If You're a Productive Person, Here's Why You Should K*ll Yourself

If I was Ali Abdaal, I’d kill myself.

In fact, if you’re a fan of Ali’s, I think you should kill yourse—

*cuck phone rings*

Erm, yellow? Mhmm. Uh huh. You said what? S-suic*de?? Ew wtf, no..

…

Ohhhhhhhhhh

Ahem. My apologies. Allow me to back up a couple steps:

When I was in college and they’d give us an assignment due in two weeks, I’d spend the first 13 days playing Spikeball in the daytime, Super Smash Bros. Melee in the evening, and topping off the night with a bespoke smorgasbord of artisanal grassfed YouTube videos until 3am.

The final day would arrive, and I’d whip out one of my two secret weapons:

1. Play an audio recording1 of tangentially-related material while sleeping, like a pregnant mother plays Mozart to her tummy, both of us hoping to birth genius, or

2. Spend the remaining hours watching Productivity Slop, betting on a gamble that I’d be able to find the perfect hack to 10x the output of the dwindling hours, thus clawing back many MORE hours due to increased efficiency. girl math before girls even existed

I uhhhh, didn’t do too well in college. But gram gram said I’m smart and she hasn’t lied since the Peepaw Incident. But if I’m so smart, why did I continue to act so re.. re… really dumb?

The answer is, I’d been thrown in the PIT. The Productive Identity Trap.

The PIT is dark, nearly pitch black, nigh impossible to escape without a light.

This post will illuminate the nature of the PIT, and posit that you don’t need to identify as a Productive Person to produce great work. But in order to do that we must first understand what Productivity Slop is:

Productivity Slop is any post, video, or essay about productivity in the abstract.

There is a range, but Ali Abdaal really nails the Productivity Slop vibe:

If you’ve read my previous piece on Creativity Slop, this may feel familiar—but today we’re going Plus Ultra.

Productivity Slop masquerades as helpful, actionable content—how to start a business, how to study more effectively—2 and to a degree it can be genuinely helpful.

For me, the quintessential example of this was learning about the Pomodoro Technique3 which has helped me work more efficiently for years now.

But the issue is, for every Pomodoro Technique that genuinely does boost productivity, there’s a torrent of useless, unhelpful, dogwater doodoo bull crap that just wastes your precious time.

The gems are doled out on a Randomly Reinforced Schedule4 and each time you manage to stumble on something actually useful, it includes an additional, insidious effect of yoking you that much more tightly to the slot machine of Productivity Slop Content. Every win makes you want to play again.

That’s the first issue: The fruits are few and far between; you gotta wade through a lake of diarrhea to find them; even when you DO find fruits (and you will!), it just reinforces the idea that Lake Doodoo is worth a few more hours of wading.

There are two more increasingly subtle issues with Productivity Slop:

Watch all the Productivity Slop in the world, reach Max Human Efficiency; still, you will toil.

Efficiency cannot save you. Hacks cannot save you. Even a hack that hits as good as the Pomodoro Technique cannot save you. Not one, not ten, not 10 billion.

Hacks are bitchmade. Desire for hacks reveals the underlying resistance to the work in front of you. You crave hacks because you crave ease; you crave ease because life feels hard; life feels hard because you are resisting, avoiding, or suppressing the things you need to look at. You resist because they are painful, yet cruelly the resistance ends up doing more damage than the pain ever could.

Here is some reassurance: if you’re over the age of 20, you have all the hacks you need already. You don’t need any more. If you do need them, they’ll come naturally, like my wife’s boyfriend when he Peepo Pogs on that Pus—nevermind. You don’t have to wade another second through Lake Doodoo.

Here’s an example:

I once spoke with a grippy sock girlie who made a breakthrough on her dirty dishes.

She discovered a hack—if she soaked the pans right after cooking, they’d be way easier to clean later.

“It’s so much better!!”

Fired up with the gusto of having Figured It Out, she enjoyed the fruits of her newfound hack for about three days before returning to her depressed, chungus, dirty-dishes-filling-the-sink life.

