MOUNTING THE MANTICORE
The manticore is a legendary creature of Persian myth – it has the head of a human, body of a lion, with a serpentine tail of venomous spikes. Its name means “man-eater”. Similar to the griffin or Egyptian sphinx, it has appeared numerous times in European culture.
The Roman author and teacher Claudius Aelianus dedicated an entire section of his book Characteristics of Animals to the manticore, describing this animal as such:
“There is in India a wild beast, powerful, daring, as big as the largest lion, of a red colour like cinnabar, shaggy like a dog, and in the language of India it is called Martichoras. Its face however is not that of a wild beast but of a man, and it has three rows of teeth set in its upper jaw and three in the lower; these are exceedingly sharp and larger than the fangs of a hound. Its ears also resemble a man's, except that they are larger and shaggy; its eyes are blue-grey and they too are like a man's, but its feet and claws, you must know, are those of a lion. To the end of its tail is attached the sting of a scorpion, and this might be over a cubit in length; and the tail has stings at intervals on either side. But the tip of the tail gives a fatal sting to anyone who encounters it, and death is immediate. If one pursues the beast it lets fly its stings, like arrows, sideways, and it can shoot a great distance; and when it discharges its stings straight ahead it bends its tail back; if however it shoots in a backward direction, as the Sacae do, then it stretches its tail to its full extent. Any creature that the missile hits it kills; the elephant alone it does not kill. These stings which it shoots are a foot long and the thickness of a bulrush.
Now Ctesias asserts (and he says that the Indians confirm his words) that in the places where those stings have been let fly others spring up, so that this evil produces a crop. And according to the same writer the Mantichore for choice devours human beings; indeed it will slaughter a great number; and it lies in wait not for a single man but would set upon two or even three men, and alone overcomes even that number. All other animals it defeats: the lion alone it can never bring down. That this creature takes special delight in gorging human flesh its very name testifies, for in the Greek language it means man-eater, and its name is derived from its activities. Like the stag it is extremely swift. Now the Indians hunt the young of these animals while they are still without stings in their tails, which they then crush with a stone to prevent them from growing stings. The sound of their voice is as near as possible that of a trumpet.”
“Why,” you wonder, “am I writing about a creature that does not exist except in myth and dimly recalled memory?”
Well, dear reader, that is because the manticore is real.
And it is very, very interested in you.
There’s a manticore sitting on top of your body – we call it the brain. It is constantly fuelled by dopamine.
Dopamine is a fascinating little molecule. Largely undiscovered/ignored for the majority of humanity’s existence, neurologists, psychologists and evolutionary biologists are discovering the extent of its influence over motivation1, mood regulation, energy levels, productivity2, creativity and more.
Without negotiating a healthy relationship with your dopamine pathways, no serious self-improvement is possible. There will be no hope of surpassing your limits or rising to a higher level.
In many traditional cultures the young initiate has to slay a beast or complete an arduous challenge in order to attain his power. In modernity we have domesticated or exterminated most great beasts, and have created a soft and comfortable world in which genuine challenges are hard to come by.
And yet, the human desire for self-overcoming remains. The question all young men and women have to ask at some point is how to get from where I am to where I want to be? In order to ascend to the level of your goals, you need to embark on your heroic challenge. It is fortunate, then, that you have this mythical beast that lives in your head. No need to travel into the unknown when there’s an entire wilderness inside your head. If you acknowledge that the manticore exists, you can now work towards overcoming/subduing it.
This is not an accidental choice of words. You cannot slay your manticore, because your manticore is an innate part of your mind and biology. It’s an egregore made of pure dopamine after all. All you can do is to make the choice to master it and overcome it – over and over again.
Hence this week’s post.
You have to Mount the Manticore.
Key Principle: Whatever gives you short term pleasure has to be identified and eliminated.
How does this look in practice?
