Beyond Rules

8/6/2019 Beyond Rules

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Beyond Rules The Friendly Anarchist 2

Dedicated to Cristina - and to all those who, silently and lovingly, live beyond rules.


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....................................................................ONE: Introducing Rules 9

.... .................................................................................................................//! The Age of Anything Goes! 10

.... ....................................................................................................................................//! Beyond Rules! 12

.... ......................................................................................................................//! Lifestyles versus Rules! 14

.... ....................................................................................................//! The Go Beyond Rules Flow Map! 15

.............T WO: How to Believe Nothing (and Still Learn Something) 17

.... .........................................................................................................................//! The Buddha Incident! 17

.... ......................................................................................................................//! My Story in 200 Words! 19

.... .............................................................................................................................//! How to Learn Stuff! 20

.... ...................................................................................................................//! Gentle Little Huge Steps! 22

....................THREE: Rules and Ruloids: An (Incomplete) Bestiary 24

.... ..................................................................................................................//! Entangled Dependencies! 27

.... ......................................................................................................//! The System to End All Systems?! 28

.... ..................................................................//! Personal Sovereignty 101: Your Own Philosophy of Life! 30

.... ........................................//! One Rule to Rule Them All: Friendliness (and a Voluntary Contradiction)! 32

.........................................................................FOUR: Space Travel 35

.... .........................................................................................................................................//! The Riddle! 35

.... ...................................................................................................................//! Drop-Outs and Opt-Outs! 36

.... ............................................................................//! Treating the Symptoms versus Going to the Core! 37


Fun Fact:

This book isshorter than it looks.

Ask your trusteddesigner about the

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.... ..................................................................................................................//! In Defense of Inefficiency! 40

.... ..........................................................................................................................................//! The Portal! 42

.... .............................................................................................................................//! Your Trip to Space! 44

......................................................FI VE: Your Space Beyond Rules 49

.... ..............................................................................................................................//! Values, Not Rules! 50

.... ..............................................................................................................................//! Needs and Wants! 53

.... .................................................................................................................//! Define Your Own Success! 56

.... ...................................................................................................//! The Power of Internal Goal-Setting! 59

.... .......................................................................................................................................//! Now, Dance! 61

.......................................................................SIX: Unmethodology 63.... ......................................................................................................................//! Experiment as Method! 63

.... ....................................................................................................................................//! Trial and Error! 66

.... .......................................................................................................................//! Deliberately Dilettante! 68

.... ........................................................................................................................//! Dont Go for Rewards! 70

.............................................................SE VEN: Deciding to Change 73

.... ...........................................................................................................................//! A Decisive Decision! 75

.... ...................................................................................................................................//! How to Decide! 76

.... ..........................................................................................................................//! Decision as Process! 78



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.................................................EIGHT: Productivity Beyond Rules 80

.... ....................................................................................................................................//! The Compass! 80

.... .....................................................................................................//! The Trick to Getting Things Done! 82

.... ..................................................................................................................//! A Conspiracy for Change! 85

.... .................................................................................................................................//! Imperfectionism! 88

.... ..............................................................................................................................//! Stay With Difficult! 89

.... ......................................................................................................//! Escape from Coffee-shop Nation! 90

.... ............................................................................................................................................//! Shipping! 91

.....................................................NINE: Live Your Own Adventure 93

.... .........................................................................................................//! The Delusion of Awesomeness! 93

.... ..........................................................................................................................//! What Are the Odds?! 95

.... ....................................................................//! You Are Not Alone: An Invitation to Stay Beyond Rules! 99

.... ...................................................................................................................................//! Its Up To You! 101

.......................................................................................Appendix 102

.... .........................................................................................................................//! Acknowledgements! 102

.... ..................................................................................................................................................//! P.S.! 105

.... ...............................................................................................................................................//!

P.P.S.!

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RULE

a regulation or principle governing conduct within a particular activity or

sphere.

1. a law or principle that operates within a particular sphere of knowledge,

describing or prescribing what is possible or allowable.

2.control of or domination over an area or people.

3.the normal or customary state of things.

GOING BEYOND RULES

1. getting conscious about the principles governing our conduct in order to

transcend them.

2. eliminating undesired control and domination, and replacing them with

personal sovereignty and self-government.

3. embracing uncommon ways of living an interesting life.



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You need to get a job.

You need to take your anti-depressants.

You need to have six-figure income.

You need to marry a beautiful spouse.

You need to perform flawlessly.

You need to look like the TV starlets.

You need to drive a bigger car than your neighbor.

You need to be fit as a fiddle.

You need to create a revolutionary movement.

You need to see a doctor.You need to become way more productive.

You need to buy an iPhone.

You need to eat your greens.

You need to dominate others.

You need to fit in.

Alternatively, you need to go beyond rules.



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ONE: Introducing Rules

We fetishize rules.Rules give us order and clear instructions. Rules show uswhat is possible and what is not. Rules maintain things in an orderly state that

we know, and that makes us feel comfortable. Rule-breakers can be sanctioned

easily. Rules are a question of comfort, they are part of our customs, and they

are also quite useful in many instances.

On the downside, rules constrict us

and strip us of responsibility - to a

degree that can be unfulfilling atbest, dangerous at worst: Following

the rules can mean pretty much

anything from being an exemplary

employee, to suffering under boring

office procedures, to reaching the

the extremes of creating mass

murderers likeAdolf Eichmann.

Once established, rules are easy to

apply in everyday life. They create a

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black-and-white world that encourages to pass over a deeper analysis of any

concrete situation. This is only possible at the cost of a simplification of real-

life situations that are in fact often too complex to be standardized.

Although it can be a helpful basis for decision-making at times, a formal rule

system will never be able to honestly represent the complexity of real life, no

matter how big and complex it becomes itself.

Also, as reality permanently changes, any established rule system becomes

obsolete pretty fast, and thus it has to be updated constantly.

Summing up, rules often deliver less than optimal results. But as they are partof our normality, all we do is perpetuate them: We accept the rules of the

game, or we trick them. We refine them, or we replace them. We corrupt them,

or we improve them. We just never go beyond them.

//! The Age of Anything Goes

Living by the rules isnt a huge problem as long as life and the world itself

move at an orderly pace. As long as the world at large acts according to a rulesystem everybody knows about and everybody adheres to, a life based on it can

be quite comfortable, even though it might be unfulfilling for some.



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The problem is that we arent living in anAge of Rules anymore. We are living

in anAge of Anything Goes: Whatever can be done will be done. The only

question is whether it will be done by you or to you, Pulitzer Prize winner

Thomas L. Friedman writes in The World is Flat.

On a business level, many people are getting conscious about this: Companies

have to develop better solutions for new problems, or the competition will do

it. But the same is true on a personal level: If we dont pursue our own ways

actively, we will have to suffer passively. If we dont question the rules we live

by, we will live by the rules of others, or by rulesets that are outdated and

obsolete. By adhering to these old rules, then, we will behave like ice-hockey

players looking for the puck, when the rest of the world just went figure-

skating.

We could, of course, adapt to the changes in the world by merely inventing

new rules - but who says that they will serve us any better than the old ones?

We might be faster in adapting than bureaucratic institutions, but in the end,

we might end up stressed and would stillbe too slow for the world.

The lesson? In theAge of Anything Goes, rules become obstacles.

The alternative? We opt out from the old rules, and create something better.



