• Get a job you hate.

    This one is about the normalization of greed.

    When you think about greed, I’d imagine your brain drifts towards Jeff Bezos or Donald Trump or some other bazillionaire. I’d agree. I think they’re pretty greedy. But thats not what I’d like to discuss.

    I’ll start with some reflecting that been doing. I’ve decided that I don’t want to sell anything that I create. I’ve been thinking about art and how we decide on pricing it. The goal seems to be to get the price as high as someone is willing to pay for it. Premium products are created with the intention of being sold well above their true worth. We inflate value through limiting supply and increasing demand. Everyone in this space seems to want to get the biggest bang for their buck. Those who figure out how to succeed at banging bucks then transition into commodifying their ability to do so. They create courses, sell advice, write books, garner views for profit. We’ve turned what could be a space for unfettered passion and joyful creation into a space where our joy is twisted into a selling point to turn a profit.

    I get it, the reality of true unfettered passionate creation for most people is that is just not economically feasible. We justify the commodification of our work as a way to sustain it financially. If we weren’t making money from it, we wouldn’t be able to afford to do it in the first place. I, however, beg to differ. I have a job outside of the creative work that I do. It’s a full time job in a boring industry that I’d consider almost anti fulfilling. However, it pays my bills and then some. It allows me the opportunity to create by providing the financial backing for it. I think about leaving this job and focusing fully on my passions almost everyday, but i’ve decided that the creative freedom it gives me is just too good to give up. I could start selling my work to sustain it, but then I’d have priced someone out of my market. I don’t want a market, I just want my work to get out there.

    I’ve put myself in a position where I’m able to afford giving my work away. The world needs more people who are willing to get out there and just give things away. Give away your time to those who need it more. Give away your money to those who need it more. Give away your art to those who need it more. Maybe it’s not even about giving to those who need it more, but just giving in general. Make a sacrifice to be able to give. Don’t feed into the normalization of “getting your piece of the action”. Create the action and try your hardest not to commodify it. Become wealthy if you wish, but maybe don’t use your art to do so. Use your wealth to sustain your ability to create, and avoid using your ability to create as a crutch for your wealth.

    I honestly think this is the greed we should be most worried about. It’s not obvious and it seeps into society quietly, killing everything we once regarded as good. Let’s be the ones to force back this creep. Stop profiting, make a sacrifice for something you love, and put your passion out into the world at a cost that doesn’t commodify it. if you really love what you create, you’d get a job you hate to sustain it.

    Jeff Bezos may have a shit ton of money, but let’s be real, we’re really the ones negatively impacting the greed we claim to be so against.

  • Pack Your Lunch.

    I eat the same meal for lunch every single work day.

    • Mixed greens with feta, goat cheese, and honey mustard dressing
    • whole milk Greek yogurt with six raspberries and oat and honey granola
    • triscuit crackers with a pepper jack cheese wedge
    • a can of seltzer water

    While certain flavors and toppings may vary occasionally, the general lunch structure has remained the same for the past two years. I shop for the same groceries each week, which are portioned to exhaust after exactly five meals. I use the same lunchbox and tupperware every day, and the lunch is always prepared in the same order at roughly the same time each night. Every component has its place and every place has its function. Making lunch has become an automated process of life.

    I used to go to Wawa and buy a fifteen dollar lunch each day. I’d get a hoagie, a bag of chips, and a lemonade. I miss these lunches, but honestly, buffalo chicken strip hoagies have not been up to par recently. Also, In order to do this, I’d have to spend seventy five bucks a week, about three hundred bucks a month, or almost three thousand six hundred dollars every year. I don’t miss that.

    I’d decided to start packing my lunch as an attempt to fix this mindless spending, and It has been one of the greatest life decisions I’ve ever made. As a society, we’ve become so obsessed with treating ourselves constantly. We treat ourselves out to delicious tasting food, to contrast from the measly chicken breast and rice we only know how to prepare at home. We award ourselves for getting halfway through the work day by retreating away from the office and to the closest Chipotle full of the same people from work. We treat ourselves by not having to sacrifice precious time each day to prepare leftovers from last night’s dinner, and instead use this saved time by vegging out on the couch staring at our phones. In reality, we’ve missed out on some of the biggest treats of all by NOT packing lunch every day, Money, discipline, and general happiness.

    Packing your lunch is incredibly budget friendly.

