The Rudest book ever

CHAPTER ONE YOU ARE A PRODUCT

Hey, buddy, how are you doing? Aren’t you glad that you bought this book! Well, we are going to go on a journey together. And as long as you are reading this book, I will be your friend. The only case in which this doesn’t apply is if you illegally downloaded this book, in which case, fuck you.This book is about insanely practical ideas to free you from all bullshit. Let me start by saying this: a lot of this was supposed to be your parents’ job. I am not gonna say anything bad about your parents. All I am saying is: if people were products, then what we see around us are really shitty ones. So, clearly, parents are royally fucking up their jobs.Let me give you an introduction of the world you have been brought into:The world doesn’t give a flying fuck about you. This world is a place full of people that will come in the form of friends, lovers and well-wishers; in the form of emotional adhesives, neatly packaged dreams and aspirational lollipops; in the form of saviours, fixers and salespersons. We are gonna talk about them all.Anyway, when the time comes, a lot of them will take complete advantage of you, rid you of your emotional innocence and turn your world upside down. It will most definitely happen, history tells you that, no matter who you are or what you do—rich, talented, genius, pretty, strong, powerful, polite, kind, or careful.So, do you feel prepared?Let’s start with you. You are a product. You are a product with hope attached to it. What does that mean? It means that, one day, you are meant to become this awesome, functional unit capable of choosing jobs, careers, relationships, environments and economies on your own volition—that’s the hope. The better the choices, the better the product you are—that’s the simple law on the basis of which the world judges you.So, here are a few things about you: A person is not born ready. A person has to be made ready. The person is emotional in nature. The person does not know how to learn in the beginning; it knows how to absorb, which means it learns whatever it absorbs from its surroundings. I am talking about when you were a kid. The person has to learn how to learn. The person can think, but does not know how to think, which is why it cannot learn how to learn. This may be confusing, but it will become clear later in the book. A person’s emotional responses to different experiences create interpretations of those experiences, which the person assumes to be true. Therefore, emotional responses become one of the earliest teachers of the person. ‘Emotional responses’ is a garbage teacher, because as a kid, the emotional intelligence is underdeveloped. Because the person learns by absorption, the parents and surroundings become the other teachers. Instead of teaching the person how to think, parents and surroundings teach what to think—thereby becoming terrible teachers themselves. Teaching what to think stops the product from learning how to think and since the person doesn’t learn how to think, it grows up to be confused and clueless regarding how to deal with this world.In conclusion, the product is very likely to be screwed. The product is you.NOBODY IS BORN AN IDIOTYou may have said this on many occasions in your life: people are fucking idiots.But nobody is born an idiot—we unknowingly choose to be idiots because we are not taught the methodologies of how to think. When devoid of this knowledge, people unconsciously view what they have learned from parents, surroundings and emotional responses as factual learnings.As you grow older and life becomes harder, without the ability of ‘how to think’, one naturally falls back on what one knows—which strengthens these ‘factual’ learnings even more, so much so that at a certain age, they can become unchangeable ideas, biases, prejudices and practices that the individual can no longer abandon.Now, you may be thinking, what the fuck is he talking about? Factual learnings? How to think? What to think? Here is an example: imagine growing up in a place where you only interacted with people of one group. Now, also imagine this group of people having a very strict, single-belief system, strict ideologies and strict doctrines on morality, how to live your life, what’s decent and what’s not. Now, on top of that, also imagine that they have notions which are not so kind about people of other groups, or other belief systems, or even about women. When you teach the children to think exactly like that, it would be called teaching somebody: what to think. Makes sense?If you are growing up with such teachings, those would be called factual learnings, because they may appear factual to you, but aren’t necessarily so. They are based on fear and ignorance.So, with time, when they are not corrected by verification, these factual learnings become factual truths to people. Factual truths means they are incontestable to those who believe them, and they most probably will die by them. And once you believe something that strongly, you become its avid defender. Once we become defenders, we become groups. Once we become groups, we