Women: "Do men even have feelings?"

Meanwhile men: For more Napoleon Ws, check out my book...

Chapter 51: Inside Napoleon’s Mind

Get your copy: jashdholani.gumroad.com/l/hitreverse

Bill Watterson created Calvin and Hobbes and got featured in 2,400 newspapers worldwide...

Then he rejected a film offer from Spielberg & LOST $400 million by never agreeing to a merchandizing deal

On Watterson's 66th birthday today...

Discover 11 lessons from a real maverick: 1/ Why does Hollywood keep remaking the same stories over and over again?

Bill Watterson explains "The Sequel Syndrome"

C.S Lewis almost died in the trench warfare of WW-I

Became best friends with Tolkien. Sold 100 million books...

On the cusp of WW-II, he gave an iconic lecture at Oxford University (1939)

His question: Does beauty matter when bombs start falling?

THIS is his profound answer👇🏻 1/ The permanent human situation is endless strife, chaos and pain

C.S. Lewis:

“Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself”

Yet culture breaks out

The king was arrested in the French Revolution

1 man volunteered to be his lawyer

With the king, he was beheaded too

Decades later, the lawyer's grandson wrote a book on the DARK SIDE of democracy, equality, & liberalism

His name: Tocqueville. Book became a classic. A thread: 1/ Human lust for equality overpowers our love for freedom:

“Democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom. But for equality, their passion is insatiable: they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery”

Philosophy's boldest line:

"God is Dead"

Everyone on the internet misunderstands it...

A thread on what Nietzsche actually meant (and why it matters): 1/ In The Gay Science (1882), Nietzsche announces God's death as a tragedy...NOT a celebration

For Nietzsche, God wasn't a useless burden, a liability, or an irrational filter that distorted our view of reality. The metaphors Nietzsche uses for God are reverential

Let's see...

It is 1928

One professor writes a best-selling parenting guide...

THEN 3 of his own kids commit suicide

Meet John Watson: the father of Behaviorism

A story of scientific arrogance, the meaning of love, and one "expert" with blood on his hands👇🏻 1/ Dr. John Watson was a man of bold claims

He believed he could turn a random infant into “any type of specialist” from doctor to artist to a thief - “regardless of his talents, tendencies, abilities”

How?

With psychological conditioning and other behaviorist tools

After the French revolutionaries beheaded their king, they had another bright idea:

"Let's make the day 10 hours long"

This is NOT a joke. Left-wing "experts" actually changed the length of minutes, hours, and weeks in the name of science...

This is the story of that disaster: 1/ The French revolutionaries adopted a new calendar for three reasons:

- To eliminate religious consciousness from the French society

- To make time more “rational”

- To announce the birth of an egalitarian era

In their zeal they forgot an important factor: human nature

As the world gets crazier, there is one name you will hear more often: Nicolás Gómez Dávila

He wrote 1 book. Published ONLY a 100 copies...

But he's the best teacher on why societies need MYTHS to live

Without myths, collapse is inevitable

A thread👇🏻 1/ A culture that ignores its distinct DNA, and embraces homogenization, is signing its own death warrant

Dávila:

"Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values which created it."

The Nerd-Jock Dichotomy Is False

Let me show you 10 writers who lived like action heroes

1/ Ernst Jünger 1/ Jünger was 19 when WWI broke

He joined immediately. Saw intense action at the frontlines. Led his unit to impossible victories

Was wounded 7 times. Survived headshots. Read Nietzsche in his spare time

And self-published the great war classic "Storm of Steel" in 1920

The Great Gatsby was dead. By 1939, F. Scott Fitzgerald was secretly buying all copies himself to keep his book in print...

But now, each year, half a million copies are sold!

Back from the dead...how?

READ the strange (yet true) story of how an obscure book became a classic: 1/ The first half of Fitzgerald's career was a dream: his two novels were bestsellers. They made him rich and famous. Hollywood came calling

The second half was a nightmare:

His wife tried to drive him off a cliff, his most ambitious works failed, he died a poor alcoholic man

In 1997, Hans Eysenck died the most cited psychologist in the world. THEN he was posthumously cancelled. An enquiry said his work was "unsafe"

Code for "problematic but TRUE"

Eysenck studied human intelligence and discovered 8 traits common to geniuses across history. A thread: 1/ Geniuses have big egos

Eysenck: "Your typical genius is a fighter"

Since geniuses are original, their "battle against orthodoxy is endless"

Potential geniuses with no fighting zeal feel resistance and GIVE UP. Actualized geniuses are disagreeable

They got "inner strength"

Jordan Peterson's 8 thoughts on beauty

(A visual thread) 1/ Beauty is absolutely terrifying to people because it highlights the ugly.

