learn to love, and even to worship life, this life, before it is too late.

Aim high towards grand goals and pursue them with relentless passion. With calm and bold assurance in yourself and your task, you must teeter on the brink of the forbidden to overcome these powerful opposing forces.

Only you can answer the why of your life. Once you have the answer to the why, then you must figure out how to make it happen. Prometheus Unbound will help show you how to bring the why of your life to fruition.

You will learn how to call upon the eternal elements of the human condition to master yourself and your life. You will learn the questions, tasks, and challenges that you must undertake to make the transformation from a human to a human being. You will see how granting the meaning and purpose to your life automatically fills in the void left by the absurdity and meaninglessness of modern times. You will see how doing what you truly love to do is the same as serving society as best as you can.

Do you know what life is to me? Life is a game in which you explore the labyrinth lying within you -- the labyrinth that is you. You journey inside the deepest, darkest recesses of your mind and body to explore the mystery that you are. You travel further and further along the forking paths until you discover who you are. Once you discover who you are, then you aim to find happiness with who you are. Once you find happiness with who you are, your journey is complete and your mission fulfilled. Once you fulfill your mission, you win the game of life and _the power game_.

Life is also a gift, and Prometheus Unbound is my gift to life and to you.

Chapter 1: Art of Living

What exactly are you waiting for -- your next lifetime, to be reincarnated, some sort of afterlife, for someone else to do it for you? It is high time to stop dreaming and to start living your ideal life -- for the only purpose in your life is the one _you_ assign to it. Unless you start looking for it, you will never find it.

The goal of _your_ life is to find happiness with who _you_ are, and the time to start finding it is _now_. The first step in reaching this goal -- _your sole goal_ \-- is to determine who you are. This is the hardest task you will ever assign yourself -- anyone who tells you otherwise is just selling something. Though it is easy to memorize and to regurgitate these ideas, it is tremendously difficult to apply them to your life and all the more challenging to bring them to fruition \-- for somehow every institution that man has ever created is designed to thwart you in this quest.

Still, the sooner you start, the sooner you will become the person you have always wanted to be -- _for you become what you do_. Figure out what you truly love to do, and start doing it. You must also identify which type you are and which path through life fits you best. The goal and the means to this goal is a continual process of _becoming_ , of moving ever closer to who you are -- for nature is locked in perpetual movement and so are you.

The second step is to find happiness with who you are, and there are two ways of doing it. One way demands becoming who you want to be, while the other demands wanting to be who you already are.

The more rewarding yet also the far more challenging way is to live the life you've imagined. You first use your imagination to envision your ideal life, then you start creating it. The key lies not so much in what you choose to do, but in what you choose _not_ to do. Be wary not to venture into the land of daydreams where perfectly planned projects never get executed -- for this blind alley leads to asylums or to even worse places. You must stay grounded in the here and now. _This way demands that you align the life you've imagined with the life you are actually living_.

The easier way is to come to the realization that you reveal to yourself what you love doing through what you do each day -- that the life you are actually living _must be_ your ideal life. Then you will undergo a profound psychological transformation -- one that ushers in an entirely new attitude and new way of viewing your life.

Society leads us to believe that happiness is a _passive_ event -- one that comes attached to your next purchase, or with you next successful sexual encounter, or with your alma mater's next victory. This is a grave error. Happiness is an _active_ process -- one that demands continual effort on _your_ part to find the happiness that comes with _your interpretation_ of _all_ the events that happen to you in your life.

Applying this way to your life is as easy as falling asleep tonight with the conviction that tomorrow you are going to awake into a brand-new world -- a world in which you are truly happy with who you are and everyone and everything around you. In this new world, you will live with fortitude, aiming to make the next two months the best two months of your life -- in perpetuity. _Though nothing actually changes in your life, this way you come to embrace and to love the life you are already living_.

The best of all possible lives is the one in which you attain the most fulfilling happiness of all by pulling both ways into alignment with one another simultaneously -- _to strive to live the life you've imagined while embracing and loving the life you are already living_.

Though we battle incessantly to take the randomness out of our lives, we must never forget that nature is chance -- that the only certainty in life is uncertainty. Still, the desire for certainty is our deepest craving and the one least often fulfilled. Chance and error govern our lives as much as calculation and estimation. Yet, most people only remember the times that chance tossed them an _unfavorable_ outcome.

For example, imagine a half-blind man wandering along a knife-edged precipice in such a way that every other step dangles out over the edge. Each time fate reaches up and catches his foot, placing it gently on the ground. Eventually, a gorgeous woman comes walking the other way along the precipice straight towards him. Right as their paths cross, the half-blind man trips on a rock and falls down. The woman smiles and laughs at his misfortune and continues on her way. He will curse that rock for the rest of his days and blame it for his failure to meet the gorgeous woman. However, he will have no recollection of fate's gentle, guiding hands that kept him time and time again from falling into the precipice -- so works the mind.

Why suffer and curse what is necessary? Instead, figure out ways to put chance to work for you -- place yourself in situations where chance will most likely toss you a favorable outcome. _Chance is inescapable -- embrace it and even learn to love it_.

Imagine how many accidents you would be able to avoid if you were living just a second or two in the future -- the closest you can come to this is to remain alert at all times. See and _foresee_ as many possible outcomes of an event _before_ the actual event occurs. Anticipate them and determine what your best response is to each possible alternative. _Applying this thought process will help you take as much randomness as possible out of your life_.

Once this method is mastered, events that are often pitfalls to others will be at most potholes to you, and, with enough preparation and luck, they may even end up being pleasant surprises. As a risk-taker, you will lead a challenging, exciting, and rewarding life. _Remember, the greatest reward only comes to those willing to take the greatest risk_.

Most people spend their whole lives as far away as possible from themselves. _You are going to get as close as possible to yourself_ \-- _becoming your own best friend and an expert at knowing yourself_.

Before giving your life any definite direction, you will come to understand the unique characteristics that make you who you are, being sure to give highest rank to those characteristics that lie nearest, dearest, and clearest to you. _You_ are going to find certainty in the one and only place you can -- _in yourself_. _You are going to declare victory over nature and blind chance -- you are going to declare victory over yourself_.

Fight the habitual; experience the insecurity of independence and the frequent wavering of your feelings and your conscience -- you will find it far more rewarding than a life of indolence. _Acquiescing is easier than adventuring_. _If you desire nothing more than comfort and security, then believe; if you desire to discover your truths, then inquire_.

Man has discovered every possible path for himself, and every single path has been traveled by at least a few before. The paths of play and decay, of toil and spoil, of family, of fame, of celebrity, of wealth, of social status, of eternity, and of inner peace compose the complete collection of man's possible paths. Some are boulevards so wide that millions of travelers can traverse them while others are knife-edged precipices, so challenging and hazardous that only a handful per millennia dare traverse them. Your path most likely lies somewhere in between. _It is your duty to discover which path is yours_.

Your path begins with searching for the conditions under which you thrive. The importance of your choice of location and abode cannot be overestimated. The weather, the climate, and the facilities available to you, for both labor and leisure activities, will have a major impact on your joy in living. Climate affects all living things. For example, many would say that there is something special in the mountain air that inspires, while others would claim that arid environs breed arid thoughts.

Less than a mile off the coast of Big Sur, California lies a valley. Though desert completely surrounds this valley, a redwood grove lies in the heart of it. On the beach, on the slopes, and on the plains, redwood seeds cannot germinate. However, deep within the calm valley, redwoods have found the conditions under which they thrive. The soil content, the abundance of sunshine, the continuous supply of spring water, gentle breezes, the flat plain on the forest floor, sparse competing foliage, and hundreds of other less perceptible factors create ideal conditions for the redwoods to germinate and to soar to stupendous heights. Learn from the redwoods. _Find a quiet plain, with pure soil, plenty of sunshine and water, a gentle breeze, a clearing for your roots, and let the trunk of your being soar to new heights_.

Out of a seed anything can grow. As a human being, you can constantly test your soil. If the soil you currently occupy doesn't suit your roots, pick them up and move to more fertile terrain. _If it isn't tied down, move it. If it is tied down, untie it. If it can't be moved, then move away from it_.

As a young flower grows in the garden that its forefathers occupied, you too will seek and find your garden. Experiment with different types of soil until you find the one that fits you best. _Seek and find the climate in which the blessed sun bestows such joy upon you that you drop roots and remain there forever_.

Some environments are better equipped than others for producing certain types of men. For example, perhaps the people of Germany, Russia, and England have produced so many great works of art _because_ for a majority of the year they have so few opportunities to spend quality time outside. They spend all day and all night developing themselves as they sit in libraries, in art studios, or in parlors reading, thinking, conversing, and creating.

Every animal strives for an optimum of favorable conditions under which it can expend all its strength and achieve its maximum feeling of power. _Find and create the conditions under which you can achieve the highest feeling of power and joy_.

Learn to travel light. If you see the chance of success with a part of your life reduced to zero due to events beyond your control, get out immediately. If any sign of slavery threatens you, it is time to go -- for there is a right time to move on. A fresh start will work wonders for you -- the perils of the past will vanish quickly, and new and undreamt of possibilities will unfold right before your eyes. _Discover the soil in which you can finally blossom_.

You only get to experience something for the first time once, so make the most of it. Heighten your awareness; strengthen your acumen; and develop your senses. Whether it be the mountains or the sea or somewhere in between, be alert, be aware, and be _alive_. From the second time forward, your memory and your senses will wrestle within your mind. As your memory vies for dominance, it will taint the fresh images streaming in. As with places, it is so for all the events in your life. Remember that your memory will dull your senses. _Treasure every single new experience as if the first time will be the only time_.

Eventually the excitement of novel situations erodes into the predictability of a secure everyday existence. As you walk down the same path, you follow the one you've worn into your mind during all your previous wanderings. You no longer find your way with your senses -- you rely solely on the worn-out image carved in your mind. The only way to enjoy the excitement of novel situations is to perpetually wander where you mind has never been before -- for your memory inhibits you from using your senses to the fullest. The onrush of joy as you experience a novel situation dissolves when your mind internalizes it.

Experiencing something spectacular for the first time is not only a rare moment of the highest significance, it serves as one of the major sources of joy in life. The birth of your first child, falling in love, the return of spring, the mountains, the stars, and the sea -- each speaks to your heart only once. _New prospects are the source of great happiness_.

Since you will be paying attention as you experience new things for the first time, new environments will produce amazing changes in you. To the sick, doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery -- they should prescribe this to the healthy as well. _Discover new horizons_.

No matter how wide the universe, your imagination extends even further. Turn your eyesight inward and find the thousand regions not yet discovered in your own mind. _Explore the universe within you_.

Never forget that the only poor decision is not admitting a poor decision. Learn from it, and move on. Sometimes you will stray along what appears to be the wrong path, struggling uphill against the wind, and ultimately against yourself. You will become exhausted -- gasping for breath. What you achieve will bring no joy, and you will feel that you have paid too dearly for it. Indeed, as you continue to climb even higher, you will find nothing but despair in the moment and in the future. Little will you know that you are on the verge of victory. As you turn around, the path will lead downhill -- now with the wind at your back. What joy there will be in this moment. _With the greatest challenge of your life behind you, you will march boldly into your future -- feeling confident of victory_.

One key to mastering the art of living is determining what interests you. As long as you are extremely _interested_ in doing something, then you will develop the ability to do it well and to succeed at it. _You can't do anything, but you can do anything that you want to do_.

For example, if you want to become an actor, all you need to do is start acting. You may never become the best actor of all time, but you will be able to become the best actor you can be. _Even more importantly, since you will be doing what interests you, you will find happiness with who you are becoming -- and eventually with who you are_.

Still, make sure you align your interests with your abilities. Unify your actions with your thoughts in an iterative process. Be at home in both the realm of thought and the realm of action -- _for actions speak louder than words_.

Become a practitioner, where you practice a way of life and show others who you are through your example, rather than just regurgitating and preaching a set of worn-out and hypocritical ideas. Come to understand over time with increasing certainty who you are and what you want to do and to become. _You must live your ideas_.

Only the ideas that you actually live and implement instinctively are of any value. Steer your life into alignment with your dreams and your imagination. Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed. Make your life harmonize with your views. _Fight an inner war to reconcile all of your powers, and emerge victorious -- self-controlled, self-sufficient, and self-reliant_.

Most people are hyperopic -- they have a hard time seeing and rarely take heed of that which lies closest to them. Failing to pay attention to the most minute everyday things often leads to trouble and to rambling down the wrong path at least for a while if not for their entire lives. You will strive for alignment each and every day of your life, which will lead to harmony and propel you down the right path. _Find the path that fits you the best_.

A lack of self-mastery in small things brings about a crumbling of the capacity for it in great ones. Each ill-employed today tends to foster an ill-employed tomorrow, which promises to be a danger for the next day. _Becoming a master gymnast is indispensable in becoming your own master_.

A sound body and a sound mind prepare you to face the challenges that life and your fellow men throw your way. What is the history of everyday in your case? Look at the habits that constitute it -- are they the product of your cowardice and laziness or of your courage and ingenuity? _If you wish to fully develop yourself, you must make changes to the very pettiest of your habits_.

You are the conductor of your life -- start practicing string, woodwind, brass, and percussion and then orchestrate them to bring them all into harmony. _You must create your own customs and regulate your everyday mode of life_.

Life is complicated enough even if you're not the least bit concerned with events beyond your control. That which lies at the core of your existence is that which you have the most control over -- yourself. Channel your energy toward the events within your control; let events beyond your control dissipate and disappear. _Continuously develop your power -- bring more and more events from beyond to within your control_.

_Man's ability to question is far more powerful than his ability to answer_. Rather than trying to solve useless questions, study your own constitution throughout life to see what food or drink or what kind of exercise is good for you -- and by what use of these you can live the healthiest life. _You will find it hard to discover a doctor who will know better than you what is good for you_.

Begin in the right place, with your body -- _make yourself the object of your primary care_. Master your diet and physiology -- for they will serve as the foundation on which the rest of your life rests. Your body is a temple. You are the architect, sculptor, and painter; the material at your disposal is your own flesh and bones. The art of living the good life is constructing a life well ordered, such as eating foods both innocuous to the mind and body and not too difficult to procure or process. _As you clean yourself each morning, don't forget to cleanse your mind -- wash dwelling on the past and anxiety toward the future down the drain so that you are left with a clean slate, or, even better, with a clear plan of attack for the day_.

Become your own general and command yourself \-- conduct training to stay mentally, physically, and spiritually sound. Develop the maximum beauty and strength of your body, and start when you are young. The body is valuable in all activities. Even in thinking, which is supposed to require the least assistance from the body, serious mistakes often happen when the body is exhausted or otherwise suffering from ill-health. The best and cheapest solution to internal troubles is exercise. _The key to mental health is physical health -- for if you look good, you can't help but feel good about who you are_.

Beware inertia -- for a body at rest wants nothing more than to stay at rest, while a body in motion wants nothing more than to stay in motion. _Put inertia to work for you_.

The last thing you should do is spend too much time pining over the source of your troubles. Instead, spend more time exercising, with friends, and with a task. Your mind becomes healthier as your body does. Exertion allows the animal within you to roam free. In the tranquility that follows, you attain wisdom, purity, and euphoria. _The key to renewal and revival is more activity and less therapy_.

You will be on the path to wisdom when you are on the path to yourself -- seeking and exploring your inner world and determining what is of highest value _to you_. Wisdom resides as far above knowledge as knowledge does above ignorance. Transcending ignorance requires education; transcending knowledge requires experience. Wisdom cannot be gained through education, but only through challenging yourself, training, and fighting against ever-stronger resistances. _Learn many useful things each day_.

Experience with powers greater than your own simultaneously strengthens and humbles you. All of this makes you stronger and leads you down the path to wisdom. _Pursuing knowledge complicates your life; pursuing wisdom simplifies it_.

There is such a thing as useless knowledge; there is no such thing as useless wisdom. Wisdom is precisely the ability to differentiate between knowledge that is of use to you from that which is useless. Embark on the path to wisdom, and absorb as much useful knowledge as you can. Wisdom teaches how to succeed _by example_. Wisdom only applies to the art of living \-- to mastering yourself. As you bid farewell to an audience, leave a group of wiser and superior men in your wake. To pursue wisdom solves some of the problems of life -- not only in theory, but in practice. _Live according to the dictates of wisdom -- a life of simplicity, independence, honesty, magnanimity, and trust_.

Construct habits, brief habits, daily habits, that make you stronger, wiser, and healthier. Do not throw away the hero in your soul. _Develop your daily habits so that you become your own superhero before stepping out into the world each and every day_.

_Wisdom also demands figuring out how to deal with people -- which begins with figuring out how to deal with yourself_. Once you master this, you can move on to master your relationships with others. Wisdom also demands that you must master your demeanor. _It is wise never to act or to appear wise_.

There is a time to listen and a time to speak -- it is up to you to recognize when to do which. On those rare occasions when you may no longer remain silent, display your mastery of language. Show that you understand the nuances of language, and recognize that there are hundreds of ways of communicating a single idea to someone. It is up to _you_ to determine which one is _best_ in each particular situation.

Yet, what is of value and wisdom to one man seems total nonsense to another. Challenge all customs and practices, all laws and conventions, until you find those that work best _for you_. _After a period of bold and brave experimentation with various lifestyles, become so certain in your world view that you can practice what you believe in all circumstances at all times_.

