(2025-05-28) 1- Strickler How To Long Game

Yancey Strickler: How to long game. I’ve been in LA this week, an experience that always has me staring into the void.

I got so frustrated I wrote a manifesto to myself — and it pulled me out.

The long game is the only game

I realized I was getting frustrated by very now things: feeling mad at myself for an email exchange I screwed up. Wanting more attention for something I’d done.

HOW TO LONG GAME

1. THERE IS NO SHORT GAME, ONLY LONG GAME. SHORT GAME IS TOURISM. LONG GAME IS LIVING THERE.

2. THE LONG GAME IS ABOUT BUILDING YOUR OWN GAME.

3. THE LONG GAME IS LONG.

4. THE LONG GAME IS NOT FOR EVERYONE

5. THE LONG GAME IS ABOUT CONFIDENCE. YOU HAVE TO WILLINGLY LIVE IN A TRUTH THAT’S NOT CERTAIN, YET OPERATE WITH THE FAITH THAT IT WILL BE

6. THE LONG GAME = THESIS + MINDSET. LONG GAMING WITH A RIGID PLAN IS DIFFICULT BECAUSE THERE ARE TOO MANY VARIABLES. A THESIS (SOMETHING YOU UNIQUELY BELIEVE TO BE TRUE) PLUS A LONG-TERM MINDSET (DETERMINATION TO WILL SOMETHING INTO EXISTENCE) IS REQUIRED.

7. THE DESTINATION MUST BE WORTH THE JOURNEY.

8. THERE IS ONLY LONG GAME. REAL CHANGE, REAL INFLUENCE, REAL IMPACT ONLY HAPPEN OVER TIME. THE LONG GAME IS THE ONLY GAME WORTH PLAYING.

I'd been feeling bad trying to win somebody else’s game. The truth is I’m trying to start a new one.

Caps lock is an unlock

Whenever I need to see truth, I turn on caps lock and start writing to myself. Not joking. Once caps lock goes on there’s no opportunity for equivocation

What other truths and ways of seeing are hidden away in our minds?

I think of the research my friend Nadia Asparahouva has done on the jhanas, a type of meditation, or the things my wife learns through lucid dreaming

Neo-rationalism (post-rat?)

The spectrum of what gets classified as rational is dramatically expanding in a way unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. I’m excited by it.

A clear conscience

The start of my void spiral was this — in full zombie mode. I energetically consumed myself and everything around me without joy or feeling. Yet once I pulled myself out with the Long Game view, there was a greater sense of clarity and inner calm than I’d felt in weeks.

When I tried looking inside myself to see why (this is the kind of thing I do for entertainment, btw), it was obvious: the void tore down the facades I’d made for myself. I’d lost confidence in them. I no longer believed in them. But in the wake of that destruction, I began to rebuild a new foundation based on what I could actually trust.

As I stepped out the rest of the week with that shift in inner structure, I felt a clear conscience. A sense that I’m showing up in a truthful way in integrity with myself.