Procrastination

Everyone does it. No one understands it...

Discover the spiritual reason you laze out (and one surprising solution)

A visual thread: 1/ Even Michelangelo would have trouble getting out of bed if he had nothing but a day of spreadsheets ahead...

You can ignore symbols, BUT your enemies will not

Communists did not...

After taking power, the first thing communists did was INVERT the meaning of 3 traditional symbols

Julius Evola explains in a 1928 essay: The Inversion Of Symbols

Dig in👇🏻 1/ Evola writes that modern revolutionary movements take "the principles, the forms, and the traditional symbols" of healthier societies from the past and give them a NEW spin

He digs into 3 symbols:

• The color red
• The word revolution
• The symbol of the pentagrammic star

Peter Thiel: The future belongs to people with strong verbal skills

So, let's discuss a classic that can 3x your verbal skills: The Elements of Style (1918)

At 10 million copies sold...it's the best-selling writing guide of all time

LEARN its top 9 lessons👇🏻 1/ Make clear assertions:

“Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, non-committal language.”

Be direct, bold, and concise

William Strunk, the author, believed you should give the reader a shapely idea he can grip - not an amorphous blob that slips away from his hands

SOURCE of modern man's weakness, stupidity, and general lack of vitality?

His leisure activities

Aldous Huxley predicted the degeneracy of modern amusements in a 103 year old essay: Pleasures (1920)

Huxley on why and how to radically rewire the way you spend your free time👇🏻 1/ Aldous Huxley writes that pleasures must not be an escape from effort

In fact, they must be unavailable *without* effort

Why? Because when preceded by effort, pleasure reinvigorates

But when preceded by nothing, pleasure retards your brain's reward systems

At 24, Nietzsche became history's youngest Classics professor. He hadn't even finished his dissertation!

Why did the German Academy think so highly of this young man?

And how did he become 20th century's MOST cited thinker?

Discover Nietzsche's brilliance in 11 insights: 1/ Stop being busy

Nietzsche writes a "raging industriousness" will give you wealth. But it will also drain you - make your senses less subtle...

Money gives, but also extracts: time, energy, one's enthusiasm

Work is a trade - important to keep track of what one gives away

Oswald Spengler Thread🧵

In 1931, Spengler published one of the most idea-dense books of all time:

Man and Technics

It packs hundreds of interesting ideas in 52 pages

Top 13 insights👇🏻 1/ Materialists vs Aesthetes

Materialists only care for technological advancement and prosperity

Aesthetes judge societies by “the number of the pictures and books” it produces

Aesthetes lack a "sense of reality," the materialists suffer from "devastating shallowness"

This French nobleman survived a headshot...

Left a BIG impact on Nietzsche

And he wrote one-liners more interesting than most books

Discover La Rochefoucauld's wisdom on charisma, laziness, Thinkers v/s Doers, and more👇🏻 1/ Charisma = being comfortable in your own skin

How to be irresistible:

"There is an air which belongs to the figure and talents of each individual. We should try to find out what air is natural to us and never abandon it, but make it as perfect as we can"

Authenticity is hot

This is Ray Bradbury

He wrote "Fahrenheit 451" (the best-ever novel about censorship and free speech)

He had a crazy theory about art:

It comes not from love but from hate

A thread on how rage makes you creative: 1/ Turn your hate into your muse

Anything that incites emotions in you - INCLUDING your prejudices - will make for interesting writing

Ray Bradbury: “When was the last time you dared release a cherished prejudice so it slammed the page like a lightning bolt?”

Reject stoicism. Reject Buddhism. Even the room lizard is "tranquil." Get ATTACHED. Everything great is downstream of (strong) desires. Latin root for desire is "de sidere," which translates to "from the stars." An intense desire is a gift from the Gods above. A gift of direction 1/ The human fate is not attaining the equanimity of sheep grazing out on a sunny day. We are the "upstart species" (Spengler) and our natural habitat is the edge. Our only habitat. The edge is a hurtful, torturous place but it's the only place we can birth something new