Night Vision - nirgle.net

I don't like to reveal too much about my strategies, and it is certainly not my intent to divulge any national security secrets here, but I think you should know about this. Qui-Gon Jinn was on to something important when he advised Anakin (in the first installment of the star wars documentaries) about quieting his mind in order to hear what was really going on around him. As an ongoing apprentice of a learned master myself, I can speak confidently about the wisdom in this message, although naturally you won't believe me and will think I am merely making it all up, which I probably am. I could potentially be berated for imparting such valuable emotional intelligence upon the masses, of course, but fortunately this is one of those things that will simply pass by those who are not ready to understand it anyway, so I should be safe.

The demand you put upon yourself for absolute self-integrity and honesty is where it all starts. This is the first trial. You don't need to worry about being honest with others; in fact, there is much to be said about a campaign of deception and subterfuge when properly executed against the world around you (take this website, for example). You, however, need to know exactly what's going on behind the curtain of your mind at all times, to be 100% in tune with every microscopic thought and feeling while the world flounders around in the cloud of confusion that appears to be you. Even in arbitrary matters you need to be precise. There can be no generalities or rounding off on anything--perfection is the key. Avoid superlatives like the plague, avoid any tendency to exaggerate. Lie through your teeth if you want or need to, but know what you really mean, what you're really feeling. If, in some distant corner of your mind, there has been a suboptimal unconscious reaction to the present situation, be aware that not everything is as fine as it might seem.

Once this has become habit, the next phase is the gradual introjection of this affinity for accuracy and its corresponding aversion for all things untruthful. This won't happen overnight. You will naturally put up some resistance to this over the years, but it needs to become a strategy upon which you base all your thoughts and reactions, self-evaluations, and self-criticisms. At first, everything must be questioned, and you will need to do this consciously. After a few years of mercilessly demanding this integrity from yourself, as this modus operandi becomes a part of your mental wiring, you will notice the self-deceit growing slowly quieter and more distant until it fades from your everyday existence altogether. You will have short-circuited the loud calamity of your human condition and will have encountered a peaceful, resigned acceptance of the way you really are.

As the rift between reality and fantasy contracts, you will steadily perceive this same gulf in others growing wider and wider until it becomes a maddeningly open chasm. Around this time, you will know you are in the third phase, because it will drive you crazy, at least at first. The contrast between your tranquil acceptance of the way the world is and the senseless emotional spending of others to keep it the way they want it to be, this will become clear as day, dark as night. And gradually this instrument of emotional measurement will become sharper over time, this sentimental night vision will become focused.

If you can calm your reaction to the self-deceit of others, you will enter phase four and will begin learning to accurately sense the degree of inaccuracy in everything people say. It will cease to amaze you, cease to annoy you, and you will just accept it for what it is. You will start to naturally gauge the factor by which people either over-embellish or under-embellish the message they are conveying to you and of which they have fully convinced themselves.

And that's the key, the underlying strategic goal here: to know people better than they know themselves, to know the truth of a person through the nature of his or her lies. To be one layer of intelligence deeper inside their own mind than they are, which will become a valuable strategic advantage and one you will find yourself using all the time.