Neil Strauss

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

In the spirit of the times, I wanted to share with you all the
most pretentiously titled email I’ve ever written to you. A few of
you may have seen a draft of it on my website-in-progress.

What I enjoy about this list is that it’s a way for me to speak
directly to you. It’s something I’ve never gotten to do before.
Because whether writing for Rolling Stone or completing a book,
I’ve always been forced to cleave closely to a defined structure
and to carefully iron every idea, paragraph, phrase, word.

The following has no structure.

It has not been ironed.

You’ve been warned…
———————————————–
THE MEANING OF LIFE AND THE SECRET TO HAPPINESS
———————————————–

When I was in high school, I had a teacher who gave us a reading
list of the best works of literature in the world. Number one on
that list was the Bible. So during summer break, I decided to read
the good book as literature. And one small section really struck me
at the time: The Book Of Ecclesiastes.

It is the famous book in the Bible that begins “vanity of vanities,
all is vanity,” something that should be posted over the
entranceway to all L.A. clubs. It’s been heavily quoted in timeless
songs, such as “Turn Turn Turn.”

And it’s basic philosophy is this, at least in my interpretation:

Work hard at your life and yourself. Be a good person, and enjoy
everything there is under the sun. The author writes: “I searched
in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine, while guiding my
heart with wisdom…I made my works great, I built myself houses… I
became great and excelled.”

But, in his old age, he surveys his labors: “I looked on all the
works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had
toiled, and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind.”

No, this is not a sermon. Keep reading. Neither is this a Buddhist
message about renouncing the material world. Because, in the end,
the speaker in the Book of Ecclesiastes decides: “Eat your bread
with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart… Let your garments
always be white and let your head lack no oil… Live joyfully with
the wife whom you love…Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with
all your might, for there is no work or device or wisdom in the
grave where you are going.”

So what God is saying here is get drunk. It’s totally cool. Just
clean up afterward.

Actually, the message is this (in my crude non-scholarly analysis):
Find a life to live, find a woman to love, find a place to work–and
live to your fullest, love to your greatest capacity, work your
hardest, and be a good person. Then die knowing nothing will have
really made a difference in the overall scheme of things.

This may not necessarily be my belief, or yours, but here’s the
takeaway: if all is vanity, then stop making yourself miserable -
just keep busy and be happy.

That, of course, leaves the question: What should we be doing with
this time, and how do we stay happy?

So let’s leave the Bible and return to the present age.

First of all, don’t expect to be happy all the time. If you’ve ever
had a pet, you’ll notice that the pet doesn’t complain when it’s
hurt or in pain. The human animal is the only one that says, “Why
me?” — as if it is our birthright to be happy all the time.

Sometimes we’re sad or angry or depressed. But if rather than
fighting against it, like it’s wrong and some kind of disorder, you
just relax into the emotion and ride it through until it’s over, it
doesn’t have to be a gut-wrenching experience. It’s good to
experience these extreme emotions: it let’s you know you’re alive
and feeling.

Of course, we’d all like to stay positive and happy and content as
much as possible. It’s especially useful to be in this state when
interacting socially, because it’s the best way to attract other
people to you.

So how does one stay in this state?

My secret: Balance.

Even if you love your work, you can’t spend the entirety of every
day working. You can’t spend it partying or sarging either, as fun
as that may be. However, you’ll find that if each day, you
productively do something in each of the following areas, your mood
and confidence and charisma and happiness and inner game will
skyrocket:

1.    Work

2.    Physical (exercise, running, swimming, a sport)

3.    Social (and, yes, that can include Rules Of The Game
missions)

4.    Creativity or Education (whether it’s writing, making music,
cooking, programming, taking classes, or learning another language)

5.    Relaxation, whether it’s reading a book or watching TV or
playing Wii Tennis or staring at the wall and contemplating life or
lying in the sun and thinking about nothing.

So, your mission over the holidays:

Make a list of the specific things that make you happy and balanced
in each of these categories, and then make an effort to comfortably
fit them all into your schedule at least five days a week. Most of
these areas don’t need to take more than half an hour each day. And
chances are you’re doing at least two of them a day anyway.

If you find that days are passing by and you’re not exercising or
socializing, for example, you may need to actually write out a
daily schedule for yourself and then stick to it.

And, finally, if you’re one of those people who says they have no
time, chances are that the problem may not be time but time
management. Start keeping track of exactly what you do each day and
for how long. Actually write it down on a sheet of paper: how much
time you spend eating breakfast, how much time you spend checking
emails, what you’re doing with your time at work. Then see where
the inefficiencies are and eliminate them.

