Why I Stopped Watching Inspiration Porn

I’ve been a victim of inspiration porn for a number of years now and I’ve finally decided to take control of my addiction.

What is Inspiration Porn?

It was during a 10 minute speech by Will Smith that had “moving” violin and quintessential “inspiration” buildup music that the youtuber had layered into the background just to make the video that much more compelling.

The epiphany “What the fuck am I doing?” is one that I’m sure we all can relate to. One where you’re down a wikipedia or youtube or instagram or Netflix hole and a good chunk of time (sometimes hours) has passed by before your observing mind clicks in again, looks at the time, looks at the inane and formulaic content that someone has prepared as clickbait and then you ponder how the fuck you got to that point.

The self help industry is enormous. Medium, the medium on which I’m writing this very piece, has an entire corner of its content called “Better Humans”. Several years ago I was consuming every piece of content that appeared in this category. Much of it was created by self-ascribed life coaches whose only achievement was becoming a life coach. I’m paraphrasing drastically from Nassim Taleb when he states something in his recent book called Skin in the Game to the effect of ‘Only take advice from Life Coaches on how to be a life coach.’ My good friend Ethan gives a wonderful review of Skin in the Game on his blog.