I'm sure you've heard of "heightened states of awareness" before. This is kind of like that what I'm about to try to describe, but obviously not. TRP hasn't afforded me any superpowers, but I do find myself being so much more analytical in my head about people.

I'll see some woman in a tight red dress and heels, face all done up with make up and be thinking all at once how she's obviously looking for some kind of male attention but will blatantly dismiss her base instincts of wanting to attract men with some contrite statement like "she's just expressing herself".

Or a guy at the gym who's in great physical shape and just thinking in my head, does he consider himself good looking now? He's got the look of a Chad but does he believe he could pull any woman he wanted? (Side note: I was at a seminar held by Todd Valentine and there was one guy there who was easily training for a long time; great, fit body. Why would he need to be there?)

In "Mastery", Greene describes this kind of detachment as something you need to increase your social intelligence. It's empathy on steroids, and I'm becoming cognitively aware that it's happening.

So I'm still in the process of reading through all the sidebar material, and thinking to myself "Months ago, I would never think of doing these things. Talk and treating women in this way. They'd hate me."

I don't want comfort. I want to live life on my terms. I want to walk up to a 9 or 10 and say "hey, I'm (redacted), let's talk." Damn if she runs away in fear of my polarizing presence, being of such large stature (Mr. X is a bear) but humble all the same. I want to do the things I dreamed of doing when I was a kid that the "world" said wasn't practical for me. This isn't about practicality anymore. It's about setting goals for myself and seeing them fulfilled. The way I see it, 30+ years of my life has been wasted chasing after lies.

I'll spend the next 30 of them chasing after the truth.