The Three Principles of Study as a Way of Life 

Self criticism meets pep talk meets formula for countering the worst tendencies of the attention economy

Though this piece is called The Three Principles of Study as a Way of Life, I will be referring to each of the principles as a “standard.” When spoken of as individual principles, we call them standards, because that’s what they are, and it sounds better.

These Three Principles are three major reasons why I quit Theory Pleeb and “went Underground” with Theory Underground. I wasted untold amounts of time over the last ten years because it was spent drinking and talking about ideas instead of drilling-down into concepts and great texts. Along the way I did succeed at forcing myself to give a few great texts a first pass, taking notes along the way, but these were rare successes against a backdrop of time spent fucking off. Worse, after passing through a great text once, I thought I had read it.

My mindset about reading was self-undermining. The academic environment, as well as philosophy groups, did not have accountability or assessment structures that set me up for success. The necessity of these Three Principles has become clear after a decade of struggle. They are what I wish someone had told me on the first day that I decided to get serious about philosophy. 

Theory Underground is meant to create a space where I can practice these Three Principles with others who are also trying to rise to a challenge that is far beyond anything they will be assessed or held accountable for as media influencers or academics in grad school. These Three Principles are the ones underground theorists must uphold, maintain fidelity to, or at least celebrate and strive towards, if they seek to counter the attention economy and the increasingly lowered standards of academia. 

The Bryan Standard: 

Thinking, as opposed to playing out the scripts that echo through one’s mind, is based in a lifestyle committed to three fundamental practices:

1. Reading, 
2. Writing, 
3. Conversation.

Everyone’s impulse is to skip steps 1 and 2 to go straight to “conversation.” But “conversation” without a basis in the subject matter itself is mere talking, whether at an academic conference or on a platform like Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok. 

Idle chatter can also be thought of as passing over or passing the word along, as opposed to the drilling-down into root issues. Such commitment to a subject matter is a prerequisite to rich and educational theoretical discourse, not to mention “the examined life” itself.

“Shooting the shit” or “just touching on issues” have their place, of course. But the tendency online or in contemporary academia is to stay in this surface mode. Not only is this self-undermining if one’s goal is to develop oneself as a thinker, scholar, and theorist, but it can also be self-serving in the careerist sense. 

The self-serving careerist with no real commitment to the subject-matter signals “I have done the work,” which can be good for building social and cultural capital in most theory spaces, but this mode magnetically repulses those who are committed to the longer-term task. Real substantial conversation with a basis in educational discourse is impossible without fidelity to steps one and two of the Bryan Standard. But what we have been schooled to think of as “reading” is not enough, which is why we need what’s next: The Bert Standard.

The Bert Standard: 

Reading, as opposed to passively scrolling or “gutting” a text, is based in a lifestyle committed to three steps that are necessary for truly getting to know a theorist, their concepts, or a text. To truly say you have read a great text, you must: 

1. Do  an initial reading of the text to get the lay of the land,
2. Re-read to test your own knowledge by seeing if you can rephrase the text in your own terms, and
3. Only after reading a third time (at minimum), compare and contrast it to everything you know. This step demands that one “tarry with the negative,” meaning examples are not just used to make sense of a concept. If one says, for instance, “this text is like X” then more time should be spent writing in a way that also demonstrates why the text is not like X. For example, it is one thing (and very common) to compare something from Heidegger’s Being and Time to Taoism or Zen Buddhism. It is one thing to draw a comparison, and quite another to rise to the challenge of tarrying with the irreconcilable and irreducible differences that make this text and the worldview it is being compared to understandable in terms of its difference.

As with the Bryan standard, everyone’s impulse is to skip steps 1 and 2 to go straight to comparing to everything that comes to mind. But “comparison” without fidelity to the subject matter, on its own terms, is self-congratulatory at the same time that it undermines our growth. Obviously it’s fine within reason, and even an important part of learning and growing, but we must counter the tendencies at academic conferences or on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok. 

The three steps of the Bert Standard obviously raises the bar significantly, because we do not have the time-energy to have done this in a reasonable amount of time. A reasonable amount of time means taking a break between readings to focus on other things. 

The stakes are raised even higher by the injunction to only “compare and contrast to everything you know.” What does it mean to know something? When it comes to great theory texts, it means that one has maintained fidelity to The Bert Standard itself. For example, your third reading of Being and Time cannot be compared to The Phenomenology of Spirit or Marx’s Das Kapital if you have not first read those three times as well. 

