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Every Moment is Life or Death.

Every Moment Is Life or Death. In a traditional sense, that is. Every moment, we are presented a choice: Burn the fuel and live, or stay where we are, allowing our soul to enter a state of atrophy. Every moment is either one spent in a state of living, or in a state of non-living. Death is not a part of this equation. Death, in this way of thinking, is simply a synonym for rebirth, for progress; allowing each second to die and a new one to appear, vestal and pure. But appealing to the traditional way of thinking, with "Death" being equated to being the opposite of "Life", we can replace "Death" with "non-life"; for life, living, being alive, is characterized by doing, by action, by a conscious expense of energy, and to do anything else is to rest and do nothing, to be unliving, unalive, acting in a non-life manner. To be corpselike. To be "deathlike". We must always be aware of this sacred choice; for it is what separates and allows there to be triumph and failure, winners and losers, something to work for and something to run from. This choice is the natural mechanism that we can choose to use or cast aside in our time on this sun-orbiting arena, built of the atoms of those passed and those yet to come. This recurring challenge is our inalienable birthright. And in order to put our minds, bodies, and souls through the fires of adversity, we must accept this choice as a divinely-gifted opportunity.

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The Mind and the Heart: Emotional Health

The Mind and the Heart: Emotional Health I've been going through periods of perturbation throughout my life. Normally this flowers in the form of self-doubt and a generalized negative filtering of my day and all it contains. For most of my life, I would be passively interested in hobbies that brought me joy, only to be overtaken by periods characterized by an active disinterest, even shunning, of these activities, these sources of happiness won by any sort of work or competition, leaving it stamped as unnecessary, superfluous. This was because I fell into self-doubt, because I chose to ignore my potential in favor of an (un)easy stagnation. The majority of people go through periods similar to this; marked by an unhealthy way of thinking, they will fall into a slump, forsaking their hobbies and activities that bring them joy for a slow decay occupied alone, only to be visited daily by their own self-pity. This is normal, even for the individuals who have seemed to "figure it out". I stand as an example of that. This is another situation in which we find ourselves at a metaphorical fork in the road: we can either choose to go right, and drag around a circle back to the same point, or we can choose to go left, continuing yet higher up the mountain of our own earned greatness, our own saga being written before us. When faced with this choice, we must sit at the fork and think, take time to collect ourselves, and remember why we are climbing this mountain in the first place. We must remember that by stepping in the ring, going under the bar, taking the shot, we are progressing. Even if we fail, we are growing our courage and our will by merely believing in ourselves in the first place and giving it a go. We must remember that we are building ourselves up so we can be there for ourselves, so we can inspire ourselves, so we can allow our own radiant light to fill any room we enter, regardless of how dark. We are leaving the ideas of giving up, escaping, being wholly reliant on others, or whatever your own personal afflictions may be behind us to wither on the wayside of this path we trod. We can begin to cut the ropes that pull us down from within by simply facing the idea that we will progress for ourselves, and letting it permeate us with open arms. When I find myself feeling tied down by negativity, self-doubt that eats entire days, or plagued by memories of unpleasant events in the past, I remind myself that I am here for myself. I am progressing for myself. I will become great, an ace of all trades, in order to put myself in situations in which I may build my confidence by crushing my own fears. And by doing so, I will have fewer and fewer days lost to emotional upset, and more days that will live in my memory as twenty-four hours of golden twilight. We must not forget to take care of ourselves. Like the adults in our lives did to us when we were little and upset, we must offer a kind firmness to ourselves, a gentile push back in the right direction. We must remember, always, to prioritize and to look at the bigger picture, to look ahead to where we're going. At times, we must tread forth with a blind arrogance to parts of our own mind. To quote Chris Prentiss, "Happiness nor unhappiness is contained in the event itself". We must always remember this when dealing with failure and defeat. Failure is simply a small setback or a wrong turn, with a simple and easy recovery, if one chooses to take the route back. I was once told that we are the only ones truly here for ourselves. We contain our thoughts and emotions, free of the errors in translation that comes from vocalization and the misunderstandings that come from another human hearing them. Although this went against my longing for understanding from another person, I couldn't deny the truth in the statement. Since, I have learned to be more gentile with myself, and to listen to myself; for many problems simply require an understanding to resolve. Emotional upset is exacerbated exponentially by a mental misunderstanding. When we begin to meld the power of our heart with the power of our mind, we allow ourselves to become that much stronger; to truly form a 'will'. This will is what will ultimately drive us to success.

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For Those to Come.

For Those to Come.

We progress chiefly for ourselves. Your life is what is mainly affected by your own progress, whether it be physical by way of exercise, mastery of a skill, or mental progression, or spiritual development. I believe that this change in your own life should be your prime impetus.

However, it is worth noting that your changes will begin to affect those around you as well. You will become more of an asset to your social group, and you may begin to see the shift in mentality (and that of the general outlook produced by the former) begin to color your interactions with acquaintances as well.

