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Chapter 9 — Pre-Chapter Quiz:

 

Question 17: What Makes A WHO So Important For Maintaining Hope In A LongTerm Plan?

N.) They Are Safe To Fall Back On, No Matter The Circumstance.

$.) Other People Can’t See Or Attack Them

B.) They’re Faster For Progress Than Whats

 

Question 18: What Is A “Big Store Job”?

+.) Targeting A Big Company For A Big Pay Out

H.) Trying To Sell You A Store They Don’t Own

=.) Faking A Refund Without Refunding $10 Of It

-.) Using A Controlled Environment To Manipulate A Mark

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I've said before that the material of WHOs never changes, only What's inside of them does, and sometimes their shape, due to tension. If that's the case, then why are we talking about time, the very catalyst, for change, itself?

We're discussing it, my friends, because time is a bitch, an absolutely, stubborn bitch, without any remorse for any of you, or those you care for.

But, even a bitch has a WHO, and if we're going to spend our time here on earth to the best of our abilities, we best know WHO we're dealing with here, and What we have to negotiate with, when dealing, with time.

So... where does our leverage lie, in a bargain with time?

This world that we live in is like one big, treacherous, and greedy ocean, with everyone floating inside of it. Most people are dragged under and only are allowed to come up for air on rare occasions, with only a few seconds to breathe. If you can call that state of being "truly living," then I guess that you don't really need this book. I, however, find it exhausting. Living with barely enough money, being drowned in a feeling of debt or inadequacy for weeks, only to finally get that paycheck, that breath of fresh air after two weeks, spend it on groceries, gas, electricity, and the like, and suffer again for some time, does not sound like a healthy financial life to me. But the saddest truth is that we often do this in other forms of our life as well, if not including the financial one.

Metaphorically speaking, most people choose to live on boats, which is uncomfortable, but far less tiring than swimming against the tide all of your life. When you're a child, you usually stay on your parents' boat.

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You don't personally have to fight the waves yourself for quite a few years, but eventually, the day comes when either the boat drifts away from you, or you drift away from the boat. You will often end up leaving your home, or your home will end up leaving you. Your parents will usually give you some planks of wood and maybe some nails, but it is almost always up to you to build your own boat for yourself, and doing all that, all while trying to swim in a dangerous, shark-infested ocean, is difficult, to say the least.

The world is ever changing. Time won't wait for you, and people can be vicious and predatory in the name of their own self-interest.

The worst part is that even if your parents give you a boat or even a ship. It doesn't always matter, because even after you've built the boat yourself or have had it given to you, you'll still have to learn to steer, in the vast and never-ending terror, that is life. It's either that or you watch your happy home and wealth-building career fall apart, all due to a series of accidents or mistakes.

This creates a community that is perfect for what’s called “The Big Store Job”, another of the 7 types of lies a deceiver can tell you. In The Big Store Job, con men create or use an entire atmosphere (often a phony business or a borrowed office) to suggest an air of trustworthiness to their potential victims. They’ll also use it to suggest other concepts or traits the artist wants to push into the targets mind. Think of it like kid’s playing house, nobody in this con is who they seem, no REAL progress is being made even as it seems to, and the rules aren’t really designed to be fair, only imaginary, but so long as you don’t know that (or even if you do, sometimes) you’ll feel so warm and comfortable from the stability that the environment itself (and those controlling it), can get you to do or feel… whatever they want.

Many businesses or “stores” use this legally now. Why do employers need all their employees to keep smiling? Because the customers need to believe you’re happy and okay with everything. This isn’t because it’s

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true, merely because the fantasy of it keeps the customers doing what the store wants the to do — TO JUST KEEP BUYING.

— In a world where your reality sucks, creating a fantasy land, even a secretive or controversial one, will create unlimited power for those who run it. —

As a funny final example, we have a system of government that makes us hate and even attack each other in defense of who we’re voting for, yet these politicians are all working for the same entity, a corrupt government, and likely got there the same way. 

And corruption is corrupt, no matter who is doing it. Lmao.

The trick is to give you an enemy (living or conceptual), that sometimes loses, so that you feel you’ve conquered a problem, made progress, and want to keep participating in the system so you can “win” again at some future date.

Rigged successes, whether by determining who wins specifically, by limiting who can win potentially, or by determining when a win will happen, have always been a powerful tool for keeping up participation in a con.

But hey, we’re the United States of America, so at least we’re “Like a family here”, right?

Even if that unity is an illusion (which is definitely unraveling recently).

In an ever flowing ocean like this one, what makes WHOs powerful is their inability to change. In this highly complex and ever-changing world, having a stable pillar and immovable support, such as this, is beautiful. It's like being on stable land after being born and living your whole life at sea. As you watch the ocean ebb and flow, crash and tear into itself like some rabid beast, you find yourself sitting there, calmly... watching it all unfold. Finding a WHO for the first time is like spotting land because... in the ever-changing, ever-merciless world that we live

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in, discovering something immovable, incorruptible, and unchanging is... a relief. It's a release from the struggles of fighting every day to stay afloat, and when you do find it, it will feel glorious.