This might feel overwhelming. Good. Theory is a lifelong challenge. Great theory is usually written in one’s later years. It is not something you do within your first few years of philosophy so as to jumpstart your media career. The desire to be some kind of a prodigy and make it big in academia or on a platform like YouTube or Instagram must be curbed.

Everything about the attention economy leaves us feeling the need to put out “content” faster than should be possible if we are drilling-deep into texts and working tirelessly to understand concepts in ways that make them relevant to our lives. To live and breathe a field requires routine effort and sacrifice, which is why it gets called a discipline. If we skip steps 1 and 2 to The Bryan Standard, then we will have also obviously skipped steps 1 and 2 of The Bert Standard.

If you have not established a track-record that gives others just cause to think you have been putting in this work and living up to these ideals, then others will rightfully doubt that you have put sufficient time into learning theory. There are three ways of showing others that you have sacrificed the necessary effort to obtain a reasonable level of familiarity (or even mastery) with a concept, thinker, or text: 

1. To literally be seen doing your first and second readings over the course of a decade, 
2. To talk with 2-to-3 others who have also just done the reading (Andrew and Nick of the Que Vuoi channel have been doing this after their first passes of Lacan’s seminars), and
3. To write in a way that rises to the challenge imposed on us by the formidable Mikey Standard.

Both the Bryan and Bert Standards are good, but they are insufficient for whipping ourselves into shape without The Mikey Standard.

The Mikey Standard: 

Even Mikey has not mastered The Mikey Standard, but it is the challenge imposed on all of his effort sacrificed to the work of theory. He did not coin this term himself, which would have been annoying and overbearingly braggadocious. Rather, Bryan, long before I coined “The Bryan Standard,” coined “The Mikey Standard” as a way of describing this seemingly impossible standard that Mikey forces himself to rise to. As with the previous two principles, this standard for writing or speaking about theory holds oneself to three rules:

1. Explain one concept at a time without using other concepts or jargon, or outside references (like name-dropping) to make sense of the concept in your own words, which will
2. Assume an audience that is uninitiated to the discourse or questions in play. As Mikey says, “If I can’t explain it to that guy at the bar, then I don’t understand it myself.
3. Use multiple examples for each concept, not just comparing, but more importantly, contrasting. This step demands that one “tarry with the negative,” meaning examples are not just used to make sense of a concept. If one uses an analogy to say “this concept is like X” then more time should be spent writing in a way that also demonstrates why the concept is not like X. 

An example of prioritizing contrast over simple similarity: It is common to see influencers on “theory Instagram” say things like “Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the body without organs was invented by Lacan because Lacan, in Seminar 1, said that the self is an egg.” Not only is this factually misleading for people trying to understand the fundamental differences between D&G and Lacan, but the subject of enunciation signals, “I have read these two enough to make such authoritative statements.” How much hubris is really involved in such statements? And how much more productive is it if we instead prioritize contrast over simple comparison? 

To answer that question I will show a piece of Mikey’s unpublished writing. Be advised, this is not in any way upholding himself to steps 1 or 2 of The Mikey Standard because it is for a special piece addressed to me. The special piece addressed to me assumes that I have already read and re-read his articles, the blog posts where he did uphold himself to steps 1 and 2 of The Mikey Standard. So what follows is not a demonstration of all the steps of The Mikey Standard (for which you should read his post on Objet Petit A or The Phallus) but is instead simply an example of step 3, i.e. how much more productive it is to think about the differences between thinkers instead of just similarities:

