239. Why I Have an Attitude

I'm sure people notice I have a bit of an edge when I write. Is it my ethnicity, gender, or age? Maybe I'm entitled or have poor mental health. Here I let me Attitude Flag fly.

Growing up I had a rough start in life. My father tried to kill my mother when I was two, and became a convicted violent institutionalized sociopath. Things didn’t improve much after that, especially when he got out and got custody of me. I was a ship afloat without an anchor.

That is, until my father handed me a set of math flash cards when I was four. My brain target locked on them. Finally, a system with rules. With certainty. Maybe even fairness. I devoured those cards and asked for more. Then more. Anything with math, I wanted it. When the world around me seemed chaotic and unfair, I had mathematical certainty.

On my fifth birthday, my uncle (almost certainly autistic, like most of the people on my mother’s side) taught me chess. A weird thing to do with a 5 year old. But after two hours I was playing like a vet and would spend the next 10 years playing and beating anyone that would play me. Zero losses. My sister would look for adults to play me and bet them $10 they couldn’t beat me. A veritable circus side hustle.

By the time I was 7 I had discovered Avalon Hill strategy board games, mostly wargames. I loved reading the rulebooks. My friends didn’t like to play me because I was “the rules lawyer”. I always knew that obscure rule that would flip the result in my favor. I had every number memorized so I would know the results before they happened.

The public schools I went to didn’t know what to do with me. When they IQ tested me at age 7, they were confused by the results. They brought me (just me, not the rest of the school) in for a second day of testing. More confusion. Then they spent the entire next week testing me, bringing in adult IQ tests. The result: I was more advanced in math than any teacher in the district except the calculus teachers in some high schools. I was segregated from the rest of the school, given math homework by the kilogram, and the rest of the school was instructed not to talk to me except during recess. The whole school had this instruction.

I got very disciplined about self-educating, and reverse engineering how things worked when there was no one to explain things.

Starting in middle school I was told I couldn’t skip classes I had already self-learned. I was told this applied to everyone, no exceptions. Then I’d watch helplessly as the children of teachers were allowed to skip without doing a fraction of the work I had. This really bothered me, I depended on those rules for stability in a world without it.

By the age of 17 the abuse at home with my father was approaching horror story levels. Doctors finally intervened to save my life. This was done quietly because no one trusted the government to know what to do with me if I became a ward of the state. So I got upgraded to “homeless”. For the next five years. Working three jobs so that I would not drop out of university (which I did simultaneously with high school via unique permission from the Santa Monica Board of Education).

Leadership

Because I was a freak that no one could understand, I didn’t have a lot of positive experiences with people. Being homeless just made every possible aspect of survival a massive math exercise. Sleep four hours at the school during the day, work a night shift at a restaurant for food, shower at the varsity locker room at the university, and all without a phone, kitchen, or bathroom (except at the uni or work).

I kept my books and clothes in a utility closet that I had to pay monthly rent on. Most of the time they didn’t get stolen. All personal belongings: gone. No way for me to ask for help, and no way for people to find me except at school.

Again left without stability. But I had running, I used running to overcome my crippling asthma when I was 14. I got that asthma at age 5 because my father was teaching me how to smoke, and after 6 months (age 5.5) I was smoking unfiltered camels. My father figured that if he couldn’t beat me at chess, I was old enough to smoke.

One of my first coaches was Tommie Smith, Olympic and World Record holder in the 200m dash. Also a civil rights icon due to his protest with John Carlos in 1968 (when I was 2). He became my stability. But Tommie grew up picking strawberries. His life was as hard as mine, and he tolerated no weakness. If I wanted to follow him, I would have to give 200% at all times, even if anything over 150% could kill me. Given my childhood, I wasn’t afraid of dying. I have a 10/10 ACE rating. Anyone with an 8 or higher has a predicted lifespan of 30 years, and most engage in self-harm in the meantime.

Instead of all the usual high ACE “stimming” activities like cutting, tattoos, eating disorders, drugs and victim oriented psychological disorders like Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), I had running. The most extreme running possible. And of course I had math. Looking back, this saved my life. Now I’m by far the oldest high ACE person I’ve ever met. The ones I’ve met that are over age 30 are a wreck, barely holding on. Now I’m a world respected ethicist, a Buddhist, and have the temperament of a monk. Completely drug free my whole life, and I would work at the Betty Ford Center (the top drug rehab facility in the USA) for three years in my late 20s.