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//! Beyond Rules

Of course its great when red light means stop, and green light means go.

Everybody knows it, and it makes everybodys lives somewhat easier. There are

some rules that make sense, and thats nothing I want to dispute here.

On the other hand, were probably all guilty of having crossed a red light late at

night, when we were hoofing it and it was raining and it was cold and there

was a three-headed monster chasing us and no policeman was looking and

absolutely no car was approaching nowhere.

Its this kind of rule-breaking that works great for everybody (except for three-

headed monsters). Unfortunately, we often dont notice the rain and

the cold and the tiredness, while waiting for the red lights in our

life to turn green.Whenever that happens, we arent able to break the rules,

because we are not aware that there are any rules that couldbe broken in the

first place. The real problem here is not anyspecific rule at all, but our

unconsciousness.

Consequently, going beyond rules means first of all becoming aware of therules we live by, analyze them, and then, where necessary, eliminate or

transcend them. This will allow us to (re)create a life thats more in agreement

with our personal flow.



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By advocating a life beyond rules, I am not advocating a world of brutal

disorder where only the strongest survive. (This is probably pure selfishness,

because Im a lover, not a fighter. But Im also a fighter, so don't get any ideas!)

My intention is to invite you to question those rules that do limit and harm

you, in order to transcend them, and go beyond what you considered possible

and allowable until now.

My intention is to remind you that nobody forces us to live a life based on

other peoples preferences, under other peoples control or domination, and

that we are free to live under personal sovereignty and self-government.

My intention is to pause for a moment, and remember that we only have one

life, and suggest that living it beyond the normal and customary state of

things could be more interesting and fulfilling than you might have thought.

Going beyond rules is first of all an exercise in consciousness: If were not

aware of our choices, how can we choose?

Once we are conscious, not choosing (or choosing something ridiculous) is awhole different problem - but it comes aftersolving the first one!

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//! Lifestyles versus Rules

How do we win in life? There must be a script!

This is a question that will probably tear us apart. My answer is: I think we

dont. And: There isnt any script.

Life isnt won by the first person to hit the graveyard. Its not won by the

person that takes more money, fame and gadgets into the tomb. Its not won

by the textbook lifehacker who wont rest until hes dead.

As far as I can tell, life isnt to be won; its to be lived. And its not a race, sorry.

As long as there are no three-headed monsters behind us, we dont have to run.

Mind you, making loads of money, seeking fame, buying gadgets and being a

textbook lifehacker can all be part of a happy existence. I dont believe they are

particularly important, nor particularly interesting, but who am I to judge? If

thats what you want - and its allyou want -, please go ahead.

But if you find yourself in a rut, and if you think your community, your

country, or maybe even the world at large is in some kind of a rut, too, then I

invite you to leave your old rulesets behind for a moment, and stop looking for

a script.



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Theres the law and theres whats right. Im gonna do whats right, Sartana

says in the movieMachete. In our context: There are rules and theres whats

right. We should do whats right, too!

How do we know whats right?

As it turns out, doing whats right is not a question of creating rule systems

that provide us with a clear script for every possible situation in our lives. I

agree with many ancient thinkers - the Stoics, the Epicureans, Aristotle, and

others - that living the good life is not so much about knowing which specific

action to take in anyspecific moment.

Its about choosing the right lifestyle, and being the right

person. This will lead us to taking the right actions, without the need for a

script.

//! The Go Beyond Rules Flow Map

Beyond Rules is escaping your personal three-headed monsters, even if the

traffic lights are still red. Beyond Rules is having breakfast at 7pm.

Beyond Rules is being smarter than your boss.



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Beyond Rules is playing like a kid, no matter if youre 6 or 67.

Beyond Rules is belly-laughing for 25 minutes straight, even though youre

not drunk.

But its also belly-laughing for 25 minutes straight when youre drunk.

Beyond Rules is doing what works, without having a fail-proof script to

follow.

Your turn: Go wild, imagine, dream, brainstorm, and paint it in the most

colorful weirdness: How will you go beyond rules?

Feel free to share the results with me on Mails Beyond Rules! (More on that in

the last chapter!)

(There will be more of those red arrows coming up. They indicate an

opportunity to let the text go for a while, and do something practical!)

http://eepurl.com/bwVefhttp://eepurl.com/bwVef


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TWO: How to Believe Nothing (and Still

Learn Something)

BELIEVE NOTHING, NO MATTER WHERE YOU READ IT, OR WHO SAID IT - EVEN IF I

HAVE SAID IT - UNLESS IT AGREES WITH YOUR OWN REASON AND YOUR OWN COMMON

SENSE.BUDDHA

//! The Buddha Incident

Always include Buddha, he told me, speaking German with a heavy accent.

Always include Buddha, always include Oscar Wilde. Wilde and Buddha,man. Wilde and Buddha. They will give you instant credibility.

I was having a couple of beers with a French scholar, and he was briefing me

on how to write my first bestseller, even though he knew I wasnt going to sell

it in the first place.

Thoreau is an option, he continued, as he exhaled the heavy smoke from his

filterless cigarette, but Buddha - Buddha is a must. Wilde is optional, too, butit shows that youre not a lame-ass.



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I wasnt sure if he was kidding. Of course, I didnt want to be a lame-ass. But I

really didnt want to be all that clich, either. (Did you notice, though, how

Buddhas wisdom instantly seems to rub off on me just by using a quote from

him?)

When thinking about it, many people seem indeed to be quite happy to study

interesting quote collections, without ever making something of the wisdom

they consume.

Here is a sad truth:

Studying fancy Buddha quotes wont take you anywhere.Reading this book wont take you anywhere.

And much less will I.

You will.

This is good news for the both of us (and for Buddha), because it leaves you at

the steering wheel of your life, and its much less work for me. (Its also much

more work for you, but I wont be so stupid to write that here or you will leaveand check Youtube right away, only to never come back.Instant gratification

FTW!)



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The secret to believing nothing and still learning something is to walk with

open eyes and an open mind, and to take nothing for granted just because an

authority - a book, a person, a smirking internet marketer - says it. So why

should you read this book?

//! My Story in 200 Words

Before we get going, you might be asking: What the heck, this book has got

like a hundred pages! Why on Earth should I read it? It looks like waaaay

TLTR. And who is that fellow writing this stuff anyway?

As far as credentials go, Im just a guy. More precisely, Im a 29 year oldEuropean with hobo blood running through my veins, spending my time as a

traveling writer, thinker, artist, activist and idler. Ive got a college degree in

Latin American Studies, and specialized a bit in philosophy, myth and the

(classical) liberal arts.

After college, I could have pursued a normal career by applying for a normal

job, but I dislike two things: Stress and boredom. Unfortunately, both of them

are common consequences of getting a normal job and pursuing a normalcareer.

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I got clear about the stress issue when finding myself in a hospital after surgery

due to a stress-related illness.

I got clear about the boredom issue when talking to my colleagues in theoffices of a big supranational organization in Bogot, Colombia.

I ultimately decided to opt out and create an alternative when traveling

upstream the Amazon, observing the monkeys chasing each other in the trees.

My goal was to embrace a slower, more mindful, and more interesting lifestyle,

and I started writing about it on The FriendlyAnarchist.

You can find more information about me here.

//! How to Learn Stuff

As it turns out, life is not (just) about credibility and credentials. As much as I

trust certified pilots and well-trained surgeons, I have met many wise people

who have taught me two big lessons when it comes to learning:

Everybody can be your teacher.

