All grammar intentional.
Couch and a television in the living room? Instead, have a hobby space, a paint studio, a room for cartwheels, and an exercise mat. Sit cross-legged on the floor and throw some pillows. Wear socks and leave the shoes at the door.
The couch and the television are the most destructive, dichotomous pair of objects in your life. They will cost you many years of your waking life staring at the television, where D-list actors and C-grade clowns read various texts aimed at the lowest common denominator of the zoo. Voices and images fill in the blanks between commercials. They will lower your IQ by at least 50 points over 50 years. And the couch is even more destructive; it will cause you illness and pain because moving is life, and sitting down is death. So while you sit on it, you practice death.
Identity art, climate change art, and text art? Instead, artists should focus on design, composition, and execution.At one point, all artists around me were making some sort of water worlds; others were making just random AI stuff. Well, here it is: all the stuff that's just one simple idea is like a one-trick pony without the pony. Once you get the idea, there's nothing left to untangle. There's no mystery, and there's no mastery. Might as well say it with words. What is art? Art is a one-of-a-kind, not-useful object that can last at least a few hundred years and still be admired. This is what art is. If you see it in 200 years, you'll still want to have it, but you'll have no use for it other than to look at it. Nobody is going to want to have the water worlds. They're going to want to have a Dali or a Vermeer—or a tiny statuette that's 5,000 years old. Man, that is a priceless and funny thing, a lot more valuable than a spoon.
School? Instead, kids should build video games and robots.
Cars? Wearing a ton of steel with wheels just to go from A to B makes no sense. Robotaxis and robovans can't come soon enough.A long time ago, I read a science fiction story. In the future, people were wearing cars instead of clothes. I remember that one vividly.
And now I remember when I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area. I commuted by car every morning for an hour over the bridge. I would then park the car for the entire day and commute back another hour. It was just me.
Now imagine millions of people doing that—sitting alone, wrapped in a ton of steel, going from A to B every morning and from B to A in the afternoon. Now imagine that there's infrastructure built around these steel clothes. And now imagine that these steel piles sit around for most of the day doing nothing. They serve just one person. It doesn't make any fucking sense.
That's why I'm excited about robotaxis and robovans. A car is not sustainable, it is very expensive, and it is very lonely. Why would you want to pay for something expensive and depressing?
Handbags? Instead, carry plastic bags or backpacks.There's nothing uglier and less beautiful. It is the profound "I'm an idiot" symbol, often with terrible design and workmanship and other poor qualities—not least of which is the fact that you have to hold it. It is a sack with straps! Someone smart was saying that even Einstein was carrying his luggage until they invented luggage on wheels. All these Einstein girls are holding the bags. Plastic bags are very useful—you can use them several times and then take out the trash. Backpacks are even more useful because you don't have to hold them.
Diamonds and engagement rings? Instead of crystals, invest in becoming a creator and learning a skill.
Weddings? Instead, travel around the world.
Kitchen cabinets? Instead, draw and paint with your kids on the walls; do woodwork on the counters.
Home renovations? Instead, learn how to use your hands and do small repairs.
Mattresses? Instead, sleep on a Japanese futon on the floor.
Books like Catcher in the Rye and Ulysses? Instead, read Plutarch.
Social media? Instead, pay attention and talk to people in the room with you.
Worshiping actors and ballplayers? Instead, worship engineers, artists, and makers.
Watching sports? Instead, do sports.
Luxury vacations? Instead, go to the nearest beach, park, or trail out in nature.
Three-course meals? Instead, cut some vegetables, fish, or meat, and cook.
Restaurants? Instead, go with your friends to the park and have a picnic.
Meals in boxes and bags? Instead, have an apple.
British Royals? Instead, put them up in apartments and turn the palaces into museums.
Crowns? If a grown man wants to wear a crown, he should be put in an asylum.
Lawyers? Instead, have people advocate for themselves.
Bars? Instead, grab a beer and sip it on a bench.
Censoring boobs, penises, and the word "fuck"? What is the shame of an organ that feeds babies or makes them?
Makeup? Instead, exercise your body and mind.
Professional politicians? Instead, the wise and capable should govern.
Lecturers in universities? Instead, the students and teachers should just talk.
Closets full of piles of clothes and shoes? Instead, have a few pieces and a few pairs of shoes. Wear them, and when they wear out, get new ones.Shopping? Instead, when you need something, go out and get it.
Advertisements? Instead, never buy anything from an ad. They only advertise what they can’t sell.
Heels? Instead, wear shoes.
If you don’t have your lover at jeans and a t-shirt, you are not having them with the fucking pointy things. If you sell sex for a living in Amsterdam in a booth, then yeah, get the pointy things out. I am okay with well-respected sex work that comes with health insurance and government oversight.
Mowing lawns? Instead of sowing grass, plant flowers, vegetables, and fruit trees.Imagine that the entirety of the American nation gets up on a Sunday and mows grass. I mean, they're not planting flowers, not vegetables, or anything beautiful or useful—they're doing grass. Over and over again. To what end? Who made this so?
I'm not saying that people should leave their gardens to become jungles. But isn't there a better use of the resources of America, American land, and American weekends?
They plant grass and then mow it in a kind of zombie operation. Practically growing weeds for the only purpose of cutting them later. There must be something better to do with the soil, the water, and the time of human life.
Buying furniture? Instead, get second-hand or, better yet, collect free furniture left out on the curb on trash day.
Costco? Instead, buy small, high-quality items when you need them.
Buying in bulk makes you waste money in your pocket on extra food or items you most likely do not need but get because they are a bargain. You will end up eating the giant Costco bags of cancerous, prepackaged food—I guarantee it. And it will end up costing you millions in lost health. Just take a walk in nature instead of Costco, and go to the beach in January. Alright, once a month is okay to get toilet paper and soap, okay?
Love and sex? Instead, make babies and live like friends.Nothing is as draining as love. It is the insatiable desire of the Universe to reproduce itself. We are programmed to lose our minds at the sight of a penis or a breast. Joseph Campbell calls it the zeal of the organs for each other. Epicurus figured out that men will be happiest when they live with their best friends.