“I need to lose 20 pounds in six days. Can you help me?” “Your website is too wordy. Have a cliffnotes version?” “My gains aren’t like yours. Which supplement should I take to help me?” The reasons anyone steps into this world of physical training, health, and nutrition are numerous, but I’d bet 99% start [...]
“I need to lose 20 pounds in six days. Can you help me?”
“Your website is too wordy. Have a cliffnotes version?”
“My gains aren’t like yours. Which supplement should I take to help me?”
The reasons anyone steps into this world of physical training, health, and nutrition are numerous, but I’d bet 99% start with “wanting to look good naked.” That was my initial motivation, so no beef there — that's just life for most of us. (I'll save the health debate for another day, but in short: most of the things we train for aren't really in the name of health.)
From there, its split. Some go more towards muscle. Others more towards athletics. Some, like myself, split the two. Regardless, we end up on the ledge, looking into a foggy nothingness. What works? What do I need to know? Will I fall? Is there anything out there? Is there something right in front of me that I'll run into?
Sadly, the popular expectations for the Journey that awaits — finding clarity within the clouds — are probably hurting you more than helping you. Here is some wisdom I would give my former self.
Think of the journey as mastery
You are becoming a master of your body.
That sounds a little weird, but think of this business of physically manipulating your body as a skill. By dribbling and shooting in your free time, you are becoming a master of basketball. By picking up the needle and yarn every night, you are becoming a master of knitting. By sketching everything you see, you are becoming a master of drawing. By eating and training in a certain way, you are becoming a master of your body.
This is fine and dandy until you realize that even the smartest scientists in the world don’t fully understand the human body. And yet here you are, trying to understand your body with much less knowledge of how it all works. Good luck.
If you didn't already want to ask for the check, don't forget that dribbling, drawing, knitting — these are visual skills. You can see the magic happening as it happens. With the body? The stuff floating around underneath your skin? You're blind.
How would you advise?
How would you tell someone to become a master of knitting? Basketball? Drawing? Or anything, really? Would you tell them that it would fall into their lap on the first go? Some people might have a natural propensity for things, but more often than not, being good at something comes down to hard work and obsession.
People that want to be really good are the ones that end up forcing themselves to practice even when they hate the end result. You can't do this without a little bit of a quirky obsession.
Enter two sculptors. One Rodin. The other, Hobo Joe. You can have the same clay, yet each artist will create something totally different.
What expectations would you have for each sculptor?
“Is it possible for me to lose five pounds in two weeks?”
If you’re Rodin? Maybe. You’ve done the work to know.
If you’re asking the question? Probably not, mister Hobo Joe. Not because it’s not possible for your body in an absolute sense. But probably because it's not possible for you now given where you're at in yourJourney. You simply haven’t done the work to get good enough to make it happen.
It’s not that you don’t have the stuff in you, it’s that you haven’t yet discovered it. It's not the clay, it's the hands.
It's easy, it just costs $99.99
Physical transformation is a business, and there's nothing wrong with that. I've spent mucho money on books, training, and school (lol). This website itself is a business, after all. But part of making money is convincing you that you, too, can make the same transformation as the next famous celebrity.
Which book are you going to reach for?
Learn how to draw in 30 days?
Or.
Learn how to draw in 10 years, while simultaneously mitigating and coping with the ups, downs, and self loathing that is guaranteed to accompany the Journey?
So lying is better for business. And, sadly, the people that need this stuff most are the ones apt to fall for the lies. And since they continue to fund the lies (by buying), the lies are apt to spread further and further and further.
Some truth? How about we try that
This Journey isn't easy. At least, mine wasn't.
I loved art when I was a kid. Loved. I marveled over the Final Fantasy VII instruction book drawings. In that moment, I wanted to be a video game concept artist. But I was always down on myself. I saw other artists that were better. I thought that I didn’t have what it took to make it.
What I needed was someone to tell me that everyone starts as a goonie, and in order to get good, you have to do the work to get good.
You mean . . . it’s just work?
No.
It’s hard work. There’s a reason the phrase labor of love is so popular.
I get a kick out of people with ten years of experience finally hitting some kind of revolution.
“Oh I can’t believe I did this and that for so long—what an obsessed mindset! You shouldn’t do it! It will ruin you! I was so wrong!”
That’s like Leonardo da Vinci saying he couldn't believe he wasted all that time sketching before painting the Mona Lisa. You don't get to that epitome unless you do the work. Unless you — gasp! — do a bunch of stupid things and fail sometimes and win some other times, and then squish it all together and find out what it all means.
“Screw the sketching. Just wake up and paint the Mona Lisa one day.”
That’s essentially every retrospective article in existence. (Including mine because, well, I'm not perfect. ) The obsession, the work, is necessary. That’s how you learn. That’s how you understand. That’s how you get better.
