The Most Powerful Medical Operation in Existence

For those of you who have not heard a new, male, permanent, but reversible, contraceptive is in the works. It is called Vasalgel. Vasalgel is a gel that is injected into the Vas Deferens of a male. This gel forms a wall in the Vas Deferens that blocks the flow of sperm. As long as the gel sits in the Vas Deferens the man will be rendered impotent because the sperm will not be present in his ejaculate. The world’s reception of this polarizing news was rather un-noting. There are many people who believe that Vasalgel will not have an effect on the world. However, I believe that it will have a massive effect on the world.

I would argue that The Birth Control Pill, “The Pill,” has been one of the most influential medical innovations of all time; it’s impact on society immeasurable. Why should Vasalgel be any different if it does the job of the pill many times more effectively? The argument from those who believe that this will not change the world is: “We already have incredibly reliable contraceptives like condoms or the pill, why would we need another?” I argue it is not about the effectiveness that makes Vasalgel important, it is the level of responsibility required to use it consistently. When using a condom or a pill it requires dedication and responsibility. As beings who make mistakes, or errors in judgement, the powerful contraceptives humans have been given often go to unused. It takes true dedication to stop in the heat of the moment and put on a condom. It takes true dedication to wake up and take your birth control pills every day. It does not take dedication to go into a doctors office one time every seven years to get an hour long, reverse-able, operation. This is a massive reason, of many, that Vasalgel is a much more legitimate contraceptive. Let’s look at some potential secondary effects that could occur should Vasalgel become the contraceptive of choice:

For decades now women have been in control of the contraceptive in dedicated relationships. Women have had the responsibility to medicate their ovulation away. A daily commitment small as taking a pill is often easy to forget. It comes as no surprise that women often forget to take their pill. It is difficult for people to remember to take their pills for any ailment they may have, men and women. However, the mistake of missing a pill is costly.  Should her ovulation occur the couple will find themselves with a child. Vasalgel will shift the responsibility, and ability, to control contraceptive in a relationship to the man. This fact alone changes the power structure of any intergender relationship. I believe that, with Vasalgel, women will feel the harsh sting of being lied to about contraceptive use for the first time in history and the backlash will be huge. Do you hear me? Huge, massive, startling. Since the 70’s there have been millions of instances of women going off the pill, lying that they are on it, and having babies. Now the tables are going to be turned. It will be interesting to see how society responds to such problems when women become the victims of these crimes.

A second secondary change Vasalgel could cause in society pertains to birth rates. Historically as contraceptives have become more prevalent birth rates have decreased. Currently in Western society we see that birth rates are plunging already. Japan is below replacement, as is Germany. Will Vasalgel bring more of that? If the current relationship between birth rates and contraceptives continues to exist many, many more countries will drop below replacement levels. This will put strain on the economic and political status quo. It will also bring many more problems where the young will need to support the old. As a result we could begin to see advertisements and laws begin to skew towards incentivizing people to begin families.

The secondary changes above are merely scratching the surface of possible societal change that Vasalgel could cause. An operation that allows us to bend purest nature to human will without hardly lifting a finger has to cause change. Humanity has lived with the fear of accidental child birth for the entire time we’ve been on this planet. Cutting off the supply of sperm in a reversible operation is going to change the way humans live forever.

Brain Plasticity and Discipline 1.1

The fact that brain plasticity drops dramatically around the 25 year mark has many interesting implications, especially for young people. It means that they have until 25 to ingrain the best habits into themselves. In American culture the young are often told that now is their time to party and have fun because “work life is unfulfilling and not very fun.” Cultural blurbs along these lines are echoed in terms like ‘YOLO.” There isn’t much pressure for the young to discipline themselves or create good habits because they “have plenty of time for that later.” Yes, people under 25 tend to be immature, which lends itself to having bad priorities. However, there is an incredible amount of opportunity if a young person can learn the right skill set early while re-enforcing the skills throughout their young life.

The target demographic for this article is those from 15-25. You are young and the habits you have now are being deeply ingrained in you. Instead of going out to party ingrain a productive habit into yourself. Learn skills like discipline, self-starting, speed reading and consistent self-education. These traits will keep your mind nimble and prepared for change. You have an incredible gift that our culture inspires you to not use effectively. Let’s look at myself as an example.

