Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously – Meghan Markle PowerPoint Edition

“Okay, that is not the answer I was looking for. You show me a man with pride and I’ll show you a man with limited options.” – Malcom in the Middle

drool

Maybe we should sell PowerPoint™ presentations as an anti-insomnia treatment?

One time I volunteered to put together a presentation.  On what?  It doesn’t really matter, it’s my theory that Scott Adams is right – “PowerPoint© slides are like children:  no matter how ugly they are, you’ll think they’re beautiful if they’re yours.”  Heck, I like PowerPoint® so much I can’t even have a conversation with The Mrs. without stopping her and letting her know that they’ll be time for questions at the end.

The real reason that I volunteered to put the presentation together is that I knew the material really well, and I could work on it alone.  It’s not that I have disdain for my coworkers, it’s just that I generally think they’re insignificant insects.  I suppose qualifies me for a career as either a serial killer or being best buddies with Meghan Markle.

markle

Meghan, one bit of advice – seat belts.

One other bonus of this presentation work.  I was getting paid to do something I really like to do anyway, which is write.  So, based on an agreed upon structure and content, I was free to create a masterpiece of business information, one that would resound for ages through the annals of corporate history, or at least sit unnoticed on a shared network drive until the aliens from planet Zatar invade in the year 2241.

I will admit that I’m only nearly perfect.  The presentation was sent out the group for comments.  I’m very pleased that some typos were found, and some people had some pretty good suggestions on where I had been less than clear could have been clearer.  And I thought that the feedback was great.  In general, I really do think that more eyes will help make a presentation like this clearer and more informative.  Since this presentation would be used for training throughout the company, I did want it to be good.

beertrain

Mathematicians have an alcohol problem – they can’t drink and derive.  But they do know their limits.

However, there was one response that suggested a major change in format.  That email was followed by other team members emailing that they thought it was a good idea in a lemming-like way.  Once a group of lemmings is in full motion in a corporate setting, forget it.  Standing up against the onslaught of emails from the ever-reliable corporate coalition of the uniformed and the uninvolved never looks good.

For whatever reason, this particular situation made me as angry as a Harrison Ford when the nurse at the desk of the retirement home is out of those hard candies he likes.  The comment that suggested the format change came from the New Guy, who joined the group long after I volunteered and we decided on just what we were doing.

When I find I’m getting angry at anything in life, I try to take a step back.  I understand that, for the most part, I’m not just a sack of water and chemicals.  I was angry because I was letting myself stay angry.  Yes, your first response is your first response.  But after you have that sudden impulse of emotion, you get to choose how you feel.  Being angry is, at first, a reaction.  After that, it’s a choice.

And I was choosing to be angry.

thinking

Sorry, I can’t hear you over my inner monologue.

I pushed my chair back from my desk and away from my computer.  I think dramatic music was playing, and there may or may not have been a crescendo while the camera pulled back.  I sat for a minute and thought.

“Why am I letting myself get mad about this?”

In reviewing his commentary, the major change wouldn’t impact the actual content.  In fact, it could be used in a similar fashion.  The only change was (in my opinion) that it would be packaged with more Stupid – it was mainly a formatting change.  Stupidity is more common in the universe than hydrogen, and is universally fatal if taken in large enough doses, but this wasn’t a fatal (or even harmful) amount of Stupid, merely at the “minor inconvenience” level.

So why was I letting myself be so cheesed?

I got up and got another cup of coffee.  I try to limit myself to two pots a day.

I sat back down at my desk, and exhaled slowly.  I would refuse to be mad.  And the anger went away.  For whatever reason, this suggestion had hit at my pride.  My conclusion was that I was taking myself too seriously.  I was taking my own opinion too seriously.  And also that I hadn’t yet had enough coffee – I could still feel my jaw.

What happens when you take yourself too seriously?

yoda

So, you’re saying George Lucas is the problem?

In the worst case, you become a stereotype – the screeching over-educated-sociology major with a dozen cats and Trump Derangement Syndrome who would jump from pro-abortion to raising babies with a loving husband instead of cat farming with chardonnay if Trump decided he hated babies and marriage.  But there are other examples.  Let’s look at familiar characters that take themselves too seriously:

  • Cartman©, from the comedy cartoon, South Park™. His major source of humor to the show is his inflated self-importance and complete narcissism.  You must respect his authorit-ay.
  • Nancy Pelosi, from the live-action comedy, Congress. Like Cartman®, but skinnier and older.
  • Evil©, from the Austin Powers© movie series. Dr. Evil™ has a series of grandiose schemes based on old Bond® movies.  So, this is like Congress, but with better special effects.
  • Most Hollywood Actors. It always makes me chuckle when they take private jets to climate change conferences to meet with autistic teens who ride in multi-million dollar yachts.
  • Leftists who knit (as noted in this excellent article – LINK).

View at Medium.com

french

What do you call a Frenchman in a World Cup® final?  Referee.

When you take yourself too seriously you become a stereotype.  You become a subject (rightfully) open for ridicule, like most of the examples listed above.  As I noted, I got over being angry by putting things in perspective.

Things I try to keep in mind:

  • I’m an Internet humorist. Life is inherently a comedy, and not a tragedy.  So I try to see the humor and potential for goodness when I see myself taking things too seriously.  I have a killer standup routine that’s perfect for funerals.
  • Part of my job is changing the world to meet my expectations. It’s actually fun.  But when part of your job is to change the world, you sometimes forget that you can’t make all of the world meet your expectations.  I’ll just leave this one thought:
  • Do I really want to be the kind of person who gets upset over PowerPoint® slides? They’re not actually poisonous if you have less than eighty in a presentation according to the CDC.  In reality, most decisions that you make are meaningless.  Buy the Progresso® soup or the Campbells™?  Who cares?  You probably won’t remember the outcome of the decision in a month.  Why take that decision seriously at all?  (Get Ruffles® instead.)
  • There are things that are based in my values (Roman Virtues and Western Civilization, Complete with Monty Python): I care about those passionately and act on them.  But the effort to care about everything the way I care about those values will burn me up inside.  So, at least I could cut down on the heating bills.  Maybe I should only obsess in winter?
  • I have to realize that the person who remembers my silly mistakes, my miscues, and my faults most is me. And my ex-wife.  But my ego thinks it lives at the center of the world and that’s why it’s so protective of itself.

In the end, I made the change that irritated me to the presentation.  Yes, the presentation got a little Stupider and less easy to use, but I’m willing to admit that it doesn’t really matter.  The biggest gifts I got was two less things to care about – my ego, and changes to that presentation.

The Lighter Side of the Apocalypse

“It’s the Apocalypse all right.  I always thought I’d have a hand in it.” – Futurama

spider

I make apocalypse jokes like there’s no tomorrow.

Wednesday’s are normally a day to talk about wealth, and when you’re prepping, what is wealth?  Is it gold coins?  Is it ammunition?  Is it beer?  Is it a paid off house?  Is it a decade’s worth of PEZ®?

