Leo D.M.J. Aurini - On Overcoming Ennui

00:00:00.000 Music

00:00:30.000 on overcoming ennui. Now, this requested video comes from a 23-year-old man who

00:00:38.860 graduated with a degree in biology, which as Aaron Clary pointed out in

00:00:42.760 Worthless is actually a pretty worthless degree if you haven't specialized in

00:00:47.180 something. It's not very employable on its own. And he's finding himself in a

00:00:53.180 position right now where he can't find work and he's stuck in a rut, not a

00:00:58.760 completely unproductive rut, but one that isn't going anywhere. And he's

00:01:03.360 wondering what he should do with himself. Well, I'd like to break this video down

00:01:07.660 into three segments, starting with talking about how he got into this rut in the

00:01:14.080 first place and how so many of us find ourselves in this sort of a rut. The next

00:01:19.440 is identifying ennui. This is a French word which I absolutely love and I think it

00:01:25.740 perfectly sums up your position. Having a word for it will help. And the third

00:01:30.440 section talk about some specifics that he can do career-wise to advance himself.

00:01:38.220 So how did he get into the situation where he graduated with a degree in

00:01:42.740 biology, not the best of marks, he probably could have done better, but he was

00:01:46.840 slacking off. Well, you know, this is something I was talking with William Rome

00:01:51.440 about the other day. About how retarded the education system is. How it's set 1.00

00:01:57.880 down to the lowest common denominator. So if you are, if you have an IQ above a

00:02:03.180 hundred, you are going to be bored out of your skull in school. Now this is what

00:02:08.780 happened to me. This is what happened to William Rome. That high school is so

00:02:15.560 freaking easy that any idiot can do it. I was just reading a report about a family 1.00

00:02:20.400 that homeschooled their kids and five of their seven kids, and they're still in

00:02:25.140 their early teens, five of their seven kids have already been accepted to

00:02:28.960 colleges and universities. Because they're not retarded. So what winds up 1.00

00:02:35.660 happening if you're a, you know, a decently bright student is you don't need to

00:02:40.860 study. You don't need to work. There is so little expected from you that you are

00:02:45.460 just craving stimulation. You know, I used to, back in grade three, I was asking for

00:02:50.360 extra bonus math workbooks to do because I was bored, because I completed the entire

00:02:55.460 year in six months. By the time I got to high school, I'd pass out during most of my

00:03:00.340 classes because it was so boring, and have to teach myself everything from home.

00:03:06.020 God, I skipped most of that year, and I still got, you know, some of the top marks in

00:03:10.700 the school, top marks on math. And then you get to university. Now, on the one hand, you

00:03:19.100 absolutely do need to study in university if you want to understand the source

00:03:22.880 material. But you don't have to. See, the whole university system is designed for

00:03:30.040 mediocre intelligences. If you want to get good marks, you do have to work, but you

00:03:34.100 never developed those skills back in high school, because it was such a breeze. You

00:03:38.140 were trying to find something more to do, but they wouldn't give it to you. So you

00:03:43.080 never develop study habits. So you get to university. And when you're there, you can

00:03:48.260 just skate by on your intelligence. And now you're not getting A's like you were in

00:03:52.220 high school, but you're getting, you know, C pluses, B minuses. When you're not

00:03:56.760 reading the textbook, you're only showing up to half the classes and half-assing

00:04:00.620 everything. Because again, it is retarded. It is designed. It is slowed down for the 1.00

00:04:06.940 stupid people to get a larger group of people there. So they're not challenging 1.00

00:04:11.040 you. They're primarily testing if you're any good at vomiting up answers onto a

00:04:15.560 test to get a certification. You're not there to learn. You're there to get

00:04:19.160 certified. Which completely defeats the purpose of taking something in the

00:04:25.200 humanities. If you're just getting a certification saying you know history,

00:04:28.420 that's useless, especially if you haven't actually learned any history in the

00:04:31.300 process. So all of this, all the lowered expectations of society, the ease with

00:04:42.600 which you can get by and yet not succeed, not succeed and achieve greatness, but

00:04:47.440 just get by with ease. And the fact that you never have to learn any discipline or

00:04:51.580 study habits winds up leaving you in a position of incredible ennui. And so what

00:04:58.560 is ennui? Like I said, it's a French word. It's one of my favorite French words.

00:05:03.280 And it's a state similar to boredom. Except boredom, you don't want to do

00:05:09.920 anything. You lay on the couch and you complain that nothing's entertaining you.

00:05:14.460 And then you watch some stupid rerun sitcom on TV. That's boredom. Ennui is just 1.00

00:05:21.600 like you're inured to the world. You're very bored. You want to sit around drinking

00:05:27.420 absinthe, but not do anything interesting. It's like a mild form of creative, deep blue

00:05:34.780 depression. Passionate depression, if you will.

00:05:41.080 And this strikes me as where this young man is right now. Because he's saying he's

00:05:47.340 reading some self-help books, which are kicking his ass, which is good. Trying to 0.99

00:05:50.860 learn some discipline. Trying to discipline himself. He's going to the gym. But he just

00:05:54.940 doesn't, meh. So he's doing stuff. He's not bored. He's not properly depressed. But he's

00:06:02.160 not really doing anything that goes anywhere. He's just spinning his wheels in the driveway.

