Today Annie told me that she has a new project. What is it? To learn where every single country is, what its capital is, its president, and ten current news items from each.

That’s a handful.

I’m not willing to keep up on the presidents or news items, but countries and capitals rarely change. That’s useful information to have. There were a couple times (Qatar and Hong Kong) where I didn’t even know exactly where the country was before we flew in.

So, I’m modifying the project for me. I’m going to learn where all the countries are, their capitals, and MAYBE their flags. This, of course, turned into a friendly competition, which will in turn become a bitter rivalry.

By October 12th we have to both get down South America, Europe, and Asia.

At first that seemed really hard, but I spent a couple hours today and have already learned every single country in the entire world! That includes all those pesky island nations like Wake Island in Oceania and St. Vincent and the Grenadines (sounds like a band, doesn’t it?) in the Caribbean.

That means that if you name any country I can point to it on a map. Or, without a map, I could probably tell you which countries border it on which sides.

You can do this, too. Believe me, I have no natural aptitude for geography. In fact, some of my early mistakes were really bad. Like… I had to think twice before clicking on GERMANY.

Anyway, here’s my method.

Go to this map quiz site.

There are eight different zones. Central America has a strict one and a normal one. Pick the normal one.

Choose two, say South America and Africa, and alternate taking the two quizzes.

If you have no idea where a country is, make sure you use all three tries to discover what the unknown countries are. So maybe you don’t find Togo, but you notice where Guinea-Bissau, Benin, and San Tome and Principe are.

After each quiz, write down your score. Your score will increase with each time, and eventually you’ll get it all correct. Once you get one all correct, pick another area to rotate in.

By the end you’ll have gotten a perfect score in every single one. Then you can go back to the first ones to double check that you still remember. I found that once I got a perfect score on one, I would never miss one again.

I used a lot of mnemonics to remember them. For example, Grenada is the Southernmost island in it’s chain, so I imagined it being a grenade being dropped. Croatia looks like a C. Tajikistan looks like a tangent to China (weird, but that’s how I remember it). If I couldn’t come up with a mnemonic I would just make a note of which countries were to each cardinal direction. That is harder to remember, but it helps for more than one country at once.

I sometimes thought that a region would take me tons of tries, but even the hardest ones (Caribbean and Africa) only took five tries each.

I don’t know how long it took me to learn this total, but doing nothing but practicing for two hours should knock it out. Learn some countries and post your tips and scores and such to the comments.

Two tips for countries that are hard to find: Guam is south of the Marianas Islands and St. Martin (or St. Maarten if you’re Dutch) is just South of Anguilla.

As I’ve been immersing myself in poker, I’ve been overwhelmed by the parallels with pickup, in theory, practice, and in my experience as a student.

I’m not sure if this is pure coincidence, my mind trying to find a pattern where there’s not one, or a genuine underlying pattern that probably extends to other areas of learning.

Pickup is the only other thing I can think of that I learned rapidly and by immersion. I made it my world for a year or two. As a result, I remember the learning process, whereas something like web development I can’t really remember because I’ve been learning gradually.

The way I feel about poker now is how I felt with pickup a few months in. I could read a book that explained a certain line of logic. The terminology made sense, and the logic clicked in my head. But then when I went to practice what I’d learnt, I wouldn’t come up with the same logic. I could understand, but I couldn’t speak, to draw an analogy from language learning.

The same is true now of poker. I read a book and they explain why they take a certain action in a hand. It makes sense. Of COURSE you raise here. But then when I get in similar situations I don’t necessarily make the same choices.

And like pickup where initially I may have had some success just by being out there, I sometimes win big pots in poker. Sometimes it’s because I played the hand right, and other times it’s because I just got lucky.

I was reading in a poker book today about the different levels of thinking. At the first level you’re only thinking about where you are. If your hand is good you bet or raise. If it’s bad you check or you fold. Pair of Aces? Bet. Two and seven? Fold.

The next level, which I’d say I’m employing to 10% of it’s power, involves thinking about what the opponent might have. He raised preflop and then is betting again. It’s likely that he has a hand with an ace in it.

From what I’ve read, most people stop there if they even get that far.

The next level is thinking about what you think you opponent thinks you have. I checked preflop and bet the flop, so he might think I made a small pair.