The path to power and joy is found, not in discourse and thought, but in the constant _practice_ of virtuous deeds and actions. The means to arrive there are easy -- simplify your life. Nothing in life has any chance of succeeding without strenuous practice. As for your views about what is right, demonstrate them by your actions. Reveal your views through your conduct. Words do not express thoughts very well -- the intended message always becomes distorted by the time it reaches the mind of the audience. _Convince by deeds, not by words_.

We are always slaves to something -- we can never attain complete freedom. At a minimum, we are bound to following the basic life forces that flow through us -- breathing, drinking, eating, sleeping, excreting, and procreating. Nevertheless, it is possible to become master of the chaos you are. _Become as far removed as possible from your drives for hunger, sleep, or any other drive_.

The first sign of separation of man from the rest of the animal kingdom was when his actions no longer were directed to the procurement of momentary wellbeing but to enduring wellbeing. You are going to carry this idea as far as y _our willpower_ will take it -- to the point where you act in accordance with your own standards. Spend time and energy harnessing your animalistic drives. _You will create your own commandments, doing what is honorable and useful for yourself and for others at all times_.

Know yourself. Who do you think knows himself -- the man who merely knows his name or the man who examines his strengths and weaknesses and figures out how to convert his weaknesses into strengths? Consider if you are obedient or disobedient, strong or weak, swift or slow, and all other qualities that help you maximize your usefulness in human relationships. You will get to know yourself so well that you will be able to distinguish what you can and cannot do. _Refraining from doing things you don't understand or cannot do will allow you to escape many a misfortune_.

All forms of life are chaotic bundles of forces. In all willing, there is, first of all, a plurality of sensation, affects, psychological and physiological impulses, external stimuli, and thinking. There is perpetual strife between all the drives and forces within to be the dominant one -- to command your attention and invoke your response. You are simultaneously commanding and obeying your drives. _Identify which forces are strongest within you and orchestrate their interaction_.

You will become master over yourself -- master over all of your senses and drives. Formerly _they_ were your masters; now they will serve you. Do not deny or castrate your drives. Moderation, rather than extirpation, requires long and hard effort. Assume responsibility for yourself. A wise man blames no one -- neither himself nor others. _Participate in every temperament and satisfy each of your drives when necessary -- harness them, dominate them, channel them, and let them serve as the source of your creative fire_.

Coming to master your drives requires intense practice and perpetual reinforcement. For example, you could avoid opportunities for gratification of the drive, and through long and ever longer periods of non-gratification weaken its power over you. You could try gratifying it with strict regularity -- by imposing a rule upon the drive and enclosing it within firm time-boundaries, you gain release from that particular drive for long intervals. You could try surrendering to the drive, satisfying it with wild and unfettered gratification, which may lead to disgust with it and weaken its power. You could try imposing difficult and strenuous labors on yourself, which will channel your energy and thoughts in other directions and away from all of your drives. Repeated trials with each of these methods -- avoiding opportunities, implanting regularity into satisfaction of the drive, becoming satiated and disgusted with it, or becoming so exhausted that you have no energy left to satisfy any of your drives -- will lead you to master all of your drives. _You will command your entire bodily and mental organization to respond to your will_.

Do not devote a large part of your day to satisfying your hunger and thirst drives. Eat only when hungry, and drink only when thirsty. Keep variety in your diet but avoid excess at all times.

Self-control in managing your sex drive is of the highest rank in mastering your life. Give yourself ample time to master yourself and your life before even considering taking a wife and starting a family. _Only have a relationship when you are certain that you are ready for a relationship_.

Steep is the way to self-mastery. Yet, out of these long and arduous exercises, you will emerge a more powerful person, but a person who still needs to answer a few more difficult questions. Above all, you will have the _will_ and the _willpower_ henceforth to question yourself further -- more deeply, severely, and harshly than ever before. _As you gain control over yourself, you will feel an increase in your power_.

_Throw a lasso around your life_. Examine what sort of person you are, and then become that person. Declare victory over yourself. Become the self-conqueror -- the commander of your drives, your desires, and your dreams. Self-mastery is a state where all of your desires, beliefs, and values dictate a single course of action, where you channel all of your energy solely on performing this particular action. All other possible alternatives will dissolve and finally disappear. _Live with the confidence and security of knowing that you can rely on yourself and yourself alone to resolve every difficulty that you will face in your life_.

_Attain holy simplicity -- for you master the art of living by mastering yourself_. The freedom that comes with living the good life begins with self-discipline and ends with self-mastery. You become master of yourself one day at a time -- twenty-four hours a day with no exceptions and no excuses. _You will become one of those rare types who has aligned the world of shoulds and oughts with the world of ises and musts, and with this alignment you will have mastered the art of living_.

Once you master yourself, you will find it easy to master life and to bend the world to fit your dreams. _Cultivate yourself -- channel all of your energy towards joy in yourself and joy in living_.

Chapter 2: Death

_Death, the grandest mystery of life, is also its greatest stimulus_. Man spends his whole life trying to be what he is not -- pretending that he is not going to die. Most people spend their entire lives looking the other way when it comes to death or devoting countless hours dreaming up ways of overcoming their deaths. Over eons our minds have grown more and more powerful, and we have come up with fancier and fancier ways of veiling the most certain event in our lives -- _our own deaths_.

We have conjured up all kinds of fairy tales to lessen the shock and the corresponding agony of knowing that we are here _once and only once_. Most people refuse to accept that we are all terminally ill patients. _They either deny death altogether, or sooth themselves with elixirs, or fool themselves by living as if they are not going to die_.

Yet, the single most important event in the history of humanity is the discovery that we are doomed to die. In fact, the single most important event in the history of life itself is the discovery that life dies. Our dominance over the rest of the living world stems from our death awareness. In fact, society's main goal is to mask death while creating conditions that postpone it for as many people for as long as possible.

Regardless of what _you_ do, _your_ death is inescapable -- _for even you are doomed to die_. You must come to grips with your own finitude. You must look death in the face -- _your death_ \-- and succumb to the most absurd idea of existence -- that _life dies_.

Every individual feels the basic existential questions cycling around inside. Few ever find ways of converting these feelings into words; even fewer attempt answers; none has ever answered them adequately. What are these fundamental questions? The two most basic and profound questions that have perplexed all men for all time are "why am I here," and "why am I going to die?" Others include "where am I going;" "where is humanity going;" "what is the meaning of my life;" and "what is the purpose of my existence?"

It is simply beyond the power of life to answer its own riddle. The Sphinx has sat by the side of humanity's roads forever -- tantalizing each of us. From one age to another, prophets have tried their fortune at reading these riddles. Try as each has, each has failed miserably -- that is why every age has its prophets. We'll never be able to answer these questions -- so leave these questions to the prophets. _Stop wasting time pondering unsolvable riddles, and get to work on problems you can solve and resolve_.

The mystery surrounding death is neither devastating nor destructive; on the contrary, it is uplifting and empowering. None of these fundamental religious questions is relevant for life -- for living _your_ life. You exist; you are here now; you will die; you have the rest of your life, however long that may be, to seek and find the meaning and purpose to your existence.

Stop asking so many questions and start living life. The chain of life for all higher animals goes something like this: eat -- drink -- mature -- procreate -- die ... Not a single question or corresponding answer is necessary for this chain to complete itself and for the cycle of life to circulate. It happens to every living being -- a brief flowering followed by wilting and finally decay. Life is a winding, withering way unto death, so just relax and wander free on the path of inevitability. _Life is far too short to spend time dwelling on the past or worrying about the future_.

The central existential revelation is to recognize that you will die and that the ultimate defining moment of your life is your death. Until that time comes, life is a gift \-- use your life to give a gift back to life. Your death does not need to be a shock, and your response to it need not be agony. You are going to die; embrace it; love it; learn to laugh at death and at life.

Picture an image of death -- of a figure of skull and bones -- continuously dancing around and laughing at you, only taking time to pause to point at an hourglass on his wrist. Death is saying -- "you only have so much time left until I'm going to take you away. Are you sure you're doing what you want to be doing with your life?"

The best possible way to respond to the image of death dancing is to grab hold of him and to start dancing right along with him. _Smile and laugh as you enjoy the few precious moments remaining on your one and only journey on this great and glorious earth_.

Where is your life really taking you? Home \-- towards your death and returning you to the nothingness from which you sprung. The destination remains the same for every man, though the path differs. _Focus on your path rather than on the destination_.

Do you know what life is for man? It is cycling around in a circle, neither forward nor backward. It is a grand game in which we circulate around our planet just as our planet circulates around the sun. We are extensions of our planet, growing out of and returning to the earth just as the plants and other animals do. Life and death are innocent -- simply letting the forces of life flow through us allows us to succeed in our task. We achieve our minimum goal on this glorious earth when we give birth to and raise our children to healthy adults.

You can also aim to get as much out of your life as you can before you die. You can look deep inside yourself until an image emerges -- an image of the future, of your future. You must explore the depths of your soul to determine who you are. Once a picture of your ideal develops, you are ready to depart and already on your way home. Over time you will begin to picture this image more and more clearly -- for this image is your ideal self. Once you have an idea of where you want to go and who it is you want to become, you can then embark in that direction. _Start taking the first steps toward becoming your ideal right now_.

You may wish to picture it this way. Imagine that you are on your deathbed, surrounded by your children and grandchildren. The cutest, youngest, and most innocent one of them all walks over to the bed and asks: "Grandpa, your life has been amazing. How have you done it?" You answer -- "I simply envisioned this moment many years ago. I decided who I wanted to be by the time I was on my deathbed. I then separated my future into stages, starting at the end and working my way back to the present, and imagined what I needed to start doing from that very day forward for the rest of my life to become my future self -- my ideal self."

"It was only when I looked back over my life many years later that I realized that I had indeed become who I wanted to be. With that, my life has had a goal and a purpose, and I have been able to solve one of the two central riddles of life for _myself_ \-- why _I_ am here. As for why _I_ am going to die, that still remains a mystery. If I had to guess, I would say that it is to make room for someone as wonderful as you, sweetheart. It is now your turn to solve the riddle of who _you_ are and why _you_ are here."

Our value to ourselves and to others stems from the accomplishments we make during our lives. Can you hear your eulogy? What are people saying about you? Are they discussing how glorious your life was?

Man may never be able to accept his finitude and live authentically. He may always need fairy tales -- the afterlife, heaven, reincarnation, and memorials to name just a few \-- to mask death and to relieve the shock and the corresponding pain. _Yet, it is precisely the inevitability of death that sets us free_.

Death grants us freedom, and freedom grants us the power to interpret the events that happen to us however we please. _An act is one event -- and the way we interpret that event afterwards and relate ourselves to it is another_.

What then are our experiences -- much _more_ that which we put into them than that which they already contain. Or must we go so far as to say that in themselves they contain nothing -- that to experience is to invent?

What is freedom? Freedom lies in the face of death -- freedom lies in facing death. You are free to go where you wish and to be who you are. You can strive to attain feelings of bird-like freedom, bird-like altitude, and bird-like exuberance. _You are free to experiment with yourself_.

Freedom and finitude do _not_ leave you in a nihilistic, meaningless void. Rather, they allow for just the opposite -- they free you to create the meaning of your existence. Freedom is an instinct for exploration into the most adventurous and dangerous realm of all -- into yourself and your passions.

The lowest form of freedom is freedom from responsibility -- any fool can attain this type of freedom. The highest form of freedom is the freedom to embrace your slavery. It is precisely the realization that you must assume responsibility for yourself -- that you must live a life with no excuses and take total responsibility for your actions -- that temporarily produces the primal feelings of anxiety, dread, and despair. _The sooner you recognize that you are a slave to your death, to your animalistic drives, to your past, to your present, and to yourself, the sooner you will be free_.

Let beings be, and you shall be free -- for you can only begin to approach freedom when you wish and want things to be just as they are. Flow lightly from one event to another. Don't let anyone or anything ever bother you. Become so secure with who you are that the events that happen to you -- no matter how good or how bad -- do not alter in any way how you feel about yourself. _The sooner you attain divine indifference to your life and to your fate, the sooner you will be free_.

Once you recognize your own death and finitude, freedom comes to you and unlocks the possibility to find meaning in your life. Let freedom allow your path to unfold in the clearing that lies before you. At first, you will walk this path not knowing whither it leads, but it is the path that leads right to where you already are. _Bask in the wonder of the ambiguity of existence -- celebrate the freedom of existence as you give the meaning and purpose to your life until the inevitability of your death overtakes you_.

Anyone who has come to grips with his own death no longer has anything to fear -- not even from his harshest enemies. Once this final stage of development has been authentically attained, you are free for the first time. This is not to say that your death must be near at hand -- not at all -- just that if you seek freedom, you must first confront your own death. _You become forever free once you embrace your own death \-- be forever free_.

_Death is the greatest stimulus to life_. Let the certain prospect of _your_ death introduce a precious, sweet-smelling drop of levity into your life. If you are really dying, then focus your energy on the rattle in your throat and the shivering in your extremities; if you are alive, then start creating yourself. Accept and embrace your own death -- let it spur you to do something meaningful and magical with your life. _Having courage is crucial -- that is, having the willpower to transcend your fear of death_.

With every major step in your life the dull echo of death will resound in your ears and inspire you with the supreme stimulus to life. _Your life will feel simultaneously like a comedy and a tragedy, or at least like a comedy that will one day end in tragedy_.

You will be transformed into a character in a play. Fully aware of what lies ahead, you will march boldly on in the direction of your destiny. _Accompanied with wondrous feelings of serenity and security, you will come to love and to cherish your fate, and to see that you could not possibly have done otherwise with your life_.

In one life one death is absolutely certain. Within this cauldron of certainty brews the potion of possibility. What fate could possibly be worse than death? Will you insist on persisting in living the safe and predictable life or will you embark on a dangerous and unpredictable adventure full of risks and perils that takes you who knows where? Stop trying to avoid the unavoidable -- the pain and suffering that ultimately lead to death \-- and rise to the occasion. Challenge yourself and your fellow men. _You must first embrace the absolute certainty of your death before any possibility of indestructible enlightenment comes to you_.

Most people are preoccupied with thoughts of accidents, injuries, and death. To most, life seems full of danger. So long as you are alive, there is always a chance that you may die. Danger lurks everywhere -- whether you sit at home or go skydiving. Once your sole concern becomes avoiding accidents, then you stop taking risks. Once you stop taking risks, then you stop living. Once you stop living, then you are already dead -- so it no longer matters if you have an accident or not.

Take risks and do something original with your life. Remember that it is _always_ better to try and fail than not to try, and that it is _always_ better to fail living a dream than to succeed living a nightmare. _Live dangerously under treacherous conditions and become hard_.

Becoming hard -- that is to say, becoming immune to criticism and to negative outcomes -- is the secret to finding the highest possible joy in yourself and your life. No matter what perils life throws in your path, remain as close as you can to your ideal trajectory. Today's perils prepare you to tackle tomorrow's with power, self-confidence, style, and grace. Soon, events that would have once been perilous do no more harm than a flea biting your ankles.

Don't hold on to the promise of an afterlife or to any other psychological illusion that man has invented for himself to dull the pain of the certainty of death. Instead, confront your own death, absorb it, internalize it, embrace it, then forget about it for the rest of your life.

_Don't get stuck staring too long into the abyss, for the abyss will stare long into you_. If you stare too long, you may never stare anywhere else again. Don't spend days or years contemplating your own death.

_An individual who confronts and embraces his own death becomes invincible_. Just as cowards die a thousand deaths, heroes live a thousand lives -- _in fact, heroes live forever_. _Become a superhero before entering the world every single day -- act fearless and invincible_.

Knowing that we are doomed to die drives us to seek the meaning and purpose to our existence. This quest is universal in man and separates us from the rest of the living world. Your attempt to search for the meaning of life out there, somewhere beyond yourself, leads to despair. You will never find it out there. _You are free to give the meaning toward the events that happen to you -- you alone give the meaning and purpose to your life_.

Take the time and the trouble to strengthen yourself against fear -- to combat your dread of death. The fear of death is not a fear of what it will be like when you are dead -- at that point there will be _nothing_ for you. Your fear is that the world will go on without you. Though your life is fleeting, life is indestructible. Humanity will be around for eons after you are gone. The prospect of your death reminds you that you are not irreplaceable -- that you are and will be nothing unless you do something that will make a significant difference, particularly if that is a difference the world knows that _you_ and not someone else has made.

There are many ways to give meaning, direction, purpose, and a goal to your life. One way is to perform some great deed before you die. Another is to let your self melt away and serve a calling much greater than yourself. Even if a calling never comes to you, identify an injustice in the world and fight it with all your might, do battle with it, and declare victory over it.

As you attach your life to this calling -- to this goal -- your life will swell with meaning, and you will find joyous love towards everyone and everything that you see. By adhering to a calling, you can achieve far greater results than you ever could have done on your own. Assign yourself the hardest task of your life. Since this task will come entirely from within, you will own it. As a result, you will reap all of the rewards of your task -- your life will become an unbroken string of fulfilling goals. Another way is to shoot for the stars -- to perish in the pursuit of the great and the impossible.

The most challenging way to put meaning in your life is to do so without having any particular goal. You lose sight of the destination and focus on the events going on around you here and now. Your life contracts to a perpetual present where both the past and the future melt away.