No sex/masturbation
No sugary soda/beverages
No alcohol
No tobacco
No mind-altering substances
No carbs
No comfort food (sourdough and fried chicken in my case. I can make a half dozen pieces of chicken vanish in 10 minutes, it’s true)
No movies (Exception: once a week I can watch a movie that I have already seen before so that there is no dopamine rush. Dopamine is the NOVELTY hormone so the key is to eliminate as much novelty/entertainment from life as possible.)
No social media (Reddit/Facebook/Twitter/Insta completely disallowed. Exceptions may be made only if it aids in work, study of some kind and is not meaningless surfing. I have long believe that if you’re not earning money or getting some tangible value out of social media, you really have no need to spend more than 10 minutes a day on it.)
WhatsApp/messaging only for work and family members.
YouTube only for work/study. Access to philosophy/psychology/other intellectual topics (such as Zen/Stoicism) allowed but only if it does not cause vehement agreement or disagreement to arise in the mind. If you derive pleasure from watching it, cut that out too.
No TV. No news. Mainstream news is bullshit anyway. All editorial and opinions designed to inflame your senses and catalyze you into a state of shock/sadness/outrage. The 24-hour news cycle may be one of the greatest nuisances ever invented. Get out of it and never go back. If your work/study REQUIRES that you are up to date, you may get short news outlines every day from plain text news aggregator like Google or Reuters.
Eat as seldom as possible, as simple as possible. Food is meant to be fuel not entertainment. This seems like common sense to everyone and yet only a tiny minority of people actually act like they believe it’s true. Well, it is. Try eating the same rotation of meals for 30 days in a row. It will forever transform how you view the act of eating.
Interact as little as possible. Just enough to maintain relationships. Humans are social creatures and even the most introverted of us get some small kick of pleasure when interacting with another person. Try minimizing conversations with others for 30 days. “I can’t make it due to Covid-19” is my stock answer to any one wanting to meet.
Do something useful and difficult e.g. learn Spanish for three hours a week or similar. Train the brain to start liking what it dislikes.
Meditate as long as possible every day.
Things that are already part of my life – e.g. daily exercise, sleep 7-8 hours, reading an hour daily – are not mentioned.
I have done all of the above in rotation (say, 3-4 at a time) over the last 15 months. But never all at once. Even the partial trials have yielded good results. It should not surprise anyone that I am going to attempt a Hardcore run from July 5 for 30 days.
Some FAQs.
Q: Does it work?
Unequivocally, yes.
Q: Can the mind be reset?
Yes. In April, after a week of abstaining from Netflix/YouTube/entertainment, I noticed that my sense of impatience and boredom had virtually vanished. My threshold for stimulation had reset to the point I was content to sip tea or coffee while watching trees outside my balcony, listening to birdsong.
Q: Does it help with meditation/practice?
Somewhat. If you already have an ongoing meditation or mindfulness practice, this will supplement it. Anyway if you have been meditating for more than a few months you may already have become more aware of your dopamine triggers and what stimuli you respond to. Mounting the Manticore wipes the entire slate clean so you can pinpoint with greater accuracy the sources of your varying emotional states.
Q: Does the brain offer more insights when deprived of dopamine?
It can… but this is not a guarantee. Insights don’t come freely. They are the fruits of the seeds you plant in the fertile soil of your mind in waking life. If you are not filling your mind with interesting, challenging, useful material and instead mindlessly consuming dumb shit, gossip and porn, what exactly do you think you’ll get? Garbage inputs = Garbage outputs. Mounting the Manticore is designed so whatever information you DO take in during the 30 days, it’s stuff that will percolate in your mind and churn out beneficial insights.
These are my findings based on completing various dopamine detoxes / partial resets in the past. I will update all of you in August with my findings from this Hardcore run.
If any of you are feeling stuck and trying to break through to ‘the next level’, try taking on your personal manticore for 30 days in July. Choose the level of dopamine detox you want to attempt – it should be a challenge. I would appreciate it massively if any of you decide to take this challenge. Comment below or contact me and I would be happy to be your accountability partner throughout the challenge.
This should be an interesting 30 days.
Until then,
Stay Solar.
So, how did it go?