Creativity Dulling

My creativity has diminished over the last decade.

I no longer doodle. I don't stimulate my imagination. I haven't had many visions of late. I understand that nothing I do has real significance as given a thousand years everythign will change. This has dissuaded me from doing anything about my dream to conserve the planet and the species that live in it, however it has promoted acceptance instead.

This is reflected in part by the reduced blogging.

I have been addicted to the news, which is detrimental to my creativity due to the one-sided nature of western media. I am quitting the news to be able to make my own decisions and create my own dreams.

I have been addicted to travelling. I am almost at 80 countries now, having visited many countries multiple times. I don't see the value of this pursuit but it is addictive.

I note that at 33 years old, I may have lived 40% of my life. This is akin to 60% battery life remaining, which is scary and reminds myself that I must live ever ever single day to the fullest. Every single day is precious.

Fronting Up to Reality

I fucked up.

The last two years were meant to be the years where I lived the life I dreamt about and took it easy. Instead, I was pre-occupied with money. I spent my time searching for property, doing renovations, obtaining finance, and trading. Things that I did not truly desire. I had few dates. Yes, there have been some positives. I was generally more happy being retired than I was working. I spent around 12 months travelling, which was enjoyable but not my real objective. I won a football championship. I worked out and I spent time with family. However, deep down I know that I am in a mess sexually. Even though I have had good times, I had too many tough times.

I am particularly disappointed with trading. I almost killed the remaining cash I had in my bank through trading. I lost $25,000 through a series of stupid decisions in one single day. I then borrowed $10,000 on my credit card to try and recoup some of the losses and whittled that down to $3,000, before I fortunately regained my $10,000, which I promptly withdrew. However, my total trading losses since I started in 2009 exceed $85,000.

What is even worse is the psychological toll from the disappointment and the sadness I felt from trading. I have had a 5:1 sad to happy face day ratio while trading. I was sad for 84% of days that I felt happy or sad when I was trading. Even when I was making money I had more sad days than happy days. Financial matters accounted for a whopping 67% of my unhappiness since retiring. This is even higher than the 50% of my unhappiness due to work while I was working. It is unbelievable that I am devoting my finite time on this planet to sadness when I already have a fairly comfortable retirement lifestyle and there is no chance of making a billion through trading.

There's been so much hurt. This latest episode hasn't lasted long, less than one year in fact. But the pain; the opportunity cost is raw. I tell myself  'take the pain away from me and end the suffering in my heart and soul'. However, it's not as simple as saying that I will turn over a new page. I have been constantly seduced. In fact, in 2016 I told myself 'Stop trading forever. The fees kill all profit. It’s taking time away from my life and my goals. It’s not making me happy.'. I told myself that trading is too time consuming and that I can be out doing something I like, not looking at the computer or phone all day long and wrecking my social life. However, I got seduced by a certain stock last year and reactivated my trading account and put money in to leverage on that stock forgetting the fact that whenever I have money in my trading account after some time I get tempted to make other trades as well as forgetting the sadness, the time commitment, the opportunity cost, and the fees.

What nailed it home for me and I believe will end my trading was when I remembered that there are no billionaires I am aware of that got there just by trading their own money. The billionaires in this line of work who got there are running funds that invest other people's money. I was never going to be a billionaire trading my own money so I am going to stop. Why waste my precious time trading? You cannot become a billionaire through trading your own money because the more capital you have the harder it is to deploy (you can't take multi million dollar day positions easily in most stocks) and you can't have compounded returns. Similarly, I will not even become a millionaire, let alone a billionaire, trading cryptocurrency at this stage of the game. I am only willing to lose (or put in) $10,000 and you need to 100x to make a million which is not happening. I could have made $250,000 when I went in two years ago but my friend closed my position, but not a million or more. As the billionaire tables prove, a 20% return that can scale beats 200% that can't scale every time. Regardless, only such a tiny proportion of traders can even dream of 200% returns as studies have shown that 80% of traders lose money [1][2][3][4][5][6].

Despite the trading disaster, I learnt some valuable lessons. I learnt that I cannot put any funds from the sale of property into trading, which I was contemplating last year. I cannot believe I was seriously considering putting more money in. Based on my past experience, no matter how much I make, I will most likely lose it all from an emotionally ladened trade that goes wrong. I have lost it all five times trading CFDs and I promised myself I would stop trading in 2016 but then deposited more funds in. I learnt that the investor I respect that tripled his funds in 2017 used a standard brokerage account and does not do CFDs. I learnt that I have to continually withdraw money from trading instead of always depositing money in and losing it because with one poor decision all the funds I have can be wiped out in an instant. I now admit that I won't put any more money in and will simply put money into a standard brokerage account with some leverage instead and hold for the long term. I am also glad I found this out now instead of retiring at 70 and then getting lured into trading and wasting all my final years trading. I also remember that it's not over for my investing as I believe I can make way more than the amount I lost through share investing.

