Category: Mindset

I had an interesting face to face conversation recently.

Speaking with an acquaintance, another young man similar in age, we spoke on a subject I rarely get to in person, but know exists due to seeing it online :

No television.

We had a conversation about no television and putting smartphones down.

A discussion about not being slave to the electronics, and instead living life, a real life, in real life as intended.

I spoke of my memory from 18 or 19 years old of being seated with my father and grandmother at a table next to one where a tall hot athletic brunette maybe a year older than me was with her grandpa, but playing with her iphone exclusively, not once looking up at her grandpa for the half hour we were next to them, as he genuinely cared, asking her about her classes and what not.

How I hated seeing that dynamic. Her grandpa was the same age mine WOULD’VE been at the time, only I hadn’t had mine for 4-5 years at that point, while she wasn’t making the most of those minutes.

“There but not there”, he commented.

“Exactly, with family but not truly with them”, my reply.

He spoke of being horrified to see a buddy’s kid have no activities, just screen time. The only thing the kid wants to do being xbox or playstation.

I told him how looking back I’m thankful to my father for moving us from SoCal to New England.

I spent some of my childhood outdoors at wiffle ball, football, shoveling snow, and mowing grass because of this move, and am grateful for it.

Yes I put far too many hours into a playstation, but I look back and
compare it to my buddy out west who basically lost his soul to antidepressants while seated indoors at an xbox in SoCal suburbia.

Dad, thank you.

We both have noticed that full time labor naturally brings us down to zero screen time.

What’s gonna give?

Most prioritize a part time television requirement over everything but their job.

Family? Friendships? Exercise? Making more money? Nah, there’s programming to be viewed.

Fuck that, a job you hate, and television that robs you of everything?

There’s weights to lift, pushups to do!

We all have our priorities.

It can be downright hilarious to not only live in the real world, but snap others into it as well.

Many really are addicts to their electronic devices.

Our grandparents viewed the television as the cool new thing.

Our parents had one from birth.

Hour upon hour viewing devolving into being the norm by my generation.

That laid the groundwork for my generation and younger (and ridiculously older) being iphone addicts.

If you reader are younger than me you can add an extra generation to all the above, as as I write I recall the first kid I knew my age to have a kid, well that kid’s kid is a middle schooler now.

I said something in the work truck about a year and a half back which my coworker told me was profound :

“It’s a law of the universe ; everything, for us it’s electronics, has the potential to be the most useful or most damaging tool to us, a positive or a negative. It’s all in how we direct our usage of the thing.

Many are addicts to their television programs, their video games, to porn, or to compulsively checking facebook, while at the same time in your pocket, and in my lunchbox right now is our individual access to the world’s most complete library.

I choose to learn foreign languages with mine, as more recently porn and video games precedingly were problems when I didn’t use what is only a tool properly.”

A Man exudes vigor and vitality.

His instinct is to be tough, to be hard, to look at the soft world and be it’s opposite.

Another day punching the time clock, eating some slop washed down with a hfcs soda on his break, getting home to his second job of tv time – that day is not the way, it’s not the path.

The masses crave victimhood. They want health problems, and to do nothing more than taking a pill which causes another, then another which causes another, so on and so forth.

What’s an effect of what, no one knows.

To say they want health, just as the sad body on the elliptical wants to say he exercises.

Never once looking at themselves in the mirror and deciding “I am responsible for my own good health”, and making it so.

What if no one ate breakfast, and few lunch?

Intermittent fasting as the norm would result in a far higher average level of health society wide being much higher.

Didn’t hyper dose caffeine all day every day?

What if the start of lunch break was a 15-20 minute walk and 5:00 of jumping jacks or burpees for everyone with a sedentary job?

I always liked that aspect of moving labor, getting good walking mileage every week at work.

Then add on top of that lunch break activity literally anything after work but screen time.

Men used to have hobbies.

I guarantee sleep issues wouldn’t exist having fasted, done cardio, no caffeine, and no television while having hobbies.

I look back and laugh – PE class was ran as a joke.

The grading standards aren’t easily explained. It’d have been better if pass/fail was actually tied to physical tests! Like PT tests for the military.

How is it that gym class is graded unrelated to physical ability, and it’s improvement?

The tests they ran?

Those were just for knowing where you’re at.

With no pacing as a fat middle schooler I bombed the pacer test, but freshman year a self made 40lbs lighter I was laughing going in, a 14 year old kid who knew nothing the teacher expected effort wise was anything in comparison to what he willingly put himself through daily to no longer be the fat kid like he’d been in middle school.

It was a huge compliment when the gym teacher said to the football coach “this would be the easiest class to teach if everyone went all out like him”, and the football coach replying “I wish we had a team full of guys putting in his level of effort all year, through the off season”.

In jrotc I ran extra laps, I’d fit in about 6 while the slowest laziest in the class maybe hit 3.

Our health, physical, mental, and spiritual, is entirely in our own hands.

Energy is garbage?

Stay on your feet all day, don’t rest for nothing. Change that shit.

Take action until your energy is right. Then keep doing so.