You have to draw your own conclusions.

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Everybody can be your teacher, is a classical saying, and it is true - as

long as we are good students. The things I learned in my life were taught to me

by very different people: Some of them were professors with multiple PhDs,

others were drop-outs and bums that decided to live and die at a beach. Myteachers were men and women, children and retirees, conservatives and

liberals, straights and queers, atheists and preachers, Colombians and French

and Germans and Brazilians and US Americans and Catalans - to make it

short, people from all over the world.

Some lessons I learned on my own, by just observing my surroundings; some

lessons I learned through books and ancient philosophers; some by employing

trial and error.

Teachers and teachings are all around us, but we have to be willing to learn.

You have to draw your own conclusions: The flip side of teachers and

teachings being all around us is that it can get pretty overwhelming. All kinds

of people and information compete for our attention, and sometimes its hard

to choose to whom we should listen, and whom we should ignore.

If we try to listen to everything, we wont be able to make any sense of it. If we

dont listen to anything, we will miss out.



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The solution I personally found to be working best is to be open to input from

many sides, but avoid being manipulated. Its where the Buddha quote

becomes important: We may listen to anybody and anything, but we always

have to draw our own conclusions. No matter how authoritative someone acts,its up to us to test if what we are told holds up to our standards.

This is the best spirit to get the most out of this book.

//! Gentle Little Huge Steps

In this book, we will fight toxic dependencies, develop a friendly anarchistic

mindset, travel to space, eat hazelnut ice-cream, opt out from systems (or eventhe system - up to you!), work with our values and goals, find new definitions

for success, and a whole lot of other things. We already hugged the Buddha,

and were just getting started!

Depending on how motivated and energetic you are at this very moment, all of

this may seem a bit overwhelming. No need for despair, though: Its right that

in order to go beyond rules, there are some huge steps to take. The good thing

is that even huge steps can be taken gently, so I would like to invite you towork with this book at your own pace.



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Feel free to have a break whenever you feel like it, and come back later. Also, if

my internal editor made me write things that dont make sense to you, you can

always reach me by mail: [email protected]

To think about: Who are your most uncommon teachers? Why do you trust

them? And whats the one thing even the most stupid person in your

surroundings can teach you?

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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THREE: Rules and Ruloids: An (Incomplete)

Bestiary

Rules come in many styles and flavors, they hide in many linings and

disguises, behind various masks and makeups. Often, they wear the latest

fashion. Sometimes, they just wear the emperors new clothes. And still, they

keep being the same old limiting rules that we would like to identify, analyze

and if we deem it best get rid off. Here are some of them:

Routines: These are the rules no aggrieved party ever agreed on, and that still

make our days as it turns out, generally not to the best avail.

The System: The biggest rule of all and still so elusive. Shes easy to

blame because she cant defend herself; yet its not very helpful to chase her,

because shes harder to catch than the Himalayan Yeti.

Systems: Not to be confused with their megalomaniac great grandmother,

these bad boys are often well-groomed, despite their excessive use of pomade.

They can be helpful, but they are also quite unsympathetic, because they force

us to cut ourselves into pieces only to fit their mold.



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To Do Lists: These are the Chihuahua equivalent of rules. They bark, they

yelp, they yap around and if they can, they bite our calves. Thankfully, they

are easy to get rid off, because even if we dont manage to get all the things on

them done, we can still tick them off when nobody is watching.

Dependencies: These rules are often friendly, as they allow us to drink coffee

without growing, roasting, or even preparing it on our own. They provide us

with plenty of comfort and car repairs and ice-cream and entertainment. That

often makes us forget their sucky side we get to experience when we dont

know how to change that tire on the emergency lane during an autumn

cloudburst.

Sovereignty: Shes the beauty queen that never seems to get older, and

everybody is dying to date her. Unfortunately, most people dont even get her

to answer their phone calls, because shes way too smart and too self-

determined to please everybody.

Careerism: Together with his brother Consumerism, this girl is part of our

DNA nowadays. Shes always well-dressed and impressively annoying, because

all she can think about is how to please her bosses and brush up her CV.



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Consumerism: This rule drives fast cars and always brags with the latest

gadgets, spending the money of his sister. Together with her, hes said to be a

direct descendant of The System, but apparently, nobody ever lives long

enough to give a more detailed testimony.

What-Will-The-Neighbors-Think: The trickiest rule of all, this guy is

always good for a joke at our cost, killing every even remotely interesting or

unconventional idea that comes to our mind. Even though he appears to be

witty, Id recommend to stay away from him, because he smells just as funny

as he looks.

Of course, this list remains incomplete, and I would love you tocontinue it. Maybe, during the course of your life, you have met some other

family members and friends from the Rule Clan. Just think about Regulation,

Directive, Order, Act, Law, Statute, Edict, Canon, Mandate, Command,

Dictate, Decree, Fiat, Injunction, Commandment, Stipulation, Requirement,

Guideline, Direction, Formal Ordinance, Procedure, Practice, Protocol,

Convention, Norm, Custom, Habit, Precept, Principle, Standard, Axiom,

Control, Jurisdiction, Power, Dominion, Government, Administration,Leadership, Supremacy, Authority, and Co.!



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We will look at three members of this particular clan in more detail now:

Dependencies, Systems, and Sovereignty.

//! Entangled DependenciesAs modern human beings, we are entrenched in a confusing web of

dependencies: We are dependent of a job to pay our bills, dependent of

corporations to feed us, dependent of other people to accompany us, even

dependent of entertainment systems and companies to keep us busy in our

free time. If we look at it closely, pretty much any area of our lives is

constricted by dependencies: Relationships, work, leisure, health, food, and

even our very own minds and thoughts.

As outlined in the bestiary, dependencies arent always negative or even ill-

intended. But they often arent the best thing that could happen to us either:

Dependencies like to dominate us, they want to be central to our lives. Thus,

they convince us that we cannot live without them, even when this isnt the

case.

Accepting these entangled dependencies blindly means giving away control.When we do that, we behave like a foolish kid in front of the metaphorical red



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light from our first chapter: We follow the rule and wait, while the three-

headed monster starts devouring our body, that is: our lifetime.

The trick to coping with dependencies, as with all other rules as well, is tobecome aware of them, analyze them, and transcend them wherever we deem

it necessary. In short, we have to be smarter than them, and being smarter

starts with calling them out.

Giving a name to our dependencies makes it easier to get a grip on them. Even

though our superstitious self might fear that (calling something out might

invoke it; just think of You-Know-Who, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,

The Dark Lord - Voldemort!), its incredibly helpful in practice: When wename them, the dependencies instantly lose much of their power, because they

become easier to handle. Its like seeing the monster for the first time, giving

us the ability to evaluate how dangerous it really is.

//! The System to End All Systems?

Even when we attempt to go beyond rules, we might really just be exchanging

one ruleset for another: Once we arent buying into the tenure systemanymore, we buy into the self-employment system. Once we get rid of the teen

fashion system, we buy into the office look system. And so on.



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Of course, nobody exists in a vacuum, so all of us are influenced by other

people to some degree. Just as much as we all have certain dependencies, we

all live within and use certain systems.

