As a butterfly slowly breaks through its chrysalis, it is at the same time developing the strength to fly. If a young child happens to come along just at the right time to witness the final stage of its metamorphosis, they might be inclined to help set the butterfly free. But in doing so, they would only be robbing it of its strength, and it would be too weak to fly. And a butterfly that can’t fly is just butter. It’s like a turtle with no shell, and it’s only a matter of time until it dies.
In Friedrich Nietzsche’s book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a hunchback seeks a protagonist and requests to be cured from his contorted spine. But Zarathustra refuses and says, “If one takes the hump from a hunchback, one takes his spirit, too.”
Just as a butterfly builds the strength to fly away, a tree must be exposed to the wind in order to build strong roots. It’s only when presented with a challenge that we get to find out who we really are, and what we were meant to become. This is why lottery winners, a year later, are generally no happier than they were before. While suddenly becoming free from their financial troubles – if they even had any – they’re robbed of everything else. They’re the butterfly who was set free without having to struggle out of it’s chrysalis, and they know it. And so does everyone else.
The feeling of winning with a cheat code
If you were born in the 80’s, you might remember a Nintendo game called ‘Contra.’ It was awesome. It had 8 stages, and you started with just three lives, but unlike other Nintendo games – if you got really, REALLY good at it – you could actually beat it.
However, one of my friends knew the ‘cheat code’ (up,up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start), which gave you 30 lives to start with. At first it was great, because you actually got to see what happened when somebody beat the game. But once everybody knew the cheat code, none of my friends ever tried to beat it on normal mode after that. And since the game only had 8 levels, you could die three or four times per level and still win. Any avid Nintendo player could probably play it for the first time and still beat it with the 30 guys.
But one day – using the cheat code – I beat the game with 28 lives left to spare, and at my family’s next Christmas party, I told some of my cousins that I ‘beat Contra without the cheat code,’ but only one of them believed me.
Although I spent plenty of time hanging out with my cousins, I must have spent half that Christmas ruminating about whether or not I had told a lie. It wasn’t that I was worried about going to Hell for lying. It was that I was trying to actually decide if the lie I had told was an acceptable one.
If I had played the game without the cheat code, I still would have had one life to spare. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. But was that really true? Would I have played as aggressively or as confidently if I had started with just three lives?
How do you play in the 4th quarter of a basketball game when your team is up by 30, and you can’t possibly lose? You might hit four threes in a row, because it doesn’t matter. But that’s not the same thing as knocking down four threes with the game on the line. Similarly, you wouldn’t do with $100 what a billionaire would do with it if it were the last $100 you had to your name.
I couldn’t ignore those thoughts, and before my family and I left for the 2.5 hour drive home, I had to tell my cousin the truth (the one who believed me about beating it with no cheat code). “Oh, well same thing,” he said. “I mean you still had 28 guys.” It made me feel good that he said that, and it was a relief that he didn’t really think I had lied. But it made me want to take another crack at the game and actually beat it without the cheat code. In fact, I decided that day that it wasn’t actually that fun to beat that game – or any game – with a cheat code anyway, since it didn’t really demand that you got better at the game.
Unfortunately, I was still too young to realize that this ‘no cheat code’ mindset actually applied to real life, too.
What does God do when you pray for no outside pitches (or a hot new girlfriend, or to win the lottery)?
If I’m taking batting practice in the batting cages (off a pitching machine), and the machine is throwing every pitch right over the middle of the plate, I can just stand there all day and try to hit every ball over the left field fence. Many guys get so good at this that they might look like a future big league star to non-baseball fans passing by the cage, but anyone who has ever played baseball at a high level knows this strategy has more than a few holes in it.
Yes, in a real game, if the pitcher happens to throw a fastball right down the middle or on the inside part of the plate, you can crush it out of the park. But if you’re only looking for and prepared to hit that exact pitch, it gets pretty difficult to make solid contact with anything thrown over the outside part of the plate. And if the pitcher fools you with a curveball or a nasty slider over the outside corner, you might be lucky just to make contact with it at all. This is why sometimes the guy who looks like a superstar in the batting cages can’t hit a beachball in an actual game against a real pitcher.
The obvious solution to this one-dimensional approach to hitting (and to become a good baseball player, period) is to become more patient and disciplined at the plate, by spending thousands of hours practicing. By developing the ability to recognize different pitches and better anticipate where they’re going to end up, one can learn to react to whatever pitch the pitcher throws, and trust that he can hit every pitch hard, regardless of it’s location.
