Body Alchemy

Body building goals

2007-10-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

I have been making progress. But one thing I didn't do is set a deadline.

So here it is: I want 18 inch arms and a 48 inch chest at a Body weight of 185 lbs by NOV 1. I want 6 pack abs too. The six pack is there under the 20 lbs of fat. This means I have to lose ten lbs a week over the next two weeks. Not impossible. Its been done. I could even water fast, without any exercise and accomplish this. But I plan to maintain lean muscle mass while losing fat, so maybe I will drop the muscle building goal, though.

I will do this by drinking plenty of water and only water as my beverage.

I will eat only Chicken breast, salad greens, sardines and green vegetables for my diet.

I will run and lift weights five times a week for this, so that would be 10 times, to reach my goal. 10 runs and 10 weight lifting sessions.

After I reach this goal I plan to see how I will look and feel. Try to assess my body fat %. I may adjust it some more. I want to maintain around 6%. Then all the muscle gains I make after that will be really exciting because I will actually see them.

By summer I want to have the porportions and muscular definition of a Greek statue. Heroic build. Plus I want excellent cardiovascular fitness to go with it.

Looking like Conan Goal.

2007-09-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

I am feeling that this was not a bad goal in retrospect and that I may in fact reach a pretty close approximation of it.

I have talked about this before, but I think Frazetta painted anatomy so well, because employed proprioceptive awareness. I also think he tapped into his morphogenetic feild.

He portrays Conan, as a short muscular Italian dude.

I used similar techniques as a teen when I used to draw a lot but the Barbarians I drew appear more germanic, because I have germanic ancestors. Somewhere there is a record of my ancestors and their bodily matrixes that I can tap into.

Some of them actually were barbarians, same with Frazettas anscestors.

But anway, this painting does not look like Arnold. You can tell this is a short big boned dude. He has a short neck, thick wrists, a big torso and strong legs, with fairly wide hips. His head is large in porportion to height. Looks to be about seven heads high.

I have the genetic potential to look like this guy. I will never be 6'2 with big muscles packed onto a long limbed moderate bone structure like Arnold. But I can get pretty close to looking like this guy. This is a lot like how I will look.

This isn't what I am looking for in a girlfriend though! Laying there in blood and shit grovelling at my feet.

Another Mesendomorph link

2007-09-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

I agree with the author that this is the strongest body type; stronger than true mesomorphs even. Strongman competitions, Powerflifting, Olympic lifting, dominated by this type. Well, at leat the SHW divisions. Lower weight clas lifters are often quite lean, but still having narrow hips is not an advantage in compound lifts.

I think what it is with the mesomorphs is that there build is not designed for maximum strength but rather maximum power and athleticism. Middle Linebackers are often true mesomorphs, wheras lineman, especially offense are mesendomorphs.

One thing this article mentions also is that Mesendomorphs distribute fat evenly around the body rather than the gut and thus tend to "carry it well." That is true for me. Most people wouldn't guess I weigh 210. Also I have a only 32-34" waist, but frustrratingly I have a layer of fat all over my body, which is a big disadvantage in body building. I can pinch a couple inches basically anywhere on my torso and back.

I think I need to get down to 6% bodyfat to get cut and it may not be feasible to permanently have it that low as, for over a month now I have cut all sugar and simple carbs from my diet and my body fat is holding steady.

Mesendomorph

5 lbs of muscle

2007-09-13T20:08:00.001-07:00

I have been working out for a month and have put on 5 lbs of muscle. I now weigh 210 and my waist has not gotten any bigger maybe even an inch smaller. But now I am 20 lbs away from my weight loss goal of getting down to 185. I still have just as much fat to lose but I think now my ideal weight may have to be adjusted if I keep gaining muscle. Maybe I should shoot for 200 lbs with 6% bodyfat.

As you can see I have the "mesendomorph" characteristics of an "H" shaped torso. I plan to keep working on my widening my lats and shoulders and losing more fat around my waist. I might even be able to get down to a 30" waist.

my bodybuilding goals

2007-09-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't written in this blog for a while, but this seems like the right blog for posts in this category.

I diagnosed my self with diabetes. I have a blood glucose tester and when I eat carbs or sugar my blood glucose shoots way up over 200, close to 300 actually. this explains a lot of the symptoms of feeling like crap all the time that I had been experiencing. Since this discovery, I have been following a strict low carb diet and and have taken up body building training.

If I didn't have diabetes, I probably wouldn't do it. Because really, I think bodybuilding a goofy sport. The people competing at the highest levels are just freaks. They are pumped full of steroids, and have physiqiues way out of porportion to anyone who has walked the earth previously, its unrelated to athletic skill in any other sport. Being close to 300 lbs with 2% bodyfat not looking human, with sprayed on orange tan and oil, posing in a thong...I mean its just idiotic. These are unhealthy, unbalanced people.

So taken to extremes, body building is idiotic. Even not taken to an extreme, its simply a beauty contest. So in that sense it could be construed as being shallow. Its all about aesthetics. In a boxing match or a tennis match, you beat the other person you win. Body building is more like figure skating or a beauty pageant. Its all about impressing the judges by reaching an aesthetic ideal.

But that is not to say bodybuilding can't serve a purpose, in reaching positive goals. I think improving ones phsique is a good goal, strength training is a good goal, health is a good goal, being more confident and attractive is a good goal. I think body building can be a means to an end in these goals.

Also I think I think there is a specific way body building can improve symptoms of diabetes. Because by having a high porportion of muscle in relation to bodyfat, you make your body more receptive to insulin. Type two diabetes is caused by the body becoming insulin resistent. Bodybuilding fits in beautifully with this. Because in body building that is one of the main goals, building muscle and reducing body fat. It alsmost the only thing it accomplishes. So I figued this wold be the best direct route and the subject from which I would get the best direct advice on how to accomplish this.

So anyway, I have been doing this for about a month. I joined a gym. I have been trying to define my goals. A lot of people that engage in body building don't want to look like freaks, that is not uncommon to have that opinion. The truth is though, that without taking steroids, its pretty hard, so most people are in little danger of becoming a freak, even with taking all these steroids to be a freak you need really good genetics, to start with.

But what is my goal? How would I like to look?

I wrote earlier that I would like to look like Frank Frazetta's rendition of Conan the Barbarian. Which I think is a good goal. One thing not quite tangible about it though is that, its a painting and Frazetta, though had excellent skill in rendering human anatomy, he did exagerate for effect.

I can look at these paintings and speculate, just what Conan's porportions would be, but it would be impossible to know for sure. I did however find this website about this thing called the "grecian ideal" it takes into account the porportions of Greek statues. It can be broken down to a formula. It allows you to calculate what your ideal porportions would be based on the thickness of your wrist.

I found out from this that I already have pretty close to ideal porportions. With a 7.5 inch wrist, I am fairly big boned, for exapmple I have friend who is 6'2" 275 and he has a a seven inch wrist.

According to this formula I should have a 48" chest, 18" arms, 18" neck, 18" calves, 25" thighs and a 34" waist.

The fact is I am pretty damn close to that already. My legs especially are naturally well developed, with 18" calves and 24" thighs no matter what I do. If I am a total couch potato, I will have strong legs. My calves especially are the calves of a pro-body builder just from pure genetics. This is also a bodypart nearly impossible to improve if you aren't blessed genetically.

Within a month of body building, I have already gotten my arms from 15" to 17." 15 inch arms are actually pretty big. One thing though is that the measurement with the arms is supposed to be "cold" that is not pumped up from working out. Cold my arms are 15" Wich this measurement requirement of having to be "cold" doesn't exactly make sense to me because body builders don't compete "cold" they pump their muscles up for competition.

I am 5'8" and 205, I estimate my body fat percentage to be about 14%

I found another website that calculates that based on ratio of abdomen to neck size. According to my height and weight, bone structure, neck size abdomen ratio, I have 14% bodyfat.

For general health, doctors recomend 12% bodyfat. So supposedly I am only 2 lbs short of my ideal weight. This is unacceptable to me. For a few reasons.

First of all, even with strong legs, 200 or more lbs on a 5'8" frame is heavy. I can't run regularly without risking injury. I used to run in college and I weighed anywhere from 170 to 180 lbs. This was still a pretty massive build for a long distance runner. Most runners my height weighed 130 or 140 lbs. Its a matter of physics that a runner my size and build wouldn't do as well. I was quite lean, but lean has nothing to do with it. A chubby 160 lber with narrower hips and a lighter frame would have a biomechanical advantage in an endurance race.

Since college my skeleton has continued to mature and thicken, so that my lean body mass has actually increased. I probably have about 175 lbs of lean body mass. So to add about 6% bodyfat to that frame, would give me an ideal weight of 185 lbs.

So that is my goal, weightwise.

Another rason for wanting low bodyfat is aesthetics. I have a body type that could be described as "mesendomorph" That is a combination of mesomorph and endomorph. A pure mesomorph has wide shoulders and narrow hips. Its a matter of bone structure. their torso is shaped like a 'V.' I don't have an exagerated "V" I have a combination of a V and a wide rectangle, more like an "H" but a bit wider at the top. I cannot change the bone structure of my hips. I actually have little fat concentrated around my hips. My waist is actually 32 inches, but my abdomen is "34" My hips are below my waistline and at their widest part their are the bony projections just below the skin. There is no way to make this any narrower. But because of my larger bone structure of the hips, there is more surface area for muscle attachment, So I have very powerful legs.

I am also long waisted, that that means my abdomen has a lot of surface area to store fat. Its a long "H" shaped torso. So that means that a little bit of fat deposited on there become more like an "()" shape, really quickly. Wheras a person with a naturally "V" shaped torso and a short waist could get good bit of chubbiness around the waist and it would take a long time to show up.

My shoulders are pretty wide though naturally and my chest is somewhat developed, so when I wear a large or extra large t-shirt, the shirt has the effect of laying like a tent, and making me look fatter than I am. Plus my lats are underdeveloped and insert rather high on my torso. Lats that are long and insert low, exagerate the "V" shape. To top it off, I have a barrel shaped ribcage, which makes me look fat also.

So for aesthetic reasons, because of my natural shape, in order to to look in shape and muscular, I need to have low bodyfat. I probably should wear closer fitting shirts too.

So summarizing all of this I have an idea of what my goals are and how to reach them. I have decent mass already. I need more defintiion. The definition is there under the fat, I just ned to reduce my body fat and bring it out more. My core is pretty strong, but I won't get a six pack untill I cut fat. My legs are already as large and well developed at they will ever need to be to reach my aesthetic ideal.

My weakst body parts are my chest and lats. I need to focus on them and build more mass. Developing my lats, even though they insert high, will bring out a v shape. My chest is also not as well developed as it could be.

My arms are pretty good, they will naturally improve as I work my chest and abs. My shoulders are above average already, but I should try to exagerate their development even more to bring out more of a V shape. This should be encouraging to my morale because they respond really well to training. So its good positive feedback.

Conan Revisited

2007-05-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

I realize it might sound silly. Its probably a bit juvenile. But my goal was to look like Conan the Barbarian, through reprogramming my nervous system in such a way that my body would begin producing mesomorphic traits.

In the eight circuit model of consciousness, Wilson uses different terms, but basically, the first circuit, the bio-survival circuit is associated with the endomorph body type. The second circuit is the dominance and territoriality circuit which is associated with the mesomorph body type. The third circuit is "reason" and that, though not explicitly stated in "Prometheus Rising" I associate with the ectomorphic body type. The higher circuits of consciousness are not associated withy any type of build.

Also, in the book, the first three circuits are seen as being a bit robotic. None of them are really idolized as being ideal states. So I am thinking in some ways my take on "Prometheus Rising" my seem a bit shallow. You would think I would focus on the higher circuits, which actually I was but I was using the meta reprogramming circuit to reprogram my two lower circuits.

Basically though, what I was doing without realizing it, was reprogramming myself to be much more of an ectomorph, throwing my system out of balance. This was first of all an intellectual exercize. I am living a very secluded, private life, with large expanses of free time in which to think. It's the kind of life that ectomorphs often set up for themselves. Basically my job is to be a room mate for a guy that has a brain injury. His injury is not really that severe, so he doesn't need intensive care, just kind of needs somebody to help him out a bit. He works in the morning, so I have mornings off, also I get weekends off. So basically, my life revolves around reading books, taking walks, writing and surfing the internet. I spend most of my money on books, art supplies, aquarium supplies, and gourmet food. I can't really say at this point camping and the outdoors is a major part of my life. Last year I camped out I think five times.

Pretty quiet, safe life. Good set up for working on writing. In a way I think my body is a bit like water that shapes itself to its environment. I like to eat so I got a bit fat, besides the eating part, pretty extreme ectomorphic life. Not real social. Very mental. All I really did in my expiriment is to do some calisthenics and try to develop skill as an artist to try my hand as a fantasy illustrator.

So I never really got outside my head. I kind of looked at developing my drawing skills as a war, like I was doing battle, so I generated all this heat to basically do pretty tame things, like lay across my bed and sketch. But I worked pretty hard at it for about a month. I did some shadow boxing and calisthenics. I debated some people on the internet. I develped more assertiveness in casual interactions with mostly strangers. I cultivated my appearance more. I tried to aproach problems with more of a fight response than a flight response, or with a response of comforting myself with food.

But at the end of the day, my basic life did not change. I began developing insomnia and aggravated my long term problem I have had had with ibs. I burnt myself out. The frustrating thing is that I burnt myself out before getting to the point of accomplishing anything. I burnt myself out learning how to draw and overtraining! Its not like I got burnt out making money as an artist or running too many marathons. I didn't get anywhere! But I still over did it. I wore myself out.

I began eliminating more and more foods and obsessing over my diet and my symptoms began getting worse and worse. I continued to run and work out even as I felt worse and worse. Basically, I was ignoring the feedback from my bio-survival circuit. When I just said screw it and got a pizza, I opened myself up to that feedback again. The feedback told me to relax, first of all. Also that I need to stop obsessing over my diet and that I need more social interaction and that I should start dating. I have a need for physical affection that I am ignoring.

So basically, I need to adjust my plan. I don't think my goal was that bad. But my life is basically designed to continually reinforce my ectomorphic tendencies. I need to get out more. If I want to be muscular and assertive, I need to engage in adventurous activities and competitive sports. I need to be more social. Whats the sense of being muscular and assertive and spending all my time inside reading books or on the computer?

Also, the blend I have of endomorphic traits isn't all bad. It kind of mellows me out, gives me a sense of humor (which oddly I do have but doesn't come out in my writing) makes me more engaging socially. Endomorphs have more of a baby face, which isn't all bad. Pure mesomorphs, look like they are 35 when they are teenagers, ectmorphs are usually more or less expressionless. So really to have a bit of endomorph in there is not a bad blend. It kind of smooths over the hard sharp edges.

I think the real gains in personal transformation would be for me to work on ways to de-emphasize the more ectomorphic traits, but not declare war on them, like I was doing with my endomorphic traits but rather to bring them into balance.

I feel I am too private, to in my head, too risk averse. But its not like I want to be totally boorish and unintellectual. I need to get all these diverse parts working as a unit. Get enough sleep like endomorphs do, be social. Also like a mesomorph, be adventurous, be assertive and independant live an action packed life. Then like an ectomorph, have self discipline, be aware of the details and be able to write about it.

Putting it all together, I think a lifestyle of going on solo wilderness adventures,writing about them, philosophizing, and coming back to civilization in order to have deep conversations with interesting people, over great food, woulod be the ideal life. Putting some type of competitive sport in there would be good too, which I would also write about.( good example is the book "A Fighter's Heart") Interspersed in there would have to be some intense short term love affairs or somtning as I move from port to port, until I finally settle down with a woman I love. (The relationship thing opens up a whole other can of worms, though I tend to be a person that either gets married or doesn't date at all, perhaps I need to broaden my options a bit without being, for lack of a better word, kind of a pig)

Its a good picture that is taking shape.