“Lacan himself once spoke of an egg, but his egg was not that of Deleuze’s. About the ego, Lacan said, the ego is on the one hand like an empty egg, differentiated at its surface through contact with the world of perception, but it is also, each time we encounter it, that which says no or me, I, which says one, which speaks about others, which expresses itself in different registers” (Seminar I: Freud’s Papers on Technique, p. 3). But let’s be very clear here: Lacan did not say that the ego is an egg. He said that it is like an empty egg. His point, of course, is that beneath the surface level of the visual perceptions (images) that comprise one’s Imaginary identifications, there is a void, a hollowed-out absence, a radical negativity. Lacan spoke of the ego being similar to an empty egg because the ego provides the lacking negative subject with a illusory sense of positive wholeness (a misrecognition or méconnaissance the begins in the mirror stage). The images of eggs, circles, globes, or spheres, are often taken to be the ideal representations of wholeness and completeness. The huge problem with the empty egg that is the ego is that it’s ultimately a holed “wholeness” (to borrow Todd McGowan’s term). The ego is Imaginary in two key senses: (1) the ego is an imaginary (make-believe) “wholeness” comprised of (2) perceptual or fantasmatic images that are not the negative subject. In other words, there is no substantial self with positive determinations, but, rather, a negative subject of desire and lack. This empty egg is nothing like Deleuze’s egg comprised of a wellspring of virtual potentials. These eggs — empty egg vs. full egg — have two entirely different ontologies underpinning them (the same holds true for the distinction between the objet petit a and the BwO). No grand synthesis between them is possible due to the fact that they have diametrically opposed ontologies. Their theories of desire and drive are anchored in different ontologies, which, of course, ultimately makes their theories of desire and drive unreconcilable. An ontology of contradiction or extimate splitness is not compatible with an ontology of difference or productive assemblage. One has to choose between them. Did Lacan’s “egg” inspire Deleuze’s egg? I don’t know and I don’t care. What matters to me is that they are as conceptually distinct as they can be. I do, however, appreciate the way Dave McKerracher imaginatively explored the possibility of Lacan’s egg inspiring D&G’s. As Dave offhandedly remarked as he pictured the scenario, “D&G were sitting there at Seminar I doing acid and so that shit mind-melded into some shit they heard Artaud say and . . . BOOM! . . .    we now have the BwO.” Ha!
In Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari made no sharp distinction between industrial production and natural production, but, instead, saw them both machinic-productive processes within the Process (Becoming). The Process is one univocal, seamless production of new things. In A Thousand Plateaus, the BwO is a full egg. And, finally, in Pure Immanence, Deleuze asserts that “events” and “singularities” are lacking in nothing. Despite the extreme complicity and difficulty of his writing, his point is very clear and simple: reality itself is not ontologically constituted in relation to negativity. The negative is merely the project of how we think about things, that is, negativity is the cotton fruit of representation (this is why Deleuze was always quick to attack representation or the “dogmatic image of thought”). But from a Hegelian-Lacanian-Žižekian perspective, Deleuze’s metaphysics amounts to the assertion that “nature does exist”, i.e., that the universe as a living plenitude, an ontological whole, a joyful process (in Lacanian terms, Deleuze believed that there is a sexual relation). Deleuze’s Egg lacks only lack itself — it is a wellspring of positive and differential potentials that are never inconsistent, antagonistic or contradict. Deleuze’s cosmic Egg is an unbarred big Other. For us Lacanians, however, there is no unbarred big Other and there is no sexual relation. In true Lacanian fashion, Žižek likes to say, “Nature does not exist”. This formulation refers to the incompleteness of Nature or Being itself. The Egg is always-already a cracked Egg — Being itself is constitutively fractured by the extimate Real. The Real is the radical Other of Being itself, but also constitutes its negative kernel. The Real is either internal or external to Being, but is extimate.

Wow, thanks Mikey! See how much more productive it is to focus on tarrying with the negative by fleshing out irreducible contradictions between thinkers instead of merely reaching for authoritative performances of “synthesis”? 

Your theoretical essays or blog posts should not be styled as, or motivated by goals of, “hot takes,” “timely interventions,” or “fundamental contributions” to the field you are initiating into. Your essays and blog posts should be written in a spirit of the student mindset, the one who seeks to clarify and understand, before asking for the critical assessment of others. Before you ever start a blog to post up some “theory take” you should first be posting reviews and first-stabs at articulating the significance and function of single concepts. 

Practicing the Mikey Standard comes first – declare yourself a student making an attempt, and you will be evaluated as such. Declaring yourself as a master who can write in The Mikey Standard, before others have given you this title, is both annoying and hubris. Do the former and people will say, “This is a great first attempt, let’s talk about its strengths and weaknesses.” Doing the latter, though, will result in getting silently ostracized by the more serious students, or it could even result in being made an example of or rebuked by someone who is fed up. 

