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A while back someone e-mailed me and asked me how I had so many interesting experiences in my life. I meant to write him back, but couldn’t find the e-mail.

First of all, what constitutes an interesting life? Do we care if OTHER people think it’s interesting? Do we care if WE think it’s interesting? Does it just have to be different?

For me it boils down to having a life that is exciting to live. I get a kick out of knowing that other people are interested in my life, but at the end of the day I’d take personal satisfaction over people thinking I have personal satisfaction.

Every day when I wake up I’m excited about my new day. I know, from experience, that I can’t possibly predict what will happen that day. By the end of the day I may be in another city, I may have met a new best friend, I may have found a new hobby, or I may have completely altered the course of my life.

This feeling of uncertainty isn’t the definition of an interesting life, but it’s a strong indicator of one. Interesting things happen to me with enough frequently that I am not surprised when one comes around.

Another reason my life seems interesting is because most people DON’T have interesting lives. It’s the contrast.

Let’s look at some stats.

The average person works 8 hours a day.

They watch 4.5 hours of TV a day.

They sleep for 7 hours.

Taking a shower and getting dressed is 30 minutes.

An hour for dinner and breakfast combined.

Another hour commuting.

That’s twenty two hours.

This is the AVERAGE American. He doesn’t have TIME for an interesting life.

I work for two hours a day.

I watch 30 minutes of TV/movies per day on average

I eat for two hours.

It takes me half an hour to dress and shower.

I sleep for eight hours.

That’s 13 hours. I have 11 hours each day to fill with interesting things.

Even if the average American HAD 11 hours to fill, most still wouldn’t be interesting. Why? We are conditioned from BIRTH to be boring.

Parents have one mission - to ensure the survival of their children. Not to ensure the outlandish success and happiness of their children, but mere survival.

I had a near perfect childhood. My parents were married, loving, supportive, had enough money to put nutritious food on the table, had reasonable but strict rules, and made their children their top priority. By any metric, I had a fantastic childhood.

However, if I had followed all of my parents’ advice I would lead a boring life. Interesting doesn’t ensure survival - caution does. Unfortunately, caution also prevents an interesting life from unfolding.

Most people reading this don’t follow their parents’ advice anymore. You probably don’t get much advice anymore. However, your parents have drilled into your subconscious that you need to be cautious and careful.

You don’t.

There are three main kinds of risks you need to take. Here they are, in order of importance.

Social risks. Social risks have ZERO cost to them. Go talk to someone new. Say what’s on your mind. A good example is the time that I went and collected on a random bad check. It was awkward and a huge social faux pas, but it was a blast. Even if the end goal is personal satisfaction, think about what will make a good story.

Financial risks. It’s pretty well established that the only way to make money is to risk your own money. Getting a job doesn’t count - it’s not real money. If you’re a smart person (and if you read my blog, you probably are), you will NEVER be broke for a long period of time. There just aren’t any homeless people who are really smart.

Put your money where your mouth is. If you have a great idea, DO IT. I’ve never written about this, but in college I started a hedge fund for my friends and I. We all put all of our money in it, and within a year we lost it all. $26,000. Oh well. I learned a lot, all of my friends are still my friends, and we moved on. I put all my money into the gambling thing (as well as the remainder of my college money), and that turned out to be a hit. If I didn’t take risks I’d still have my $5k from the hedge fund, but I wouldn’t have had the hundreds of thousands from gambling.

The last type of risk you should take are physical risk. I’ve jumped a freight train, climbed a radio tower and several cranes, bought a competition paraglider and tried to fly it with no instruction, gone skydiving (not actually dangerous), gone scuba diving, skiied with sneakers on ice behind a car, and made a swing to go off the roof of my condo building. I broke a little toe once which healed on its own.

Thanks to our parents we GREATLY overestimate our chances of getting hurt. Occasional pain is worth having an interesting life.

Anyway, I’d like to write more but it’s been forever since I posted, so I’m going to slap this puppy up on the blog. If all else fails, think : “What Would Tynan Do?”

If you don’t know… go to the forums and ask me.

Mystery’s show on VH1, The Pickup Artist, has gotten a lot of mainstream attention. As a result there are scores of people in that audience trying to wrap their minds around this whole “pick up thing”.