In many cases when I go to other websites that discuss either economic or social dislocation I see people arguing in the comments section about the way to prepare.  In some cases, these arguments have even occurred here at this humble bastion of Internet civility and decorum.  All of the people arguing are right.

No, that doesn’t mean that John Wilder is out there awarding participation trophies for comments, far from it.  The problem is one of definition.  As Tolstoy said in Anna Kareninananana, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”  Each of the stunningly attractive and freshly washed (and waxed!) geniuses that comments here has an IQ that would put Joe Biden to shame.  Yet they disagree because they’re talking about different things – each apocalypse is unique in its own way.

charlie

Protip:  if you’re a mortician, tie all of the corpses shoes together – that way if we do have a zombie apocalypse, it’ll be funny.

Therefore, I’ve decided it’s important to talk about the W.I.L.D.E.R. Scale.  It’s like the Richter Scale for earthquakes or the Fujita Scale for tornados or the Joe Biden Scale for Lying Dog Faced Pony Soldiers.  But this one is better, because I came up with it.

Most importantly, what does W.I.L.D.E.R. stand for?  It’s the:

Wilder Index of Life Disruption and Economic Ruination.

See?  W.I.L.D.E.R.  No, wait . . . W.I.L.D.E.R.™  There.  That looks better.

The scale is broken up into a ten point scale, as described below.  Why ten?  Besides being my mental age, it also describes the number of fingers that I had before using a table saw.  It’s also metric.  So, all of you people who live in countries that haven’t nuked Japan (excluding the Japanese) can have this one in metric.  But you have to keep the soccer.

NOTE:  This is not a comprehensive financial guide or preparedness guide.  Depending on the W.I.L.D.E.R.™  level you’re preparing for, this is only the barest bones of a start. 

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 0:  All Quiet

Everything’s fine.  Life is good.  Life is projected to be good – you have a job, it’s fairly secure and has good benefits and it pays the bills, mostly.  Save money in your 401k, grill some burgers and watch the game.  Go back to sleep.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 1:  Local Slowdown

What is it?

A W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 1 is the lowest level of economic disruption – local job loss, minor and non-chronic civil .  It’s not great if you’re caught up in it, but it’s pretty mild.  There may be widespread local job loss – a factory was closed.  It’s not pleasant for those caught up in it, but the underlying economy outside of that local area is sound – you may have a longer commute, but you can get a job.

What to do?

Have savings.  Have minimal debt.  In many cases, you’ll be able to keep doing what you’ve been doing, but you might have a farther commute or reduced wages.  The nice thing about a Level 1 is that if you’re willing to move to a new city, chances are you’ll find something.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 2:  Regional Slowdown

What is it?

One thing that was more common in the past in the United States was a regional level of economic slowdown.  Entire areas would remain stagnant for periods at a time, sometimes years.  In the case of New Mexico, no one really knew it was a state anyway, so we’re not even sure if New Mexico has an economy.  As we have been in the “Boom Everywhere, All the Time” mode for the last 20 years (with the exception of that pesky Great Recession), the economy of the United States seems to be far less regional, but more centered in larger cities.

But regional economic slowdowns do occur – an example would be in the Oil Patch when the price of oil first goes up, and then collapses like my resistance to a steak on Friday night.  The good news is that when the oil price collapses, you can buy a small child in Oklahoma for the price of a cheeseburger.  Not a plain cheeseburger, but the fancy one with lettuce and tomato and onion.  Oklahomans have standards.

What to do?

Have savings.  Have minimal debt.  Have a realistic budget and know the difference between what’s really required and what’s nice-to-have.  Have a house that you can either sell or walk away from.  Be prepared to change careers – have an additional skill that people will pay you for if you have to change careers.  Be prepared to sell a kidney – grow an extra one or two if you can for a rainy day.

philoso

Philosoraptor.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 3:  National Recession

What is it?

Since World War II, most recessions have lasted, on average, a little less than a year.  Recessions mean that, broadly, the economy is shrinking.  Since the entire economic (and banking) system is based on continued expansion and growth, a recession typically kicks people out of work.  During a national recession it’s easier to drive drunk and text Shakespeare from memory while smoking weed than to get a raise.

Even though the economy “recovers” after a year or so, the failures and economic transitions that come from the recession linger in many lives for up to a decade – careers at failed businesses may not be viable anywhere.  If the entire factory is shipped to China, chances are slim that the Chinese will want to import people – it’s not like there are enough bats for everyone.

What to do?

If you are graduating from college, think twice.  People who graduate during a recession and take a job during the recession typically earn less for their entire careers.  Several of my friends went to graduate school instead of into the job market during a recession.  It worked out well for one guy – he became a dictator of a country in the Middle East.  He’s generous, too.  I heard that he last week at the bar he ordered shots for lots of his friends.

If you have a job – do what you can to keep it.  Pay down remaining debt, but understand what bankruptcy might mean if you don’t have six months (or more) of cash to cover expenses.  Stock weeks of spare food, if you can.  If you can’t, start making friends with neighborhood cats.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 4:  The Great Depression

What is it?

The Great Depression, and, to a lesser extent, the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and the Stagflation of the 1970’s fit here.  These are much greater economic hits than a recession.  They are nationwide, and may threaten the economic collapse.  Expect extreme measures to get the economy working again, many of which will actually be counterproductive, but it’s government, so you expect that.  Banks will fail.  Weird things will happen to the money supply.

What to do?

If you have spare cash, this is the time to pick up great bargains.  As the Great Recession hit, the price of gold dropped significantly.  People who had debt but too many toys had to sell them – it was a great time to buy boats and cars and motorcycles and mistresses and admission for your kid at Harvard®.  Several stocks were selling at ridiculously low prices.

Why was this?  Money had dried up, so there were bargains everywhere.  Of course, I didn’t have enough money then to buy anything.  Except a house.  Before the prices collapsed.  (Spoiler – I got out of that house okay.)

Again, having no debt and cash to cover expenses is key.  Having a spouse who doesn’t work (but could) is also key – in a pinch, they can work, too, or you can sell their kidneys for buckets of wheat.

Diversify your banks.  Diversify how you keep your money – is one currency enough?  Desperate people will be desperate.  Be able to protect yourself and your family.

home

Hey, don’t laugh – I can almost buy two packs of gum in 2024 with the money in that picture.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 5:  National Collapse

What is it?

Governing structures cease to function in a meaningful way.  This is also known as “Tuesday” in most African nations.  Weimar Germany, and the late Soviet Union are examples.  They didn’t collapse in the same way – Weimar Germany collapsed in an explosion of hyperinflation.  The Soviet Union collapse was the collapse of an entire economic system, and now nobody knew who got to take the cow to the dance on Saturday.

What to do?