After that you think about what he thinks you think he has. He bet big, so he probably thinks that I think he has an ace.

There are deeper levels too, of course, which are reserved for the people you see on TV.

One of my favorite concepts in pickup mirrors this almost exactly. It’s my favorite because when you fully understand it, EVERY interaction with ANYONE becomes a lot more interesting.

It’s the concept of subtext.

Everything anyone says has a subtext. That’s just a semi-fancy word to describe the emotion or intent behind something someone says.

For example, “Is that all the cake you want?” could have the subtext of “You aren’t eating much cake.” If it’s said in a sarcastic tone, it would mean the opposite.

“I’m sort of seeing someone right now” could mean a variety of things ranging from, “I’m about to make out with you and I want it to be your fault instead of mine.” to “I’m not in any way attracted to you.”

How do you know which it means? Body language, context, tone, timing, etc. There’s a lot to it, but once you get good at interpreting the subtext, you understand why everyone says almost anything. This is one of the main phenomena that cause people to call learning pickup “seeing the matrix”.

In my estimation there are four levels of communication, presented here in descending order of depth.

1. What you say (outgoing)
2. What she says (incoming)
3. What she means (incoming)
4. What you mean (outgoing)

To be socially savvy you want to control one and four and understand two and three. Actually, one and two are almost irrelevant.

Most GUYS only INTENTIONALLY communicate on levels one and two. I say INTENTIONALLY because everyone communicates on level four as well, but most people have little control over it. They say things and they listen to what girls say (some girls would probably tell you that they know guys who only communicate on level one).

Girls, on the other hand, almost ALWAYS communicate on levels one through three. That means that they almost always understand why you’re saying what you’re saying. This accounts for girls having wildly better social skills than us guys in general.

If you say something out of insecurity, she will know. If you’re saying it out of genuine confidence, she will also know.

A slightly exaggerated example. Imagine that Jane and Bob just went on a date and he’s dropping her off. The subtext is in parenthesis.

Jane, smiling and looking down, says, “I had a great time”. (The date went well and I hope you’ll kiss me)

Bob says, “Really? Me too. . I really like you a lot. You’re so beautiful.” (I am insecure and generally don’t do well on dates with girls of your caliber)

Jane says, “Oh, thank you. I like you too” (You just ruined it, I don’t really like you now, and I feel kind of uncomfortable)

Bob is really happy to hear that she likes him and replies, “Can I kiss you?” (I want to kiss you, but I’m too timid to just do it)

Jane says, “I don’t kiss on the first date.” (I would have kissed you, now I won’t, and I will ignore your calls)

That went terribly. The reason is twofold. First, the surface conversation is smooth, but the subtext is disjointed. They aren’t responding to the other person’s subtext properly. Second, Bob is inadvertently using his subtext to say terrible things about himself.

A better example:

Jane, smiling and looking down, says, “I had a great time”. (The date went well and I hope you’ll kiss me)

Bob replies, “I had a terrible time.” (my goal is to have fun, not to jump on the first chance to kiss you, but I’m still flirting with you)

Jane says, “You liar!” (I know you’re just joking and I like that you’re fun)

Bob takes a step closer, looks her in the eyes, and kisses her. (I’m confident and I know that you want to kiss me)

Okay, so that was a lot better. He could have just kissed her after the first line too, but I added more to illustrate it better. Notice how in this interaction the surface conversations is disjointed, but the subtext flows smoothly? The subtext is all that matters. That doesn’t mean that surface conversation SHOULD be disjointed, just that it doesn’t matter.

This is also why you can’t just learn lines and expect to be good at pickup. The lines don’t matter, the subtext does. Good pickup artists will say something with the right subtext and it will work, but then a new guy will say it with the wrong subtext (his default subtext as he’s starting out will be something like “I am scared out of my mind”), and it won’t work.

You don’t need to constantly manipulate your subtext. In general it should mesh with what you’re saying. You DO want to be AWARE of it, though. Is it responding to her subtext? If you’re 90% confident, but 10% nervous, there’s a good chance that nervousness is going to come out in the subtext. Don’t let it.

The most important thing, though, is to understand her subtext. Why is she saying what she’s saying? What is her emotional drive for it? What response does she hope to elicit? What does she really mean?