Cut out all the vices.

It’s in your control.

As dictator of earth I’d have all men worldwide capable of 5+ pullups for instance, formation morning PT of burpees for all, no prowler necessary as in jim wendler’s vision of being the high king of america.

What you think becomes reality, so don’t be the fucker pulling out page after page of what they claim is wrong with their health.

Instead be the one who gets up every morning and makes their day be in line with exuding vigor and vitality.

I got that can’t stop won’t stop in my veins!

Persistence & Tenacity

The Public Edition :
On 1/27/21 I was not pleased with myself for masturbating.

See while approaching the 1 year mark (10/21/20) of being porn free I had decided to quit masturbation.

1/27/21 was the 100th day without masturbating. I was shy of making the full 100 days by hours.

I said no masturbation for life.

1/27/21 was a cave, and 2/8/21 (today), 12 days later, is another.

Maybe this one is the last, having gone back on my word twice here.

I know I have amazing capacity for self discipline, so we’ll see.

I’m smiling. I expect good things.

Punishment & Self Discipline :

On the 27th I did “half a shave for half a cave”, trimming the beard.

With a short beard for a few days after, I kept thinking I needed to discipline myself, and compulsively ended up shaving fully.

Caving this second time on no masturbation for life, I’m shaving again with the same self discipline protocols I used to rid myself of porn.

Now I like having a beard.

Years ago I started shaving anytime I caved to watching porn.

Many say punishment doesn’t work, well guess what, I disagree.

I’m speaking from experience.

I caved for a couple years here and there to watching porn when I said I was through with it.

I didn’t stick to my word there like I hadn’t with what is the next, and natural, step up from no porn – zero masturbation.

However not once did I not discipline myself since March 2018 when I had that first inkling of “if you cave, you shave”.

I’ve been perfectly consistent with the self administered punishment when I’ve slipped on my own word, and done the vice.

With no masturbation naturally following no porn, my requirement of shaving has been added to it additionally.

Both ends, the next step in self betterment, and the punishment for caving off of that path are the natural steps forward.

So I’ll be clean shaven 24+ hours after the cave as that’s the protocol I’d been using with porn.

The application of punishment was how I got myself to truly quit porn.

It took time, about a year and a half, to me going “I’m never shaving for porn again”, and sticking to it.

I expect that in the future this shaving protocol will be applied to other things on my path of self improvement.

This sounds somewhat close to self torment, yet I’m smiling (it’s all perception), as I see it as simply making myself better while keeping my beard.

If I feel I have to shave because of having done something, it’s an action I must not do.

It’s my unconscious self sending direction my way.

Persistence & Tenacity

The jogger’s face shows suffering.

For a day or two mentally I was going through it.

I held strong.

No porn.
I just fought through that urge, eventually it was phone off, set down in the kitchen overnight.

I dreamt I’d watched! Nightmares about watching porn!

Where’s the phone?
Kitchen.

I didn’t watch.

That’s why the electronic tablet of sorcerery and voodoo overnights in the kitchen.

I have those nightmares about it regularly enough to keep it there.

What do I do?
Go to the gym – burpees.
Reset!

It’s better than doing nothing.

The world may be negative – fuck it.
Burpees I go.

Put on the song that gets me, “sipping on fire” on repeat.

Let’s make the emotions hurt!

Better jogging.
That’s what burpees are.

50 5 pumps to an interval timer, a five pump burpee every :30.

I jog in place the “rest” on all even reps, with a couple extra jogging periods nearing the half way mark.

No quitting, keep going!
Finish the workout. ISYMFS

I jog in place the last 2:30 of the 25:00.

Oh yeah!

Better jogging.
250 pushups, and jogging in place more than 12:30 of the 25:00.

I end with a set of 25 pushups, jump, and a double stomach hit.

Unlike that jogger there’s no suffering on my face, though the song gets to me, and I’ve done my “jogging”.

I feel better already.
Burpees always improve the state.

Muscular stimulus, some sweat, some wind –

Burpees are better jogging.

1/17/21
I go somewhere quiet. I wonder can I go 20 minutes without noise?

No speaking. No listening. No reading.

I set a timer.
No checking the timer.
That’s something I used to do ; check the timer because minutes in silence can feel long.

It’s why while doing timed holds I like to have someone call out the ticks every so often – hearing the time in/time left is a trick for time to speed up.

It’s easier that way.

Because of this no checking the time.

I’m sitting there. With the breeze it’s a bit chilly.

Thinking.

Good thoughts. Bad thoughts.

By checking in, you train yourself to think better thoughts.

Stuff that bothers you, it will be forgotten, otherwise you reframe.

Everything in life can be told in story. Everything is a learning experience.

A simple reframe and it’s no longer mundane.

I highly recommend getting away from the noise.

It’s why I don’t take in the news. It’s why I don’t watch video.

Why go home and just fill the room with flashing noise?

As is there’s enough noise people – passive aggressive, fearful, negative.

I see no purpose in hitting yourself with more of the same from a source that never sleeps, never eats, never hydrates.