Endomorphs not so bad.

2007-05-27T12:34:00.000-07:00

Well anyway, Just to review, I read "Prometheus Rising" by Robert Anton Wilson which involves an eight circuit model of consciousness, I think originally developed by Timothy Leary. One of these circuits is the "metareprogramming circuit" in which you can reprogram all the other levels before it. I forget which it circuit it is, I'll have to check.

Wislon also talks about various "somatypes" which is a body type model, developed by This Guy Sheldon. Sheldon had it tied in with personality traits. I went over all these in earlier posts.

I am a combo of all three types Endomorph, ectomorph and mesomorph. I was trying to reprogram my nervous system, to make it self aware so I could reprogram it to de-emphasize my endomorphic traits and bring out my mesomorphic traits. Just to review ectomorphs are skinny nervous cerebral types, endomorphs are mellow, stable fat types, mesomorphs are combative, muscular adventurous types.

So what I was basically doing was being aware of how my nervous system reacts to various situations and trying to bring about a more mesomorphic, reaction. The idea being that through the body mind connection, my body would then start to create a muscular body and burn fat.

I had some initial success, lost weight, got better muscle tone, then developed insomnia and severe irritible bowel syndrome. I had the runs nearly everday for two months and never had one night where I got eight hours of sleep.

Interestingly, two things endomorphs have no problem with is getting enough sleep and digesting their food. Its the ectomorphs that have erratic sleep and eating patterns, nervous stomachs etc.

What I had actually been doing was making myself more of an ectomorph and getting out of balance. So sure, I lost twenty lbs, but had no energy and felt sick all the time. Plus, this whole thing of reprogramming my nervous system as an esoteric expiriment is a very cerebral exercise to begin with, not somthing a pure mesomorph would probably do.

I was living pretty much in my head, and on the internet, a very private secluded existence. I was obsessing over my diet, eliminationg more and more foods, so then I just said "screw it" and went out and got a pizza, some Ice cream a liter of coke and a six pack of beer. As soon as I made the decision to do this I felt better. More mellow, more go with the flow.

So guess what? Today, no IBS. I had eliminated all dairy and wheat and sugar and these foods were loaded with that stuff in an obscene way.

I think really balance is good. I was researching ibs and it turns out it could be linked to issues of under or over control. That makes sense. In the past I had overindulged with food and I over reacted and over controlled my diet. This led to more nervous problems more anxiety.

Also, Wheat, cheese, and Beer, sausage, foods like that are kind of heavy. They ground me. I am high strung enough as it is. Eating basically just vegetables and lean meat, just makes me more spacey, more hyper sensitive to my environment.

The endomorphic qualities balance me. Mellows me out. I think it actually compliments my mesomorphic qualities.

No more "Life Replacement Shake"

2007-05-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

My Laptop Crashed today. I think its for the best. I've been spending too much time on the internet. I was using it as a life replacement shake. Take out all my internet usage and my life rings a little hollow lately,I am afraid.
I had so much fun last year exploring the wilderness of Northern Wisconsin and the UP. Only four or five trips in all. Three weekend trips and a week long adventure. Too bad it couldn't have been more. That's my goal this summer to spend as much time as possible in the woods, connecting with nature. It will; be time well spent. I have some regrets in life, but one thing I don't regret is any of the time I have spent in the wild.

I don't know how much blogging i will be doing. I will try to check in once a week. I probably will post more in my other blog Free Range Organic Human. I have an article about some huge turtles I saw the other day. Check it out of that interests you.

My expiriment to reprogram my nervous system is on hold for now. You'll have to search back in the archives for info on that. But anyway. I have IBS and insomnia pretty bad still. I might also have sleep apnea. I think its blocked energy. Blocked emotions. I am not doing enough of what I want to do in life I suspect. And that is do be an outdoor adventure writer. To do that I have to be an outdoor adventurer not a person living vicariously through the internet spending four or five hours a day online.

There is fear holding me back, I think. I am getting a hold of it slowly but surely. I have picked up a lot of baggage I again in my life that I need to excise once again.

So basically I will be spending this summer as cheaply as possible, being outdoors and saving money for my next big adventure.

The Muskrat 's World

2007-05-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

I made a post today, but It seemed more like a free Range organic Human post, so I moved it to Here

Where I forsee myself ending up

2007-05-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

I can't keep continually changing indefinitely at a break neck pace. I think there will be some periods where I am fulfilling my life purpose at a more or less even pace.

I can see myself having lots of adventures, traveling a lot and writing about my experiences. I also see myself being physically active, somewhat of an athlete even, doing hardcore adventure type travel. This is a significant part of me. I have been getting this aspect of myself in gear.

There is also this aspect of me, that is aware of the politics and culture of different countries, I also have a somewhat well developed aesthetic with food and art, that will serve me well as a travel writer. I mean, the potential is there for me to develop these aspects of myself to be able to write for fairly sophisticated audiences in these regards. I am not there yet, but its there.

I am also a Futurist, I think. I am optimistic about the future and not pessimistic. I can embrace the future.

(BTW don't miss the post below, of which this post is kind of a continuation)

I question how deep to go, but the changes have been huge.

2007-05-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

I was writing a lot of personal history, for my blog here, and decided to save it for a while. I don't know if I want to be that revealing.

But anyway, things are really changing. I look different, feel different. I have been going through a continual process of intense personal transformation going on three years now.

Just in really broad political/philosophical affiliation terms:

2000 I voted for Bush, because basically as a born again Fundamentalist Christian he was the only choice. I almost voted for Keyes though.

2004 I voted for Nader, I was planning to get divorced and no longer a Christian, even though I was still going through the motions. I had been a pretty serious Christian too, I went to Bible College, preached sermons, helped feed the hungry, clothe the naked etc. I am not making light of it. But it wasn't just a passing phase.

by 2005 I officially broke with and left my wife, my faith, my home and went to Madison Wisconsin. My political interests were basically surrounding The issues of 911 conspiracy and Green anarchy/Peak oil collapse of Civilization. I was into John Zerzan and also David Icke. Basically I read everything those two guys ever wrote.

I volunteered for a while at the Madison Infoshop, didn't get too deeply involved but I did have a fairly popular blog "Free Range Organic Human" that at its peak was getting about 200 hits a day. Not huge but, a fairly big market share of the kind of politically fringe demographic it appealed to.

I've kind of reject that stuff kind of like I rejected Christianity and like my feelings toward Christianity, its not that I think this stuff is stupid.

But basically, I relate the turning point to an experience I had on a shamanic journey, where I was transformed into a dragon. To be so steeped as I was in David Icke and also Christian Theology, this was a powerful and troubling experience. But what I think it is is that my psyche was revealing to me an apect of myself I was rejecting and needed to accept and integrate.

Because in the David Icke view of the World, the dragons are the bad guys, but what does that mean if I am a dragon? Now I want to say, I wasn't totally sold on Icke, in a literal sense. I alternated back and forth as to the literalness vs. Metaphor of what he was saying, but still I knew who the main people he was focusing on were. All these conspiracy theorists are talking about the same people, they just don't call them lizards. They are the "Powers that Be" "Global Elite" "blue bloods"

So I got this idea, that, what if, secretly, I am one of these guys? What if I have this reptilian DNA? What if I am some kind of sleeper or something?

So I started to look at it from the other side. I started trying to see things from the reptilians perspective. So I got into reading Leo Strauss, The so called "God-Father of the Neo-cons" I read Nietzsche, I studied the Eastern Sea board Establishment, skull and bones, Nicholas De Vere, but from a sympathetic point of view.

Nietzsche more or less spells things out, in terms of the "Servant morality" and how the down trodden (or people who perceive themselves that way) view the world differently than aristocrats and how aristocrats are much more self affirming and positive in how they view the world.

I actually relate this to primitivism and how aristocrats actually have more of their primitive tribal type drives more intact and that the domesticated working class people are the ones that are so much more distorted. But Icke, so inculcated with the servant morality can only see powerful people as monsters.

But anyway that is a whole book right there, but basically, This is what led me to self improvement, personal achievement. I am no longer seeking to lose myself inside some greater thing, these things are mostly all projections anyway. I don't think what I am saying is that I should be totally selfish. I think I will have a contribution to make to the greater good. But really I am making peace with the World, peace with myself and doing this, while still really seeing things as much as I can for what they truly are.

So its been a hell of a trip.

Improvement?

2007-05-15T12:59:00.000-07:00

I think I used to look more like this:

Now I look like this:

Some thing's changed. I don't know how easy it is to translate to my blog. But anyway, hot chicks are smiling at me.

Reformatting my neural hard drive

2007-05-14T17:28:00.000-07:00

Its hard for me to gauge how photogenic I am. I might post a picture, but I am looking a lot better lately. I just look more handsome. Partly its dress, I got rid of a lot of clothes that had kind of a "loser" energy surrounding them and got some new clothes. I have been working out and losing weight, mostly though its an energetic change.

Another thing about me that hasn't changed is that I am still very empathic, I am in tune with lots of diverse kinds of energies, so I can tell when women are sexually attracted to me. I can sense sexual energy radiating from them toward me. I am noticing more of that and noticing it coming from more attractive women.

I had one more breakthrough, this weekend. I want on a long walk through a busy area of town and worked on my nervous system. I think I have symptoms of PTSD. The last thing I would do is go to counseling or take medication. That is just somthing I will not do. I am working it out on my own.

But I mean, for a middle class white kid, I haven't had that tame of a life. I have been assaulted probably twelve or thirteen times. I had my jaw broken in a fight when I was 12, never told my parents. It was not a real serious break but a fracture. I set it myself by biting down hard until my teeth fit together again. I still have a bump where the bone healed over I can feel with my tongue inside my mouth. I've had my nose broken three times. I used to not really want to fight. I was kind of a doormat. Finally I got to the point where I would fight and not back down, that was probably 15 years ago. Since then every couple years people have given me enough of a hard time, in various scenarios for me to get up in there face and they have always backed down. Actually its been probably five years since that type of thing has happened. I am not going to assault someone that doesn't want to fight, I am not going to start a fight. But being willing to fight is not the whole battle. I became hyper vigilant and that causes stress.

It became stressful for me to be around lots of people. Because its hard to constantly evaluate everyone in the area. This is one reason, I think I am so comfortable in the wilderness with no people around.

So the challenge I put before myself was to reprogram my nervous system some more so that crowds and noisy places don't bother me.

First I worked on my breathing. Belly breathing, slow and powerful, not quick and shallow and high up in the chest. Plus I walked slower, with not such a quick stride. A fast stride reinforces the nerves. I did this and walked ten or twelve miles until it didn't bother me at all. Plus, I have worked on my appearance. I look handsome and fit and more confident anyway, so that helps too.

I am doing more social activities, I want to listen to a nine piece Jazz band at a resteraunt with some friends and Sunday went to a graduation party.

When I do interact in social settings I am very out going and funny, charismatic even. But what I think it is is that I have these emotional scars and that causes avoidance behavior. Its more or less unconscious. I end up avoiding things because of it out of self protection and end up avoiding more pleasure than pain. I trade relief from potential anxiety for loneliness.

So I have figured out it isn't a good trade. Plus its not like I hang out in dive bars, or play high stakes poker with criminals. The kinds of social circles I am drawn to are nice intelligent people.

So working so hard on waking, I even picked up a wealth attracting walk. I thought of how would I walk if I was a kind of well off guy that was still young and down to earth and energetic and maybe had a big boat or something or went on adventures in the Himalayas. I got kind of a sense of that kind of a walk. It was a laid back confident kind of a walk. A walk, like I am tanned, hair back stylishly but a little unruly walking with really high quality outdoorsey shoes on. Walking with an expectation of seeing really beautiful things and meeting gracious interesting people.

It came up in conversation with a girl I know, friend of my mother;s but younger than me actually that "why don't I date?" I am cute, I am funny, I am available. Why don't I date.

Good question. Basically I have had a lot of issues to work through without wanting to complicate my life by dating. But I am working a lot of them out.

So this was a challenge for me.

I just enabled anonymous comments.

2007-05-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

This will allow people to comment without needing a google account. It will also allow people to say nasty shit to me if they want to under a fake name. Just to let you know, I never do that. I always post in my real name. If I were to post under a fake name, just get aggressive and confrontational with people, I would feel like pussy.

But that may not bother you, you may have already accepted the fact that you are a spineless weasel. So have at it!

Seriously though, posting in my real name should also act to cause me to want to be more civil. I don't really know why everyone wants to be so anonymous. I don't get it. Its already kind of anonymous and moderated electronically to post on the internet. Its not face to face anyway.

But it pays to be civil and decent to people just as a general policy. Recently was debating with Zac on his blog, probably not a debate from Zac's perspective and some guy on there thinks He's Sherlock Holmes and psychic or whatever and just "knows" I a post on there under fake names also. Hate to break it to you buddy. Psychic you ain't.

But it just goes to show you that being overly confrontational on the internet can attract ill will from others. There is all this drama on the internet. I am kind of losing my stomach for all the drama.

Plus, This blog was created around the idea of me performing various magickal expiriments on myself. Everyone is a little magick. We are all connected on a spiritual level. On a spiritual level there is no time and space. So by going around to different boards and being a little too aggressive and confrontational, I can attract ill will. People can come to my blog and say "Look at that stupid asshole. I hope nothing he is trying to do will work out."

And that can effect the expiriment. Its like the "evil eye." Its envy. Eventually it will come back to bite the person right in the butt that gives the evil eye, because we all project our own issues onto others, and by giving someone the evil eye you end up hurting your self, by resenting others you prevent abundance from coming into your own life.

But still, the less useless drama I attract in to my life the better.

Why I like to Argue

2007-05-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

I started this thread on the Steve Pavlina forum. It helped me draw out and further refine my view of good and evil. Here is my latest post:

I don't perceive, from my end anyway, that you have nailed down a distinction between what you call "true good" and consensus reality good. You mention Jesus, MLK jr, earlier you held up Ghandi as an example of a polarized lightworker.

Lets take Ghandi. Ok, so Ghandi represents True Good. Ghandi reprsented independance for India. I don't if that is "True" good. It was good for India. But I mean all countries have their interests, in terms of their country. You can look at countries, States, as individual actors in competition with one another for power.

So according to your perspective does that mean the British Empire represented "True evil"? Everything the British did was evil? The fact that people in India that speak English now, can be a force in Global commerce is evil? They would have been better equipped to thrive in the global economy had they never been colonized?

They would have been better off with this caste system and widows being burned alive and all that crap?

I think its all subjective.

I think rather than there being a "True good" and a "True evil" I think it is more likely that there are all these diverse forces competing with each other for supremacy and through that struggle good emerges and progress happens.

Its a dialectic type of thing. Thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis.

There are polarities but I think these polarities are not constant and static but dynamic and they emerge differently depending on the situation.

Basicaly that is how I look at life. There are all these forces battling each other and through this struggle progress emerges. I see it everywhere, the lions chase the zebras, balance out each other's populations and keep each other in balance with the
Earth and keep each other strong. There would be no beautiful cheetahs without beautiful fleet footed impalas. That's why I like to argue. I take a position argue it against a worthy opponent with the opposite position and through it hopefully we come to some closer apprehension of the truth.

There is no universal principle of good and evil. There are various polarities creating a dynamic balance. They start out unbalanced and than balance each other and allow something else to emerge from them.