I’ve read a few message boards where people are discussing the show, and almost universally trying to discredit the pick up. Why are people so against pickup? First instinct might be to assume that girls would be against it, but that guys would all be excited about it. Think about it - it promises to fulfill the #1 goal for nearly every man on the planet.

Here’s what I think is happening.

There are two big categories of men who have problems with pickup. I’m going to talk first about the small group, and then about the bigger group.

The small group, which by definition are also an outspoken group, are the natural alpha-male types. They were discussing the show in the Tucker Max Forums, where a lot of these guys are. These are guys who have NEVER had problems with women. They naturally picked up enough attractive habits and qualities that they’ve never had long periods of time where they couldn’t get girls. It’s natural, and even correct, for them to hear about this stuff and say, “What kind of loser would need this? Getting girls is EASY. Why would you possible wear a stupid hat?”

While I don’t necessary agree with their attitude, I don’t have much of a problem with this group. Pickup isn’t for them anyway. They already get it. Sure, we take their qualities, amplify it, and do it better than they do. We can appear natural if we want to, although going over the top is more effective. But the bottom line is that they’re satisfied and don’t need pickup to get girls. Fair enough.

The second group of haters are generally the worst section of society. I’m talking about the people who are so close minded that the solution to a problem can be thrust in front of their face and they’ll look the other way. Unless an idea is force fed to them, foie gras style, they won’t recognize it.

Pickup works. It’s a fact that I’ve witnessed and lived. Done correctly, there is really no valid criticism against it. It is positive towards women. It is focused on self improvement. You don’t become someone else, you become a better version of yourself. Pickup artists have gotten book deals, TV deals, and are collectively paid millions of dollars per year. Despite taking in the least attractive guys, we get very few complaints. Still, these people submit to their knee jerk reaction and believe, “Nope. That can’t be real.”

Most of the media caters to that very idea. Why? If the media became something that we had to THINK about, we’d be upset. As a society, we enjoy sitting in front of the idiot box and getting our beliefs fed to us. As long as the beliefs they feed aren’t far away from what we already believe, we accept them as fact and move on. If they reported that pickup worked, every guy in America would have to think about his life and think about what it could be.

A friend of mine is the founder of one of the major pickup companies. He told me that a reporter came to do a story on him, but that it never got published. Why? The reporter later confessed to him that he was instructed to trash them, but refused to because he discovered that they were legit. His editor WOULDN’T ALLOW HIM to write positively about pickup.

I’ve found that the more I disregard public opinion and mainstream knowledge, the more success and happiness I’ve found. Following the mainstream is a great way to have a very average life.

The Neg

I’ve got to write about this too, because the neg is the most misunderstood and most often criticized piece of pickup strategy. This is ironic, but still not surprising, since the neg might take up 5 seconds AT MOST of the entire pickup process, which often lasts for hours.

The media, as well as detractors from pickup, like to call the neg an insult. That’s not what it is. There was recently a study by scientists, which was covered by the Freakonomics Blog, that discusses people insulting their partners. Steven Levitt, the author, calls this negging. It’s not.

Here’s what negging is, plain and simple. When you approach a woman, you are implicitly putting her on a pedestal. You’re saying, “Because you’re so beautiful and I’m just some average guy, I will make the effort to come talk to you.” The neg is a quick jab not intended to lower her self esteem, but rather intended to let her know that you are confident enough to be yourself around her.

A classic neg is pretending to pick a piece of lint off her sweater. Does that make her feel bad about herself? No. It just shows that she’s NOT on a pedestal, and that you’ll treat her like a normal human being. It remedies the awkward imbalance of social power that comes with any interaction where you approach her.

I like to bet. For those of you who have read the story about how I was a professional gambler, this is obvious. What I don’t like to do is exercise. At one point in my life, these two activities joined to provide an interesting story.

I have a friend named Hayden. He likes to bet me. For a while we had a running string of bets, and I was down overall because I failed to get 10x his score in a Tony Hawk competition. At one point I was one of the top 10 Tony Hawk players in the world. That lasted for about 5 minutes until someone from Japan beat my score.

Hayden and I sat across from my kitchen table.

“I never exercise. I’m going to train and run five miles.”

He laughed.

“Sure you are…”

I wasn’t known for my physical prowess. I never worked out, and probably hadn’t run farther than a few blocks. Running five miles was out of the question.