These Principles are hard, so here are some tactics you might employ

These Principles are so difficult because, once theory and philosophy “clicks” for anyone, it unlocks what seem like new ideas. As with the examples given in step 3 of both the Bert and Mikey standards, these ideas are usually not, in fact, “new.” 

In psychology 101 you might learn what advertisers know: It takes, on average, seeing something 7-9 times before you notice it consciously. So when a person says, “Oh my god, the algorithm is getting so good, or my phone is spying on me, because I was talking about something yesterday and now I saw it advertised on my timeline…” they reveal themselves as taking their egoic experience as the master. But for those of us who have learned to think in terms of split subjectivity, there is no reason to believe that our “original ideas” are indeed so original.

Of course these “new ideas” feel like deep insights once they click. That is why the freshman who is getting excited about a philosophy course raises their hand so often to draw connections to what they are learning. Drawing connections is good. But because we tend to skip the contrast step, most people finish their studies of a philosopher or text by having an ambiguous notion of how that text or thinker “is like X.” 

The point is not to stop ourselves from comparing, but to counteract the impulse to talk about comparisons like they are profound – write it out for yourself first and then put that on cooldowns. 

The opposite of the “fuck it button”: Put impulses on cooldown

Writing out your attempt at an interpretation of a text, or talking about a concept in your own words, is scary. Instead of facing this fear and pushing the fuck it button, the goal is to put our utmost into reviews, exegeses, or essays from the position of humility that aims to understand more than impress. The impulse to compare is the conscious side of the unconscious tendency to flee the task at hand. This is why, without The Mikey Standard, Bert Standard, and Bryan Standard, people like me fail to rise to the challenge imposed by theory.

If the “fuck it button” is a solution to shyness and cowardice, the “cooldown button” is meant to apply to the impulsive associations and connections that pop into your head while listening to a lecture or reading a great text. We do not deny ourselves the thought of the connection, but we don’t engage in idle chatter, free association, or questions that derail the course of the lecture or text. Instead, to put something that feels impulsive “on cooldown” you simply write it for yourself, privately, and then set it aside so that you can go back to focusing on what is at hand.

Focusing on what is at hand is the most difficult part of the process for so many of us subjectivized by the carrots and sticks of the so-called attention economy. Those knee-jerk thoughts are inherently worthwhile to write down and return to later once the impulse to share has cooled down. That impulse is strong in most sophomores, though of course most women and some men are less likely to risk following through on the impulse. They are wiser than people like me who feel the need to pop off every time a connection comes to mind. 

Maturity is not realizing you just need to “fake it til you make it” to overcome imposter syndrome – maturity is, for the aspiring theorist, fidelity to The Three Principles. These are meant as an antidote to sophomorism, as an impossible goal and challenge against which we can rise. By trying to obtain this impossible goal, we counter the worst tendencies of the attention economy. A knee jerk response I could not be more sympathetic to is, “Ain’t nobody got time fo dat!” But as I said in Waypoint (to paraphrase) maturity is recognizing that if we truly do not have time, then we certainly do not have time to act like we do not have time. How much more true when it comes to matters of the intellect that not only seek to be based in multiple discourses, but which seek to make a positive impact in one’s own life, the lives of others, or for the world?

If you are not ready to write at the level of The Mikey Standard, if you have not taken on the role of disciplined student for a decade or more, and if you see these above listed standards as worthy goals that will whip you into shape and set you up for success in your mature years as a thinker, then we can go back to the first tactic for demonstrating that you are, in fact, putting in the necessary effort. Besides communicating at the level of The Mikey Standard, which required fifteen years of serious study for Mikey to reach his relative level of achievement, you first have to put in the work in a way that holds you accountable. 

Mikey did not need this the same way “we” do. Before he was forced into wage labor he was doing philosophy for its own sake and did not have to think about having a presence online. After years of conversation where I was always learning so much, I started to push him to put his thoughts on a blog. It took years to get him to do so, finally, in his late thirties. Even with all that encouragement, he does not just write as a master, but he instead writes in a way that got us to coin “The Mikey Standard” because it stands in such sharp contrast to the rest of theory writing. If not for the fact that Mikey sees no way out of wage labor, and I have been pushing him to do his blog coupled with the Patreon so we can #FreeMikey from wage labor, he would still be writing his first major work in silence from the public eye. This is the exact opposite of the self-publishing teenagers on Instagram who think themselves genuine peers, initiates, or cutting edge neo-Nietzscheans, after having only read philosophy for a year or two. What is lost here is the period of initiation, of being a student, of studying without recourse to pretenses of mastery or the instrumentalization of theory towards a media project.