    Believe it or not, money is one of the biggest tools we have to lead a content life. Sure, money doesn’t necessarily buy happiness, but learning how to control it and use it effectively leads to a much more fulfilling life. It’s so easy to throw money away for the justification of doing things that bring us happiness. Unfortunately, those who throw money away for happiness’ sake tend to be the most unhappy about how life is now so unaffordable. For me, learning to pack my lunch was the foremost domino in a series of changes leading to financial bliss. Learn to control your wallet by buying budget items, not spending when it’s unnecessary, and learning to do more things yourself rather than paying for it. Finance is an essential part of Ned Ludd because unfortunately in this modern consumerist society, it is a driving force behind our everyday lives. Don’t let society force you into this spending culture. Packing my lunch was a stepping stone into learning how to budget as well as my “buy less” mentality. I believe most days should be spent not spending, rather than making small spends each day. Packing your lunch enforces this by consolidating food purchases into a single weekly grocery shopping event, rather than spread out purchases made many times a week. I shop at Aldi weekly and can sufficiently feed myself and a plus one for three meals a day, seven days a week for seventy five dollars. That’s less than two dollars a meal. Suck that Ubereats, your shitty CEO won’t take my hard earned cash.

    Packing your Lunch Builds Discipline.

    If you read my “wash your bowl” post, this kind of fits under the same umbrella. I pack my lunch daily, every evening before bed. It’s become a nightly habit, and morning me is always incredibly grateful that it has already been completed. From this action, I’ve come to understand that the ability to Complete tasks with discipline is a super power. Once you realize how good you can make future you feel, completing tasks becomes a mindless activity. Packing my lunch turned going grocery shopping into a “no sweat”. I know it needs to be done, so I go do it. Same with doing the laundry. Same with cleaning the apartment. Something needs to be done? Just go do it. Once you realize how effective a bit of discipline is, it’s like finding a cheat code to life. Establishing rituals of discipline makes essential tasks not only easier to do, but also streamlines life and saves time in the long run.

    Packing your Lunch will make you Happy.

    When I pack my lunch, I’m taking charge. I’m deciding what I put in my body, how much I spend to do it, and how I want the experience to be. There’s no businesses involved. I’m not handing my soul over to a corporation or greedy businessman for a quick bite. I’m participating in an activity that will consistently keep me fed for a lifetime. I learned to cook. I wash my own dishes. I get to decide how healthy I want to be. Packing your lunch is loving yourself and is a true sense of empowerment. Its a “Fuck You” to the system that doesn’t want you to have ownership over yourself. When I open my lunch box, I smile knowing that I used my own hands to prepare the lunch inside. There’s a certain sense of nostalgia and safety knowing what today’s food will be. It’s always the same, and there’s something really nice and simple about that. I remember listening to an interview with a designer whose philosophy was to simplify life as much as possible. By streamlining every possible action in life, he believed only then could a designer truly come up with good design. Good design is birthed from life boiled down to its bare minimum. This philosophy really struck a chord with me. I believe that happiness has a foundation in a life streamlined through intention. Ritual your life to its simplest form, and through this, you will find the mental clarity needed to experience ultimate contentment.

    Extra points if your lunch storage and the instruments needed to put it together are reusable!

  • Wash Your Bowl.

    I know almost nothing about Zen. I’ve never studied it and have payed very little attention to it. However, there is a Zen “koan” from “The Book of Serenity” that I have heard and taken a liking too. Here it is:

    A monk asked Zhaozhou, “I have just entered the monastery: please give me some guidance.”

    Zhaozhou said, “Have you had breakfast yet?”

    The monk said, “Yes I have eaten.”

    Zhaozhou continues, “Then go wash your bowl.”

    Apparently Zhaozhou was a teacher of Zen known for his simple yet deep instructions. He speaks in a language that is direct and rooted in everyday life. I think this is the reason why his teaching here has recently stuck with me.

