Looksmax
Aesthetics Matter
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The first rule of looksmaxxing is the most important. You must internalize it, and truly believe it before you can begin your looksmaxxing journey, while simultaneously making the most of your results. This applies not only to looksmaxxing, but any and all forms of self-improvement that you will do throughout your life.
The first rule of looksmaxxing is: You do not talk about looksmaxxing.
“Why is that?” you might ask. The answer is clear. People, whether they admit it or not, have certain ideas, thoughts, and preferences in their heads that they can’t control.
An “implicit bias” if you will.
Why do you think there is an infatuation with so called “prodigies” in our society?
Do people revere the person who works hard all their life, learning and studying to improve themselves, or do they admire the one mysterious somebody who makes it all look easy and natural, as if they were born to do it?
Do people want to hear about the guy who gave it his all in college and spent endless nights studying to get the A, just like everyone else, or do they only want to hear about the kid who does it all without even needing to try?
Do people admire the guy who is fascinated by different cultures and languages, and spent all of his life learning about them, or do they only want to hear about the guy who has been able to speak to almost anyone since he was 13?
If you’re wondering why I’m asking all of the rhetorical questions, it’s because I’m trying to prove a point, a point that you probably already know, but fail to enact.
People want successful people who make it look easy. They want people who make it looks easy. They want naturals.
Unfortunately for many people, they don’t fall into any of these categories. Most people are painfully average, living monotonous lives, giving it their all to be just another drop in the bucket, making it obvious to others just how hard they’re trying in order to even just stay afloat.
Others manage to make a splash, a splash large enough to offset them from the rest of the flock, but still manage to make the fatal mistake of telling people about how hard it was to get there.
In an even smaller group, you have people who have a natural aptitude to certain activities, and excel at them with ease. The first two groups love these people, they are infatuated with them. They’re the naturals, the prodigies.
And finally, we have the last group, the group who has no choice but to work just as hard as the first two, gets the results of the second but gets all of the same admiration as the third.
How?
By shutting the fuck up about how much effort they’re putting in or how hard they worked.
Both the third and fourth group of people have the exact same social value in the eyes of the flock, because the fourth group has learned the art of shutting the fuck up. By not telling others about what they’re working on, or have worked on, people admire them in the same way that they do the naturals, because in eyes of the flock, they’re no different.
The flock doesn’t just want people who look good or do things well, the want people who look good and do things well without even needing to try.
Have you ever enthusiastically told others about starting a new diet, or elaborating to others about some newfound plan about how you are going to improve your life, and all of a sudden they start to tear you down in subtle ways, or start to treat you differently?
It’s because of that implicit bias. They don’t like tryhards, they don’t like frauds, and they don’t like people who aren’t naturals. They don’t like people who weren’t born with it.
You avoid this by not talking about your efforts, by not showing to others, either explicitly or implicitly, all the work you put into taking care of and improving yourself.
The Italians, one of the most stereotypically romantic and charismatic ethnicity, the Italians, have a word for this idea. In fact they have had a word for it for almost 500 years. They call it sprezzatura. Sprezzatura is described as a ‘studied carelessness’. Most people apply it towards fashion, but the first time it was described by Baldassare Castiglione, it applied to all aspects of a person’s life, desires, feelings, thoughts, and more importantly, actions. It’s an effort to make every aspect of your life, including the parts worthy of admiration that, while in reality took large amounts of effort and time, look easy and natural.
See, when you employ sprezzatura during your looksmaxxing journey, and more importantly throughout your entire life, even after you’re ‘done’ looksmaxxing, you reap its benefits in the form of admiration and praise for being, living, and acting in a way that others want you to be, and wish they were.
In reality, it’s the one way of ascending when you aren’t already ascended. It allows you to burn away the dead underbrush, and allow for new branches and leaves to grow. It allows you to shed all of your baggage and become something new. You begin to truly believe that you had it in you all along, and your actions and characteristics soon follow suit.
As Castiglione talks about in his book, one of sprezzatura’s greatest virtues is that it allows you to get lost in, and eventually become, one with your nonchalance and charisma; a true natural.
It’s a difficult road, trust me. People are fundamentally social animals. We all want to talk with others about how we’re going to improve, how hard we’ve worked, and how much better off we are for it. They’re also hilariously judgmental, in the ways I’ve talked about previously. They don’t like to see plateaus, or the inevitable stagnation that you have to break through when improving yourself, all they want to see are results. It really is the duality of man.
But doing so is the most important part of really beginning your looksmaxxing journey.