 

With WHOs, you don't really need to worry about swimming or sinking, or at least, you'll have the time to worry about it safely before you travel towards another, better island. You can stay and build your boat on the island calmly and with enough thought to practice steering in the shallow waters near it, rather than having a chance to drown or lose the pieces of the ship once you crash. You can put it all back together again if you have to. Plus, when you start traveling towards the WHO that you're after, such as a dream or as a goal (Your life's own promised land), you can simply travel a bit, stop at a nearby island (WHO a friend is, or a good hobby, and so forth) and rest there with that WHO, for a bit. Best of all? You'll always have your own WHO to use as a home base. It's your little kingdom, one that, once it's perfected with the proper Whats, you can invite your friends to. With big city walls, fresh food and water, entertainment, and the like, you can start to feel comfortable inviting the people that you care for to stay, rest, and relax for a bit because your WHO, in fact, almost any WHO that you and they align with, will always be a reliable, and safe place to rest inside of.

That, is your bargaining chip. The ability to be safe, and patient, and to wait until time itself makes a mistake, and brings you an opportunity, through the inevitable change, of its very own nature.

One way to use a true WHO revolves entirely around the idea that WHO you are never changes. You see, this allows for the use of some Orwellian rules. To quote George Orwell on page 162, in his book 1984, “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.” (Orwell 162). He speaks of this with an unconscious understanding that everything has a WHO, even reality itself and all of the humanity that resides within it, and that their WHOs never change. We’ll discuss the identity of the world and how to use it to your advantage in the next book. 

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However correct George Orwell was in saying this, though, it still isn’t the whole truth. Control is just one form of power. 

Money is power. 

Time is money, and money is power, so time is also power, 

but aside from all that, knowledge is power, too. My use of the Orwellian rule goes like this:

 

“He who knows your past can know your future. He who knows your present can know your past.”

 

If you can discover WHO you are in the present, you can tell about certain regrets or desires you’ve had in the past and what you’ll be aiming to do in the future. If you look at yourself, the true you, WHO you truly are, then you know what you want in the present and what you truly fear. You will know what makes you feel happy, and what makes you feel disgusted, and you will continue to know that for the rest of your life. Again, WHO you are never changes, and what you match with never does, either. Regrets will become few and far between. Though you may have thought you matched with something in the past, or someone, the truth, if that had changed, or led you only to pain, is that you either liked the idea of it and realized WHO it was later, or you did know WHO it was, and something came up and made you doubt all that, and you’re merely avoiding the idea of this WHO.

But of course, the most probable option is that you had a wrong idea of WHO you are, and that misunderstanding led you to gravitate towards things that only made you feel numb or negative, or you did know Who you are in a category but happened to obtain (sometimes by having it forced on you) the wrong What in another category, which made you doubt yourself, leading you to any other What that made you feel either

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embarrassed, guilty or even ashamed of WHO you are. Just as your understanding of your WHO can change your thoughts on Whats, so too can your knowledge (or lack thereof) your Whats lead to different views on WHO you are. Alas, I do digress. The point here (at least, the point I was attempting to make initially) was that if WHO someone is never changes, then you’ve always either matched with something, or you never have. This can lead to great insights when observing both yourself and your surroundings.

While our emptiness will become filled with many different things in time, our most genuine essence will always remain the same, just like time itself. This empty space that just so happens to be filled with a universe, and the ability for change, is the concept that we have labeled  as "TIME." 

 

Think of it like this:

Time is just a very oddly made type of jar. You see, the fact is that each of the WHOs about time, within time, are all contained by each other. The future contains the results from our present, and it the present contains the consequences of our past, which still effect the future, and so on. This Russian doll effect seems to make fully comprehending time itself rather difficult for many people. It is an undefinable concept that is made up entirely of 3 ineffable ideas. In its most genuine essence, time is seemingly the overruling WHO above all other WHOs. 

Time contains itself on 3 separate levels. The future contains effects from both what is happening now, in our present, and what has already happened in our past. That's just one thing that makes our future so damn hard to comprehend. The second layer: Our present, will only ever

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contain effects caused by the past because the future hasn't happened yet and so cannot effect it. The future can't cause or start anything if it doesn't even exist yet.

Time is measured by change. Changes in the past can change the present. Changes in the present can change the future, but changing the future only changes... the future again? There is no outer container to be stretched or contracted beyond that final layer. What you change in the future's jar, does not directly affect anything within the either two. The future is about as freeform as it gets.

The past only contains the effects from the pasts that have come before it. Again, the present cannot change, cause, or start things if it hasn't happened yet, and it wouldn't have happened yet if we're viewing things from the perspective of the past. As such, the past only contains the past and nothing more. This may be why we find being specific about our past far easier than accurately, and precisely, describing our futures.  But there's more to be gained from the approach than that. Here. Look at these two pictures.  