disagree with other groups, and fight, and vote, and celebrate, and denigrate on behalf of whichever ideas align most closely to our ‘factual’ truths.THE TYPES OF PRODUCTS AROUND YOUBased on people who are taught how to think and people who are taught what to think, these are the results: A person brought up on what to think tends to follow ideas, ideologies and ways of living that echo a relationship with familiarity. We do so, because we feel safe with familiarity. Whatever is familiar to you is known to you well. So, you’re most comfortable with it. A person brought up on how to think tends to question, filter and may abandon ideas, ideologies and ways of living that echo a relationship with familiarity. Familiarity, although safe, does not guarantee soundness. A person brought up on what to think tends to feel threatened by alien ideas, things, or people, which may end up pushing them more towards what they know and are familiar with. A person brought up on how to think, when confronted by alien ideas or people, takes an interest in understanding and figuring them out. At the same time, they also inspect the first impressions their mind created. They are not threatened, because practising how to think over the years creates curiosity and an investigative attitude. Therefore, any person, thing or idea that is alien becomes food for thought. A person brought up on what to think inclines towards asking for solutions for their problems, instead of thinking and finding out things by themselves. This explains the insatiable need for self-help books, the lack of self-reliance, and the explosion of ‘clever’ people online, teaching people how to be successful, to be a man, a millionaire, a strong woman, smart, clever, slick, handsome and beautiful all at once. The person who knows how to think will try to find solutions for their problems by thinking on their own, using methods of reasoning, with consideration to mental harmony and bringing smoothness in the functioning of their life. To expand the scope of their knowledge, however, they will read books, watch videos and consume all available information. They seek knowledge because knowledge contains perspectives. And the cultivation of how to think requires a collection of as many varied perspectives as one can gather. Lastly, a person who wasn’t brought up on ‘what to think’ still functions just the same as people who were taught what to think. It happens because one can be deprived of parental guidance, but that is only one of the teachers. The other teachers, such as surroundings and their emotional responses, still teach them ‘what to think’. Basically, ‘how to think’ cannot be self-taught during the developmental years of a person. You may cite a few exceptions, but this book isn’t about exceptional people, it’s about people.YOUR PARENTS PROBABLY MESSED UPWhy are parents largely producing products that are unprepared to face the challenges of this world?It is a very important question, also a fantastic one. It is both important and fantastic because it sits on the assumptions that: All parents want to be parents in the first place. People who become parents are mentally prepared to be parents. People who become parents are mentally fit to be parents.Do you know how many reasons there are for having a child?One can become a parent because the guy forgot to pull out, or the girl—out of some ancient, primitive urge—commanded the guy to not pull out, or he believed he had pulled out but the result said otherwise. People have babies because they like babies, or because they have recently been feeling a sense of incompleteness, or because they hope it will make their lives purposeful again. People have babies because they have reached the age society has deemed right to have a baby. People have babies because it appears to be a viable strategy to save their marriage, or because one of the partners wants to have a baby, and the other complies. People have babies so the baby can grow up to fulfil the unfulfilled dreams of either of the parents.There is a great chance that you might have been born from one of those reasons. Ideally speaking, there should be a strategy. You are bringing a fucking life into this world, and that person is gonna grow and contribute in many ways to this world. They are gonna vote, follow ideologies, make people money—which is what a job is—find love, marry, and do a lot of other things, like write shitty poetry in their teens.If they are not a responsible person, they are gonna be hurting a lot of people. And if they grow up to be a douchebag, you are indirectly responsible for hurting all the people that douche is going to hurt. If they grow up to be a follower of ideologies that talk about dividing people, then the parents too are responsible for creating one more follower.WHY SO MANY SHITTY PRODUCTS?The question is: how much forethought goes in the minds of parents before having a baby about the baby?If the prime motivation is: A baby is a cute little thing that will change our lives, well, that is not good enough. There is a high possibility that you’re gonna be creating another moron