I say “she”, because our example is pickup, but the truth is that once you build the habit of tuning in to the subtext of a conversation, you will see it everywhere.

Several years ago I was sitting with a bunch of friends at a restaurant. Dinner was winding down and we were all stuffed.

My friend next to me asked me how I made so much money. I always had the money for everything, she said, and she was always struggling.

The bill came and everyone went down the list adding up their stuff. Before tax and tip mine was around $7. Hers was $30, more than four times what mine was.

She had two margaritas, an entree which she didn’t finish, and an appetizer. I had three burritos a la carte, chips that were free, and water. I used to get the burrito plate, but then I realized that for less money I could get three burritos instead of two and not have the extra rice and salad that I didn’t want.

That’s why I always have money. I don’t spend it stupidly.

For those who don’t want to read this whole thing, here’s the short version:

Figure out what you really want to do, and then figure out the absolute cheapest way to do it. Be creative. Think outside the box.

That doesn’t mean to compromise on what you want to do, by the way. I’m not saying that. I mean to figure out what you REALLY want and going after that. Not the packaged “this is the good life” you see on TV.

I like the idea of a zero cost lifestyle. You save money up front to set yourself up, and then you make enough residual income that your lifestyle is never threatened no matter what.

Here are my monthly costs for when I’m in Austin:

• Rent: $0 (RV)
• Electricity: $0 (Solar power)
• Gas: $150
• Insurance: $50
• Food: $750 (it’s important for me to eat well)
• Entertainment: $50 (I mainly do free things with my friends and find adventure.)
• Cryonics: $50 (to Alcor and life insurance)
• Water / Waste: $20 (dumping and filling up at a local RV park)

That’s about all I can think of. Added up that’s $1070 per month. I eat perfect food that I love, live in the exact spot that I want to live, and I spend my free time doing what I want to do. And I’m taking care of myself so that I’m healthy and I will be frozen when I die.

That’s not to say that I don’t do a lot more than that (like travel all the time), but these are my base costs to be happy and comfortable.

If I was making half a million a year I wouldn’t change much. I’d still be in the RV and I’d still be eating in the same restaurant every day. I’d spend more money on crazy adventures, but I’m not exactly lacking those now.

I make money in a bunch of different ways. A few hundred for writing for Gadling, another couple hundred for ads on this site, a few hundred for Conversion Doubler, a little bit more for affiliate links, and maybe a thousand or so for my book. Let’s say I make $1800 total.

That’s not a lot of money. In fact, I think that’s below the poverty line but I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure that everyone reading this has the capacity to make that much money, and almost all of you probably make more than that now.

But… that covers my base expenses comfortably. And it’s built into my lifestyle. I’m going to write whether I get paid for it or not. My book is all automated at this point. So you could say that the net cost of my base lifestyle is nothing.

That means that I can spend nearly 100% of my time doing whatever I want. I can work on other businesses to make more than a paltry $1800. I can take a month off and sit by the creek if I want.

And look what happens when I travel. I don’t pay the $150 for gas or the $20 for water. I make $700 more than I need for my base expenses. That means that I have $970 for airfare and renting an apartment (or staying with a friend for part or all of the time), and I already have $750 for food once I get there and $50 for museum tickets or whatever.

I don’t actually keep track of my budget like this. I’ve saved up money so if I’m off a little bit in either direction it doesn’t matter, and I’m disciplined enough to not blow money on stupid things.

Getting here wasn’t free, either, and I realize that. I had to spend around $20k to get the RV I really wanted and get it wired up with solar. But still, there are much cheaper RVs to be had that would be totally serviceable. I had the money to spare and knew that the one I bought would retain it’s value well.

And of course, an RV isn’t the only way to work all this out. It’s just the one that appealed to me so I figured out the right way to do it.

I had to come up with ways to make my life generate income. I chose (or drifted towards) writing and such, but there are a billion other ways to do it.

The real appeal of the zero cost lifestyle is that it is incredibly liberating. You get your time back. You don’t have to worry about getting fired or rent rates going up. Sure my book sales could dry up or something like that, but in worst case emergency mode I just cook for myself and spend $600 less per month.