I am 23. This means I have two years to teach myself as many important skills and  discipline as possible. There are so many behaviors and habits that I want to ingrain into my being that I’m going to have to press for all I want. I want to learn good habits and I have little time to do so until it becomes much harder. Now, I could wait to learn these habits until they are necessary, and party it up while in college. Instead I have elected to ingrain habits in myself that will help me for life. I have developed a love for reading and a thirst for knowledge that can not be parched. Most importantly I have put myself in situations that are outside of my comfort zone on a consistent basis.

Having the ability to put yourself outside of your comfort zone is a hugely important skill. That is where you learn. Outside of your comfort zone you learn more than you could ever read. Now, over the last year I’ve figuratively fallen flat on my face outside of my comfort zone. It hurts, a lot, but I learned a ton and I am better for it. Even though I have not learned to step out as consistently as I would like, the times I have stepped out have taught me a lot. This skill is difficult for anyone to acquire because stepping out of the comfort zone requires a large amount of personal control. However, this is a skill that all successful people have. I will acquire this skill this year because I know to achieve the level of success I want I must be able to step out of my comfort zone.

So young readers, join me in an attempt to better prepare ourselves for our future. The disciplined live like others will not. So one day they can live like others can not.

A Potential Reason Divorce is so High 2

In the first two installations of this series I explicated a possible reason for a high divorce rate and paired it with a possible consequence. In this article I will explicate a second possible reason for a high divorce rate. This one has to do with the, supposedly, great things that the world of extreme capitalism has brought to our society.

In today’s society the free market encourages people to create products that fill another person’s need. Every man needs what women offer and ever woman needs what men offer. Therefor, we can suppose that half the world wants masculine traits that can be consumed cheaper and separate from an actual man and the other half the world wants feminine traits that can be consumed cheaper and separate from an actual woman. With a market of half the world, producers are heavily incentivezed to create a product that can replace what the sexes offer one another at a cheaper price than the person, of either gender, currently can. So, for example, porn offers men a cheap and easy alternative to sex with a woman. This replaces what is attractive about a women’s sex. To accurately tell whether this holds true or not the attractive traits of both sexes must first be defined.

Let’s start with women. For women most of the traits that go into their attractiveness are physical. As males we are interested in the health of a women to carry our children. Prior to the time of doctors reports men developed instincts to tell whether a woman was attractive or not, and attractive is synonymous with ability to carry and give birth. Traits like perky breasts, smooth and healthy skin, a symmetrical face and attractive hips all indicated health for child bearing. The second most important trait women have is a pleasant attitude and, thirdly, ability to create/maintain a home. Those last two traits have a large amount of overlap. The attractive traits for males are much more nebulous and difficult to pin down because they are behavioral and not physical.

To establish why a man’s body does not play a great role in the attraction of females we must first establish what makes a man attractive. Looking at evolutionary biology it becomes very apparent what attracts a woman to a man: ability to support a woman through pregnancy and child rearing. Now even saying that implies that a woman is measuring a ridiculous amount of traits in a man to determine if he is attractive; just as it takes a million congruent traits to best raise a child. So a woman must measure to accurately tell whether it is worth letting a man inseminate her just as a man must measure if it a woman worth inseminating. So traits like responsibility, charm and confidence are highly valued as they represent the ability if a man to produce, not just today, but in any future he is presented with as well. So, now it can be established that a man’s body does not help him succeed in the world we currently live in. However, a man’s body did play a big role in the ability to care thousands of years ago. An impressive male figure would imply a better ability to fight off wild creatures or other males, or in other words protect her during pregnancy and child rearing. This is why it is still a natural instinct in women today to find physical men attractive but not the whole package.

A Potential Reason Divorce is so High – 1.1

In A Potential Reason Divorce is so High – 1 I talked about the increasing stress of being on the sexual marketplace. Then I paired this increasing stress with the constant stress of being in a relationship. Combining these two makes a lethal combination that many people struggle to cope with. I believe this stress is the cause an increase in no-strings attached relationships. I have no data to back this up it’s just a gut feeling. This article is purely conjecture.