Hopefully I’ve shed some insight on the type of mentality you need to put yourself in, in order to truly maximize and reap the rewards of your looksmaxxing, and more generally any form of self-improvement.
The first rule of looksmaxxing is: You do not talk about looksmaxxing.
“Why is that?” you might ask. The answer is clear. People, whether they admit it or not, have certain ideas, thoughts, and preferences in their heads that they can’t control.
An “implicit bias” if you will.
Why do you think there is an infatuation with so called “prodigies” in our society?
Do people revere the person who works hard all their life, learning and studying to improve themselves, or do they admire the one mysterious somebody who makes it all look easy and natural, as if they were born to do it?
Do people want to hear about the guy who gave it his all in college and spent endless nights studying to get the A, just like everyone else, or do they only want to hear about the kid who does it all without even needing to try?
Do people admire the guy who is fascinated by different cultures and languages, and spent all of his life learning about them, or do they only want to hear about the guy who has been able to speak to almost anyone since he was 13?
If you’re wondering why I’m asking all of the rhetorical questions, it’s because I’m trying to prove a point, a point that you probably already know, but fail to enact.
People want successful people who make it look easy. They want people who make it looks easy. They want naturals.
Unfortunately for many people, they don’t fall into any of these categories. Most people are painfully average, living monotonous lives, giving it their all to be just another drop in the bucket, making it obvious to others just how hard they’re trying in order to even just stay afloat.
Others manage to make a splash, a splash large enough to offset them from the rest of the flock, but still manage to make the fatal mistake of telling people about how hard it was to get there.
In an even smaller group, you have people who have a natural aptitude to certain activities, and excel at them with ease. The first two groups love these people, they are infatuated with them. They’re the naturals, the prodigies.
And finally, we have the last group, the group who has no choice but to work just as hard as the first two, gets the results of the second but gets all of the same admiration as the third.
How?
By shutting the fuck up about how much effort they’re putting in or how hard they worked.
Both the third and fourth group of people have the exact same social value in the eyes of the flock, because the fourth group has learned the art of shutting the fuck up. By not telling others about what they’re working on, or have worked on, people admire them in the same way that they do the naturals, because in eyes of the flock, they’re no different.
The flock doesn’t just want people who look good or do things well, the want people who look good and do things well without even needing to try.
Have you ever enthusiastically told others about starting a new diet, or elaborating to others about some newfound plan about how you are going to improve your life, and all of a sudden they start to tear you down in subtle ways, or start to treat you differently?
It’s because of that implicit bias. They don’t like tryhards, they don’t like frauds, and they don’t like people who aren’t naturals. They don’t like people who weren’t born with it.
You avoid this by not talking about your efforts, by not showing to others, either explicitly or implicitly, all the work you put into taking care of and improving yourself.
The Italians, one of the most stereotypically romantic and charismatic ethnicity, the Italians, have a word for this idea. In fact they have had a word for it for almost 500 years. They call it sprezzatura. Sprezzatura is described as a ‘studied carelessness’. Most people apply it towards fashion, but the first time it was described by Baldassare Castiglione, it applied to all aspects of a person’s life, desires, feelings, thoughts, and more importantly, actions. It’s an effort to make every aspect of your life, including the parts worthy of admiration that, while in reality took large amounts of effort and time, look easy and natural.
See, when you employ sprezzatura during your looksmaxxing journey, and more importantly throughout your entire life, even after you’re ‘done’ looksmaxxing, you reap its benefits in the form of admiration and praise for being, living, and acting in a way that others want you to be, and wish they were.
In reality, it’s the one way of ascending when you aren’t already ascended. It allows you to burn away the dead underbrush, and allow for new branches and leaves to grow. It allows you to shed all of your baggage and become something new. You begin to truly believe that you had it in you all along, and your actions and characteristics soon follow suit.
As Castiglione talks about in his book, one of sprezzatura’s greatest virtues is that it allows you to get lost in, and eventually become, one with your nonchalance and charisma; a true natural.
It’s a difficult road, trust me. People are fundamentally social animals. We all want to talk with others about how we’re going to improve, how hard we’ve worked, and how much better off we are for it. They’re also hilariously judgmental, in the ways I’ve talked about previously. They don’t like to see plateaus, or the inevitable stagnation that you have to break through when improving yourself, all they want to see are results. It really is the duality of man.
But doing so is the most important part of really beginning your looksmaxxing journey.
Hopefully I’ve shed some insight on the type of mentality you need to put yourself in, in order to truly maximize and reap the rewards of your looksmaxxing, and more generally any form of self-improvement.