Arguing with non-dualists

2007-05-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

Well anyway, I listened to this podcast on this Guy's blog:

Alchemically Brain Damaged

So then I started out wanting to challenge him on some things, because I have a problem with non-dualism. But it's like one of those things where if you challenge a guy that is into "enlightenment" and so on, they just say you are ignorant. They get all haughty and condescending. Its like a little club they have.

There is something to it but its not the end all be all they make it out to be. But they spend all this time trying to experience "oneness" and so the more time they spend on it, the bigger and bigger it gets in their mind so when they do experience it, They have to look at it as the end all be all, otherwise it would have been a big waste of time right?

Here is what I think it is:

As Christian I had this idea that after I die my spirit would live on in Heaven. But this idea I had of my spirit is really my personality, my identification with my "ego." What I thought of as my spirit are all the things Buddhists are trying to get beyond.

So then they do get beyond it for moments at a time. They realize this "observer" when you observe yourself is just an illusion. When they realize this, they catch a glimpse of what the Universe is like if they didn't exist. They get a glimpse of the Universe as it really is totally outside themselves. If you identify with the ego, you will die, but if you identify with the Universe, you will live on. Its a shift in perspective that can be very powerful and liberating.

When you get outside of all your own personal bullshit, you see just how insignificant it is. Then you can kind of see yourself from kind of a Godlike perspective and have compassion on yourself, like you would have compassion on another person, or like God having compassion on you.

So to experience this and still think its Bullshit, is not something most non dualists and Buddhists can handle. They can't accept that its possible for some one to both have this experience and be skeptical of it. All they can do is get all haughty, and say you are ignorant but that some day if you mediate hard enough you too will see.

So why am I angry about this? I am angry because I think its Bullshit. Why am I here on this Earth? Am I here to spend all my time contemplating non-existence? Am I here to become one with the Universe?

I think these people are all on the wrong track. They are missing the boat on life. I feel like all the time I spent on spiritual things may be mostly a waste of time. I think maybe there are some things worthwile, there is some postive all embracing spirituality that would be worth studying out there. Some type of spirituality that says "Yes!" to life, But I want to make sure, because just maybe these non-dualists are right. I am just about ready to totally write them off because when challenged they always say the same bullshit. Like this Little prick Alan, that commented on there.

I post in my full legal name, every time. I have never once lied or misrepresented anything that has happened in my life on this blog or any other blog I have had. Somtimes I get a little hot, but I am not just "ted" or some anonymous nick name posting on the internet. I figure if I can't be a man and look people square in the eye and speak my mind and let the chips fall where they may than who am I?

But my purpose is not to just harangue people. I am not just trying to be negative. I am interested in things. If I am interested in things, I get serious about it. I scrutinize it. And very often I end up rejecting it.

I've yet to see someone really make a case for the purpose of life being that its about having an experience of non-dualism. Why not just blow your head off? You would be one then. Does life really suck that bad that all you want to do is focus on what is beyond life?

Isn't life meant to be lived?

Spiderman III

2007-05-11T08:57:00.000-07:00

Its interesting to see this movie dealing as it does with themes of Good and evil,after my "dark worker trial." Here are some observations.
Peter Parker is a dork. He’s the guy people shoot spit wads at in class. So I guess the opposite of being evil is being really really corny and dorky. The fact that he is also spiderman, makes him more of a dork, IMO. That is, the fact that he has all this power but only uses it “for good” and has to work a second job in order to provide for his needs and still be kind of broke, which most college students are, anyway, makes him more of a dork. If he were a pro basket ball player, should he play basket ball “for good” and give all the money away and deliver pizzas in order to eat, because other people can’t be pro-basket ball players? I say that because some young people blessed with amazing abilities, such as pro-athletes, actors, child prodigies of various types, can be rich and powerful at a young age. Are these extraordinary individuals “evil”?

How should an extraordinary individual behave? I guess that is what I am asking. In the comic book universe, they try to blend in with everyone else, even to the point of being dorkier than everyone else. They only use their power “for good” which means for the good of society, to prevent natural disasters, fight “Bad guys” ETC.

Everything they do is of no direct benefit to themselves, only to society, which benefits the collective and so in turn benefits the superhero, indirectly. Super-heroes put everyone else first.

Good and Evil, in the popular idea of it, that “wholesome” movies and 1960’s comic books, reflect, is put out to be this universal principle, this absolute. Anyone that has ever given the subject a lot of thought doesn’t look at it that way. Its really not considered a sophisticated way of looking at things.

But what is “sophisticated” anyway? That’s not an absolute either. But I used to look at things in terms of good and evil and observe people that seemed intelligent, wincing a bit, and now I have some idea why.

Its very problematic. I mean, Islamicists have been called evil, by certain “patriotic” Americans and the Islamicists, themselves, call America “the Great Satan.”

What is good vs. what is evil is obviously very subjective and ethnocentric.

That’s the whole point of it. The world Peter Parker lives in has very 1950’s values. He’s all about “Mom and Apple Pie” and so forth. In this Universe, the Bad Guys, are usually one dimensional, and set about being destructive, from shear insipid mean spiritedness.

In this one “Sand Man” has kind of a sympathetic back story, which was refreshing. He’s clearly a villain but has a noble reason for turning to crime, its not just from shear meanness.

What it comes down to in this little microcosm, which mirrors the attitudes of the macrocosm we live in, is that “Good” is doing everything to promote the interests of the herd. Putting the herd first. Making sure no one has to suffer from natural disasters, like life basically, also squelching out anyone from acting through self interest, things like that.

Its societal programming. What’s evil, is the individual. Evil is using power not to benefit the herd collectively, but to benefit oneself. Evil is what is carnal. Evil is following ones passions. Evil is uncivilized. Its animalistic. Nature is evil. Tornados, floods, plagues pestilences are evil, but also just as evil are human passions like lust.

It was interesting to me that when Peter Parker allowed himself to be tempted by evil, he immediately became more attractive to the opposite sex. He even looked sexier. He had a more stylish hairdo, he carried himself better, He took it a little over the top, and ended up looking ridiculous eventually, but that was contrived.

Initially, the movie was playing into what everyone in the audience knows. The bad Boys pull more chicks. Here is why it is.

Like I said earlier, nature is actually considered by society to be evil. Wild weather, wild animals, as well as wild animal passions are considered evil. But we all know how babies are made right? If there was no lust, there would be no babies and none of us would be here. Women are the ones that have the babies and I think that is why women are a bit more in touch with their animal passions. Of the two sexes men are most distorted by society, because they can be. Women have to continue to be in touch with their natural passions, or else we are all sunk.

Society wants to control these animal passions, dam them up, change them into something else, because these are all untamed forces that can be destructive to the collective survival of the herd. But society can’t wipe them out totally or it would completely self destruct.

The movie ends with a dorky moral platitude spoken by the protagonist. But really though, I found just the attempt at tackling the subject matter of good and evil to be a satisfying endeavor.

I want to say though in closing, I don't look at this as a conspiracy. Society programming people to believe in the society's definition of "good" and "evil" is a phenomenon of having a mass society. I am not necessarily against it. I am not advocating that everyone always behave selfishly and never altruistically. I just like undestanding what is going on and understanding myself and not just robotically responding to societal programming. To me that is what free will and choice is all about and not simply a choice between "good" and "evil."

New Approach

2007-05-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

I participate in the Steve Pavlina forum. Here is kind of a humorous post I started that really hits home though: Subjective Reality and my Pet Frog

This is a realization I have had about how I need to stop resenting seeing other people (even frogs!) being happy and successful.

Also, a few days ago, I made peace with the Bush family. Its just a big good looking preppy family. Thats the kind of family I'd like to have some day. So I better make peace with families like that now or I will never attract one like that into my life.

Plus, I am going to try to let things come to me a little easier and not view life as a bitter struggle. Conan the Barbarian my not be the best role model for me. I don't have the stomach for it. I have IBS and insomnia. That means my guts aren't happy.

I mean sure, it would still be nice to have a bidybuilder body, but I can't get that having all the food pass right through me and never getting enough sleep. Even Alpha male lions get sleep, plenty of sleep. I need to learn to let abundance come into my life a little easier. No need for all this bitter struggle. My brain is just too active. I am reifying all this mental struggle and taking it out on my guts. Google can't spell "Reify" that's funny! Gogle might not understand reify but my guts do!

The Imperious One

2007-05-10T08:05:00.000-07:00

I have decided to eliminate all dairy, including butter, soy, corn and eggs and nuts. I have already eliminated gluten, which eliminates wheat, barley and oats. So basically all I am going to eat are veggies fruit and meat, except eggs.

So, I’ll see how this goes. I got eight hours of sleep last night but I still got horrible ibs symptoms, probably because of the dairy.

So I got up and decided to run anyway. I am battling this inner wimp. That’s basically how I look at it. I don’t have any injuries or anything. So I can push myself a lot harder. But the greater part of me, or I should say, the larger part of me, did not want to run, or if I had to run, just trudge along pathetically. What do you think when you see some kind of chubby guy waddling along at a snails pace all out of breath and sweaty?

Its pathetic. I won’t run like that. I don’t have to. So I kicked it into high gear through sheer force of will. So I was thinking, how fast can I go on sheer fortitude, with no pleasant sensation at all associated with the running? Because once I get in shape, there will be a joy of running. But right now is no joy, only unpleasantness.

So I kept pushing myself, concentrating on just making each stride. I can physically do it. But I guess what I was doing was running on some type of fuel before, and the fuel was not there. When I used to run, I had a lot of fuel to run. It came easier.

I got this picture of this inner wimp. He was in his thirties, balding, fat, with diaper on, sucking his thumb, wanting comfort and safety. So then I was overcome with a murderous rage. I wanted to kill that pathetic piece of garbage! So that awakened the imperious one within me, the wild beast that Nietzsche wrote about. My inner barbarian was awakened. How does the imperious one run? Like he’s running into battle! He has a fierce gaze and runs as fast as he can all for the glory and the prize. I awakened this Guy. It was powerful, Then I got to the end of where I said I would stop, and the imperious one said “Hell no!” and began to sprint. He would have run the whole course over again, but I held off. I was wondering about how I can do this. How can the “imperious one” be so powerful, yet I can over rule him? How can this wimp become so powerful? It must be that this “I” I am referring to, call it the ego, is some type of executive function. But I want this imperious one to come out more. This is an archetype I can access whenever I want. I will probably end up competing to win in races if I keep accessing him and not simply run to get in shape. One I awaken this archetype, I have to give him a bit of free reign otherwise he just sinks back into the deep. I have to feed him to keep him alive. I’ve awakened him before and then just as I would let him start making some decisions, I squash him back down. I am a little afraid of him what he might do. But, damn, He’s better looking, stronger, sexier and more adventurous. He’s Tyler Durden.

Maybe this is why I have been having insomnia. Paralell to Jack in “Fight Club?”

I have observed some people, who embodied this “imperious one” archetype, let it come out, give it free reign. I had a chance to be on the wrestling team with an All American in college. I mean, this was Baptist Bible College, a small private college, and we had our own little athletic conference, much smaller than the NCAA. It was the NCCAA (two c’s) It stood for National Christian College Athletic Association. But there are only so many Christian Colleges, so during the season, we wrestled secular schools in NCAA division Three. Then at the end of the season we would have a National Tournament with all the Bible College wrestling teams.

But I am convinced Nick would have been all American in that venue as well, because I saw him beat all these people. He was pretty brutal too for a Bible Student. I heard people commenting on that in the Stands, when He would be just totally manhandling his opponent practically choking them out at times with this controversial head lock maneuver call the “Merkel” which was like an illegal choke but with an arm inside. I’ve since seen people choked out with it in the UFC. So it was controversial, some refs would not let him use it.

Well anyway, I practiced with this Guy and for the first few weeks of practice. I became obsessed with trying to beat this Guy. I felt this desire to conquer him overwhelming me, then I held back and squashed it. I squashed the imperious one.

I was in Bible College, I was thinking maybe being consumed with kicking this Guys ass and taking his position was wrong somehow. He was my weight. I weighed about 170 lbs after running cross country the season before. Nick wrestled 167. It would have been the weight class for me. Instead I opted to wrestle 155 and later 177.

For a while though, I wanted to beat Nick. For about two weeks. He was way better than me, but I hit him with everything I had. I figured by doing that I could only get better. Maybe I would catch him. It felt great. I even felt my senses awakening, the colors and aromas of life got a little brighter. Then I squashed this part of me back down and compromised. I began to practice with people smaller or not as good as me.

These compromises in life have bitten me in the butt, cumulatively. I am done compromising. I am letting the imperious one out again.

I am a little disgusted withmyself even writing that last line, because writing it isn’t doing it. But doing it is doing everything I want to do that I am held back from doing through fear. Fear is a door. Compromise keeps me inside the door but there is a big beautiful world out there waiting for me.

Does that sound cheesy or what? Back it up wimp.

4 mile run today

2007-05-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

I am trying this thing with food combining, not eating meat and starch together. I think its helping a little and my insomnia is a little better. I mean I got probably six hours of sleep.

So Feeling horrible and then feeling a little better doesn't mean I felt great today. I felt like going back to bed, for my time off from eight to one, but I didn't, instead I forced myself to go on a four mile run. I didn't feel like running, but I just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Then once I was out there, I thought, "Why run like I am dragging my ass here?" So I picked up my stride and ran with better form. I began to realize just how powerful my mind is and how I am not using it to my best advantage. I have been using it like a break. So I was struggling to turn the breaks off and just commit to running. I realized that the only reason don't just run my ass off here, is because I am thinking I can't yet. I have this belief that I am not sufficiently in shape and that I must run slowly for a while first.

(One mental note here. No more cursing in this blog. Its common and lower class and that's not what I am about.)

But really that's ridiculous. I could run a lot faster than I was and and only by forcing myself to run fast will I get better. All trudging along accomplishes is the strengthening of my trudging muscles.

So I fought this battle for a while, this battle of my mind and pushed myself and finally the trudger won out, I trudged the last mile or so, and then I walked the rest of the way. I am not giving up. I am going to keep at it. I ran about four miles on a 6 mile loop and walked the rest. I could have gone back to bed, though.

One thing I didn't do is drink coffee. I want my will to carry me through my efforts and not artificial stimulants.

This is a tough battle though going on in my mind. I have achieved kind an equilibrium, with under achievement. I have gotten comfortable, coasting through life, while day dreaming all these great things and never bringing them to fruition.

So I got on this kick of doing these various things and now I am meeting resistance. So I have to double up my efforts to get over the hump and I will.

I am a cruel person

2007-05-06T12:13:00.000-07:00

I have a few posts I chose not to publish. They are just too brutally honest and mean spirited. Reading Nietzsche just brings it out in me. Nietzsche was really in touch with his own cruelty. Here is the thing with philosophers and cruelty, especially nihilists: They direct their cruelty inward. If you have intense curiosity about the world, the nature of reality, existence, etc. You are a cruel person. Because there are a lot of things healthy people don't really want to know. That is why they are healthy. The truth will fuck you up. Our brains can't handle it. Some people think that is the real reason Nietzsche went insane and not simply because of the syphilis.

If you are Alexander the Great,or Genghis Khan, or Mike Tyson or something, you can direct that cruelty outward. Notice I made that huge historical leap there? Two ancient conquerers and then several thousand years later a pro-boxer? That's because in the modern world there aren't many acceptable channels for outward expressions of cruelty. Even Tyson could barely hold his shit together.

This innate cruelty within the human race doesn't go away though, it gets turned inward or expressed as something else. The "conscience" is cruelty turned inward. Also studying the nature of reality and seeking to solve all these dark mysteries of reality, uncovering conspiracy theories, etc. is inward directed cruelty. Its scaring yourself, shocking yourself, abusing yourself. Staring into the abyss.

