e » Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Brazilian Portuguese and Brazilian jujitsu
e » Berlin, Germany: German and locking (a form of upright break- dancing)
I tend to focus on language acquisition and one kinesthetic skill, sometimes finding the latter after landing overseas. The most successful serial vagabonds tend to blend the mental and the physical. Notice that I often transport a skill I practice domestically —martial arts—to other countries where they are also practiced. Instant social life and camaraderie. It need not be a competitive sport—it could be hiking, chess, or almost anything that keeps your nose out of a textbook and you out of your apartment. Sports just happen to be excellent for avoiding foreign-language stage fright and developing lasting friendships while still sounding like Tarzan.
Language learning deserves special mention. It is, bar none, the best thing you can do to hone clear thinking.
Quite aside from the fact that it is impossible to understand a culture without understanding its language, acquiring a new language makes you aware of your own language: your own thoughts. The benefits of becoming fluent in a foreign tongue are as underestimated as the difficulty is overestimated. Thousands of theoretical linguists will disagree, but I know from research and personal experimentation with more than a dozen languages that (1) adults can learn languages much faster than children®? when constant 9-5 work is removed and that (2) it is possible to become conversationally fluent in any language in six months or less. At four hours per day, six months can be whittled down to less than three months. It is beyond the scope of this book to explain applied linguistics and the 80/20 of language learning, but resources and complete how-to guides can be found under “language” at www.fourhourblog.com. I learned six languages after failing Spanish in high school, and you can do the same with the right tools.
Gain a language and you gain a second lens through which to question and understand the world. Cursing at people when you go home is fun, too.
Don’t miss the chance to double your life experience.
Service for the Right Reasons: To Save the Whales, or Kill Them and Feed the Children?
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike. — OSCAR WILDE
O,. would expect me to mention service in this chapter, and here it is. Like all before it, the twist is
a bit different. Service to me is simple: doing something that improves life besides your own. This is not the same as philanthropy. Philanthropy is the altruistic concern for the well-being of mankind—human life. Human life has long been focused on the exclusion of the environment and the rest of the food chain, hence our current race to imminent extinction. Serves us right. The world does not exist solely for the betterment and multiplication of mankind.
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