_Treat each day as holy and as an opportunity to bring as much love, joy, and magic into the world as you can_. Show love and respect for everything and everyone around you -- _everyone_. _Master yourself to the point where the meaning and purpose of your existence is so clear that you serve as a role model for everyone around you to emulate_.

You have been dying since the moment you were born, and there is even an art to dying. No one is immortal. Show no weakness in the face of death. Part of maturing is learning to embrace your death with good cheer and laughter. _When the moment arrives, you will have so consummated your life that you will die victoriously_.

If it gets to the point where it is no longer possible to live proudly, consider dying proudly. Consider a death freely chosen, a death at the right time, surrounded by those who love you.

Given that your death is the ultimate defining moment of your life, why not see it as time for ceremony? Though humanity currently favors eulogies and wakes paying homage to the dead, why not pay homage to the dying? This way a final farewell becomes possible, and your death can be seen as cause for joy and celebration, instead of for sorrow and remembrance. You, your relatives, and your closest friends can draw on the sum of your life and even roast you in your final hours. The amount of love in your life will be so abundant that there will still be enough remaining to love your death as well. Though it is not in your hands to prevent your birth, you are free at any time to correct the mistake -- for no one is making you stay. _Embrace your death freely and willfully -- knowing that you were so clever in mastering your life that you were the one who got to choose when you died_.

Though you can not hide from what never goes away, you will live a fearless and powerful life until the hour of your death arrives. No matter how traumatic the events are that happen to you, you will learn to laugh at yourself, at your life, and at your fate. You will attain divine indifference, standing atop the world peering down aloof and indifferent to both your life and your death. When your time comes, you will die peacefully and joyfully without filing a single complaint or dreaming of non-existent never-never lands. _You will leave voluntarily and smile as you go -- looking back on an authentic life that you would love to live over and over again for eternity_.

As you share your dream with others and they see the light radiating from your eyes, they will help you on your journey. You will do the same with fellow travelers -- aiding them on their journeys. You will incessantly and inexorably move closer to your ideal, though you will never fully attain it. You will come to look back on your life and to realize that had you chosen not to pursue your ideal, it would have been the same as choosing not to live. _Life is too fleeting to delay -- start creating yourself today_.

Chapter 3: Being

Nature loves to hide, and becoming occurs in secret. Man masks becoming to conceal decay and death. We convert a beautiful and blossoming dynamic world into a collection of static descriptions. The world residing inside language is not a world of change and becoming, but one of being. Language hides that nature becomes, _for nature never is_. The statement "we _are_ " implies immortality, that once "we _are_ ," we always will be, and we always will remain. _The best way to combat becoming, and along with it your own death, is to create your own life_.

_You alone are totally responsible for creating your own meaning and your own identity -- for creating yourself_. To make the transition from a human to a human being, you must create yourself. First comes the period of education when you learn from past masters, then comes the stage when you are strong enough to set out on your own and to declare independence from _everyone_ who has come before you. Finally comes creation, when you've become educated and self-reliant enough to create yourself and to live an original life.

The path of self-fashioning is not for everyone -- only those with colossal willpower and the desire to master the art of living need consider traversing this arduous path. You may even want to keep your task of becoming a secret -- _from everyone_. One surefire way to create roadblocks is to boast about how much more special and brilliant you are than everyone else. You will not only make enemies, you will give them their calling -- to do whatever it takes to thwart you in your quest.

As you undergo a hidden yet profound transformation, no one may notice. Others may believe you to be just as you were. Still others may become mortal enemies, jealous and envious of how powerful you have become. _Ignore them all_.

Let your defiers fuel your inner fire -- for your victory promises to be doubly rewarding. As you find happiness with who you are, you will simultaneously triumph over yourself and over your abusers -- for you will have proved them wrong. You will show them that they no longer have any power over you. _Defy your defiers as you march on bolder than ever before on the way to creating your ideal self_.

Society aims to tame the wild beast within us all, but it is precisely the wild beast that contains the creative fire that gives birth to everything that is highest in humanity -- music, painting, film, prose, poetry, and philosophy. _Let loose the fettered beast within you_.

As the wild beast within taps the reservoir of pent up animalistic energy, summon every other source of energy for the task at hand. For example, channel your sexual energy in the direction of your creation -- being certain to refrain from intercourse during these creative moments. _When your creative fire calls, leave the world behind and focus all of your energy on the task at hand_.

Before you can create a masterpiece, you must first create yourself. _You will harness powerful drives -- first declaring war against yourself, then, victory, and, finally, independence_. To will liberates -- for to will is to create. First, you will learn how to learn and how to learn _well_. Then, you will learn only what is necessary in order to create yourself -- _for to create is to find the way -- the way to yourself_.

You may reach a point in your life when you feel compelled to accomplish something, to create something, to leave something behind that survives you. Create what you know, and what you know is yourself. Bring the external world into alignment with the world going on inside your imagination. There is nothing more rewarding than having ability and applying it to create something magical. _Create something from nothing_.

Necessary _external_ conditions for creating a masterpiece include a vast quantity of leisure time, which is the key ingredient for mastering anything. To finance this time bath, consider debt financing. Mortgage the future to purchase the time necessary to develop yourself as a creator. Once your task and transformation is complete, you will harvest the fruits of your creative power and be able to pay off your debts with ease.

You must go a million years back in time and a million miles away from the world. Lounge around in the silence and solitude of your sanctuary, deep inside your artist's studio. Be sure to have access to necessary resources, such as a library, an art supply store, a museum, or inspirational scenery.

Necessary _internal_ conditions are far more important. They start with overflowing self-confidence and continue with talent, a vivid imagination, and acumen. Develop an original way of viewing the world, which is the rarest and most valuable characteristic. It is the one that separates master creators from mere dabblers. _Create first, the rest follows_.

Being creative requires shattering customs and traditions, breaking pre-fabricated molds and extending the realm of possibility of thought and perception. Creativity is as easy as rearranging pre-existing knowledge and as difficult as putting it back together in an original and innovative way.

You will soon discover the agony and the ecstasy of creation. You will alternate between phases that are chaotic and consuming while others are fantastic and fruitful. Creation is the greatest redemption from suffering and fear of death. _You will suffer severely during creation, but you will bask in triumph when the work is done_.

After long periods of being struck dumb, or mumbling to yourself, or kicking and screaming, the rage will well up inside of you to the point that you cannot go further. Just then, you will demand that you go on, and you will be forced into this decision -- " _either these ideas or I must go_." From here on, you will harness the rage within and let it spur you to completion. _Eventually, you will reach a point where you feel at your best while you are creating_.

Everyone possesses talent, but few possess the degree of willpower, endurance, and energy necessary to harvest that talent, that is to say, to achieve the maximum power over themselves. Who could be better to learn from than those geniuses who figured out how to create themselves? What do they share in common in terms of environment and talent?

Learn from the revolutionaries of the mind \-- those who lifted humanity on their backs and carried us forward a few paces. As you read the masters of the art of living, you will notice that their ideas converge -- that their world views are far more similar than you would have guessed based on a glimpse at the author, the title, or the subject matter.

Every genius is unique. Being a genius means being free and entirely yourself. The higher type of man represents an incomparably greater complexity, yet simultaneously a greater harmony of coordinated elements. _The greatest artists are those who discover that the world going on inside of them is vastly superior to the world going on around them_.

All geniuses share one trait in common -- a traumatic event. At some critical juncture in their life, they suffered ill health so severely that it cracked their Promethean shield. Death was so near they could smell it. Yet, fortunately, in the wake of that terrifying smell came a fresh breeze -- one carrying the great stimulus to life and to creating. Once healed from the trauma of their near death, they emerged stronger and more focused than ever before, no longer taking their lives lightly or for granted. _Given a second chance at life, they were ready to devote the rest of their lives to mastering themselves and their chosen craft_.

For some, the accident was so traumatic that they became obsessed with the view of life from beyond the Promethean shield. In essence these geniuses spoke with one foot in the grave, having briefly or even repeatedly looked out into the wilderness beyond. Fate granted them the fortune to return from the beyond and to continue their lives, and these geniuses went on to remind us to _treat life as a precious gift, something worthy of being treasured and even worshipped_.

Talent may frolic and juggle; genius realizes and adds. Genius always seeks genius. Geniuses share certain characteristics -- they all believe in themselves to the point of religious awe. They claim much and earn much, doing so on their own. They all have a plethora of willpower and the capacity for envisioning and executing long-term plans. They are capable of being the loneliest, the remotest, and the most hidden as they relentlessly work on exercising the full potential of their genius.

They all have libraries stacked to the ceiling where they fill themselves so full of knowledge that it spills out of their ears. They challenge the privileged and the dowered while extending every courtesy to those less fortunate. They are always looking out for the next guy -- being on the alert to render aid to the needy. They never bear grudges because they forget quicker than they can forgive. They recognize that _what you discard in your life is at least as important as what you develop_.

All forms of art stimulate their senses, which are endowed and developed to the fullest. The mysterious and the sublime inspire more than logic and mathematical precision. They are rebels against both customs and society. They care more about the truth than about what others want to hear. These magnificently bold and adventurous types are inexorable and insatiable in remaining faithful to their mission. They lust for and love life, seeking to express themselves at any price and in any way they can.

Many geniuses owe a debt of gratitude to their deficiencies, which gave birth to their original way of experiencing and expressing the world. A serious deficiency in one organ often leads to uncommonly successful development of other organs -- the reason being that these organs have to discharge both their own functions and those of the deficient one.

Deficiency and the corresponding suffering have spurred all the innovations that man has created to enhance his life. Just as disorder is necessary for the creation of order, chaos is necessary for the creation of genius. Just as tropical utopias reduce the need for developing skills in hunting and farming, living in a privileged and sheltered environment reduces the need to develop your genius.

Geniuses sacrifice their lives in exchange for admittance to the halls of eternity. Past masters are more vibrant in their posthumous works than they ever were when they were creating them. _Do not spare yourself -- pour your blood into your works and breathe eternal life into them_.

If you seek immortality, you must pay dearly for it -- for you will have to die several times while still alive. For the precious few, the price is worth it.

_Experiment with various styles until you find your own_. Both sides of your mind will incessantly struggle for superiority, briefly dominating and then subsiding. Finally, they will merge as one, and the result will be a masterpiece of a mind. _First, create a masterpiece of a mind, then use it to create masterpieces_.

_Your salvation lies not in knowing, but in creating_. If you desire eternal life, devote your life and your work to humanity, making it the perpetual property of your progeny. Lay it down for posterity to judge -- only they will be able to determine if you are worthy enough to be admitted into the hallowed halls of language. Regardless of which path you choose through life -- that of procreation or of technological innovations \-- _learn from geniuses how to master the art of living and how to make the transition from a human to a human being_.

Chapter 4: Eternity

Everything disintegrates, everything forms \-- eternally constructs the dwelling of being. Everything departs, everything returns -- eternally rolls the wheel of being. Everything dies, everything blossoms -- eternally cycles the year of being. Everything rings, everything echoes -- eternally chimes the bell of being. The center is here; the center is there -- the center is everywhere, _for curved is the path of eternity_.

While every species seeks to survive and thrive as long as possible, each individual seeks to produce as many viable offspring as possible. Human life has not changed much if at all since the dawn of civilization -- _it has all been said and done before_. Man has discovered every possible path for himself, and every single path has been traveled by at least a few. The paths of play and decay, of toil and spoil, of family, of fame, of celebrity, of wealth, of social status, of eternity, and of inner peace compose the complete collection of man's possible paths.

You can choose to play all day and slowly decay; or to work like a slave and gradually fade away; or to seek fame and celebrity in your own lifetime, with any memory of your existence vanishing soon after you depart; or to acquire enough wealth to finance a thousand lifetimes, even though you only get to live one; or to pass yourself and your genes on through your children, though half of you will vanish with each successive generation; or to turn yourself into a work of art, dying during your life so as to be reborn afterward in the hallowed halls of language; or to find inner peace, to achieve bliss in the here and now of life on earth with no thoughts on the past or the future, and little to no concern for the present or your fate. _The sooner you discover which path is yours, the sooner you will begin to find happiness with who you are_.

What had once promised to be your unique, unpredictable, and dangerous adventure only ends up being a series of events along a path that has been traversed by men and women in all corners of the world throughout history. Yet, your path is as dear to you as it is utter nonsense to everyone else, and vice versa. _It is your duty to figure out which path is yours_.

Man is as much subject to the same laws of procreation as every other species. Unfortunately for him, he is the only one who feels compelled to spend years of his life justifying his existence, giving meaning to his life, searching for his purpose, finding his calling, and attempting to leap into eternity. All man has to do to live eternally is to give birth to, to care for, and to nurture his offspring to healthy adults. He redeems himself in letting the forces of life flow through him. _The rest of the game of life that goes with rearing his offspring is subject to thousands of interpretations and criticisms_.

Every individual satisfies life's aim when he passes on his genes to the next generation -- _for having offspring solves the riddle of life_. Though animals must procreate to live eternally, human beings have another alternative. We can also live eternally in language -- either by creating our own works of art or by doing so much magic with our lives that others feel compelled to immortalize us in works of art.

At the extreme, some paths are mutually exclusive -- you must choose between living for yourself now and falling out of eternity when you die or sacrificing yourself now and rising into eternity after you die. Other options open up the possibility of traveling along multiple paths simultaneously -- generating wealth early enough in life opens up the possibility of sampling every possible path, and more than one at the same time. All of us have the chance to sample every possible path during one lifetime -- by exploring them dynamically and experimenting with various lifestyles.

Yet, trial by fire often ends in a scorched pledge. When the improperly trained take on roles beyond their capacity, chaos ensues. There is no certification for parenthood, so take the time to make both the transition to an adult and to a human being _prior_ to having children. _Postpone having children until you are ready for them_.

Many potential masters have gotten married, had children, and fallen out of history. The creative fire within them that they could have devoted to producing great works of art was diverted towards rearing their children, so the production of art suffered and finally disappeared. The most difficult path of all is to give birth to your children and to your own masterpieces, but it is possible and has been done, if only a few times.

Yet, the two paths to eternity are nearly mutually exclusive. To produce and rear children, you must sacrifice your life. To master the art of living to the point of being welcomed in the halls of language, you have to sacrifice the lives of your children. Few have ever been able to do both, and even they have only done so by carving their lives into two distinct stages.

_The fear of death is the root of all art \-- perhaps even of all of our activities_. We shudder at life's instability, and we grieve to see the flowers wilt and the leaves fall. For each time we witness how transitory life is, it reminds us that we too will soon disappear. Artists desire to create something that outlasts them. _For to exist in the pages of a book is better than to vanish into nothingness, and the best measure of a man is what he leaves behind_.

Some feel compelled to live on beyond their death, though not all are able to travel the path of eternity via creative production. Those traveling this path feel compelled to do so -- often because they have become disappointed and bored with commonplace existence. All men trickle away and finally dissolve, though some leave their creations behind -- _for eternity_.

As you create yourself, others will tend to explain away your ever increasing power, to devalue the role _you_ played in forming yourself, to attribute all of your success to luck, or to claim that you inherited some supreme and special gift. They will refuse to see it as the outcome of your immense power of self-mastery. _Start preparing yourself now for a solitary and lonely path_.

A creative imagination is immortal. As a creator, your work will still be standing years after you are gone. Though time will eventually reduce your work to the nothingness that it will have done to you long before, you will be able to laugh while still alive. _You will bask in the triumph of having assigned and accomplished your most difficult task and therewith given the meaning and purpose to your life_.

Another path to eternity is being killed by your enemies. As a martyr for your calling, they will make you immortal. While succeeding in eliminating you as a threat while alive, they will make you even more powerful after you are gone. _The only way to take away the life of a brilliant pest is to grant eternal life to him in return_.

If you expect to live to seventy, try carving your life in two -- for the first thirty-five years, live for yourself and focus your energy on creating. Then, for the next thirty-five years, live for your children and focus your energy on them -- _this way you can travel down both paths to eternity in one lifetime_.

One trait that separates each successive higher animal type -- from amphibian to reptile to mammal -- is ever more complex and intricate senses and thus an ever more expansive and refined view of the world. The worlds each species experiences are vastly different from one another.

We have invented machines that allow us to sense ever more phenomena, which has expanded our view of the world even further. It is conceivable that these technological innovations will be integrated into our immediate experience of the world, if only far in the future. Nevertheless, as our brains evolve, our image of the world becomes ever clearer, brighter, more subtle, and more profound. This enhanced resolution obtains its maximum clarity in the minds of master creators -- they sense and experience immeasurably more than the rest. _Rather than hearing, master creators listen; rather than looking, they see_.

_Men are not equal_. Though each one of us is unique, each one of us belongs to one of three all-inclusive and mutually exclusive groups. There are those who are commanded -- sheep. There are those who command others -- shepherds. Finally, there are those who command themselves -- wolves. Unlike the paths through life, a person's type is innate -- whether it be a sheep, a shepherd, or a wolf. No particular type is more valuable than any other since each type plays a vital role in perpetuating humanity. A sheep would make a mediocre shepherd and a horrific wolf; a shepherd a mediocre sheep and a horrific wolf; a wolf a mediocre shepherd and a horrific sheep. _The sooner you own up to which type you are -- sheep, shepherd, or wolf -- the sooner you will begin to find happiness with who you are_.