In solving this IBS problem, I have been studying about repressed emotions. The reason people repress emotions is because the brain cannot deal with the overwhelming sense of vulnerability that is inseparable from our existence. The brain cannot deal, so we repress. We become blind to it. I mean if you repress too much, you run into a lot of serious problems, but you have to repress some. You have to deceive yourself to a certain degree in order to function.

I think this is weak. This bothers me. I want to know the truth. I love to uncover bleak horrible realities. This is cruelty. It starts with me being cruel to myself, but then writing about it and sharing it is then cruel to others. Of course many people have really strong defense mechanisms and ability for denial. So I guess its not cruel to them. But sometimes there are things people really wonder about and want an answer to. So then they would be vulnerable to being faced with really cruel harsh realities.

I have been into some kind of quasi-spiritual self help stuff of late. I think a lot of it is about constructing somewhat inaccurate maps of reality, that are coherent enough to benefit you in accomplishing your goals, while effectively shielding you from unpleasant realities.

Steve Pavlina's whole "Subjective Reality" is like this. Mantras like "Nothing real can be harmed, nothing unreal exists; Herein lies the Peace of God" (ACIM) accomplish that.

Its all about how you frame things. It comes down to choice, what you choose to focus on, what you choose to disregard. The harsh horrible things are still there, evn if you don't look at them and not only that but these horrifying aspects of reality are all mixed up within everything else.

Think of a really angry bitter lesbian feminist. Its not like their beliefs about men aren't true. They actually are. There is this bizzare dance in the relations between the sexes. A lot of it is a power struggle. Its not all lovey dovey. Men want to dominate women sexually. All sex is like rape in a way. I mean there is that aspect to it. If you totally take that away, there is not much left. Women want to put up resistance and then be overwhelmed. Men want to win the prize. Women want to be seduced. To be seduced is to lose a fight in a way. There is a reverse aspect too. Men can be seduced and women can dominate men sexually. But either way there are huge power plays going on all the time, and when you get down to the brass tacks, by reducing sex to its primary components, and studying simpler and simpler organisms, sex and fighting are pretty close. Very similar in many ways. Mating behavior is generally about the male wowing the female, with displays of his power to the point that he can get past her natural defenses and dominate her.

There are subtle ways you can frame all these things and put either negative or positive spins on things, but there is a harsh cruel reality underneath either way.

Where I am going is kind of a balance where I can incorporate as much of a view of reality as I need to get where I want in life. I want to play a little. I want to deceive myself a little. You have to to be decisive. You can't be open to absolutely every conter argument at all times. I want to see a lot of the cruel games of life and not deny them, but see the beauty in them. Embrace them.

Btw, here is an article lesbian feminsists will really enjoy:

I know I need a spanking but why?

I am into this site. I think what happened with me is that I turned myself inside out at some point in my development. I had this desire to dominate, tinged with cruelty and having all these inhibitions, I directed it inward. So what I am doing is, accepting myself, and redirecting some of my energies. I am a frustrated alpha male, that kind of put on a false front of being too nice and nurturing, but really its not the real me. I have those aspects to me, but I got the proper porportions mixed up and expressed in a reverse way.

This has happened to a lot of men in this world. In modern civilized life, there is only room for so many alpha males. If we all lived in little villages, there would be a need for proportionately more of them, and a lot of the excess would be killed off in peridodic low level warfare. In a mass society, there are just a few alphas and hardly any ever get killed in battle.

But I think I can pull it off. I think I can figure myself out and get all my various parts moving in the same direction.

More IBS stuff.

2007-05-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

I am trying to attract more readers, I don't know if writing about irritable bowel syndrome is the way to do it, but this is my reality. Through trying to transform my body, I have hit this snag. This IBS is an ongoing problem and I have made it worse through some of the stuff I have been doing. Kicking in a fight response all the time, is actually stupid, if I can't shut it off. So that's the problem. I can't shut it off then I can't sleep and can't digest my food. If you are getting in a fight, digesting your food is not the top priority. But eventually you need to.

Here are some tips I picked up from this guy I linked to on the other post:

1. I think some of the root is emotional! I have been doing colonics recently and have been experiencing deep (repressed?) emotions while having them. I wonder if some bowel problems are deeply repressed emotions (gut feelings)? Also using food as a pacifier - ie: eating too much, too little or inconsistently, or being addicted to the wrong foods for our systems.

2. I have been researching Chinese and Oriental medicine. They believe that posture and breathing is of utmost importance. The breath acts like 'bellows' for the digestive fire. If the posture is inhibiting the breath, or the breath is not 'nourishing' the digestion and oxygen in the bowels - then you don't properly turn the food to 'ash' and move it cleanly out of your system.

3. Also of note - in Chinese medicine the lungs are energetically linked to the large intestine. Also supposedly the earth has much less oxygen/carbon dioxide balance than 200 years ago. 200 years ago: Oxygen 38%, Carbon Dioxide 1%; today: Oxygen 19%, Carbon Dioxide 25%, from deforestation, burning fossil fuels etc. Source: Chi Gung by Daniel Reid.

4. The stress of modern life (and chatter in our heads) keeping the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) active - and therefore inhibiting proper digestion (parasympathetic system).

5. Much modern food is enzyme-less (body has to produce more of its own enzymes to digest - this stresses the body eventually). So I am trying to eat more fresh, whole foods and vegetables in smaller quantities and chew well! (Proper digestion starts with the saliva in the mouth - I even chew my vitamins and my juices.)

6. Being more comfortable with 'germs'. Our systems need good bacteria - I think our modern society has a war going on with bacteria. There is chlorine in the tap water and I think in general we are too clean. I lived in Europe for a while and I noticed that people there were much more comfortable with their bodies - and 'dirtiness'. I think life in North America is too sterile and it is not good for our bowels.

So the areas I'm working on are:

1. trying to express deep emotions through body work...Yoga and Chi Gung (Look into Chi Gung or Tai Chi if you have not yet - deep breathing and gentle movements enhancing and balancing bodies energy system)

2. eating a regular and very simple diet - (using blood type and food combining guidelines - eat fruit on its own, starch only with vegetables and protein only with vegetables... within reason...)

3. not eating if I am not hungry

4. cleansing the bowel periodically with herbal cleanse and colonics/juicing (be careful with juice - no fibre! best to eat some whole apples with the juice or other whole fruit/vegetable with veg juice or mix some fibre from juicer back into juice)

5. learning to meditate and calm my mind!

6. deep belly breathing (singing is great) and better posture

7. positive thoughts for my health/the future

8. removing all stimulants (especially coffee and cigarettes)

9. active 'hard' work (sweating) if you have the energy is good for digestion - sometimes I have to literally drag myself out to do gardening but it seems to help (getting anger/aggression out too!)

10. loving and feeling loved :-)

So anyway, These look like good tips. I am picking up, though, kind of a "trying" mentality. You know like "Try to garden if you have the energy". That's weak. I am not going to "try" to do anything "if" I have the energy, let alone garden. But this is good info here, this Guy obviously had a serious problem and really researched it.

I don't want this to be my thing, like a lifelong struggle, I want to lick this.

So here are some things I picked up.

1. I overuse stimulants. I feel run down a lot, so I drink whole pots of really strong coffee at a time. Plus, I have food intolerances and often I eat something it will make me feel like I am having a little bit of a allergic reaction. So then I developed this kind of instinctive habit of drinking a bunch of coffee after I do that in order to dump the allergen from my system. This was an unconscious thing, but I was inducing diarrhea.

2. My breathing is really not good. I do this thing where I feel like I am having an asthma attack so I hold my breath and just take infrequent little shallow breaths. I think it does prevent asthma attacks but its a horrible way to breath.

3. I have had problems with overeating, though, I feel like I am over it. But It hasn't really been that long since I stopped over eating. I still have bad habits. I eat really fast, I eat too large portions. I eat standing up, i eat while reading a book or browsing the internet. I overcame over eating basically through all the joy being removed from eating because of all my food intolerances and digestive problems.

I cut out all sugar, I greatly reduced dairy, I use barely any condiments. How excited can you really get about eating a plain chicken breast and steamed veggies? If you are not hungry it won't excite you. But still though I make way too much and overstuff myself with veggies.

4. I have this problem with a. eating too large a portion. b. eating something I have an intolerance for which causes bloating. So then I suck in my stomach. This screws up my breathing I think. It makes me breath up into my chest and shoulders instead of my belly.

5. When I was healthiest I was doing two things: Running and singing!

It sounds funny, but I was healthy in the Army and when I was in Bible College. I ran regularly both places, in the Army I called cadence and in Bible college I sang in Chapel. These are good for my lungs.

So I am going to keep up the running. I am not try to run. I going to run my ass off everyday. Plus I am going to learn how to relax. I will take up meditating again. I will take up Pilates finally, maybe Yoga, work on my breathing.

Plus, I will be more social. I wanted to do this anyway. I am weird in this way. I am not really social, but then when I get together with people I am really outgoing. I don't know if this will lead to singing, but in social situations, I laugh a lot and talk really loud so that should be god for my lungs.

I think part of the social thing is that I don't tend to hang out with people just to hang out. I don't have friends just to have friends. If I have friends that aren't quite the kind of friends I want to have and become part of the group I end up just kind of going along with the group and doing what they do. Actually, I don't do that. But that is what social people can fall into. I never fall into that. I would rather have no friends than drift along with some group. I am either a loner or I am kind of the main impetus behind the group. But This is somting I will put more effort into. There are cool people out there into really interesting things that I could be friends with.

So that's my IBS project. Meditate, run, relax, get some friends. Plus I will start a food journal next week and sort out all my food intolerances, and also sit down to eat and have normal meals and eat moderate portions in a relaxed way and not eat like I am a sled dog wolfing down a chunk of seal meat before the other dogs can get it.

dark cloud envelopes me.

2007-05-05T19:24:00.000-07:00

I am sick today. This puts me in a bad mood. When I started this whole fitness project, I was getting over this flue like bug, I don't know if I still have it but I keep overtaxing my immune system and getting insomnia and periodically feeling sick.

I feel like resting is failure, So then I make myself sick. Then I get in a really bad mood. I really wish my body could have a little genie or somthing that could manifest and I could talk to it. I would say somthing like:

"Listen, Motherfucker, Your Job is to do what the fuck I say, no questions asked. Jump when I say jump, etc." I feel like giving my immune system a serious beat down. I even feel like designating a random person as being my immune system and giving them a serious beat down.

I have a lot of rage right now. I have been kind of sickly most of my life. Probably of the last ten years, I have had diarrhea, probably the majority of the time, like 5 days out of the week going on ten or eleven years in a row. Eliminating wheat hasn't helped. I thought it would but it hasn't. Not that I don't have celiac sprue, I do, but there is other stuff wrong. So that's the last ten years.

All through childhood, I had bronchitis and pneumonia, plus serious allergies.

I was healthy from about age 18 to 24, started going down hill then. But its like, I had really robust health. Its not like I was sickly, and then got a little better. I got really healthy. I could outrun most of the people in my unit in the Army, I was impressed with this until I ran cross country in college and saw how I compared with a bunch of actual runners instead of people forced to run because they were in the Army. But still, though, I was in shape, strong, vibrant.

What it is is that I have this weird combo of health and disease living in my body. The extremely robust health ensures that I can live most of my life being really sickly and not die or be unable to function. It guarantees that I will be able to operate at 30% to 50% and be just blow par health wise, and appear to be totally healthy. Its like being sick enough to be dead, but instead of being dead, I just seem a little out of shape, a little weaker than everyone else.

I don't know how else to explain it. Does it make sense to have pneumonia all growing up and then join the Army and run in the 100th percentile? Its not like I am built like a runner either. I was as heavy as 190 lbs in the Army at a height of 5'8" I maxed the push ups too. I hate doing sit ups, but One time I worked on it a little bit and maxed that too, but that time I neglected to work on push ups. I maxed everything, at various times but never all three at once.

Does it make sense to have the runs everyday and keep improving in my physical conditioning? I mean I am improving on my push ups, while feeling crappy, getting little sleep and having the runs. People are supposed to die eventually of dysentery.
Soon, I will be able to bang out a hundred push ups, while properly digesting probably 5% of what I am eating and running everyday on 3 hours of sleep. Then I will be mad enough to kill somebody, because I will feel like crap. Its the lack of control that really pisses me off the most.

When I get this problem worked out I have to run an ultra marathon or fight in mixed martial arts or somthing. Walk to the tip of South Anerica, even. I have this huge reservoir of pent up rage to draw from.

The other angle is that physical symptoms are related to repressed emotions. So perhaps there are repressed emotions associated withy having the shits for 12 years. I said ten but actually 24 to 36 is 12. Its even worse than I thought.

I must have some seriously repressed emotions. I am not joking though. I have not exaggerated any of my aliments in any way.

Update: I found this link:

IBS tales

It makes sense.

Eight Mile Run today

2007-05-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

I have run probably half a dozen times in the last ten years, four of them in the last couple weeks, so you might think that running an eight mile run would be ill advised. I mean, basically, I went from running two miles and feeling like crap yesterday, to running nearly a third of a marathon, with quite a few hills to boot.

I felt so motivated this morning. I have been reading this book, the "Attractor Factor"
By Joe Vitale. It's one of these New Agey, kind of self help books, based on the same principle as "the secret". So there is this exercise where you write down all the things you want to do in life. He said there were two groups of people the first time he did the exercise. Half had these dreams and they wanted to follow them right away and make money later, the other half had dreams but wanted to put them off and concern themselves with making money first. Well Ten years later all the people in the first group were rich and had followed their dreams, and all except one in the second group were still not rich and still hadn't followed their dreams.

The point is, follow your dreams first, worry about money later, you will probably end up making money through living your dream that way. If you do the reverse, you start out with a compromise and try to make money doing something you don't like as much and it saps your energy.

My goal is to be an adventurer. It always has been, and fear has been holding me back. I have some natural talent in Art and hopefully writing, that I need to develop. So I was thinking of imprisoning myself, in a sense, in order to develop my talents, to eventually make money through my creativity, in order to be able to have enough money to travel.

That's doing it the hard, slow way, I think now upon further reflection. Life is too short and I am not eighteen or twenty years old. I don't want to wait till I am in my forties and fifties to go on hard core adventures and hope I am in good shape still.

I want to make money, while I am going on adventures, get my creative juices flowing through my adventures. Go on some massive far flung adventure and write about, then promote the article, get published, then get an advance to go on another adventure and write about it at the same time.

When I say adventure, I am not talking about being a tourist, I am talking about serious trekking, like hiking hundreds of miles through trackless widerness, sailing around the world, traveling to strange lands that few westerners have laid eyes on, canoing huge rivers on several months long journeys, things like that.

I will bring a notebook and a sketch pad and work on my skills at the same time.

This was brought to the surface doing the exercises in this book. The one I mentioned, and also another one, where you visualize, having achieved success, and write a little script of what you feel like, little details of what your day would be like after achieving a goal,then you focus on that energy and attract it into your life.

I wrote about having a big house and lots of money, working as a concept artist for a movie studio, seeing my work on the big screen and it didn't quite do it for me. It was more fulfilling imagine myself being old and financially comfortable, having gone on several amazing adventures and having acheived fame and fortune that way, having written about them and having shared them with the world.

I don't realy want to collect a castle full of shit, I want a tremedous feeling of freedom and adventure, and I want to express my creativity.