Because of this, we should take the time to consider those we have the most substantial effect on: those to come. Our sons and daughters, our nieces and nephews, our kinsmen's children.

As our role models age, we will begin to step up and take their places inadvertently. Those younger than us will be watching and learning from us, emulating us just as we did our idols. We must progress not only for ourselves, but for those to come. We must push to raise and influence (in all applications of the term) children to appreciate what we have come to appreciate.

One of my biggest motivators to create and produce with the goal to help others find the Iron Pact is that I didn't have it when I was younger. I had people around me teaching me the movements, the dieting, the appreciation for form, but it never got deep enough to seat, take hold and germinate. I sometimes muse as to where I would be had I figured it out earlier in life.

Learning from this, I now have a deep drive to lead others so they can spend more of their life living in the direction that is working to achieve their potential on the Path of Iron.

We must strive to live as examples, so those who to come may build on our accomplishments; so we may gift a lifetime of learned wisdom to those who have an entire lifetime to build on it.

My father is not a king. I may not be a king. But my son will be.

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Every time you get under the bar, you're somewhere they made an excuse not to be. Every time you go for one last rep, feel the weight defeat your muscles, and clout down on your chest, you went further than they did. The threats your muscles make to tear, to snap back under your hide like cut rubber, are threats they've never had the honor of hearing. By the time you're knocking your mind's excuses aside, they've long given in. When the music is off, the benches wiped down, the lights start thudding off and you're still staining the bench with your sweat, they've already gone home. While you're spitting sweat and expletives, scraping the remains of your will together for one more set, they're 'taking a breather'. And when You and They meet, when you both feel the sting of blood in your eyes, the pain of a shattered hand arc up your arm, You will be the one to lift Your head and cock back one last time. You do not train to be like them. You do not train to hit a measurable goal. You do not train to hit your ten reps and rack. You train to surpass. You train to set new records. You train to be at the front of the pack, with nothing but untouched ground ahead of you. You train to transcend beyond "the best".

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Just Shut the Fuck Up for a Second.

Just Shut the Fuck Up for a Second. 17FEB2018, 1019 You're setting up a network, fixing an engine, or trying to get laid, trying to get "swole", but it just isn't working. The terminals won't connect, the engine still won't run right, you're still going home single, and you're unable to gain any weight. You repeat the same, infallible, unflawed process that your master's mind secreted after pouring over the millions of pages that compose the library that is your memory. And it still won't work. The problem is something organic; the network hardware is broken, the engine is a piece of shit, all of the girls in your hometown are just a bunch of stupid bitches anyway and the exercises are somehow flawed. Notice how quick we are to judge the world around us and decide that the issue lies there. Notice how the issue is always chiefly external, and that because we are inherently the masters of all things, aces of all trades, that the issue is always something out of our control. And also notice that, so often, when offered outside influence or advice, that person is always wrong. "It can't be". "No, that wouldn't work". "I already tried that". This is because there is nobody on earth whose skill comes close to rivaling our own; for we are the true master of all we do. As you know by now, this is complete fallacy. It's such a simple concept that all know but few heed; that sometimes, we aren't the subject matter expert, and because of this, we make mistakes or overlook things. Sometimes other people have the answer or insight that can lead you to the answer. This is so simple, but so few people heed it. This is because it calls for us to abandon our preconceived, innate notions that we are always right. These notions are a natural byproduct of our sense of self worth, of our sense of "I". Through this sense we gain the confidence to interact with the world around us. However, when this confidence becomes overinflated, we are left with an "ego problem". This is when we bridge the gap from "confident" to "douchebag" or "know-it-all". And around this time, we begin to become acquainted with the frustration that comes from loneliness and failure. To avoid all of this, simple steps can be taken: shut the fuck up for a moment. Swallow your pride for a little bit, reorient, and just think for a second. Are you looking to accomplish something, or are you truly of a mindset described by Camus, where, like Sisyphus must have, you find yourself content in the struggle? If you are of the former, if you are driven to make measurable progress, you should be looking to make that progress and hit your goals by any means possible, even if that does mean surrendering to the notion that maybe you aren't the best always. I have met, worked with, coached, and simply have been friends with so many people who are stuck in the cycle of the marriage of arrogance and textbook insanity. Someone will come asking for some form of help, and as soon as that help is provided but doesn't confirm their ideas, it is cast aside, branded as useless. So few people nowadays can say that they want help, actual help, and not just an ego-stroking, a reassurance that they are, in fact, the grand master of the task. The drive for confirmation, acceptance, and glory is so strong within us that it can often get in the way of actually making the progress that defines the award of those types of prestige. So many of us would rather be told that we are "right" (or not accept the possibility that we are not) than actually achieve our goal. So, the next time you find yourself frustrated, surrounded by "a bunch of idiots who don't know what they're talking about", I implore you to take a step back, shut the fuck up, and remember that you are not, and will never be, the Grand Master of All. Shut your mouth and listen to those around you. They're human beings who process just as much as you do, and have many years of life experience that differ from yours. The answer may sometimes lie in others.