As with all categorizations, there are good and bad types within each group. Men wander along the worst possible paths for themselves when they fail to recognize or to accept which type they are. Having a wolf graze amongst sheep is just as disastrous as having a sheep amongst wolves. Some paths simply are not compatible. A sheep trying to be a wolf -- such as trying to become a master creator -- would either starve to death in the wilderness or be devoured by wolves, with similar disastrous consequences for misaligned shepherds and wolves. _The critical moment when a person finally discovers or admits to himself which type he is can be the most uplifting event in his life -- one that lifts the greatest weight off his shoulders. Which type are you -- a sheep, a shepherd, or a wolf_?

The ideas and ethics benefiting sheep rule the herd but do _not_ reach beyond it; those benefiting shepherds require fundamentally different valuations; those benefiting wolves are impossible to inscribe specifically since each wolf is an independent beast of prey that demands and commands himself. The Bible does a phenomenal job of inscribing and prescribing the ideas and ethics that govern the herd, but the Bible is of little use to shepherds and wolves. Shepherds learn how to lead in the academy first, then on the job. Wolves are on their own in every endeavor of their life -- since they _desire_ and _need_ to find the path that belongs to them and to them alone. For this reason there isn't anybody who can offer guidance since no one has traversed that particular path before. Nevertheless, a few wolves have taken the time to describe in general _how_ to develop the skills necessary to succeed as a solitary adventurer.

Sheep aim at binding their opinions and ideals more and more closely to those of the herd. Shepherds seek to dictate the opinions and ideals that govern the herd. Wolves strive for independence and self-reliance. _The central difference between the three types is the degree of awareness of the world going on around them_.

Sheep represent the womb of man -- the bulk of the population that maximizes the survivability of our species. Sheep are rule takers who desire a life at ease grazing on the green pastures of existence. Sheep want universals -- truths that apply to all men at all times. Above all, sheep want a safe, predictable, and friendly world where they can either play and decay, toil and spoil, or raise families. Since sheep have no claws, they desire that everyone else should have no claws, or that those with claws should have theirs mutilated or destroyed. _Sheep gladly exchange their individuality for comfort and security_.

A good follower is a person who obeys commands and does more than is asked of him willingly and with pleasure. He is friendly, makes others feel as comfortable as possible, and brings harm to no one -- ever. He perfunctorily plays by society's rules without questioning them. _For a sheep, this world and his place in it are the best of all possible worlds_.

Shepherds guard the sheep as they defend the womb of man. Shepherds are rule makers who strive for ever increasing responsibility and power -- _over others_. Fame, celebrity, wealth, and social status are all manifestations of a shepherd's drive for power. Shepherds want to legislate and enforce the laws governing the herd. Above all, shepherds want a world where sheep play by the rules assigned to them while the shepherds play according to their own set of rules. Rule makers live by a vastly different set of governing ideas and ethics than rule takers. All shepherds _must_ have claws so they can fend off predators who threaten the sheep. _Shepherds gladly exchange their individuality for fame, celebrity, wealth, and social status_.

A good leader is a person who has the talents and expends the effort to secure the happiness of his followers. Sheep are readiest to obey those who serve as role models, those who cultivate the ability to speak well, and those who utilize all the ideals that tradition has taught them to their advantage. _For a shepherd, this world offers the opportunity to increase his power over others and to improve his relative social standing_.

Wolves create technological innovations that strengthen the womb and enhance the survivability of the sheep. Wolves are rule shakers who seek the most interesting and strenuous challenges in their desire for power -- _over themselves_. The worlds of sheep and shepherds are of no concern to a wolf -- a wolf chooses between the path of eternity or inner peace. Wolves legislate and enforce the laws governing themselves, which are far stricter than those applying to sheep and shepherds. Above all, wolves want a silent and solitary world where they can focus all of their energy on creating themselves. Rule shakers live lives scarcely resembling those of sheep, shepherds, and even other wolves. Since all wolves leave society behind and head for the wilderness, they _must_ have claws to protect themselves and to acquire the nourishment they need for life. _Wolves refuse to exchange their individuality for anything_.

A good adventurer is a person who has tremendous talent and superior willpower. Wolves master the same skills as shepherds but have no desire to govern the herd. Wolves break with tradition and seek to find or even to invent ideas, ethics, lifestyles, or devices that they can use to their advantage. _For a wolf, this world offers the opportunity to increase his power over himself and to invent ways of improving the lives of all of his fellow men_.

_Recognize which type you are_ \-- along with the discovery of your type comes a finite list of paths from which to choose. _Find your path, and then learn to embrace it, to cherish it, and to love it. Once you choose the path that best fits you, you are well on the way towards alignment and attaining the maximum power and joy in your life_.

Though _all_ species communicate with each other, none can approach our mastery of communication -- for language is a tool at our disposal that clearly separates us from the rest of the animals. With the invention of the written word, the rate of advance in technological innovations accelerated. For the first time in the history of life, members of a species separated by millennia could communicate -- for language allows past masters to communicate with their most distant progeny. _With language, man created eternity_.

Humanity was not that interesting when each generation passed on its limited experience to the next. Humanity only became interesting when we switched from conversing amongst ourselves to conversing with the ancients -- when each successive generation could learn from past masters, the best of those who have come before. Language is the treasure-trove housing all the original creations of past geniuses. Each word and each new definition for each word allows us to penetrate further into the ineffable realm of the mystery of life.

Freedom lies in creating language -- which can be used to create worlds. Master creators see language as the clay with which to form masterpieces and to create something from nothing, while the rest see language as a prison, trying in vain to express their thoughts through worn out words and clichés.

For human beings, it takes a name to bring existence to something. Each word was at first a stroke of genius. We act as gods when we create words, since we are granting being to things. Where words spring forth things may be. Words can be used to create experiences that never happened or to serve as the vehicle on which the world of the imagination travels.

Words are eternal -- offering safe harbor from the torrents of time. Words are categories in which we place unique yet similar images under the same heading, allowing us to communicate with each other quickly, to simplify an unknowable world, to extract the meaning and purpose of our existence, and to share humanity's cumulative experience amongst ourselves and with progeny -- _to alleviate suffering and amplify joy_.

Success in life requires learning to tell better stories and to tell stories better. Master the word and you master life. Originality is seeing something that has no name and finding a name for it. Those with originality have a rare talent for seeing things and expressing them to others. _Inventing words and ways of seeing is godlike -- for you create something out of nothing_.

Language grants you the opportunity to converse with those who come long after you. Language is holy, and past masters live eternally in the word. Language offers the magical, world-creating possibility for us to attain finite transcendence during our own limited lifetimes, which then gets relived again and again in the words and minds of posterity. _If you live an amazing life and give gifts to humanity, posterity will be more than happy to invite you into heaven -- into the holy halls of language_.

Meandering through a library is like walking through a cemetery -- each book symbolizes the living remains of the dead author. Instead of learning about the topic from the author, we learn a great deal about the author from the topic. Every book offers a glimpse inside the author's mind. You see what drove him to devote years of his life to his particular subject, which found its culmination in that particular book. _Each work of art offers eternity to the creator, though the highest type of fame is awarded to those who speak the most timeless messages to the most distant posterity_.

Since it has all been said and done before, the challenge then is to say it or do it better than those who came before you. The easiest way to do this is to find and develop a perspective that has never been experienced before. You must develop your imagination to the fullest. Even still, a new perspective is necessary but not sufficient for immortality. You must head inside the artist's studio, going straight inside the minds of the creators whose style you admire the most and whose perspectives most closely resemble yours -- _study your favorite artists, and learn from them how to polish your style_.

Create an original life. Get to the point where you can exclaim -- " _the current of time flows through me but eternity will remain when I have flowed on by_." _Celebrate life and remain lively forever_.

Chapter 5: Enlightenment

Death is the only certainty in life, and religion aims to fill the void that death rips open in our lives. _Yet, nobody learns salvation through teachings_. Religion has offered the greatest counterfeiting of all -- the afterlife. We must be skeptical and impatient towards any discourse that pretends to describe a different world or that attempts to transcend the domain of the physical world. _Do not live for the afterlife -- live for the here and now_.

We need to focus our energy on an uninterrupted flow of creativity for our entire lives. Since we're only here once, and religion and philosophy are at best loose guides to life, we need to figure out what we truly love to do and to start doing it. We need to turn our lives into works of art -- whether it turns into a child, a journey, a painting, a play, a poem, or a song. Rather than seeking salvation from preachers, or communion, or books, _you will stare your own death in the face and draw power from it for life_.

To live morally requires the subjugation and extirpation of all desire, passion, animality, and individuality -- this is impossible. To attempt to live morally only leads to perverse manifestations -- either in public, in private, or in secret. Man is an animal -- enjoy the passions and let them flow through you. From time to time, enjoy a fine meal, sleep with a beautiful woman, listen to classical music, stroll through a garden of fragrant roses, tour an art museum, or participate in any activity that brings you the highest feeling of joy.

To live ethically requires you to form yourself and to exercise power over yourself -- _for ethics is simply care of the self_. Do harm to no one; instead, benefit people to the best of your ability -- always look out for the next guy. Be _honest_ towards as many people as you can, but most of all be honest towards yourself. Be _brave_ towards your enemies, and you will find that you have few of them. Be _noble_ towards those you defeat -- for those you beat today may seek revenge tomorrow. _Always be polite_ , and you will find others wanting to help you achieve success.

Your goodness must not be a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity which eventually becomes instinct. Both genius and goodness reside in instinct -- you perfect the art of living when you act instinctively. _The way does not exist -- you must find your way and be respectful of others on their way_.

Before the immense possibilities offered to us, many cower and lose faith in themselves. Far too few have faith in themselves. Most of those who have faith in themselves are endowed with it as with a useful blindness or a partial eclipse of their spirit, while the rest must labor to acquire it. Everything fine, good, or great they do is first of all an argument against the skeptic inside them. They have to convince themselves of their own worthiness.

_Life always comes down to faith -- the faith that life is better than death_. Faith, like the Promethean shield, allows us to live. Faith holds back the void, shielding us from the perpetual reminder of the certainty that we are going to die. Faith allows us to get on with our lives and to be productive. Still, the question remains -- what type of faith is necessary for life -- faith in god, faith in family, faith in friends, faith in an afterlife, or faith in yourself? _The only faith you can count on with certainty is faith in yourself -- believe in yourself at all times_.

A traveler having wandered the world from end to end was only able to find one universal trait amongst men -- what one man holds in the highest regard another discards as total nonsense. When aggregated across humanity, the most sacred principles of each nullify one another in the all. Remember that what is good for the saint destroys the sinner and vice versa. _The most difficult task you face in your life is to determine who you are and what the valuations are that matter most to you_.

Are you a saint, or a sinner, or someone in between? _Create your own valuations -- sample the menu of sacred principles and select the ones that bring you the highest feeling of power and joy_.

_Higher than Thou shalt is I will, and highest of all is I am_. _Discover yourself and create an ideal of your own, your very own -- one that could never belong to anyone else_.

You didn't write the Ten Commandments, so why live by them? There is no such thing as _never_ \-- there may be a time in your life when you are forced to kill, such as in self-defense. There may be a time to lie, such as when you are captured by enemies. Besides, the Ten Commandments describe at best the bare minimum behavior necessary for life -- for _most_ people in _most_ cases. _Besides, you will demand much more of yourself than what the Ten Commandments demand_.

You must first break with prior values before you can create your own. Freedom from any kind of conviction is part of your strength of will. You are free to question all of your convictions and to continuously update them as necessary. The fundamental laws of surviving and even more of thriving demand that you invent your own virtue. Limit yourself to the purification of your opinions and valuations and to the _creation of your own new tablets of what is good_ , and stop brooding about the moral value of your actions. To master the art of living, you need to posit your own ideal and to derive from it your own commandments. _A successful life knows no law other than its own -- construct your own laws of life and action_.

We are experiments -- let us also want to be them. Submit to the laws you yourself propose. _Demand your own works and laws and worship_.

If you live wholly from within, the sacredness of tradition will be meaningless to you. No law can be sacred to you but that of your nature. You must do that which concerns you without caring about what other people think. It is far too easy to drift back into society and to live after the opinions of your fellow man. As an ethical man, you will hold dear to your values in the midst of the harshest interrogation. Toss the commandments, the laws, the books, and the idolatries out the window. _The moment you act from within, you are on the path to enlightenment -- obey yourself_.

_Love is a great stimulus to life -- for love is the most important force in the world_. Regard the world and all your fellow beings with love, admiration, and respect. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain it or to despise it, but _all you need to do is to learn to love the world_.

Picture your neighbor as yourself wearing a mask. This person has the same goals and cares as you do -- to be loved, respected, revered, honored, special, superior, and to feel good about himself. _Everyone is superior to you in some way -- it is up to you to find out what it is_.

Let the future dissolve and the farthest disappear. That which lies nearest will remain forever dearest -- love what lies closest to you. _First you must learn to love yourself_. _Once you love yourself, you will grow to love everyone around you and the entire world_.

To become _who_ you are, you must first come to know _what type_ you are. Once you know _what type_ you are, you can begin exploring the path to yourself. One by one, the organizing idea within will train all subservient faculties before giving any hint of a dominant path. This organizing idea, which is destined to rule, will keep drilling down, deeper and deeper. Eventually, it will pass the point of no return, and you will gaze into radiant light. _Glowing right before your eyes will be the entrance to the path that fits you best -- the entrance to your enlightenment_.

You will look into your future and see one and only one path in front of you. As you gaze from side to side, you will realize that you do not want in the least that anything should become different than it is -- that you yourself do not want to become different. You will no longer daydream of being someone or something other than _who you are_. You will want nothing to be different -- not forward, not backward, not in eternity.

No matter how grueling your life is, meet it and live it -- do not shun or curse it. A fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. _Love your life and cultivate it as best you can_.

You will order yourself, affirming all that strengthens, that stores up strength, while rejecting all that weakens, all that exhausts. Cease pursuing and gratifying what is base and superfluous in your life. _Come to recognize that what you choose not to do may be more important than what you choose to do_.

_The highest joy only comes to those capable of enduring the harshest suffering_ \-- picture the suffering on a mother's face during birth immediately followed by the ecstasy on her face as she cradles her newborn.

Past masters on their journey to eternity knew how to treat life with Olympian laughter. The boldest amongst these addicts of fame wandered their paths -- _alone_. Their journeys were more difficult and impeded than any other, yet none had ever been more confident than they were that they would achieve their goals. These adventurers of the spirit revolved around themselves -- living within their own solar systems. They all treated themselves with superhuman respect, religious awe, and as ethical giants -- for geniuses have prophetic faith in themselves. Read your fate, see what lies before you, and walk with fortitude into your future. As you create yourself, you will become free. You will stand amidst the world with a joyous and loving fatalism. _In the end, you will affirm everything in your life_.

_The kingdom of heaven lies within you_. It is a condition of the heart and represents an inward change in _you_. It concerns how you treat other people, and, most importantly, _how you treat yourself_. _The kingdom of heaven does not come to you until you let it in -- until you begin to love yourself_.

_Worship life as it is -- treat every day as holy, and bring forth your kingdom of heaven every single day_. _If you spend every single day in your kingdom of heaven, then your entire life will manifest itself as a magnificent mystery -- how you achieved enlightenment and created your kingdom of heaven here and now during your one and only life on this glorious earth_.

Chapter 6: Economy

Each generation imprisons the next with a huge burden of information -- with death awareness being paramount. The largest portion of a man's view of his world is based on where he lands when he is thrown into this world -- _without his permission_. Though no child has ever chosen his own parents or his location along the social spectrum, so much of his life is dictated by these two major events _that happen to him_. Then, nearly every child spends the rest of his life running around like mad trying to improve his _relative_ social standing.

Wealth pursuers are forced to meet each increase in their standard of living with a corresponding increase in their total hours worked. As a result, each rise in his standard of living is offset by a reduction in the time they have to enjoy their possessions. _Their possessions end up possessing them_. _At some point they must have forgotten the single most important secret in mastering the art of living -- to learn to be content with less_.

_You are here to consume as much life as you can before you die_. You are _not_ here to produce as much as possible -- this is a lie that owners have invented to convince you to work as much and as hard as you can -- _for them_. _You need to work for you_.

Those who choose the path to wealth become so obsessed with making money that all they want to do is to _produce_ more money. Soon, their over-emphasis on _producing_ disrupts their ability to enjoy _consuming_ \-- to enjoy their lives. _Their desire for producing ends up consuming them_.

_You are not here to maximize your standard of living; you are here to maximize your quality of life_. Learn from artists -- for they speak to us with at least one foot in the grave. Artists beg us to embrace, to love, and even to worship life -- this life, before it is too late. Use your time as wisely as possible -- for it is incessantly running out. Yet, learn to be patient and to wait. _The most precious and scarcest resource in your life is your life -- the time remaining until you die_.

As you free yourself from the terrible anxiety that death and time evoke in most people, you will encounter something holy in your life. _Make no compromise with time_ , _and time will keep out of your way_.

You need to figure out how to allocate time to maximize what you get out of life -- devoting the right balance to labor and leisure activities. Most choose to maximize the consumption of goods and services and are willing to toil to acquire them. Some choose to maximize the amount of leisure time in their life and are willing to restrict how many goods and services they consume to do so. _It is up to you to determine which mix is best for you_.