Even if you aren’t ready or interested in going hog wild like me, there are a lot of intermediate steps you can take to move in this direction. Here are a few ideas:

1. Get rid of your TV and cable. You don’t need it - it adds nothing to your life. If there’s something you really need to see then go see it at your friend’s house and be social. That’s a couple hundred for selling your TV and $80 less a month or whatever for cable.
2. Start writing about things you’re an expert in. This will develop your writing skills and start building up a body of work that you could use for a book in the future. If you’re a good writer, start writing for a blog you like.
3. Go through your credit card bill and see what other monthly charges you can get rid of or reduce. Forty a month seems like nothing but it’s $480 per year. Ask yourself, “would I pay $480 now to have this for a year?”
4. If you own a house, rent out part of it. If you rent, check craigslist every week to see if you can find a better place for cheaper. Rent is probably your biggest expense and you spend it even when you travel.
5. Think about ways to make your hobby your job. My work doesn’t feel like work because I like doing it. Ten hours of work you like is better than one you don’t like.
6. Stop renting and start house sitting.
7. Sell everything you don’t need. Stuff takes up mental energy, time, and money to store. It also ties you to one place.

For the past three months I have been using Rescue Time, which is a really amazing tool to track your time usage.

It runs in the background and logs every single thing you do on your computer. Then when you log in to the web dashboard you can categorize the sites and programs you use and also rate them according to productivity.

From there it draws out a few stats and lets you see where your time is being spent.

In fact, for those of you who follow my daily accountability, I get my 0-3 number generally from multiplying my daily efficiency number by 3. Sometimes I add or subtract depending on what I did while not on the computer, but it’s a good measure.

Here are some interesting stats from my personal results.

I spend about 20 hours a week on working. It’s actually a bit more than this because I don’t tag every last thing (researching for a post or finding stock images for a site, for example), and some work takes place on the phone.

Oh, and I was having some computer trouble for ten days there where I was working and my work didn’t get logged.

Lets call it 25 total.

Anyway, I’m fairly happy with 25 hours of work per week. I think that I could be using my work time more effectively (something I’m implementing strategies for now), but that’s a good quantity. I’m spending a lot of time learning and seeing things. I think I’ll shoot for 30 hours from now on, though.

Keep in mind that unlike a real job, this only accounts for time that I’m actually working. As soon as I switch the browser to digg, it starts counting against me.

I spent 66 hours total chatting on AIM. That’s about 45 minutes a day.

It says that I spend only 15 minutes a day wasted on the internet. It’s actually more than this because I tend to waste time by clicking links from digg and reading about things, and I don’t tag all of those. Still - I do tag the big ones, so this is pretty good for me.

If you were to look at this stat last year… it would have been bad.

Time on e-mail every day: 25 minutes. Hey… maybe that’s because I’m terrible at replying to e-mails!

E-mail checking is actually a bigger timesuck than that because it breaks up my flow of work and takes a few minutes to get on track after checking. Because of this I have started working with my e-mail program closed.

Most computer time in one day: 15 hours 9 minutes, 10 and a half hours of that spent working.

76 hours spent blogging. That’s 1 and a half hours per post! I thought I was way faster than that.

But here’s the big stat: I have spent 550.33 logged hours on the computer. That means that I spend just over 6 hours a day on the computer everyday. That’s a lot, but not actually as much as I would have guessed.

It’s really interesting to have such good stats on my computer usage. If you use it too, post some of your stats here. If you don’t use it, you can check it out at www.rescuetime.com.

A few months ago I wrote about the power of persistence. I think that it was one of my better posts, and I think that adopting the habit of persistence and working hard is one of the most important habits I’ve picked up.

Since January I have been tracking my productivity. Besides having a log of what I’ve done nearly every day since I started, it’s made me be a lot more mindful about my productivity.

And as a result, I get a lot more done now. I can sit down with my laptop and bang out a batch of work without procrastinating.

I’m still not perfect, of course. Sometimes I’ll get distracted, or put something off a bit, but I’ve mad such exponential improvement that for me it’s not really even worth worrying about these imperfections. The bottom line is that if there’s work that needs to be done, I’ll get it done with no problems.