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Vapidity, and the Man in the Mirror.

Vapidity, and the Man in the Glass Facebook is a perfect example of the interpersonal dysfunction that riddles and shapes our society today. We crave to be realized, to be valued, to have others assign us importance; to be important. Quoting Dr. John Dewey, American philosopher, "the deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important". We are all driven by this, and in my opinion, many cases of mental illness cropping up can be driven by this desire not being fulfilled. The inherent danger in this desire is that the point when it is "fulfilled" is relative to, and dictated by, the individual. People don't feel important, or loved, or valued until they are valued by the 'right' person. I once heard someone say that one of the coolest things about them was the amount of followers (something to the tune of 20,000 if I remember correctly) they gained on Twitter after being followed by some pop star. This 'star' deemed this person "worthy" of a follow, and in turn, people also assigned this person importance. I would imagine that the number of followers does not matter. They could have gotten an extra ten or one hundred and still deemed it worthy evidence of their new importance and popularity. The main point here is that one person, a celebrity, through fleeting interaction and less than 140 keystrokes, and ended up making this person feel important when hundreds of thousands of others have failed to through the same exact method. When we are craving the desire to feel important, to feel validated, we cannot abandon it; much like thirst or hunger. We will naturally become more and more desperate to receive this acknowledgement. This often manifests in the break down and metabolization of complex social interaction into a raw, simple form, such as the excessive sharing of personal opinions on Facebook. In doing this, in acting this way, we degrade ourselves. We fall from greatness. It's ego-masturbation. In order to find true happiness and contentment in the quest to become important, we must take three steps: 1. Commit healthy social interaction 2. Learn to see the innate value in others 3. And most importantly, learn to see ourselves as truly important. 1. Commit healthy social interaction. Satisfaction is what drives our ego; we are, by nature, hedonists. We seek an exodus from the land of pain into the land of pleasure. The quest for the satisfaction drawn from a sense of importance can be compared to the quest for sexual satisfaction. Sure, if you want it, you can just pull up the internet and satisfy yourself. But this cheap, low-effort method will leave you craving again just minutes later. The Id-level appreciation for hard work that we have as humans must be harmonized and intertwined with our drive for satisfaction. Instead of spending friday night masturbating in a computer-screen lit corner of a human nest in your mother's house, go out and find a man/woman to gain this satisfaction with. It is the same with the need for importance; instead of being one of hundreds of comments in a Twitch stream on an un-'liked'post on facebook, go out and be with your friends. Go explore. Go drinking. Go for a drive. Work on a car. Work out together. Fight eachother. Or even go to a coffee shop and talk some shit. Have healthy social interaction. One genuine laugh from someone else at your joke will do a million times more for your drive to feel important than any amount of 'likes' on Facebook. 2. Learn to see the innate value in others It's always neat to get to meet someone you admire or see as important. But setting that as your baseline for all social interaction will leave you feeling empty and vapid. You must learn to value what "the common folk" have to say. Now, I'm certainly not advocating for some kind of "love everyone, everyone is special" doctrine; because that's simply not the case. You and I both know this. There are people whose opinions you don't, and couldn't, care to give a damn about. But, your friends, your coworkers, those you interact with every day have an impact on your life. Take a moment to think about how you would feel if your partner didn't grumbled a greeting to you or responded with "oh" after telling them about your day. Think about how you would feel if the cashier at the deli blew you off instead of simply asking how your day is going. The neglect of the 'normal' is a huge culprit in the degradation of many people's sense of importance. EDIT: To build off this point, the importance of having a tightly-knit group of people, a friend group, club, band, tribe, can be key. Only seeking the approval of yourself and a small group of individuals whom you respect and hold highly can serve well on two fronts: their opinions will hold more weight due to the respect you have for them; and if they disapprove, you will have the rare opportunity to take their advice to heart, being able to trust that it is disapproval and critique from a place of respect rather than that of a passer-by naysayer. This will charge you with an external force to progress to an achievable and reflected level. This will allow you to build stronger bonds with those subjecting themselves to the same ordeal as you. 3. Learn to see ourselves as truly important. "When you get what you want in your struggle for self And the world makes you king for a day Just go to the mirror and look at yourself And see what that man has to say." -Peter Dale Wimbrow, Sr. All of the praise from the top musicians, athletes, politicians, lovers and millionaires will equal nothing if you see filth staring back at yourself in the mirror after you come home. In the end, we must appreciate ourselves. In the end, we are the judges of our own value. This is more complicated than "just choosing to like yourself"; we all know that's bullshit spewed by those who haven't had to take their own advice. This can be achieved by setting and achieving goals that we value. I have always been smaller. I was one of the smallest kids in my class. Before I went through some personal life and career changes, I stood at 5'9", 135lbs. I was never weak, but I looked it; and heard it from many people. The loudest voice of negativity was my own. After spending many of my teenage years trying to find other ways to satisfy myself, to negate the ill-feelings when I caught myself in the mirror, I finally realized; the only way to deal with is to deal with it, head-on. Now I've gained an inch in height and 30 pounds in mass. Every time I walk into the gym, I hit a new PR. I currently have my name on the wall of fame at my local gym- twice. But, bounds more important than the previous accomplishments- I've had a shift in thinking. Instead of seeing a stringbean frame that radiated insecurity, weakness, and laziness, I now see a body, an organic machine that is being added to and improved constantly. I may not see Conan staring back at me; but I do see something that I've taken a loving interest in, something that I am proud of. I once read, "I am not fat, I am a human. I am John. I don't hate my body, I love my body; that's why I go to the gym". This has had a profound effect on my mental process; it so simply and elegantly outlines the concepts of self-appreciation and working within your means, within reality. We must strive to come to an understanding of ourselves and of our suffering. We must then act, in all ways available, to end this suffering within us in order to attain a higher mentality, and, by virtue of this, a higher overall state of existence. We must recognize and accept the importance and validity of putting in the time and effort to do something right, in order to get the right result. "Good work ain't cheap, and cheap work ain't good".