One pretty popular system nowadays is the unconventional rock star life

system. (Much of it could also be called shady-internet-marketers-way-to-rip-

people-off system, but that probably wouldnt sell all that well.) The

underlying problem is that we all love to buy prepackaged solutions, even if we

believe to behave unconventionally. Prepackaged systems are comfortable,

they are easy to get in exchange for money, and they are marketed in some

form or another, so that they manipulate us into perceiving them as the

solution we are looking for.

The problem is that they dont work.

The unconventional rock star life system creator wants you to buy into his

system - maybe because he really cares for your progress and happiness,

maybe because he just wants to make some money. Whatever the reason, he

requires you to adjust yourself to fit into a mold he creates. If that doesnt

work, it must be your fault - right?



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As long as you believe that, you are a nice cash-cow for him, but you probably

wont manage to create the changes in your life you would like to see.

The solution to this does not come in form ofany book or guru. If you reallywant to solve it, you have to become your own guru, and write your own book.

This is a lot harder than just buying into a prepackaged solution, but the good

thing about it is that it actually works.

It will be a long walk - but maybe you can convince Ms. Sovereignty to

accompany you on your trip!

//! Personal Sovereignty 101: Your Own Philosophy of LifeBeing sovereign means having supreme, independent authority over a

territory, and derives from the Latin superanus, meaning being above. Whos

above you?

Nowadays, we generally understand states as being sovereign, and there is

much political debate and even wars waged if a nation state feels its

sovereignty was violated. At the same time, our personal sovereignty isviolated all the time, and we rarely do something about it. Yet if we want to

take control of our lives and opt out from detrimental dependencies, we have

to become personal sovereigns.



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In his book,A Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine makes a point in

remembering us of the importance of having a philosophy of life that can be

our guidance. While the primary goal of most ancient philosophers was to

help ordinary people live better lives, nowadays, most philosophers just dontdedicate time to these matters anymore. The reason? According to Irvine,

modern individuals rarely see the need to adopt a philosophy of life. They

instead tend to spend their days working hard to be able to afford the latest

consumer gadget, in the resolute belief that if only they buy enough stuff, they

will have a life that is both meaningful and maximally fulfilling.

(Un)surprisingly, this generally doesnt work all that well. This is one of the

reasons we buy into self-help systems - which doesnt work either, as

mentioned above. The single best countermeasure really is to create our own

philosophy of life: In the words of Irvine, we have to find a grand goal in

living, and then pursue the necessary strategies to attain it!

This book is not written to teach you which philosophy to adapt.

Instead, my goal is to provide an initialframework that helps you

to create your own philosophy of life.



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This philosophy will not be rule-based. Instead, it will help you to evaluate

situations and decide depending on the current realities, withoutthe need to

standardize your life the way any fixed ruleset would require.

Instead of prescribing solutions, my goal is to help you ask the right questions

and find the answers that fit into yourlife. The goal of it all is to reach a state

of personal sovereignty and consciousness - a position where you not only see

the red light, but also are aware of the rule thats behind it. (And about the

three-headed monster behind your back. I also want you to get to the point

where your psychic skills will allow you to make the red light explode. And to

transform the monster into a cute puppy. And to eat hazelnut ice cream for

breakfast. Nah, sorry, I got carried away with that last one.)

//! One Rule to Rule Them All: Friendliness (and a Voluntary

Contradiction)

The history books are full of bad people doing bad things. Nowadays, we hear

about them in the news: Just think of the trouble caused by nameless

dictators, election fraudsters, terrorists, and online marketers.



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Dont let this confuse you: The majority of human beings is nice. Just as you

are. Friendliness is a core value on this planet, even though media and

insurance companies want to make you believe otherwise.

We have to put the news into perspective: Even in many of the most dangerous

places of the world, when you walk the streets, there are no snipers waiting to

gun you down. There are no gangsters trying to stab you. In most places, there

isnt even the petty thief trying to grab your purse. While all these people

actually exist and do these kind of things, they are a very small minority. More

than 99% of the people you see out there are more or less decent people, just

like anywhere in the world.

They wont be perfect. Some of them may be guilty of tax fraught or of cheating

on their spouses. They may be lazy, they may be cranky, they may be gutless.

But all in all, they are just people trying to organize their lives, trying to earn

the money they need to take their family out for dinner.

When it comes to howyou fit into the picture, there are two sides to consider. I

would propose to make them your golden rules beyond rules, because a little

contradiction is part of the game:



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As a consequence of humanitys overall kindness, you may calm down and

relax. You can live your life, and generally, people wont mess with you.

During the process of going beyond rules, you will treat with lots of otherpeople. Why not treat them nicely? Happiness studies agree that doing good

things to others is an essential part of our well-being. It triggers the same

response in our brain as eating chocolate. What I would propose, thus, is to

make friendliness one of your core values. (Well talk about values later in

this book. We will also dance, so it wont be as boring as it sounds.)

Evilness is over-perceived.

Friendliness is all around you. Its just not on the news channels.



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FOUR: Space Travel

//! The RiddleAt this point, some of you might actually agree with me that going beyond

rules could be an interesting endeavor. I quoted Buddha, I offered ice cream, I

mentioned three-headed monsters, and so I paid my dues. The problem now is

that those of us who are not fine with living by old rules find us in front of a

major riddle:How can we do better?

How can we do better isnt an easy question. Simply asking it somehow

seems to imply knowing more than millions of other people, who just accept

things as they are. Quite an arrogant assumption, and an intimidating one: If

we are only modestly modest, just pondering this assumption will be enough to

make us shut up and go back to the place others had us assigned.

Unfortunately, shutting up and going back to that place wont make things

better. In order to solve the riddle, then, I would propose to first

stop assuming that we might solve it at all.

I propose to separate the rejection of the old from the creation of the new: First

of all, we want to opt out from what we perceive as wrong. We opt out from a



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system we consider obsolete, without opting in to a new one. In a next step, we

will be free to try building something better - while still maintaining a certain

humility. (Alternatively, we may become megalomaniacs and create a brand

out of our delusion. This is what Mr Sheen seems to be doing quite effectively.)

//! Drop-Outs and Opt-Outs

For Timothy Leary, the drop-out from the system has to be invisible.

Interestingly, this seems to be the standard even among non-psychedelic drop-

outs: They stop to care, they drop out, they get lost. They end up living with a

big bushy beard and a bunch of hippie friends in a hut somewhere at a tropical

beach, growing mangos and sugarcane and distilling their own rum, while therest of the world carries on with their craziness. When someone decides to

drop out, people will generally ignore him or decide to not take him seriously,

in order to avoid questioning their own lives.

While I am all into beards and rum and hippie friends, I also like cities and

digital cameras and the internet and exchanging information with people that

live on the other side of the planet. And maybe, so do you. I dont think thats

all there is about life, but its a part of it. So what to do if the beach drop-out

just doesnt fit all that well?



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I propose to opt out, rather than to drop out. Its just a game in

semantics, sure, but dropping out sounds passive and victimizing: You leave

the world to other people and go hide in a cabin somewhere in the woods.

Again, not that I was against cabins in the woods, but its not just since theUnabomber that we all know this isnt possibly the best thing we could do.

The opt-out, in contrast, is active and self-determined: You see the offer, you

notice it sucks, and you say No, thank you, walking away towards something

better.

If you just drop out, you get lost and nobody will ever notice. If you opt out,

you can still do it maintaining a low profile - or you can cause a scene. I like thelatter, because who knows: Maybe someone on your way will opt out with

you?!