“It’s simple. You’re making it more complicated than it is.”
You hear that, too. Often by people that have done the work to make it simple. But when you're picking up the pencil for the first time? Can that ever be simple? Are you destroying yourself by thinking it should be simple?
Yes.
Anyone can do this, except anyone
Anyone can do this stuff . . . except anyone that expects a magical first piece of artwork. We've somehow created a culture that says changing your body doesn't requiring any mental or physical investment. Just do something and, poof, you win.
Just walk on a treadmill while your mind — under the idea of plasticity — literally melts into nothingness. Just swallow this pill or take that supplement.
Forbid that fundamentally rewiring your body actually be tough. This is captured by one of Robert Sapolsky's many moments of vulnerable brilliance in his book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
Someone ate a mountain of spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and two slices of cake for dessert — and that has been transformed and is now partially inside of this test tube of blood? And somehow it's going to be reconstructed into bone? Just think, your femur is made up of tiny pieces of your mother's chicken potpie that you ate throughout your youth. Ha! You see, you don't really believe in the process either. Maybe we're too primitive to comprehend the transmogrification of material.
Anguish, self criticism, frustration –
That’s reality. That’s how you get better. I can’t tell you how many times I threw away my drawings when I was a kid. This creative sort of self-loathing?
Essential.
Because when you start there’s a gap between your expectations for yourself and what your current level of abilities allows you to do.
We live in a world where the pinnacle is known. We see others like ourselves reach it, which makes us want it all the more. But when Goku was training under Master Roshi, he didn't even know what a Super Saiyan was. The only goal was to learn the next step.
The entire Journey, realistically, is learning how to bridge the gap between what you're capable of now and what you ultimately want to be capable of — learning how to perform below our expectations and get results that we aren't satisfied with. That's the irony — you're probably using something more super saiyan than roshi, and sadly, the super saiyan isn't quite effective until you're at a certain level.
Knowing what works, and knowing yourself
I don't know how it all works, but I know what’s worked for me. I’m working on an article about how I gained ten pounds of muscle without getting fat by eating only one meal per day. I’m afraid to publish it because everyone will want to do the transmogrification thingy.
“I work out at this time, how would you change it for me?”
“Can I put cream in my coffee?”
“Is Charmin a good toilet paper brand?”
I get it because I've been there. But sometimes what’s best for you is simply best for you. No one else. Getting caught up in what’s worked for others will lead you astray of a perfect solution for you. The only way to sort through all of this and find that though?
Be a goonie.
I’ve copied. I’ve imitated. I’ve wanted to be so many people other than me. And that’s what eventually led me to me. Take what's out there and make it your own. Don't rely on someone else to make it yours either. Use their ideas for a backbone, but be responsible for the limbs.
Cutting through the clouds isn't a function of tools. It’s not the pen. It’s not the paper. Everyone’s working with the same equipment. Instead, it's how you use the tools. And that's most often a function of being willing to sketch, hate yourself at times, think about improvement, and then keep going until things get good enough for confidence to snowball.
Of course, this all depends on how good do you want to get. Some people are happy drawing a misshapen circle, in which case this idea of mastery and embracing goonieism probably isn’t for you.
Me?
I want to be more. And I know that’s finding out who I am. That’s failing harder. Learning more. Probing my boundaries. Doing things people probably think are a little crazy.
The conclusion of the Journey — what to put in your satchel
Everything you've done in your life to this point has cultivated your body a certain way. You probably have strengths where others have weaknesses, but you probably won't tip your hat to them. You're always focusing on what's bad. Fine. It doesn't matter because it's your work that's going to help you win.
1. Do the work. Build yourself. No one else is going to do it for you.
2. It's rarely ever a glamorous start. Things that are easy for some are only easy because they did the hard work to make them easy.
3. Don't have the time to read, learn, and do a little self experimentation? That's like expecting your hands to learn how to draw without churning through sketches you find abysmal.
4. The secret isn't the tools, it's learning how to make better use of the tools.
5. It's one thing to model someone, but your job is to eventually make something for you.
6. The better you want to be, the more work and and self loathing you should expect. It's tough to be roshi when you want super saiyan, but it's a necessary step.
7. When you start there’s a gap between your expectations for yourself and what your current level of abilities allows you to do. The entire Journey, realistically, is learning how to bridge this gap.
I don’t know how to help you in eight weeks because everything I've learned has taught me that it takes a lot longer than that. There are some best practice. Some things you probably should do. That's another day though. It doesn't matter if you understand shading if you can't yet grasp that you're going to flop through lots of sketches.
And on that note, I'll leave you with what I wish someone would have told me: in order to get good, you have to do the work to get good.
Work.
Hard work.
But you know what?
There's nothing keeping you from starting tomorrow.
+++++