Wow! I just got hit with a warm ray of sunshine as I typed the above.

I had stopped typing a minute. The ray came back as I continue.

There are people who sleep with the television on. That’s not healthy.

I look at those who spend lifetimes in front of it, and they’re all emotionally combinations of lonely, sad, scared, angry, bitter.

The whole slew of negative emotions.

I won’t do that to myself.

I’ve cut out much of my consumption.

Even positives.

To trust my own thinking, gut, and instincts.

Some consumption, months later I’ve retained :

The next few paragraphs (italicized) come from a rough draft, I’ve now typed up where I feel they fit.

Wes Watson has “die slow” tattooed on his knuckles.

I get it. I understand the sentiment. The meaning is clear to me.

I don’t want life to go by quickly!

That’s the meaning of “die slow”, it’s about living life to the fullest.

To not have your shit day, day after day go by quickly, but to have perfectly ran day after perfectly ran day go slowly, feeling every moment of pain, every moment of pleasure, joy, every experience experienced fully – never hiding, never numbing yourself to the world.

Having pasted and touched that up the sun shined directly upon me again, and I shivered with the wind.

“feeling every moment of pain, every moment of joy, every experience experienced fully – never hiding, never numbing yourself to the world” – I was articulating this as a teenager, looking at bad habits (video games, television, porn) more and more for the negatives they are until I cut them out completely.

The sun has come through, and stayed upon me, as I go back to sitting quietly.

Ridding Yourself Of The Urge To Watch Porn With Immediate Physical Activity :

Wanting to watch porn is a manifestation of the nervous energy of inactivity.

Idle hands are the devil’s playground, so give yourself something to be busy with.

I’ll always train. It’s a positive activity I am always able to be busy with.

You’re not going to watch porn when your phone is off, set down overnight in the kitchen.

You can pick it up, and turn it on the next morning. It’ll be okay.

Realistically your cell phone does not need to be within arm’s reach 24/7.

It is not at all a necessary accessory to taking a shit, nor to eating a meal.

And you know many treat it as such.

If you’re really struggling to combat the urge to watch porn – smoke yourself.

On the spot.

You’ll even start to associate that same physical location with not porn viewing and wanking, but with the positive activity of PT.

“Get ready for PT!”

I said in conversation recently “if that urge is there, and you’re struggling to not cave – by the time you’ve done 250 burpees that urge isn’t going to be there”.

Ample physical activity is going to rid you of that urge.

I’m committed to no porn for life.

The urge will redirect to better positive paths. It redirects into real life human and positive directions. Guide it.

Do enough burpees and you’ll find yourself without social inhibitions – you’ll be outgoing.

When that urge is worst, wherever you are, smoke yourself with calisthenics.

“Get ready for PT!”

If burpees don’t work logistically, do pushups like a machine gun.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Flying!

And lay thy head to sleep before witching hour. In all likelihood you don’t need still be up, but if you’re awake, and have that urge…

Smoking! 1, 2, 3, 1!

You’ve got this brother.

Persistence & Tenacity

From The Archives :
1/3/17

Years ago the movie Limitless struck me. At the end where the main character learned how to retain his abilities while having weaned himself off the drugs got me to thinking….

Oddly the kids movie Matilda gave me the same thoughts while I was pre-pubescent.

What is the mind capable of? Truly capable of?

What realms of esoteric knowledge does science say is impossible but truly is?

Have you ever with your whole being said something was going to happen that day, and it did?

It may have been seemingly small, but has it happened?

Yes it has.

Have you ever felt like you communicated telepathically?

Talked to a deceased ancestor recently, AND felt their presence?

Wanted to levitate up a flight of stairs?

Who’s to say what is true, what is real, and what isn’t?

You can opt in, or out of ANY belief. You create your reality, why take soceities word at where you have to stop?

Hasn’t society opted to be broke, bothered, beat up?

Hasn’t the average person, the so called sheep opted for thier slop in life?

Why listen to that?

Listen to the 7 year old inside of you! The inner child just knowing to explore and doing it naturally. The part of you thats innocent to bullshit, and doesn’t need external validation. The part that pushes it to the limit because that’s what life is!

Give yourself permission!

Do You 100%, Fully You 100%

Build the iron willpower and watch the magic happen.

Open worlds, open up the universe.

If you don’t, well?

It doesn’t take much, only a conscious decision and some action to change your state.

With conscious effort, over time you build triggers – things that act as reset buttons/switches.

Pushups are one for me.
Positive mantras with every rep make them even more powerful.

You can write/type out all the shit to get it out of the system.

You also can change your mind by changing the body’s posture.

See, posture and mindset exist on a circular feedback loop, you can hack into it at any point.

While the military isn’t perfect about this, their chin up, chest up, shoulders back mantra is 85% of the way there.

Considering many are moping around at 10% or less, 85%+ is damn good.

Put a smirk on your face, and go stand in victory pose.

Take note of how you feel.

Now you know how to change your state.

Persistence & Tenacity

High testosterone is the natural state of man.

Nothing external is required.
Just be high testosterone.

It’s that simple.