//! Treating the Symptoms versus Going to the Core

John Doe: Hey Jane, work sucks!

Jane Doe: Shall we change it?

John Doe: Of course not! We just need to become more productive and calm,while leaving the root cause intact.



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Our productivity is a mess. Its one of the prime examples for more and

bigger, instead of meaningful and better. For most people, Getting Things

Done or whatever productivity system they buy into is good on a factual

level, and theres no need to question it: If only they get more things done,they are content.

Another example is the growing popularity of meditation. Its used by many

people as just another tool to be calm and balanced. Even though I can

welcome that to a certain point, my question is this: What is the point in

meditating to be calm and balanced, if we leave the thing untouched that made

us feel upset and unbalanced in the first place?

Both meditation and GTD can be used as tools to achieve more results, but if

those results dont help us advance towards where we want to go (because we

are focusing on the wrong things), what are they good for?

If the large context is a mess, details and better technique wont

save the day. By meditating or setting up GTD systems we can become

calmer or more productive, but the underlying problems persist. Its like

treating a cancer with painkillers: We feel momentarily better, while it keeps

metastasizing inside of us.



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Here comes the tough question: Is there something that doesnt feel

right in your life? Are you bored, unmotivated, anxious, stressed,

overwhelmed or simply unhappy? If so, is it really because you want to be

more productive and get more things done in your job to thrive? Is it becauseyou want to leave the broader picture intact and only work on the details? Or is

it because you are ignoring your cancer and treating it with painkillers, while

its growing deep inside of you? What do you want to opt out from?

Im not the one to answer. To be honest, I think we all could probably ignore

these questions until we reach our midlife crisis. Wait until the kids are out of

the house, and then start working on being ourselves. Or we could wait until

we are lying on our deathbed, wondering if we lived up to our potential,

wondering why we didnt do what we dreamt of doing.

The ugly thing about life is that we only got one - and its pretty

short.

Productivity hacks and meditation alone might not be enough, if the root

causes for our discomfort remain intact. If we want to act, we are free to act

now. Because if we dont do it now, we might not get around doing it before

our life ends. If we feel there is something going wrong, we can just start doing



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something about it, even though it may not be a complete revolution: Tiny

little huge steps, remember?

//! In Defense of InefficiencyWe suffer, nowadays, from an obsession with efficiency. Time is gold, we

believe, and so we have to make the highest use of it. We get used to this at

school (45 minutes for the test!), and at work (I need these papers by 3pm

sharp!). Its also a behavior encouraged non-stop in media (Stay up to date

with our text message news flash!) and advertising (You are lazy? You are

losing time? Theres a quick fix! Buy this habit-breaking ebook and become a

professional time manager in 7 days!).

In classical ruleset fashion, this obsession oversimplifies life and creates

tremendous anxieties at the same time. As we are bombarded with the same

notion again and again, we end up taking it for granted: We feel we have to use

each minute of our time efficiently, and whatever we do, we have to over-

perform and deliver perfect results.

This is another reason why we are trying to become more productive, abetter lover, a faster reader, while leaving the underlying issues untouched.

Doing this means taking clumsy and premature small steps, instead of taking



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gentle little huge steps. It may be efficient for now, but it wont be effective in

the long run.

Living our life and practicing personal development then becomes all about

metrics, statistics, comparisons and competition. Authors sell books on how to

become super-human or live like a rock star, but they never manage to

make a real contribution, because they only treat symptoms and leave the core

untouched.

This is understandable, because the core has to be worked by every single one

of us - on our own. There are no quick fixes, no pre-packaged solutions, and

thus, its a tough sell: Going beyond rules cant be done in 30 days or yourmoney back, or with 99 simple techniques. There is no dummies guide for

it. The fun thing is, that it isnt necessarily hard because of that. Everybody

can do it, really. But what it takes is effort, time, and dedication - and theres

no guarantee for success. In terms of cost-benefit analysis it can, at times, be

quite an inefficient endeavor.

Are there any good reasons for doing it, then?

I believe so, yes. The best reason of all is that by entering this process, you will

finally see the real reason why you wantto be productive. You will feel how



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being calmer and more focused can help you in your life - and not just in the

most mundane tasks of it.

By committing yourself to go beyond rules, you might enter into a deeper

connection with yourself than ever before. This will be the first step to reclaim

personal sovereignty: Understanding who you really are, identifying your

wants and needs, and then taking the steps to fulfill them.

Instead of muddling another year with becoming more productive without

having any good reason for it, I invite you to ask the right questions, find your

personal answers, and then pursue your own personal way beyond rules, even

if it may be less efficient than the way of your neighbor.

//! The Portal

Ready to opt out? If you want to go beyond rules, you need to take a trip to

space. You cannot stay where you are, because you need to detach yourself

from what is around you, in order to get a birds-eye-view on your life.

To make your trip easier, I recommend opening a portal: A portal is how you

travel to space without building a rocket or taking LSD. (Although LSD might

be a portal in itself. Feel free to follow your preference, but please dont harm

yourself!)



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Theres a fine but significant difference between inspirational fluff and a

portal: The portal is made by you!

A portal is the easiest, simplest and at the same time the most stunning and

beautiful gateway to space. Its the words of a talented author, the lyrics

of a familiar song or poem, a piece of visual art that was burned

onto your retina, or even a human muse.

Inspirational fluff makes you dream in the same way a McDonalds menu

makes you filled up: You dont feel hungry anymore, but you feel by no means

satisfied either.

A portal, in contrast, makes you dream more vividly than ever before, and it

fuels you to take the plunge and make a difference. A portal is personal,

present, and perfect in its very own sense, as it makes you vibrate. When you

read, see, hear, smell, or touch it, you arent able anymore to sit quietly, but

feel the urgent need to stand up and move.

To give you any idea, here are two portals of mine:



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SEE ISTANBUL,PORT SAID,NAIROBI,BUDAPEST.WRITE A BOOK.SMOKE TOO MANY

CIGARETTES.FALL OFF A CLIFF BUT GET CAUGHT IN A TREE HALFWAY DOWN.GET

SHOT A FEW TIMES IN A DARK ALLEY ON AMOROCCAN MIDNIGHT.LOVE A BEAUTIFUL

WOMAN.

R

AYB

RADBURY,D

ANDELIONW

INE

SURELY THERE IS STILL SPACE FOR CONFIDENTIAL MATTERS, FURTIVE ENCOUNTERS,

HIDDEN AGENDAS, UNDISCLOSED LOCATIONS, SECRET IDENTITIES, CLANDESTINE

AFFAIRS, CABALISTIC RITUALS, INTRIGUE, AND ENIGMA.MICHAELMAZZEO

These portals might not touch you by any means, or they might touch you so

deeply that they become your portals, too.Whatever happens, I am sure

you have your own portals, and this is the moment to reconnect

with them! (If you feel like it, it would be lovely if you could share them with

me!)

//! Your Trip to Space

You have your portal, you packed your stuff, you went to the bathroom, and

youre ready to go. Youre ready to travel up and away, leaving all the rules that

bind you behind. Eventually, you might reach the time and space before there

even was time and space but that would probably be too mind-boggling. So

for now, just a quiet piece of space will do. In this space, there is nothing but

you.



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Now, howexactly do you travel to space? How do you opt out from your

unwanted systems? How do you use your portal?

Its simpler than you think - and harder: It really depends on you.

Have you seen the movie Waking Life?