She learned the hack, and yet the depresso returned, rendering it completely useless.

This applies to all hacks, tips, tricks, and tactics. The Pomodoro Technique is useful to me, only insofar as I’m able to actually use it.

You could have 1 billion productivity hacks in the toolkit that make your life easier and more efficient; all are useless if you neglect to use them.

Neglecting to use them is tantamount to forgetting to use them; forgetting to use them is mindlessness5 ; and this is a two-way street—mindFULness (aka awareness) makes applying hacks easier.

Hacks are useless without the awareness to use them.

Awareness exists at a fundamentally deeper level than hacks; hacks exist at a fundamentally shallower level than awareness.

You already have all the hacks you need; now is the time to boost awareness.

This is half a degree of abstraction from this all-time Tim Denning note:

In college, when I’d be up on the eve before the due date mining YouTube for productivity tips, I was doing two things: one, looking for hacks. But also, more subtly, keeping difficult emotions at arms length.

The stress of the deadline. The shame of having procrastinated. The brutal reality that it could’ve been different.

Consuming Productivity Slop allowed me to feel like I was being productive. It allowed me to retain a sense that I, Cuckfucius, was still ultimately a Productive Person, because clearly, here I was “learning” all about how to be productive.

I fell into the PIT. The Productive Identity Trap. As long as I could maintain an Identity of a “Productive Person”, then I could continue to feel good about myself even while, objectively, producing literal dogshit memes6 instead of schoolwork:

As long as I maintained my Productive Identity, I could reassure myself that my lack of action and results with regards to schoolwork were not a black mark on my fundamental character.

I was a Productive Person after all, I knew how to start businesses AND which model was best in [current year], how to journal with perfect efficiency, and knew all the top productivity books. Problem is, I did not work, write, or read.

I just “knew” things; knowing gave me license to identify; identifying gave me license to stick my thumb so far up my ass I could taste the jam from the morning’s breakfast scones.

It’s a really subtle cope—perhaps you’ve noticed yourself falling into the PIT too.

A quick recap:

1. Productivity Slop is harmful because while there are gems to be found, the gems are few and far between, little sweet cranberries hidden within the undulating brown currents of Lake Doodoo. Even when you find one, it just reinforces the idea that the wading was worth it.

2. When you find said gems, they still require presence of mind to actually use them; having the Pomodoro Technique under my belt is great, but means nothing if I never use it!

3. Productivity Slop drops you into the PIT, reinforcing a sense of Productive Identity. This subtle cope enables you to feel like a Productive Person by feeding you procrastination in the form of “knowledge”—even if you never act on said knowledge.

We cannot do anything about the first issue. Lake Doodoo exists whether we like it or not.

Luckily, we absolutely can do something about the second two issues: actually using the hacks and escaping the PIT. In fact, the answer to both is the same.

Leonardo D. Vinci never heard of Ali Abdaal in his life. Nor did Claude D. Bussy, nor René D. Cartes.

Meaning, you can still do excellent work even if you never watch an Ali Abdaal video ever again.

Put differently, the thing driving you to consume Productivity Slop is different from the thing driving you to perform great work.

The things that drove me to consume Productivity Slop were a mixture of emotions: shame, hope, fear of failure. Today I would go as far as to say my entire identity around being a Productive Person was constructed as a cope to hide from difficult emotions.

On the other hand, the things driving me to perform great work are 1. being baller as f*ck and 2. my wife’s boyfriend believes in me with all his heart. These motivators are completely unrelated to any notions of productivity.

My Productive Identity preceded Productivity Slop—the Productivity Slop by itself did not make me this way. My Productive Identity arose in response to emotions, and then Productivity Slop conveniently fed and enabled it.

Productivity Slop was not the root problem: my sense of Productive Identity was.

If I could somehow stop avoiding those difficult emotions, the need to construct a Productive Identity would vanish. With the Productive Identity gone, the desire to consume Productivity Slop would dwindle in turn.

To stop consuming Productivity Slop, I had to vanquish my Productive Identity.