_We all only have twenty-four hours in our day_. The average person sleeps for eight hours; he spends an hour waking up and getting ready and an hour winding down and getting ready for bed; his commute is about thirty minutes each way; he takes a half hour for lunch; when he returns home, he spends about half an hour preparing and eating dinner. The point is that the average person spends twelve hours -- half of his entire day -- tending to his basic human needs. _It is precisely what you do with the other half of your day that is of the essence in mastering yourself and the art of living_.

_The art of living is mastered one day at a time_. It may help if you periodically track what you do with each day. Once or twice a year keep track of your daily activities for a couple of weeks -- on an hour by hour basis. When you've collected enough data, study the results and internalize them. On the one hand, not only will your favorite activities manifest themselves, you'll see just how much time you devote to each one. On the other hand, if you have developed any bad habits, tracking the time you devote to them will force you to see how detrimental they are to your life and how critical it is to start making changes today. _Make sure every single day is full of both power and joy -- both productive and enjoyable_.

It is up to you to decide if you wish to be rich in money or in time. The rich have an abundance of money while the poor have an abundance of time. If you first learn how to live poor, then it is real easy to live rich. Besides, no matter how rich someone is, they can never be in two places at the same time. It is also a common misconception that the rich have both time and money -- _for he who desires to be rich always desires to be richer, and he becomes so pre-occupied with making money that he devotes all of his time to making more of it_.

You need leisure time to cultivate yourself into something new, something higher. As an artist in living, leisure is necessary to create the time for observing the world and mastering yourself -- for each requires years of development. Spend some of your leisure time developing your skills in activities that you truly love to do. The most supreme luxury in life is free time \-- time to focus on what is worth seeing, what is worth hearing, what is worth experiencing, and what is worth doing. _Be rich in sunny hours and splendid days_.

Most choose professions that are chosen for them and that represent a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. They let their parents or society or teachers or social situations dictate what they do with their lives. They accumulate a set of tools and tasks and continuously develop them if for no other reason than out of habit and laziness. Most refuse to reflect and discover who they are, and few bother to take the time to assign the necessary tasks and acquire the necessary tools to achieve their goals. Consider the possibility of aligning your life so that your profession brings about two rewards -- both the means and the end to your livelihood. Find a profession that is so fulfilling that you can't wait to go to work -- that you are so excited about your task that your whole being overflows with joy.

It is a grand error to separate the pursuit of work from the pursuit of happiness. Synthesize your labor and leisure into a harmonious striving for perfection and eternity. All great enterprises are self-supporting. _Make your life's work the source of your happiness_.

Most people go to the same job and do the same tasks over and over again, as if imprisoned like Sisyphus. Yet, _the only thing worse than having to push the same rock up the same hill is not having a rock to push_.

For most, once they gain leisure time through an excess of exertion, they afterwards have no idea what to do with it except to count the hours until it has expired. If for some reason you find yourself temporarily unemployed, be certain to find a rock to push up the hill -- whether it is pursuing a hobby, getting in peak physical condition, completing a task that has sat idle for far too long, or doing something else that you truly love to do.

Be as efficient as possible with your labor time since this frees up more leisure time for doing what you love to do. If you can be sure that you are not misallocating resources or wasting effort, then you will automatically be maximizing your productivity and efficiency. _Don't make your living through a trade, but by doing what you would do anyway_.

Never expect anything in life to be given to you -- for that is the secret that will drive you to take so much from it. Train yourself to be moderate in your needs so that you are easily satisfied with few possessions. _Keep your expenses low to avoid self-enslavement and to maintain your freedom and independence_. _It is not so much the quantity as the quality of your life that makes it worth living_.

Believe in the idea that life is an experiment for the seeker -- not a duty, not a calamity, and not a trick. Use your youth to experiment with lifestyles. Each individual has to find out what is permitted and what is forbidden \-- for himself alone. _We are experiments -- let us also want to be them_. _You are only here once -- make the most of it while you're here_.

Life is a quest to find out what is truly good for you -- whether it is family, inner peace, wealth, travel, art, or creating. _Learn to stand, then to walk, then to run, then to climb, then to dance, and then to fly_. However, if it is flying that you want, you must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance -- for you can _not_ fly into flying. By many ways and often only along circuitous paths will you reach your truth. _At every juncture a trying and a questioning is demanded, and, most importantly, a finding of answers_.

You must explore different paths to discover your own. You will wander along many blind alleys until you find your path. Only at the point where you feel that you _must_ go in this direction will you know that you have found your path. Through your experiments you will gain confidence in yourself and eventually become convinced that you can do just about anything and can manage almost any role that society demands of you. Your ability to improvise will be so polished that to others your character and style will appear like a work of art. _Experiment until you find the lifestyle that maximizes the quality of your life_.

Not only do you need to manage your time wisely and to experiment with various lifestyles, you must procure the necessities of life in an efficient manner. For all forms of life, the grand necessity is to fuel the flames that keep the vital heat within burning bright -- food, water, shelter, and clothing. Not until we secure these basic necessities are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with any hope of success. You cannot think on an empty stomach since all thought and activity is reduced to finding your next meal. Once you satisfy these basic needs, then you can focus on what else you _need_ to acquire to get the most out of life.

Acquire property in such a way that everything you have is necessary -- such that nothing in your possession is superfluous. At the same time, make sure nothing necessary is missing. Taken together, your property should be necessary and sufficient to provide you with everything you _need_ and _use_.

Procure your necessities with care. As with any decision in life, it is not just which item is better, it is _how much better_ a particular item is than _all_ other alternatives. _Rather than comparing something to its ideal, compare it to its next best alternative -- stay grounded in reality at all times_.

For example, often the gap between zero and one is immeasurable, especially when something necessary is lacking, like not having a spare tire when you get a flat. However, once you have something, moving to a more sophisticated version often results in a major increase in price with only a minor quality enhancement, like in the choice of automobile. _Keep your expenses moderate_.

The things that deserve to be taken most seriously are those that lie closest to you. Focus your energy on your choice of abode, diet, exercise, lifestyle, weather, and outer and inner climate. Acquire an abode that suits your needs but that also lies well within your means. The key to staying in shape is diet and exercise. Train yourself to put up with the things that happen to your body. Become as removed as possible from being a slave to your stomach, or to sleep, or to any other drive. Become as self-disciplined as possible with respect to your sexual and other desires. Learn to tolerate extreme pain, cold and heat, and hardships of all kinds. Become self-sufficient -- be content with simple foods and drink water. Make endurance and economy second nature. _Do not let your desires govern you -- govern them_.

The composition of your diet is of minimal relevance as long as you absorb enough calories and have a varied enough diet that you get all vital nutrients. Your diet doesn't have to be too varied for this to occur. As for theories of the relationship between food intake and bodily output, ignore them all \-- for they change more often than the seasons. _Experiment with foods until you find the mix that works best for you_.

The composition of your physical activity is also of minimal relevance, as long as you are physically active. If you desire to get in peak condition, _push yourself up against ever increasing resistances every day_. Keep your diet simple and your lifestyle pure -- walk in gentle sunlight, stroll along the edge of the sea, find refreshment in drinking ice cold water, dwell alone, and develop almost soldierly habits. Find the weather and climate that inspire you. Rejoice in your body -- for it is the framework that houses all of your endeavors. _Refine your daily habits until they become instinct_.

Insist on keeping company with anyone you like, but have no friends who are not better than you. Remain single as long as possible. Live free and uncommitted. Give yourself time to survey the world while you are young, independent, healthy, and mentally alert.

Temporarily sacrifice your life on the altar of solitude and poverty, which will grant you the most useful resource of all in return -- _time_. You will have the leisure time necessary to let your mind roam free on the great plains of your imagination as you search for who you are. _Living a simple life is the basis for artistic production -- move into a clearing and create yourself_.

Under the right conditions, anyone can produce magic. Surrounded by an ideal atmosphere, you will be able to focus your energy on mastering the art of living. It takes years of practice to simplify your life and to become content with it. It is _not_ about having the most, it is about making the most out of what you have. Learn to live simply and to be happy with what you have and to only have things that you use. Those who are most content with what they have are those least tempted by what they lack, that is to say, by the property of others. Learn not to envy others; learn not to be jealous of anyone, ever. _As you simplify your life, the world going on around you will become simpler too_.

Still, if every man had exactly what he wanted, he would be no better than he is now. However, _rather than endlessly accumulating things, you will continually accumulate more power and joy with yourself and your life_.

It's not in their property that people have poverty or riches, _but in their minds_. Restrict your learning to that which helps you live a simple and natural life. Prudent conduct demands thrift, not the pursuit of extravagance. Don't let your property become your prison.

We are often imprisoned rather than housed in our homes. The value of our possessions generally diminishes once we possess them. When you want something, your only desire is to have it. Once you have it, you no longer desire it. In the end only one thing separates the wealthiest man from the poorest -- how lavish his tombstone is.

Make yourself rich by making your wants few. Pursuing luxury and extravagance leads to hollow happiness; pursuing simplicity and necessity leads to heavenly happiness. Do not believe that toys and gadgets emit the meaning of life. Live in such a way that you would be just fine with no rent, no taxes, and no grocery bill. _Like the wanderers of old, become so confident and self-assured that you are ready at all times to leave your home with nothing but the clothes on your back_.

Superfluous wealth only buys superfluities. Money is not required to buy a single necessity of the mind. Money masters you, not the other way around. Once you begin your task, solitude will no longer be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor boredom boredom. If you live simply and wisely, maintaining yourself on this glorious earth will no longer be a hardship, but a pastime. _Strive to achieve the simplest and the most complete life for yourself_.

This series of questions may help you determine your ideal life. Ask yourself -- "if I had a million dollars, what would I do? Would I search for a cure for cancer, be a lead singer in a band, write, paint, or possibly travel?" Then ask yourself, "if that is the activity I would truly love to do, then what is preventing me from doing it right now? Why am I not concentrating all my energy on creating the conditions for living this life -- my ideal life?" Temporarily restrict the amount of goods and services you require and acquire and get to work _doing_ the things you truly love to do. _You must first create, only then will the funding flow_.

As you apply yourself to the task that you truly love to do, you will no longer need to toil at a job you despise to acquire property to fill in the few boring moments available to you during the remainder of your day. You will never be bored again. You will no longer be able to differentiate between the labor and leisure time in your life. The wage you earn from your ideal job will not matter as much since the task is rewarding in itself and you will no longer desire to acquire as much property. _Unite your labor and leisure time and start doing what you truly love to do_.

Always remember that you have a monopoly on yourself -- for if the material is pure, and your heart is pure, how could the result of your task be anything other than magnificent? _Align who you are with what you do with your tasks with your goals_.

Chapter 7: Power

The rules of the game of life are not clearly defined and are constantly being revised. No one has ever lived longer that one hundred and fifty years, and most only have fifty good years on this glorious earth -- there is no such thing as Methuselah. Meek young men grow up in libraries believing it their duty to accept the views of past masters, forgetting that these same past masters were only meek young men in libraries when they created their works. Hence, instead of men experiencing an original relation to the world, we have a long line of bookworms. In fact, those most interested in experiencing an original life rarely have or take the time to write about it. Our only guides to life are collections of the wisest ideas from past masters, who all learned from each other as they followed the same chain of being. _No one has ever written the rules of the game of life_.

This is no justification for remaining ignorant; this only serves to caution you that learning from others can only take you so far. You can _not_ possibly learn all there is to know about life, and none of these past masters stumbled across the rules of the game of life. Each had to figure out how to play the game, and each is considered a past master because _each figured out how to play the game of life to win -- for himself_.

Whatever exists is reinterpreted again and again -- redirected by some power superior to it. All life is not merely concerned with surviving, all life aims at thriving. _A man is the prisoner of his power over himself -- for whoever does not heed himself is forced to heed the commands of others_.

Wealth, influence, social status, even eternal fame, are _not_ what everyone desires; these goals are only derivatives of what everyone desires -- _power_. Some seek power over others while others shoot for eternal power -- _the most powerful of all seek power over themselves_. The self-empowered are the rarest type. You rarely hear of or meet them because they are not always writers or orators, presidents or popes, capitalists or labor union leaders -- they are just themselves. _These are the people who have mastered the art of living by mastering themselves_.

Life is conflict, pain, and suffering, and the greatest life is that which not only endures all three, but thrives on them and uses them to increase its power and dominion. He who masters himself is he who harnesses his animal drives to the point where he is transformed from a human to a human being. _Become master over yourself -- find joy in yourself, in living, in everyone around you, and in the world_.

The path to power over yourself is the most challenging of all. Remember that what is of value to one man seems nonsense to another. It is up to you to discover where to place yourself so that you can achieve the highest feeling of power and joy. _You must declare war on yourself, achieve victory, and declare independence from the rest of the world_.

The life of the fortunate individual is a continuous process of extending his power, of controlling and harnessing his passions, of learning to channel them in the direction of what he truly loves to do, and ultimately leading to the creative production of himself. Mastering the art of living demands tremendous willpower -- expending enormous effort in becoming master over yourself. Willpower is having the ability to offer resistance to a stimulus -- to choose _not_ to respond to it.

Everything can be and must be reinterpreted for you to march along your path to fulfillment. You are free to interpret the events that happen to you anyway you please. Learn how to reinterpret your troubles and how to utilize them to your advantage. _This freedom feeds your willpower and strengthens your ability to adapt and to have power over yourself during all events at all times_.

Continuously develop your power -- continue to do battle with ever increasing resistances to get and to remain on top. To gain power over yourself, you must extend your will across vast stretches of your life, becoming colder, harder, less hesitating, and without fear of opinion. You must develop your ability to command while remaining free from any kind of conviction. As a powerful person, you will not only cope with painful losses and deprivations, you will emerge from these torments even more powerful than before, with even more respect for life and more full of love.

As a powerful man, you will have power over, pride in, and faith underlying yourself. You will delight in being severe and hard with yourself and in representing all severity and hardness. You will be so abundantly wealthy in spirit that you give and bestow. You will help the unfortunate by an urge begotten of excess of power. You will know when to speak and when to remain silent. You will learn to speak hard but to say it gently.

Though society insists that individuals turn themselves into dwarves -- dwarves who are well trained to serve as specialized tools -- _you_ need to demand and command the reverse of yourself. _Become a giant -- a giant well adapted to succeed in any situation in which you find yourself_.

Create a genie -- a huge image of yourself, a figure over a hundred feet tall, an aura that hovers above and around you. Your genie barks commands at you, orders you around, and dictates how best to react to the events that happen to you. _This genie controls your willpower -- this genie is your willpower_.

Conflict is part of life, and your genie will demand that you choose the courageous course of action. Though courage and cowardice are opposites, the _degree_ to which an act exhibits courage or cowardice forms a horseshoe. _The highest form of courage -- pure courage -- lies just beyond the lowest form of cowardice, not that of courage_.

For example, if you find yourself thrust in the middle of a conflict, deal with aggressive opponents in this way. Do _not_ just sit there and take it -- that is pure cowardice. Do _not_ let them provoke you into attacking them \-- that is pure stupidity. The most courageous response of all is to just ignore them and calmly walk away. The next and final step is to permanently delete them and the event from your memory. _You act most courageously when you do not let anyone, anything, or any event impact you in the least, even during the happening itself -- become hard_.

The only way to sustain _inner_ peace is to wage _outer_ war. Your genie demands that you _never_ let anyone attack your character or push you around. You always _must_ fight back to defend yourself while remaining in total control -- for the more powerful warrior you become, the _fewer_ battles you will be forced to fight. _Let your genie come out roaring as you silence your critics_.

Trust yourself to be your own taskmaster. Be doctrine, society, and law unto yourself. Then what appears an insurmountable hurdle to others will be a simple leap for you. Solidify your self-image -- become immune to the gibes and jabs of those less fortunate than yourself. _Defy all defiers_.

Self-worth is not relative, it is absolute \-- it depends solely on your view of yourself. _You must be the sole source of your self-esteem -- always_. _Respect yourself at all times_.

There will come a time in your life when you appear more lost than ever, and it is then that you will call on yourself. Though you still won't know where you are going, it will no longer matter, since you will have just arrived -- at the discovery of your own power. _You will declare victory, having become master of the chaos that you are_.

Only man is capable of attaining sovereign lordship over himself. _Victory is attained when you become the sole source of your power_. _You must give yourself a goal -- and for what higher goal could you possibly aim than to maximize your power and joy in life_?

You will come to understand that no one is to blame for you -- not fate, not your parents, not your teachers, not your bosses, not your girlfriends, and not your friends. _You alone are responsible for who you are, for what you do, and for what you choose to do_.

You will become the ripest fruit -- a sovereign individual who is liberated from custom and habit, a self-reliant master of free will who has earned the right to make promises, and a liberated warrior who determines his own unique value of things and takes responsibility for himself, his fate, and his life. _You don't need to conquer the world -- you only need to conquer yourself_.

He who possesses himself has conquered himself -- for he who has conquered himself achieves the highest possible feeling of power. The more powerful you become, the harder it will be to find equals.

Utilize your immense willpower to create the conditions that allow you to thrive, to come as near to your ideal self as you can, and to command yourself and your fate. _Experiment and determine what brings you the highest feeling of power and joy_.

After years of the toughest toil you will achieve sovereignty, becoming a free, independent, and unique spirit. You will know that you are ready to declare independence when you are prepared to take your life into your own hands. You must first act stern, firm, and brave towards yourself before you can act that way toward others. Your overflowing personality will command respect and love from others -- they may even fear you from time to time since you have become so powerful. _Yet, you will achieve such mastery in handling yourself and others that you will do it with a smile on your face -- the smile of a victorious commander_.