When nations collapse, their currency collapses.  This always happens.  In surviving any of those collapses, a pocketful of gold was more helpful than a pocketful of paper.  If the nation collapses, it can be difficult to predict the system that will replace it, but they generally are totalitarian strongmen who take over in the chaos after collapse.  The Soviet Union was a happy departure – as rough as it was on the former Soviet citizens, it could have been far worse.  Chef Boyardee was originally chosen as Gorbachev’s replacement, but they didn’t like that he called his secret police the Gazpacho.

Six months of food isn’t extravagant in a situation like this.  Some means of protection are mandatory.  Realize that changes could happen in a second, so plan.  Have friends.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 6:  Civil War

What is it?

The American Civil War, the French Revolution, and the Balkans War are examples of civil wars.  Civil wars are probably more vicious than any other type of conflict.  When the Germans started fighting the French and English in World War I, they weren’t really into it – they even stopped the war for Christmas in 1914.  But when the French finally snapped before the French Revolution?  They were ready to throw down like a rabid epileptic cat in a strobe light store.

What to do?

Moveable assets like gold or foreign bank accounts, a second passport, and lots of lead are preferred.  Be in a place (if you can) surrounded by like-minded people.  It helps if you’ve been there for years before trouble breaks out – being an outsider during a civil war isn’t preferred.  Have food – a year?  Have weapons.  Have a supply of necessary pharmaceuticals if you can.  Be aware that your side might lose the war.  What would that mean?  Oh, and don’t forget to floss.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 7:  International Collapse

What is it?

World War I and World War II are modern examples of this, but earlier examples include the fall of the Roman Empire and the late Bronze Age Collapse (~1200 B.C.) (LINK).  These are collapses that take down multiple nations and re-write borders and history.  They are cataclysmic, and are often followed by the mass movements of people, either as invading conquerors, or fleeing refugees, or in the 2010’s, fleeing conquerors and invading refugees.

target

Some things never change.  Image:  Lommes [CC BY-SA 4.0)]

What to do?

Be away from where the war is happening.  That may be more difficult than it says on the label.  All of the suggestions for Level 6 responses still fit, especially flossing, but finding a place not torn by conflict is exceedingly difficult.  Events have the ability to move very, very, fast.  If you’re in continental Europe, learning German is probably a good idea.  A year of food will likely not be enough.  Lead is recommended.  Gold may or may not help at all.  If you think it won’t, I’ll watch it for you.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 8:  Regional Extinction

What is it?

Regional extinction last occurred when the population collapsed after the Europeans brought disease to the New World.  Smallpox, measles, and high cholesterol (eventually) killed an estimated 90% of the pre-Columbus population through either disease or carryover effects.  That amounted to, perhaps, 10% of the world population at the time.

What to do?

Don’t eat bats.  Don’t welcome Spaniards.

mayans

I fell in love with a calendar.  Together we had a lot of dates.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 9:  Continental or Multi-Continental Extinction

What is it?

This hasn’t happened in recorded history.  There are some scientists that theorize that the supervolcano Tomba that erupted 75,000 years ago nearly eliminated humanity.  How close?  Genetic evidence indicates that it might have been as low as 1,000 breeding pairs of humans.  However, some people think those scientists are bunch of cotton headed ninny mugginses, and say that people were just fine – the restriction in genetic variation shows up because some people were MUCH better at propagating their genes, if you know what I mean.  Also?  Asteroids aren’t your friend.

What to do? 

Be lucky.  Wear clean underwear.  You cannot save enough food for this contingency – it may last years and the task will be nothing less than rebuilding civilization.  Read Lucifer’s Hammer for a lighthearted look at life after a Level 9.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 10:  Planetary Extinction

What is it?

Game over, man.

What to do?

Save money in your 401k, grill some burgers and watch the game.  Go back to sleep.

 

And there’s the W.I.L.D.E.R.™ scale.  Drop me an email or leave a comment if I missed something.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report Number 8: What’s After Virginia?

It’s 11:59 on Radio Free America, this is Uncle Sam with music and the truth until dawn.  Right now I’ve got a few words for some of our brothers and sisters in the occupied zone:  the chair is against the wall, the chair is against the wall, John has a long mustache, John has a long mustache. – Red Dawn

v9

I must say that I think 6:30 is the best time on a clock – hands down.

  1. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
  2. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  3. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures.  Just in case.
  4. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.

The clock didn’t move this month after last month’s increment – thankfully the step between 8. and 9. above is a big one.  But I thought that about the step between 7. and 8., too.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Violence and Censorship Update – Virginia:  Win or Loss? – Updated Civil War II Index – Vexit – Links

Welcome to Issue Nine of the Civil War II Weather Report.  These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War II, on the first or second Monday of every month.  Issue One is here (LINK), Issue Two is here (LINK), Issue Three is here (LINK), Issue Four is here (LINK), Issue Five is here (LINK), Issue Six is here (LINK), Issue Seven is here (LINK) and Issue Eight is here (LINK).

Violence and Censorship Update

Obviously, there was more censorship in January – it’s become a fixture.  It wasn’t censorship, exactly, but the real story wasn’t was Project Veritas (LINK), which didn’t get a lot of coverage.  Project Veritas is run by James O’Keefe, who has been better than anyone at getting Leftists to drop their masks to show what the real plans are and what they really feel.  In January O’Keefe dropped several videos showing Leftists within the campaigns of various Democratic presidential hopefuls.

bernie

Notice how when it came time for surgery, Bernie didn’t hop a plane to Canada?  It’s almost like he had a change of heart.

The following quotes are all from Bernie Sanders campaign workers – paid workers from the information that I can find.  After these statements were made public, I can find no public repudiation by Sanders or his campaign of these views or the employees that made them.  I can’t find any record that these workers were fired.  If this were on the Right?  Each employee would have been front page news until he was publicly executed by being nibbled to death by ducks wearing Monica’s blue dress on a pay-per-view with profits going to the Clinton Foundation®.

  • Let’s force them (billionaires) to build roads – rebuild our roads, rebuild our dams, rebuild our bridges. Let’s force them to do that.
  • Well, the Gulags were founded as re-education camps. What will help is when we send all the Republicans to the re-education camps.
  • I’m ready to start tearing bricks up and start fighting. …  I’ll straight up – I’ll straight up get armed, I want to learn how to shoot, and go train. I’m ready for the f___ing revolution, bro, I’m telling you.  Guillotine the rich.
  • … do we just dissolve the Senate, House of Representatives, the Judicial Branch, and have something Bernie Sanders and a cabinet of people, make all decisions for the climate? I mean, I’m serious.
  • Yeah, you’re not gonna get Bernie to say “Gulags,” but like, I’m all aboard for Gulags, like, I feel there needs to re-education for a significant portion of our society. I mean, but running for president in the United States you can’t say anything like that, right?
  • …putting them up against a wall.  I mean the alternative, instead of trying to like…re-educate these people and put them back into society the only option is, the only other alternative is to f___ing (makes shooting gesture/noise) you know what I mean?
  • I’m ready to throw down now. I don’t want to wait and have to wait for f___ing DNC.  The billionaire class.  The f___ing media, pundits.  Walk into that MSNBC studios, drag those motherf___ers out by their hair and light them on fire in the streets.
  • Well, I’ll tell you what in Cuba, what did they do to reactionaries? You want to fight against the revolution, you’re going to die for it, motherf___er.

