Fundamental (adjective) - The basis from which everything forms from.

Strokes of genius

Strokes of genius are what we remember from Sports. Michael Jordan’s game winner against the Jazz, The Miracle on Ice, and Usain Bolt’s record breaking 200m dash. These events are captured in the hearts of millions if not billions of individuals world wide. They inspire others to try and replicate them. Thanks to these people, some push hard enough and dream. One thing that has remained true is that sports are harder now than they were previously in history. Yes I know it’s a hot take but it’s true. With every generation the game asks more of people, then in the previous generation.

What is true about Lionel Messi, Lebron James, and Tom Brady. They are the goats of their respective sports right? Sure, maybe, arguably they are at the pinnacle of peoples lists but what’s most true is that yes they were awesome especially in the clutch but they might be the best examples of the greatest fundamentalists of all time.

I have played against amazing footballers and it's incredible just how perfect everything they do seems. But they also compete against the best, so the floor is raised with just how good you need to be. Moments of lapsing concentration lose you games just as often as moments of magic. Do the fundamentals well and you will be ok. Magic takes you to the peak, fundamentals provide safe passage in life.

Relevant Basis

America is the land of hope and dreaming. The energy here is electric compared to the rest of the world. Throughout most of its history people have dared to do things. Due to this daring and optimism shit has gotten done. There’s a reason why even though we don’t have the best school system in the world we have such awesome stuff here. I understand the notion of being a workaholic culture, unfamiliarly oriented blah blah blah. Any place is what you make of it but for better or for worse so much motion happens here. I am forever blessed to be American. I mean nowhere else in the world, except China, are there such marvels of modern creation on display. Certain communities here flourish because so many people have people around them that dare to dream.

I think America is the best place on Earth where you can see so many examples of people in constant action. This fundamental base of optimism and doing is what trumps everything. If you are chronically online you might have a different picture. Every pessimist of every generation thinks that there is the end. Despite all this, in America’s young history we have always had the base of dreamers which steady the ship.

I love dreaming if you could not tell, I used to want to become a powerranger in fact. Most of my childhood dreams I imagined myself a protagonist of fake worlds completing ridiculous quests. But life hits you, you know you get a little bit older and eventually realize you can’t become Frodo. You can still do a lot though!

Many times I hear people saying I want to do this or that. Consciously I know I am in no position to judge but I am guilty of it, knowing from experience what a lot of things take. Now knowledge contrary to popular belief is not an indicator of anything. If you want to build rockets when you are 40 you can. Here is where America’s advantages in chasing such aspirational goals come to play. Here in America people seem to be doing everything you can think of. Just because this is what is happening does not mean this shit aint easy. Now not everybody is dealt the same card which means you will have to build up your skills to make things possible, sometimes. You will have to suffer maybe more than others to get to where you want to go and miss out on things. But if you really want something, you can do it.

I want people to understand that sometimes people get dealt a “weaker card”. “Weaker” is a perceived term though as it can be of incredible advantage to you. Your dad might not know someone someplace. THis might cause you to have to work harder, get more creative, or do extra things to get where we want to go. This will cause you to build an incredible base though. Your “weaker card” will get fraud checked, heavily questioned, and beat up. But this is not a regular poker hand, you can change the favorability of it. If you work on the fundamentals hard you will never have to bluff a hand in your life. Bluffing is a winning strategy only in the short term, but remember you can’t win every time doing it. You can make your deck win at extremely high rates in life. Tim Duncan the big fundamental was good his entire career because of how good he was at the basics, you can be good your whole life too, just work on that base. Note: Do not lie to people about what you can and cannot do. Reach out to people for help and you will be surprised how many are willing to help people with the fundamental American optimism.

Freedom

We all like to be able to do things. Specifically, we like to be able to do things that are cool. Usually it's the case that cool things are hard to do. Imagine you are trying to learn to shoot your arrow out of a moving car on targets . Well let me let you in for a secret, that is really hard. You can try over and over and you might even get lucky and do it once. But once is no fun. We like to be able to do cool things frequently. Here you have two paths, either you become a good archer or you get really good at physics with decent archery skills. Either way both those things are going to take years of time to get down at a good level. They will require you to start from the bottom and to build a really good understanding of a bunch of stuff before you can even think of doing this consistently. Actually chances have it you have a really good chance of having a high percentage shot if you only shoot a couple of times because probability is not deterministic in the short term. But in the long term man you will be lucky to have anything above 0.000001%. So let me lay this down nicely for you. You probably can’t do it. But I mean dream if you want to do it once they have a crack at it. If you start approaching life this way though you will not get much done.

Putting the time in to learn the fundamentals behind hard tasks gives you freedom. I won’t go into too much detail here but stuff in life translates really well. If you want to get good at soccer, *football please learn how to pass a ball first before you even think of going on youtube to learn how to do some insane skill, you will be tremendously more valuable. The thing is also once you can do things you gain something called confidence. This cannot be taken away from you and will actually pull you through the difficulties in life. This is freedom, and actually no one can take that away from you. If you have taken the time to work through some fundamental topics, you will be competent in many subjects which is tremendously valuable. Seriously this is why I am so impassioned to work with youth because if we can just get them to take school seriously it opens up so much.

Do the simple really well. Some of the most successful people aren’t just innately good at everything. Eat simple, you don’t need some crazy diet, and you will be healthy. Exercise every day for 1 hr per day is pretty hard and you will be ok. Be kind, don’t lie, and work hard everyday. Put your phone away. All these things are simple but hard. Doing well is hard but doing bad is harder. Seriously people have made millions of these ideas like in Atomic Habits,

cheers!