Back in the day that wasn’t the case at all. A lot of the time I would miss deadlines, self set or otherwise, or let stuff fall by the wayside. Just look at the archives of this blog as an example. There was a string of months where I posted 2-4 times per month instead of the eight I’ve been averaging recently.

So what do I have to show for it?

Well, things have been good. I finished Conversion Doubler and I’m just now starting to market it with the help of a friend who is “in the business”.

I rewrote Make Her Chase You. Sales have slowed down a bit from their heyday, but it’s still making me a bit of money.

Blog posting has gotten more consistent.

I started Daily 15, which now has over 700 people who check it every day.

All that’s great, and I’m really happy to be maxproductive.

BUT…

A new problem has cropped up. It’s actually been there all along, and I’ve been peripherally aware of it, but knocking my major stumbling block down has thrust this one into the limelight.

I’m not focused.

Look at all of these projects I start and then get distracted from. I have several more ideas for things I want to start, but I’m now restraining myself.

Even if we boil it down to the core projects of Conversion Doubler, Make Her Chase You, and this blog, that’s three major ways that my attention is being split.

Will I really rise to the top of any of these projects if it only gets one third of my time and energy?

The truth is that I probably won’t. Especially when I start to be drawn to new projects every time stuff gets boring.

Right now that means marketing. Conversion Doubler needs to be marketed, and I hate doing that part. I want to make something and let its excellence sell itself. But that’s not how it works.

Same with Make Her Chase you. I need to spend more time on adwords, rewrite my copy, etc. Every week I write a new newsletter for it, which takes up time.

But of course what is much MORE exciting is new projects. I have a really good idea for a book now - one I think I could sell like 4HWW. But I’m starting to realize that I just can’t divide my attention anymore.

I have a tough time saying no to anything.

That’s the problem I’m dealing with. I don’t know what the right solution is, but for now I’m going to stop myself from doing any new projects. That alone is pretty drastic for me. I’m not sure when I’ll allow myself to do new projects, but maybe I’ll know when I get there.

And really I know that this isn’t as thorough a rule as I should give myself. Really I should cut out one of my projects that I have now, but I can’t see a good way to do that yet..

Today I was talking with my friend, Hayden. One of the things I like about talking with Hayden is that he probably has more insight into my life than I do. He’ll often describe something I do or think in a way that I’d never thought about it, which then gives me something to ponder for a few days, weeks, etc.

Ironically, he’s also the one who recommended the two books that made me adopt the MaxDiet, even though he doesn’t follow it himself.

Today he asked me if I ever feel like crap.

He asks me this every few months, maybe because he doesn’t really believe me.

“Never.”

And it’s true. I definitely have a range of how I’m feeling, but it ranges from “really good” to “incredible”. Never okay, never bad.

I’ve written a bit about this before. A year ago I wrote about how I never get angry. The ladies in my life at the time then started a riot in the comments and everyone started defending being angry.

I felt a little bit vindicated when I read The Power of Now, which basically said the same thing WAY more eloquently. Actually, I only read the beginning of that book because I found it way too boring, even though the message was awesome.

But this is different. Besides not feeling angry, I also never feel depressed or inadequate, or anything like that.

Hayden’s explanation, which I think is right, is that I set my own standards. That’s probably a nice way of saying that I really don’t care what anyone thinks about me.

And I can see how in today’s society it could go the other way. If you look at TV shows, advertising, or movies, there are clear messages being sent.

You’re supposed to get straight As at a top school, get a high paying job, buy a sportscar, find your perfect spouse, buy a house, wear cool clothes and be beautiful like me, go on vacation in the Caribbean, and have kids. And that’s just by the time you’re 30.

Do these things, the legend says, and you will be happy.

There are two problems with this message.

First, this isn’t the path that most people can or want to go down, when it comes right down to it. People don’t meet the perfect girl. They get sidetracked on their own projects. When bombarded by this message, though, people get that nagging, “I’m not on track anymore” feeling.

Second, when people DO get that Porsche Boxster, the $100k salary, and their first mortgage, they aren’t happier. They’re only as happy as they’ve always been. Maybe less because the dream is gone.

“I worked that hard for THIS?”

I forget who said it first, but a phrase really stuck with me.

“You can never get enough of what you don’t want.”

In other words, if you go after society’s standards, you will NEVER reach happiness. I’ve seen this so many times over.

