Well, I earned a surprise 9.5 grand last night with a big sale. That wipes out the loss of the 3 laptops and 4k worth of lost account info.
I’ve got another 10k coming in this month from some deal, and double that in October. And my steady income is slowly increasing at a rate well past my steadily increasing expenses. And new income streams will, eventually, also come online.
They say that you feel losses more than gains, so even earning the 9.5 k which is twice as much as recently lost doesn’t quite calculate as a cancelling out of the loss; “But I would have had even more if I hadn’t lost!”
Long term stress raises cortisol, which kills neuron in the hippopotimous-campus and within that the amygdala, which causes emotional disregulation and eventually depression.
Depression can be a neurological condition, which can mean that you can’t muster the will power required to get yourself out of it.
Antidepressants work negligably better than placebos, which means that a placebo effect can be incredibly strong regarding depression. This does not mean that we therefore have conscious free will over depression. It means that we have unconscious something over something. That’s completely different.
My strategy for sadness, grief, and depression has usually been to do drugs and alcohol through the worst of it, maintain lifestyle crafting, and to wait for it to go away.
Lately I’ve been having stubborn grief and depression. It’s not going away. Sometimes it’s just too painful so I reach for relief. Booze probably also shrinks the hippopotimus and for me is addictive, so could be short term relief and a long term problem. Valium can be related to depression and loss of acumen. Dopamine agonists and opioid receptor agonists are quick to cull the receptors, so they also borrow against future contentment.
But when you actually hurt, you don’t want to hurt. Normally it’s fine to medicate temporarily. Hurt subsides.
I guess I’m still waiting for a clarity of vision. It’s one thing to grieve and have a positive forward looking plan. It’s another to lose your vision and not know what to do next to fix it.
I’ve had interns out here a number of times, and each time things seemed to go well in important ways. Socially things often went quite well. This last time I had some high financial hopes, and extended some of my business visions into a new promising direction.
I was already living in my future; working towards a future that I could see so clearly that I was living inside of it.
The loss of that future, plus the social loss has left me not only caught off-guard for how to re-envision my plans, but left my emotional system, which is semi-autonomous to other mental systems, reeling. Having interns leave before has never hit me quite this hard for so long.
I’m using this post as a journal, in the hopes that merely writing will help tease out clarity from the jumble of experience.
Yesterday in my dream state I focused on simply feeling my heart. Just maintaining attention there, rigidly, during the sleep state. It was not insightful, but I just wanted to be present in my body, in the part that seemed most salient to my experience lately – my emotions.
This morning I seemed to have some glimmer of clarity in my morning dreams, but still woke up to pain and sadness. Physical pain that hurt enough for me to want it to go away quickly. Not some trivial mild mood, but OUCH that HURTS!
The glimmer of clarity related to the emotional loss of comraderie with westerners. It’s cool to hang out with Indonesian girls who love me and my body parts devotedly, but it’s a very different social interaction to hang out with buddies who are from the same culture who get each others jokes. It’s a different category of sympatico. And when that is woven in seamlessly with business aims, the tapestry is more valuable still. Fine high caliber friends collaborating on business is silk and gold-thread embroidery as compared to the cheese cloth that is bar buddies.
But I’ve been burnt quite a number of times. Interns one day are all enthused and cooperative, and literally the next day tell me that they are leaving with no notice. I don’t get a hand off of work done. I don’t get correspondence after that. Everything’s roses and butterflies until they go ghost.
In the West you expect a minimum of two weeks notice. That has never happened out here. Apparently there are no rules out here.
The most recent guy to come out, Mat, wanted to do a careful background check before he started working here so I encouraged him to contact as many of the previous interns as he could. I gave him all the contacts that I had.
Months later after he had decided to leave I asked him if he knew how the previous interns had fared in their life, after leaving.
They were all capable guys. But I had to wonder if their decision to leave my enterprises led to improvements in any areas of their lives. Social, economic, or any other measure of improvement.
I got vague answers from Mat, so I really don’t know, but if I had to force an impression out of the vagueness I’d guess that people’s lives overall did not improve, and most likely declined after leaving our group and our group efforts.
One thing Mat had heard from the interns is that I’d shown them “how easy it is to start a business”. This seems to have inspired people to go it on their own.
One thing I’ve heard from another entrepreneur is how mistaken this impression usually is.
It’s not easy to be self employed. You must expect a 90% failure rate. And you have to be able to support yourself and put in the time and effort through those periods. And then the successes you do get might not be in as large a project as you can do if you are in a group. Individuals simply can not do large tasks. That takes large, well coordinated groups.
But that’s not something that a want-to-be self employed entrepreneur wants or cares to hear. He doesn’t care. He wants 100 percent of something that is his, instead of 20% of something that is someone elses, and the bottom line is not financial. It’s emotional. As Daffy Duck always said “Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine mine mine mine mine mine mine!”