When the Left is telling you it wants to either kill you or put you in a labor camp, re-educate your children, and destroy the Constitutional government of the country and replace it with a communist junta, you just might want to listen – there are red flags everywhere.

we

The Soviet Constitution promised freedom of speech.  The United States Constitution promised freedom after speech.

Virginia:  Win or Loss?

On the Right, the biggest question in the aftermath of the rally on January 20 in Virginia is did the Right win or lose?  My answer is simple.

whynot

It’s now known as Schrödinger’s Rally.

The case for a win:  a group of peaceful protesters, many of whom were armed, exercised their Constitutional rights of assembly and bearing arms.  That’s very positive.  The media reported 22,000 people – which would be roughly the size of the 1st Marine Division.  And no, I’m not trying to indicate that the group of people that showed up would in any way be as combat capable as the 1st Marine Division unless the Marines had been given an infinite supply of tequila, pizza rolls, and strippers for six months.  Even then, my money would be on the Marines.

But the sheer number of people was a win.  It showed that not only were people engaged enough that they’d give up a holiday to show support for their rights, but also that it was significant enough that it wasn’t turned into violence by either the State or agents provocateurs embedded by the State.

The case for a loss:  nothing changed.  The anti-gun bills are moving through the Virginia assembly with no delay.  No politician changed his or her vote.  In that respect, the rally was a failure

Why didn’t any politician change their vote?

Because no politician had to pay any price for their support of the votes, nor do they feel that they’ll have to pay a price.  And, no, to be very clear, I’m not suggesting violence on them or any illegal action.  But what I am suggesting is that if they pay no personal price, they’ll never change.  What are legal ways to influence them?

  • First – make sure that they aren’t re-elected. That requires organization and planning.  Oh, and voters.
  • Second – go through their histories thoroughly. Don’t blackmail them – find (legally) all of their dirty laundry and air it – imagine what Ralph’s browser history looks like.  Isn’t that a public record?
  • Third – make sure that that people are rude to their wives and shun them at social functions. How will Governor Northam’s wife, Pam, feel if people tell her what they think of Ralph when she stops in to get a Starbucks®?   What if her public meetings were peacefully protested?
  • Fourth – remove their privacy in every public space. Park vans outside of their houses with billboards that advertise what a horrible person lives within – they’ve done this with Susan Collins in Maine, so it’s a tactic that’s fair game.  But the Geneva Convention does categorize playing Twisted Sister® 24/7 at their house a crime against humanity.

I’m sure that there are people who are far better at this than I am who can come up with dozens of legal ways to make a vote against Constitutional rights pretty uncomfortable.

Updated Civil War II Index

More graphs.  Last month, someone mentioned that one of the graphs didn’t contain a bikini, and I promised bikini graphs, and one graph showed a one-piece bathing suit.  My deepest apologies for this journalistic error.

Violence:

violfin

Up is more violent.  Violence is edging back up for the second straight month.  I still imagine it will remain low for the winter, and hope it doesn’t get as high as the bellybutton.

Political Instability:

polifin

Up is more unstable.  It skyrocketed last month, and plummeted this month as impeachment proved to be nothing.

Economic:

econfin

Down indicates worse economic conditions.  The economic indicators all were positive, and strongly so, in January – they were so strong I would expect they’d go down in February.

Illegal Aliens:

bordfin

Down is good, since (in theory) ICE is catching fewer aliens because there are fewer people trying to get in.  The numbers are down this month, all the way to near her finger.  Numbers are also becoming lower on an absolute basis – fewer crossings seem to be real.

Vexit

In January, there was a proposal filed in the West Virginia legislature to invite counties from Virginia to come on over and join them, since the only think most of Virginia has in common with the Democratically controlled sections is a license plate.

The major problem with this sort of a solution is that it makes too much sense.  It allows people to peacefully self-determine the government they have and also begins a process that might lead to a peaceful disassociation between Left and Right.  Let’s face it, the Right doesn’t want to hang around the Left, but not nearly as much as the Left dislikes the Right.

hate

What do you expect from a group that tried to get Hannibal Lechter to run for Governor of New York?

Easy choice then – have a peaceful divorce and figure out who has to take the kids to the dentist, right?

Nope.  That isn’t the way the Left really works.  The Left doesn’t want peaceful disassociation – the Left wants power and control.  The words from the Bernie bros are clear – Gulag, firing squad, or being burned alive are the choices on the menu.  Heck, the Right builds walls to keep people out – the Left builds walls to keep people in.  There is absolutely no way that either the Leftist Virginia General Assembly or Congress would approve people leaving their control.  Aesop’s treatise on this is well-written and clear (LINK).

But.

When Gandhi wanted to Inexit, what did he do, besides walk around nearly naked?  He started a resistance movement that eventually led to the British Empire telling India, “Yeah, you’re more trouble that you’re worth,” while at the same time striking a blow for the rights of the nearly nude.  Is that something that can happen in the United States, a peaceful separation?  To be clear – if everyone decided to stop paying taxes tomorrow, the IRS would cease to exist.  The existence of the IRS shows that people, while not liking it, consent to it.

Any government exists so long as it reflects the will of the governed.  East Germany dissolved over the course of five days in November of 1989 after having existed for over forty years.

Is Virginia there yet?  No.  But don’t underestimate the power of a people that want to have freedoms.

Links

link

Most are from Ricky this month . . .  enjoy!

Soleimani background

Left not standing for flag

Here’s how asymmetric warfare will be waged during the next CW.  Substitute “drones” for helicopters and “anything” for pigs, add cellphone coverage for viral optics, and away we go….

Q showing up again.

Brand new…top media continues to cover this.   The graphic in the first one is awesome.

 

Boogaloo is bad think.

Vox doesn’t like guns.

The British looking for an in.

Billionaires?

Left thought.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/10/21/war-menu-2020-elections

Carville thinks the Left is nuts.

Hans Gruber, a Hooters Waitress, Patton, and Health

“And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.  Benefits of a classical education.” –  Hans Gruber in Die Hard

alexkerm

Alexander the Great loved chewing bubblegum and conquering Persians.  And he’s all out of Persians.  And bubblegum wasn’t invented until 2,251 years after he died.  Poor Alexander.

One thing that I think holds people back isn’t that they plan, it’s that they don’t plan big enough.  I’ve been fortunate enough in my life that I’ve made most of my goals come true.  That may sound like a good thing, but is it?

Of course it is.  It’s really cool to be able to be successful at achieving your goals, because losing sucks, and if you have great goals you end up with Cash and Prizes®.

But what would happen one day if I looked around and said . . . “I’ve done it.  I’ve accomplished everything I’ve set out to do.”  What purpose is left to drive me?  And if I did reach all of my dreams, what’s left to work for?