My first job when I was 18 was working security at the UCLA Olympic Village. Tommie recommended the job to me. I worked the graveyard shift since there was no safe place to sleep at night, I slept on campus during the day, often during classes. I could lucid dream in such a way that I would listen to lectures and sleep simultaneously. If no one answered a question, I would wake up, answer it, then go back to sleep.

I would run the entire perimeter of the Village several times a night, over 10 miles. They offered me a trike, but I preferred to be silent. I got promoted to sergeant when my sergeant got caught in the back seat with a rent-a-cop. She was the top sergeant so I became the top sergeant. I had 50 guards under me, and when I found them sleeping I would wake them up gently and remind them that our job was a matter of national and international importance. They wouldn’t do it again and morale was high.

I would go on to coach running teams, including the UCLA and USA Olympic Women’s track teams, for 15 years. I never applied for those jobs, I was sought out. I also taught physical therapy, anatomy, physiology, chemistry, and math over 6 years. Teaching is hard work, and teachers are under-appreciated, at least in the USA. Even though I was responsible for teaching the PhD PT students from Loma Linda, they refused to allow me to apply to the university because I was not vegetarian. I’ve been strictly vegan since 2012, and vegetarian for 3 years before that, but this was in the 1990s.

When I was put into authority over the World of Tanks Blitz and World of Warships projects for Wargaming, I applied my leadership skills. I worked 16 hour days, asked every department what they needed from me, and made sure they understood what we were building and why. Morale was very high. If a department was struggling, I knew that this was because they were understaffed, not weak. I took responsibility and reinforced them. Those projects both completed ahead of schedule, something that sounds mythological in today’s gaming industry. Both made over a billion USD, and we were working with relatively inexperienced (but highly motivated) teams with very outdated equipment and small budgets. But like with my running teams, morale and cohesion was very high.

The Rules Were Not Rules

When the rules were broken for those in power in my middle school, that was just a glimpse of things to come. With the exception of the Nursing program at Santa Monica College, where I was kicked out explicitly for being male gendered (“medical school is for men, nursing school is for women”- Susan McDonald, Director) I got a superior education there. Certain administrators kept trying to eject me, perhaps because of my killing Ronald Reagan’s school prayer initiative when I was in high school (and SMC simultaneously). But good Samaritans in admin would quietly reinstate me every time, knowing how hard I was studying.

When I arrived at UCLA, it was a different situation. I had some incredibly talented professors, but weird things were going on. I didn’t date or party at all while I was there. I was still homeless the first year but won the housing lottery (with a number under 100) and got on-campus housing the second year. Classes in my major were usually graded on a curve. Despite my professors telling me I was their top student, I often got “B’s”, with students I knew had been partying with their Frats/Sororities all weekend getting “A’s”.

This really puzzled me. I followed all the rules and worked harder than everyone else. It wasn’t until my last quarter at UCLA that a young lady from one of the Sororities took a liking to me and asked if I wanted help with the next exam. She explained that her Sorority had a filing cabinet filled with the keys for every exam in every major at the University. Apparently the Fraternities had a similar system. So they could come into an exam hung over and still ace the exams because they knew the answers in advance.

I still believed in following the Rules back then, so I reported the situation to my professors. They didn’t do anything. It was then that I realized that the Rules were just there for people like me. For Special people, the Rules didn’t apply. It would also explain later in life how people would have degrees, even medical degrees, and not know the basics of their careers. I did some political work and saw the same patterns.

When I worked in Belarus, I didn’t see any of this. In Russia, I was told that if I wanted to succeed I would have to drink and smoke with the people above me. That wasn’t going to happen, but I overperformed enough and was popular enough that I got away with skipping this.

Western studios were totally different. The “Rules” were totally broken in every studio, even in the Western facilities that Wargaming operated in the USA. It was everywhere I looked, if I looked. A number of times I was a whistleblower:

• A clinic in California where patients and staff were being sexually assaulted by the top doctor, sometimes while drugged

• The head of the USA Census Department in Palm Springs was sexually harassing dozens of women

• I testified against the gaming industry before the ICPEN in 2013 at their request.

• I would later attempt to whistleblow in a situation that would trigger an SEC investigation, but I was put under such extreme threat that I still to this day can’t talk about it.

In each of these cases, I tried to uphold the Rules. Good rules that protected a lot of people from the worst of crimes. I was punished severely in each case. I have permanent physical injuries that even I can’t repair from some of these scenarios. While I helped a lot of people locally, in EVERY one of these cases larger entities moved to cover up the events so that you never heard about them. It was almost as if the Fraternities and Sororities extended to a much larger organisation that made different Rules for their members.

Of course now we know that’s true, and the hard evidence is there, but it’s the most closely guarded secret in the USA and in other countries. This separate set of Rules that you only know about if they apply to you.

I adapted by not needing Rules in order to be stable and happy. I gave up ego and entitlement to everything, even “Rights”. It’s all an illusion. If I live another day, it’s another chance to be in service, and I’m thankful for the opportunity. I take nothing for granted and expect nothing. Of course I still take full responsibility for any project that I’m leading.

In my writings I explain how the world works, doing my best to explain how things really work. Often this is stuff I know I’m not supposed to talk about if I know what’s good for me. But I don’t have an ego and don’t put much value in personal well being other than trying to stay healthy so I can serve as many days as I am allowed. I’ve already lived to twice my ACE predicted lifespan so I’m doing alright. I run a km in 4 minutes, which is the fastest I’ve run in 30 years.

How This Affects My Worldview

This whole thing about one set of rules for one class, and another for the other class, in a world where we pretend there are no classes… I see it as both a game and a long running inside joke. If you understand the joke, it’s funny. If you don’t, you just get frustrated and feel victimized. I’m not a victim, I’m a survivor… with a robust sense of humor.

When I give very entitled organisations the exact information they need to be super successful and avoid a catastrophe of their own making, I know they won’t follow it. I pretend I care, but really I’m just sitting on the couch with my popcorn watching the show. I’m not responsible for what the other class does. I do feel a duty to give them good advice as that helps all of us if it is followed. But it won’t be. That class doesn’t listen to this class. If they need something from this class, they will take it, not receive it, because this low level constant threat is what makes the whole Two Rules system work.

That’s fine, I don’t care. I’m not entitled to anything better. When I’m asked to testify because everyone else is too afraid to do so, I do out of a sense of duty and altruism. I know I will be punished. The people asking me for help know I will be punished. It doesn’t affect me, I’m already used to eating out of trash cans and sleeping on sidewalks. I live to serve, literally, and will keep doing so as long as I am allowed.

The mistake that people make is that they think punishing me will change me. Thanks to my father, I was trained from a very young age to endure any sort of torture. This came in super handy when I trained under Tommie Smith, who was quite upset that he was punished for protesting at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. His entitlement burned in him and affected everyone around him. But he’s a great man nonetheless and was a key inspiration to me.

I always strive to operate at the level that Tommie taught me, but without any expectation that there’s some reward waiting for me on the other end. I also know that following the Rules is kind of pointless, since they will be applied conditionally. But I follow the Rules anyway, because I’d like to live in a world where Rules matter.

As the classes clash and the world starts to burn, all of us are going to be challenged. Do we have Rights? Should we follow the Rules? Does it matter? Will we live another day? Will we have children? If so, will they live longer than us? Can you hate the person who helped you conceive, but still raise a healthy child? Should you consume social media even though you know it damages your mental health, and that of your children? If you don’t, you will become invisible in society, and for many that’s worse than death.

Hard choices.

So why my attitude? I live in a fake world with fake people and fake Rules. I refuse to be fake. Am I judging the people around me? Yes, probably. But I consider Compassion my most important trait, not my intelligence. People don’t care what you know if they don’t know you care. I understand why they are struggling. I understand why they make good short term choices and bad long term choices. We are all trying to survive in an unstable and unfriendly world.

But at our core, we are a friendly species. Surrounded by other friendly species that are waiting for us to stop hallucinating and stop wrecking the place. I believe in the greater good of humanity. I may have given up on political parties and countries, but I haven’t given up on people, all the other critters, and this magical planet that might be one in a trillion. Just having been able to See it is a Gift.

People keep trying to wipe the smile off my face, and I keep smiling. I realize it upsets them, but that’s part of the fun. It’s not my problem if they don’t get the joke, or understand the Rules of the Game we are all playing. Some ACE do drugs, cut themselves, get BPD, or just lay down in a gutter. I Smile. I’ve made it to 60 and will probably make it to 90. That’s not me “Winning”. That’s just me Appreciating. And, maybe that’s why I’m Winning.