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Winners and Losers.

Winners and Losers. 26JAN2018 In the increasingly global society that we know today, acknowledging the existence of "winners" is increasingly considered a social faux pas, unless bringing them up as a broad target to point the blame when discussing the circumstances that characterize "the losers". But, as with all things, to have "losers", there will always have to be "winners". And a state in which there are not winners and losers simply does not, and for the forseeable future, will not exist. Even under previously implemented systems where individuals are supposed to be equal, where everyone starts off equal and continues to accrue equal resources, there have always been "winners" distinguishing themselves. The things that one cannot put a price on, like sex, loyalty, and social acceptance, are always accrued by the winners and longed by the losers. And, out in the world, if we're both starving and you find a can of beans before me, I'm eating tonight. That's just how it is. Being a winner is as simple as choosing to adopt the mindset. There is no "better destiny" or "good luck" or a "winner gene". Nobody is born any more capable than anyone else. Some may be born with a slightly better starting point, but that will not be a deciding factor in whether or not someone is a winner. There are many out there who had everything set up for them perfectly in life and still end up falling short; and there are some out there who have never had anything in their favor and have still come out on top. To say that one is not a winner is to set it in stone. You know that you have two choices, and to not choose the path of glory is to lay down on the side of the path and die like a speared cow. So choose to be a winner. Choose to gain fortune, respect, possessions, happiness, and satisfaction; as well as adversity, enemies, scars and some failures. The only difference between a winner and a loser is that a winner is actively making their dreams a reality. A loser is not.

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Your Inner Pillars.

Your inner pillars. I was originally going to title this article "resiliency", but the word resiliency has to do with recovery, with bouncing back. To be resilient is to recover from some form of displacement. And while it is an immeasurably important quality to have, putting this idea onto paper under the title of "Resiliency" would create a false pretense. To be resilient is to be able to flex; to bounce back. Pillars, on the other hand, so not. They are valued for the rigidity. Rigidity is so often neglected. We have hundreds, if not thousands, of poisonous signals coming in every day, advertising resiliency; "cheat days", "days off", "vacations". We are so often urged onto these paths by our peers that we will, from time to time, abandon our own morals, our own mission, our own sagas and legends in the making in order to take a break. This is always the beginning of your downfall. We must never allow ourselves a moment of weakness. We must never grant an audience to an ambassador of the choice between strength and weakness. We must remain rigid against the storms whose winds howl words of laze, of chosen flaccidity, of crawling into an opium den. The most noble part of our journey to strength is our continued devotion in the face of increased adversity. You make the most progress on the last rep. You don't need a second chance when working under pressure. You renew your contract of respect with yourself when you're offered the wares of weakness, of laziness, of addiction; and choose to turn away and continue on your path. These are naturally occurring tests. Every time you find yourself rationalizing why your diet is stupid, why you can skip the gym today, why it was okay that you didn't finish your set or go heavier, you are in the midst of a test harder than hitting a new PR or eating 2000 calories in one sitting after the gym or fighting your way our of a mugging. In those situations, you're motivated. You want these things you're striving for, and they line up with your mission. But when you find yourself in the midst of the former, you're already in a hole. Mentally, your motivation has already shifted. You've taken a step toward the siren's call, and you must now tear yourself from it. If not, what is anything worth? Why follow a workout routine if you lack the self control to turn away from a passing whim that you know is bad? Why spend the time reading this, keeping your nose to the grindstone, living this life when you're willing to risk throwing it all away for something as simple as a cigarette, a drink, a 'night off' or a few hours playing video games or watching TV? The path to glory is straight and has no branches. To follow a deviation is to abandon the path, and to abandon the path is to disrespect yourself. We must always strive to keep our inner pillars strong. We cannot allow ourselves to test our resiliency, as it so often ends with "yeah, I'll get back to it one of these days". We must remain strong in the face of temptation.

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Keep your Secrets Secret.