Learn to have unconditional honesty before yourself, to revere yourself, and to love yourself. Great power is achieved where immense opposing forces clash with one another, but where you have a strong enough grip on the reins to get them all moving in the same direction. Picture the charioteer Apollo with the sun in tow as he drives his mighty steeds across the sky -- _harness your steeds and drive them with fiery tenacity_.

Man strives to become master over the forces of nature and over his own savagery and baseness. What concerns an individual depends on how he relates to other human beings and the degree of freedom in his life. Amongst the oppressed, power manifests itself as the desire for freedom -- for escape from poverty and servitude; amongst the ruling class, as desire to overpower -- for ever-increasing dominance over others; amongst the independent, as the desire for love -- for gift-giving to contemporaries and the most distant progeny. Some desire to be told what to do; others desire to tell others what to do; still others desire to tell themselves what to do. _Your social rank is based and determined solely on your power_.

The stronger will directs the weaker, and the major key to power over others lies in mastering persuasion. Rule makers want to overcome opponents, to attain the overflowing feeling of power and triumph that comes with victory.

If power over others is what you desire, then seek it. You may find that it can be acquired as long as you are not lazy or a coward. If you are willing to take more risks, to work harder, and to suffer more than the next man, then you will find yourself ruling over him before long.

However, politics -- power over others -- has minimal impact on the daily lives of the vast majority of men, so they simply are not interested in it. Politics only concerns the relations of the shepherds and the sheep of humanity.

You will let others concern themselves with this type of power while you focus on yourself. As you gain power over yourself, you will exert power over others as well, simply because you have such great command of yourself.

Retrospective criticism is a waste of time and effort. Leave the could haves, should haves, and would haves to the ex post facto critics of the world -- leave them behind to mull over the past. You are going to march on in your perpetual present. Focus all of your energy on the events and decisions that you made in the past that still impact the present and future. _Leave all other past events where they belong -- in the past_. Learn not to look backward but ahead. _The central source of your power is not whence you come but whither you are going_.

The world of man revolves around the inventors of new values. The value of a particular perspective depends on its ability to enhance and facilitate life -- how well it contributes to securing the survival of our species, or of certain types of individuals, or of the individuals themselves. Throughout history, the church, the economy, the state, the academy, and the family have vied for dominance. Over the ages, each estate has seen its power rise and fall, based in large part on powerful individuals.

The highest attainable type of power is that of speaking to the most distant posterity. The most powerful individuals are those who have the ability to impact the course of human development for millennia -- altering how humanity _acts_ in the future. Amongst the greatest human beings are Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Socrates, and Confucius. Those who battle the toughest resistances and can endure the harshest suffering are those who are welcomed into the hallowed halls of language. _Learn from these most powerful men how to soar like an eagle, and how to use your talons to protect yourself and to find the nourishment that you need to succeed in life_.

Chapter 8: Discovery

When we compare what we know with what we don't one thing is clear -- the universe of things we do _not_ know is infinitely larger than the puny little corner of the universe familiar to us. Spending time mulling over the things we do _not_ know is the most humbling exercise of all. We hardly _know_ anything about the world that is more than thirty yards beyond our front door. Sure, we sample bits and pieces from time to time during an incessant bombardment of stupefying and useless factoids and half-truths. Still, the events _out there_ are beyond our immediate experience and most are so complicated that they simply are beyond our capacity to fully comprehend. Fortunately, _nearly all_ of the events _out there_ have little to no impact on our daily lives and are thus of little to no consequence. _The world is far too complex to know everything -- your task is to know the things worth knowing for living your life_.

We all are faced with the challenge of getting to know ourselves as best we can. We must focus our energy on determining the source of our sunshine. _What is it that makes you grin from ear to ear_? _What are those moments when your holiness wells up inside of you to the point that you can no longer keep it tucked away, and it just leaps out into the open_?

Let the events beyond your control dissipate and finally disappear. _Instead, focus all of your energy on the events within your control_. _Explore the events in your past and determine what brings you the highest feeling of joy -- let the rest of us see your face shine like the sun_.

_Life is continual movement and discovery \-- be forever on the alert_. Since time immemorial, common themes have occupied human life. Themes pertaining to individuals include -- birth, breathing, drinking, eating, excreting, procreating, rearing, and dying. Communal themes include dealings with the church, the economy, the state, the academy, and the family. Additionally, man has always been bound to these basic human relations -- father to mother; father to son; mother to son; father to daughter; mother to daughter; and sibling to sibling.

The standard path of an individual's development over the course of his life includes -- being thrust into this world crying and screaming, pleading to be placed right back into the womb from which he sprung, then learning from his parents, then learning from authorities, and then learning from peers. After a period of rapid growth during adolescence, the individual learns from the wisest, then obtains employment, then starts and raises a family, then works until retirement, and finally dies.

Since the dawn of civilization, man has made tremendous strides in science and technology and thus in his relation to the world. However, there is little to no evidence that our relation to ourselves has changed at all. _As man accumulates knowledge and institutions, we smother ourselves more and more with them_.

_Most of us live retrospectively -- burying ourselves beneath our own history_. The more we educate ourselves, the less we are able to think for ourselves. We come to trust the experiences of others over our own -- substituting thoughts and presuppositions we learned from previous generations where we should be relying on our own observations and deductions. Most let others -- history, family, social caste, and prevailing customs -- determine the course of their lives. Do you not have enough strength and courage to select this course for yourself? Are you afraid of what you might see if you focus all of your attention on yourself? Are you even more afraid that if you see who you are, you _still_ may not have the willpower to bring this vision to fruition? _Find and enjoy an original relation to the universe_.

In the academy, every discipline requires strict adherence to its own unwritten though agreed-upon list of commandments. Pursuing anything beyond this intellectual straitjacket is discouraged, forbidden, or rejected. Though it remains unclear why art of living courses are not professed in the academy, it still serves a useful purpose. Of all of humanity's estates, the academy offers the best environment for self-development and self-discovery -- if for no other reason than the vast quantity of leisure time available to the student.

_All paths lead through the library_. The wise student will always study classics -- in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. The classics record the noblest thoughts of man. _Show respect for the classics -- read them with the same care and reverence with which the author wrote them_.

_Study all ways of life, old and new_. A world in which we learn from the best of those who have come before us is a much richer world than a world in which we only learn from those currently around us. _The ideas of past masters are carefully preserved in the treasure-trove of language_.

Yet, the worthiest of all among human beings are those who despise learning and prefer a state of ignorance -- ignorance understood not in the sense of not knowing anything, but in the sense of dispensing with unnecessary learning and acquiring only the knowledge that is necessary and sufficient for mastering the art of living. Start by meeting the most basic facts of _your_ life, reducing it to its lowest terms and finding its essence. Walk with your own feet, work with your own hands, and speak with your own mind. _Mastering anything requires years of practice_.

_March along the path of truth, your path to your truth_. What is the path of truth -- it is never sacrificing who you are for anyone or anything. It is also reaching your full potential. It is also aligning your life, your work, and your thought. _The path of truth is discovering at an early age that life is endogenous -- that you have the power both to imagine who you want to become and to assign yourself the tasks necessary to start becoming that person_.

_Man's final frontier lies within himself_. As soon as your intellectual faculties reach maturity, you must unlearn everything you once knew and start fresh. _Stop studying the world and start studying yourself_. Spend time mastering useful skills rather than filling your mind with useless theoretical nonsense. To transcend your animality, you must _master_ yourself. _Pace yourself and bask in leisure time_.

How do you strengthen your capacity for knowing who you are? Read classics as you explore the world -- for the deepest thinker is often the farthest traveled. Question everything; experiment with various lifestyles; and compare, contrast, and challenge world religions. _Examine sacred beliefs and find the ones that fit you best -- then appropriate them as your own_.

To defend your convictions requires strength; to challenge each and every one of them requires the fortitude of an Olympian. Let no facts remain unquestioned -- simply experiment until you find those that are sacred to you. _Explore the world every single day with the curiosity and excitement of a blind man who has just regained his sight_.

If you desire the path to enlightenment, be prepared for long periods of tedious observation. You must relinquish any desire for immediate fame as you enter your private observatory. You must accept poverty and solitude in return for the ample leisure time necessary to observe yourself and to determine what is best for you.

You must learn to _see_ , to _listen_ , to _think_ , to _speak_ , and to _write_ if you want to master the art of living. You must look a long time before you can see. Learning to _see_ requires accustoming the eye to calmness, to patience, and to letting things come to it. You must postpone judgment -- learning to go around and grasp each individual case from _all_ sides. You must be able to suspend making a decision until you have thought it through as thoroughly as possible -- tracing the causes as far back and the effects as far into the future as you can.

Every time you meet or greet someone, stare them in the eyes. Few people can stand that for long. Nearly all of them become uneasy and most look away. If you want something from someone, look him straight in the eyes and make your request sternly, firmly, and with a smile on your face. _Use your eyes to signal that you are a courageous commander who fears no one and nothing_.

Learn to listen -- pay attention and hang on to every word. Remain patient and silent, without offering feedback, praise, or blame. Never forget that it is often far more important what a person is _not_ saying than what he is.

Study science as a means of mastering the ability to think -- for scientific method reduces the art of thinking to its essence. Learn to use combinations of observations and deductions, of trial and error, and of repeated experiments in as many areas of your life as possible. You will notice an increase in energy, in reasoning capacity, and in endurance. _You will learn to think more clearly, more broadly, and further than others_.

Eventually, your ability to anticipate and adapt to events _before they become problems_ will be the source of your wisdom and will make living your life smooth, simple, and enjoyable. As you refine your sight and foresight, you will remain one step ahead -- as if you were living a few seconds in the future. You will move first, quickly, and resolutely as you appropriate opportunities before others even notice they exist. Events will start unfolding before you where what actually happens so closely resembles what you had anticipated happening that you will feel as if you wrote that particular scene of your life. _As you master these skills, enough of these scenes will accumulate over time that they will compose a play -- a play in which you are both the playwright and the star_.

_The key to power over others lies in mastering persuasion -- learn to write and speak with power_. You should speak only when you may not remain silent. The smarter you become, the less often you will speak, but the more you will say. Avoid conversation with long-winded ones -- for they are the _only_ ones who find themselves worth listening to. Spend less time criticizing others and more time overcoming your own flaws. If there is a trait you despise in someone else, be certain that others do _not_ despise that same trait in you. _Master the word and you master life_.

Sharpen your senses and use them to penetrate the depths of reality as far as possible. Develop each of these faculties to the point that they become instinct -- where you can rely on them during moments of truth. View the span of your life with hyperopic clarity, but, as you deal with each particular situation, act with precision and intuition. Since you will _know_ what you are looking for, you will pay attention to what is important.

What are the tasks, skills, tools, weapons, and exercises needed to get there? Gain an intensive education -- _learn how to learn and how to learn well_. As you accelerate the rate at which you assimilate useful knowledge, use it to gain an extensive education -- formulate a basic understanding of history, the social sciences, the humanities, mathematics, and the sciences and scientific method. Seek opportunities to exercise these skills as often as possible. Strive to identify the limits of your abilities by challenging yourself. _Only when you have mastered the basic faculties of the mind are you ready to set off on an unbroken stretch of creative production -- only then are you ready to create who you are_.

Recognize that talent today is but a name for an _older_ piece of learning, experience, or practice. _As you master these basic faculties, you will bestow talent upon yourself in many domains_. Experience with powers greater than your own will humble you today while making you stronger tomorrow \-- _without constant practice and association with better players, it's impossible to learn anything_.

Some people just come equipped with stronger wills and the ability to pay more attention than others. The will is a creator -- one that allows you to focus on a specific sensation and to grasp it more clearly. Learn to put your will in situations in which you can experience the most interesting sensations. _Develop a richer and more personal view of the world_.

The sole purpose of your education will be to master the art of creating -- your educators will be your liberators. Find an educator who fits you so well that it is as if he had written _solely_ for you. Be wary about your choice of educators. For example, none of the greatest psychologists ever wrote a single word in a textbook on psychology. The writings of past masters will be treasures known to few besides yourself.

Just as a flower grows from the soil of its forefathers -- nourished on the nutrients released as its parents decay -- so you too will plant yourself, your intellectual seed, right in the middle of the finest garden of human history. Your own ideas will grow out of the wisest ideas of all the ages. _Absorb grand ideas from the ancients as a flower absorbs nutrients from the soil_.

You may find that one-way conversations with the ancients are far more fruitful than two-way conversations with contemporaries. _Incorporate your masters -- make them a part of you_. Yet, you can only follow them for so long -- eventually the footprints they left in the snow will vanish. From this point on it will be up to you to carve _your_ path through this virgin snow.

While your friends will depart the academy as soon as possible in favor of employment in ordinary occupations, you will remain to incessantly develop and exercise your mind. You will depart only when you feel you have mastered yourself -- when you are ready to do battle with _any_ and _all_ the challenges that life throws your way. _At some point you must put up your history books and become lord of the day_. _Leave behind all doctrines and teachers and go reach your goal_.

The most valuable thing worth learning and knowing is yourself. As you search for who you are, much boredom has to be overcome and much sweat expended before you will discover your own colors, your own brush, and your own canvas. Even then you will still be far from mastering the art of living, but you will at least be the master of your own workshop. From this point forward the only educator you will be able to rely on is yourself. _Your task only begins as you discover yourself_.

For the vast majority of men, maturity is becoming boring, no longer taking risks, no longer doing that which used to bring so much joy, capitulating to all authority figures, and becoming a lazy coward. Treat your life as a progression, a perpetual transcending as you pass from one stage to the next. Each successive stage in your life will fade and eventually desire to die. In turn, new possibilities will be unveiled as you awaken to new beginnings.

Divide your life into stages. Though the temptation will be to fall into and remain in a particular rut, remember that the ruts of tradition and conformity are the deepest of all. Live your life so compactly and preparedly that you are ready to depart at all times -- immediately and without anxiety. _This way you will have the chance to live several lives -- or at least lifestyles -- in one lifetime_.

Though most people equate maturity with closing off the paths of activities that brought them the highest feeling of joy as children, _you will seek to pass through a series of challenges which will lead you right back to being a child again -- or at least to view the world again with the same wonder, admiration, and love that a child does_.

Most people spend their whole lives yearning to be transformed from a caterpillar into a butterfly. If you are one of the lucky ones whose life has remained smooth and worry-free, you _may_ never need or even dream of examining _what_ and _who_ you are. However, if your life becomes so volatile and tumultuous that you lose sight of _what_ and _who_ you are, you will be forced to examine yourself, your life, and life in general. Often it is _precisely_ out of this chaos and cacophony that the most well ordered and harmonious lives are orchestrated. _Embrace your misdevelopment, and let it spur you to live a creative life_.

It is never too late to answer your calling or to embark on _your_ path to mastering the art of living. _Summon your courage and get started right now_.

If you still do _not_ know _what type_ and _who_ you are, it is high time to depart from the world and descend into the cave. To find the entrance to the cave, you _must_ go a million miles away and a million years back in time -- you _must_ leave the world behind. Once you find it, you will bask in a timeless wonderland -- _by yourself_. You will remain as long as necessary until you determine what you are, who you are, and which path fits you best.

Go alone where you are dependent on no one, and no one is dependent on you. You will seek freedom -- the type of freedom where you are _unbound_ from money, from employment, from family, and from anything and anyone that imprisons you. Not until you are lost, not until you have lost the world, will you begin to find yourself. _You must lose the world to find your way_.

Seek silence, solitude, and sanctuary. You will realize that you need _solitude_ \-- which is to say, recovery and the return to yourself. At first, you will be restless and irritable because there will still be obstacles between you and your task. Clear them out of the way. As you get settled in your cave, many problems will solve themselves. Then, you will become utterly indifferent to the world outside and for days and even months on end, your sole concern will be to listen to the voice within. This period of willed introversion will lead to an almost superhuman degree of self-consciousness.

_You must pass through two stages, away from all the cares of the world_. The first stage is to transfer all emphasis from the external to the internal world; the second is to seek enlightenment. At first you won't allow any distractions to enter the cave. Soon after, those same distractions won't have any power over you, since all you will want to do is to focus on the task at hand. You will ultimately come to rest in the peace of the everlasting realm within. You will then uncover and unmask the regions of your inner world where the real difficulties of your life reside. You will do battle with each difficulty, then destroy, and finally declare victory over all of them. _As you overcome all of these resistances, you will emerge triumphant, more powerful than ever before_.

_As you transfigure yourself, you will become the transfigurer of your entire world_. You will circumnavigate the most remote and dangerous regions of your inner world -- be a Columbus. As you travel through the vast space and the galaxies within, you will notice how chaotic they are. _Out of this chaos you will give birth to new worlds and to life itself \-- to your life_.

In your cave, you will absorb a ten dimensional scene -- the five senses, the three dimensions of space, the dimension of time, and the tenth of your own interaction with the other nine. You will call on all of these dimensions and summon powers that lie deep within yourself as you review your past to determine what it is that you have truly loved to do. _You will be seeking your own kingdom of heaven here and now_.

Yet, don't think for a minute that you will be granted admittance to the kingdom of heaven without passing through the severest and most challenging trials of your life. _You will discover the value of doing what you truly love to do, and that it is high time to start doing it right now_.