So this really motivated me, there was another energetic change, I experienced a huge upsurge of energy, so I decided this morning to go on an eight miler. Probably, I have some sort of muscle memory, my body remembers what it was like in my twenties, to be in really good shape, to be able to run pretty fast and pretty far, so I tried to tp into that feeling.I concentrated on compression and breathing out, keeping my head up, and maintaining a ground eating stride. It was an awesome beautiful run. Its an awesome and beautiful world.

Probably how this will take shape is I will be a freelance writer and artist, punctuated with big stretches of time, like a year to six months at a time, where I will be on adventures. This will be my fuel for creating when I come back to my stints in civilization where I make money and save up for the next adventure.

So that is where I am at right now, I am working on my art and my writing and saving up for a big adventure. Tentatively, by next spring, I'll be gone. But I am open to things working out sooner.

Felt like crap today

2007-05-03T08:04:00.000-07:00

I woke up feeling like crap. I have insomnia. I am doing a lot of exercising, I am sore from the shadow boxing. So it would be good to get some quality sleep. Shadow boxing is no joke, though. Its one hell of an intense work out. I found out boxers do quite a bit of it everyday. My back and shoulders are really sore. If you notice, boxers have really ripped back muscles. I did it for a good solid ten minutes throwing rapid punches with the best form I could muster and as much snap in them as I could. It doesn't seem like a long time but it is. Its a hell of a long time.

So I woke up feeling crappy and decided to go on a run. If I were in the Army or on the cross country team, I wouldn't have gotten out of a run just for feeling crappy, so that is the rationalization I used. Then as I was running along, I still felt like crap. So here was my train of thought there-I figure, I might as well keep running, because even if I stop, I will still feel like crap. So then as I was running along, I realized, I must look pretty bad, shuffling along, huffing and puffing, so I figured, why not look like I am somewhat in shape here, even if I am not? I will still feel like crap regardless, so why not at least try to look good with decent form? So I picked it up a little worked on my breathing, lengthened my stride.

So then I finished out the run with a hard sprint, the last 100 yards or so. I always try to do that. They say it makes you burn calories throughout the day if you finish the run with a sprint.

So what I am doing here, is strengthening my will. Dominating my body with my will. There is nobody encouraging me to do any of the things I do. Its just me. Within myself, there are various aspects of me, maybe not all in line with each other, I am bringing them in line with my will.

I learned somthing from working with people with brain injuries that relates to this. There is a guy I worked with that has short term memory loss. Kind of like Drew Barrymore had in "50 first dates", only he could only remember a half hour at a time. There was some cumulative memory that he would pick up over time, but very little. He didn't totally forget everything every 30 minutes, like what his name was, but he would forget what was going on and where he was. He's learned to cope with it pretty well.

One thing I noticed though in working with him, is that often he would be in a bad mood and then a half hour later he would forget and then be laughing away. "Normal" people are often in a bad mood all day. Throughout the day, we use our memory to remember we are in a bad mood and then we do things to reinforce the pattern.

Sometimes we even forget why we are in a bad mood, so then we search for something to be in a bad mood about. We adopt various body postures that reinforce the mood that are associated with the energy signature of a bad mood. So we train or nervous system to keep us in a bad mood from moment to moment. We create this little thought loops.

These things can all be brought under conscious control.

I don't want to go totally overboard. This isn't really an advice column, type blog. I am soimply exploring. I could kill myself with exercize. There is feedback I get from my body that as valuable. I don't want to totally ignore it. I just want to bring it under control of my will and conscious control in order to accomplish what I want to do.

Google thinks I'm gay

2007-05-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

Its a bit annoying, but the name of my blog is also the name of a book about trans sexuals. I signed up for these ads to make money. I haven't made any yet. I am pleased with most of the ads though that are somewhat related, like fitness stuff, self help stuff and the "barbarian store"

Barbarians, Aristocrats and slaves

2007-05-02T07:59:00.000-07:00

Here is an excerpt from Nietzsche in "Geneology of Morals":

"Who is really evil according to the meaning of the morality of [resentment] ? " In all sternness let it be answered thus:—just the good man of the other morality, just the aristocrat, the powerful one, the one who rules, but who is distorted by the venomous eye of resentfulness, into a new colour, a new meaning, a new appearance. This particular point we would be the last to deny: the man who learnt to know those "good" ones only as enemies, learnt at the same time not to know them only as "evil enemies ," and the same men who inter pares were kept so rigorously in bounds through convention, respect, custom, and gratitude, though much more through mutual vigilance and jealousy inter pares , these men who in their relations with each other find so many new ways of manifesting consideration, self-control, delicacy, loyalty, pride, and friendship, these men are in reference to what is outside their circle (where the foreign element, a foreign country , begins), not much better than beasts of prey, which have been let loose. They enjoy there freedom from all social control, they feel that in the wilderness they can give vent with impunity to that tension which is produced by enclosure and imprisonment in the peace of society, they revert to the innocence of the beast-of-prey conscience, like jubilant monsters, who perhaps come from a ghastly bout of murder, arson, rape, and torture, with bravado and a moral equanimity, as though merely some wild student's prank had been played, perfectly convinced that the poets have now an ample theme to sing and celebrate. It is impossible not to recognise at the core of all these aristocratic races the beast of prey; the magnificent blonde beast , avidly rampant for spoil and victory; this hidden core needed an outlet from time to time, the beast must get loose again, must return into the wilderness—the Roman, Arabic, German, and Japanese nobility, the Homeric heroes, the Scandinavian Vikings, are all alike in this need. It is the aristocratic races who have left the idea "Barbarian" on all the tracks in which they have marched; nay, a consciousness of this very barbarianism, and even a pride in it, manifests itself even in their highest civilisation (for example, when Pericles says to his Athenians in that celebrated funeral oration, "Our audacity has forced a way over every land and sea, rearing everywhere imperishable memorials of itself for good and for evil"). This audacity of aristocratic races, mad, absurd, and spasmodic as may be its expression; the incalculable and fantastic nature of their enterprises,—Pericles sets in special relief and glory the rathumia 4 of the Athenians, their nonchalance and contempt for safety, body, life, and comfort, their awful joy and intense delight in all destruction, in all the ecstasies of victory and cruelty,—all these features become crystallised, for those who suffered thereby in the picture of the "barbarian," of the "evil enemy," perhaps of the "Goth" and of the "Vandal." The profound, icy mistrust which the German provokes, as soon as he arrives at power,—even at the present time,—is always still an aftermath of that inextinguishable horror with which for whole centuries Europe has regarded the wrath of the blonde Teuton beast (although between the old Germans and ourselves there exists scarcely a psychological, let alone a physical, relationship). . . . Granted the truth of the theory now believed to be true, that the very essence of all civilization is to train out of man, the beast of prey, a tame and civilised animal, a domesticated animal, it follows indubitably that we must regard as the real tools of civilization all those instincts of reaction and resentment, by the help of which the aristocratic races, together with their ideals, were finally degraded and overpowered; though that has not yet come to be synonymous with saying that the bearers of those tools also represented the civilisation. It is rather the contrary that is not only probable—nay, it is palpable to-day; these bearers of vindictive instincts that have to be bottled up, these descendants of all European and non-European slavery, especially of the pre-Aryan population—these people, I say, represent the decline of humanity! These "tools of civilisation" are a disgrace to humanity, and constitute in reality more of an argument against civilisation, more of a reason why civilisation should be suspected. One may be perfectly justified in being always afraid of the blonde beast that lies at the core of all aristocratic races, and in being on one's guard: but who would not a hundred times prefer to be afraid, when one at the same time admires, than to be immune from fear, at the cost of being perpetually obsessed with the loathsome spectacle of the distorted, the dwarfed, the stunted, the envenomed?

This is talking about the "Slave Morality," which I think is hard for most Americans that aren't serious students of history to really understand. First of all this slave morality is nearly ubiquitous, so its kind of like fish trying to percieve the water. Second of all, the only concept of a slave most Americans have is that of black slavery that occured here for not even two hundred years of our history. In my opinion, there is a really no insight lended into the slave morality by observing black culture. I mean you have these "negro spirituals" and so forth, but I mean , is that black culture? I think black culture is more like what you see on BET, or MTV or just being able to observe black people, in the organic, constantly changing black culture. Its my opinion, the slave morality never really took root in black people, which seems kind of ironic. They weren't slaves long enough. The slave morality is found primarily in white people, in Europe and the United States. There are among white people, the decendents of people who have been slaves for eighteen hundreds of years.

I mean you look at the icons of black culture, even the kind of cartoonish ones, like the Pimp, the gangmember and the more postive ones like the musician and the pro-athlete and you see the antithesis of the slave morality. The only place you really see the slave morality is in democratic politicians like Jesse Jackson ans Al Sharpton. What it is is an underhanded, kind of sanctimonious morality built on the emotion resentment. And really, the whole left and by extension the democratic party, is not really the black political party. Its bigger than that. But I would say the democratic party is the slave party. Collectivism, socialism, resentment.

An interesting case in point, is that I was for a while somewhat curious about left wing politics, here in Madison. So I went to some different things. I barely encountered a single black person. But fighting racism, was one of main things anyone talked about. I remember going to a talk by an academic on the "Weather Underground" at the "Rainbow Bookstore", a left wing bookstore here in town. Everyone that showed up for the talk was white, about 60 people. Outside black people would be walking by, because it was downtown, but they gave the carryings on in there barely a second glance. One of the main topics that kept coming up was racism, even "institutional racism." Is that not a little bit strange? Racism is just somthing white people with the slave morality use to kick rich powerful white people in the balls.

I am not really that into black culture, I pretty much hate rap music. But I really like Dave Chappelle, though now that I’ve seen every single episode, its gottten kind of old. But there is this one episode, where he is parodying Bush its a skit where he is president "Black Bush" and its funny as hell. But all really good humor has a lot of truth in the joke. Its basically a skit about what it would be like if a Black guy from the Ghetto, was president, the funniest thing about it was that he would do exactly the same things Bush does. Its like if you can understand how a Pimp thinks you can understand how the Bush administration thinks!

White people that are inculcated in the slave morality and have been for generations, they can't really figure out powerful people. All these conspiracy theorists, they seldom get even close. Go down on the block talk to some black guys that have been around, they have some good insights.

These Skull and bonesmen are pimps. I am serious. They invented nuclear weapons. How bad ass is that? Can you imagine what that would be like to be in a gang and you invent nuclear weapons and rule the world? That is atavistic. That is primal. Carnal.

I have this book "The 48 laws of Power" by Robert Greene. I am not 100% sure, but I think this guy is black. Maybe not. One thing I do know is that this book is huge in Hip Hop circles, from what I understand. Its an interesting book. He talks about all these great conquerers and Kings and military leaders and how they play the game of power, I've been to this Guy's blog and who else does he write about? IceBerg Slim the pimp. That's where this whole Pimp mystique comes from I believe. SLim was this hardcore pimp guy living by his wits among sharks. He wrote some books. All these Kings and court intrigue and this pimp surviving in the violent ghetto Its the same energy.

You look at all the paintings of the Old Aristocrats. They all dressed like Pimps, Bling all over the place. They invented bling. Ermine, Gold, Silver, rubies, sapphires. Pimp canes (sceptres.)

The Barbarian and the Aristocrat are one and the same. Just like with Conan the barbarian, that archetype Howard tapped into, becomes King. The aristocrat has an abundance of strength. They can't betray their own nature.

Just like Nietzche, said, they are refined and everything amongst themselves and then when they go out into the world they are like wild beasts.

South America is a case in point, of the close connection between barbarism and aristocracy. Basically, the Conquistadors are still in charge over there. There is a small aristocracy and then beneath them is the herd. What do the sons of the aristocrats do? First of all the average millionaire in South America is worth 5 million. And the economies are all weak so think how far that goes. They smoke pot, surf, train in mixed martial arts, take steroids and beat the shit out of people and have sex with beautiful women. Seriously, the most beautiful women in the world are upper class south American chicks. What else are you going to do? What was the point of taking over south America if your descendants can’t do that generations in the future? And they can’t get in trouble because their parents own the police.

So once again, how does this tie into black people?

“What wonder, if the suppressed and stealthily simmering passions of revenge and hatred exploit for their own advantage this belief, and indeed hold no belief with a more steadfast enthusiasm than this—"that the strong has the option of being weak, and the bird of prey of being a lamb." Thereby do they win for themselves the right of attributing to the birds of prey the responsibility for being birds of prey: when the oppressed, down-trodden, and overpowered say to themselves with the vindictive guile of weakness, "Let us be otherwise than the evil, namely, good! and good is every one who does not oppress, who hurts no one, who does not attack, who does not pay back, who hands over revenge to God, who holds himself, as we do, in hiding; who goes out of the way of evil, and demands, in short, little from life; like ourselves the patient, the meek, the just,"

In my years of observation, and I am a student of human nature, I have noticed this one thing. Black people can’t help being black. That means that two or three hundred years is not long enough time to build a slave race.

The worst slaves in the world are black. They have all the qualities you would never want in a slave. Violent, lazy, arrogant, flashy, outspoken, proud, brash, suspicious of authority. I say lazy, but I don’t mean it as an insult. What I mean, is blacks tend not to work hard to others advantage. There is not a lot of dutifulness by nature, like has been bred into white slaves.

I worked for a temp agency as a night janitor, because nothing else was available and I needed the money. I worked with four black guys. Fill in the rest of the picture. Who did most of the work?

So whose smart here? The guy that works his ass off for minimum wage, without any supervision, for a job that he will leave in a couple days and never come back to? Or the guys that do as little as possible to avoid getting fired? Now working with four black guys doing commission sales is a whole different picture. I've had jobs like that too. You work hard for commission sales in order to make money, not to please "the man."

Its like comparing a zebra and a work horse. The work horse is bred to work. The zebra evolved to survive.

I have kind of a small readership here, but just in case, here is my politically correct disclaimer: There are plenty of black pussies that work really hard for the man just to do a good job, and obey all the laws ans pay their taxes just like a good little prole. But that is not part of the mystique I am tapping into. Gangsta Rap is popular for a reason. Black Hip Hop culture is flourishing for a reason. Its fulfilling a psychic need. Its not just black culture, though there are other barbaric, underclass tendencies enjoying popularity, tatooing, body modification, piercing, Mixed martial arts fighting is becoming really popular. It's lots of things. There are all these Shows on T.v. About Building monster bikes, with this Outlaw character Jesse James.

What I do is I try to piece together what the Vikings and the Germanic barbarians must have been like. Because really, at one time being white, and the qualities associated with being a domesticated slave weren't always together. We see all these whimpy passive white people that always pretty much do as their told and after a while it seems like that must be a "white thing" But really though, originally it was not like that. Certian white people used to travel in gangs. There is no difference between violent crime and military conquest. Any distinction is a social construct. The Vikings were armed robbers. That’s all there is to it.

They got gangs together, went on a trip and sacked cathedrals in order to get some bling.
Plus they just loved to fight and they liked spreading their seed far and wide.

People culturally conditioned and even genetically selected to labor and to obey, don’t do things like that. Eventually the inclination for adventure and conquest gets bred out of them. They become exhausted on a biogenetic level. Spent, used up. They become the herd. They have an anti-life drive. They say “No.” to life.

There is a Reggae song. “I am the root natty root.” Africans are the root of humanity. The cycle begins in Africa. That's where all the Barbarians come from, they go out, conquer the world, create civilizations, become civilized themselves, differentiate into classes, and eventually degenerate. Nietzche says elsewhere, The European is a form of degeneration, but the degeneration only goes so deep, and then the ancestral type emerges again. Often it’s the criminal. Criminals are people displaying natural behavior, that is at odds with the artificial environment of mass society.

Nietzche also talks about how as civilizations decline diverse races mix together, and often the effect is that diverse parts within the individual war against one another and the effect is that the person, would like to go to sleep and rest. They get tired. This where religions arise that have rest and extinction as salvation. People just want to go back into eternal sleep.

But he says in rare cases, geniuses are formed from this mixing. People able to harness all the diverse voices within them into a unit. He gives Leonardo Di Vince as an example. Once again though Nietzche is speaking of Europe. In America we have just generic white people, but really white people are a mongrel race composed of various races from Europe. You could have Viking blood and peasant blood and have them warring against each other in your DNA.

I often feel like like that. I have a part of me that resonates with the slave morality, part of me that resonates with religions that are about becoming one with God and returning to eternal sleep. But then there is an aristocratic part of me and behind that, as a subset of that which is the barbarian in me, that just wants adventure and to go out and fight conquer the world and get rich and sleep with beautiful women.

I am harnessing them all into one, the part that had gotten out of whack is that my slave ancestry had become the master. I’ve kicked that part off the throne, the Barbarian aristocrat is taking over.

Today's run

2007-04-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

I wrote an article, on killer bees surviving while all the pussified domestic European bees die off, on my other blog : Free Range Organic Human

I went on a run today. Couple miles. Nothing impressive. I have been talking to my body lately, trying to figure out what it doesn't always co-operate with what I want it to do. I told my lungs, "Hey lungs, instead of using all that energy giving me the beginnings of an asthma attack, why not use that energy in order to work better and help me run faster? It worked believe it or not. I really felt a little surge of energy, I was harnessing energy that was being wasted to a counterproductive activity.

I am trying to achieve the right balance with my body. I want to listen to it when it has valuable information to tell me, but also let it know whose boss.

Its like anything else in life I think, People that are a bit severe with their bodies seem to get the most out of them, but you don't want to go overboard and hurt yourself. But I think in this day and age its more likely for people to over baby their bodies than the reverse.

Why I often maker things ten times harder than they are.

2007-04-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

Why do I make things harder than they really are?
I often generate all this emotional heat in order to motivate myself to do simple things, then I end up wearing myself out and being less effective. Then after a while I recover, and hit it again generating more emotional heat and intensity, which more or less has the same effect. Picture this: A guy getting ready for a fight in the octagon, getting himself all psyched up, smacking himself in the face, jumping up and down, yelling, getting a crazed look in his eye, then he rushes out into the octagon, and there is a table there with a plate of butter and a butter knife siting next to it. So he grabs the knife and cuts the butter. Then collapses from exhaustion. That’s me.

Why do I do this? I think I don’t want to admit that life is a lot easier than I let on. Being a fairly attractive, intelligent, outgoing talented person, things should come to me fairly easily in life, and they will, just as soon as I am ready to let them. But throughout my life I have created a series of mountains out of mole hills. I have done this to myself and it makes me feel kind of foolish.

So what do I do? I invest even more effort into making these mole hills a lot bigger and badder than they really are. So then after I do that, I generate this heroic effort in order to over come them. Its like I stand there with the butter knife in my hand, and pretend my other hand is some evil force trying to prevent me from cutting the butter. I imagine the free mason’s conspiring to prevent me from cutting the butter. So I struggle like that for a while, going back and forth, taking shots, getting some shots in. Then I finally cut the butter, or almost cut it, maybe cut half way through it and then collapse.

So I am going to walk up and cut the butter, without fanfare. I am going to use my considerable natural talent to be a successful artist. I could have done this right out of highschool, you know the place I went to where all these hot cheerleaders were practically throwing their panties at me, to get me to date them?

I could have had sex with hot cheerleaders. I am not kidding. The two hottest cheerleaders in the school wanted me. But once again, I had to make things ten times harder for myself, then they really were. I had myself convinced that these hot cheerleaders didn’t really like me, that it couldn’t possibly be true because I was a nerd.

I almost became a starting football player, but I hit a mild setback and just folded. But really though, these cheerleaders with their blonde hair and tight, hot little bodies, didn’t care about that. They saw something else in me, so even after I was a bench warmer, they still were after me.

So I’ve just blown a lot of opportunities in life, and they keep coming and I blow them again, and they keep coming and I blow them again. But I just need to accept that these are opportunities that I am getting handed to me because I am blessed. I have a high IQ, above average looks and lots of personality, and considerable creative talent.

Its hard to admit that I have had a lot of things handed to me in life and that I just keep fucking up and wimping out. But that has been the case. I have come up with some really elaborate explanations as to why things are otherwise. But they are all lies.

So I am going to calmly walk over and cut the butter with the butter knife. There is no one conspiring against me and its an east task to perfom. I have no doubt that eventually I will be presented with more serious challenges, but for now I am going to accept the easy ones and go from there.

Silent, Private, Success.............crickets............

2007-04-24T20:41:00.005-07:00

I don't have as much traffic on this site as I'd like. I haven't really put a lot of work into it. But I would have thought I would have attracted more. I could do more. But this blog doesn't seem to be catching on. I am documenting this stuff, but really though, I am not trying to be a motivational speaker, or life coach, self help Guru, or whatever.

I don't really have a lot of traffic, I don't have anyone really challenging me or confronting me on this. It would be good to have skeptics telling me I am full of shit and then I could prove them wrong. Just a few comments, no real dialetic going on.

Its kind of a thing I am proving to myself. In a way, I don't really give a shit if anyone else learns from this. I hope they don't. I hope most people stay fat and feeling pathetic and defeated. Then they can encourage themselves with revenge fantasies, give rich beautiful people the evil eye, and huddle together with other miserable losers and gripe and come up with imaginitave narratives that justify their failure in life.

I mean, I don't realy hope that happens. But that is what happens. I've been there. So I am just kind of acknowledging it and accepting it. That's what most people do. That's the herd. I don't have to lift them up before I can move on.

So just so you know, you can do whatever you want. You can wake up feeling great everyday, you can be good looking and in shape. You can fulfill your dreams.

I guess it's not so bad that I don't have to argue with people about it or convince them. I mean this is basically an echo chamber I am speaking into at this point. But I think there are advantages to that.

It would be cool to share this with people. It would have been nice to have a lot of people in on the expiriment.

Its kind of anti-climactic, though, just to post and be a success and have it all quiet. Nobody really gives a shit. I was posting on the Steve Pavlina forum and stimulating a lot of discussion but that has really died down. But basically, My expiriment was a success. I don't really know how much weight I lost. Nothing dramatic. But I got a lot better muscle tone. I am getting in shape. I changed my eating patterns. I have a different relationship with food now. I don't seek to comfort myself by satisfying myself orally with food. I feel strong. I am assertive, I changed my appearance and the type of energy I project. I changed my thinking patterns. Lots of doors are opening up. I feel like new pattterns have been molded into me.

I think the darkworker trial may be kind of repellent to people. Most people like to think of themselves as being good.

If you are weak, its better to be good. I have been saying all along, people in modern society are domesticated animals. Modern Society tends especially to make eunichs out of men. There is kind of a trend now of marketing to men, Spike TV, various men's magazines. Animal planet has "manday" on mondays now. They have the beer commercials with "Man Laws." Its all a big joke. Yeah, drink beer and mow the lawn and sit on your ass and watch sports shows or jerk off to porn. That's being a man, or play World Of Warcraft, like a junkie on a crack binge. Express your masculinity.

I want to be a fantasy illustrator, aspects of that could possibly be construed as being dorky. But really though, men are fucking dangerous. This is not a male dominated society. A male dominated society is among the Pushtun, on the border of Afganistan and Pakistan. People that on any given day, could walk down the street and have to defend their honor to the death. Warrior tribes.

The Vikings were men. They got a bunch of Guys together and ran off and conquered. They were Odin worshippers. They believed that the day of their death was decided from birth, nothing could change that, and the only way to get into Valhalla was to die bravely in battle. So they were unstoppable. These Moslems are men, a lot of them.

To be a man, you need challenges, serious challenges. But I can't go off with a sword, chopping peoples heads off. The frontiers are getting smaller.

So I figure, I want to be rich. Its a challenge. I can't do it by sacking a Cathedral and stealing all the Gold. But I see the allure of that. I really do. The Army has all these cool commercials now. They make it look like a challenge, way more than what it is. I've been there so I know its not. I mean actual combat is challenging, but mostly its about conforming and becoming a tool. Not a lot of personal autonomy. The discipline is all externally imposed.

In this world though, you either internalize or you push out. All this latent aggression is still there. Turning it inward will kill you. Vikings were outward. They projected this aggression onto the world.

This Guy Cho, that killed all the people, he was a warrior. But he had all these inhibitions, raised in a Korean devout Christian family, he was a mouse. He never learned how to assert himself. Then one day, he achieved this equilibrium and just exploded in rage. He could have bitch slapped some people day to day. He could have boxed. He could have gotten in some fistfights with people, cussed some people out, day to day as he went along and things would have been fine.

So I needed this darkworker trial. To claim the darkside of myself, accept all my parts. I have this warrior part of myself, this aggressive part and I am OK with it now.

I mean these success Gurus, talk about these win win scenarios, that there is no scarcity and that all people can have abundance, its no zero sum game. I think that may be true.

But even if its not true, I wanted to get the point of saying. I don't care. I am getting what I want out of life even if it involves other people not getting theirs. Even if its selfish. Even if its evil. If its evil to be rich and successful, I still want to do it. I have no guilt. I am a viking warrior. I'll chop off heads if I have to.

But after getting to that point, I find things aren't so hard after all. It doesn't really take that. It can be win win and I do have a heart. I do want to help others when I can. But I want to live life. I want to go out and get it.

Nietzche describes a "virtuous man" (the old me).

2007-04-21T17:09:00.000-07:00

" A virtuous man is of a lower species because, in the first place, he has no "personality," but aquires his value by conforming with a certian human scheme which has been once and forever fixed. He has no independant value: he may be compared; he has his equals, he must not be an individual.

Reckoning up the qualities of the good man, why is it that they appear pleasant to us? Because they urge us neither to war, to mistrust, to caution, to the accumulating of forces, nor to severity: our laziness, our good nature, and our levity, have a good time. This, our feeling of well being, is what we project into the good man in the form of a quality, in the form of a valuable posession."

-Aphorism 319 from "A Criticism of Morality" in The Will to Power

That's the "me" in a nutshell, that I am killing off in order to become a product of my own creation. Especially as a born again. I was totally trying to conform to this frozen fixed scheme.

And basically, it was true, I was a "nice guy" totally safe and non-threatening to everyone. Trouble was though that there was always this other person inside of me I was continually trying to stiffle and kill off. So I am letting him get some air and poke his head out. The thing is though is that he is an ungrateful scorpion. The first ting he wants to do is kill the kind frog that helped him across the stream.

Compression

2007-04-20T22:35:00.000-07:00

So, anyway, I was really feeling worn out and run down today, or actually yesturday, since I am writing this at 12:00 in the morning, which is a case in point.

I have insomnia. I am continually kicking on my fight response, so that gets me all geared up and its hard for me to sleep. That is a bit of a hitch in my expiriment. Kicking on the fight response is what will cause my endocrine system to turn me into a mesomorph, but it also causes insomnia. I haven't gotten eight hours of sleep at any time this month that wasn't a weekend.

I'll have to see my way out of this. I am continually pushing myself and looking at my life as me gearing up for a series of fights. The only t.v. I really watch is fighting.

So anyway, I felt crappy, so I decided to go on a run. This is a little tricky because I have been struggling to overcome this flue like bug that has been going around. I have had it for a month. That's how long it lasts. Lots of people in Madison had this. Kombacha tea kept getting sold out at health food stores.

When you train for a fight, you put your body under stress, that is how you become conditioned. Fighters in training are always walking a fine line between getting in shape and getting sick. But, even so I decided to push myself to run. I started running again this week after a 10 year or so lay-off.

I learned somthing, from a book I recently read called "A fighter's Heart" The author was talking to a Tai Chi instructor, about "compression."

When fighters punch, they expel a sharp blast of air. They achieve compression. There are metaphysical applications to this. When you breath in you kind of fall asleep, when you exhale, you wake up. Inhaling is passive, exhaling is active.

Achieving compression, is really important for conditioning. Infact, how well conditioned you are is really a matter of how well you can achieve compression. When a fighter begins to "gas" late in a fight, its because they can't achieve compression. Old and feeble people can't achieve compression. Compression is achieved with the diaphram. This location is associated with "The power chakra" There is power in compression. Compression is power.

This relates to what I am trying to do, here, my whole expiriment, I am trying to achieve compression. When you compress, you assert your independance and stand apart. That's what the power chakra is about. Its a bout personal power, boundaries, things like that. Its not about taking in, its about pushing out. Like "Blam" a punch. "Pow." Like spitting. Ejaculating. Pushing.

A punch focuses power to a single point. This is done with compression. A fighter's eyes are foerce and intense, concentrated.

Now Steve Pavlina, talks about polarization and equates, inhaling with evil exhaling with good. I don't know. Somthing must be backwards. I think maybe its Chistianity.

Yin and Yang and good and evil are not analagous, I think. But whatever it is I am after, its very Yang.

So as I ran along, I thought about compression, how powerfully, I could expel air, and it wasn't very powerfully. I am out of shape. But as I focused on compression, I greatly improved. Its was another metareprogramming short cut I am taling by being aware of my nervous system.

Also I tried to sketch this morning and I was horrible. I need compression to draw. As I thought about drawing and compression, as I ran along, I felt my power chakra really opening up. For the first time I located it and really felt it. When I got home I could draw again.

I was talking about Frazetta earlier and how physical he was? He actually had a stroke or a thyroid problem or somthing and his ability went way down. It lost the physicality. It was much poorer quality after the illness. Mind body connection.

So, I went home, did some more sketching and worked out. If you run opposite days as you do strength training, you work against your self. The running will catabolize the benefet your muscles get from the strength training. If you do both on the same day it won't. I want a lean muscular body and good cardiovascular fitness.

So I got home and banged out 70 push ups in one straight shot, boom boom boom, faster then I have done them in years, actually, I haven't been able to do that many since I was 14-15 and wrestling 145. Its was all power chakra. I will soon be able to do 100 push ups in one shot. The only thing is its kind of boring to me. I mean I get tired as I do them, but I also get bored as they get easier.

But I am becoming more of a masochist, and doing 100 push ups was one of my goals.

Its all will power. If it ain't accomplished through will power, basically you didn't do it. Its vain; ephermeral. Like winning the lottery. Every gimic out there is about accomplishing things without having to resort to will power, but really developing strong will is the best thing you could ever do.

My Work

2007-04-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

Frazetta's Conan

2007-04-18T16:23:00.001-07:00

With me its all about Frazetta’s Conan. I am doing magick, here. I am trying to use altered states of consciousness to conform reality to my will. My intentions are more likely to manifest, if they aren’t scattered all over a broad range of things, but rather concentrated into one goal like a laser beam.

So like I said, for me it’s all about Frazetta’s Conan. That one image of Conan the Barbarian is one icon that wraps up what I want. It’s not one thing, its many things, though, all wrapped up together and concentrated to a fine laser like point.

For example, I have fitness goals, career goals, relationship goals, personal transformation goals… But they are all the same goal.

I am not dedicating 50% of my energy to my career as an illustrator and 50% towards fitness. No. That would dilute my energy. Its all one goal. I am going to transform myself to a close approximation of the Conan archetype. Its all connected.

Take this two men, Howard and Frazetta. If you look at them you can see they had a lot of Conan within them. They channeled this energy and brought it out. It was already there. They simply accessed it and manifested it, outwardly.

Check out this article and look at the photo, you can see Conan the Barbarian peeking out from Howard's eyes:The Tao of Conan There is a Striking resemblence between Howard's face and the painting above.

