Tim Ferriss Revisited

The Tim Ferriss scam artist post is the most popular one on this blog. It blows away the stats for anything else I have ever written. This is not a testament to my popularity but a testament to Tim Ferriss's popularity. I have been planning on writing a follow up to that post, and this is it.

First of all, I like Tim Ferriss. I enjoy the many talks he gives that you can catch on YouTube. He is an insanely unusual interesting individual. I respect that. I also like the many tips and bits of advice he gives. I don't know if all of it works, but he has said that you can take what you like and leave the rest. I don't consider myself a Tim Ferriss hater. Like in the previous post about him, I think he is one of those guys you can learn a lot from, and I don't think he is a scam artist. The popularity of that post comes from the fact that a whole bunch of people google that question, and I tried to answer it in an honest and fair way without either bashing on the guy or kissing his ass.

Second of all, Tim has a new book out called The 4-Hour Body that shows the guy has not rested on his laurels. I hate the title of the book preferring the working title he had called Becoming Superhuman. The new title was obviously a way to build on the success of the earlier volume and sell more copies. The irony is the new book is much fatter, probably more useful, and will probably sell fewer copies. He should have called it The 15-Minute Orgasm. Now, it is time for the C-man to drop some cold hard truth. (You knew it was coming.)

The entire Tim Ferriss phenomenon and empire rests on the lucky title of one book. That book is The 4-Hour Workweek. Had he chosen any other title for that book, you would not be reading this. Tim would be a nobody, or he would have become popular on something else like that 15-minute orgasm thing. The fact is that 4HWW didn't have that title originally. That title came from marketing. It was the one that resonated most with readers. Prior to this, I always thought that sex and money were big draws for a book. But I realize that laziness is way up there, too.

The 4-Hour Workweek thing is a play on the traditional 40-hour work week that blue collar people like me work. If I had written a book, it would have been called The 80-Hour Workweek. I would have had exactly two readers of that book--myself and my brother. This is because I am interested in working an 80-hour workweek, and my brother actually does work an 80-hour week.

The reason people are drawn to the title and the concept Tim Ferriss started is because they are lazy. Tim Ferriss isn't lazy. If you ignore the title and read the book, the guy just gives tips that allows you to accomplish more at work and in your free time. But a guy that gives tips on how to get less sleep and function normally is not a guy that is slacking off. People read that book because they literally want to stop working. The reason they google to see if Tim Ferriss is a scam artist is because they can't believe that this wonderful dream of theirs is actually true. But it is this wonderful dream I wish to explore.

People hate work. They hate their jobs. I used to think people hated their boss or their company or their fickle bitchy customers. But that isn't it at all. They literally hate to work. Having to work represents some dirty fucking trick that has been pulled on them, and the Ferriss book tapped into the dream of an escape from that trick. This is also why we have so many fucktards playing the lottery. I thought it was because they wanted to buy a bunch of expensive shit. But that isn't it at all. A winning lottery ticket represents an escape from work. It doesn't represent a chance to invest in new startups like Tim does. It doesn't represent adventures you'd like to do before you are old. It doesn't represent freedom to do things you wish you could do but don't have the cash to do. Basically, winning the lottery means not ever having to work again. It is laziness without consequence.

People work because they don't want the consequences. They don't want to be homeless. They want cable TV and cellphones. On and on. The minimalist movement has tapped into the same wish of these lazy people. Cut out the consumerism, start a blog, and you don't have to work anymore. I will have to write a blog post with a title like "How to Quit Your Bullshit Job and Never Have to Work Again." That will probably become an instant winner in the Google jackpot.

I'm nutty because I like working. I don't ever play the lottery. Even if I won the damn thing, I would still work. I know this because I never use my vacation time from work. I learned a long time ago that work in and of itself is where the happiness is. Like I said, I am nuts.

But I keep hitting this issue again and again here on the C-blog. When I tell people that higher ed is a scam, they can't believe it. The reason people go to school is because they don't want real work. They want bullshit work somewhere. Now, they are realizing they've been had. I talk about blue collar jobs, and people become apoplectic. When I say that work is the easiest and best way to achieve flow in life, people feel that I have somehow or another scammed them and cheated them with that "bullshit" advice. It is absolutely fucking amazing to me.

There is no way around work. Either you or some sucker is going to have to do the heavy lifting. Everybody wants to be the smart one and not the sucker. The result is that they are now all suckers. You have students racking up debts to qualify for jobs that don't exist and don't pay well when they do exist. You have unemployed white collar workers living on unemployment checks hoping to get another cushy job with a title. But no one will give them a job because they see them for what they are--bums on welfare. Blue collar people feel like suckers, so they sit at home collecting a check and feel like winners for a change. It is like they hit the lottery.

This country just needs to quit with the bullshit and get back to work. This is not popular advice, but it is real advice. Ultimately, working 4 hours a week is a pipe dream. Personally, it has never been a dream of mine. Like I said, I like working. But I will also add that people are cheating themselves by hating work. They aren't cheating themselves out of money so much as cheating themselves out of fulfilled lives. There is no happiness apart from work. Even Tim Ferriss doesn't work just four hours a week, and he wrote the damn book. But he did win the lottery with that book, and he just keeps on working.

I expect to get a lot of flak in the comments section on this one, so I will let the discussion evolve there.

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