The amount of money I had in my trading account is minuscule. I was spending 90% of my time thinking about increasing the 1% of my wealth that I had in my trading account. Even if it increases 5 times, it only represents 5% of my wealth. It is idiotic and illogical. I should focus on the other 99% of my wealth instead, such as any funds freed up from a sale of property.

The bigger issue now is my dating life. I am now in my early 30s and I want to marry in my late 30s. Time is ticking. What am I waiting for? There will always be time to earn more money if I wish, but there is a time limitation on my dating life.

Students get tutors to improve their studies. Sports players get coaches. I cannot expect results if I repeatedly do the same thing over and over again. Practice will help, such as when I was continually putting myself out there in sales, but the improvement will be faster with coaching. For example, if I practice tennis on a fortnightly basis my level of tennis would only improve gradually. Similarly, watching tennis videos or watching motivational videos may drive some incremental improvement. However, I need to transform.

I know that my most recent travels have not made me happy. I know that dating is my priority and I need to devote time to practice and getting coaching.

I don't want to die. This is effectively what has happened with my focus on money and lack of focus on dating. It is do or die now as I wish to marry in my late 30s. I remember the times getting motivated when I walked around a park near my home vowing action, watching a tennis final and feeling inspired, and playing Bon Jovi songs to get fired up, but the motivation quickly dissipated afterwards. I remember the times I had girls reject me for another guy and it is incredibly heartbreaking and shows me that my game is not good enough. I know I have to go for it 100%. I expect two dates a week. I don't want to waste my life for the pursuit of wealth as my ego will never rest until I achieve immortality. I have to focus on my life instead.

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A large part of the past 3 years of retired life have not gone the way I would have liked.

I have 8 years remaining until I am 40. I need to remember that. I need to choose how I allocate my time wisely.

I need to get up off the mat. Accept that I got hit but not let that take me down. I will get back up and fight. I put the bad things aside and move forward towards my goals, knowing I cannot take money with me to the grave. By moving towards my goals, I will invest time and energy in things that matter most tome.

I remind myself that I only wasted 1 year. 1 out of 80 years of my life. It's like Steve Smith losing 1 year. I still have plenty of life left and I probably will reap improved cash flow from the 1 year that was gone, so effectively it is similar to working 1 year

I acknowledge the pain and lessons learned with trading, low cash flow, not going for my goals. I acknowledge that I must not ever get into a situation of low cash reserves again because I won't have enough for a sudden emergency that may arise. I need to have at least 50k in liquid instruments at all times to deal with any unexpected contingencies, instead of having in all locked away in property.

I missed the whole point of what I wrote in (Music and Life).

How much of my time (being my life) do I want to allocate to this?

I read this and I will do the same thing and commit to it:

I’m at a 10 always regardless of my situation. I’ve promised myself and signed a contract that stipulates, “I will live in pure happiness, joy and godly appreciation in every moment of my life regardless of what is happening.” In other words I’ve 100% removed any dependence on the situation, whether it’s people, places, things, work, my body and all events going on in my life. There are always things happening in our lives, as that’s life. Let go of judging things right and wrong, good and bad and you have more than happiness, you have true inner peace. Even when I have emotions of sadness and moments of anger, there’s an underlying happiness that I get to experience these emotions and it passes right through me and then back to peace, love and appreciation. Like everything, the more you do this the better you get at it. Start with daily journaling.

Visions

After the suffering from losing money trading, I had a moment or two.

Losing my way

I knew that I had gradually been taken over by bad desires. More specifically, these are characteristics that I didn't want for myself. I was desperate to make money and I lost touch of humanity. This in part led to my unhappiness.

The predominant spirit that came to mind was greed. Not only that, I was selfish, envious, and lacked generosity.

I prayed to change my attitude. I was sorry for what I had become. As I did so, I felt less constricted and my heart more open.

What is God?

I thought about the definition of God. God can mean different things to different people.

Some may associate God with an image, an image of a person or religious idol.

In fact, I do not know whether there is God. I simply associate God as the spiritual amorphous, something that cannot really be defined.

I think that God is not tied to a religion. God exists prior to religion. How about babies and tribal people who don't know religion? Do they know God?

Accumulations

As a functioning human being who has been alive for over 2 years, I have accumulated learnings, habits, values, opinions, a way I perceive the world. These are shaped by external influences, most notably the people around me and information I consume.

Adults tend to become hardened with predisposed notions, with their own interpretation, set in their ways.

