🏴 On running, misfits, and the hunt. Ten Bullets.

To the obsessed,

Here are your weekly Ten Bullets. A list of ideas I can't stop thinking about- to help you build companies, make art, and find your obsession.

I ran my first marathon on Saturday, in Memphis. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I entered a new level of The Dark Place, and saw a new version of myself, that will be here forever.

I'll write more on the experience, the journey, and what's next with running. But all I know is, I haven't been obsessed with something like this in a long time. A long time. It took over my life this fall. And, I plan to go further and further into it.

I ran a 3:16:30, at 208lb. I ran a lot this year, but didn't sign up for this until Oct 27th, after a small injury this fall. Meaning, I think with a proper training plan, and a few more pounds down, I can be a freak of nature.

I'd like to be a freak of nature.

And, I just felt such insane gratitude for the best friends and family. And for everyone who supports my writing, and me, online. Thank you. 🏴

I posted some pictures and videos on Twitter and on Instagram, if you'd like to see inside The Dark Place.

1. On running:

"I'm not a human. I'm a piece of machinery. I don't need to feel a thing. Just forge on ahead.

That's what I told myself. That's about all I thought about, and that's what got me through. If I were a living person of blood and flesh I would have collapsed from the pain. There definitely was a being called me right there. And accompanying that is a consciousness that is the self. But at that point, I had to force myself to think that those were convenient forms and nothing more. It's a strange way of thinking and definitely a very strange feeling-consciousness trying to deny consciousness.

You have to force yourself into an inorganic place.

Instinctively I realized that this was the only way to survive.

I'm not a human. I'm a piece of machinery. I don't need to feel a thing. Just forge on ahead.

I repeat this like a mantra. A literal, mechanical repetition. And I try hard to reduce the perceptible world to the narrowest parameters. All I can see is the ground three yards ahead, nothing beyond. My whole world consists of the ground three yards ahead."

- Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir

I read this a few months ago, as my obsession with running was just starting to grow. Highly recommend- especially if you're interested in the creative side of sport- how running helped Murakami write.

And, I did something like this on my run. I'd literally close my eyes, tell myself to 'fall asleep,' only squinting out at my feet on the ground in front of me. Did this for a large portion of the race.

2. On obsessive elements:

"The task that you choose to work on must have an obsessive element. Like the Life's Task, it must connect to something deep within you. (For Mozart, it wasn't simply music, but opera that fully engaged him.) You must be like Captain Ahab in Melville's Moby-Dick, obsessed with hunting down the Great White Whale. With such a deep-rooted interest, you can withstand the setbacks and failures, the days of drudgery, and the hard work that are always a part of any creative action. You can ignore the doubters and critics.

Understand: it is the choice of where to direct his or her creative energy that makes the Master.

The writer Marcel Proust suffered for years as he struggled to find the subject matter upon which to base a novel. Finally, when he realized that his own life and his own failed attempts to write the great novel was actually the subject he was looking for, it all poured out of him and into one of the greatest novels ever written, In Search of Lost Time.

If you go at your work with half a heart, it will show in the lackluster results and in the laggard way in which you reach the end. If you are doing something primarily for money and without a real emotional commitment, it will translate into something that lacks a soul and that has no connection to you. You may not see this, but you can be sure that the public will feel it and that they will receive your work in the same lackluster spirit it was created in. If you are excited and obsessive in the hunt, it will show in the details. If your work comes from a place deep within, its authenticity will be communicated. This applies equally to science and business as to the arts. Your creative task may not rise to the same obsessive level as it did for Edison, but it must have a degree of this obsessiveness or your efforts will be doomed. You must make the right, the perfect choice for your energies and your inclinations."

- Robert Greene, Mastery (h/t Matthew Petre for the highlight)

3. On misfits:

“Misfits are not born or made, they make themselves.”

- James Dyson (via Founders Podcast #300)

4. On great products:

"I am saddened: not by Microsoft success, I have no problem with their success, they've earned their success - for the most part. I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products. Their products have no spirit to them."

- Steve Jobs, 1995

5. On learning:

"I think a life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time."

- Charlie Munger

Obsession, at its core, is the infinite hunger to learn. RIP to one of the greats.

6. On intensity:

7. On speed:

"Those who reach decisions promptly and definitely know what they want, and generally get it. The leaders in every walk of life decide quickly, and firmly. That is the major reason why they are leaders. The world has the habit of making room for the man whose words and actions show that he knows where he is going."

- Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich (h/t Brooke LeBlanc)

8. On gratitude:

"We do not really notice and perceive all that goes on in accordance with our will. [. . .] On the other hand, everything that obstructs, crosses, or opposes our will, and thus everything unpleasant and painful, is felt by us immediately, at once, and very plainly.

Just as we do not feel the health of our whole body, but only the small spot where the shoe pinches, so we do not think of all our affairs that are going on perfectly well, but only of some insignificant trifle that annoys us."

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Via Patrick O'Shaughnessy: "Worth closing our eyes in the morning for 5 min to dwell on all of our affairs that are going on perfectly well."

9. On extremes:

“There’s a version of you, that only exists on the other side of extreme effort.”

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10. On winning: