How to Hit a Target No One Else Can See
“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.” ~Schopenhauer
You don’t have to be a genius to be creative, but you do have to be creative to be a genius. Focus on creativity. Get out of your own way. Allow your imagination to fly.
Get weird. Be the glitch. Go mad if you must. As Bill Murray famously said, “Weird is just a side effect of being awesome.” Be awesome!
Practice the ability to embrace paradox and hold the tension between opposites. Learn how to live with uncertainty. Learn how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Reimagine imagination itself, and you might earn the right to hit a target no one else can see.
When you allow yourself to be weird, you free yourself to be whatever you want to be. Fear of the unknown dissipates. You become the unfamiliar, the strange, the quixotic. All fetters fall away. Boundaries dissolve. The world unlocks. Suddenly everything is permitted, and both your curiosity and your creativity are heightened.
Genius manifests. Destiny becomes a plaything. The will to power is trumped by the will to humor. The Infinite Game reveals itself, and you are the gamemaster. Here are five rules that will take your genius to the next level…
Rule # 1 Don’t be certain, be curious:
“Belief is the death of intelligence.” ~Robert Anton Wilson
What does it mean to hit a target no one else can see? It means ruthlessly cutting through the known to discover the unknown. It means stiff-arming ancient “truth,” sidestepping outdated laws, and hurdling contemporary maxims. It means personifying Occam’s Razor by slicing through all the hitherto found precious certitudes and dropping question-mark bombs into their flimsy bunkers.
Most of all it means decimating all comfort zones. It means usurping all thrones. It means castrating all sacred cows. It means getting so far ahead of “establishment” that all you see is the desert wastes of the unknown reaching on forever. And atop that desolate sand dune, alone and reeking of solitude, you stare into the bare bones void and dare it into revealing its secrets.
Rule # 2 Don’t be on the fence, flatten all fences:
“The more likely we are to assume that the solution comes from the outside, the less likely we are to solve our problems ourselves.” ~Carl Sagan
Forget having an opinion; embrace having a notion. Forget having preferences, embrace having references. Forget having a point of view, transcend it all and become the view.
Those who can fly were not meant to sit on fences. Fuck fence sitting! Fly! Flatten all fences. Get some air under your wings. Regain the bird’s-eye-view you lost in your childhood. As Robert Greene said, “Elevate yourself above the battlefield.”
Don’t insecurely cling, courageously detach. Practice nonattachment. Cultivate transcendence. Get above the petty culture that incessantly tries to keep you conditioned and contained.
Rule # 3 Don’t get ahead of yourself, check yourself:
“An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.” ~Albert Camus
You are just as fallible and imperfect as the rest of the world. Don’t get too far ahead of yourself. Keep humility ahead of hubris. Keep humor ahead of ardor. Remember: the only way to stay ahead of the curve is to realize that everything is on the curve, including you.
Use self-deprecating philosophy to keep things in perspective. Implement self-interrogation tactics to poke holes into inflated ideals and ideas. Count coup on thyself! Realize: the self is masks all the way down perceiving delusions all the way up. Cross-examine all masks. Probe all delusions.
Don’t be afraid to kill the false self. Be like the Phoenix, constantly in the throes of rebirth.
Rule # 4 Don’t seek perfection, embrace the suck:
“Success is often a function of who is willing to suck at something the longest.” ~Mark Manson
Don’t fear failure. Enter the cave of your failure and grow roots. Allow Iteration to be your only God. As Rick Rubin said, “Create an environment where you’re free to express what you’re afraid to express.”
Transform your cave of failure into a refuge of imagination. Use setbacks like building blocks and build an empire out of your creativity. Polish grit into pearls. Pressurize demons into diamonds. Fleece fear into fearlessness.
Sapere aude: “Dare to know.” Then dare to unknow. Then dare to fail at knowing. Rinse and repeat. Use the mettle of self-discipline to build an antifragile backbone. This is all about iteration. Seize the day! Practice, practice, practice. Self-improvement leads to self-esteem leads to prestige.
Rule # 5 Don’t be merely sane, be beautifully insane:
“I think we all have a little bit of that beautiful madness that keeps us walking when everything around us is so insanely sane.” ~Julio Cortazar
Be divergent. Be Dionysian despite the Apollonian world. Dance through the mannequin culture. Thunder past the status quo junkies. Stop pretending to be asleep. Unbridle your madness. It’s a courage-enforcer, a mettle sharpener, a lion-awakener.
It’s time to unleash your madness and assert your uniqueness. It’s time to let your Shadow shine into the blinding light of Mother Culture. It’s time to fly over all the false gods. To crucify your past and push your beliefs off a cliff. To climb a mountain and reap the whirlwind. To rejoice in the folly of it all. To laugh and to learn how it’s all laughable. It’s time to get mad and revel in a new way of being human in the world.
Image source:Homo Cosmico by Julian Majin
About the Author:
Gary Z McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide-awake view of the modern world.
This article (How to Hit a Target No One Else Can See) was originally created and published by Self-inflicted Philosophy and is printed here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Gary Z McGee and self-inflictedphilosophy.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this statement of copyright.
