Nick Short's Reviews > The 50th Law

“This is life, new and strange; strange, because we fear it; new because we have kept our eyes turned from it…men are men and life is life, and we must deal with them as they are; and if we want to change them, we must deal with them in the form in which they exist.” Richard Wright,Native Son

“Reality is my drug. The more I have of it, the more power I get and the higher I feel.” 50 Cent

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These quotes are the perfect frame for this book. The book explains an understanding of the interplay of fear, despair, illusion, boredom, and death juxtaposed with skill acquisition, knowledge, power, purpose, and the sublime.

This book is a collaboration by rapper 50 Cent and author Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, Mastery) who both share a similar intensely realistic, self reliant and zen-like view of the world. 50 came to know himself and the business-world/world not with an MBA or connections or money but on the streets in Southside Queens. Familiarizing himself with the depths of human psychology through trial and error, in drug dealing and the music industry. Greene came to a similar view through traveling the world, working boatloads of odd jobs, and reading tons of history.

These realists stand in contrast to dreamers and charlatans, those of high imagination who more often divert us than inspire us with their ideals and fantastical creations.

Dreamers misread the actual state of things and act upon their emotions toward their idea of the ideal state of things. Greene explains these people as being the source of the greatest mistakes in history—wars not thought out and disasters not foreseen. “Realists on the other hand are inventors and innovators. Men and women of imagination, but their imagination is in close contact with reality—they are empirical scientists, writers with a sharp understanding of human nature, or leaders who guide us thoughtfully through crises. They are strong enough to see the world as it is, including their own personal inadequacies.”

It is imperative to study the apprenticeship phases of the life of great humans who came before us. Avoid the legend and the hype. Ask who were they before they did the work that got them where they ended, and what was their mindset during this learning phase?

Greene tells the stories of historical figures from Napolean who acquired a finger tip feel for how to command mass armies, to writer Dostoevsky who wrote pretentious socialist novels for intellectuals until he was sentenced to a Siberian prison in 1849, lived with realities of man instead of observing them through books and ‘studies’ and thereafter wrote some of the greatest novels in existence, to the political savvyness Abraham Lincoln, industrialist James Vanderbilt, primatologist Jane Goodall, to the Roman stoic Seneca who learned how to die and thus learned to live. These are just some of the examples.

One of the greatest obstacles to any transformative effect in life is hampered by the routine, conventional, surrounding yourself with people who have the same illusory and socially reinforced baggage that mis-define what are and what are not obstacles and achievements. This is brought about by an interrelated effect between boredom and fear. Those who can not only endure boredom but learn to derive pleasure from it are those who succeed in life.

Modern americans live with an incredible amount of free time and also an incredible amount of monotony (work). We live for the free time. But the free time is spent on diversions and with a hope in the back of the head that maybe someday an opportunity will come to change this. “Confronted with such freedom, the mind has a tendency to gravitate towards anxieties about the future—possible problems and dangers. Such empty time faintly echoes the eternal emptiness of death itself.” RG

“Most people can’t handle boredom. That means they can’t stay on one thing until they’re good at it. And they wonder why they’re unhappy..the greatest fear people have is that of being themselves. They want to be X celebrity or someone else. They do what everyone else does even if it doesn’t fit who they are. But you get nowhere that way; your energy is weak and no one pays attention to you. you’re running away from the one thing that you own-what makes you different. I lost that fear. And once I felt the power that I had by showing the world I didn’t care about being like other people, I could never go back…” 50

But, RG explains "There is however, another possible relationship to boredom and empty time, a fearless one that yields much different results than frustration and escapism. it goes as follows: you have some large goal that you wish to achieve in your life, something you feel that you are destined to create . I fyou reach that goal, it will bring you far greater satisfaction than the evanescent thrills that come form outside diversions..have the larger goal will lift your mind out of the moment and help you endure hard work and drudgery..as you become better at this task or craft, it becomes increasingly pleasurable. you see improvement, you see connections and possibilities you hadn't noticed before. Your mind becomes absorbed in furhter mastery. and in this absorbtion you forget all your problems--fears for the future or people's nasty games. Unlike diversions from outside sources this comes comes from within. You are developing a lifelong skill, the kind of mental discipline that will serve as foundation of your power."

Boredom is for people who don’t listen to themselves.

People who cling to their delusions find it difficult, if not impossible, to learn anything worth learning. In today’s world our idea of freedom largely revolves around the ability to satisfy certain needsand desires. We feel free if we can gain the kind of employment we desire, buy the things we want, and engage in a wide range of behavior, as long as it does not harm others. According to this concept, freedom is something essentially passive—it is given and guaranteed to us by a government (often by not meddling in our affairs) and various social groups. There is, however, a completely different concept of liberty and it is a state of mind and not an outside granted ‘privilege’ or ‘right’. Become an individual who would rather perish than take work that isn’t pleasurable or won’t leave you satisfied at the end of the day. Derive a sense of self worth coming from yourself alone, you are the book you must study the most intensely.

“I had reached the point at which I was not afraid to die. This spirit made me a freeman in fact, while I remained a slave in form.” Frederick Douglass.

In reality, we as free as we want to be. There seems to be somewhere in the subconscious life a purposeless primal fear and despair, compounding its influence on every decision in our life, compelling us to seek submission and trust in other people besides ourselves and various external ecstasties. 50 doesn't bother with pleasing people, drugs, alcohol, or partying-that's distraction and diversion.

50 cent got shot nine times. His thoughts on this are brief: “People talk about my getting shot like it represented something special. They act like they’re not facing the same thing. But some day everybody has to face a bullet with his or her name on it.” RG from here explains the stoic Seneca’s life and writings that through much practice he was able to understand that death is already within us and has been since birth. We are born alone and die alone, all else is perception.

"All bulls–t aside, now it’s time to be honest. I fear no man, for death is all that’s promised." 50 Cent, I'm a Hustler

Incredibly interesting stuff, I've read this twice now and highly recommend it. Robert Greene writes lucidly about ideas usually abstruse.