Now, look at the photos of Frazetta on this site.

Frazetta’s Art really resonates with me. Let me give a little insight into the man. He is a very kinesthetic artist. He was also a bit of a street fighter, when young and had some serious athletic ability. He had a hot sexy wife. His art was magick and it was sexual. It was sexual in the sense that it sprang from his sexual center. The seat of creativity. The art was like a homunculus, in a sense. It was imprinted with strong psycho-sexual energy. This added a layer of reality to his work that only the greats artists have. He reproduced living breathing psycho-sexual energy and transferred it to the canvas. He reproduced himself. Conan was him.

I can feel his art in my body. His characters have this soul. He breathed life into them. They have a very real energy, a very physical energy. The eyes are the window to the soul. Well his characters have fierce warrior souls, burning through their intense eyes.

Where does that come from? It’s magick. Not all artists really have it. Frazetta is a conjurer, a shaman.

Its not just shapes and colors arranged in a pattern that our brains recognize. Lesser artists do that. They may have some technical mastery, but the eyes of their characters don’t look alive, there is no tension, and the body language is stilted. This describes most Wannabe Frazetta clones.

I have a little insight into his creative process, because I believe I have some of this magick ability with my art as well. I inhabit my sketches. I shape shift. If I draw a wolf, I become a wolf. I feel every hair, every muscle of a wolf; I see the world through wolf eyes. This gives a lot of insight into anatomy. It makes things a lot easier because if its off it won’t just not look right, it won’t feel right. I’ll sense that my leg won’t function right if I design it wrongly.

I have this strong mind body connection through my art. The two work together in a positive feedback loop. I sublimate my psycho-sexual energy into my art and end up feeling more alive and physical and sexual in my body.

In fantasy illustration, graphic novelists, comic book artists-that whole genre, sex and violence is very important. It’s the fuel. All the artists I admire have a strong erotic element. Personally, I am a snob. I think most graphic novelists suck.

I prefer European graphic novelists, my Favorite American is R. Crumb.

Actually three of my favorite artists are

Paolo Serpieri,

Robert Crumb,

Frank Frazetta.

Three old guys. What do they have in common? They like to draw women with really round firm asses. Ghetto booty’s. Their women have junk in the trunk. They don’t render Barbie dolls. Its because they are sensualists. They draw women with the qualities they desire sexually. They are fetishized images. Like the cro-magnon carvings.

Once again Fetish is a magical term.

Now, Back to Conan, Conan is a guy. Is that homoerotic then? I think more accuraltely its auto-erotic. Its auto. Conan becomes me. I want to become Conan, not posess Conan, or for Conan to posess me.

Intertestingly, though, Druuna appears to be Serpieri's female doppelganger. So really he becomes Drunna through his art. If you look at the face you can see him. Very very highly sexually charged work, and it makes it really really good. Its frame of his graphic novels look awesome and really come alive on the page. Once again the best graphic novelists have a really strong erotic element. Another artist, not a graphic novelist but in the genre of fantasy is Geiger. Very dark, very erotic. Its sex magick.

So there it is, Art Physicality and magic all tied together. I want to become a barbarian, channel my inner Barbarian, and live through my art, which I intend to make into successful career. I am throwing my entire being into this goal. That's why it will manifest.

Killing the Endomorph inside me.

2007-04-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

My last post was about measuring and repeatability. This is a post about my internal processes. This is kind of a bittersweet thing. Transforming myself in this way, is like sculpting from a piece of marble, or clipping a hedge in a way. Parts of me are getting pruned off. But these are parts of *me*, not somthing outside of me. So there is a bit of a sense of loss. Its a bittersweet thing really. Its kind of like coming to the realization that I can actually achieve my goals, and making sure I really want them.

American's are kind of fat, but at the same time, we as a society look down on fat people. Classic endomorphs are fat. But the personality quirks associated with this type are not all bad. They are generally, affable extroverts with a pleasant sense of humor. They are relaxed and low key. This means that endomorphs are often likable.

I have some of these qualities, even though I am not a classic endomorph but a cross between endomorph and mesomorph, with a pinch of ecto-morph.

As I achieve this energetic change some of these parts of me are getting stripped away.

Endomorphs, like to eat a lot, and after they feel satiated, while they digest their food, they like to talk. They like pleasant small talk and jokes. Things like that.

I have some of this. I have kind of a boyish chubby face and I laugh easily and can make others laugh. I have kind of a self deprecating humor. When in this mode I put people at ease and have kind of a higher pitch to my voice.

Classic mesomorphs, on the other hand can also be social and extroverted, but they generally don't shoot the shit just to shoot the shit. They are competitive with people and very aware of status and power relationships. Their face looks different. They don't have fat cheeks. Their eyes don't crinkle nearly shut when they smile.

I am finding myself being less easy going and not neccessarily wanting everyone around me to feel at ease and get them to laugh. Its a habit I can get into, easily.

But I notice the change in my energy. I see people along the way and I used to make little connections with people, I was a little shy, and not assertive, but had a kind trusting face and people were disarmed by it. Nice people were. Tough people saw me as weak and ignored my or looked contemptibly at my overtures.

There is less of that now. I have less of a desire to start up conversations with random people, and say a little pleasant thing to them. Plus if I say "Hi" I can see people registering my face differently. They are more guarded, less sure they trust my face.

I have noticed several times, sales people seem to sense, I might be a bit of a dick to them, if they don't do what I say. So they are polite and formal and work quickly and efficiently. In a way this is a bit sad, but also a strong confirmation that I am on the right track. This is the real deal. I want to have an air of authority and gravity with people. But I miss the old me a bit.

They used to instantly sense they could joke with me and have a little conversation.

These are the negative things.

One positive thing is though, I have all this muscular energy and am realizing my life is boring as fuck. I have less of a need for security. So I think I will end up having a more exciting life. I am seriously considering taking up bow hunting or fighting, or some really aggressive sport.

I also find myself having a lot more confidence and hardly any social fear. I really care a lot less what people think of me.

I feel like soon I might even try to pick up a woman at a bar. Something I have never been able to do. It takes a certain kind of really finessed aggression to do that. I am not talking cro-magnon style. I am still intellectual. But seduction takes a lot of nerve. I have always had a lot of insights into seduction, but lacked the nerve.

My sex drive is getting pretty high too.

Going with this whole mesomorphic vibe might lead to another type of crossroads too. It strengthen the desire for fame and fortune but also adventure. They don't always lead to the same places at the same time. I have more drive to master my artwork and make money at it, but also I could easily see myself just saying "Fuck it" and moving to Alaska or kayaking around the world or somthing.

So if I screw around climbing and mountains and stuff, that puts the art career on hold, but If I apply all this muscular energy to making money, I might not get to really go on long term adventures for a few years when I am more past my physical prime.

I'll have to find a balance. Killing the endomorph, kind of removes the desire to have a safe little hobbit hole though. That part I don't miss. Fuck security. Its a trap.

Making it measurable: Body alchemy trial, update

2007-04-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a post from a blogger I enjoy:

Alchemically Brain Damaged

This post is centered around a clip of Ken Wilber relating the link between Science and Metaphysics.

First you need an injunction.

Then you have an experience.

Then you have some sort of confirmation.

The injunction is basically "If you want this to happen-you have to do this."

So then you follow the directions, have the desired experience. Later you confirm it, by peer review, repeatibility, falsifiability etc.

These three steps are the link between Science and Magic.

I am attempting to do magic. This whole blog is centered around an expiriment I am conducting to reprogram my nervous system. So far I have created a Sigil of how I want to transform my body into that of Frazetta's rendition of Conan the Barbarian. Also I have experimented with reprograming my nervous system using techniques I picked up reading "Prometheus Rising" by Robert Anton Wilson and the eight circuit model of consciousness. The part I am interested in is what Wilson called the "metareprogramming circuit, wherby you can reprogram all the other circuits.

I took from this, that if I could become aware of my nervous system, that is make my nervous system "self aware" then I can reprogram it the way I want it to be.

So that is my injunction. I have been studying the mind body connection of various somatypes, endomorph, ectomorph, mesomorph, and studying the intersection between personality and build. The intersection is the endocrine system.

I have been attempting to train my nervous system to behave in the way it would for a classic mesomorph, which should manifest a mesomorphic body.

That is the expiriment. The thing is though, I am more interested in getting big muscles than I am in creating this clearly defined repeatable expiriment. If it works for my selfish goal, I will be happy. But it is such a cool thing to try and do, that it would be great for it to be as scientific and measurable as possible. If I can demonstrate that it works, it can be something really valuable.

I am a few weeks into it and have been having some positive results. I have a photo record. Here are some things I could have done. I could have measured my body fat, and I could have measured my testosterone level. I could still do it, but I am kind of broke, having these things done would cost money and take time. Plus I am part way into it, so the results wouldn't be as dramatic now, as they would have tested out as from the beginning.

I mean I sense my bodyfat is going down and my testosterone level is going up. My belt is in a loop, I feel stonger and more muscular, I have developed a slight acne problem, my countenance has changed, my voice has more base and socially I am more dominant and assertive, less engratiating and people pleasing. And, to be frank,I am thinking about sex more, waking up with an erection and getting erections at odd times not associated with thinking about sex. These are all consistent with an increase in testosterone.

But these are somewhat intangible things. It would be better to be able to point to real numbers like an accurate body fat percentage and serum testosterone level.

This would be even more accurate than somthing I could do, which is measure my weight. Because more dramatic changes can take place than mere weight loss. In fact that is my goal. To look like Conan, I do not simply want to lose weight. I want to change my body composition. I have lost about five lbs. I will probably lose more, but being lightweight like an ectomorph is not the goal. I have a sense that if I got down to 185 with 5% bodyfat, I would be pretty close to the goal. But if I got down to say 165 with that same percentage I would be off the mark.

Another thing is though, that appearance is not the most measurable thing.But maybe that is good because it narrows things down.

One complication I have run into though is that I have this flue like bug that has been going around and I can't shake it.

OBE staves off asthma attack

2007-04-15T12:13:00.000-07:00

OK, this is weird. I know its weird but I just have to get it down. Yesterday, I overcame an asthma attack, by taking nap and having an "Out of Body Experience" as I drifted off to sleep. Only I don't think it was quite an OBE, yet. It was definately the makings of one. This Guy Monroe, a foundational researcher in OBE's journaled that he used to get these "vibrations" as he driffted off to sleep and that these vibrations eventually led to OBE's. He just kind of gave himself over to the experience I guess.

I think I have been having similar vibes as I drift off to sleep. A refreshing feeling comes over me. It may be me reconnecting with my "lightbody." It feels related.

I have had some experiences of what could be the awakening of my kundilini energy. As I drifted off to sleep, I had this great feeling of expansiveness, like my consciousness was not limited by my body. My thoughts also seemed really expansive. As I breathed in my laboured way, being in the throes of an asthma attack, I felt that my breath was not limited to my body. There was no inhaling or exhaling. I felt like there were no lungs to contain or expel my breath, only empty space and that my breathing was just like wind or a wave in the ocean. After a while I couldn't feel my breath. My body felt like a globe in a way, and the outer edges of it were not my physical body per se, but simply the edges of my awareness. When I got up from my nap my symtoms were gone.

This also ties into this sensation I had a few days ago where I imagined this healing ointment, some universal solvent, washing over my body and healing me. I could really picture how it felt and smelled and tasted. It was kind of like liquid light mixed with aloe vera juice, and smelling vaquely of apples. Then I thought "This can't be real." Then instantly, it wasn't real. So, then I thought "Fuck! I want it to be real!Goddam it it is real!" Its real if I want it to be real. I really felt my endorphins kicking in all over my body. I've had joint pains. Hard to measure. No Western Doctor ever helped me with them. Some even said it was in my head. But I did have this acupressure points on my feet that were really painful. Now they are completely clear.

I decided that if I want to feel great all the time I can. Its my choice. Its a very startling realization. Its a realization of total responsibility. But I am coming to accept it.

I choose to set limits on myself. That may be part and pacel with the whole reason for incarnating here. Choosing limitation. So maybe all limitations could be transcended eventually, but it would kind of go against the reason for being her on earth in a physical body.

But its god to know these things can be transcended. I can choose which limits I want and which ones I don't. That is a very empowering choice to have.

What exactly am I doing?

2007-04-06T10:19:00.000-07:00

Metareprogramming of the nervous system is about awareness. Its breaking down your awareness into its component parts, realizing you can bring them under conscious control and then playing around with them. You can control your nervous system!

Here is an exercise. Walk down the street. You see a person walking the other way-observe how you feel. Indifferent? A little nervous? Scared? Awkward?

Studies have shown there there is a lot of baseline fear in everyday human social interactions. For example, there was a study that people are generally a little nervous around each other, a little stressed, yet when they interact with animals they are not. I am going by memory. The focus was on the effect of pets reducing stress, but it revealed how stressful people are to each other.

That is because on a biological level, we are social animals, and there is social ranking going on all the time. Like when two dogs meet for the first time and figure out who is dominant. They sniff each others butts and circle around. We've all seen it. Dogs don't have pores like humans do. They can't sweat, plus they are covered with fur. So phermones and things come out the rectum. Its a big pore. They are smelling fear, sensing how much fear they can smell coming from the other dog.

The one showing the least fear ends up being the dominant dog. Then usually one dog will show a sign of submission. They keep their head lower, put the tail and the ears down, pull the lips back a bit, in kind of a grin. They may offer to lick the other dog. The dominant dog will stand more erect.

On a basic biological level, humans are no different. There are similar body language cues that apply to humans and mean the same thing. Dominant humans show more confidence and less fear in social situations. They make stronger eye contact, have more bass in the voice. They take more liberties with the people around them. It may include more touching, pats on the back. Generaly the alpha is allowed to touch others in the group that are not allowed to touch him/her.

So next time you are in a social situation observe how you act. But also going back to the exercise of walking down the street observe what you do and how you feel. Do you always say "Hi" and smile? Is the "Hi" kind of high pitched? If so you are telegraphing yourself as an omega. Its a fear based reaction. You are utilizing a defense mechanism, to get rank out of the way right off the bat, to protect yourself. Basically you are saying "Hi, I am a wimp. You are the boss, don't hurt me."

Not interacting at all is good. Generally, the the higher ranking person would put less effort into this exchange. Some people aren't as social and avoid eye contact and kind of ignore most passerby. On a busy street, you tend to end up ignoring passerby. There is not enough time or energy available to greet all these people. This is more signifigant in less busy areas. Its a god exercize though to observe your nervous system in action. This is the first step. If you tend to say, "Hi" and smile a lot, don't feel bad that you tend to be submissive in social situations. Just be aware of it. If you can be aware of it, you can bring it under conscious control. If you want to. Animals aren't aware of these things. Robotic unaware people aren't either.

Walking down a bike path on a sunday afternoon, observe Fathers with their wives and children. Notice their posture and demeanor. Some are alpha males with submissive wives and children. They will have a protective demeanor. They may not say hi or smile, maybe the wife will. If they tend not to make eye contact and not smile, they are alphas that may not be social. If they don't smile or say hi, they may just not be very social, you may not be able to deduce their rank.

Some couples will have the wife as the alpha. Is the husband very smiley and friendly? Is he wearing one of these slings like a papoose, or on the front? If so he is a beta male. The wife is the alpha. Some men actually lactate.

This is cultivating awareness.

Now, the reprogramming after this point of becoming aware of ones nervous system, does not involve walking around, projecting a lot of hostile energy, with your chest puffed out trying to intimidate passer-by. That is not what an in control person does. There is no pay off in such exchanges for a true alpha. That behavior is the domain of people with little control over their lives.