Its about a guy who wanders around his

dreams, and from one dream he enters

another - but he never manages to really

wake up; he never manages to get back to

the real world.

So he starts asking around, and hes talking to that other guy he meets in

another dream:

Im trapped. I keep thinking that Im waking up, but Im still in a dream. It

seems like its going on forever, and I cant get out of it and I wanna

wake up for real. How do you really wake up?

And the guy answers:

I dont know Im not really good at that anymore.



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But em if thats what youre thinking, I mean, you probably should. I

mean, you know, if you can wake up, you should. Because you know, some

day, you know, you wont be able to! So just em But its easy, you

know just, just wake up!

And thats just how you opt out. Thats how you travel to space.



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You are here.


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This free space may look weird or intimidating at first. Dont worry, we will

make it nice and livable right away! This free space is your mind after the opt-

out. It's the canvas of your life. Its where you can begin to paint whatever

youd like to see.

But Im still right here! The old rules still hold me tight, you might say.

I know. The difference between accepting the old rules you learned from your

parents, in school, at your job, etc., and living beyond rules is twofold: One, its

now up to you to create what you think is best: With great power there must

also come - great responsibility! Two, your mind is empty and easily filled

with all kinds of rules when you are young and helpless, while it is full rightnow, when you try to go beyond them.

Dont worry about that for now, and just get comfortable in your mind-space.

The confusion will go away in no time, as we replace the old rules with

something better.



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FIVE: Your Space Beyond Rules

Dollars, euros, yuans? Beyond rules, there are really only two currencies that

matter: Time and Space.

Time allows us to move beyond the pace that society, employers, or random

other people try to impose upon us.

Space is where we play. Its up to us to make something of it: Chaotic or

orderly, spontaneous or planned into detail, colorful or monochrome: Its up to

us! The more sovereign we are in our space, the smoother we are able to move.

Both time and space are not part of a zero-sum game: We dont have to take

them away from other people in order to get some more for us.

Every single person on Earth has the same 24 hours a day to fill with work,

fun, and whatever else shed like to do. Every single person on Earth has an

endless space in her mind for thoughts, dreams, and ideas. The consequences

of this are fun, because they allow us to be our own Federal Reserve Bank: We

can print money in these currencies, just as we see fit.



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restricted, we search for ways around them - and we always find them. This is

the magic magnetism of loopholes: Even if breaking the rules leads to

punishment or complications, we will still find them, and we will still use

them. Consequently, in society and in personal life, we have to set up more andmore rules in order to fill those loopholes - only to discover some new ones

afterwards.

Values, in contrast, dont entail these problems. While there may be a huge

discussion about which values are better between different people and

groups, they are much more flexible, and they help to guide us in a way that

rules never will.

Values are permissive rather than restrictive. They are guiding

principles that help in practical life, but they dont try to define every single

situation that we might encounter. Thus, they do not standardize and

constrain life, but amplify it. Whats more, as they are personal (at least in the

context of this book!), there isnt any incentive to break them. We can and will,

after all, adjust them as our life experience grows. (If you believe this is

flakiness, I invite you over to chapter 7, in order to have a look at the section

calledDecision as Process. If thats not too flaky.)



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Please notice, the question for values is not a why question. Nor is it an

exercise to find out how to please other people. Nor is it a call for complete

coherence and unambiguity. Nor is it a Hawaiian jet-ski adventure. (Sorry,

erase that sentence, Im just being silly. Coherence and unambiguity!)

You may care about faith, even though science is another important value for

you. You may care about being free and adventurous, even though security and

stability matter to you as well. You may care about chocolate ice-cream, even

though youre on a diet. That's just like life is!

Dont sweat too much about it: As you get clear about your values, you will find

out a certain hierarchy, and you will also iron out the inconsistencies bit by bit,or learn how to live with them. (Gentle little huge steps, remember!)

Your homework: Get conscious about the values that guide you, and

put them into a certain order. Once you manage to do this, it will be much

easier to make decisions on concrete issues, and you will be free to embrace

them as part of your life flow rather than a chore.

In practice, just sit down in a quiet room and make a list of all importantvalues that come to your mind. There are different opinions on how many

values we should have, but as this is about you and going beyond rules, we



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will leave the shoulds aside. It will probably be easier to make it a somewhat

manageable number in order to connect with these values during your daily

life - 5 rather than 25 - but there are other ways to do this, too: Benjamin

Franklin, for example, had a list of 13 values, and he practiced them byfocusing on only one of them for a week each, following a strict sequence he

then repeated again and again, in order to internalize them.

If you are unsure which values matter to you the most, just compare one with

another and decide which one is more important to you. Remember: No need

to freak out, no need to please me, just go ahead and modify them later on, if

necessary.

//! Needs and Wants

Even though Abraham MaslowsHierarchy of Human Needs is a bit outdated,

it still provides useful categories for our understanding of needs. According to

Maslow, we can distinguish five of them:

1. Physiological needs: Hunger, thirst, sex and sleep.

2. Safety needs: Longing for routines and order (Hint: Thatswhy you want a job!), protection from harm and pain,

avoidance of risk and unknown things.



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3. Love needs: The affection of family and friendship.

4. Esteem needs: This concerns self-respect, sense of achievement, a feeling

of freedom on the internal side, and the desire for status and recognition on

the external side.5. The need for self-actualization: A musician must make music, an

artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately happy. What a

man can be, he mustbe. This need we may call self-actualization.

Even in 1943, Maslow was clear about the fact that this hierarchy is not an

absolute one: People might look for love and self-actualization even if they are

hungry or hurt. (There are newer models taking this into account.)

Still, Maslow can help us understand more about our anxieties and

motivations: We all need air to breathe. We all need clean water to drink. We

all need food. But what else? How do we personally relate to his model?

To be able to lead a long and happy life, we surely need shelter. Or at least a

hammock at a place with really good weather under coconut-free palm trees.

(I suppose that coconuts regularly kill people. And if not, Im sure they hurt.

Double check your palm tree!).



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We also need relatively good health (or learn how to cope with our illnesses),

and, as social animals, we probably need some nice people around us. We

wouldnt want to end up like a wolf child.

Then, of course, there are our personal wants. Id like to have a Leica M9 and

a small house at the Danish West coast, thank you. And then, Id like one of

those lear jets, since seeing the last James Bond movie. Its like 55 million

dollars. Oh well.

When it comes to the small extras in life - a Leica M9, a lear jet, - things get

blurry pretty fast. We strive for so much, even though we could live with a lot

less. The human bodyandthe human mind are pretty tough bastards: Thereare people surviving without contact to other human beings. There are people

sleeping without shelter on the streets. There are critically ill people surviving,

even though their doctors declared them dead a long time ago.

When I see how a surgeon takes out organs of a body like motor parts from a

car, I find it incredible to believe that hes actually working with a living person

here. And then, that person probably has good chances to survive, and live

happily for many years to come.



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Frankly speaking, how hard is it for most of us living in relatively safe and rich

Western countries to die from hunger, murder, or health epidemics? I would

say its comparatively hard.

If we dont have to worry about these things anymore, and we separate our

need for recognition from the superficial approval that is created through

money and fame, we are free to move beyond these anxieties and focus on

other areas. Its here where we can look for our personal definitions of success.

//! Define Your Own Success

The rulebook definition of success still seems to be living in a mansion, driving

a huge car, and always being able to buy the latest gadgets. If we look at

Maslows findings, we have to question this definition - and start making our

own.