“Oh yeah? Bet me.”

A typical conversation. Back then we could hardly have a chat without the challenge of a bet.

“Sure.”

“But it has to be more than five miles. I bet you can’t do 10.”

“Sure I can. Give me a year to train.”

“Nine months.”

“Ok. $500.”

“Deal.”

We shook, and the bet was forgotten for months.

Soon I had only three months left and I hadn’t even begun to train, unless as, you count buying expensive running shoes, which I did.

It was time for action.

I put on my running shorts, Nike Coolmax socks (not best in the land… don’t buy them), and an old t-shirt. I strapped on my GPS watch (as I alluded to, I had already bought all the gear I could find.) My feet hit the pavement and I ran a mile with relative ease. I could do this.

I had twelve weeks left. If I just increased by one mile each week I would make it. I decided to run a mile and a half in a few days, and two miles a week after the first mile.

The next week I ran two miles easily. This was a piece of cake.

A few days later I attempted two and a half but just couldn’t make it.

Pushing back my schedule, I tried again the following weekend. Still couldn’t make it.

My friend Jake discovered that I was training and was eager to give advice. He was training for a marathon, which he later completed, and knew everything there was to know about running. The problem was that when he gave advice it seemed very condescending. He constantly offered to train with me and help me, which I declined.

At my next scheduled running day I decided to motivate myself. If I didn’t complete this week’s run, I decided to surrender and take any and all advice Jake gave me. I did the two and a half with flying colors. This makes me look like a total asshole friend - sorry Jake!

Progress continued steadily. I hated running more than anything. It was boring, and brought with it a gradual agonizing pain. I had a crappy MP3 player that could hold 11 songs on it. Each one still reminds me of grueling jogs through the neighborhood to this day.

I kept my training a secret. Every asked how far I could run, but I refused to tell them. With the deadline approaching, everyone took my silence as admission that I hadn’t yet begun.

4 miles.

5 miles.

6 miles.

I had dinner with Hayden.

“You haven’t trained at all, have you?”

“I’ve done some training. I won’t tell you how much.”

“I bet I’M a better runner than you.”

He was in track back in the day, but hadn’t run in years.

“There’s no way you’re better than me. I promise.”

“Want to bet?”

“Yep.”

“Ok. A thousand dollars for the fastest one mile time.”

“Fine, but you run first and I get to beat your time.”

“Deal.”

And so I now had $1500 riding on my running ability. We scheduled our race to be a week after the 10 mile extravaganza.

7 miles.

8 miles.

Eight miles was excruciatingly long. Forget this, I thought. I’m close enough. The adrenaline will get me past the last two miles.

I took the next week off.

My mother didn’t know about the running bet until the day before. She criticized me in the past for my “sedentary lifestyle”.

“Hey mom, I have a surprise for you.”

“What is it?”

“Come to the high school track tomorrow at 10am.”

She was confused, but agreed to come.

The morning of the race came. My mother and my sister showed up. My friend Austin was there. Hayden brought hot cocoa for everyone. He knew that he was going to win, and he was rubbing it in.

If there’s one thing I can count on, though, it’s my stubbornness. I was equally confident.

The first few miles were easy. I timed my progress to make sure that I maintained our agreed upon 11 minute mile pace.

Austin and my sister Kelsey took turns running with me. This relieved the monotony of listening to the same handful of songs on my mp3 player. Mile four passed, then five, then six, then seven, then eight.

I was in uncharted territory.

Hayden was concerned. He didn’t expect me to make it past five. He ran with me for part of mile nine. I was doing fine, but after a lap or two I noticed him having a tough time. The one mile sprint seemed like it was in the bag.

Finally I had half a mile left. Victory was surely mine. My mother jogged up next to me.

“Tynan… Hayden said that you’re about to run out of time. He thinks he’s going to win. You should hurry up!”

I looked at my watch. I had half a mile left and eight minutes. It seemed like I could walk and win, but maybe I had messed up the timing.

I broke into a full sprint, which was difficult for my overtaxed body.

The finish line was in sight and I charged through it. I won with three minutes left!

That week I ran a practice mile. I did it in eight minutes, which seemed like it would be better than Hayden could do. I decided not to train more.

We met again at the same track. Hayden was up first. His pace was faster than I expected, but hey - a thousand dollars was on the line. He finished with a time of 7:31. That was 30 seconds faster than I had done. I was slightly worried.