So I’m of the impression that of the interns who left to go find their own “Mine!” that they didn’t forge successful companies. I’m of the impression that we would have done much better as a group.
It just takes so damn long. To someone in his twenties, even six months is a long time. One year seems like forever. Two or three? That’s starting to be a big fraction of their adult lives.
To a guy like me who has cycled through many businesses over decades, two years is just the beginning for one business. You can’t expect much of anything before that. Business takes lots of effort, and lots of time. And lots of people collaborating their time and effort. Continuously. There are no quick fix get rich schemes to go after. That’s almost never what business is about.
Somehow I’m going to have to get back to having westerners collaborating on my businesses. Especially I need writers and perhaps also people to help with video production.
I have no idea how I’m going to even approach that problem. No idea. I can’t make the same old mistakes.
Pingback: Loss out-ranks gain emotionally, and now what? – Manosphere.org
Renfrew said:
Glad to hear of the positive cashflow events.
Do you ever miss western women? Just curious. That’s not a “why don’t you date women your own age!?” admonition — not at all. Just wondering what effect adding to the mix, say, a 32yo fit and whip-smart woman with a business background (and a special kind of personality) would have. Or a 19yo for that matter.
And surely there are westerners in Java and Bali who also run businesses and have a certain simpatico… or maybe they’re the bar buddies… but that could take the edge off, and maybe they’d have useful ideas about how to bring westerners from abroad (and keep them).
xsplat said:
I can’t remember the last time I even thought of a western girl. When I see them I don’t get aroused or consider approaching them, for the most part.
Maybe I just tend to think that the kind of girl that I go for is much less likely to go for a guy like me. Ya, 32 years old might be a minimum age. There are a very few women of that age of any race that I even notice. The older I get, the younger the girls have been getting, with last year breaking a new record. I used to think that 19 was incredibly young.
However my 24 year old Chinese V in Bali serves my needs for a smart woman that I can talk to. She’s funny and witty and lots of other great things.
Ya, there are ways to meet some westerners out here. I’ve done that before and I’ll push myself to do that again.
The problem is that with my introverted character I have immense inertia. I’m very comfortable just staying in my room. Business was a great way to invite what amounted to social co-ordinators into my life. I’d use other peoples more innate and developed social needs to push and pull me along, and to keep groups together and talking. On my own I tend to be quiet and comfortable with little interaction. Until it’s gone.
So a crew of guys working on my projects was the path of least resistance and the most social fun. I’m not quite sure I know how to just hang out and shoot the shit, or even how interested I am in it. I like to collaborate.
Edenist whackjob said:
Start a manosphere co-working space. Be red pill Chiang Mai. Team up with Victor Pride and Cernovich.
xsplat said:
Yes, I’ve had similar ideas, and in fact am already developing some properties. As of now I’m selling long term leases but there may come a time where I can afford to just have some sort of gated community of like minded westerners.
It’s a bit tricky though – kind of like herding cats. I spend a lot of time thinking about business and it’s fun and profitable to talk to my crew about it. If other entrepreneurs are in the same compound, there is a risk of encouraging competition by revealing trade secrets.
It’s crossed my mind though, and I have the next plot of land in mind that might work for something along those lines.
Glengarry said:
Starting a business is easy. Keeping it running can be hellish. Most entrepreneurs I know can tell stories about that. Do the wantpreneurs fantasize about strategies for making payroll this month too yet? Then they’re growing up.
If you’re lucky, like I was at one point, you will during severe business troubles also be gifted with a woman going nuts with stress in the evenings and making your life extra hell 24/7 while you’re getting beaten up and losing bricks of personal money during the days. For a few months, maybe a year. Maybe it ends in personal bankruptcy after she leaves you when you’re finally out of energy. Nobody will care. (So really, don’t talk about your problems with people who can’t handle it.)
By the way, your intern saga reminds me a little of Oneitis. So get ten new interns. Maybe you should separate them into teams this time and have them compete with each other.
Or maybe you should set up a workspace in the US, because only the odd ones go to Indonesia for a career rather than a jaunt. Actually, leave the US for later. It sounds expensive.
I just handed a business idea to an in-law who works in medicine. She described this interesting unique IP she has developed that I think could be turned into a cash generator with a bit of guidance … maybe I should try being an angel for a change. A new set of problems at least, right? Fresh ulcers to develop.
xsplat said:
I’ve never been fond of the term “oneitis”.
I once lived with a girl for a year, and when she died I had intense grief for 6 months.
Was that oneitis? Whatever. We were in love, and she was not fungible. Not all holes are the same. She was in many ways MUCH MUCH MUCH better than any other girl I’ve ever had and that was by FAR the happiest year of my life.