Here’s a thought experiment:

What do you think would happen to your output if tomorrow your sense of being a Productive Person completely dissolved?

Nothing else changes—just the feeling and story around being a Productive Person falls away. Many people would probably reasonably conclude that their output would tank.

I’m not so sure. Let me tell you why:

Like it or not, your life has momentum. Perhaps your life is momentum. You’re gonna go to sleep tonight and brush your teeth tomorrow and eat food. You’re gonna piss and shit tomorrow or perhaps later today. Even if you literally died right this instant, your piss and shit is inevitable7. Completely regardless of your feelings and identity around pissing and shitting. You could be Britain’s Loudest Pisser for all I know, winner of the hit TV show Britain’s Got Piss, a real Chicken Frying Sound Effect Generator. Like I care, b-baka (⁄ ⁄>⁄ ▽ ⁄<⁄ ⁄)

You are a car in neutral rolling down a hill. Your heart pumps regardless of your sense of identity. Your kidneys filter piss regardless of your sense of identity. Your liver is in so much pain but that’s a separate issue.

Your sense of identity around being ambitious or productive is a bottle of George T. Stagg extra high proof Bourbon: you gulp it down to cope with some underlying emotions; you trick yourself into thinking it makes you go faster; it wrecks the engine from the inside.

Look pal, the car is already rolling. Maybe pouring a bottle of Stagg into the gas tank will accelerate it for a few miles. I’ll give you that. But it’ll also most definitely lead to burnout and some corroded fuel lines.

You’re already movin’, what’s the rush?? You’re gonna get there whether you pour the bottle of Stagg into the tank or not. Might as well save yourself the burnout, the repair costs, the headache of it all.

What I’m trying to say this time same as every other time is:

Broom broom is fun but let’s bring it back to reality. There are people who have more-or-less yote this sense of Productive Identity to the wind in real life.

When Sasha Chapin’s sense of self melted away in a single instant due to years of meditation practice, his sense of Productive Identity ostensibly went with it. And he generously, directly shared what happened to his productivity:

So we have at least one eyewitness report that dissolving a sense of identity doesn’t affect productivity too much, and may even enhance it.

But you don’t COME here to read SOME OTHER MAN’S account of the heights of DIVINE ECSTASY, sussy boi.

You COME here to go Peepo Poggers PLUS ULTRA on that p*ssy ٩(◕‿◕)۶

Marathons are things that we often assume require ambition. A chip on the shoulder. Something to prove.

We might assume that a person who does a marathon likely also experiences themselves as being an Ambitious Person; though I can tell you firsthand that this is not the case.

But let’s go Plus Ultra: what about two marathons? What if they were back-to-back?

Would ambition alone drive someone to do 5 marathons, 5 days in a row? What about 10? If marathons are about ambition8 and ambition is about Proving Something, the motor that helps you Win, when is enough enough?

An ambitious identity might be just enough fuel to get you that promotion, but could it get you through 20 marathons in 20 days?

At 50 marathons in 50 days, the question becomes absurd. The sense of identity that drives you towards Partner at your firm doesn’t have 50-marathons-in-50-days level of chutzpah. 50 marathons in 50 days would run on completely different fuel.

Which means ambition alone certainly wouldn’t be able to account for 100 marathons in 100 days. Not the way we commonly understand ambition. But let’s be so for real. Who is possibly doing 100 marathons in 100 days?

That would be Kakudo. Kakudo is doing 100 marathons in 100 days.

Kakudo is one of the Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei, and this will be only the first of 100 successive nights that he will get up at midnight, attend the service and start his marathon run/walk (kaihogyo) around Mount Hiei, completing the route between 7:30 and 9:30 a.m. He will then attend an hour-long service, followed by bathing and the midday meal. After lunch, Kakudo will rest, then attend to temple chores. The last meal is taken around 6 pm, and Kakudo gets to sleep around 8 or 9.

You might need to read that again to let it sink in. The man wakes up at midnight, then runs the entire night, is awake all day, and gets just 3-4 hours of sleep. He runs in straw sandals.

