How to be more than a pawn in the rigged chess game of life where the "elite" cheat.

Junk food for the mind

It’s 2025.

Billions are doom scrolling away on their various rectangular mind-control prison devices – and most of this “information” is junk food for the mind.

Scrolling on your phone or tablet is kind of like going to the Golden Corral. You leave entirely too bloated, feeling like a literal walking piece of shit. (And deeply ashamed, of course.)

In 2025, with an unlimited buffet of short-form attention-span-eroding social media videos, opening TikTok is like reaching for frosted animal circus cookies instead of a gala apple. One vertical scroll equals one cookie (20 calories). Five swipes in, and you’re already at a hundo.

But there’s a catch.

The quality of input we consume is everything.

Example list of bad, debatable, and ideal input

These aren’t absolute (who would I be to make a definitive list). They can, of course, vary from person to person. But I think it’s a solid start. What do you think?

Bad: weaponized soul-sucking materialism

• Taylor Swift
• Listening to anything on the billboard charts
• All mainstream news outlets
• 90% of social media (including X)
• Most podcasts
• Netflix
• Junk food
• Fashion trends
• Porn
• Listening to stupid people repeat what they consumed on social media
• Basically anything that TAKES from your time and gives zero value (arbitrary information is not value)

Debatable: guilty pleasures (sometimes you gotta take a load off)

• Professional sports (including NCAA) minus the commercials
• Good observationalist comedy (i.e., Tim Dillon)
• Any hobby that brings enjoyment
• YouTube videos that interest us
• Classic rock

Ideal: a better life

• YouTube / paid online learning videos to learn a beneficial skill
• Books that teach us marketable skills or self-improvement
• Practicing skills that are marketable
• Healthy food and supplements
• Learning a foreign language
• Learning how to improve relationships
• Activities you can skill up and get good at (i.e., paddleboarding, running, darts, an instrument)

“Hey, why is Tay Tay in the really bad category 😤 and not sports!” Because she is objectively less talented than many other amazing musicians and entertainers. And I don't waste my time with the hive-mind Zeitgeist.

Athletes, on the other hand, have to prove themselves through years of rigorous competition, and their athleticism can be objectively measured.

Anyway… let’s focus on the good inputs. Notice anything? It’s all mostly learning. And not just learning anything… but inputs that directly affect the quality of output you can offer.

Example: Input Korean grammar book. Output 100x with the ability to go to Korea and speak with locals, make friends more easily, date more comfortably, and get a job or start a business in Korea, all while opening up an entirely new world and society in your life.

Huge return.

Wild-guess ratio

Let’s make an unscientific estimate: if you want to be a producer (creator) leaving an impression on the world more than the world leaves an impression on you, you need 25% input / 75% output.

Whatever the ratio, the point is to stick to books that help you become better. Use your phone sparingly. And when you do, make sure it’s used mainly for output, not input – you should be outputting 3x of what you’re inputting.

Not for everyone

If you don’t want to be a creator, that’s absolutely fine. In fact, most people aren’t meant to be creators. Otherwise, who would input the things the outputters produced?

As this is an entrepreneurial-minded website and blog, this post is more for those who feel they want to be more but aren’t meeting their expectations.

Point is: if you DO want to be more, start producing more work NOW.

Ditch the fear of failure

Someone will always criticize your output (one of the main reasons why many live in frozen input states). But guess what? Those who criticize you are most likely… you guessed it. Victims of too much input.

So they criticize through a distorted lens those actually trying to output. It’s envy and insecurity. Plain and simple.

Fuck 'em. Laser focus.

Go output

If this post resonates with you in any way, feel free to reach out. My inbox is always open.