But still, such people, do display positive effects in their physiques. The stereotypical inner city male does have a lean muscular physique. His survival is dependant on projecting strenghth, to others in his envoronment. Its always incredible to me how much energy, such people put into simply walking down the street. It appears to take intense concentration.

Before emulating them however, ask yourself "Where has it gotten them in life?" Nowhere. They are stuck on the physical plane. We all have a physical vehicle, its good understand it and maintain it and get the most use out of it, but not good to be limited by it.

My goal is to be dominant on an abstract level. Wrestle with ideas and conquer them. Take an alpha male approache to life. "Make life my Bitch" to use prison slang!

Seriously though, This is the secret. Successful people sublimate this alpha energy. They dominate. Be an intellectual alpha!

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, all tough guys. Socrates was reputedly built like a fire plug, with a touch prize fighter's face. "Plato" means broad. Plato had really broad shoulders. He was a wrestler. Philosophy requires a good deal of muscular strength.

What happens is we "reify" things. We take abstract things and make them real. Our body picks up on this and and creates an appropriate response. If you have a beta, or omega, approach to life, you won't accomplish much and your nervous system will build a soft omega body.

More on this later. Stay tuned...

Dark worker trial.

2007-04-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

So anyway, I am doing a 30 day trial of being a "dark worker". Somthing is happening. This corresponds quite nicely with my expiriment to lose weight by reprogramming my nervous system. I've been up going on 36 hours with no sleep except for a quick nap. Plus, after being up all night, writing and sketching and planning, I spent today exercizing, doing push ups and dumbel curls and jumping rope. Plus I did some more sketching. So I think its safe to say I have more energy.

Then a little bit ago a felt kind of sad, like a little heart pang. I mean, I dunno, won't my heart eventually shrink or somthing? I mean the further I go down this path the less loving I will become even as I become more powerful. Is that how it works?

I consider myself a loving person. But as I go through life, as I get older, "saving the world" just isn't doing it for me. I want to get mine. First of all, who the fuck knows what the world needs? Some of these prople that seem at first to be the biggest idealists, on further inspection look at the world with a really jaundiced eye. Its envy towards the powerful really, I think that drives them rather than love for the so called "oppressed."

Plus, I like being in control of myself. That has been a theme for me these last few years. If I were to be motivated primarily by love, and a desire to heal the world, or whatever, I would be controlled by that. That would choose for me. I would be all about what the world needs instead of what I want.

I am going after what I want. I don't plan to step on people to get there, but I think the best way to put it is like this. Going after what I want, looking at life as a rather hedonistic adventure, is what gets me out of bed in the morning.

This,I have learned about myself, though this 30 day trial. And it feels good doing things for me. Meeting challenges I set for myself. I might even statrt to train in MMA. I mean if this other expiriment works, and I reprogram my nervous system to manifest traits of the mesomorphic body type and the accompanying behavioral traits-
What will I do with all this muscular energy?

Truthfully, I really did feel like getting in a fight this afternoon. I felt that good. It wasn't any kind of a anger thing. I just want the challenge. I watch UFC. I am a big fan, why not train and do it? I mean for the experience? I don't want to be a professional fighter, but why not trian and have a couple fights?

Like this Guy Sam Sheridan.

I feel great. I feel more alive than I have in a long time.

Why I shop at Whole Foods instead of Woodman's

2007-04-02T06:28:00.000-07:00

I am trying to lose weight and also make more money. So instead of waiting in line, to buy cheap food, at a crappy looking discount store, waiting in long lines with fat miserable poor people with Foodstamps- I buy gourmet food at whole foods.

I can't afford to buy a lot of it, so I end up eating smaller portions. The staff are very knowledgeable and helpful in cultivating epicurean tastes. I always learn somthing, wheather its about wine, or imported cheese, or exotic fruits. The people I rub elbows with are generally thin, good looking sophisticated and well groomed. This rubs off on me energetically and effects my nervous system. I subtly, begin to emulate the body language of sophisticated upper middle class people.

At Woodman's, the atmosphere drags me down, because the building is crappy and dirty. The food is all stockpiled haphazardly in big messy piles. No artistry at all. Its cheap so I end up over indulging, and I subtly pick up the body language and speech patterns of ghetto people and losers.

I am being blunt, here. Its not that poor people have no value as people, its just that I don't choose to have them as part of my everyday reality. I am not doing charity work by shopping next to them. So its not like I am being mean to them by not hanging around them.

I am priming up my nervous system to attract greater abundance into my life. Its about choice and free will.

This works!

2007-04-01T16:31:00.000-07:00

Today:

Three days ago:

I still haven't done anything that would be considered "working out" or training. All I have done is changed my thought patterns and attitude, posture etc. I have been playing around with my nervous system, embodying strength and assertivemess, programing out the oral/viscerotonic/first circuit tendencies.

I did shave my chest, I notice I am really pale and feel like a plucked chicken, but This will help me track the progress of my muscle tone.

I notice the biggest change in my face. Its losing a lot of the pudgy "Baby face" look.

In the next few days I expect it to get a lot thinner. My Cheek bones will come out more and my neck will get thicker. As my energy level increases, I find myself wanting to change my habits and orient them more toward adventure and challenge, and away from security and satisfying myself orally with food.

I feel a bit restless. I may take up martial arts or somthing.

Ideas behind this challenge

2007-03-31T11:05:00.000-07:00

The Future Exists First in Imagination,
Then in Will,
Then in Reality
-Barbara Marx HUBBARD

The foundational assumption behind this challenge is that the universe is composed of mind. The Universe may be big, but the human mind is bigger because the mind contains the universe. There are more possible connections between the neurons in your brain than there are atoms in the entire Universe.
We never leave our minds. All experience all perceptions occur in the mind. Therefore in order to change the Universe, what is really necessary is to change ones mind.

The second assumption, is the body mind connection. Through this connection states of the mind are manifested through the body. I am roughly relating this to
Somatypes and their relationship with personality. These states are reprogrammable on a psychic level and will create a physical manifestation.

Creating attitudes mental states associated with the musculotonic mesomorphic body type/ will have a corresponding manifestation in the body.

By thinking action oriented, competitive, adventurous thoughts, my body will begin to equip me for competitive, aggressive, adventurous actions.

I believe these types of changes occur with people all the time. People may pursue an aggressive weight training program and develop strong dense musculature and raise their testosterone levels. They may think the results are caused by the training itself, but actually the physical is manifesting changes that occurred in the mind. It’s starts primarily in the mind, but what happens is that a positive feedback loop is created through the mind body connection. A person has a desire to become strong, muscular, aggressive, that inspires them to join a gym. Their body may be already gearing up for the challenge even before they join. The physical training reinforces this.

Some recent experiments bear this out. Here is an article that compiles the various relationships between mental imagery and sports performance:

Uconn strength research

Because of the body mind connection it can work the opposite way as well. Method actors often use facial expressions and body postures to achieve a mental or emotional state associated with the character they are portraying.

Try this experiment for your self. Look in the mirror and make a face like you are terrified. Do it a couple times and you will begin to actually feel scared.

This is the body mind connection in action.

In the
eight circuit model of consciousness, There is a sixth level, known as the metaprogramming level which is able to reprogram all the previous levels. Its about awareness. I am reprogramming my second circuit which is associated with dominance/submission aggression and territoriality. Often people that strongly imprint on this circuit, which can be seen as a developmental stage, are often aggressive, dominant and action oriented. The physical manifestation of this is that they are often, lean and muscular and of medium size. This build gives the greatest balance between the fight and flight complexes. You see this type a lot fighting in the UFC.

I, however, am looking at this as a game. That is the whole point with metareprogramming. I am not stuck in any one circuit. Whereas, some tough, guy that heavily imprinted in this circuit as a child, would tend to interact with the world primarily on this basis-Seeing life as a combat sport or battle for dominance. I have some of that in me as well. My build already shows evidence of that, as I already possess some mesomorphic characteristics. Naturally broad shoulders, etc. I also have traits associated with the enomorphic body type, that I am trying to get rid of. An extreme endomorph, is fat round and soft, pear shaped, with a round jolly face. There are qualities of personality associated with the endomorph that are positive. They tend to enjoy good food and good conversation. They are friendly and personable and often clever.

If you’ve read “The Hobbit” think of hobbits if you want to figure out what endomorphs are like. They ate five meals a day and had lots of festivals and social gatherings. They tended to avoid adventure and were homebodies, living in hobbit holes.

These aren’t negative qualities. Its all good. But these are aspects of myself I am trying to change. The thing is I can! I have been playing around with my nervous system, observing its reactions in social situations and modifying it, using various polarities such as dominance/submission fear/courage. There is a lot of fear associated with social interactions for most people. Ectomorphs, the skinny ones, tend to be shy and retreating. That’s how they deal. Endomorphs deal with social fear, by being more submissive and engratiating, and using their sense of humor. Mesomorphs deal with it by being competitive and seeking to dominate.

The key to reprogramming these responses of the nervous system, is to step outside of yourself, observe your body’s reaction, and then learn how to bring it under conscious control.

So in a nutshell, what I am doing is training my nervous system to create a mesomorphic body for me.

I think this is really valuable technology I have happened upon here. This could potentially give a big edge in personal training. Because think about it. Most men, when they join a gym and begin weight training, want to become more of a mesomorph. But if they can’t reprogram their nervous system, they never will. Think of it this way.

The classic endomorph, will join a gym, build some muscle, and basically, make a lot of friends their and entertain them with jokes, turn it into a social thing and stay kind of chubby and “Friar Tuck” looking. The classic, ectomorph, will kind of keep to himself, running on a treadmill, doing cardio, listening to an audio book or something. The mesomorph will try to become the biggest toughest guy in the gym and probably will.

The various exercises themselves are not the whole picture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy

http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/sheldon.html

http://www.phinnweb.org/neuro/8-circuit/lilly.html

http://www.uconnhuskies.com/MainLinks/UConnStrength/2005/jul05research.html

Before Pictures

2007-03-29T10:08:00.000-07:00

I used to look like this. I felt bad all the time, I would get out of breath walking up the stairs, my self esteem was at an all time low...But then I did some research and put together a super dooper revolutionary fast acting fitness plan and achieved amazing results in an unbelievably short period of time...

I call it the...Posing with my stomach muscles flexed program. This amzing technology can be yours too for a small donation of only $19.95

But seriously, though all, these fitness plan ads are kind of cheezy like that. The before picture always shows some gy frowning and with bad posture and his gut pushed out, then the after picture he's flexing with a big smile on his face and often a tan and his body hair all nice and dipilated, with baby oil on him and stuff.

So I figure to prove I really now how to get in really good shape in a short period of time I figured I'd get that out of the way.

I still have way more body fat than I want. I have already started on my fitness program however, it started with raising my testosterone level and burning fat by changing my mental attitude. I actually made a sigil, using principles of chaos magic. Here is a photo of it:

My goal is too look like Fantasy Illustrator Frank Frazzetta's rendition of Conan the Barbarian.

I actually, do have a technology to share and it partly involves posing in front of the mirror. The Universe is composed of mind. Magick is the art of changing the Universe to correspond to the will. Through willing myself to look like Conan the Barbarian, I achieved greater compression in my body. Walking around with good posture and with my stomach muscles flexed, actually has had the effect of strengthening my core. I have done maybe three of four sets of push-ups over the course of a couple months. I watch UFC on spike TV regularly and shadow box during the commercials, visualizing myself as my favorite fighters and my body is actually responding. I haven't been doing any strenuous exercise, nor started a rigorous training program.

This is my actual "before" picture taken the day I created the sigil. I actually was trying to flex a bit:

So even though, I was kind of joking around about improving, simply by flexing, That actually is my fitness plan. By flexing my muscles off and on during the day and imigining myself becoming Conan the Barbarian, I have actually achieved some fairly good results. Judge for yourself. One month after I made the sigil:

I feel I have a long way to go but I will be posting my progress. I plan to get rid of my double chin, and have six pack abs by summer time. Once, I've willed myself into shape I will probably take up running or some other sport. Why let my body go to waste?

Evaluation of last week

2007-02-17T12:13:00.000-08:00

Goal Blog

1. Overall goal is to get published.
2. This involved writing two hours everyday and drawing or other kinds of art two times a day.
3. Getting up at 5 am and writing for two hours from 5:30 to 7:30
4. Also exercise everyday
5. Save money
6. Get bills squared away
7. Cultivate more social contacts

Basically, I am feeling depressed and isolated and in a rut. I need to do something about this. I will go to church tomorrow. It’s a liberal church my sister goes to. Good place to find the kinds of people I would get along with. I have been thinking Christianity, is really no worse than any other world religion. I grew up with it, the Liberal protestant kind. I only became a fanatic later in life. Episcopalians aren’t fanatical. They aren’t narrow minded. I mean how narrow minded could they be if Phillip K. Dick was an Episcopalian? This is a liberal low key congregational church.
I tried out going to some pagan things but Its not for me, The rituals have no tradition for me, no sense of meaning. I find myself yearning for some sense of continuity in my spiritual life , not just jumping around constantly.
I will probably check out the Big UU church, too. That’s good for having a religious community while being experimental at the same time. I do have a lot of animist tendencies, but the fact is I don’t live in a tribal village. So to have a religious community, in America, church fits the bill.

I have been doing well with the exercise. Diet is getting better. I need to cut back on dairy and sugar and eat more veggies. No fried food. I also need to really get serious with the pilates. I am up to doing over 100 push ups a day. I can do 50 pretty easy for the first set. The dumbbell curls aggravated my sprained elbow, so I cut them out. I think it was shortening my biceps muscle. So that made my range of motion restricted again.

I got up at 5 am either 3 or 4 of the five days, but only wrote one day for an hour, one day and a half an hour another day. So out of a total of 10 hours of writing I had scheduled, I reached only 15% of my goal.

So pretty piss poor. But I did pretty well on the getting up early. I thought by the middle of the week, I would automatically start to adjust my sleeping patterns and begin retiring to bed earlier, but I ended up going to bed as late as usual (around midnight) and only getting 5 hours of sleep. But the goal is to get published. There is no reward for reaching this daily goals. No in is there to pat me on my back and say “good job.” Even finishing the novel is not the goal.

One thing I notice though is that by setting and achieving goals, my demeanor changes. I look and feel and act different. I look and feel more masculine, more mature, less boyish, like I have more character, I have better posture, more vigorous walk, better muscle tone.

Drifting through life is bad news. It really is being a slacker. My body and face becomes slack. As I get older if I continue to just drift along I will develop wrinkles associated with being a slacker. Certain muscles in my face will atrophy, the wrinkles will form around a permanent bored listless expression. I will exude this energy imprint of laziness. People will pick up on it subconsciously.
People that have a lot of “presence” when they are old, are people that lived their whole life on their own terms. They went out and did what they wanted to do in life, met the challenges. Their face shows a record of this. They have a strong energy imprint. Their character is carved into their face.

Having a strong grip has a lot to do with this too. Strong willed people with a lot of character have a strong grip. I mean, auto-mechanics, manual laborers etc. Have a strong grip, too, but not for the same reason. Its not totally related. You can be a CEO of a corporation and have hands as smooth and un-calloused as a baby’s, but if you are a strong willed aggressive person, you will have a strong grip.

Its like my Dad, he always had good posture, hard muscle tone, firm jaw line. He never exercised. His exercise was building his business.

Initiative is a rare thing. Not everyone has it. It’s creating something ex-nihilo from sheer force of will. Its creating something in your mind and bringing it into existence. Its power. It’s a physical exercise. It takes your whole body to do it.

So that’s why I think the push ups and pilates and the power walking is really helping me reach the goal. It gives a message to my body of what I am doing.