    Sometimes after i finish eating my breakfast, I place my bowl in the sink rather than washing it out. Unfortunately, I am actually pretty bad at this specific teaching. However, the instruction of washing your bowl after eating from it is a concept that can be applied to much more than just bowls and breakfast. I think of life as a series of consecutive moments, each setting the groundwork for the moment that should follow it. There is the past moment, the present moment, and the moment next to come. The past moment has no real significance, as it has already happened and cannot influence anything further than the presently occuring moment that it has laid the groundwork for. The present moment is what is currently being done, and is where our energy should be directed. Once the present moment is completed, it is moved to the past moment, and our energy is shifted onto the moment next in line. Eating breakfast was the present moment, but when finished, washing the bowl shifted to the present. Life is a series of eating breakfasts and washing bowls. Moments pass, and moments next in line take their place. Live presently by always doing the next most reasonable thing. When clothes are dirty, put them in the hamper. When the hamper is full, put it in the wash. When the wash is complete, fold the clothes. When the clothes are folded, put them back into the dresser. These are not chores, but rather sequential moments to be carried out with mindfulness. Let go of classifying the difficult things in life as chores, and reclassify them as moments. Live in the present moment and let the next moment in line naturally take its place. Don’t hold onto past moments and always be ready for what the next moment has to offer.

    We own our lives and all the moments that fall within them. It is our personal responsibility to wash our bowl after breakfast is complete. It is our bowl, we must take care of it. We’re responsible for taking care of all of the moments that fall within the scope of our lives. While, like me, you may not want to wash out your bowl after eating from it, it is your responsibility to do so. Thus is life. More importantly, embrace that “thus is life” and learn to appreciate it. While I sometimes do struggle to wash out my bowl right away, I am mindful that this is a moment that I’ll need to be present with soon. Putting away my laundry, packing my lunch before bed, rising from bed after my first alarm, and preparing a home cooked meal are just a few of the moments in my life that come much easier to me than washing my bowl. I respect them as moments that need to happen, and I look forward to the next moments that follow them when they are complete.

  • Exist for a while and be decent.

    Too many rules and instructions often end up defeating the purpose of the objective they were put in place to protect. Regulations suck. flowcharts are confusing. step by step approaches take too long. When I came up with the idea of Led Nudd, I didn’t want to overwhelm people with too many instructions telling you that you need to “this” in order to get to “that“. Or if you’re looking for “that“, you have to stop doing “this”. Sure, pretty much every post on this site will be a snippet of advice or a think piece meant to inspire some sort of mental gymnastics on your approach towards life, but none of it is actually required. Except for two very generic, very easy, and very digestible rules: Exist for a while, and be decent. Following, but more importantly, understanding these rules, is the only requirements to be a part of Led Nudd, and thusly live a more content life.

    We’ll take this mantra and digest it piece by piece.

    Exist: in this absurd world, one is constantly faced with the decision to either exist, or to not. Sometimes it may feel as if the world doesn’t want us to exist, or that our existence means almost nothing to the world. But really, Our existence is the one true significant choice we have in this world. When all else seems to fail, it’s the last bargaining chip we have left. When faced head on with the meaninglessness of our existence, and it seems like there’s no real reason to continue on, that last chip is always there to play. When you’re frustrated with something in life, sometimes screaming “FUCK YOU” to the problem is usually the most satisfying solution. When frustrated with life itself, the ability to choose to continue to just exist is our biggest “FUCK YOU”. By simply existing, we are participating in the largest rebellion against life’s lack of meaning and the world’s seemingly relentless efforts to cause us suffering. Our existence is not something to maximize or minimize. Existing does not need to be pushing ourselves through every second of life to intensify our existence in the world. It also does not need to be a downward of spiral of self destruction compelled by an enlightenment of the futility of the universe. “Exist” is a simple word. Participating in it is just as simple. to “exist” is to “be”.

    For a While: our time on this earth is finite. From the moment we are conceived, the seconds on our life clock begin to count down. Everyone’s clock may be a little bit different, but we all do have one. Some people will try to game the clock, hoping to add a few more seconds to their overall count. I say, just let the clock tick. We’re already existing, we might as well just do it for a while. for as long as we’re supposed to. Cutting our time short is a disservice to the clock and searching for extra time is futile. If one dedicates inordinate amounts of their time searching for extra time, not only is this an oxymoron, but it adds a level of meaning to life that isn’t truly there. If you were to accept the absurdity of life, then adding additional life onto our already predetermined amount would mean that the absurdity no longer applies to it since it is of our own creation. additional life is no longer absurd, but a curated existence. And a curated existence is not rebellious by any nature. As I type I can think of almost unlimited ways to present this phrase, its vagueness is a measure that I appreciate. In its essence, “fOr a while” means “not too much” but also “not too little”. just don’t think about it too much, and exist for a while.