Find and fuck 20 other girls is fine advice for a guy who hasn’t already experienced a lot of girls or who doesn’t have several girlfriends. My number is over 70 and I have 5 girlfriends right now and I still deeply grieve if I lose a girl.
That’s just my experience, and other people can scream oneitis all day long and it has zero effect on my experience. I love girls individually, and get attached to them individually. It’s called bonding, and is normal and healthy.
A lot of people have this philosophy of life that emotions are the enemy.
I don’t have that philosophy, and it would not matter if I did have that philosophy. I know MYSELF very well, and I know that emotions happen. I don’t try to stop grief, and believe that counseling to do so is inapplicable to a great many people.
As for getting new interns, if it was as simple as turning on a faucet and getting quality water I’d do so.
It’s EXTREMELY difficult to get people with very high language skills to come out here and put in the long hours required. That talks to the oneitis notion again – there is a bell curve of IQ and there is also a bell curve for language ability. There are one in one thousand skills, and one in ten thousand skills. You can’t just replace one person with another person.
Glengarry said:
Well, practically speaking, it’s your duty to the company to replace your perfect intern as soon as possible.
By the way, it’s a bit concerning that you view the presence of interns so seriously while they apparently just leave overnight without notice (and you never speak again?). Some sort of mismatch in expectations which you need to resolve at an earlier stage.
Nikolai Vladivostok said:
You can’t take business or work too personally. I know, easier said than done. But there are psychological tricks that can help.
1. Internal dialogue. If you catch yourself thinking, ‘That guy disrespected me personally and professionally. What did I ever do to him?’ replace it with, ‘Well if he’d just leave like that he can’t have been as good as he seemed anyway. He’ll never get anywhere with an attitude like that.’ Sour grapes are a good way of coping with the universe.
2. To deal with pain or stress, focus on the physical symptoms. Your thinking might go like this: ‘I feel really cut about that girl/employee/loss. Where does it hurt? Hmm. There it is, a large knot in my stomach that I can also feel tightening my throat and my temples. Can I cope with that? Yes. Do I need to go to hospital for those symptoms? No. Okay, so that’s how my body’s going to feel for a few days.’
3. Consider what is the worst thing that could happen. ‘Am I going to starve to death? No. Is the emperor going to have me boiled alive? No. Is there a giant asteroid headed for the earth that will wipe out 60% of extant species? Not that I know of. Worst that can happen is . . . I have to finish up this business and start a new one. I have $X to help bide me over. That is the worst case scenario. Okay, if it comes to that I’ll deal with it without being a big girl’s blouse about it.’
You’re probably busy but if you have time, Epicurean and Stoic philosophy have a lot to say about coping with the vagaries of life.
I’m not an expert on much but I’m good at life. Some people say to me, Nikolai, you’re so easygoing you’re horizontal.’ I should write a post about it. The main thing to remember is this: two men could live identical lives and one could be happy and the other could be miserable, even though the objective events are the same. Be the happy one.
xsplat said:
That’s great that that works for you.
As it’s your personal experience I can see how this would give you confidence that these techniques can and should apply universally.
My experience is in a number of ways drastically different from what other people explain as their experiences. For instance it’s some peoples experience that it’s possible to MGTOW and not have sex with girls. That’s not mine. I have a high sex drive and I psychologically need lots of sex with women, or I’m terribly unhappy.
Believe it or not some people actually disagree with me! They say that because that’s not THEIR personal experience, that it’s not mine.
Grief is another issue that I don’t believe that your techniques or philosphy address correctly fo most people.
Grieving is a painful process that people DO go through.
You can sit in the dentist chair and be philosophical about the pain, but it’s still painful. Heartbreak and grief have been shown to activate the same pain centers in the brain.
A Stoic philosophy in my opinion simply can not work for some people. Physically and biologically can not. Some people have “artistic” temperaments, and no amount of philosophy r talk therapy makes a difference.
I’m talking as a man who spent decades in study of Buddhism and got HEAVILY into meditation. It could hardly be possible for me to have more personal experience of what I’m talking about.
Pingback: Word From the Dark Side, 8/4/16 | SovietMen
gaikokumaniakku said:
Not all antidepressants are equals.
Serotonin-based antidepressants are very common, and very dangerous. They make many patients more violent than usual.
Bupropion acts as an norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor (NDRI). It is an atypical antidepressant different from most commonly prescribed antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
If you jack up your serotonin, that doesn’t make you more achievement-oriented.
If you jack up your norepinephrine and dopamine, you probably get more motivation to accomplish difficult tasks like running a business.
I am not a physician. Ask a doctor before taking prescription meds.