However, when you change your definition of success to one that’s a lot more appropriate, like, “success is when I spend all or most of my time doing what  Iwant to do”, it’s easy and FUN to be successful.

Some people might call this lowering your standards. That’s a poor way of looking at it. Maybe you aren’t going to work 80 hours a week to afford a BMW lease, but you are going to spend more time scuba diving and reading. Which is better? Whichever one YOU want to do.

In my case, I’m essentially homeless. At one point I bought a house and two cars. Now I have no cars, no house, and actually no posessions that don’t fit in my backpack.

By society’s standards, I’m WAY less successful. By my standards, which are the only ones I care about, I’m way more successful. I’m seeing the world, learning, and becoming less materialistic.

As a result, I feel great about myself. I’m doing what I want to do. I’m happy. I feel no pressure from anyone, because I don’t care about their expectations of me.

But don’t bad things happen to me? Aren’t some days better than others?

Sure. Yesterday, for example, I got almost no work done. Even though I’m in Bangkok, I didn’t really go out and see the city. In terms of my standards it wasn’t a great day.

But…

It’s important to learn acceptance. Eckhart Tolle talks about how any anger is the act of not accepting “the now”, as he calls it.

Most days are full of me doing the things I want to be doing. Once in a while, like yesterday, I drop the ball. So I accept it. I’m not perfect.

I focus on the positives, too. While I didn’t go out and see much, I did go get some coconuts in a new area of town, and that was interesting. I started writing this post. I had some good meals and spent some time with my friends.

And hey… I’m ALIVE. The joy of being alive and having been given the chance to live life will always trump everything. You could string 400 terrible days together and I would still be happy because I am alive. Everything else is a blip on the radar.

To sum it up, three ways to always be happy that work for me:

1. Disregard anyone else’s expectations for you (including parents and society) and do what you want to do, Do it openly, honestly, and proudly. You have one life, and it is yours only. So enjoy it.

2. Accept that bad things will happen, but even if they do there is SO MUCH GOOD going on that they are irrelevant. You can consider them, act on them, but shouldn’t be affected by them because there is too much good to ever justify not feeling great.

3. Think every day about how lucky you are to be alive. Any one of millions of sperm could have reached your mother’s egg, but you were the one that made it. Trace that probability back a few generations and realize that EVERYTHING you have is a total gift. It is nearly impossible that you would be born, but you were. Is something like having your TV stolen REALLY enough to offset feeling great because you’re so lucky to be alive?

Be happy.

Many years ago I decided that when I died I would become cryogenically frozen when I died.

Of course, that decision carried no weight - the procedure costs more than one hundred thousand dollars, money which I didn’t have to set aside.

A couple months ago I walked into Style’s living room. Mystery was there.

“Herbal!”

“Mystery!”

I’m not sure that either of us has ever called the other by his real name.

“Want to see something really cool?”

Of course I do.

He pulls off his boot, and from under his sock he finds a stainless steel anklet. It looks like a medical tag.

“I’m getting frozen.”

No way. We’d talked about it years ago when we lived in Project Hollywood, but he’d actually done it. Sure enough, his tag had instructions on it to call Alcor, the leading cryonics outfit.

“it’s a lot easier than you think. You should get it taken care of.”

So right. Is it expensive?

“Nope. You just get insurance for it. It comes out of your checking account every month and you don’t worry about it.”

Wow. Insurance. Why did I never look into this enough to realize that you didn’t have to fork over the whole $150k in advance?

A few weeks later I sat at my computer and remembered our conversation. Time to get things done. I quickly found Rudi Hoffman, the best insurance agent for Cryonics.

I called him up, and was pleasantly surprised. He was super friendly, took a lot of time to answer all of my questions, and wasn’t at all what I was expecting for an insurance agent. It turns out Mystery used him too. Everyone does, because he has connections with insurance companies that are cryonics friendly.

I went with $250k of insurance. I’m going with full body preservation. Mystery went with brain only.

It’s a tough choice. Brain preservation is slightly higher quality (fewer fissures) and less expensive. Whole body preserves everything, so if for some reason there’s a need for the rest of the body, it’s there.

