Today, I read a post by Erika which had a quote from Emerson. Now, I’m a HUGE fan of Emerson, so I busted out the his collected works and browsed through it a bit.

Now, a lot of stuff in there is pure gold. But a thought occurred to me. I’ve always been asked by guys how I got good so fast (it only took me six months or so to start getting laid a lot). I’ve usually attributed it to things like hanging out with a natural a lot, going out five times a week, having a large social circle and having my inner game more or less put together beforehand.

Well, it occurred to me while reading Emerson, that I had been dedicated to self-improvement and having a varied and enriching life experience for years, and in fact, that wasn’t part of my PUA development, but the other way around.

So in the classic vein of lifestyle development, here’s my crash course: “Get a Fucking Life” by Entropy.

Part 1: Being Well Read
Part 2: Developing Artistic Taste
Part 3: Trying New Things
Part 4: Having Opinions

1. Be Well Read — If don’t read, start. If you do read, read more and read better books. Don’t read airport trash or cheesy shit like Stephen King (nothing against him, but really…). We’re looking for literary merit. Sci-Fi and Fantasy don’t count unless there’s literary merit (J.R.R. Tolkien, Douglass Adams and Arthur C. Clarke are the obvious examples that come to mind).

You want to focus more on the literature. Here are some names to start with: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Vladmir Nabokov, John Steinbeck, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, etc.

Check out “Best Books Ever Written” lists here, here and here and start grabbing books from each one.

And don’t just read them. HAVE OPINIONS ABOUT THEM. I respect Hemingway immensely but don’t enjoy reading him. I think Dickens has the most inventive characters ever. “Catcher in the Rye” changed my life in high school, “Atlas Shrugged” changed it in college. I think Bret Easton Ellis and Don DeLillo will be talked about decades from now. Shit like that.

But we don’t stop at fiction, non-fiction is just as important, if not more important.

Get interested in new subjects. Read up about evolutionary psychology, socio-biology, neuro-chemistry and futurism. This shit isn’t your Chem 101 class from college, it’s the cutting edge stuff that we’re learning and figuring out each and every day. Learn what Einstein’s theory of relativity means and how that relates to life and perception in general, or Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. A life without learning is a life without living, bitches.

You want inner game? Read biographies. You think Tyler Durden is going to teach you something about confidence? Read how Napoleon became who he was, or the trying leadership of Abraham Lincoln, or the neuroses of Benjamin Franklin.

Now, I know what you’re saying: “I don’t have enough time to read that much.” Bullshit. That statement really means, “I read too slowly to read that much.” Speed up your reading. It’s not hard at all. Study some speed-reading. I once doubled my reading speed in a single day. Stop reading Google reader and retarded blogs and ESPN.com and pointless magazines. Decide for yourself, how much value does what you’re reading have and does something else you could be reading have more value?

If a 1,000 page book seems daunting to you, you read too slowly. Here are some tips to speed the process up:

- Once you get the point of a section (non-fiction), move on or skim the rest of it.
- If the book is written poorly or you don’t enjoy it, stop reading it.
- If a book only has a few chapters you’re interested in, just read those chapters.
- If you think the guy who wrote the book is a retard, put it down.
- Push yourself to read as fast as you can without missing information. You can probably read twice as fast as you think you can, you just don’t try to.
- Use your finger underneath the lines as you read, believe it or not, this will allow you to comprehend the words faster.

Averaging a book a week is doable without spending more than 30-60 minutes a day reading. I dated a grad student who read three books a week on average. One summer in college, I read a book a day for 50 days, all non-fiction, and all on Philosophy or other social sciences.

Honestly, that summer has paid more dividends than I can tell you. Everything academic became incredibly easy from thereafter (my grades went through the roof). The perspectives and ideas I had encountered were extremely varied and I was able to relate complicated concepts in a myriad of situations with ease. It expanded my consciousness and my perception of the world, people, life, and why everything is the way it is. Relating to people became easier. It’s probably what made me a good writer.

Challenge yourself to become well-read. 100 books a year for two years. You can do it. It’s enjoyable and more than worthwhile.

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OK, this is getting really long, so I’ll turn it into another series of articles. Future articles will feature: developing artistic taste, eliminating bad habits, trying new things, having opinions.

There’s not a lot of lifestyle material out there, so hopefully this will help guys out.