If you haven't seen the documentary "Jiro dreams of Sushi" directed by David Gelb, I strongly encourage you to watch it. It may seem unrelated at first, (What the fuck does a film about a sushi chef have to do with me?) but if you look past the details about the sushi to the deeper idea of this movie, the lesson learned is fucking powerful. The skill is arbitrary. The way this man views life and approaches his craft is something that can be applied to anything, not just sushi.

To give a quick summary, the documentary is about a man in Tokyo that runs a sushi restaurant. However, this isn't just any sushi restaurant. It is widely regarded as one of the best sushi restaurants in the world and has been given a three star Michelin rating, which is reserved for only the "best of the best" restaurants. Even more impressive is the fact that the restaurant is located in the basement of an office building and only seats 10 people at a time. None of this matters though, because people still line up to pay over $250 per meal just to try this man's sushi. Even fucking Obama ate there. Think about that for a second. The president of the United States wanted to try this man's sushi so badly that he went and ate in the bottom of a fucking office building. That's the level of respect this guy has developed.

In the film, Jiro talks about a Japanese word "shokunin" that essentially means a person that "lives their work" or masters their respective craft. That is what Jiro is. He is the ultimate master at his craft; making sushi. He is sushi. He lives, sleeps, breathes and dreams sushi and the result is world-wide respect as one of the best chefs in the world. He has dedicated his life to making the best sushi that he can make and he doesn't give a single fuck about anything else. This is a man who is truly great. While everybody else is out bullshitting their time away in a sort of haze jumping from one thing to another, this man is clearly focused on doing one thing, making sushi.

I guess the whole point of this is that Jiro is the embodiment of the ultimate man. He is a truly great person, and people will remember him after he dies. THIS is the type of person everybody should aspire to be. Too often I see that people focus on all of the wrong things. Their focus lies on getting girls or being "alpha" instead of mastering something and contributing to society, which ironically will give them what they desire in the end.

Do you want to spend your life amassing wealth and a lifestyle just to get girls to have sex with you? That's fine, but you must realize that at the end of your life you will have lived and died being a person that didn't really contribute and that ultimately, didn't matter. That's not what the focus should be on at all. It's a lower plane of thought than what the people who actually add value to society think about. All great people completely immerse themselves in what ever they choose to do with their time and get really fucking good at it.

This not only gives life a purpose, but it gives extrinsic rewards that people often chase such as pussy or money for something that is done for intrinsic reasons. Jiro doesn't spend 7 days a week continually perfecting his sushi just because he wants some sluts to bang him, he does it because that's what his life is about. He's chosen sushi as his craft and become the ultimate master or "shokunin" and has lived his life as somebody that will be remembered as a great person.

He set out to become the ultimate sushi chef and in the process, became and ultimate man.

That's what being a man is about, and that's what TRP is about.

EDIT: In my post I may have gone a little too far in the praise for Jiro and I can see the points against him and his lifestyle. Yes the dude has flaws and might be lacking in other areas of life but ultimately, there is a lot to be learned about dedication and not looking externally for validation from the man.