An example of exactly this happening is Buzz Aldrin.  At the age of 39, Buzz walked on the Moon.  The frikking Moon.  It’s so difficult and expensive to do, we can’t do it today.  Yet Buzz was the second guy to walk on the Moon.  As a goal it’s awesome.  But like the miniature schnauzer that catches a Humvee®, what do you do once you’ve won?  Buzz didn’t have a clue, but he didn’t have a problem asking Jack Daniels™ for assistance.

Another example is General George S. Patton.  Patton had been a highly competent general in World War II – daring, audacious, and cromulent.  Yet, he found himself in a position where the war that he knew how to fight was gone – it was over.  In his diary he wrote:  “Yet another war has come to an end, and with it my usefulness to the world.”

patton

Little known fact:  French tanks in World War II had rear view mirrors.  Those were so they could observe the front line.

But Patton and Aldrin aren’t alone with this conundrum of having their success be the source of their discontent – you see this behavior again and again.  It’s a common story in Hollywood:  nobody to somebody to discovered cocaine to dead.  Or, if the actor has a heart made of titanium, they become beloved actor Robert Downey, Jr.  The most interesting part of that is the cocaine, especially to Robert Downey, Jr.  Although you might think cocaine comes from Colombia, it really comes from the boredom of having everything you want.

It’s curious that one of the things that keeps us healthy and not developing a liver the size of Johnny Depp is the struggle to achieve a goal.  In the absence of meaningful goals, bad things happen to people.  They drink too much.  They vote for the Left.  They get depressed – why get out of bed when there’s nothing to work for?

Goals are important – and there are two ways that you can lose them:

  • Believe that they are impossible and give up, or
  • Achieve them all and run out of goals.

Essentially these are the opposite problems – one is believing you’ve got to play a football game against the 1985 Chicago Bears® using 11 toddlers.  The other is being on the 1985 Chicago Bears© and playing 11 toddlers.

dallas

I know it’s a soccer ball in the trophy.  It’s not like the Cowboys® would recognize a real football.

Both are no-win outcomes.  Toddlers cannot run a receiving pattern at all.  And they cannot hold a block long enough for their toddler-quarterback to get a decent pass off.  And if you’re the 1985 Chicago Bears™, what’s the best thing that could happen?  You beat a bunch of toddlers.  I mean, it’s fun and all, but it’s hardly a greater achievement than defeating the Dallas Cowboys© or a school for ten-year-old girls that lisp.

A goal is required for good mental health.  The very best goals require that you work at your limits, pushing yourself to become better.  They’re goals that you believe you can achieve.  And they’re goals where you can see a path to make them become real.  And the best part of the goal is at the end, after you’ve achieved it, if you plan ahead you’ve got another goal waiting.

hooter

One of the waitresses at Hooters® lost a leg in a car accident last week.  She now has a job at IHOP™.

As I mentioned in Wednesday’s post (Playing The Game, And Goals For Life) I had goals, just not work-related goals.  I’ve been working to create some, and I’m not there yet.  That’s okay.  The goals have to be meaningful.  And I’m not working without a net – I have sufficient goals out in front of me that even if I couldn’t work out a work goal, I have plenty of others.  Is having a cup of fresh, hot coffee a good goal?  Dangit.  Back to the drawing board.

So, what about these great men who had everything when they accomplished the goals of a lifetime?

Patton’s uncharacteristic self-pity in the quote from his diary was the result of his achievement – the war was won, and he contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front.  He had fame.  Only 11 men had ever had a higher rank in the military.  From what I read about Patton, I’m willing to bet that he would have been able to channel himself into a post-war United States without too much difficulty.

Would he have been a politician?  Hard to say.  It’s unlikely that he would have the desire to speak pretty little lies just to get elected.  But you can bet one thing – if he hadn’t died, Patton would have done his level best to shake up the United States.  I wouldn’t bet against him.

And what about Buzz Aldrin?  Buzz crawled into a bottle and managed to skip most of the 1970’s.  Admittedly, that wasn’t a bad decade to skip since not having a memory of the Bee Gees® is something some people would pay for.  At some point I believe that he managed to come to a truce with the Moon.  He decided to instead focus on making money for himself and to be a spokesman for his cause:  “Get your ass to Mars®.”  Is being a celebrity spokesmodel as exciting as going to the frikking Moon?  Certainly not.  But you might as well be comfortable if you flew to the frikking Moon.

buzzmars

Buzz Aldrin sadly got divorced in the 1970’s.  Apparently his wife needed space, too.

But Hans Gruber got it wrong.  Plutarch actually wrote:

Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds; and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer:  “Do you not think it a matter worthy of lamentation that when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one?”

In this case, Alexander is saying the exact opposite of the Hans Gruber quote – that he had a goal to conquer an entire world, but wept because his dream wasn’t yet complete.  The moral of the story?

gruber

Maybe if Hans knew his Plutarch better he might have not fallen off the Nakatomi Plaza Tower.

Playing The Game, And Goals For Life

“You guys.  You lollygag the ball around the infield.  You lollygag your way down to first.  You lollygag in and out of the dugout.  You know what that makes you?  Larry?” – Bull Durham

vodka

These are some pretty rough office politics.

One big question about careers:  should you play the game?

Way back when I was in college, I had a part time job.  My boss was out of town, but asked me to send out mail that was 100% fraudulent.  He was attempting to get confidential business information from a competitor by pretending to be someone else.

Thankfully, I knew that this was more than just a bad idea – it was illegal.  Really illegal.  Like spending vacation time in the federal pen illegal.  I told him no, it was illegal.  He told me to do it anyway.  I didn’t do it.  I even took it to his boss.  All his boss said was, “Well, he shouldn’t have used our address.”

The next day I took this problem to a professor in one of my business classes.  I asked him what I should do.  “Well, John, you’ve already quit, so I don’t see much more you need to do.”

“But,” I replied, “I haven’t quit.”

He smiled and shook his head.  “No, John.  You quit.”

When I thought about it, he was right, I had quit.  I just hadn’t realized it.  But it was the right thing to do.  Besides, anyone who will knowingly ask you to commit a crime is more than willing to turn you in to the cops to save themselves.

So, no, don’t play that game.

thor

Pa Wilder didn’t know magic tricks.  He said accounting tricks were enough.

What if the game is simply immoral or unethical?

In one case, ethics cost me a job.  I was at an interview and the interviewer asked me if I would do this rather specific unethical act.  “No, that’s unethical.”  Oops.  Their actual business model was based on gaining a competitive advantage by behaving unethically.  I haven’t lost a minute of sleep over not getting that job.

I also had a boss who asked me to do something unethical.  I said, simply, “That’s unethical.”  I believe my boss didn’t know it was unethical and he looked disappointed – not in me, but that his idea was unethical.  “Are you sure it’s unethical?”

Your mileage may vary – but I’ve decided I’m not going to play that game, either.

What if it’s just stupid or silly?

Well, then if you need the work, you play the game, cheerfully.  I know that, especially when I was young, I felt that doing stupid things at work was . . . stupid.  I made the decision early on – swallow my pride (along with the jelly donuts in the break room) and go along to get along.  Selling out?  Not really.  There is always a political element to work.  Heck, get six people or three women together and there will be politics.

But if you have a family to pay for and don’t have the means to do it, don’t let your ego talk you out of a job.  Do you need to cower and whimper?  Certainly not.  If that’s the behavior that’s rewarded at the company, find another job.  It’s never going to get better because your boss isn’t an accident.  Your boss was promoted because he or she exhibits the behavior that the company wants.

Which brings me back to the promised subject of today’s post:  goals.

listen

I’m thinking “writing dank memes” wasn’t what he was looking for.

My boss asked me a question, one that I wasn’t really ready for:

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

As much as I could be surprised, I was.  I had no real answer.  Thankfully, this wasn’t my first corporate conversation, so I played the game and gave my answer.  When I described my answers to The Mrs., she laughed.  “You just gave the Bull Durham answers.”

The Mrs. loves that movie, and it appears to be a part of our marriage contract that whenever we’re flipping through channels and Bull Durham is on, she gets to watch it.  Anyway, the relevant scene is:

Crash: “You got something to write with?  Good.  It’s time to work on your interviews.”
Nuke: “My interviews?  What do I got to do?”
Crash: “You’re gonna have to learn your clichés.  You’re going to have to study them.  You’re going to have to know them.  They’re your friends.  Write this down.  We’ve got to play them one day at a time.”
Nuke: “Got to play – that’s pretty boring, you know?”
Crash: “Of course it’s boring.  That’s the point.  Write it down.”
Nuke: “One day at a time.”
Crash: “I’m just happy to be here.  Hope I can help the ball club.  I know.  Write it down.  I just want to give it my best shot, and the good Lord willing, things will work out.”
Nuke: “Good Lord willing -”
Crash: “Things will work out.”

What’s funny is that I had already spent a chunk of time working on my goals that very week.  I looked at several aspects of my life – relationships, this blog, taking over a small island in the Pacific and making them worship me as their fire god, and brushing my teeth every morning.   I have space for work goals, but those are still blank two weeks after the conversation with my boss.  That alone is probably the focus of a future post, but not in the next week or two.

wilder

I ask my kids what they want to be when they grow up – maybe they have some ideas I could steal.

But goals are crucially important.  It’s not like Jeff Bezos woke up one morning and said to himself, “Whoa, where did all of this money come from?”  No, he had goals.  One of them involved getting jacked, another involved him becoming the world’s richest man, and the last one involved perfecting his version of the Roomba®, which was really just two miniature poodles hot-glued to a dinner plate.

bezos

I guess Jeff got divorced because his wife was past her Prime®.

Jeff Bezos has goals and I do too, although none of mine involve having the National Enquirer® post pictures of my, um, crotch cuckoo on the front page.  I don’t know how Jeff does it, but when I write down my goals, I use a fairly simple formula:

What – Write down in as much detail (as you need) to describe the goal.  Mine vary from achieving a very specific number of regular readers for this blog to setting higher standards for myself in some other areas of life, like learning to braid my armpit hair.  The goal should be significant enough to warrant the effort.  For me, launching an interplanetary mission might be really hard.  But it’s a no-brainer for Elon Musk, who I believe keeps most of his weed on Mars.

Why – Why am I doing this?  Superficial goals will lead to superficial effort.  If you don’t look at the “why” and feel that it’s really important to you, the goal itself is trivial or you haven’t gotten to the real why.  If you can’t come up with a good why you should achieve the goal – kill the goal like Nancy Pelosi kills a half-empty fifth of vodka.

When – A deadline is a spur for action.  External deadlines on things like doing the taxes are powerful, but self-imposed deadlines work, too.  In my case, I’ve set a deadline for writing these posts three times a week.  If I didn’t?  They wouldn’t get done and I would spend all my time practicing my armpit hair braiding.

How – Goals just don’t achieve themselves.  Here I often will get very specific.  Number of minutes working out, number of pushups, that sort of thing.  I realize that when working towards a goal, especially an audacious one, no one has all of the details worked out on the first day.  That’s fine – your plan can and will change as you take action.  Just make sure that “eat less than 1500 calories a day” doesn’t morph into “don’t eat the seventh eighth jelly donut.”

The closer that you can link your goal to your actual physical survival, the less that you need any of the above.  Very few drowning men write mission statements and then create a list of action items.  It’s simply not necessary.  Similarly, I didn’t write down that I’m going to write three times a week – it’s a given.  I did write down some concrete steps on how I was going to get better, but The Mrs. felt that the “kidnap better writers than me and chain them in the basement” step was a bit extreme.  She thought rope would probably work.

donut

The uncut version of this movie is just called “Face”

In last Wednesday’s post I mentioned to not dwell on negative outcomes.  I stand by that, especially when peak performance is required.  But negative outcomes are very helpful when it comes to staying motivated to working a plan, week after week, sacrificing to get better when I could be torturing my captive writers and eating jelly donuts instead.  For some goals I use those negative outcomes as an incentive, of sorts, and it seems to work.

Especially at first, don’t have more than half a dozen goals.  For me, it’s important that I write them down on paper.  Something about sitting and writing them makes them more real.  And it also makes the final step, checking progress, easier.  I suggest you do that weekly.

So, get to it – play the game and get your goals done.  There’s no time to lollygag, because what does that make you?

A lollygagger.

Erasing the West: Step by Step

Groucho:  Now, Columbus sailed from Spain to India, looking for a shortcut.  Chico:  Oh, you mean strawberry shortcut? – Monkey Business

columbus

Columbus sailed his ships, the Niñteñdo, the Piña Colada, and the Santa Fe to the new world and then bravely tried to repel the landing Pilgrims.  Or so I seem to remember.

Christopher Columbus was one of the first that they came for.  Columbus was easy pickings, really.

Columbus lived and died five hundred years ago, nearly as long as it seems the Democrats have been trying to get Trump out of office.  Columbus was an Italian before Italy was a nation, so getting support for Columbus isn’t all that easy.  Besides, Columbus was an Italian working for the Spanish, which I imagine involved enough hand gestures to make eye protection necessary as far away as France.

But Columbus was the first hero that they came for because he represented something that the Left hates:  Western Civilization.

In reading through several columns on why Columbus is bad, none of them focused on things that Columbus did, with the exception that he was too harsh to Spanish colonists, and some of the worst allegations were probably written by his mortal enemy, Agent Smith.  No, most of the things that the writers blame on Columbus were based on events that were a result of the clash between Western Culture and the culture that previously existed in the Americas.

None of the articles noted that the people living in the Americas at the time were far more barbaric than anything brought to them by Europe – the Aztecs and Mayans and other tribes enslaved, murdered, and exploited each other on a scale that almost puts Sesame Street® to shame.  The only real crime Columbus was guilty of was showing Europe how to get to a continent that was so technologically backward and immunologically compromised that it could be captured by half a dozen guys with swords and horses.  It was like a flock of kittens in a room full of metal-bladed box fans, except the kittens had a better chance.

sacrifice

I want to resurrect the Aztec religion and start sacrificing vegans.  That’s not a typo.

The war against Columbus isn’t about Columbus – it’s about a hatred for Western Civilization as a whole.  The war is a desire to erase culture.  Each time it occurs, it follows a similar path:

  • Choose someone who is a cultural hero, preferably a primary face of the development of Western Culture. The person should be, ideally, revered.  I mean, not as revered as me, but revered.
  • Pick the worst things that they ever did, even if their life was otherwise a paragon of virtue. Note that it’s okay if what they did was socially acceptable back in the time and place it was done – the worst thing they ever did should be the only thing used to characterize the person.  Jefferson founded a University, wrote the Declaration of Independence, and was President?  You know he got caught double parking his buggy once?
  • Never let up. Even if it comes out that (like in the case of Columbus) nearly every bad thing said about the guy was written by his mortal enemy, ignore it.  Keep vilifying him, and blame him for every single consequence of everything he ever did, even if it happened after he died.  It’s like blaming George Washington for Mount St. Helens because it erupted in the state of Washington.

One particular consequence of Columbus making his journey is that the United States exists.  Yeah, he never made it to any part of what makes up the United States today, but he showed the Europeans who finally got around to colonizing what eventually became the United States the way to get here.  Western Culture came, and expressed itself in a unique way:  American Culture.

washington

If George Washington were alive today, he would probably spend most of his time scratching at his coffin lid.

In the case of the United States today, one common claim by Leftists is that there is “no American Culture.”  I’m certain that fish don’t know that they’re swimming in water, either.  But that is certainly a lie.  American Culture doesn’t seem like it exists because it is all around us in the United States, and happens to be one of our biggest exports while also being our biggest draw.

Overall, American Culture has been responsible for creating more technology and prosperity than most cultures that have ever existed.  Has it done stupid things, things with negative consequences for millions of people around the world like set loose Adam Sandler or Bruce Springsteen?  Certainly.  But on balance, the world has been made much, much better by Western Civilization and the United States.

But the Left cannot abide by nations like the United States or, especially, Western Civilization.  Both of these stand in the way of the Left – they are structures that impede the ability of the Left to control every aspect of your life, to create a logic and history that only agrees with what the Left says.  It’s because they exist, they want to destroy them.  Very directly they want to destroy your culture.  They hold your values as obstructions.  They want to disintegrate your family so your loyalty belongs to the Left.  And they want to see you dead so that your ideas will die with you.

stalin

Stalin:  There is no “I” in team, but there is “U” in gulag.

All of that starts with values and culture.  To attack that, not only do they attack the culture of today though the infiltration of Leftist ideas (How To Spot Propaganda In 2020, Featuring Stonks) but also through the vilification of the past.  What has been attacked?

  • Statues – of Columbus, of Civil War leaders, of Lewis and Clark. They will not be done until every traditional American Hero is gone.
  • The National Anthem – Bouncy© (that’s her name, right?) and Jay C™ were at the Superbowl® on Sunday. They sat during the National Anthem to protest the unfair nation that provided Jay C© with his meager billion dollar fortune.  Heck, you can’t even raise a private navy with that pittance.
  • Borders – Chants of “No Border, No Wall, No USA at All” are fairly subtle. I just wish I could figure out what they meant.

There are steps in the cultural erosion that we’ve seen so far, and the biggest attack has been against the Idyllic Decade, the 1950’s.  The 1950’s were the last decade before everything went wrong.

limb

Followed by the Jell-O® salad course, naturally.

It’s been attempted by the media, by movies, to re-write the 1950’s, just as the attempt to tear down Columbus started.  Why attack the 1950’s?  Because it was the high point in the life of the American family.  Things were good:

  • Postwar prosperity led to nearly universal employment.
  • The wages of a single man were enough to support a family and raise children.
  • Less than three percent of children were born to single mothers.
  • Violent crime was less than half of today’s crime rate.
  • The salary gap between a high school graduate and a college graduate has tripled since 1965.
  • Boy Scout participation is half of 1950’s – and that was before the BSA folded to political correctness and saw a free-fall in membership.
  • Kiwanis membership is half of 1950’s numbers.
  • Church attendance in the 1950’s was nearly 90%. Now?  Less than 40%.

Thank heavens Netflix® subscription numbers are up, since today 41% of children are born to unmarried mothers.  Or there might be a correlation here . . . .

But what can you expect when reality is inverted in just the same way that the legacy of Columbus, skilled navigator, was inverted?

Family is now seen as bad.  Rather than being a supporting structure that helps a child learn right from wrong via loving parental support and instruction television and movies would have you believe that family is  a stifling, controlling, patriarchy that just doesn’t want you to be the individual snowflake you were meant to be.  I mean, that’s what you’d think if you got your information by watching television or movies.

cats

The best part?  No limit on cats!

And churches?  They’re evil.  They’ve gone from places where you meet and discuss and learn about God to places where you learn nothing but intolerance from sweaty red-faced pastors and priests who don’t really believe in God.  Oh, and these intolerant pastors and priests are all secretly sexually twisted, since anyone who believes in God and values must be, deep down, a deviant.

They pick the best features of the Leftists to showcase.  They pick the best features of the civilizations that Leftists created, and then claim that it really work next time, while sweeping the bodies under the rug.  They then pick the worst of their opponents and often stereotype them using their own worst tendencies.  They want you to feel guilt for the things your ancestors did, when living by the standards of the day, while feeling no guilt themselves for the direct pain caused by their actions and ideas in the world today.

But, despite hardship, Columbus had a dream.  He sailed west.

Statue or not – he was a hero.

Health Goals, Girls in Togas (and a Bikini)

“Trying is the first step toward failure.” – The Simpsons

bojack

I want to get my face on a coin – that way I achieve my goal to help make change in the world.

One thing that I’ve decided to focus on even more in 2020 is my health.  Even if I followed all of Dr. Sinclair’s advice (Living Forever, The Uncomfortable Way), I’m still getting older although my immortality is working out so far.  In some respects I think that we might be in for some very interesting times in the next few years, so being in better shape than I am now would probably be a good idea.  Besides, as Pugsley gets older, taller, and stronger if I don’t do something he’ll wake up one morning and say, “I’m going to break you, little man.”

One way to do that is to keep my life under constant review.  This isn’t new, at all.  The Romans may be dead, but I contend that Roman philosophy dating from the first century A.D. is valid today.  Heck, current American civilization looks a lot like Roman life around that time.  In reading Seneca’s Letters, I saw a conversation where he described checking into a hotel, looking down from the room at the fitness gym next door.  A little later he described that the Romans had regulations on boat speeds in particular areas.  It was like California, but only 30% of the population in Rome were slaves.

hera

Romans on diets were happy when their togas went from L to XL. 