Keeping Secrets "Secret" There must always be an "us" and "them". The benefits are numerous, the detriments few. On a level that appeals to the innate, subconscious "feel-good" areas of thought, it creates prestige, an 'inner circle' comprised of those few selected to be 'in the know'. It raises morale within that circle, as any form of distinction among peers works wonders for an ego boost. Due to the prestige held by the inner circle, it forces prospects to train, to better themselves, before they stand on our doorstep and knock for the first time. It forces individuals to apply pounds of discipline on themselves to make themselves 'worthy'. Beyond the immediate, "feel good" value of having a special inner circle, there are practical uses for having guarded secrets. The world is not made up of friends and future friends. The world is also inhabited by enemies, and those who may not be enemies but certainly will never be allies. If you open up your libraries and show all of your secrets to your enemies, or even worse, to the common man, you immediately dilute the value of the information as well as the group. Now, I'm not talking about battle plans; I'm referring to the information that defines and shapes personalities; that sets you and your group apart, the information that finds them success while others lay dying by the wayside of the same path. You must not let your enemy get a leg up on you. You must not let the common man find your information and dilute it and your findings. You must allow you and those you've deemed worthy to stand alone, separate from the masses, and guard these secrets, reserving them only for those proven to be worthy by whatever criteria you judge this. We must not share our information with "them", because even if the human race forged together to achieve a goal, as soon as you found yourself on the steps of the temple, you'd feel a knife slide between your ribs. This is how humanity works. We must not share our information with the grey people, the average, the diluted, the center-walking 9-to-5er who settles for an alright spouse and an alright car and judges the value and success in their life off of these criteria. If we do this, there will no longer be a distinction between "us" and "them"; your secrets will be commonly and lazily discussed in the coffee shops and internet forums of the world, thrown in with every other good idea that has been relegated to the graveyard of "innate"; in other words, people will cease to "do", and simply "speak". And as we know, speech is lead. Every day I see someone, or meet someone, and I consider indoctrinating them. I consider showing them our secrets and setting them on the road to greatness. And, most of these times, I stop myself. I must not allow myself to let sub-par people in. People must exhibit only the right mental traits, with little room for anything else (and that which can inhabit this area must be correctable). Settling for anything or anyone less than this is condemning your entire group. We must keep our groups of the purest, strongest, leanest stock; we cannot allow the bleating of fat, weak sheep to drone out the growls of the wolves, bears, and boar that inhabit our packs. Keep the secrets under lock and key, as silence is golden.

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Spears Facing Out- The Mind

Spears Facing Out- the Mind I like to approach the grind of self improvement from a place of isolation. I like my mind to ferment inside my skull undisturbed, allowing for the growth of organic thoughts. These organic thoughts are what motivates me the most; they're the thoughts that makes me feel as if I'm being pulled forward by ropes at my wrists. These are the thoughts that I don't have the choice to abandon. When I let other people take them out and play with them, rearrange them, and shove them back in, I'm left with an adultured sense of motivation as well. My actions cease to be an honest and innocent approach, where I'm the only benefactor. I find myself working to please others, to try what their edits because I don't want to deal with them getting upset over my arrogance. This is no way to go through life. Isolation it is. However, in mental isolation, monotony can soon begin to characterize the grind. With monotony comes an urge to escape, often into complacency ("I'm just taking a break", "what should I do next?"). This is the death of progress. When I find myself feeling the grind of demotivation, I remember to be quick to stop the introspection and to look out past the gates. What are the outside factors that drive us? What is the rest of the world doing, looking like? How can its inhabitants be compared to ourselves? Are we on the perfect azimuth to progress, or are we a few degrees off? When the process begins to get to me, I ask myself these questions. I'll look out at my peers, at the parts of the world that I choose not to interact with. Taking a moment to gaze at the desolation often generates all the motivation I need to get back at it. Seeing the drone-like trance I see people in, driven by external stigma comprised of fetishized extremes in life (such as sex, violence, fear), drives me back inward. Hearing the way people talk on the news, how every move a politician makes will be the end of life on earth, seeing people obsess over people who have had so much surgery that they're merely a caricature of a human, seeing people complain and bitch and offer up excuses to simply push down the facts that they don't want to face; all of these things remind me why my spears are pointed out. It's not hard to go back to strengthening yourself when you feel that everything outside the gates is going to try to kill you.