It has long been known that humans need and crave human contact and a transference of emotion with another. It seems that more and more people in western culture have been looking for a way to share emotions without the actual depth in relationships. After all, relationships are more unstable than ever before. This instability stresses the mind. Knowing that a partner can leave at any time and, sometimes, will have an incentive to is nerve wracking. This phenomenon is addressed by songs like Sam Smith’s Stay With Me and Ed Sheeran’s Don’t. Both artist are looking for the sex and emotional bonding without the relationship. Then when their lovers leave them their inner sadness shines through. The fact that these songs have become so popular say something about it’s massive audience. The songs are lyrically and vocally oriented so one can not make the case that people enjoy it because of the beat. Therefor, we can assume that the lyrics and vocals must strike a cord with this very large audience. I believe that the stress of being on the market all the time has caused a fundamental change in the relationship depth people are looking for. The stress of being on the market is so great that nobody wants to add the stress of being in a relationship with that. Relationships, not only, don’t spare them anymore from the cruel marketplace, but crank that stress up even more. The incentives for a deep fulfilling relationship are no longer outweighing the cost.

Because deep relationships are more costly than before people are not engaging until as late as possible, as shown by the rising age of first marriage. However, humans still need human contact and a transference of emotion. Also, nobody, except the most battled hardened players, enjoys going out to get a new mate every night. Thus we have the perfect environment for individuals to engage in no-strings attached relationships. Stress keeping them from committing, and biology keeping them from doing nothing.

Solitude vs. Loneliness

In today’s age we often hear about how technology has fragmented human relations and people feel more “alone” and “lonely” than ever before. I don’t I accept this paradigm. If anything the human race is more connected than it has ever been in history. I can talk to my cousin in Iowa from Dallas, Texas in five seconds. Also, technology only has as much utility as a person gives it. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can only replace a social life if a person allows it to. Instead, I assert that people today are more alone then ever for a two reasons.

One, the reputation of being alone is increasingly negative and increasingly saturated into our culture, therefore on our minds more than ever. Those who are alone are painted as lame, ostracized, ridiculous. Of course underlying this argument is the idea that all people are more entertaining than you are yourself so you must depend on them for “lifeblood,” but we’ll deal with that later. Pop culture ridicules those who are alone on a consistent basis. In today’s day in age, when people are alone for any amount of time they panic and “must find somebody to converse with.” Watch people, it is interesting to observe those who are suddenly abandoned by a social acquaintance to fend for themselves in the social world. God forbid they are spotted alone, then they’ll be perceived as a low value human being, just like in popular literature. Upon realizing their “loneliness” they panic and approach the nearest person so they no longer have to be alone. People need to realize that being alone for a day is not a bad thing. Being alone for days at a time is a bad thing, but in today’s kindergarten world people are scared to be alone for any more than 5 seconds. With the increased amount of “loneliness awareness” in our society it is no wonder people are always alone. Maybe there is some self-fulfilling prophecy involved.

The second reason people are more lonely than ever before is because society no longer values solitude. To seek solitude means to be alone which, according to society, “logically” means solitude is terrible. Solitude is perceived as a terrible nightmare because it requires one to be alone. However, solitude is really being with oneself. By observing ourselves and our actions solitude is employed as a powerful tool. Taking time in solitude to meditate, think, pray, mentally prepare ones self, read and write is good. The constant pressure to “be with people” is suffocating the self-actualization that comes from solitude. There are many good things that come with being alone. To be alone without being lonely a person should approach being alone with a goal of solitude. I am hardly ever alone; I just seek solitude. If I approached being alone as society does I would be very lonely all the time, but because I search for solitude I am never lonely. I believe that as long as our society does not value solitude people will struggle being alone.

Creating Options

“A man without options becomes necessitous and this leads to a lack of confidence and a scarcity mentality. Necessitous men are never free.” – Rollo Tomassi

As I continue to read, study and live I continuously re-learn the immense power that comes from the creation of options. The greater amount of viable, exercisable options a person is able to create the more power they have. Lets go through some examples:

1. A girl I know got accepted at two colleges and both colleges offer her scholarship money. She realized she now had two viable options for her future. Instead of merely choosing one or the other she decided to play them against one another. She incited a bidding war between the two schools for her. Even if she knew which school she intended to go to from the very beginning she has nothing to lose from putting the schools in a bidding war. By creating viable options she created real power. She ended up accepting 3 times the amount she was originally offered.

2. A man worked at a normal desk job. Instead of allowing that job to be his sole source of income he created 2 side jobs that provided him with $10,000 a year respectively. Now that he had created an extra $20,000 per year he became less dependent on his original job. That independence is power. The company now had less control over him because he no longer depended on that company for his income, his survival. This is why companies hate it when their employees go moonlighting. The employee’s creation of options takes away the power the company has over him. The man has taken power for himself by the creation of options.

