THE FORUMS

 This year, I went through part of my journey with going where I felt I had to cut the RSD umbilical cord to get away from being bent by every piece of advice I saw and actually get grounded in my own perspective. I believe it is true that we will try to alleviate ourselves of the responsibility to think for ourselves if given the opportunity, even if we are aware of that facet within ourselves. 

Beginning of this year, I began hitting it up 7x a week. Then I had something like a gf for about a month.. and then for the last couple months, I've pretty much been back at it 7x a week. With very minimal if any RSD information coming in, and when I started it, it felt disorienting. I felt very alone out there, I didn't have goals, or new tricks to get myself amped up. I was just out there, getting used to how this going out thing is a facet I have decided to make a part of my life. I had to start deciding how I do it, making my own distinctions about how to improve what I was doing without any help.

I think this is key, much like learning to play songs by ear on the guitar instead of using TABs off of ultimate-guitar or something. It teaches you to listen deeply, trust yourself, and take action, because NO ONE IS GOING TO DO IT FOR YOU. When it's just you, and just the field, over and over. It's like groundhog's day. The field never fucking changes, and within my limited perspective, if I keep taking the same action, I'll keep seeing the same shit, and getting nowhere. I learned to have a very rational fear that even going out every night, I could still end up sucking forever.  I think that fear, that caution, is what keeps me from going on autopilot and thinking reference points for the sake of reference points will lead somewhere.  It kind of does and it kind of doesn't. On the one hand, when you aren't getting pulls and make-outs, tons of repetition will annoy you, and you'll get prodded to take risks. On the other hand, if you are getting some measure of success, it's easy to "go to sleep" and start hating going out in a totally different way. It's not that there's no results, it's that the results are unfulfilling. That shit can feel like a trap. I have a friend who has racked up tons of volume.. like.. hundreds of pulls, but he does it within this comfort zone he's developed, and you can tell he's not satisfied with what he's accomplished. You gotta break out of the model in your head regularly to keep feeling alive.

Anyway, so the trouble I found with seeking RSD advice is a lot like the trouble I had with learning guitar from TABs. Because it's so easy to log on, see the advice of the week and go, "Oh! That's the part of my game I'm going to work on...", I've found it can bypass a little bit of responsibility to "listen to the field", and really be self-critical and take appropriate action in a healthy way.  

So that was a fairly long preface to what I started wanting to make this post about. Okay.. Ryan First. Fun Second. Player Third. I was reading a book about guitar that had a chapter titled "Be an artist first. A musician second. And a guitarist third." And it was about being someone people actually want to listen to as opposed to a self-absorbed instrumentalist. It's relevant to what I was talking about before. It's the same thing, actually. You see, when you play an instrument, in the quest to become more technically proficient, and alleviate some of the pain and frustration of poor technique, to delve headlong into exercises and books, developing really ridiculous technique, but totally falling out of touch with music.  You can put a million notes in a bar, but still fail to play an emotionally powerful twelve bar blues. So the guy's advice was to approach it in this way, think of yourself as an artist who is out to express themselves first, then someone who has made a decision to use music as the medium, and finally, someone who has made the decision to use the guitar as the specific instrument to do so. 

Haha.. actually.. this makes me think of the use profiles on ultimate-guitar or fandalism. Lots of musician's are very introverted, low self-esteem types who spend many hours a day in solitude working away at this skill. Many times their profile photos are just of their guitar. They'll be holding it, but the camera is zoomed in on their midsection to see the body of the guitar and maybe their hands. No face to accompany it. The guitar is clearly more important than they are... I find something strange about that. 

I went and saw an Eric Johnson concert last year. He's famous for making the song "Cliffs of Dover" and amassing a really absurd collection of high quality gear and having amazing guitar tone. Anyway, I wasn't floored by it. I struck me as instrumentalist's music. He's clearly one of the best instrumentalists in the world, but as the music was concerned.. I wasn't all that moved, and himself as a person.. I wasn't all that interested in seeing. He was kind of a transparent interface which made way for playing a billion notes a second on a stratocaster.

On the other hand, when I saw the Foo Fighters at Red Rocks a few years back.. that shit was life changing. None of the core members of that band are world class instrumentalists. No really... not a one. Hell, Dave's not even that good of a guitar player. In between songs, he actually talked about how he couldn't play "Blackbird". That song is not hard. He's a pretty good drummer, but there's scores of professional drummers, and especially the old jazz dudes who could school him any day of the week. But that part isn't that important. On the next level, their songs are well written, some would even say formulaic, but they are written with an audience in mind. So we like it. On the next level up, Dave Grohl, as a person, strikes me as a really cool authentic dude who is out there to express something. And when I think about it, I would rather see Dave specificially play "Everlong" than an even better musician covering it. That's how it works.

Back to game. One of the things I learned this year, to stay balanced and not get so trapped in outcome dependence, and straight up get caught in bad thought patterns less often was to start think about things as Ryan first. Fun second. Player third. I'm out there to be Ryan and say what I'm actually thinking first. On the next level, I've decided to go out and have fun somehow, and there's other ways I do that aside from going out. And then on the final level, I've made the decision to go out and have fun by hitting up bitches and pulling them back home. I'm not just some transparent interface through which to convey pickup tricks.. and other people aren't either. People I hang out with aren't just tools through which to aid my self development.

Haha.. that actually reminds me of this girl back in Boston. She said one of those things that get stuck in your head and never really leave because even through whatever level of consciousness you're at, it holds true over the years. She was like thirty one, from LA, and she was kind of sharp with the way she talked to people. She said, "You know, people generally won't like just being part of your project." At the time, I tried to listen, but didn't really believe I was doing that, but as the years passed, that bit of advice came back to bite me over and over and over. Through the way I had treated friends or used chicks. 

The way I see it now, if I walk up to some hottie, yes... I'm there to try and get this girl home. That's going to take time, so I've got to actually have fun with her, and I'm the one having fun with her, so it's got to be the way I do it. If the train breaks down anywhere in there, it doesn't seem to work --  the game won't be fulfilling. If I'm saying what I want to say, and trying to escalate and lead, but I'm not having fun, the girl will blow out. There's also times where I'm not really having fun, being myself and escalating, and I'll get the girl.. but she's usually well below my entitlement threshold and not challenging, and even the sex is pretty boring. Or if I'm focused on my pickup stuff and having fun, but doing by kind of subjugating my values, like "saying what they want to hear" instead of saying what I want to say.. sometimes it will even go through, and I'll get the pull, but it won't really feel that fun.. it'll feel like walking a tight rope. Besides, most of the time that will blow out. She can just sense there's something distant or empty about your autopilot game.   

The magic happens when all three are present, from the top down --  when it's all you, it's the fun part of you, and there's enough skill in it to make it all happen. 

Owen was talking about a similar idea in that recent video where he was saying it all has to come from a base of being cool and friendly. This weekend I actually screwed with myself and got into my own head watching that Julien video about creating tons of drama.. and even I was like "OMG! Magic pill! Just tell girls they're different and I love her" Haha.. So like a dumbass I spent my weekend out chasing state and putting tactics first, only re-balancing by the end of the night, when I would SLOOOW the fuck down and just talk to girls without needing shit. 

Hope you guys like the post. The main forum always needs some sunshine to balance out the "does it matter that I'm ugly/indian?!?!" nonsense.