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Overcoming weakness: Redirection

Overcoming Weakness: Redirection The archetype gamer: a fat, unshaven, smelly, NEET, type who invests all of his time and mother's money into video games. He weighs his worth on his character's level, on his kill-death ratio, on the success of the adventures his character goes on. He's the pillar of his sub-community; he's knowledgeable, will debate the worthiness of a level 35 cloak of frost, is the person people ask for help on particularly tough quests or boss fights. What we have here is an individual with all of the traits of a highly successful personality; driven, knowledgeable, willing to study, and most importantly, motivated. This person pours their everything into their passion, and becomes adept at it. Often, when I talk to these folks, they aren't playing "farm simulator 2k17" or something like that. They're playing role playing games; games with violence, work-reward systems, quests for money and glory. They often espouse beliefs that are similar to my own; they believe in the ideas of self-reliance, motivation, survival of the fittest. Talking over the internet, one would imagine these individuals are out dominating industry, markets, whatever mission they have set themselves on. The kinds of guys who most folks don't like their girlfriends hanging out with and don't want to work at the same company as them. But, so tragically often, they aren't doing any of these things. They've made the choice to relegate themselves to the archetypical basement or back room, spending their lives packing their heads full of applicable lore and skill tree facts and cape stats. They put all of this drive into something that doesn't exist. In that world, they have built themselves up to a level 100 god, from a level 1 peasant. But in this world, the real world, the tangible world, they are still level 1. They struggle to interact with this world, the world the body inhabits, struggling like newly-born fawns to rise from their computer thrones to wobble to the kitchen to make the day's feast, comprising of chicken tendies or pot pie. They have let their bodies go geriatric in order to build their virtual bodies. The only difference between myself, or those whom I look up to, and the archetypical gamer is where they put their motivation. That's all it is. There's lots of shit in my life that I don't want to do, that I could give a flying fuck about, that I have to drag myself out of bed to do. But, my motivation is in the right place. My motivation can pivot on an axis; and I can direct that in to whatever I'm doing. If you fit the mold I started by describing, know that you are only a few degrees away from real-life glory. You have developed the fundamentals of mental strength; you have learned to see and seize passion; you have learned to stick with something; you have learned how to let something permeate your life. All you need to do to transfer that character's story that lives in a game to the real life is to apply those principles. Recognize and accept the idea that life is truly what you make it; if you think life is hard, then life will be hard. If you think life is a game, and there's thousands of caches of unclaimed riches, incredible prowess and honor to be earned, then it will be. All you have to do is decide so. Pick a goal and work toward it. Saying that you can't, that it's too hard, that it's not for you is a cop-out. You are capable of whatever you want. Don't relegate yourself to a digital existence, an existence that is stored as one's and zeroes on a solid state drive; choose to impact those around you, and to be remembered for ages to come by real humans.

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Mental Health: Your Mental Diet

Mental Health: Your Mental Diet In the past, I've considered the idea of choosing to filter the range of day-to-day mental inputs to be extremely detrimental to making progress; this is, only focusing in a small slice of the very broad spectrum of sensory inputs we encounter every day. I felt as if only choosing specific areas to focus on (for example, certain music, certain websites, certain people to talk to, certain parts of media) would limit one to a linear approach and outlook at life, not allowing for any type of organic growth, not allowing for the appreciation of new ideas. What I am now realizing is that some degree of self-imposed censorship can be an extremely effective motivating technique, especially with physical and mental training. I have found myself approaching each weight training session with a vastly different mindset; some days I'd be angry, ready to impose my domination over the iron; others, I'd be coming up with excuses, stuck in a whirlpool of "this is going to suck"; and some days I'd be able to go to the gym with a calm, settled disposition, ready to do what I had to do, in a mechanical manner, with a clear mind and high motivation. While it does take training to control the mind, and be able to work it back into your ideal mindset for training, I believe the end goal here may be more desirable than the process: full control of the mind, attitude, and outlook. I have found that the music I listen to, the things I read, the things I watch on youtube, even the people I talk to throughout the day determine where my mind is when it comes time to walk into the arena. If I'm listening to music that I find funny, like the types of rap that are gaining popularity, screwing around on youtube and watching cat videos, and interacting with people I don't know very well all day, I will feel as if my mind is in a fog, numbed. This is because, simply put, I've been numbing myself all day. I've chosen to avoid anything that requires mental sharpness and acuity, that forces me to think about what I'm doing. It's light, fluffy, vapid time wasting. Images of a monkey jerking off in front of a TV come to mind when I think about life like this; it's surface-level stimulation. There is no work, no thought, no struggle. Nothing is earned. I believe that, in anything other than small doses, these types of media should be avoided at all costs. My specifics may not line up with everyone else's, but everyone does have a large swath of the input-spectrum that doesn't appeal to them on more than a superficial level. However, when I spend my day around people who mentally engage me, who always produce conversations that leave me with leftovers to mill over for weeks, when I listen to more intelligent music, and/or music that I have/can make a connection with, when I read philosophy and social commentary, I find myself feeling (and thinking) more evenly. Instead of leaving my room and just realizing that I walked to the gym, I'm analyzing the world around me. At the gym, I have the drive and the mental acuity to focus on my form and lift smart, rather than just jerk the weights around in some amateur semblance of the motions I'm supposed to be doing. I believe that out culture has driven us in a direction where, like a long-term drug user, we become accustomed to quick bursts of emotion; whether it's laughing at a cat video or a song made by someone teetering on a promethazine overdose, or getting upset because of the day's selected views of the world on the nightly news. We avoid deeper thought because the realizations that come at the end of a book or a conversation are viewed as having the same weight as those realizations and knowledge presented in clickbait and buzzfeed articles; "why would I read a book on Neitzchean philosophy and outlook when I could watch a 30 second video summarizing on it, or go on sparknotes?". I have found that, by resisting the fleeting urges to click on those "top ten biggest explosions" videos on youtube, listening to the music on the radio, not watching the news, staying off Facebook, and choosing to spend my time with people I appreciate the company of, who I can just grab coffee and sit down and talk to, I am much more conscious of my life, injecting my conscious into each second, appreciating and milking every moment. I fall into my bed tired, knowing that I truly did maximize and live in that day.