And then, of course, die. It’s all vanity anyway. But it’s fun, you
get one chance, and you might as well start making the most of it
right now, before it’s too late.

Yours,
Neil Strauss

P.S. I promised you all in the last email that I’d find something
special for you all to launch the Rules Of The Game two-book set
when it comes out next month. Well, I think I found something. It
bends the rules of what my publisher will allow, so I’ve been
negotiating with them since. I should have a confirmation and
announcement for you next week, if everything works out.
P.P.S. I also have a few other surprises in store for you over the
holidays: including visual evidence proving that everything you’ve
been taught about dating is wrong.  It’s frigging hilarious and
definitely counter-intuitive. So stay on the lookout…

Share This

I wanted to share some thoughts on an
experience I recently had.

I received a call from two producers on the Dr.
Phil show. They wanted me to come on and
discuss The Game and the community with
Dr. Phil.

However, the more I talked to them, the
more it seemed like a set-up. So I declined.
Instead, they got two of the people in The
Game to participate.

And they did a few sneaky things, according to
those who were on the show:

1. They filmed some guys sarging, but planted
women with secret cameras in the club.

2. They didn’t tell one of the PUAs that another
guru was going to be on the show, then they
encouraged the guru to be adversarial. The
result was a PUA slugfest that sounded like a bad
day at Project Hollywood.

3. They brought out a woman at the end of the
show who’d been hurt by a man who was NOT in
the community to confront these guys.

The working title of the segment: WOMEN, BEWARE!

This information just broke my heart. It really infuriates
me.

When I wrote The Game and went on to do the press, I
told myself that I would neither DEFEND nor ATTACK the
seduction community. I’d simply present the truth as it was,
the good and the bad.

However, the more interviews I did, the more I realized I
was going to have to defend something: The right of guys
to learn this.

Anyone who’s ever seen the front page of Cosmopolitan
or Sex in the City knows that self-help, sexual improvement,
dating advice, and attraction skills is an accepted rite of
passage for women.

There is no equivalent for men: We are simply shown images
of women we are supposed to desire in the pages of Maxim
and Playboy, then not told what to do about it.

People get tutored for everything else in life. If you can’t do
math, you get a tutor. Sex in the City was women getting tutored
in what to do with different types of men. I think the coolest thing
someone could do is recognize their weakness and work to
improve it.

When guys ask me questions, it’s usually not about what to do
to trick a woman into bed — it’s about how to get over heart-
break, whether Alexander Technique will improve their posture,
whether improv classes will make them more spontaneous,
what to do about “this one special girl,” how to dress, and so on.

Though some of the “gurus” may have their issues, 99.9 percent
of the guys I met learning this are the NICE GUYS. They are the
guys women always say they are looking for, yet at the same
time are never attracted to.

Usually, the true assholes, jerks, and misogynists are too
cocky and arrogant to even consider that they might need
to “learn” how to interact with women.

So anyone who’s going to get on a bully pulpit and demonize
men for trying to improve themselves is not a friend of mine.

And any pundit who’s going to criticize men for manipulation
when that’s exactly what their show producers regularly do to
their guests is not a friend of mine.

The community may have its problems — especially for those
who get sucked too deeply into it, as I did — but there’s nothing
wrong with learning social skills, if you’re learning from the
RIGHT teachers.

The real victims in my experience were not women. The
victims I witnessed, the people I saw hurt by the game, were
only men.  Because the game is a forking path: there’s a light
side and a dark side, and some get lost in the dark side and
lose themselves — in addition to creeping out the very women
they’re trying to attract.

As a writer, I understand the temptation members of the
media feel to create an obvious sensationalism piece. But
it’s far better to do the research and find the REALITY of a
situation — and it makes a better story. Because the reality
is often never obvious. Sometimes it’s the last thing you’d
ever expect. That’s what most of my books are about.

I realize this email is sort of a rant, and perhaps I’m
even preaching to the converted, but I had to get it
off my chest. There are some 42,000 of you on this
list. Some of you are in positions of influence or
respect — whether on campus, in the media, at home,
at work, or in a community.

Let’s do our best to counter small-mindedness and social
pressure designed to hold US back because of someone
ELSE’S fear wherever we hear it. Whether it’s about learning
the game, a personal attack against you, or something else
you care about, don’t take the bait and get defensive. All you
have to do is speak the truth. It’s the best weapon you have,
and so sharp that no one can ever bend it if you wield it
properly — without fear or insecurity.

And that’s one to grow on,
Neil

Share This