We are bombarded by information, from people, writings, and more recently the incessant connection to the digital.

I want to let go of all these accumulations. The accumulations are not me. I want to live like a child, open to everything.

I thought about Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness. I want to be like that, without interference.

These accumulations also give way to unconscious habits and behaviours. Amongst other habits, I am chasing money, sleeping a certain way, focused on property, have a fear of the supernatural, have issues with God. These did not exist when I was young

Overcome these accumulations and the unintended mind.

Reset

On the treadmill. Losing sight of my dreams.

This has been the disappointing reality of this year. I got caught up ruminating over how I can make another million as I realised that a few million in the bank doesn't make me feel rich and that my cash flow is not as good as I want it to be. My lack of happiness made me realise that there is no joy in winning the lottery as I would have put the proceeds to use in a similar way to what I have done.

In hindsight, I would not have chased another project if I had known how long and stressful it would have been. I spent months sourcing finance and chasing contractors to get the project off the ground. I researched purchasing more properties to make another few hundred thousand dollars. I wasted days trading the markets where I risk ten thousand dollars to only make a few hundred dollars, which is immensely stupid given that I could have aimed for a home run instead. I also made some long term strategic bets on gold and mining stocks given the risky global political and economic situation and impending clean energy boom.

I highly regret the trading and would not have pursued the property project if I had my time again, however I think it is prudent to invest in gold to hedge against the forthcoming downturn in the financial markets.

The desire for more wealth will never end. I thought it was over it when I documented my obsession with wealth, however I accept that the desire is deeply ingrained. I witness the same desire among wealthy acquaintances. I am unhappy while staying at home just thinking about ways to make money. I am not living any more. The time remaining until I wish to settle down is ticking down, so too the time remaining until I die. I have not dedicated time to planning my future or contemplating my deep endeavours as I feel the need to get the project underway and my investments sorted first.

The sole focus on my finances has killed other aspects of my life. While my health and fitness is very good and I enjoy spending an extended time with family, I have not devoted time to pursuing happiness or relationships. Initially, my situation was even worse as I was also occupied by explicit material and suffering from hair loss, where I was losing sex drive and contemplating a hair transplant, although both of these issues have since improved somewhat.

I keep procrastinating on my goals. My goals spreadsheet contains some big ticket items that I keep postponing until some undetermined later date. It hurts me that I have been stuck at home, while my youth is disappearing. Time is limited. I am cognisant of the fact that I must go for my goals. I have set the next year or two to complete my current goal list by ticking off my goals one by one and end the endless delay.

I am bitterly sad that I have not committed to living the life I want and travelling to the destinations I wanted to go this year. I wanted to do an extended stay in Latin America after enjoying my previous visits and the simple things in life. I haven't committed. I wanted to do a few trips to Antarctica. I haven't done one yet. I wanted to drive the Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches. I haven't even driven one. There are other goals I have and I will need to start making in-roads on each. One by one.

I remember when I had a brain, but that brain was taken over by the pursuit of vanity, under the glorified pretence of riches. I remember that I am given to a certain perspective of the world. As a gambler's mind is trapped in a world of their own, so too each human and living creature has their own versions of reality. There are also many out of the world experiences recorded in history which challenge conventional perspective, including the biblical accounts of Jonah's time in a belly of a big fish and Elijah with the fiery horses. Each being's reality is simply their own.

I have suffered a lack of epiphanies. My thinking has become more monotone, a consequence of overuse of the analytical part of the brain over the creative, over-consumption of media, and the set routine of the daily grind. Subject to slavery to preoccupation confined to the financial, discovery becomes limited and both wisdom and peace distant.

What's the point of living to simply work day by day accumulating money to no end? I just carve out a meagre existence where I am surviving, not thriving. I am put onto this planet for a moment in time with no certainty about what happens after my life is over. In this brief window of time I must take action to go for what I desire, while accepting the risks and rewards.

If my end goal is bliss, I suspect I will not be overly motivated building a company. Building a business to achieve more money than everyone else is what is shown to be successful in the media and I lap it up. I am no happier with $2 million than when I had $50,000. Yet, I am enticed by the billionaires of the world, I read about it and all my friends are working for the money. In the world's eyes success is just about money and fame. I have the wealth, health, and fame and none of them have brought me any joy. I have forsaken happiness in the trade off for wealth. People who are successful in business live and breath it and it's just not what I am after.

Acknowledging the deviation from and deferment of my goals coupled with my own loss of consciousness, I have to find the will to press the reset button to re-calibrate.

Exercise

Exercise makes me more relaxed and lifts my mood. A good workout session makes me more open to people and gives me more confidence.