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Fortitude: Keep Your Nose to the Grindstone

Keeping your Nose to the Grindstone It's easy to keep with any of life's wonderful odysseys when you're making progress, when you've gotten the RPM's up and you're cruising along. But the true test, once you have momentum, is keeping that up. It's easy to look around and take the momentum for granted. It's easy to stray with the promises to come back in a timely manner. But all we do, if we lift our nose from the grindstone, is quit. Simply put, that's it. You're quitting, and justifying it by deciding the future and saying that you'll come back to it. But if you lack the fortitude to stick with something always, can you expect to find that fortitude along the untrodden you're quickly embarking down? I wouldn't bet on it. This is where our true fortitude shows; trusting ourselves. We have to get over our present, excited ego; we need to quell these self-sabotaging thoughts that usually sound like "that was a weird thing to be doing" or "I took that too seriously" or "I'll just come back" or "this is better". You need to trust that you made a choice that was important to you at the time and stick with it. Ultimately, you define yourself by what you stick with; not what you're presently doing. So keep your nose to the grindstone. Don't let your gaze wander, because you'll just end up longing for the grindstone once more.

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Soul and Iron

Emotion is the meat inside the clamshell that is your body and action. Soft and tender, it's the most intensity of life; it feels the best but hurts the most. In order to orient and attack life, to get through my days with excellence, full-force, I've taken the time to squeeze the emotion out of each part. When I'm rolling in Jiujitsu, I don't get angry, no matter how much an arm bar hurts. When I'm lifting, it's just me and the iron. When I'm in class or working and I don't want to be there, I don't let myself start to develop self pity. But, i'm finding, that letting emotion seep back in sometimes is okay. There is little that can match the intensity of combining the back-of-the-mind realization that you're about to be tired and trapped under more than your bodyweight (bench pressing) with the stirred up emotional remnants of a breakup through the wails of Percy Sledge. Lifting to soul is different. See, I usually listen to extreme metal when I lift; I like to conjure anger inside, and focus on creating repeated explosiveness in my motions using it. I like to get mad, and imagine that I'm striking the weights, throwing them off me. But when I change the input to something slower and more meaningful, my thinking (and therefore action) changes. It no longer a testosterone-enhanced cinematic fight; it becomes much more real. Hearing another man wail in emotional pain while I've got weight pressing down on me makes me feel a connection with the iron. It makes me focus on the iron, get to know it, work me. It helps me focus on what's going on in my body; it helps me watch my muscles wear out. And most importantly, it makes me slow the fuck down and really let myself suffer. It gets me in a mindset where I'm at peace with, and therefore welcoming, of the eleventh rep (because I'm stronger than what I put on the bar, and 10 really wasn't enough). Lifting to soul makes me feel a way best described as intimate with the iron.

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Forget how to say sorry.

Forget how to say sorry. When I was in Basic, the guys who said "sorry, sir" got lit up that much more. Instead of ceding the conversation and letting them off, the MTI's would come back harder. "I don't want to hear that you're sorry. Own your mistake and prove that you're sorry by not doing it again!" Nobody wants to hear "sorry". "Sorry" is a word you're taught to say in kindergarten when you push someone down. And how many times did you actually feel bad when you said sorry to a kid you wronged? When you say "sorry", it's just reenforcing that you don't care; it's just saying that you're following the social norms begrudgingly; that you don't have the fortitude to finish your fight, or to continue to push your point with a little adversity applied. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't feel remorse; nor am I saying that you shouldn't issue apologies. But your words (should) be a verbal expression of your feelings and actions. So if you feel bad for something, expend the extra half-calorie to formulate something more; "I didn't mean to offend you, I apologize". And if you really don't care, don't say sorry. If you don't feel remorse, don't pretend you did. Own your actions. If you meant to throw a punch, stick to it. Accept just blame, but don't bend over backwards. I hear "sorry" all day. Someone walks in front of me in line on accident. "Sorry". Someone steps on my boot. "Sorry". Someone doesn't hold a door for me. "Sorry". And every time, I think to myself, "are you?". Don't take a knee like that. When you offer a "sorry" before the other person has had a chance to voice any possible disproval, you're just trying to save yourself from the awkward scenario of having the other person bring your mistake to your attention. But how often do you think someone would verbally cut you down for not holding a door? For making an obvious mistake? And even if they did, how bad would it be? Would that confrontation really be worse than any of the alternatives? The most important part of this practice is the effects on the mind; on the subconscious; on the "seed bank". I used to be incredibly nervous. I used to stress myself out over every conversation. I used to rehearse asking someone I knew if I could borrow a pen. When I stopped issuing sorries on every breath, I started realizing that I wasn't so bad; that the ensuing argument against my very existence and following bludgeoning that my mind would fabricate never actually came. And, it gave me a kernel of confidence. See, it's easy to think your way through a fight when you're on your couch, miles away from it. But when you're there (and at the time, with the amount of discomfort I was subconsciously applying on myself), it felt like it was a very real thing; and you freeze up. Or at least I would. But once you start "standing your ground", you will start to see a drop in anxiety. This is because you're simply not aware of the situations that gave you that anxiety previously. You simply don't care. E