    Be Decent: I really hate unrealistic expectations that are so easily said. “be nice” is such a common example. so is “have fun”. Phrases like this may sound nice, but really can’t hold up in the world we exist in. Of course, they do have their applicable moments, but they can’t really apply to life in the overarching way they were intended. One can only be so nice for so long. And what even is “nice” anyway? Everyone seems to have a different definition for it. The linguistics of life, morality, and purpose are like a minefield in a funhouse. Any path you choose leads to explosions and will be riddled with furrowed brows and philosophical checkmates from those on alternative paths. Justifying a motto like this has always been a confusing thought experiment to me, because when I try to run the equations of real life in my head, there’s always a variable that just doesn’t fit and ruins the solution. The idea of a simple motto is a great premise, but all the popular ones just don’t cut it for me. I needed something foolproof. Something that would hold up mentally and morally and not be too confusing to forget or change later in life. I wanted consistency, yet a certain amount of guaranteed liberty. Not something good or something bad. Good and bad are too subjective and too difficult to maintain on an extremely large scale. I needed something decent, and that’s what I decided we all should be. We can’t all aim to be great. If we all become great and no one is bad, then the new bad will just become the least greatest. We can’t all be nice, because nice honestly isn’t all that great. But everyone, literally everyone has the ability to be decent. By setting the expectations low, but really not all that low, we can make it easier for larger progress to be attainable. Exist for while, don’t worry about being great, or nice, or positive, or mindful, just be decent. We can all do that, and if not, I’m sure you could argue that you are.

    If you follow this mantra, and nothing else, for as long as you live, I can almost guarantee that you will be content through life. It is easy, practical, adoptable, adaptable, and effective on a large scale. Repeat it throughout the day. Write it on your personal property. Write it on public property. ingrain it in your mind, and let your life be guided by its principles.

  • There is a way.

    As I’m sure you’ve heard from someone, somewhere, at some point in time, modern life seems almost designed to be stacked against our ability to succeed. Whether it be the looming presence of late stage capitalism, the ever trending introduction of some Marxist or fascist ideals, or the idea that quadruple billionaires are scheming a new world order to brainwash the working class of society in order to expand the wealth gap for total world domination…we seem hell bent on coming up with some theory to explain why things aren’t working out for us or our peers.

    In reality, Who really cares?! All this is a just distraction from doing the one thing that actually matters: finding a way to succeed anyways.

    Let’s face it, the world we live in is an absurd place. The more you try to dig to a deeper level and gain some sort of insight or level of understanding on what seems to be a pressing issue, the issue will hawk up a lougee and spit it in your face. No matter how good or ethical we try to be, someone will always find a contradiction in your efforts that completely opposes your initial intention. We can’t be completely good. We almost can’t be completely bad. We’re just existing in some weird limbo where we battle our inner conscience to be a good as we possibly can, and bring about a change to the world that ends with some complete net positive impact that we fabricate from our own improvised worldview. If we try to take a step back and comprehend the world and everything that exists in it as whole, we might as well cover our eyes with duct tape and sticking our head in the sand. This place is impossible to understand, and seemingly unchangeable. Nothing about it makes sense, yet somehow it all makes sense in the most contradictory way. When we start to understand the basics of the absurdity of this universe and our existence in it, we eventually realize how little control we have over everything, eCxept our ability to perceive said control. We can spell “except” however we want. We can write sentences in paragraphs that really might not mean anything to anyone except those who come up with some bullshit gymnastical interpretation of said pseudointellectual mumbling. We can even contradict ourselves to such great lengths that our sense of morals and ethics are almost completely indistinguishable from what they were just a few moments ago. Nothing needs to make sense, unless we choose to allow it to. We can establish ultimate contentment in life by using the most available entity in our access: ourselves.

    i think this notion of “ultimate contentment” is the greatest leverage we have to bringing about a noticeable net positive change to the world. Even with the knowledge of universal absurdity and an existential understanding of our existence, we can still be content and happy. Especially knowing that all the bad in this world just comes from our choice on how to perceive it. With happier and more content individuals, i think the world will easily become a much better place, or at least round itself out. Therefore, our best option to move towards a better tomorrow is to navigate our way around all the bullshit that life pushes in our way, and to find success, especially when the popular opinion is to doubt our ability to do it. Be a little selfish for the good of society. When we think of it that way, its not really selfishness, is it?

    This leads me to the two rules that I have carefully set for myself. Yes, only two rules. these rules are contained in the mantra I’ve chosen for this site “Exist for a while, and be decent”. I will dive deeper into these two rules in the future, this post is long enough already.