What It’s All About
“It’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.” – George Carlin
The Middle Finger Project (TMFP) does not, sadly, have anything to do with leather-clad bikers and/or obscene gestures.
In an effort to define the focus of this website by some sort of recognized labeling system, it fits under the categories of lifestyle design, personal development, and how those two concepts intersect with world travel & a nomadic lifestyle. But, in simple terms?
The Middle Finger Project is about excitement. Yes, excitement.
It’s about encouraging you to stop wasting your life engaging in meaningless, trivial activities day in and day out–like sitting in a cube for 8 hours a day at a job you despise, typing up useless reports that no one is going to read anyway–to inspire you to start taking your dreams seriously, and to start doing things that inspire and excite you (wants), rather than things that drain and bore you (shoulds). It is my assertion that the shoulds are where we go all wrong. It’s the shoulds that are causing us to lead lives of mediocrity, lives that we are unhappy with but don’t know, exactly, how to fix.
I should be happy to just have a job. (Even if I dislike it.)
I should be saving more money every month for retirement instead of going on vacation. (Even though that’s 45 years from now.)
I should work more hours so I can afford a down payment on a house. (Because traditional thinking patterns tend to regard real estate as an asset, when in reality, it’s quite the liability, not just financially but, more importantly, in terms of mobility and freedom.)
I should get married soon. (Or else I’ll be past my prime and no one will want me.)
I should really start having kids soon. (Or else people will assume I’m defective. Am I defective?)
Should, should should. Man, that’s a lot of pressure!
Let me explain something: The entire notion of should–and, subsequently, the ensuing guilt that follows–is a 100% made-up, fictitious concept. In other words, you might as well live your life according to the rules in Cinderella’s castle. It is a man-made social construction. Do you suppose that the Bemba tribal people of Zambia give a damn, frankly, about a retirement fund? Not likely. Do you imagine they would even understand the concept of retirement? Highly improbable. I would argue that they might be inclined to laugh in your face, if you told them that you made $80,000 a year, but don’t use $12,000 plus of it each year, because you just put it somewhere to sit until you’re old. Yet, because our society tells us that retirement funds are what we should do–implicitly advocating us to suffer now, put in our time, and then enjoy ourselves later–we never stop to question the validity of that social rule. It must be the best way, by default, because that’s the way that everyone does it. Which leads me to the following question: Are all of those shoulds actually bringing us meaning and excitement to our lives? (Kind of the, uh, point of living, eh?) Or are we just going through the motions because?
If you’re anything like me, you don’t like doing anything just because. Doing things just because is a waste of time, and a silly one at that. As a matter of fact, doing anything that you’re not entirely passionate about is a waste of time.
On the other hand, what would happen if you were to start living your life based on wants instead of shoulds? Go ahead, consciously make an effort to compare the two right now. Are they the same? Probably not. This is what’s problematic.
In essence, The Middle Finger Project is about flipping a cordial bird to the shoulds. (Potentially not so cordial at times, but the truth isn’t always civil, nor diplomatic.)
Our time on this earth is limited, and as such, we need to recognize the delicate preciousness of every passing moment. It’s illogical, on every count, to spend one’s life doing unpleasant things, working an unpleasant job & being an unpleasant person, in general, for the benefit of an additional ten, twenty, thirty-thousand dollars tacked onto your salary. Why? Because no matter how much money you make, you are still sacrificing your most valuable commodity: Time. Without time on your side, all you’ve got left is purchasing power. Sure, you can buy more stuff. You can buy a bigger house. Hell, you can have tennis courts if you want. Then you can even buy more stuff. Great. But is your greatest life goal to accumulate more and more and more stuff (and more stuff), and then die? It isn’t and it shouldn’t be. You’ve got bigger ideas for yourself, and this website was created to encourage you to take off your damn skirt, and go out and vehemently chase after what it is you want…and not stop until you get it.
This circles back to the increasingly popular concept of lifestyle design, a term which was originally coined by bestselling author Timothy Ferriss, of The 4-Hour Workweek. The principle here is this: Reality is negotiable. I’ll repeat. REALITY IS NEGOTIABLE. What does that mean? For starters, it means that more options exist than the standard life template of go to school, get job, convince someone to marry you, buy house, have kids, die. Again, these are social “laws” that have been put into place; they aren’t hard, fast rules like gravity, but rather pliable, moldable rules that you can play around with. But most people don’t realize that they have the power to create the reality they desire; instead, they allow others to shape their reality, based solely on majority rules. But realistically speaking, “majority” is simply a synonym for “popular,” and just because something’s popular doesn’t always translate into it being the most effective way of doing something. What it translates into is a lot of misguided people.
That said, Welcome to The Middle Finger Project. I hope I can help to inspire you to take risks, be deliberately crazy once and a while, give you a good kick in the pants to start living the life you’ve imagined for yourself, and learn how to flip the bird when appropriate.
To hell with the shoulds. Life is short; start living how you want.
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The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’ - Jack Keroac