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Don't gaze at your goals.

Take what you like, want to do, want to be, and let it permeate you. Let it sink in. Let it go subdermal and infect you. Let it encode itself into your DNA. Don't just stand off in the distance, gazing at whatever it is that you want like some kind of amateur photograph for sale in a coffee shop. What you like or want to be isn't a drop of visual pleasure that only exists for a second in your life, before it turns vapid and mixes with the rest of the stimuli around. You owe your goals more than that. Step forward, grab your goal by the neck, and bring it in. Let it infect you. Let it plunge so deep that it squeezes your old reality out. You have to become your goals.

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On Certainty, Belief, and our Perception of All that is Around Us

What is belief? What is the true meaning of belief? To me, belief has a foundation in solidity; it is defined by, and defines in itself solidity. Belief is not simply a chosen subscription to a specific idea, it is an innate attachment; it is the foundation laid so deep within consciousness that we will never truly be able to gaze upon it; we will never learn it's intricacies; we are left to define it by it's apparent effects. We must use "feeling" to realize and rationalize it, and what it defines and affects. To say that one believes in anything is usually incorrect; how can one simply know? The ability to even attempt to define belief is a culmination of all learned skills of perception and rationing; to understand where your personal borders are, to understand what is below your feelings (the anchors of personal truth, of which the chains of sensory/ reactionary emotion are attached), to understand what makes you feel a certain way about anything, takes years of careful and perceptive self exploration. We must learn about by the source by listening to the echoes; by watching the ripples left by; by observing the gravitational effects of it on everything else around it. Therefore, to say that one 'believes' in something, anything, how does one know that it is accurate? How can one know that they are correct in their observation? How can they know that their definition of belief is parallel to the belief of anyone else? One who professes their belief in a specific flavor of someone's god may by mistaken; the depth and density of the feeling that they perceive as "belief" may not be explored in such a way where the metaphorical cloak is lifted from what they actually believe. The most concrete thing in life may end up being as solid as dry sand compared to someone else's belief in anything else; and in this case, how do we know what we believe? How can we know? How can we get to the point of absolute certainty, since the belief itself cannot be observed, it's effects simply monitored. How can we observe all that there is to observe and test this? This is a common point of confusion; this is where the "wall" is for most people. We all like to think that we understand our beliefs; our belief in god, ourselves, politics, morality, and even in the certainty of our surroundings (reality); but often, we make emotional decisions when faced with this question; we don't like to be challenged in our perceived certainty, in our unaddressed feeling of absolute, and so we need an easy reply. "I believe in my sports team", "i believe in god", "i believe that I love a certain person". But these things remain unchallenged, and are a point of fallacy; do you really believe in your sports team? Do you believe in their unfaltering, almost divine ability to win every single game they play, almost as if the mathematical code of the universe dictates it and allows for no deviation or error? And do you believe completely and absolutely in your flavor of dogma, and everything that it lays out? Do you truly, without a doubt, believe that things have, are, and will continue to happen as said by your dogma? And do you believe absolutely in the feelings that you consider love? Do you believe in the immortal certainty of these feelings, of the absolute mathematical truth of that statement, and the weight it holds? Do you really believe? Many people just can't understand this, just don't have the depth or capacity to understand this, as they haven't perceived anything below the surface; their inner workings. I no longer believe in belief. I cannot think of anything that I can be certain of; even the existence of life itself; I feel that I believe that I am conscious and cognizant currently, but I have genuinely questioned this in the past, and I am not absolutely sure of this anymore. If you're unsure of the existence of life itself, if you have doubts about the validity of your own perceptions, and their own truth to yourself (something that should, mathematically, certainly go hand-in-hand, as one's own perception should automatically produce personal truth), how can you believe in a sports team? How can you believe in morality? How can you believe in politics? In search of belief, to find and identify the beliefs within myself, I've resigned to ignorance by choice; that resigning to the idea what I am perceiving in the moment is my reality, and that the 'current' does not extend into the past or the future; that any semblance of certainty is a myth, as fundamentally, certainty does not exist outside of the present moment, and therefore belief cannot; the concept of belief is a catch-22. In choosing emotional immersion in the present, i'm choosing to answer the question that is "what do I believe?" with another question ("Does belief actually exist?").