I picked whole body because from what I’ve read it appears that within my lifetime it will catch up to brain in quality. And even if it doesn’t, the quality of the freeze is close enough. I’d hate to get to the future, find out that we still need bodies, and not have mine with me.

People who choose brain are basically betting that if we can reanimate people, we’ll also be able to regrow bodies OR we won’t need them (we’ll all be in the matrix). Not a bad bet, either.

The Cost

The costs from Alcor are around $30 a month. That includes membership fees which support future research as well as “standby”, which means that if you get terminally ill or are in critical condition, Alcor will send a team to wait by your bedside.

Insurance varies greatly between people and situations. If you’re young, as most of my readers are, it will be very cheap.

There are two viable types of insurance, universal life and term. Term means that you are covered for a certain period of time, and then the policy becomes worthless. I got term for 20 years and it costs around $25/mo.

Universal life will cover you until you die, but it is more expensive. Talk to Rudi and he will explain the different benefits and drawbacks to each.

I chose term because I know that I’ll be rich within twenty years, and would rather pay less now. I also didn’t like that UL was basically term with an investment component - I’d rather invest my own money.

I insured for $250k instead of the $150k required. I did this because future advances in technology may be more expensive (they’re working on a better storage method right now). Probably a good idea.

Will it Work?

We can’t bring people back from the dead. Not even close. We can’t really even preserve a single organ for a long period of time, and we can’t freeze animals larger than bugs and bring them back.

So we’re a LONG way away. And to be totally clear, there’s no guarantee whatsoever that I’ll ever come back.

The scientists think that the current quality of freezing (more accurately, vitrification) is probably good enough that future technology will be able to bring people back to life. They think this because examinations of brain tissue that they vitrify seems to indicate that it is well preserved.

No one knows for sure, since we don’t have the technology to revive people.

But… the idea is that in TIME, which we dead people will have plenty of, it will someday be possible to revive the frozen people. Think of how far we’ve come in 1000 years. How far will we go in the next 1000?

Why Do It?

Most people aren’t too keen on the idea of getting frozen and potentially living forever. This is so baffling to me. I can’t even begin to comprehend why ANYONE wouldn’t want this.

I consider the likelihood of heaven, afterlife, or reincarnation to be just about a 1% probability combined. Not likely, but you never know. (For you religious types, there are some thoughts by clergypeople on Alcor’s site)

That means that if I die I’m most likely looking at nothing. Just like when a plant or animal dies.

So….

There are a million things that could go wrong with freezing.

Lightning could burn down the facility. They could run out of money. Pirates could steal my body and eat it.

Or maybe it will be something more mundane: there’s just no way to revive people. The religious people were right and souls leave the body when you’re dead and there’s no way of coaxing them back in.

Who says they’ll even WANT to bring us all back. Maybe there’s no incentive.

These are all remote possibilities that, when added up, become a very real possibility.

BUT…

ANY chance is better than NO chance. Period. The upside is SO HUGE (immortality and a chance to experience the future), that it would be foolish (to me anyway) NOT to do it.

Is $55 per month going to impact my life in any real way? No. Is the chance at living forever going to impact my life? It would quite possibly be the BIGGEST impact to my life besides being born in the first place.

Huge upside, minimal downside.

People always have these weird what ifs -

“What if they enslave you?”

“What if they use your body for science?”

“What if you come out all messed up?”

“What if the future is terrible?”

My answer is always the same. WHO CARES?

It’s like the shot from half court that a basketball player makes at the buzzer. If it doesn’t go in, then you lost nothing. No big deal.

Anyway, I’m working through the application process right now and won’t be officially signed up until I get my medical test in the US in November, but I couldn’t wait to write about it any longer.

Here are a few objections raised in the comments. Although I’ve answered a few already, I want to put the bulk of them together in one spot.

1. Other things are dangerous too. Why eat healthy if you’re not going to take EVERY precaution?

This is a pretty good question, especially aimed at me because I do tend to do fairly dangerous things occasionally.

The CDC says that the top six causes of death in the US are:

1. Heart disease: 652,091
2. Cancer: 559,312
3. Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 143,579
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 130,933
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries): 117,809
6. Diabetes: 75,119

The things we cut out of the MaxDiet are directly and scientifically proven to be responsible for four out of the six. These make up 59.7% of the deaths in the US every year. If you’re willing to agree that part of the MaxDiet is not smoking, you can bump that up to just over 65%.