I planted my feet and leaned forward into a lunge, waiting for the go.

“Three. Two. One. GO!”

I bolted. There was no time to feel pain - if I didn’t run MUCH faster than I’d ever run, I was going to lose all of my 10 mile money, plus an extra $500. Losing wasn’t an option.

I pushed myself as hard as I could. Seconds felt like minutes. I had no time to look at my watch. I could taste blood in my mouth, but I ran harder. After what seemed like a tortuous eternity, I sprinted across the finish line.

“How did I do?” I panted. My vision was turning black and I could hardly breathe. I clung to the bleachers to prevent myself from collapsing.

“You lost.”

Dammit.

“Just kidding. Six fifty nine!”

I beat Hayden and even ran a seven minute mile. That’s how I won $1500 from running. I didn’t run for several years afterwards.

He doesn’t like to call it a compound, so I won’t. It does have 10 inch thick concrete walls, though. When I heard that Ed Brown was allowing visitors to his “home” in New Hampshire, I had to visit.

Ed and Elaine Brown are a pair of famous tax protestors who are evading arrest in a standoff with the feds.

I exited the highway and passed a Wal Mart. Soon the road became only one lane each way. Soon it was winding through farmland. Shortly after it became a dirt road. The RV hopped over the potholes as veered left onto their street.

All of a sudden there were no more houses. Ahead was a small gravel road heading through the woods. Left over from a few weeks ago was a red, white, and blue sign that advertised a “freedom concert”. The date on it was a week prior.

I cautiously pulled into the gravel driveway. I’d read that they have a lot of guns and, by many accounts, are crazy. Would they be happy to have company? Would they be suspicious of me?

I pulled into a clearing and got a good look. To the right was a huge house with a 360 degree viewing tower at the top. Surrounding the house was a huge yard with a few RVs and tents on it. I wasn’t the only one visiting.

Coming towards me was a guy about my age dressed in a t-shirt and camouflage pants. He was holding an AR-15 semi automatic rifle, the civilian version of the venerable M-16. Things were already getting interesting.

I rolled down my window.

“Hi! You can park down there.”

Friendly for a guy with a gun.

I parked and got out.

“Hey, is it just you? Ed wants me to look inside the RV, if you don’t mind.”

“It’s just me. Go for it.”

I opened the back door and let him peek inside. Satisfied, I followed him to the front porch.

Seated were the Browns, a mousy hippie girl, an older sunburned guy, and a family. The family was interesting. I later found out that the father was one of George Bush Sr.’s advisers. His wife was Hispanic, and they had three kids. To give you an idea of his thoughts on the government - his kids don’t have social security numbers.

Joining the circle was a little bit awkward. Conversation stopped and they all looked at me.

“Hi. I’m Tynan.”

They weren’t impressed.

Dead silence.

“Uhh… I drove here from Texas to see what it’s really like.”

“Where in Texas?”

“Austin.”

“Oh! You must know Alex Jones!”

“Who?”

“Alex Jones.”

It was a test, and I was failing badly.

“No, I don’t know who that is.”

“Are you part of the freedom movement? He’s on the radio down there in Austin.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Why not?”

Things weren’t off to a good start. I wasn’t one of them and they knew it.

I sat down and felt a bit like an outcast. Ed Brown shifted his attention to his pocket. He pulled out a bullet.

“Now kids, what is this one?”

“Fortyfive?”

One of the kids replied with a knowing smile on his face.

Ed beamed with pride. “That’s right. What’s this one?”

Carl, the sunburned guy next to me, leaned over to me.

“Smart kids, all of them.”

He pulled the last bullet out of his pocket.

“How about this one?”

“Wow! That’s a big one!”

The three kids were awed. It was a big bullet - it was a 50 caliber anti tank round.

“Do you have any guns for that?”

Ed chuckled, “Yep. Two of them.”

When Ed spoke, it was always in a confident and matter of fact tone. His people gave him their full attention and marveled in every word. He’d sometimes betray a satisfied grin. It’s fun being in charge.

Carl looked over at me and said, “So. What’s your position on 9/11?”

“Against?”

“No. Like what do you think about it?”

“I don’t, really. It was six years ago and the number of deaths are totally insignificant.”