on this planet. A kid ain’t gonna figure shit out by themselves. If they are not gonna be able to, then somebody will use that and make them their follower. And that somebody will probably not give as much of a shit about the kid as the parents would. Unfortunately, this is what happens in most cases. People learn shitty ideas from surroundings, parents and their own underdeveloped emotional intelligence.And with this, they enter this world.Now, there is a thing called responsible motivation, which sounds like: We are creating a human—are we mentally fit and prepared to create a person for whom we will be solely responsible? If not, shall we now start to upgrade our thoughts, perceptions, perspectives, create multiple storages of knowledge—which in time will cater to the young person’s curiosities and impact the overall development of its personality?‘Responsible motivation’ means parents realising that they will have one of the strongest influences while the foundation of the personality of the child is being laid. And, to prepare the child, the parents will have to prepare themselves first. Unfortunately, parents on this planet aren’t so big on this one.SHOULD ALL PARENTS BE GENIUSES THEN?Fuck no, I am not saying that. I realise parents have shit to do. They have jobs, their relationship, finances to manage, and a house to take care of. I realise that they also have to watch television, talk about politics, buy more stuff, make room for the baby, drink tea, fight and argue, battle ageing, wrinkles, receding hairlines, declining morning erections, buy even more stuff, satisfy their parents, satisfy their bosses, satisfy their respective partners, say goodbye to their dreams, accept existential insignificance, and so on and so forth. Yes, there is a hint of sarcasm above.In many cases, people don’t think they need to learn anything because they assume they already know everything—a very dangerous assumption that comes from a frightening absence of self-awareness. So, they believe they are qualified to teach their kid anything there is to know in this world.Here’s the truth: most parents don’t have their shit figured out because nobody taught them how to think when they were growing up. In short, they are not philosophers.PERFECT PARENTS ONLY EXIST IN MOVIESIdeally, the perfect parents would be: Very wise. Aware of the child’s emotional struggles as it grows. Aware of the nature of lessons to give with every phase in the child’s life. Equipped with the sensitivity and command over ideas to present them in a way which prevents practical ideas from being misused. Careful not to over-instruct, which is a form of controlling, thereby obstructing the natural growth of curiosity, learning and exploration of self. Curious about the inclinations of the child. Aware of when to let the child get hurt and when to intervene.This means they are not simply sharing ideas and information, they are doing so while considering the impact, need, urgency, application, mood, temperament and learning curve of the individual.For this, people would have to be fucking philosophers, which they are not, regardless of whether they have degrees in philosophy or not. Therefore, such perfect parents exist as exceptions and in movies.THE DUMB GOAL OF SHITTY PARENTINGIn reality, what we usually get is the widely practised style of parenting, which is: Protect the child from accidentally killing themselves, getting killed or hurting themselves. Keep them fed and loved and try to discipline them. Educate them, and to get them an education. Teach them what’s right and wrong by distributing punishment and love—punishment when the child messes up or pisses off the parents, and love when the child is being responsible, or depending on the mood of the parent. Aspire that they will one day become capable and take care of themselves.The last point is the main focus. You should be educated, they say. What the fuck does that actually mean? Getting a degree. Now, a degree is not a bad thing. The motivation behind getting a degree, however, is what’s important.For them the motivation is a job, which has three categories: good job, bad job and great job. They want you to get a great job, therefore the degree should come from the best of institutions. Goddamn, my kid got selected to the best school, I am so happy, I am an awesome parent.So, the objective of education is not for you to become a fine, thinking person, but to become someone who earns very well. They realise that rich people have a better life; you will be treated pretty well by your family members, the society that surrounds you and by members of the opposite sex. So it’s not entirely unreasonable for them to want you to become a person of status.What’s utterly stupid about it is that it takes care of the status part only, not the person. In the phrase ‘a person of status’, you need the development of both. Status is a socially engineered identity that tends to replace the individual identity. So, status must not dictate who the person is. The person must dictate what to do with the status in accordance with how they feel about that status.Take