For those of us who are habitually distracted and untrained in the discipline of thinking in any given field, the first step is a decade-long period of performing the role of student. It is during this time that the first strategy suggested earlier be exercised: be seen doing your first and second readings over the sustained course of years. In the ideal scenario you will be seen by multiple professors who have the time-energy to assess and evaluate your development. For underground theorists, we have a much more difficult time ahead of us. 

The goal is not to call out or humiliate those who think they have it all figured out already, but to say, hey, you and me both, friend, have come into theory at a time when we are subjectivized in relation to the attention economy. All the problems of apprenticeship and mastery are still with us today, but now they are worse. Our journey is harder because we often come to philosophical consciousness on the platforms of the attention economy (“the algorithmic stage”), which is where we also connect with others. Even if this is not the case, our desire and drive is impacted in significant ways by the dynamics and incentives of the attention economy. Because these platforms are profit-maximizing and attention-extracting in their very nature, distraction is the fundamental symptom of our interest.

That is why, at Theory Underground, I have not only been doing routine pep-talks about the above listed principles, but have also been experimenting with ways to force myself to focus. The achievement system itself, which to some degree “gamifies” the structure of Theory Underground, is meant to work within the attention economy by counteracting its worst tendencies with its own tools. 

Two new methods with which we experiment are timelapse reading sessions and exegetical readings. Some people insist that gamifying “study as a way of life” will ruin it. Some people insist that they are not motivated by external rewards or validation. I suspect they have not seriously thought through the implications of split subjectivity, to be making such confident assertions about motivation. 

Speaking for myself, I have spent the better part of my life since my mid-teens saying I am not motivated by external rewards or approval – that I do things “for their own sake” and would do them without encouragement or potential recognition. These last few years of trying to not participate in the attention economy as much, thwarting my existence online as “an influencer,” and leaning-hard into the student role as opposed to the master, have made me realize how deeply in the grip of the attention economy my subjectivity truly is. When I post a video that breaks the rules of the algorithm and it gets low engagement, I feel that in the pit of my stomach. It is demoralizing. 

How stupid is that? Incredibly! As an example, I am affected by the things strangers do or do not say. Though I say, “to each their own” and go about my business, acting like I am above the structures in play, they nevertheless have an impact on me. For the last couple of years the new burning question has been: 

What are ways to co-opt and counter the most pernicious influences of the attention economy? What are ways that I can use these mediums or tools to build something that will force me to make the most out of my next five years of study? 

I have a lot of tactics and experiments in development, but for now the three main ones I will recommend are: 

1. Strive to live by the Three Principles above,
2. Instead of resisting the attention economy, use it as an accountability partner, which means
3. Timelapse-record first (or refresher) readings, and then (and only then) video-record or stream the exegetical reading. 

The order of this last point is crucial. Since the beginning when I encouraged fellow travelers to do exegetical readings, I have repeatedly said: “Never do the exegetical reading on your first pass.” Twitch and YouTube streamers have made it very normal for us to think that playing a video on the first pass, pausing to respond every couple of seconds, is a legitimate way to do things. While it is good for gaming the algorithm and making people feel like something was accomplished, it is inherently counter-productive. 

Exegetical reading, by definition, means to stop and put the text into your own words every so often. It is an interpretive attempt to articulate, which as you will remember from Bert’s Principle, should be saved for – at minimum – the second reading. To skip the first reading and go straight into exegesis is as counterproductive as skipping reading and writing before “conversation.” 

Not only is jumping straight to exegesis without step one of The Bert Standard bad for you, but it is a waste of other peoples’ time. One of the advantages to making your exegesis public is that it benefits others. If it is of quality, then your exegesis can serve as reading step 0 from The Bert Standard for someone else (see below). Some multitasking worker or distracted gamer somewhere, if not in your own reading cohort presently or in the future, might get the lay of the land and then be able to come back over the text later for themselves.