This is _how_ \-- let the battle begin. You must embrace toils that would destroy the common man. You will be forced to squander an incredible amount of energy in the course of your development as you battle the wickedness within. _Yet, every talent must unfold itself in fighting_.

First, rather than striving for independence, you will strive for submission -- submission to your own death. _You will find the motive for your life as you internalize your own death -- learning to fear nothing and to take risks_. To have any chance of achieving indestructible enlightenment, you _must_ embrace the absolute certainty of _your own_ death.

Next, you must purge yourself of _all_ that you have lived and learned from others. You must rebel against a state of things in which you only repeat what you have heard, learn what is already known, and imitate what already exists. You must inspire a revolution -- a total break from your previous self. _You must first shatter these tablets before you can embark on becoming yourself_.

As you strip your life to the core, it appears that everything you once had vanishes, and that you are left more alone and impoverished than ever before. Just then, you will discover that you are _richer_ than ever before -- for it is only in the absence of these things that you will discover how valuable each one of them is to you. You will emerge from this confusion feeling like a proud proprietor -- _knowing_ exactly what your needs are and how to fulfill them. _Your life will be far simpler than before -- you will eliminate everything superfluous, taking with you only what is necessary, and, when taken together, that which is sufficient for you to get the maximum joy out of your life_.

_Most people go their entire lives without ever discovering who their own worst enemy is_. You have far too many enemies to be your own. Who and where are your enemies? _The key to victory lies in battling and defeating yourself -- yourself_. _Stop being your own worst enemy_.

It is high time to do battle with every enemy inside of you. As you stare long enough at them, you will notice a magical transformation. Your own worst enemies will dissipate just as an image of yourself materializes in their place \-- _you will see that you have been your own worst enemy_. _You have let these enemies and your relationship to them get to you. You have been fighting yourself all along_.

As you slay these enemies, these apparitions of yourself, you will be overwhelmed with power and joy. Also, as you eliminate these sources of your anger, you will eliminate anger itself.

From that moment forward, you will be your own best friend and start to love yourself. Since you are bound to who you are and can _not_ be anyone else no matter how hard you try, _you might as well learn to love yourself_.

Yet, nothing can be born without first dying. If you desire renewal, you must first die to your past. As with all life experiences, we yearn to acquire them as much as we yearn to erase them. Next to the desire to experience something, men have perhaps no stronger desire than to forget. Often a far more powerful tool than remembering is forgetting -- the ability to annihilate the recollection of an event, to erase it so thoroughly that it is as if the event never happened.

Your past has haunted you nearly every day of your life up until now. Even with your enemies vanquished, you still can't figure out why you are so troubled. Something is there, something real, some event that probably took place long ago. You have just repressed this event so deeply that it will _never_ come voluntarily to the forefront of your consciousness, but it will _never_ leave you alone either. It will continue to torment you as long as it remains hidden in the dark recesses of your mind. How can you possibly get rid of this event?

No matter how traumatic the event that produced this particular ogre _was_ , the world has moved on and forgotten it completely. These ogres only reside in one place \-- _within your own memory_.

All along you have been trying to erase these specific dark, dreary, and mysterious ogres while keeping the rest of your past. As a result, you have been dragging your past around like a ball and chain. Rather than enjoying the perpetual present lying right in front of you, _you_ have allowed these memories to haunt you. How long ago was it when you last found joy in your life? Is there anything you can possibly do about this?

_Yes -- you have let your past rule you for far too long; now it is time for you to rule your past_. It is time to take back control of your mind and your life. Let the dynamite loose and blast your past. Rather than using a scalpel to remove a few dark moments while attempting to keep the rest, _demolish all of it_. There is no faster or more effective way to release the weight off your head and shoulders. This way relief is instantaneous.

_While the explosion settles, you will bask in triumph like a falsely accused prisoner who has finally been released from prison_. _You will also notice that you held and hold the key to your freedom -- always_.

Next, as you rummage through the wreckage of your past, you will find a few diamonds in the rough still worth keeping. This way you lose virtually all of your past, but what was so great about _all of it_ anyway? _Now, having saved only the most precious moments of your life, your load is so light that you are free -- free for the first time in years if not in your entire life_.

With this new found freedom, a clearing lies before you -- that of the present and the future. _Life is far too short to spend time dwelling on the past or worrying about the future -- live in the present_.

_With no more enemies or ogres behind or in front of you, you are now more powerful and independent than ever_. There are no longer any distractions lying between you and your task. Now, you are finally ready to determine which path fits you best.

Most people won't try all possible lifestyles or meander along all possible paths during their lives. In fact, most will choose one path, or even let one path be chosen for them, and then come to fear all the other paths -- the ones not taken. Though human finitude precludes the possibility of experiencing the entire spectrum of lifestyles during one lifetime, sampling the full menu of paths is possible. _In fact, it is absolutely necessary if you desire to find the path that fits you best_. Besides, you will always be free to switch paths.

Imagine that you are going to familiarize yourself with _all_ the possible paths through life as you sit in the middle of a valley -- a valley somewhere in the desert southwest of the United States. Sheer cliffs surround this valley on all sides. _Though it is irrelevant how you got into this valley, it is of the utmost importance how you get out_.

As you glance from one side to the other, you see a series of mineshafts. Above the entrance to each is a label. From left to right, the labels are -- Play and Decay; Toil and Spoil; Family; Fame; Celebrity; Wealth; Social Status; Eternity; and Inner Peace. The Valley of the Mineshafts contains the complete collection of man's possible paths through life.

After being overwhelmed by the number of choices lying in front of you, but before staring at any particular shaft, you must stare into yourself. The deeper you look, the easier your choice will be. You will shatter the illusions of the world and stare into its realities for as long as you can bear it.

As for choosing your path, the process of elimination may work best. As you rule out potential paths, the entrance to the mineshafts become barred. Eventually, only a couple of shafts will still be open to you.

As the wind howls and tumbleweeds whirl by, you will sit patiently in the middle of this valley as long as you need to -- until it dawns on you which path is yours. Once awakening comes, you will glance up once more and see that all the entrances are barred except one. _Light will be radiating out of the one and only mineshaft that belongs to you. Having read your fate and seen what lies before you, you will walk with fortitude into your futurity, traveling the only path you can_.

As long as you remain true to your task, awakening will come. It will not come at once, nor by straining, but it will eventually come. Once awakened to who you are and what you truly love to do, you will be ready to embark on the second stage of the journey -- towards enlightenment.

You will look around as if seeing the world for the first time. You will be more firmly yourself than ever. You will no longer look over your shoulder; you will focus all of your senses, your mind, and your energy on the path that lies in front of you. _Once you are clear about the why of your life, the how will take care of itself_. _Once the overpowering feeling of awakening comes to you, you are ready to depart the cave, knowing what it is you have to do_.

This second stage is to return to the world and to start becoming who you are, doing what you truly love to do, and striding down the path that fits you best towards enlightenment. You will focus your energy on mastering each part before venturing to forge a coherent whole. _From this point forward, you will succeed in achieving your goal -- for it is the one and only goal that truly belongs to you and only to you_.

The return to society lies out the other side of the mineshaft. Though returning is easier than departing, be careful -- for you will still face challenges as you abandon the state of perfect being that you created in your cave. _You will return as one born again -- fresh and refreshed for a new life_.

Do _not_ meander through the art galleries of the world; instead, venture into your workshop and get to work. How to live _your_ life is a craft that must be learned from the ground up and practiced remorselessly if you desire to master it. It is not a matter of merely moving forward, you must desire to become the unique individual you are. As you make progress in discovering yourself, you will have increasing confidence in your own dreams, thoughts, and goals. _As you gain power over yourself, you will find it invigorating and rewarding, knowing that you have the courage to become who you are_.

You will yearn to return to the world and to seek adventure -- challenging yourself and your fellow men as Odysseus did on his way back to Ithaca. Eventually you must tell everyone to leave you and your life alone. _Let yourself die and rise again selfless -- serving society as best you can._ _Besides, since you are here to maximize welfare -- not production -- doing what you truly love to do will be identical to serving society as best you can_.

You must first formulate a vision of the world before you can bring it into being. The moment you act from yourself, no one will pity you anymore. To master the art of living, you _must_ transcend desire for material possessions and social status, sexual lust, and the temptation to judge others. Look forward to exchanging the pursuit of knowledge for that of wisdom; recognize that the past and the future are illusions; overcome your fear of death; arrive at harmony in your life; and rest comfortably and joyfully knowing that you have rediscovered the innocence of life. Though this path may be the noblest, it is by no means the easiest.

Do not make the mistake of trying to separate your pursuit of work from your pursuit of happiness -- make your life's work the source of your happiness. _Synthesize your labor and leisure -- bring them into harmony as you aim to align your life as close as possible to your ideal_. _Leave your cave glowing like the morning sun as it emerges from behind a mountain chain_. _Embrace your fate and emerge triumphantly -- boldly striving in the direction of your destiny_.

Life is an odyssey -- we are all wanderers endlessly in search of salvation and peace. Attaining _salvation_ requires coming to grips with the thought that the forces of life have been flowing through you as they have been through every living creature for eternity. Attaining _peace_ requires finding joy in yourself. _Enlightenment is attaining both salvation and peace in your life_.

Salvation is about discovering new perspectives -- first by looking out towards nature and eternity, then by spinning around and looking back in from the perspective of nature and eternity towards yourself. What do you matter relative to infinite time and space? The answer is that _you_ do not matter at all -- _you_ disintegrate into the great chain of being like a water droplet into a river. Nevertheless, _you still matter to you_.

As you assign yourself the most difficult tasks, you will realize that the burdens you carry now lessen the weight of your life tomorrow. As you reach self-mastery, you will declare independence and along with it the weight of the world will vanish entirely. You will be as carefree, innocent, and forgetful as a child. Once you start creating your ideal self, you will be free -- _as you dominate your reasons, senses, feelings, and will, you will stand amid the cosmos with a joyous and trusting fatalism -- affirming everything in your life_.

So long as salvation comes to you, does it matter if you are an adolescent or on your death bed? The key to salvation is to recognize that no matter what you do, you are still going to die. No matter how much toil, no matter how much mental gymnastics, no matter how many trips to the fitness center, no matter how many times you get liposuction or plastic surgery, you are still going to die. _Salvation only comes after progressing through the stages of recognizing, understanding, accepting, and embracing that you are doomed to die. This epiphany results in you discovering that you might as well just sit back, relax, and enjoy the few precious moments of your life remaining on this grand and glorious earth_.

In addition to attaining salvation, an enlightened person is he who has made his life harmonious -- a harmony produced by reconciliation of intense conflict. _Nothing can bring you peace but yourself_. A couple of victories, getting lucky a few times in a row, recovering from sickness, or some other favorable event may temporarily raise your spirits, and you may think good days are preparing for you. Don't believe it. _Inner peace is independent of what happens to you -- inner peace originates from and remains with you at all times, no matter how difficult the circumstances or how severe the trials_.

_Come to rest in yourself_. Learn to accept yourself as if fated -- where you do not wish yourself to be different than who you are. _As you confirm and affirm who you are, you will no longer be ashamed in front of yourself -- here you will find peace_.

When you accept yourself as who you are, all negative energy slips away -- all feelings of jealousy, envy, and resentment pass away. _Strive to be content with yourself, in yourself, for yourself_.

_When you attain both salvation and peace, you will experience the moment of enlightenment -- like a sun shining especially for you, one that bestows warmth and blessings just for you_. _You will believe that the world is here for you_.

You will be independent, self-reliant, wealthy, and overflowing with good cheer. The petty weeds of grief and disappointment will no longer have any impact on you while everything else in your garden will blossom and ripen. _Bring your entire being into alignment with eternity_.

When you cease struggling against your destiny, you will achieve harmony with the stream of life -- surrendering yourself to the stream and belonging to the unity of all things. _You will no longer be confronted with conflict of desires, you will have found enlightenment_.

You will be incapable of taking your enemies, accidents, or even misdeeds seriously for long. You will have such an overflowing abundance of power and joy that you will learn to laugh at all events, and then to forget them. _You will become unable to forgive simply because you have already forgot_.

You will be full of joyous love towards everything you see and everyone you meet. You will be like a child again -- ready to begin your life anew. You will live with yourself and among men as in nature -- without praising, blaming, or quarreling. _Since you don't know anything about the world anyway, you will be content to find love in and to marvel at the wonders of the world_.

Chapter 9: Individual

Every living being represents a gamble on the part of nature. Nature want us to act as the unique individual we are, while society wants us to forfeit our individuality and to behave like bees in a beehive. What we are made of is less understood now than at any time in history. Regardless of society's demands, each individual is remarkable, worthy of every consideration. _Every individual is a unique miracle_.

In his heart every individual knows that he will be in the world only once and that there is no way such a strange assortment of genes and experience will ever gather together for a second time. Though it has all been said and done before, each of us experiences a unique chain of events in his life. The uniqueness of each makes it possible to share perspectives with all. You represent a new possibility of life -- it is up to you to bring it to fruition. _Your life represents the opportunity to find the path to yourself_.

To form yourself, you must have the courage to ask and answer the most fundamental and the severest questions \-- whether you want _to act_ as a sheep, shepherd, or wolf? whether you want _to be and to be content_ with the type you are? whether you want to play and decay or to pursue eternity? whether you want a family or some other path to eternity? whether you want to be nicer and more yielding or sterner and more inexorable? whether you want to meander through life or to master the art of living? whether you want the quiet, easy life pursuing superficial happiness or the difficult, demanding life pursuing everlasting inner peace?

Though you will always be free to alter your path through life, your answers to these difficult questions will foretell and even dictate the future course of your life. Some paths reinforce one another. For example, at one extreme lies the most frequently traveled path through life -- acting and wanting to be a sheep, pursuing eternity through a family, acting nice and yielding while meandering through life, and living a quiet, easy life pursuing superficial happiness. At the other extreme lies the most difficult path, the path to inner peace -- acting and wanting to be a wolf, creating _yourself_ as a means to eternity, acting sterner and more inexorable as you master _your_ art of living, and living a difficult, demanding life pursuing everlasting inner peace.

Other paths are incompatible. For example, if you desire to play and decay while having a family as you pursue the path to inner peace, you are destined to toil and spoil. Depending on each person's answers to these fundamental questions, _all_ possible paths unveil themselves -- those of play and decay, of toil and spoil, of family, of fame, of celebrity, of wealth, of social status, of eternity, and of inner peace. _Which path is yours_? _Only you can determine which path best fits you_.

To determine which path fits you best, start with your relationship choice -- for the most important relationship you will ever have in your life is the one with yourself. There are also differing degrees of personal freedom based on your relationship choice. The sooner you reach clarity on your choice, the sooner you can focus on the path that is truly yours while avoiding blind alleys. _Always remember that the most important relationship you will ever have is the one you have with yourself_.

First, you must decide if you want a relationship with someone else or not. If you choose _not_ to have a relationship, then every other path is open to you _except_ the path to eternity via the family. Abandoning the pursuit of a mate -- at least temporarily -- offers you more freedom to explore which of the other paths fits you best while simplifying your life a hundredfold.

If you temporarily stop playing the game of relative social standing, your life starts to resemble the Garden of Eden. Deciding not to have children implies that you don't need a spouse, which means you don't need to have sex, which means you don't need a partner, which means you don't have to search for a partner. Since you no longer need to waste precious time in dance clubs and coffee shops searching for a mate, you have ample leisure time for lounging around in your garden of earthly paradise.

You only need to work hard enough to produce enough for one; you no longer need to vie with your neighbors; you no longer need a large house in the suburbs; and you no longer need the fanciest clothes. You are left with the opportunity to channel all of your time, energy, and money on becoming who you are. _Once you determine who you are, then you will be ready to re-enter the mating game if you wish -- this time more confident and self-assured and thus more successful than ever before_.

Once you want and are ready for a relationship, then prepare yourself for playing _the mating game_. The easiest way to avoid a catastrophic set of circumstances in your life is to control your sex drive -- _think_ and _think strategically_ about your mating choices. A simple rule to live by is to _never_ have sex with someone you can't picture being married to or having children with. This way you will _not_ be _forced_ to marry who you impregnate.

If you do end up having sex with a fling, pregnancy sometimes ensues, and thereafter marriage and a family. Careless mating may turn your life into a nightmare and is the surest way to nip the choices available to you in your life in the bud before ever giving them a chance to grow. _At the same time, accept the repercussions of your actions, and remember that you are free to embrace your fate -- the fate of having chosen the path of eternity via the family_.

As for choosing between potential mates, each individual's attractiveness depends on beauty, social status, intelligence, personality, and psychology. There are tradeoffs to consider as well -- especially between physical beauty and the four other attractiveness factors. _The point is to concentrate on attractiveness, not beauty -- find a mate who is as attractive as you are_.

Additionally, avoid gorgeous mates and the temptation for intercourse with them. Gorgeous mates are desired by all and can have any -- and they can do nearly anything they wish to the one they choose. So, if you are the chosen one, you will be forced to exert excess energy and effort just to sustain the relationship. This excess exertion in the satisfaction of your sex drive will come at the expense of satisfying your other drives, your leisure time, and possibly even your sanity.