To become a truly great hitter and reach the major leagues, this requires years of disciplined practice and training, and the luxury of being able to take reps off a multitude of highly skilled pitchers. But to improve enough to be a competent hitter at a more rudimentary or little league level (where the pitcher doesn’t throw as hard or have great control, and often only throws two different pitches), it might just take a change in mindset and a few weeks of serious practice.
Then, there’s the other thing you could do; you sit at the foot of your bed before going to sleep, and pray to God that the other team’s pitcher only ever throws fastballs, and nothing over the outside part of the plate. But what does God do in response to such a ridiculous prayer? What would you do if you were God? Unless it’s first thing in the morning, I’m guessing he’s already been called upon at least a dozen times today. So what does God do with a snobby, little league baseball player who’s requesting that his life be easier than everyone else’s (so that he can look like a star, even when he knows he isn’t)?
He calls (or texts) his old friend, the Devil, and the conversation goes something like this;
God: Hey man. I know it’s been a while, but I think I have a deal for you.
Devil: Really? Well it better at least have something to do with someone coming to Hell this time.
God: Don’t worry. It does.
Devil: Alright. Well last time it didn’t, so…
God: I’ve got this kid who only wants fastballs on the inside part of the plate when he comes up to bat. Nothing offspeed, nothing outside.
Devil: Ya, so? What the hell do you want me to do?
God: Just make sure every pitcher he faces throws nothing but gas, and misses inside no matter how hard he’s trying to pitch him away. You know I’m not technically supposed to fuck with people, so I have to ask you.
Devil: Okay. So what’s in it for me?
God: If you do that for a few years, I promise I’ll let you take him straight to Hell when he dies.
Devil: Alright God. You better not screw me again. The only reason I haven’t blocked your number yet is cuz you still send me stupid kids like this.
God: No worries, mate. Nothing but gas on the inside half, and he’s all yours.
Let’s call this kid ‘Jose.’ What happens in Jose’s next few games? Exactly what you’d expect; every pitch is right where he wants it, so he crushes everything. And it continues for the rest of the season. Scouts start lining up to watch him, and they’re all blown away by how well he can hit. They’ve never seen a kid like this who just tattooes every pitch, and all anyone can talk about is how he’s going to be the next big league star, prime to make the big bucks.
Meanwhile, Jose knows he’s doing it all with smoke and mirrors. He knows, for whatever reason, ‘his prayers have been answered,’ and every pitcher is just grooving fastballs for him to hammer into the bleachers. But for some reason, no one else seems to notice.
He signs a multimillion dollar contract with a big league team, and his success continues right into his rookie season in the majors. He’s one of the ‘best’ young players in the league, and after three full seasons, he’s on pace to be the youngest player ever to reach the 1000 hit mark.
Jose isn’t bashful about his success, either. He’s enjoying the money, the fame, the beautiful women, and the glamorous lifestyle, and he’s even stopped feeling guilty about what’s gotten him here. If fact, he’s totally forgotten about it. But then something bizarre happens.
All of a sudden, completely out of nowhere, someone throws him a nasty slider just off the outside corner, and he swings and misses it by a mile. Humbled and humiliated, he’s immediately reminded of everything he’s not. And as the fans scratch their heads and wipe their glasses, dumbfounded about what they’ve just seen, Jose is almost too terrified to get back in the batter’s box to take another pitch. “Yo! What the fuck?” God texts the Devil. (He just happens to be watching the game). “Bwahaha… I couldn’t help myself,” he texts back. “We had a deal, man!” God says. “Ya, no shit,” the Devil replies. “You said, ‘for a few years.’ This kid is mine now.”
And just like that, Jose’s career is over. He’s a bust. A nobody. A fraud. And he knew it the whole time – he was just hoping nobody else would notice. And now what? He’s got no job, no identity, no useful skills, and he’s not even that good at baseball. It occurs to him that he’d have been better off if God had just left him alone. He’d rather be a poor man without a dollar to his name, but one who could at least adequately hit every pitch – even if he were the only one who knew it.
Hell, it seems, is a place on earth. It’s not somewhere you go when you die, as God had promised the Devil. Those two don’t trust each other, and they go behind each other’s backs all the time. So the Devil starts to fuck with you for the sins you’ve committed while you’re still here, in this lifetime. But it doesn’t always manifest itself as a horrific set of external conditions that others can observe, like when the whole world realizes you can’t really hit a slider. It’s how I spent that Christmas in my own head – when I could have been having fun with my cousins – grappling with the fact that my behaviour was not exemplary of the kind of person I wanted to be.