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The younger you:

and 

 

The older you:

If we are to assume that George Orwell's definition of a time is correct, then this is how growing up feels. Your past will grow with every SECOND that you spend here, living in our universe, and he who knows his past can know his future, so the more your past knowledge grows, the more your knowledge of potential futures grow as well. As such, it may become harder to live in the moment without planning ahead.

BUT if our power comes from controlling the present, as just a microscopic ant within the scheme of time, then we must take a closer look at the functions of "the now." The present doesn't grow, and it doesn't shrink. In fact, the present is whatever you make it out to be. You can consider it your present second, your present day, or even your present life if you believe in multiple of them (in this world or the next). 

So the present doesn't change, only the units we measure it by do, but here lies the beauty, the beautiful realization to hit you square in the jaw. This is why, when you get older, the days, weeks, and months of your present year seem to fly by.

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Look again. Look closer: 

Here's when you were young:

And here's when you're old:

If you were to measure the page with a ruler, you would see that the tan bubble labeled "THE PRESENT" isn't smaller in diameter. It hasn't changed in size at all. But your past and future have. If you have only 4 years on earth to compare your fifth birthday too, of course, that last year will seem long. It's 1 out of 5. You've only been alive for 5 years at that point, and so a single year from that makes up 20% of your life. But when you're 20, 1 year of your life is a much smaller portion by comparison. You've lived 19 years through your past at that point, and so 1 year, in the present, seems much smaller by comparison. It's only 5%. And what else are you supposed to compare your present year to, your future life? It doesn't exist yet. There's no way to measure it. There are 86,400 seconds in a day. Do you know what that means? That means that there are 86,400 chances for you to die per day. Almost everyone believes that they have time until they don't. Any day can be your last, as too can that be said of your opportunities.

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What does this mean? It means that comparing your present year to the next year is crazy because you have no guarantee that you'll even live through today. If you're 19, your next year on earth will only be worth 5% of your life by the time you reach your birthday, and it only gets smaller from there... The amount of time in the year doesn't change, but the number of past years you've lived through does, and what you believe that you should have accomplished in the future gets more prominent too. Hence, the disappointment you feel when you inevitably don't reach it.

There's much more to the concept of "Russian doll time" than even that, but let me leave you on one more emotional and special note for now:

Your potential does have a limit, whether you acknowledge that limit or not. If your past, present, and future are all containers, then what happens when your future pops, your present ends, and all that's left of you is the past that you've left behind for everyone that you've loved to remember you by?

(Of course, this is ignoring that WHOs are unbreakable. You will always have a future, even if it’s as a corpse. But that doesn’t mean that they’ll be keep the idea of you around for anything but your past afterwards. I suppose it’s more like your jar has been lost rather than broken. )

If time is really just the container for every What that we know of, then in truth, time may be the biggest WHO that we have ever found, and so, if observed correctly, while you may not be able to predict the future, you will most likely be able to see... something in the mist, far off within the empty space, that space that we call time. The more you know it's WHO, the more you can see of its past.

The present.

And even the future's Whats.

Sometimes, you’ll see that a friend's new romantic relationship will end from the moment it starts, even though they haven’t got a clue.

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Understand, knowing WHO someone truly is, allows you to see both their sound, and lousy matchmaking, but whether or not you tell them is up to you (or perhaps it's your own past matchmaking that needs criticism, no?). In my experience, no matter how right you are about a relationship not lasting, or a purchase leading to regret, they’ll stay upset with you, even after you’ve been proven right, as either a form of projection, displacement, or both. No one likes the idea of being ignorant of who they are, after all.

This can help save your ass in the future. I once ran 30 minutes late to a job interview. I walked in, met up with the manager, shook hands, and within 15 minutes, I was nearly guaranteed the job. When discussing my pay, I said, “...that is, if you hire me…” to which she responded by saying, “Oh no, you’re hired.” It all happened mainly, after running 30 minutes late, because I could identify WHO she was, What she wanted… and What she was trying to avoid. I simply looked for an overlap between What she wanted and What I had to offer and spoke mainly of that, avoiding any connections with the fears she may have as well. Sadly, this was back before I had a car, and my plans for transportation fell through (What resources I had denied my opportunity to meet with the WHO that was a job I wanted). I didn’t even get to spend a day on the job, and as far as I can tell, I’ve been sort of blacklisted from the company because of it, though that may all be in my head.

Edit: Never mind, They called me back, after I had applied again a few months ago, to asked for a job interview. Truth be told, I had already found another job that matched with my WHO a lot better for me, and so I turned down the offer.

My point in saying this is that if you can identify even a piece of WHO someone truly is and see even a little bit from the outlines of that container. You’ve discovered something about them that will stay reliable in all interactions forever. You’ll know how to make them happy with this, and though I don’t condone it, you also know how to inflict massive pain through it. You can see your friend's trajectory, what

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islands they've been to, and where it looks like they're going. You can make their journey far easier by guiding them to the next closest island between them and their goals, by making those islands more fun, and by making travel between them safer. Heck, you can even build them a bridge and create opportunities for them to go to their most desired destination while staying wholly secure and on dry land.

Don't swim with the sharks, my friends. Find some peace — some rest. Start now, and find your WHO.