Raw Food Diet - Day 11 (Blog)

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Keith

But it still seems to be an either-or mentality. Now that you've both personally completed and shared the 80%, why not both do the remaining 20% and share that experience with everyone too?

That would probably take an article itself to answer, but in a nutshell, I've gradually learned that it's ineffective to distance yourself too much from the rest of humanity in the name of personal optimization. Beyond a certain point, instead of setting an example for others, you end up having the opposite effect because you've taken things too far beyond the norms, and you lose your ability to help and inspire people because others find they can no longer relate to you.

I still take things a bit far on the optimization side -- even being vegan is a huge stretch for many Americans, although not as much worldwide -- but when I go too far, my connection with others suffers for it.

An example was when I did the polyphasic sleep experiment. The personal results were great. But it put me out of sync with the result of the world. Should I have kept going for the sake of personal optimization? I can't be sure, but I think I made the right decision.

This realization didn't cause me to hold back in the area of self-optimization. It just encouraged me to focus more attention on different areas, like writing a book.

[Keith]

That makes it a perfect time for this trial because the human norm is trending in the direction of greater sustainability anyway.

I know personally I would find it very useful.

But it's your trial and it has to be something you want to do. Best of luck whatever you pick.