For 100 days straight.

This isn’t some fairytale from the past. This is today; there are monks running on Mt. Hiei literally right now. In one month there’s an ultramarathon in North Carolina where one of the monks who completed the kaihogyo will be in attendance. The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei truly defy limits when it comes to what the human organism is capable of. The article I’m quoting from is a must-read and goes even further in depth on the athletes.

This is no longer the domain of simple ambition. The flavor of ambition or productivity that we’re familiar within our everyday lives would not be able to sustain even three of these grueling days, much less 100 in a row.

Oh right, I forgot one key stipulation:

He wraps a white “cord of death,” around his waist with a sheathed knife tucked inside. Tendai Buddhist tradition dictates that if Kakudo does not complete his prescribed marathon runs and walks, and all the accompanying tasks, he must take his own life by either hanging or disemboweling himself.

Along the journey, the monk will make 250 prayer stops, some to honor those who died by suicide attempting the same thing he is doing.

The conviction on display is deeply admirable. When Wiz Khalifa said “Taylor Gang Or Die” (TGOD) circa 2010, I was filled with an exuberation which quickly turned to disillusionment. It turned out to be just a turn of phrase, words on the breeze, commandeering the poetic weight of a human life to lend an air of legitimacy to a coalition of rap fans enamored with Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars shoes. I was seeking intensity, depth, conviction, but alas there was no real life on the line—only bangers such as “Black and Yellow”.

But today, I am at peace, knowing that out there in the mountains of Kyoto there are dudes who are well and truly bout that life.

It’s worth noting that this 100 day marathon trial is only the preparatory practice for a much longer, far more intense ascetic practice spanning 1,000 days of marathons over 7 years. Only 46 monks have completed the 1,000 day journey since 1885. Seriously. Read the full article.

Which brings us to the key question: do you think these Mother Frickers watch Ali Abdaal?? Hello????? Do they create silly perverse constructions around needing to feel like an Ambitious, Productive Person the night before an assignment is due? No bitch!!!!!

They are driven by something else entirely:

by about the 30th day, according to the predecessors’ accounts, his discomfort will lessen as his body adapts to the pain and strain. By the 70th day he is run/walking with a smooth gait, head and shoulders erect, back straight, nose and navel aligned. He will continually chant mantras to the god Fudo Myo-o. His spiritual goal is to become completely absorbed in the mountain and its surroundings, so that the pain and discomfort of the physical ritual will not be noticed, or at least be ignored. Kakudo hopes to achieve a state of Enlightenment—the pure spiritual joy of feeling one with the universe.

Here’s the bridge:

The marathon monks of Mt. Hiei perform great feats; being lifetime Buddhist monks, they ostensibly have less of that Productive Identity9; therefore, you don’t need a sense of Productive Identity to perform great feats.

So, like I was saying—

If you’re a fan of Ali Abdaal, you should kill your self.

Specifically the part of you that identifies as “A Productive Person”.

The way to do this is by watching fundamentally where this sense of identity comes from. What prompted its construction? You didn’t have this as a baby, so why do you have it now?

Likely, there are some unexamined emotions around success, failure, competence, performance, and so-on. Once these are excavated, felt through, and released, you may find the Productive Identity loosen; you’ll be able to tell it’s working when the Ali Abdaal videos just don’t hit in the same way that they used to. When you can handle sitting with the emotions without immediately coping to make yourself feel better.

All the normal methods are great: therapy, journaling, meditation, wallmaxxing. Reach out if you’d like me to larp as your eunuch advisor in such matters.

Without that construction holding you back, I think you’ll end up surprised with how far you can really run.

-Cuckfucius

P.S. if you enjoyed this essay, this one discusses the very similar “Creative Identity Trap”, and understanding both together will help you learn to suss out all the other myriad flavors of identities we construct to protect ourselves:

P.P.S. if you enjoyed this flavor of take on productivity, then you most definitely need to check out this manifesto on where the Self Improvement movement goes from here: