Training - "Antidepressant."

9/28 - stretch, squats [repPR 235x13, PR 300, both w/my awesome new belt from EliteFTS], speed bag, leg raise - Finally got my squats unstuck, first 1RM PR in over a year.  First repPR since leaving Thailand in May.  Feels pretty good.  Smarter programming, better recovery/rest, super-solid training partner [Hi Justin!]

9/26 - hike w/weighted vest [Brutal.  Thank god the weights were adjustable or I'd have never made it.  Felt like the first quarter mile was all uphill.  Crushing.  Calves still hurt this AM.]

True Story.

Training - "It takes no talent to be in shape."

9/25 - stretch, treadmill walk/wmup, bench [PR 255], db row, incline bench, pulldowns, pushups, cable curls, pushdowns, speed bag

That's what the voices in my head tell me.

"True nobility..."

QFT.

"Carlos Santana." So say we all. AoS S2 Bloopers.

"I'm sure the worlds' banks have more incentives than greed."

"You're wrong."

Training - "Always listen to your body. Unless your body says 'Don't Deadlift Today.'"

9/23 - deadlifts [repPR 335x14, PR 425/chalk, belt, mixed grip], situps, back xt, sauna, bridges

"I ain't never hit a bar with a cover. Low thread count, hard with the covers." - LD is killing it.

"Fuck you rappers braggin' bout?  You overpaying for it!"

Lil Dicky - $ave Dat Money feat. Fetty Wap and Rich Homie Quan (Official Music Video)

In today's news, guy in a dress with imaginary friend coming to the U.S.

"...the real and fair solution is [to] stop trying to protect people’s feelings. Your feelings are your problem, not mine—and vice versa."

The Real Reason We Need To Stop Trying To Protect Everyone’s Feelings | Observer: "There’s that saying: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. When it comes to censorship, one might say that the road to thought and speech control is paved by people trying to protect other people’s feelings. It’s important to realize that today, we have a media system paid by the pageview and thus motivated with very real financial incentives to find things to be offended about—because offense and outrage are high-valence traffic triggers. We have another industry of people—some call them Social Justice Warriors—who, despite their sincerity of belief, have also managed to build huge platforms by inventing issues and conflicts which they then ride to prominence and influence. One might call both of these types Rage Profiteers. They get us riled up, they appeal to our notions of fairness and empathy—who likes to see someone else’s feelings hurt?—without any regard for what the consequences are. Of course, the real and fair solution is much less politically correct but effective. It’s to stop trying to protect people’s feelings. Your feelings are your problem, not mine—and vice versa...  

Real empowerment and respect is to see our fellow citizens—victims and privileged, religious and agnostic, conservative and liberal—as adults. Human beings are not automatons—ruled by drives and triggers they cannot control. On the contrary, we have the ability to decide not to be offended. We have the ability to discern intent. We have the ability to separate someone else’s actions or provocation or ignorance from our own. This is the great evolution of consciousness—it’s what separates us from the animals. What also separates us is our capacity for empathy. But how empathetic the speech we decide to use is choice for each one of us to make. Some of us are crass, some of us are considerate. Some of us find humor in everything, some of us do not. It’s important too—but those of us that believe it and live our lives by a certain sensitivity cannot bully other people into doing so too. That sort of defeats the purpose."

Training - "Be like Groot."

9/21 - stretch, press, chins, dips, db side swings, pike pushup/press  

9/19 - planks/sprints, v hold, chins

Want Results? Be like Groot. I AM GROOT! | Nerd Fitness:

The Walk On | T Nation: "The idea of fairness is a ridiculous notion – if you have something to offer then you should be treated as such. If you're a scrub in life, don't expect to be treated like someone that has value... There are two kinds of people in the world: the ones that protest and complain and want fairness despite never having earned it, and the ones that fight their asses off to be important and make a contribution. You have to earn the right to be treated fair. The people that have a problem with that are the scrubs. If you take one thing from this article, let that be it."

Body Transformation: Champions Aren't Built On Excuses - Bodybuilding.com:

Today's History Lesson.

Great Ink.

Training.

9/18 - stretch, squats, leg raise, calf press

vsflex's Progress Photo Update - BodySpace: "TRANSFORMATION! Curious to see where I started? Back then I was active and still strong from gymnastics days, but had no clue what I was doing in the weight room and ate anything and everything I wanted. I've learned a lot in the last few years and worked hard every day. Soft 90-95lbs to a current lean 107 :)"

Training - "If your mindset is that you'll never quit..."

9/16 - stretch, bench, db rows, incline bench, pushups

"“Delete your ego” is, of course, a primary game played in cults... Corporate America studied this in detail and has applied similar techniques..."

Magick.Me Blog — Why You Should Have a Huge Ego: "Since I got into spirituality, people have been laying this “kill your ego” trip on me. 

The Ego is a concept created by Sigmund Freud to denote “the organized part of the personality structure that includes defensive, perceptual, intellectual-cognitive, and executive functions.

It was part of Freud’s unique internal cosmology and has no direct analogue in Vedanta or Buddhism, which have much more complex terminology for the self. The Buddha, of course, came to a realization that there is no actual individual self—the idea that you have a unique, core, true “self” is—according to the Buddha—actually a kind of cognitive illusion created by the interconnection of phenomena. 

Now… both of these concepts got mashed up by 1960s psychonauts who started taking really really fucking potent LSD, and entering states in which they momentarily perceived their selves as, well, cognitive illusions. Afterwards, they tried to explain their experience first in Freudian terms (“I realized the ego is a lie”), and then with a bit of Eastern mysticism (“The Buddha said the self isn’t real and that’s what I saw on LSD”). These then got mashed together as the general idea that you have an “ego” which is “bad” and that if you “delete” it, you get closer to “god.” (Because psychoanalysis and Buddhism aside, Western people are Christians deep down, and what we’re really looking for is a communion wafer and some penance and lashings to make us more “good.” Hence acid and “killing our egos.”) 

--

“You have a big ego” is a covert game by which spiritual, New Agey and occult people police each other’s actions. It actually means “you’re not doing what I think you should,” “your actions do not jibe with my ego,” or even “immediately cease thinking for yourself or questioning, and think and behave only as I or the group leader wish you to.” It means “you are not following my/the group’s script.” “Delete your ego” is, of course, a primary game played in cults, and a primary way in which compliance among cult members is achieved and enforced. Corporate America studied this in detail and has applied similar techniques to organizational psychology and human resources in order to control employee behavior. So let me say this again: “You have a big ego” means “you are not on script.” “Delete your ego” means “get in line.”

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You’re goddamn right I have an “ego.” I have a right to have likes and dislikes, to be angry or “negative” when I want, to have lust, greed, pride, envy, sloth and the rest. These are part of what make me human. And to simply amputate my basic humanity doesn’t serve me at all: It only makes me compliant, docile, easy to manipulate by others.

--

So this is a key point: I have an ego. I have a right to my ego. I can turn off my ego if I like, or leave it on if I like, but what I do with my ego is fundamentally nobody’s business but my own. Spirituality need not and should not hang an “open season” sign on your sense of individuality and self-worth. Cherish your ego. Follow your own script."

“The moment you join a group [or party], you start to identify your identity with the group’s identity, and then you merge..."

‘Dilbert’ Creator on How Trump Is Like The Founding Fathers & Jesus - The Daily Beast: "“If you’re keeping score, in the past month Trump has bitch-slapped the entire Republican Party, redefined our expectations of politics, focused the national discussion on immigration, proposed the only new idea for handling ISIS, and taken functional control of FOX News,” Adams blogged, frighteningly. “And I don’t think he put much effort into it. Imagine what he could do if he gave up golf.”

--

“My political position is basically to do everything I can [to] not to be a joiner,” he explains. “The moment you join a group [or party], you start to identify your identity with the group’s identity, and then you merge, and the group’s opinion starts to become your own—and then you lose all credibility.”"

"There's no such thing as 'I'm too busy for that...'"

"It's just 'Mmm, I don't want to invest the time necessary to achieve that goal.'"