3. A male arrives on campus with the goal of getting many women. Instead of choosing to just go for one at a time he goes for many at once. Many say no to his advances but many also accept his advances. Now he is no longer dependent on one single woman to fulfill his needs. With many women caring for him at once no one woman has much power over him. At a certain point our young male decides to get a girl friend. Even when he does he maintains his relationships with other women so even his girlfriend doesn’t have power over his actions.

4. Don’t forget about the most important place to have options: financially. By paying off your debt you give yourself the power to live lives you never could while indebted. You can’t pick up and go around the world when you’re in debt. Debt ties you down and restricts your options. Savings does the opposite. The more capital you have the more options you have. Mark Cuban has much more capital than I do so he can afford to take on a wider range of investments (options) that I cannot. The options that he derives from his savings of capital give him power.

The creation of options puts you in the drivers seat in every facet of life. The sooner we learn to be creating options in every part, and at every time, of our lives the better off we will be. By creating options in our life we stop one individual thing from having too much power over us. It takes power away from the ‘fate’s that be’ and puts it in your own hands. When you have multiple options one event can not ruin what you have created. Say the working man above lost his job. He’s ends up alright because he still has 2 other jobs where he is making $10,000 a year with opportunity to grow. He can at the very least support himself. The college male looses one woman; he’s ok, he has many more. Don’t let yourself start to run low in options. If you only have one source of income at the very least begin investing in dividend stocks. By creating options in every facet of our life we take the power we need to live the life we want.

Confidence, freedom and power are derived from viable options and the ability to exercise them. – Rollo Tomassi

Dousing Yourself in Reality

Constantly, we as human beings are “medicating” our existence with various substances that change our state of mind. Escapism has become the norm in today’s society. At work people escape to fantasy football and online shopping. When they arrive home they escape into the world of Scandal or The Walking Dead. Then they go to sleep, wake up and drink coffee so they can operate like their mentally alive in a setting where they really are not. Then, if they are lucky enough to go home on a weekend night, they consume alcohol which has the potential to alter their state of mind so completely they don’t even have to exist in their current state anymore. All this escapism implies that people think something is wrong with reality. Well… what could possibly be wrong with reality? Maybe the fact that reality is hard, but, maybe more accurately, it is that reality does not have immediate reward in the now.

The common issue listed with all the items listed above is instant gratification. Let’s look at the definition of the Instant Gratification: The term “Instant Gratification” is often used to label the satisfactions gained by more impulsive behaviors: choosing now over tomorrow. What is bold is the most important part of this definition. By choosing to instant gratification we choose the now over tomorrow. By choosing now over tomorrow we take our potential future and we subjugate it to our childish whims in the now. Let’s take finances for example. Compound interest is magical and the sooner, and more, you start saving the more you will have in the future. By delaying gratification, and spending in the now, you give yourself greater spending power in the future. If you just can’t stay away from that new car you can barely afford you have subjugated your future to a childish whim. Another example would be almost anything in front of a television. Video games provide that feeling of accomplishment. However, when you stand up, you have accomplished nothing real. You have chosen to spend your precious time playing video games in an imaginary world instead of achieving something in reality. Like the finance your time matures on a compound basis. If you invest in yourself by putting in hard time when you are young you will reap the rewards when you are old. Success breeds success. It takes a lot of discipline to subjugate yourself to a study or career that will gratify you in 10 years when a video game can gratify you within the 30 seconds of turning on the system. So I encourage my readers to douse themselves in reality.

Don’t let yourself be sucked into the drugs, entertainment, internet surfing, excessive spending lifestyles. Ensure you have a lifestyle that keeps these distractions on the side. Every time you feel the urge to binge watch a season of How I Met Your Mother instead choose to do something in reality. Yes, it is incredibly difficult, to force yourself to be disciplined even when you don’t want to. However, the choice is a simple one, whenever you want to escape reality push yourself deeper into it. Instead of playing another hour of video games or watching a t.v. show choose to go out and try a new restaurant, get a job, get a car. Every step into reality, even the tiniest one like taking a walk, is better than a medicating away from reality. After a while you will get used to pushing yourself out your door to achieve something real. At first it is hard but it will get easier and have faith that the returns will come. So, readers, jump deep into reality with me and learn to swim in the deep end. Together we will reap the rewards years from now while our peers still languish in the world of gratification their weakness has created for them.