To be sure, ifyourdefinition of success were living in a mansion, driving a

huge car, and always being able to buy the latest gadgets, I wouldnt really have

a problem with that. (Well, I would probably think its a little stupid, but I

suppose you would think the same about my definitions, so were even!)

The real problem is that many of us get too easily distracted by shiny new

things and professional marketing. As a consequence, we adapt definitions of



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success that really dont matter all that much to us in the core, and often even

stress us out. It might thus be a good idea to get clear about what success

doesntmean to us, and to get conscious about how we are being manipulated.

Advertising and marketing are all around us. Even though we may despise

that, its currently simply the way it is - and not all of the people responsible

for it are necessarily evil. But its up to us to identify their tricks and

methods, and develop a healthy resistance to it.Instead of

becoming marketing gurus, we should become marketing-proof.

(This would probably be an interesting topic for another book)

Often, we tend to equalize success with obtaining a thing or a situation westrongly desire. But, as Eric Weiner points out in his bookThe Economy of

Bliss, this connection doesnt really exist on a neurological level: We strive for

a camera, or for a lear jet, but once we get it, we arent any happier than before.

This is a consequence of our human programming: We attain what we

wanted - but instead of feeling content, we just feel hollow pretty fast again.

Traditionally, instead of drawing the consequences, and developing a different

concept of success, we just replace our old desire with a new one - an evenbetter camera, an even nicer jet, - and continue to long for stuff instead of

finding happiness in the moment.



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The lesson? Desire can motivate us to move, but fulfilling it doesnt necessarily

lead to a deeper and lasting feeling of contentment.

There isnt really any definition beyond our very own that matters, so spend

some time thinking about it:What would the good life be for you, and

how would you know you are living it?

Remember, there are no rules in these exercises:

Aristotle thought living the good life meant reaching eudaimonia (well-

being; literally having a good guardian spirit - the fulfillment reached

when having an objectively desirable life).

Timothy Leary thought that it meant dropping out from society and taking

LSD. Pretty weird already, but at least it sounds kind of interesting.

And John Doe thinks it means getting an office job, and rising the corporate

ladder in order to become Head of Finance? Im not here to judge, but

maybe there is something more to life than that.

If youre interested, my personal definitions of success are still evolving. I

noticed I am feeling happiest when I am living and moving in a state of flow, asdefined by Mihly Cskszentmihlyi: It means moving in a middle position

between boredom and excessive demand, i.e. in a position where we are



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working on something challenging, but not overwhelming. It was the desire to

pursue flow that made me decide against the classical career path, as sketched

out in the second chapter.

The other central element for me are other people: Being with others, engaging

with them, and making them happy gives joy to me, even though I am not a

huge extrovert. Helping someone out, making a great gift, paying

compliments, orwalking with flowers simply makes me happy. Consequently,

engaging with others is definitely an important part of what I see as a

successful life.

//! The Power of Internal Goal-SettingGoal-setting is freaking me out. I always wonder: How on Earth do these

professional goal-setters know what they should aim for? And then,

how do they reach it?

The simple truth is, they often dont. Most

peoples goals are like a bulls eye, but when they

shoot for it, the arrow doesnt even hit theouter. Setting goals like this is approximately as

effective as collecting stamps as a pyromaniac. (Burn, Blue Mauritius, burn!)

http://www.friendlyanarchist.com/walk-with-flowers/http://www.friendlyanarchist.com/walk-with-flowers/http://www.friendlyanarchist.com/walk-with-flowers/


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As I found out with time, the reason most peoples goals suck is because they

are external, i.e. depending on factors that lie outside of themselves: Getting a

specific number of blog subscribers or selling a certain number of books is

something we can work towards, but its ultimately outside of our control if wereally reach these goals by a certain date. Whenever other people are involved,

we just cannot be sure if and when we attain them. Consequently, by choosing

external goals, we lose sovereignty.

In order to fix this, I would propose to experiment with setting

internalgoals, i.e. goals that are completely under our control. This

isnt a new idea: Aristotle knew that the good life couldnt be reached by

relying on external goals, and Stoic philosophers recommended to focus oninternal goals in order to maintain tranquility in our lives. (Its funny how

people have been talking about these things for more than 2000 years, and we

still dont get it!)

While we ultimately cannot control our subscribers and sales, we can control

the effort we put in. Our internal goal, thus, should be to do the best we can,

rather than focusing on an external outcome.

The biggest objection to internal goal setting is that it isnt easily measurable.

While I personally believe that it doesnt hurt to get away from our fixation



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with numbers, this doesnt need to be the case, though. It is completely

possible to set measurable milestones when creating goals, yet still

maintaining complete control over them. For example, you could commit to

writing for your blog during one hour each day. Or, if you are flexible with yourtime, you could commit to writing a thousand words. These are both easily

measurable goals, but they are completely within your own control, opposed to

goals of getting a certain amount of comments, retweets or new subscribers.

The good thing about setting internal goals is that they lead to external results,

but they do not make our happiness and tranquility dependent on them: If we

do our best, chances are high that we will reach the number of subscribers we

would like to get - but we wont become depressed or anxious if we dont.

In this sense, internal goals really bring together the best from two worlds:

Motivation and direction without the price of anxiety during the process or

discontentment with the outcome.

//! Now, Dance

Talking all the time about values, success, and goals is great, but it makes me alittle fuzzy in my head. Thinking about that stuff too much probably makes you

fuzzy, too. It reminds me of a German party: Everybody is sitting in small



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groups, drinking beer, discussing the world. As much as I like to do that: It

gets fuzzy if you dont start telling jokes or hit the dance-floor from time to

time.

As most written jokes are boring, Id like to ask you for a little dance: Just put

on your favorite music, and move a little. If you need a recommendation, Ive

got one prepared for you:

This should totally do it. Seriously, as I am writing this its 11pm on a

hangover Sunday, but listening to this song just makes me dance, if I want it or

not. From all the ladies, the one I kiss is music.

(And if you are a headbanger rather than a dancer, try this! I swear Ill have

you moving in no time!)

Refreshed? Then back to business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AC_HHQGzHYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AC_HHQGzHYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch2oFR-8kbAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch2oFR-8kbA


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SIX: Unmethodology

We are still in space, and there are some amazing new stars around us already:

Our values, goals, and definitions for success. They will be our guidance for the

life we are about to create.

If we do that by using the old methods, though, we would easily repeat doing

the same old bullshit everybody else is doing - but we wont go beyond rules: If

we had always followed the methods of others, we would still start a fire by

hitting a couple of rocks together.

Consequently, we want to ditch methods for a moment: Ditching methods

means doing what works opposed to pursuing one single and fixed way of

doing. For the moment, all we want to use is one big (anti-)method: Its called

experimentation!

//! Experiment as Method

Human life itself is an experiment, and nobody really knows where its leading.

(If you believe in a divine plan, you will disagree. But even if there is one: We

humans probably dont know all that much about it, at least in the details.)

Still, we are doing all we can to play it safe. This leads to boredom and



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repetition, and its also what keeps us in our daily rut, even though we might

not be entirely happy with it.

The Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson proposes experiment as the ideal method

for times of uncertainty: It seems to be productive to admit our personal

insecurities, instead of merely continue to pursue the rationalized and

standardized approaches.