The exegetical reading should be considered our attention economy reward for having first achieved the first pass. That first pass should be one that is dedicated to a serious block of time, taking notes to get the lay of the land and set aside initial impulse thoughts, connections, and to instead problematize one’s own understanding. Because you know you will be doing an exegesis, you will feel more responsible, making you better able to problematize passages and ask yourself what is going on. Tarrying with that confusion should be done days, if not weeks, before the actual exegetical reading. If you’re like me, and weeks have passed since the initial reading, your notes will come in very handy, and you will want to return to certain passages with those questions in mind before the exegetical recording or stream begins.

If exegetical reading is a good accountability partner that helps your distracted self stay on task, then timelapse recording your reading session of the first pass will be even more useful. I have found that it helps me focus immensely. Maybe it will work for you as well. 

Audio/interpassive reading is step 0

One essential point: If you also find that listening to a text read aloud by others or a robot reader is useful for giving you a basic familiarity with “the lay of the land” of a text, then this “pass” should be considered step 0 of the Bert Principle. 0 does not mean it is meaningless, I find it quite useful, but because you are listening while commuting, working out, working, or gaming, you are obviously unable to take notes. Listening will give you enough familiarity to ask better questions and have a basic orientation in the text – as well as help answer the question of whether or when to return to the text for more deliberate study. Sometimes listening is enough to know it is not important to your immediate interests or goals. But if you feel inspired to skip steps 1 and 2 of both the Bert and Bryan principles, then put that impulse on cooldown and make a promise to yourself to return with deeper reading and writing in mind. 

Conclusion to “my moralizing screed”

This piece will rub some of you the wrong way. It undoubtedly sounds like a call out post of sorts. Even now I am bracing myself for the inevitable, “Dave, in essence, you are saying none of us have ever read anything or had a real thought, much less conversation.” Yes, but this implicates me first and foremost. As I already said, these principles were a slow and steady dawning realization that, once they hit me, resulted in the abandonment (or sublation) of previous projects. 

These principles did not come from the void, and are not purely arbitrary. They grew from failed experiments and experiences attempting to do philosophy with others. Their recent formalization feels like a big relief because it finally crystallizes something that has been, until now, a tedious and frustrated coming-to-conscience ignited and fueled by the examples of three different friends and fellow travelers: Mikey, Bert, and Bryan. Each has, in his own way, made me realize that so much of my time “committed to philosophy” and “the life of the mind” was just self-congratulatory bullshit, loving to hear myself talk, feeling like genuine insights and advances were being made when, in fact, it was just tipsy idle chatter and hype for its own sake. 

This could all be taken as a moralizing screed, if not for the fact that I am not upholding these principles as ones applicable for regular people whose interest in theory might be nothing more than a side hobby or passing curiosity. The same is true for anyone trying to achieve excellence in any other domain where mastery is possible: If you want to be a great musician, artist, inventor, or anything else, there are already pronounced norms and expectations that you can choose to live in accordance with. 

Not everybody needs to be a thinker, scholar, or theorist. I feel the need to develop myself as all three, but beyond that, I am also forced to be an educator and organizer. Why “forced”? Because whatever it is about the way I am, I need lectures, to be able to interview lecturers, and to also feel responsible for giving lectures of my own, or else I constantly backslide into ambiguity, non-committal curiosity, and chitter chatter. 

Theory Underground is not for everybody. It’s not even for most people. It’s for people like me: working class fuckups and burnouts who see no future in existing institutions but who nonetheless want to, for however long, take thinking, reading, and conversation to another level. More importantly, we are obsessives. Which means that, if we were not killing ourselves with impossible standards, difficult texts, and profound concepts from the history of thought, then we would be killing ourselves in more harmful ways. 

Theory is a hell of a drug. People like me and Mikey are concept dealers (and yes, we do get high on our own supply!). The issue is that worldview salesmen, sophists, and influencers, who have always been the enemy of philosophy, are now celebrated and incentivized more than ever by the attention economy. They have made a nonetheless addicting industry out of cutting the supply. We want it pure. We take pride in dealing the best uncut concepts out there. 

The Three Principles are simple industry standards meant to counter the watering down of ideas and discourse. These are meant to counter my own worst tendencies. By writing a piece like this, I force myself to become better. This piece is not a call out, it is a call to conscience for people who are tired of sitting on their hands at base camp – who want to start climbing mountains. If you like real challenges, if you are in for the long-game, and if you truly want to set yourself up for success in your mature years as a thinker, then this should only serve as motivation, guidance, method, structure, and as a model.