Compare that to the 5.4% of deaths that accidents make up. This is a HUGE chunk of causes-of-death that the MaxDiet virtually eliminates. Sure there is still the chance of getting skin cancer or being so stressed that you’ll have a heart attack anyways, but by and large, diet is THE root reason for these causes of death.

And even in cases of potentially getting skin cancer, all of the antioxidants and largely alkaline properties of the food have been proven to fight cancer.

Let me remind you again that this is a quality of life issue as well as a quantity of life issue. Lives not spent in the hospital are better.

I am willing to put considerable effort into diet because of all the possible ways I could die, the industrialized diet is by far the most likely to kill me.

I’d do it even if it was unpleasant. But it’s not. Here’s a graph of my food enjoyment:

As you can see, yes… it does suck to switch. You miss the foods you’re used to eating and everything seems very inconvenient. Foods taste bland. Then after a while you start loving it so much that you’d never consider going back. Normal food seems gross and artificial.

Bottom line - diet is the best way to prevent terminal diseases, and (to me and others I know who have switched) it is more enjoyable once you transition to it.

2. This Source Says that Eating Meat is Good for You!

Food is a very controversial issue, and everyone has an opinion on it. Some of these people are scientists, and some are compelling writers (*cough cough*).

Pick any decision you’ve made and you’ll find someone on the internet or in a book who says it’s wrong. They will always be out there.

However, if you follow the science you’ll see that a diet made up of the ingredients in the MaxDiet consistently proves to be healthiest. This is like the people who claim that there is no global warming. A lot of people believe that and can be very convincing, but scientists are pretty much unanimous.

Of course there are a few studies here and there that show that meat is good for you. This could be due to variance or poor experiment design. The largest and most complete study (among others) shows that it’s definitely bad.

And here’s the thing. I’m not 100% convinced. I’m 100% convinced on flours and sugars, but for meat I’m around 95%. Maybe there is some hidden benefit to meat that we haven’t discovered or something like that. But current research just doesn’t show it. So I go with the science and keep my ear to the ground.

And while we’re on the subject - I’ve never found a study that shows that eating only the items on the MaxDiet is unhealthy. And I’ve looked.

3. All Vegans are Pale and Weak

I actually agree with this somewhat, mainly because most vegans eat TERRIBLE diets. The typical vegan gets rid of meat and replaces it with weird soy / chemical based analogues and even more refined flours.

To be clear - if you’re going to eat like that, you’re better off eating meat.

Meat has many good things in it, but it also has a number of bad things in it that make it suboptimal. Flour and sugar are worse - they are pure nutritional evil.

Besides - let’s compare apples to apples. What does the average meat eater look like?

The MaxDiet is not about being vegan. That’s part of it, and the easiest one word label for it, but it’s about a lot more. That’s why I put all these posts together, rather than just talking about meat.

The average person who switches to the diet looks better than before. That’s been the experience of all of my friends who have tried it, and that’s been my experience. Try it for yourself and see.

4. Vegans don’t get enough protein

First of all, meat protein has been shown, as mentioned earlier, to contribute to all of the leading causes of death in the Western world. So first consider how much good that protein is actually doing you.

Next, realize that everything in the MaxDiet has protein in it (except fruit). Instead of eating meat, which provides a lot of protein, and then eating bread and junk that has virtually none, you eat small amounts of protein in every meal.

You will probably eat less protein on the MaxDiet, but the typical diet today has too much, which can actually cause liver issues. If you want to eat a ton of protein anyway, just stock up on nuts, seeds, and hemp protein (or just ground up hemp seeds).

The End Of MaxDiet Week

I’ve said my piece. It’s a bit disappointing to me that more people aren’t motivated to try it out or at least get the books I recommended and research it more for themselves.

Maybe I haven’t written compellingly, maybe people are too stuck in their ways, maybe it just seems too difficult to switch. I don’t really know.

For what it’s worth, I consider adopting this diet to be one of my very best choices in life. If any of this stuff struck a chord, I’d highly suggest that you try it out for 30-60 days. If you need any help with it, start a thread on the forum and I’ll respond personally.