Where To Go For Enlightenment?

[IdentityCrisis]

I started a thread on the CapMag forums and was told about this

forum, so I figured I should bring this up here as well.

There was an objectivist exercise scientist and bodybuilder named

Mike Mentzer who, after a great deal of both theorization and

in-the-trenches expirementation, discovered that much of the

conventional wisdom on exercise is not only useless but harmful.

I tried his program instead, and got wonderful results. But the thing is

that I never would have heard of this guy if someone in the

CapMag forums hadn't made an announcement about him when he died

a few years back.

I also discovered a guy named Thomas Hodges who took a similair

scientific approach to studying dating and romance (from the

man's perspective) and *also* found out the hard way that the

conventional wisdom on the subject was dead wrong. And I never

would have heard of or benefitted from his work either if he

hadn't made an Ayn Rand reference in one of his online articles

(I got a hit on a web search).

This bothers me. Many of us want to improve, but in the same way

that a well-meaning activist can do more harm than good if he

doesn't know what causes to fight for, so we can end up damaging

instead of improving ourselves if we don't know what changes to

make (and how to go about it). It's great that there are people

like Mentzer and Hodges who challenge commonly accepted beliefs

and do the dirty-work of figuring this stuff out for us, but it seems

that most people (like me) just don't ever hear about them (to our

loss).

For myself, having improved both my physical and social prowess

thanks to these guys I'd like to turn now to mental prowess.

Perhaps some of you know about people who have done similair work

in such areas as speed-reading, increasing one's ability to focus or

gaining improved (or even photographic) memory?

Hence this thread, and another just like it by the same name over

in the CapMag forums. I think it would be very useful for many

of us to have a central repository of links, book titles, etc.

concerning such people and their work. That way when one of us

wants to do some self-improvement, we know exactly where to look

for information on how to do it *right.* So if you know of any

others like Mentzer and Hodges who have learned the hard way what

works and what doesn't in some area of self-improvement

(especially if you've had personal success using their techniques

and can vouch for them), post some basic info here and add your

knowledge to the pool.

I'll start things off: anyone interested in what's probably the

best bodybuilding program out there should head to

www.mikementzer.com and those men looking for help in the romance

department should go to www.doclove.com or go to the "dating and

love" section of www.askmen.com and check out the repository of

free online "Doc Love" articles.

[hippie]

Aristotle has done wonders for my self-improvement. His nicomachean ethics is fantastic, but I encourage all people to read anything from him that they can get their hands on. Some of it can be difficult material, made more so by the fact that it's been translated through sometimes two or three languages before getting to English. But if you have the time, energy, and interest, it's well worth the investment.