00:06:12.560 Now, we did mention reading some self-help books. And if you're interested in another one,

00:06:17.920 I highly recommend Cernovich's book, Gorilla Mindset. I'll be doing a review of that soon.

00:06:25.980 So let's talk about that for a minute. You see, you're trying to learn discipline.

00:06:29.740 And he mentioned his roommate who is really switched on, very hardworking, got a useful

00:06:34.540 degree, and has a responsible position. I think one of the big mistakes that you can

00:06:41.240 make, when you're trying to teach yourself discipline, is teaching yourself discipline

00:06:46.860 for discipline's sake. You're asking me, many of the questions you asked me were along the

00:06:55.760 lines of, you know, is this smart? Should I discipline myself to do this or that or the

00:07:00.900 other thing? And those are the wrong questions to be asking. What you need is a goal, a purpose

00:07:08.020 for having this discipline. It's great when you're in the army, you know, they teach you

00:07:14.880 discipline because you need discipline to get all that stuff done. You know, and in

00:07:19.040 theory, if school challenged you, school would have taught you the discipline to study and

00:07:23.380 actually achieve, instead of just letting you skate on by and refusing to challenge you

00:07:28.400 because that might make some of the numpties feel bad about themselves. But now that you have

00:07:34.600 self-discipline, you need to start from a different perspective.

00:07:38.020 Discipline for discipline's sake, you'll do that for about a week, and then you'll quit.

00:07:43.100 You know, you'll get sick a bit. You're like, ah, I don't feel like this today.

00:07:47.840 What you need to do, and a great example of this is from Cernovich's book,

00:07:54.180 Gorilla Mindset, where he says, plan out your perfect day.

00:08:00.060 See, in the past, I've tried planning out my productive day, a day where I get a lot

00:08:05.900 accomplished. And for a while, I adhere to that schedule, and I am very productive for a while,

00:08:12.980 until, oh God, I just don't feel like that today. Because I'm being productive for production's sake,

00:08:20.340 not for my sake. I mean, ultimately, it does serve me, but it's an indirect correlation.

00:08:25.740 And so what Cernovich challenges you to do is plan out your perfect day. And you know what's

00:08:33.220 interesting? When you plan out your perfect day, it winds up being pretty productive. It is a rather

00:08:39.900 productive day that you outline for yourself. But because you start with the premise of,

00:08:46.600 this is my perfect day. This is the day that I want to live. This is how I want every day of my

00:08:51.360 life to be. Suddenly, you've got some motivation. You schedule, when are you going to work out in

00:09:01.320 the day? You know, I like working out about 10, 11 a.m. Right? And, but I work out not because I

00:09:08.560 have some long-term fitness program that's going to pay off, or because, you know, I'm going to

00:09:13.100 dedicate myself to disciplining myself to work out. I work out because that's my workout period. I have

00:09:18.700 to shower right afterwards, and I just feel better. It's part of me having a, like, when I look at the

00:09:25.160 whole day, I know if I don't work out, I'm going to feel sluggish, and my blood won't be flowing, and

00:09:30.780 I'll be miserable. And so what I'm doing at 10 a.m. is related to what I'm doing later on at 6 p.m.

00:09:38.300 And so all of a sudden, all of this work I'm doing fits into a pattern of me being happy.

00:09:45.920 I'm now disciplining myself for very selfish reasons, and it winds up being very goal-oriented.

00:09:55.060 So now that you're disciplining yourself for yourself, it's much, much easier to do.

00:10:00.760 And the final point about moving forward, because he asked, should he build on his degree?

00:10:10.700 You know, get some sort of specification, some subset of biology that would actually get him a job.

00:10:18.200 Well, of course, this is going to depend on what your perfect day is. What do you want to do in life?

00:10:23.360 But once you figure that out, once you have a direction you're headed, once you have a goal,

00:10:31.740 once you know why you're doing it, like, you were taking biology because it interests you,

00:10:37.720 because it's science, because it's etc. You had your reasons, but you didn't have a goal.

00:10:43.860 It wasn't serving you. You didn't have a selfish enough reason.

00:10:47.620 But once you figure out what you want to do,

00:10:52.360 now you figure out how biology fits into that, and what you can do to get to that place.

00:11:00.200 So if you need to take a one-year certification or something, one-year upgrade,

00:11:06.720 all of a sudden you've got a goal now.

00:11:08.320 Yeah, your academic performance in the past was bad.

00:11:13.460 But now you have a goal.

00:11:15.060 Now it's serving you. Now you've got a selfish reason.

00:11:18.680 All of a sudden, doing this makes sense.

00:11:21.940 And you will do well.

00:11:24.920 Figure out what you want first.

00:11:28.220 Aim for that.

00:11:29.680 And the discipline will follow.

00:11:32.560 That's how you kill ennui.

00:11:34.900 Best of luck.

00:11:36.340 Berini out.

00:11:45.060 Go to be right.

00:11:49.140 Bye.

00:12:01.300 Bye.

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00:12:10.140 Bye.

Leo D.M.J. Aurini - December 06, 2015

On Overcoming Ennui

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