all the high-achieving people who hate their jobs or professions. Despite money, achievements and success, they are miserable doing what they do. It happens because a sense of meaning and satisfaction does not come from status; such things are deeper and more personal than that.Your parents wanted to prepare you to be one of the best products for this world. In action, what they end up doing is: prepare you technically, academically and skill-wise to be the best product for the race, like a car. The human element is barely accounted for.The goal of most parents is for their child to become capable of achieving great success. If that goal is achieved, in their minds, they are the best parents. What’s fucked up about it is, in case you do achieve success, they assume that they have somehow prepared you to deal with the world as well—which is utter bullshit.Now, if you are one of those people whose parents never forced you to do anything, they didn’t push you to achieve success, or anything of that sort, they let you do whatever you wanted—I am not saying parents who push their kids are evil. What I am saying is: it is the responsibility of parents to help you grow both into a capable working person and a capable thinking one. Did they do that?PARENTS ARE EXPERTS IN ACTINGLearning of any kind that involves zero investment of your thinking produces only imitation. To create ideas and better yourself, you have to take the information and apply your own mind.When parenting is not coming from the parents’ own mind, their own ideas and their own thinking, it becomes an imitation of whatever they have learned. What that means is, they could be playing a character of what they believe a parent is. The character could be of a strict parent, of a genius person who knows everything, or of a person who is very brave and heroic. It could be anything. But when this happens, it becomes harder for the kid to find their parent approachable and figure them out. There is love, but the relationship is between the kid and a character, not the actual person.There are several reasons for parents to do this.One reason could be: playing a role gives them the comfort of hiding all their personal trials and tribulations from you. Just because somebody is older doesn’t mean they have figured out life. In most cases, older people are children who have aged. Stop attaching maturity, wisdom, enlightenment to ageing. He is old, hence he must be wise is one of the stupidest notions we take for granted.Another reason is pride. In cases where the parents’ sole focus is on the kid becoming capable, the character they play also becomes the one that expects only brilliance and exceptional performances from the kid. In playing this character, the kid becomes a reflection of their ego. The kid’s emotional and personal growth is hardly ever addressed. There is love, but it is shown in demands of accomplishments and excellence. In this case, what is missing is the responsibility of helping that kid become the individual they are meant to be.Another reason why most parents don’t care to break out of these stupid, empty shells of characters is, they don’t even consider that the kid’s personality is getting shaped by things that hurt them, influence them and amaze them. The reason for that is, they don’t see them as people yet. They see them as kids who must be doing harmless, innocent kids’ stuff. No wonder they are shocked beyond belief when they find out their kid was doing some adult stuff. You were smoking and drinking? You are having sexual relations already? But you are so young!The moment a kid touches the age of thirteen, parents should break out of their stupid characters and start looking at their kid as an inexperienced adult. What it means is, they are now thinking of doing everything that adults do.In conclusion, parenting is largely coming from imitating whatever people learn from the culture in their surroundings. This basically means that whatever parents do is coming from a degree of cluelessness with regards to what to actually do. No wonder you enter adulthood completely clueless.The point of having a brain should be to minimise error, not having to deal with it endlessly. But you were never taught the mechanisms which would prepare you to protect yourself and understand the errors that produce bothersome situations, hurt and pain. You are left to deal with all of it by yourself. As a result, you’re a grown person now, on your own, having to deal with the world telling you your self-worth and net worth; adjusting your self-esteem as you make sense of rejections from people you desire; filling yourself with insecurities and ideas from comparing yourself to god-knows-what standards; and lastly, triggering negative emotions as a response to failures, heartbreaks and denial of wishes. Yes, you are doing that to yourself, the world is doing that to you, and it does that to everybody.So, without wasting time, let’s concern ourselves with arming you with better means, methods and mechanisms to deflect and deal with shit that has happened to you, is happening to you and will happen to you.