I wasn’t trying to frustrate him, but I didn’t understand what he meant.

“No. Do you think terrorists did it?”

“I don’t know the first thing about it. Probably.”

“Wrong!”

For the next half hour my attention was begrudgingly consumed by Carl. He explained in excruciating detail how the whole thing was a government plot. It became clear to me that if anyone was crazy here, it was him.

“You should have come here yesterday,” interjected Jason, the young guy with the AR-15, “we were attacked. There were shots fired in the woods and they were banging on the RVs.”

Part of me wished I was there. It sounded exciting.

They asked me about the RV, and approved of my alternate lifestyle. Maybe we weren’t so different. Carl had an RV too, a busted up Winnebago from the 70s that was parked on the far side of the lawn.

When I told them about Life Nomadic, it struck a nerve with Carl.

“You need to stockpile!”

I explained that I wanted less stuff, but he explained that the world economy was going to collapse soon and that I would definitely not survive. He would. He had enough toilet paper.

Ed joined the conversation. The kids had left, so he addressed me for the first time since I got there.

“Toiled paper,” he mused, “Toilet paper will be like gold if something like that happens. The women will demand it. I stockpile the 260 sheet rolls. One eighty isn’t enough, and they cost the same amount. Where are you going on your trip?”

I got as far as Japan, the second stop.

“Osaka….”

He drifted off as if recalling a fond memory.

“Osaka…” he continued, “I’ve never been there, but I’d like to go. I don’t know why. It just sounds nice.”

He smiled, “I can almost smell the air.”

It was sad, in a way. He probably wouldn’t ever leave the property alive. He’d been there for six months and the US Marshals and New Hampshire police dropped by frequently. He frequently told us that this would end in violence. It was the only way, he said.

“Let them shoot me. Let them shoot my wife. For each of us, five of them will die. I’ll take that exchange any day, gentlemen.”

He always called people gentlemen.

“I have a wish list with 50 people on it. It’s already out there. If they take me out, they go too. Not their families. They’ll come after my family, but I don’t do that. It’s not right.”

Out of nowhere a newcomer added a comment, “This is probably the free-est place in the world right now! Don’t you think?”

Ed rolled his eyes slightly and looked deflated.

We went inside for a quick tour. It was a beautiful house that wasn’t quite finished. Tile floors ended and plywood continued. The kitchen had huge granite countertops. We made our way into the garage. My interest piqued when I saw his batteries. Connected to the wind turbines and six solar panels were 24 huge batteries. I can last a day on my RV battery, and each of his batteries was at least 3 times the size.

Their home is completely self sufficient, with enough power to run the fridge, lights, and even laundry machines. Water is pumped from a well and sewage goes into a septic tank.

“They told me, ’see how you like it when we cut your power!’” Ed snorted, “I like it just fine! I don’t need their power anyway.”

He didn’t. In fact, I was offered food half a dozen times at least. There was no shortage of that either.

We sat out on the porch for a few hours. Once we got up to test out a homemade M-80. It was successful. Then Jason tried a bomb that he made from chlorine and alcohol. It seemed like a failure until we’d all given up and it exploded and shot chlorine everywhere.

Another time an impromptu meat fight started between Jason and Ed. Jason tried to serve Ed a sausage that had been outside for 24 hours. Ed took a bite and threw it at Jason. Jason threw a huge T Bone steak at him.

It’s easy and fun to make Ed look like he’s crazy, but he’s not.

What I don’t write about are the hours of talking that took place in between the exciting or strange moments. Ed’s against the income tax, but that’s not what he’s about. Like pretty much everyone on the internet, Ed is sick and tired of the government absorbing our freedoms and operating corruptly.

The difference is that unlike everyone on the internet, Ed Brown is standing up for himself. The tax issue was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. He got sick of being pushed around by the government and decided to fight back.

Soon it was getting dark. I’d been there for almost four hours and still had to drive down to Boston.

“Hey man, do you want to stay here and help us?”

It was Jason, the guy with the gun.

Tempting. My ordinary life is defined by whim and pleasure. If I fail to do something, it’s not a big deal. These guys are on a mission fighting for survival. They weren’t making chlorine bombs to play a prank, they were making them because they will be at war some day in the forseeable future.

“No, I have to go.”

It wasn’t my battle to fight.