Shoyo 🔱 | Ω

Writing is crazy because if you practice it enough and reach a certain level of skill, you can COMPLETELY CHANGE THE LIVES OF OTHER PEOPLE just through the way you put words together. Isn’t that INSANE to contemplate? You can sit alone in your room, arrange a few dozen words in a particular sequence, press publish, and somewhere on the other side of the planet, a complete stranger reads what you’ve written and something in his mind just CLICKS. A belief he’s carried for 20 years is suddenly shattered. An ambition he abandoned years ago is REVIVED. A problem he’s been wrestling with for months suddenly becomes so fucking obvious that he wonders how he ever managed to see it any other way. And his life takes an entirely different trajectory. ALL BECAUSE OF THE WAY YOU ARRANGED SOME WORDS. How fucking remarkable is that? I think I’m a decent writer, judging by the amount of times and regularity with which you people comment things like: “Holy shit, this changed my life. Thank you.” And I have to say, there are very few compliments I appreciate more than that. Because it means something I conceived in my own mind, and subsequently translated into language, has actually made a meaningful difference in the life of another human being. Someone I’ve never met. Someone I may NEVER meet. And the BEAUTY of writing is that those words can continue doing their work LONG AFTER you’ve forgotten you ever wrote them. Something you write in 20 minutes today might profoundly influence a man reading it 20 YEARS FROM NOW. That’s a rather extraordinary return on an investment of 20 minutes, wouldn’t you agree? Now, here’s the part I really want you to appreciate. This ability is available to ALL OF YOU. You can develop the ability to articulate ideas with such clarity, precision, and FORCE that your words actually MOVE people. You can learn to make the complicated simple, the mundane fascinating, and the seemingly impossible suddenly appear within reach. But most people aren’t willing to put in the fucking reps. They want to be eloquent without enduring the embarrassment of being inarticulate. They want to write brilliantly without having written a thousand pieces of absolute DOGSHIT. They want the fruits of mastery without submitting themselves to the process of BECOMING a master. And that’s why they’ll never have that ability. WRITE. WRITE. WRITE. Read the great writers. Study what makes their writing so compelling. Observe how they construct an argument, create anticipation, direct attention, and make a sentence land with the force of a fucking sledgehammer. Then WRITE SOME MORE. Develop an obsession with finding EXACTLY the right words to communicate EXACTLY what you mean. Because the better you become at translating your thoughts into language, the greater your ability to influence the thoughts of others. And when you contemplate just how much of human civilisation has been shaped by people who knew how to wield the written word… You begin to appreciate the MAGNITUDE of the skill you’re developing. A man who masters his words can reach into the minds of people he will never meet, across distances he will never travel, and even across CENTURIES he will never live to see. What an extraordinary fucking power to cultivate. And what a shame it would be to leave it undeveloped.

Incredible hack to make life so much more MAGICAL: LOWER YOUR THRESHOLD FOR INSPIRATION. Train your perception to the point that you are CONSTANTLY being energised by the beauty, ingenuity, success, and wonder all around you. A piece of art. Someone’s outfit. The interior of a hotel. The rising popularity of an app. A beautifully designed building. The way somebody carries themselves. Allow yourself to be inspired by the SIMPLEST of things. You don’t need to witness some extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime spectacle to experience a moment of genuine AWE. There is so much to marvel at in the ordinary, if you would only take a moment to appreciate it. Here’s a funny example: Right now, this very post was inspired by me seeing TWO McDonald’s locations within five minutes of each other. Something most people wouldn’t give half a second’s thought to. But GOOD GOD. Think about what that actually represents. Human beings have managed to build an organisation of such PHENOMENAL scale that it can have two locations operating profitably within five minutes of each other. And replicate that same business model TENS OF THOUSANDS of times, across the entire planet. All from an idea, brought into existence by human imagination, intelligence, ambition, and extraordinary execution. THAT IS FUCKING INCREDIBLE. And to think that something as mundane as driving past a McDonald’s can serve as a reminder of just how much is possible! Now imagine going through life with this same attitude towards EVERYTHING. Instead of mindlessly walking past the accomplishments of others, you become FASCINATED by them. Instead of feeling threatened by somebody else’s success, you become ENERGISED by it. Instead of taking beautiful things for granted, you allow yourself to be genuinely MOVED by them. You begin seeing evidence of human greatness EVERYWHERE. And the more you recognise it in others, the more you begin recognising the potential for it within YOURSELF. Because every extraordinary thing you encounter is a reminder that someone, somewhere, once conceived of something that didn’t yet exist, and then brought it into reality. WHY NOT YOU? Why shouldn’t you create something magnificent? Why shouldn’t you achieve something that leaves somebody ELSE standing there in absolute fucking amazement? I think there is something incredibly powerful about cultivating a mind that is so easily impressed by the RIGHT things. A mind that is constantly collecting new reasons to THINK BIGGER, AIM HIGHER, and EXPECT MORE from life. And there’s a beautiful compounding effect to this. The more you allow yourself to be inspired, the more things you begin noticing that inspire you. Until eventually, the world begins to feel like one gigantic exhibition of POSSIBILITY. The world is FULL of extraordinary things that have become ordinary through familiarity. Learn to see them with fresh eyes. Make a conscious effort to admire something today that you ordinarily wouldn’t give a second thought to. LET YOURSELF BE IMPRESSED. LET YOURSELF BE AMAZED. LET YOURSELF BE INSPIRED. The more easily you can find inspiration in the world around you, the more MAGICAL your experience of being alive becomes. And the more frequently you will be reminded of just how much MORE you, too, are capable of. Namaste.

MY SOLDIERS DO NOT BUCKLE OR YIELD WHEN FACED WITH THE CRUELTY OF THIS WORLD