High intensity interval training that generates a bit of huff and puff is excellent for the health. Interval training works both the aerobic and the anaerobic system, to help build endurance and speed. It has been found to improve mitochondrial functioning, insulin levels, and heart and lung health. Exercise of vigorous intensity is associated with cardiovascular disease and cancer mortality benefits. Implementing high intensity training has also been shown to prevent or delay ageing.

For a balanced fitness program, strength training is essential. This comprises regular resistance training using your own body weight or weights. Strength training can slow the muscle loss that comes with age, build the strength of your muscles and connective tissues, increase bone density, cut your risk of injury, and help ease arthritis pain. Studies have found that muscle-building exercise can also improve balance, reduce the likelihood of falls, improve blood-sugar control, hormone improvement, sharpen thinking and memory, and improve sleep and mental health. It helps prevent frailty, which is the number one reason people go into dependent care. The more muscle mass older people have, the less likely they are to die prematurely.

Importantly, exercising the muscles releases myokines, which reduces the low-level inflammation in the body that contributes to heart disease, type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's, as well as working as tumour suppressants. Inflammation is particularly nasty as it is a precursor to many diseases and conditions, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, and arthritis. It could be argued that without inflammation, most disease would not even exist. Warding off inflammation involves proper exercise, eating a clean diet with reduced fats and sugars, reducing stress, adequate sleep, living in a good environment with good air and water quality, creating conditions of love and appreciation, and keeping positive attitudes.

In addition to cardio and strength training, it is vital to incorporate flexibility training too. Doing stretches and massaging the body loosens up the body. Flexibility training assists with posture, improves range of motion, improves circulation and blood flow, and reduces the risk of injury and pain.

Exercise can be thought of as a pill that boosts energy and strength and improves resistance to disease. Physical exercise improves appearance and confidence, keeps hormonal balance and is a critical ingredient to staying fit and healthy.

While exercise is good for the body, it is important to avoid over-exercising. This can arise in endurance sports from repetitive overuse or where the body is exhausted without sufficient rest to restore and rejuvenate. It is worth noting that females have a longer life expectancy but they don't necessarily exercise as vigorously as males.

An exercise routine does not need to take long. Thirty minutes of exercise three times a week touching on cardio, strength and flexibility, in combination with an active lifestyle, is sufficient. This could be extended further when training for a specific sport or fitness goal. 

The Plague of Media

The media is mostly garbage and the consumption of media without proper critique is a disease.

Today's western media is increasingly conformist and opinionated, far removed from factual reporting.

There is a constant discussion of topics that bear little interest to me, but are referred to time and time again. These include ways to climb the corporate ladder, saving for retirement, equating success to getting rich, politics, sexism, the gap between generations, human rights, LGBT rights, refugees, climate change, weight loss and obesity. There is a total focus on the US, which makes up less than 5% of the world population, whereas regions that I believe are experiencing the most difficulty get completed ignored, such as Yemen, Syria and Somalia.

There is no discussion of issues that I feel are more important such as nature, science, maximising our lives, satisfaction, spirituality, and stories of people doing amazing things with their lives.

The media is plagued with inaccuracies, even from so called reputable sources. It is becoming increasing politically correct. There are no alternative viewpoints, despite their claim to support free speech. The media is making people dumb. Although I receive less exposure to media from other countries, I have anecdotal accounts suggesting that there are similar issues plaguing media in non-western countries.

Update (28/9/18): I am going to formally quit (or attempt to quit) reading Fairfax news and News.com.au and really any Australia media.
1. Way too American leaning, and anti Trump and anti China
2. Way too feminist, always discussion about sexism against females
3. Too much politics
4. Always discussio about crime
5. Always politically correct, never cracking jokes
I hate Australian media opinions and their negative effect on me. It may be a reflection of Australian people and their behaviour. It's fucking addictive but so destructive. I don't even give a fuck about the property news any more if I have to put up with their shit. I never used to consume the news like this when I was in school. It ruins the way you think, making you one dimensional just like Nazi Germany and lose creativity and the way to think independently

There is and never has been such a thing as right or wrong, equal or unequal. It is all one's interpretation and a certain prevailing interpretation is becoming normalised across western media.

Swayed

We are all swayed.

I am swayed by others, even if they are people I admire. I may see their photos on Instagram and feel I that I should emulate them.

I am swayed by my family that means well.

I am swayed by my friends, people I talk to, the content that I consume.

All of this is deceptive.

I must always pause and ask myself: what do I truly want right now.

I need to live my life and not have my life dictated by others.

I must not fall into the trap of reading news which does not add any value to my life.

It is easy to be swayed by others if I don't have a purpose with my life.

It is easy to fall in line with someone else's values or norms.

As we get older, we learn less. Our opinions harden.

This too is deceptive.