Who knows what happens after you die, but if you regularly act in a way that your conscience does not approve of, you can expect to experience a taste of hell long before you’re gone.
Tinder – An unfulfilling cheat code
After a lot of trial and error, and doing a little research to find out what kind of pictures women are drawn to (and which ones they aren’t), I was able to create a Tinder profile that started to get a few matches. And it wasn’t the only dating app I was using. I had essentially the same profile set up on two other apps as well, which gave me a chance to have at least one or two girls to talk to and try to set up a date with almost every week. It was just a matter of what to text, especially in the ‘opener.’
Later, after reading a book about how to text girls and get them out on dates, I learned about what works and what doesn’t. And with a little more experimentation to augment my conversations to make them more ‘Korean friendly,’ I had established a pretty reliable system of meeting women.
Here is the sad thing; I had turned myself into a terminator. My ‘pick-up game’ was like an emotionless, robotic killing machine. The goal of every initial text and interaction was designed to steer the conversation in a direction that would give me a chance to make the same joke, tell the same story, and share the same experience that had delivered success in the past.
I’d even take everyone to the same cheap restaurant for lunch and a few beers. It was pathetic. On one date when I came back from the bathroom, my girl said to me, “So I hear I’m not exactly the first girl you’ve brought here.” One of the waiters had seen me bring enough girls in there for a lifetime, and took the opportunity to try to cockblock me. But it didn’t work. She just thought it was funny and laughed about it. Her mind was already made up.
This is how the pick-up community took off. Eventhough everyone is slightly different in terms of what they’re attracted to and what they’re looking for in a man, what works with one girl tends to work with many others, so by doing A, B, C, and D, you can expect to pick-up chicks with plenty of consistency. And Tinder gives you a place to meet them without even having to get up off your couch.
But there was something I failed to recognize. I was looking down at everyone I ever met (and they were looking up at me). We know that women have a gazillion profiles to choose from on dating apps, so if you can actually manage to get a girl out on a date and she doesn’t flake, it means you’ve been chosen amongst at least a dozen other guys she’s been talking to you. She must think pretty highly of you. But at the time, I didn’t even think all that highly of myself, and yet girls were still looking up at me. This is why women on dating apps can sleep with a guy one weekend, get totally ghosted by him, and meet another guy the next. Even the fairly attractive ones find themselves looking up at everyone.
Deep down I knew that the kind of girl I’d like to meet doesn’t need to use a dating app to find a boyfriend. And I didn’t want to feel like I was looking down on someone I met, or keep going through the routine of 1) alluring opener, 2) robotic conversation sequence to make them laugh, 3) meet them in front of the batting cages (where I might even show off by crushing a bunch of inside pitches), and then 4) share a story that had a proven track record of working dozens of times before.
And yet, I didn’t want to look UP, either. So how could I find someone I actually admire and want a long-term relationship with, without looking up?
You don’t look up. You don’t look down. You MOVE up so that you can look across.
This hilarious drawing is done by a youtuber who goes by hoe_math. It’s pretty self-explanitory. I’m pretty sure that even my grandma could understand it without any kind of description, but just in case she can’t; Women in 2024 choose men who are above them (or they at least think are above them). They no longer choose men who are across from them, or on their same level. They generally only do that at the age of 32 or 35, after they’ve ‘had their fun,’ and even then they feel like they’are settling.
To meet a woman you’re not only attracted to, but also respect and admire, you’ll inevitably have to move up. You’ll have to go from a 6 to an 8. This simplistic picture that looks like it could have been drawn by a 4-year old with a bunch of pencil crayons and a ruler perfectly depicts what a man must do in life.
The things you truly desire, the ones you’ll find to be ultimately fulfilling and bring you total satisfaction are not where you currently are. And they’re not right around the corner from your house. They are at a height high above you, so you’ll have to go up there to get them. You’ll have to learn to beat Contra without the cheat code, you’ll have to learn to hit the outside pitch, and you’ll probably have to talk to a girl you didn’t meet by texting the same thing you texted a hundred chicks before.
Don’t pray to win the lottery, or ask God to give you something he never gives anyone else. Don’t ask him for anything, except perhaps the strength and courage to do something you’ve never done before. The ripest apples are always at the top, so if you want one, you’ll have to be willing to climb up there and get it.