Besides, having sex with the not-as-gorgeous allows you to enjoy the sex nearly as much as with the gorgeous while maintaining a meaningful and sustainable relationship. Choosing a not-as-gorgeous partner also frees up time and energy for other worthwhile pursuits, and, due to the correlates of attractiveness, the not-as-gorgeous are often far better partners for _relationships_ than the gorgeous. _This way you will have much more control than you would have if you were just the slave to a gorgeous mate_.

Once you want and are ready for marriage, then choose a spouse wisely. Concentrate on finding a partner you wish to have a family with, not just one you wish to have sex with. This way you will be able to marry the mate you want to impregnate. _By all means, attempt to only have a family when you are ready to have one_.

Once you choose to have a family, the path of eternity via the family is automatically chosen for you. Human finitude bars all the other paths -- at least while you _rear_ your children. _No one_ can excel along the path of the family and any other path _simultaneously_. Either a spouse excels as a parent or along the alternative path, but _never_ along both at the same time. _As a result, the course of your path through life will in large part be set through your relationship choice_.

The self is a constructed entity, one determined by inherited material, social forces, accidents, traumatic events, chance, and fate. Yet, we let our few talents occupy all of our attention, with the result being that only a few of these souls are ever allowed to manifest themselves. The talents we focus on grow stronger and stronger while the neglected ones remain a chaotic bundle of potentiality. Life is too fleeting to develop every one of the thousand souls in one lifetime. You must choose the souls within you that are the most powerful and develop them to reach their full potential. _As your souls develop, you will become the unique individual you are -- insist on being yourself_.

Jealousy is ignorance, and imitation is suicide. Become so self-reliant that _you choose_ how to regulate your interaction with your fellow men and your entire mode of living.

Picture a dartboard -- and _you_ are the only one in the bull's eye. The next ring out contains your spouse and your immediate family. The next ring out contains your extended family. The next ring out contains your friends. The final ring out contains loose acquaintances. Beyond the dartboard lies by far the largest group of humanity -- the group of anonymous strangers that will cross your path briefly and then vanish from your sight for the rest of your life.

With every single event in your life, you are going to swear allegiance to the rings of your dartboard -- ensuring that the bull's eye is satisfied first and foremost, and only then that satisfaction follows in descending priority order radiating out from the center.

At first, this may sound selfish, but it is not. If you are not treating yourself well, you won't be able to treat anyone else around you well either. You must make sure that you find happiness with yourself and the events that happen to you in your life. _If you are treating yourself well, you can't help but treat everyone else around you well_. _In this way, what appears as the highest form of selfishness is actually the way to perform the greatest service to your fellow human beings_.

Besides, treating others well is the key to becoming a smashing success. Still, there is one thing you must do _prior_ to treating others well -- _treat yourself well_. _If you are treating yourself well, then you are already a smashing success_.

Devote all of your energy to the seed that nature planted within you. As you grow uninhibitedly toward your full height, nothing will surprise or daunt you. Remaining faithful to your individuality requires that you acquire an uncommon and idiosyncratic character, a set of features and a mode of life that sets you apart from the rest of the world and makes you memorable not only for what you say or do but, even more importantly, _for who you are_.

Live as authentically as you can. _Living authentically requires accepting your own death and using it to spur you to do something meaningful and magical with your life_. Inauthentic happiness is luxury and extravagance while authentic happiness is necessity and simplicity. Honesty is more lucrative than dishonesty. Sure, a dishonest ploy may occasionally provide an instantaneous reward, but it will permanently damage your reputation. _A dishonest gain today is not worth the loss of trust tomorrow_.

The more authentic you become, the more honest you will grow towards yourself. You will learn to deceive no one, least of all yourself. With your true self laid bare before your eyes, your character will reveal itself. Even though there will be times when you cannot control the environment surrounding you, freedom allows you to always be in control of how you respond to and interpret these situations. You can either rise above and dominate the crisis or you can fall beneath and let the crisis dominate you. Those who rise above are capable of enduring tremendous suffering and growing even stronger from crises. Those who fall beneath end up letting the slightest burden smother them. Which type of character are you? Are you a transcender or a descender? _Always remember that your character determines your fate_.

People with strong character display an overpowering presence, and the force of character is cumulative. _An individual's opinion of the world is really just his opinion of himself_. Your attitude makes you who you are, and that which you are you show involuntarily. _What an individual thinks of himself also determines his fate_.

Give style to your character -- survey all your strengths and weaknesses and fit them into a plan, an artistic and creative plan. Be so creative that even your weaknesses dazzle the eye. Remember that resentment -- the psychological urge to bring others down -- is rooted in an inability to accept yourself. If you can't tolerate yourself, how can you expect others to tolerate you? _Only one trait is needful -- you must attain satisfaction with yourself_.

Your character is most clearly displayed in how you handle the _negative_ events in your life. Trust that nothing can make life a burden to you. Demonstrate a surplus of wise and harmonious conduct in your life. Character includes the ability to wield authority wisely. Build a lofty mind and fill it with nobility of character. Strengthen your capacity to think for yourself. _Power is self-control, self-reliance, and self-mastery_. _Exude your character and do so instinctively with style and grace under all circumstances at all times_.

_Embrace a cause where you can achieve far greater results than you ever could on your own_. Remember that society reveres those who sacrifice themselves for the greater whole. Always put yourself in a place in which you are best able to serve. Master yourself and find your calling, then you will be ready to serve society as best you can.

Each individual has only one genuine vocation -- to find the path to himself. Your task is to discover your destiny, and to live it out wholly and resolutely. _Let the game of life flow through you -- absorb it completely and make it entirely yours_. An enlightened individual concentrates all his energies on learning how to find peace with himself. Stop trying to be what you can _not_ be. Instead, learn what it is you truly love to do and start doing it. _Besides, you will become who you are in spite of everything -- embrace yourself and your fate_.

There is no harder task to assign yourself than searching for who you are, and there is no greater feeling than the moment when you discover it. Come to understand with increasing certainty what you want to do and who you want to become. It is far harder to figure out what it is you want to do with your life that it is to do it. Learn to command yourself and your fate. _The future is now and resides in you -- unlock your powers and become who you are_.

Stop concerning yourself with the affairs of world -- poverty, famine, wars, disease -- these afflictions have always been and always will be with us. Attacking these problems is quixotic -- you would be fighting a battle you will never win. Instead, draw a circle around the world. Enclose the widest possible space over which you have power and influence, then learn to love this world and everyone and everything within it. You will have at least some partial control of this miniature world, so you won't need to fight any battles. Rather, you will love and be loved by everyone and everything within it.

You will stop reading newspapers and filling your mind with useless and meaningless events from the other side of the globe; instead, you will become genuinely concerned with your neighbors and contribute to your community as often as you can. Embrace the world as it is, and let the extent of _your_ world shrink to that which lies within _touching_ distance.

Actively manage your mind and your energy to _limit_ your concerns to those things that impact your life and to the things you can impact. Remember that every event in your past appears equally great and small -- what you do or do _not_ do today impacts the future course of your life. For this reason it is of the utmost importance to master even the tiniest everyday things in your life. _Do not concern yourself with things beyond your control; instead, channel all of your energy in the direction of things within your control_.

One key to mastering the art of living is to take as much randomness as possible out of your life. Eliminating superfluities is as important as honing in on your task. Use your brief time here and now as best you can and as wisely as possible. Direct the maximum force of your desire toward the center of your being. Liberate yourself from what in your nature does not belong to you. _Become a person who has taken possession of himself -- become free_.

The way to live the good life is to let the world melt away. Let everyone else be and focus on yourself. Make no distinction between stranger and neighbor, between foreigner and friend. Stop judging others entirely.

There is no guarantee that you will attain bliss -- it will only come to you once you forge yourself into a coherent whole. From the moment when your ruling passion becomes aware of itself, it will take charge of your whole nature. From that time on there will be an end to fumbling, to straying, and to the proliferation of offshoots. Bring all existing strengths into play and place them in harmonious relation with one another. At the beginning, these opposing forces will create nothing but discord. Gradually, as you gain power and possession over yourself, out of this conflict harmony will spring.

Rather than a multiplicity of individual passions heading in different directions, the grand course of your passion will unfold and a powerful directionality will master them all. At first, your stream will meander over jagged rocks -- the current sometimes dividing as though it wanted to go in different directions. Gradually you will notice that the general movement becomes more powerful and compelling. Your inner restlessness will swell into raging rapids which will glide over all obstacles with ease towards an as yet unknown goal. Suddenly, the whole torrent of your being will cascade over a cliff and inexorably onward towards its ultimate goal.

Greatness means giving direction -- for no river is great and overflowing in itself. All that matters is that you supply the general direction that many inflowing tributaries must follow. _Give form to yourself -- how well-developed you are at the spring is not as important as how powerful you are at the delta_.

How do individuals attain great strength for their great task? All the virtues and efficiency of the mind and body are acquired little by little but laboriously. Repetition of the same strenuous labors creates a monster of energy who demands and is capable of fulfilling a monster of a task. No one can see in an artist's work how it became what it is. Genius first learns how to lay bricks, and only then how to build. Continuously search for material and for creative ways of forming and shaping it.

How do you forge a coherent whole? First, you must give style to your character. Then, you must make sure your character is significantly different from everyone else, so that you stand out as an individual. Both of these tasks require the utmost effort -- you will have to create yourself. You will have to _become_ something significantly new, something significantly different from the individual you have been up until now. _Picture your ideal -- then master the parts to forge a coherent whole_.

The key is to create harmony in your life. Construct a harmonious self -- one capable of acting in an instinctive manner that strives for perfection. Whatever it is, bad weather or good, the loss of a friend or the creation of an enemy, sickness or recuperation, either immediately or soon thereafter it proves to be something that must not be missed. Channel all of your various talents towards a single goal. A path lies before you which you are called to follow -- the gods await you. _Onwards, onwards \-- for this is your one and only path_.

_You are only allowed to desire yourself \-- only your fate_. Scan the span of your life and separate it into stages, each with a definite purpose so that when taken together they form a creative and coherent whole -- a whole that remains as closely aligned as possible with your ideal life. _Become a philobios -- learn to love every part of life and to embrace the beauty and glory in the whole_. _Most importantly, learn to love your life -- for it is the only one you will ever have_.

Chapter 10: The Power Game

_The only power game in your life that matters is the one you play against yourself_. Though the rules of the game of life are vague or nonexistent, the object is clear \-- _you win the game of life when you find happiness with who you are_.

Shoot for the best possible life for yourself -- the one in which you attain the most fulfilling happiness of all by pulling both ways of finding happiness into alignment with one another simultaneously. _Strive to live the life you've imagined while embracing and loving the life you are already living_.

The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again -- and you along with it, speck of dust. The ultimate defining moment of your life is your death. Until that moment comes, it is up to _you_ to figure out what it is you want to accomplish with your life. _The course of your path through life will in large part be set through your relationship choice_.

We are bound and bracketed by a birth that we did not choose and a death that will most likely come when least expected. _In between lies a comical game that we should learn to play with joy and with light-hearted smiles on our faces_.

Everyone possesses inborn talent, but few possess the degree of acquired toughness, endurance and energy to actually realize their talent, that is to say _to become who they are_. Experiment early on and often in your life to determine what it is you truly love to do. Look authentically at yourself and delve as deep down as you can to see who you are. Find and create the conditions under which you thrive. Devote as much energy as possible to the activities that you truly love to do. Go where your talents lie; lie where your talents go. The highest feeling of joy will come to you only after enduring the harshest suffering as you forge yourself into a coherent whole. _When you unite the life you are actually living with the life you've imagined, then you will attain the maximum power and joy in your life_.

One of the keys to mastering the art of living demands keeping your expenses and responsibilities as minimal as possible -- at least until you have determined who you are and what it is that will bring you the highest feeling of power and joy. Remember that the best things in life are often free -- friends, conversation, books, walks, promenades, periods of creativity, and leisure time. To you, money will represent nothing more than a stockpile of time -- _simplify, simplify, simplify_.

What is it that makes you shine? Explore the events in your past and identify what it is -- make sure the rest of us get to see you glow like the sun.

Stop wasting time and energy alleviating suffering and removing sources of pain from your life. Instead, expend your abundant energy and ingenuity to continually create new occasions for joy and celebration.

Though you are free to interpret and continually reinterpret the meaning of the events in your life, learn to accept your fate. Embrace it and run towards it as you would towards someone you love. _Your fate will never escape you, nor you your fate -- learn to live and to love your fate_.

Go in the direction of your destiny. Become as free-spirited and world-affirming as you can. Learn to love whatever was and whatever is and to want nothing to be different for eternity.

Think of yourself as extraordinary as you live passionately -- for your passions are far deeper ingrained, older, and more powerful than your reason and thought. Do something earth shattering and world shaking with your life. Love what is necessary in your life. _Welcome every moment of existence with a sense of triumph_. _Live your life as if you will be forced to live it over and over again for eternity, experiencing every moment, from the highest joy to the deepest suffering, again and again and again_.

Living as if your life will be repeated eternally will spur you to make your life as meaningful and fulfilling as possible. Though this profound idea may initially horrify you and fill you with despair, remember that you are still alive and free. At any point you can choose to redirect the course of your life toward those goals that will bring you the highest feeling of power and joy.

A finite collection of possibilities lies within the open clearing that composes your future. Though you may have been trapped in the prison of your past, each and every moment that stretches out before you allows you to respond to your eternal fate. Let this serve as your wake up call. _Soar to new heights on the wings of your imagination_. _Live a life that you would be thrilled to live over and over and over again_.

Life is a spiritual odyssey -- a journey that continually leads you closer and closer towards who you are. Most men choose to cycle as the earth does around the sun -- doing the same thing year after year. Only the bravest choose to shoot off like comets -- endlessly venturing to new places, rarely if ever experiencing the same thing twice.

Your life promises to be a daring adventure \-- embark on a journey that leaves all familiar shores behind. Remain alert at all times -- for around every corner you risk being consumed by goblins, trolls, and ogres. If you tremble, fear not -- for no one knows, not even you, exactly where you are going. As you learn to exude confidence and courage at all times, danger will dissipate and finally disappear. _There is a single path along which no one can go except you -- whither does your path lead_?

Leave everyone else behind and march along your path. _Be careful to determine and pursue your own way_ \-- and not your father's or your mother's or your neighbor's instead. Come home every day from adventures, perils, and discoveries -- with new experiences and a more refined character.

Live from within, and be self-reliant. Get to the point in your life where you have no need for a priest, an economist, a financial advisor, a politician, a policeman, a professor, or a parent. _Be your own master_.

Gradually extend the borders of your comfort zone. Feel comfortable in wild and unknown territory and even embrace it as a departure from the safety and predictability of the boring, everyday existence that most men face. Keep moving through the stages of life until you find peace. _Once you find peace, you will have mastered the art of living and yourself_.

Could life be anything other than a comedy \-- this strange game, this endless repetition, this course of events that continuously cycles around in the same faithful and fateful circle?

No one knows why you are here and why you are going to die, so experiment and take risks with your life. What does it matter if you fail at something? Be of good cheer. Look how much is still possible.

Life is a comedy that ends in tragedy -- you must discover the _fool_ no less than the _hero_ in yourself. Find pleasure in your folly. Recognize, admit, and even laugh at your mistakes. Periodically take a rest from yourself by laughing with and even at yourself. Humor begins when you cease to take yourself or your life so seriously. _You masters of the art of living, learn to laugh -- at yourself_.

_It is high time to get to work_. _Create an original life that works for you and only for you_. Be so creative in living your life that when you're lying on your deathbed, you can exclaim -- "my life has been the poem I have writ; how lucky I am having finished it."

_Unite your soul with the rhythm of eternity_. Dwell in the hour that now is. Both you and humanity will eventually fade away, so why expend any effort at all on a futile attempt to transcend the untranscendable? Instead, use your special gifts and your abundance of energy on the here and now -- _lift humanity on your back and carry us forward a few strides_.

Is the reward of eternity -- of a chance to reside in the holy halls of language -- large enough to spur you to live a magical and fruitful life? _Make the facts of your life better than fiction_.

What is the strongest cure -- victory. What is the strongest victory -- declaring victory over yourself and thus over life itself. _Recognize that the events in your life make you who you are, so you may as well affirm and love your entire life, since it is the only one you will ever have_.

Once you find joy in yourself, finding joy in the entire world follows automatically. Learn to love the world and cease comparing it to some kind of imaginary vision of perfection.

Learn to leave the world as it is, to love it, and to be grateful and thankful to be a part of it. The sooner you embrace the world as it is, the sooner you can start making the most out of _your_ world. _Be sure to enjoy your one and only journey on this great and glorious earth_.

THE END

Examining the dual Table of Contents below shows that Prometheus Bound and Prometheus Unbound have been designed like a ladder: a reader could read the usual way -- starting with the first volume and reading sequentially through the end of the second volume. The innovation in writing these two volumes is that a reader could also read across the two titles in the matching chapters, for example: reading chapter 3 in Prometheus Bound entitled "Human" and the corresponding chapter 3 in Prometheus Unbound entitled "Being," so that across the two books the chapters can be read as "Human Being."

About the author

Jeff Katzman is the founder of Prometheus Enterprises and has been working on The Prometheus Project for over 25 years. His motto is read classics and travel. He is also the author of the companion volume Prometheus Bound, Part I of The Prometheus Trilogy. Jeff has been a writer, a public speaker, a Management Consultant, a Vice President of Operations, a professor, and an economist. He is currently working on Part III of The Prometheus Trilogy -- Prometheus Triumphs.

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