We have already seen that rules and standards are nice, but they dont always

cut it. Think about the alternative: What if we embraced life as what it is?

What if we admitted that we dont have all the answers, and opened up to learn

something each and every day?What if we accepted that we do not havecomplete control the outcome of what we are doing (by setting

internal goals!), and celebrated this very fact by adapting

experimentation as our anti-method?

By doing so, we can go beyond the rules we live by, even if we are unsure of

what is next and how things might turn out: As we experiment consciously, we

create a whole new reality itself.

Asking questions and trying to live the answers rather than theoretically

defining them - this is the best way to pursue a sovereign life, as it allows us to



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(re)connect with our self, even though we may not yet be sure about what it

actually is!

In this context, remember gentle little huge steps once again. We often fall into

the trap of wanting to turn our lives around in one single, majestic move: We

want to become Super-Me! We want to eat healthier, start doing sports, make

new friendships, build a business, and find the love of our lives, all in the

course a week.

As far as I can tell, the people pursuing these plans are guaranteed to fail, and

they generally end up living in subterraneous labs trying to take over the world

with a self-built yoghurt gun, until James Bond comes along to kick their ass.

Gentle little huge steps are the promising alternative - and often way more

fulfilling and fun. Fulfilling, because you actually might manage to get

somewhere. Fun, because you may pursue stupid micro-experiments

just to lighten up your day. (Heres one: Have a virtual feast with a friend

who lives in the same city as you do. Cook greasy food, listen to your favorite

music, get really drunk, all while being connected via Skype. The next day,

meet face-to-face for a hangover breakfast at 6am, and discuss the experience.You get 2 bonus points if you really manage 6am; 5 more if you didnt sleep in

the meantime!)



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//! Trial and Error

Streamlined mediocrity still seems to beat the combination of stunning wins

and the occasional flop. In school, job interviews and corporate structures, its

still easy to muddle through as a faceless number. Just how long will it last?

Truth is, if we close ourselves to the possibility of failure, we wont get the

successes. Embracing experiment as method means embracing failure as

much as it means embracing progress, embracing evolution, and embracing

interestingness.

Once we opt out, mediocrity isnt the way to go anymore. It means embracing

failure as an opportunity to grow - but also as something that just happensfrom time to time. Its the latter that is still unpopular even among

unconventional folks, but that doesnt make it less real!

Sure, we can and should analyze our failures and learn something from them,

in order do better next time. But lets be honest: Occasionally, we might

fail and not learn a thing. Whatever we did just didnt work, and were

taken by surprise, lying on the floor with our knees bleeding, rubbing our eyes,

wondering what just happened.



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The answer is simple:We failed, and it sucked, and we didnt learn a

fucking thing. But then, life is a paradox, and we still may just tap off the

dirt, get up, have some ice-cream, and try doing it another way, or simply

doing a whole different thing.

How we deal with failure is really a cultural question - and a question of

mindset. Both things are easy to work on, although it may cost us a little at the

beginning. It means embracing the great modern taboo, as sociologist

Richard Sennett calls it.

In much of America and Europe, people dont accept failure as part of the

journey. In the US, Eric Weiner points out, you may go from dish-washer tomillionaire and fail ten times on your way - but please be successful at the

moment you tell your story! If you are currently recovering from failure,

though, dont expect to have many friends to console you.

Other countries, other approaches to failure: In the Nineties, many Icelanders

left their old jobs in the fishing industry and became day traders and investors,

in order to benefit from the free market reforms on the island. This worked

quite nicely and everybody became rich on paper - or on cheap credit inforeign currencies. The Icelanders bought expensive cars, houses, and went to

Europe for weekend shopping - until the financial bubble exploded in 2008



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and swept it all away. Within a couple of weeks, their debts exploded as their

national currency was devalued. Many of these rogue traders and their fellow

countrymen lost everything they had.

Did they drown in despair? To be honest, Im pretty sure that some of them

did. But many others just started fishing again, or knitting, or whatever else

they knew to do, and they had quite a lesson learned. Happiness is more than

money," Eric Weiner points out. As long as you can afford a good stiff drink,

most Icelanders think, youre gonna be okay.

Now, even though I wouldnt propose to break the economy with your own

experiments, I suppose we can learn something from this: If we accept failure,if we discuss it openly, if we stop tabooing it, we can experiment far easier and

with less worries.

//! Deliberately Dilettante

When it comes to specialization, Im with Robert Heinlein: A human being

should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship,

design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone,comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve



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equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a

tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

If Heinlein is right, were living in a world of many bugs and ants and

mosquitos, but devoid of human beings. Specialization is a requirement

nowadays, and its closely related to the demands of our economic system: We

need to discover niches to perform certain functions better than anybody else;

we need to become experts, knowing ever more details in ever smaller fields.

The philosopher Paul Feyerabend thought this behavior was immature:

Experts are blind for the full bandwidth of life, because they devote all their

energies to nothing but one single area. I believe that our general blindnesstowards all things larger than ourselves result from expert behavior: If we

ignore all the rest, we may become the best professionals in our fields, but we

wont be able to really grasp life at large.

My proposal to counterbalance a world of experts is to become deliberately

dilettante. Nowadays, dilettantism has a bad reputation. Interestingly, this

hasnt always been the case: Smart people like the Swiss historian Jacob

Burckhardt actually advocated being a professional in one field, but adilettante in as many others as we please.



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In scientific history, dilettantes have been responsible for amazing discoveries

and inventions: Just think of self-described dilettantes like Albert Einstein, or

Niels Bohr, and of the many other undercover dilettantes.

Having multiple identities is conducive to happiness, as the already much

cited Eric Weiner puts it. I agree with him, because human beings are

dilettantes by nature, even though you might prefer to call us polymaths.

We arent the best in either long or short distance running, swimming,

jumping, or fighting, but we are better in all of them than most specialized

animals. We can eat pretty much anything, we can drink pretty much anything,

we can live pretty much anywhere. Why shouldnt we work and think and playin more than one field?

//! Dont Go for Rewards

Specialization and adherence to external rulesets arent necessarily in vogue

because they are so nice and interesting. Its that they are encouraged through

society, and rewards for conforming and specializing seem to be much higher

than rewards for doing things in new ways we still have to discover.

As this is true both for both old currencies in life - paychecks and promotions,

- theres a lesson in here: If you are looking for paychecks and promotions, you



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better conform. Your flawless CV will get you the old jobs. And the more you

specialize, the higher you get promoted, the higher becomes your paycheck.

(Until your industry becomes obsolete, that is.)

Even when we know that life is not about paychecks and promotions, and even

when we have created our own definitions of success, these rewards can still be

tempting. They are tempting because they are what we were taught to strive

for, because we grew up and lived in a society that values them during our

whole lives. It is here where we have to learn to distrust ourselves: Because we

learnt these things during decades, our intuition may trick us. It may tell us to

go for these rewards, because our parents did, our friends and everybody else

does, and media and marketing tell us this is still the right thing to do.

I know that distrusting your intuition can be hard. The possible consequences

of not going for rewards could be finding yourself living on the streets without

any friends, without any money, without food to eat, and without a shelter for

the night.

On the other hand, it could also mean finding yourself traveling to exotic

places, bringing a whole bunch of friends along, receiving a nice incomestream from doing things you love to do, eating fresh fish, having coconut

cocktails, and dancing the hula hoop.



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We overestimate risk, we underesti

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