In particular, one of my favorite philosophers of the first century was Seneca.  Seneca was a stoic, but had managed to make a considerable fortune open a chain of all-night toga laundromats.  It was there that the togas were washed with water from the sea tides.  Occasionally, a batch of this water would get too stiff from the added starch used to flatten the togas so they weren’t wrinkled.  That’s where the Roman expression, “beware the tides of starch” comes from.

Okay, but what Seneca really said was:

“I will keep constant watch over myself and will put each day up for review.  For this is what makes us evil, that none of us looks back upon our own lives.  We reflect only upon what we are about to do.  Yet, our plans for the future descend from the past.”

– Seneca

Before I read that particular passage, I had bought a little Moleskine® notebook for just that purpose.  When I said, little, I mean it.  It’s really small – just a little larger than a 3×5 notecard.  It’s small enough I can fit it in my wallet.  I bought it for a very specific purpose:  to reflect on progress towards my goals, specifically my health related goals for 2020.

keeper

Her parents even named her Annette.

Each day I write down several things:  how much and what I ate – if I ate anything (The Last Weight Loss Advice You’ll Ever Need, Plus a Girl in a Bikini Drinking Water), how much I exercised, what weights I lifted and how many repetitions, my morning and evening weight, and whether or not I felt that aliens had put pods near my house that would turn into an exact duplicate of me if I dared fall asleep.  Those are a few of the things that go into the book, though not all of the things I put down.  It doesn’t take particularly long to write it down – just two or three minutes.

I find, for me, the process of writing this data down makes it more real somehow.  And it makes me jump on the scale on days I’d rather not (like after Thanksgiving) so I can get the data.  And collecting that data and writing it down is important.  It makes me face the cold, hard objective truth and holds me accountable in an equally objective manner.

So, I record what I’ve done, and how I’ve lived as it relates to my goals.  When I’m fasting, I write about that progress.  I also record how much I’ve slept, because even though I know that sleep is no substitute for caffeine, I also know that I’m probably not sleeping enough – though I would say that the passengers in my car seem to get unreasonably angry when I try to take a short nap.  “Are you trying to kill us?” they ask.

Worrywarts.  The road is practically straight.

drool

Sometimes I wake up grumpy – other mornings I let her sleep in.

Writing those experiences and activities down also help me celebrate victories – and holds me accountable for lapses.  It also sets up a feedback loop.  Nothing makes the next lunchtime session on the treadmill more focused than seeing that I gained weight the last week.  But present me certainly doesn’t want to make life worse for future me by setting future me up for a failure.  Writing things down changes outcomes.  I certainly don’t want to write down failures.  I mean, one time someone told me I tended to blame others for my failures.  He was right.  I guess I get that from my mother.

But in reviewing the past, and in reviewing my failures, I don’t, and won’t use past failures as a club.  I don’t allow them to poison my future.  Instead, I use failure as a lever.  Since I caused the failure in the first place, more than likely I can solve it.  Unless it involves communism.  Then you’re on your own – you should have seen the red flags.

kim

I’m hoping Kim declares war on his real enemy:  Twinkies®.

I also use this time to reflect on the things I did to take me towards my goals, and the things I did that take me away from them.  It sounds overly simplistic, but most people would be far healthier if they just made several small changes each day about what they eat, how much they work out, how much sleep they get, and what is the appropriate amount to pay for a hooker in Tijuana*.  $3.50 is probably a little low.

Weakness is powerful, so having to write down every time I make an error is one way make me more powerful.  It also strengthens the cause and effect relationship between my action and the outcome.  This further makes me accountable.  Dangit.

In a sense, this is (sort of) a sequel or companion piece to Wednesday (Focus is a Key to Life and Look a Squirrel!), and ties to focus.  You can have a plan, but if you don’t collect data and don’t analyze it regularly, you’ll never focus on it – it’ll be like an objective your boss gives you and then never mentions again – it simply will never get done.

  • If you write about it, you will focus on it.
  • If you measure it, you will manage it.
  • If your ego is against it, you’ll never measure it.

gob

“I’m a failure – I can’t even fake the death of a stripper.” 

I heard an interview with Penn Gillette, the Penn part of the illusionist duo Penn and Teller.  He was talking about his recent weight loss.  He mentioned what he thought his starting weight was, but then added, “I really don’t know how much I weighed at my heaviest, no one does.”  What he was stating is that his ego wouldn’t let him step on the scale at that higher weight – he simply didn’t want to know that answer.  It wasn’t until he’d started losing weight that his ego allowed him to start measuring.

And start managing.  And start tracking.

And start winning.

*I have never been to Tijuana, but I saw a Cheech and Chong movie once where the plot involved them making a van out of marijuana in Tijuana, so I feel I have some expertise.

Focus is a Key to Life and Look a Squirrel!

“Maybe we’re at war with Norway?” – The Thing

norway

The Norwegians have the best parties – Fjord Fiestas, you could call them.

You’ve been there.

There’s a state where you experience full awareness.  But it’s full awareness of a very specific kind.  There is no past.  There is no future.  There is only now – the immediate now.  You cease to be aware of anything but what you are doing.

You have become a verb.  You are lost in the moment.  You are the moment.

This state transcends time.  Minutes, hours can pass.  It seems like an instant.

This state has a name.  It’s not tequila.

It’s focus.  But tequila is a close second.

When I was in athletics in high school, coaches would tell me to “focus.”  That was it.  I think they told me that because they knew focus was important, and or maybe because that was what they were told when they were in high school.  But they could see the impact that focus had on an athlete in a game, or a wrestler in a match.  The difference between a focused player and one that isn’t focused is . . . sorry, what was I saying?

Anyway.

distracted

Well, the string certainly looks alive when it’s on a bikini.

What advice did we get with the command to focus?  Well, in my case, none.  I was expected to figure it out.  I drilled takedowns in wrestling hundreds of times.  Tackling drills for football?  Again, at least hundreds of repetitions.  Sprints?  I think I did thousands of those, or at least it felt like thousands after practice was over.

How much time did they my coaches spend on teaching us focus and mental preparation?

Umm, I just told you.  They told us to be focused.  That’s it.

And I’m not complaining, some of the coaches were outstanding by any definition, and in one case objectively the best coach in the history of the state where I grew up in his sport.  I don’t know, maybe they all thought that focus was second nature to some people.  And maybe it is.  But not to me.  I get distracted by something as small as a bikini.  Heck, if I had a dollar for every time I got distracted, I wish I had a beer.

Gradually, I figured it out, or at least figured it out as best as I could.  Fast forward to this weekend:  I caught myself telling Pugsley to focus before a wrestling match.  I had a moment of epiphany.  What does focus even mean to a kid whose entire life has been distorted by the distraction of technology?  How do you even describe it?  Maybe, perhaps, I could help him figure it out after his batteries died.

aztec

How many Aztecs does it take to change a lightbulb?  None.  The Aztec Empire dissolved hundreds of years before the lightbulb was invented.  For some reason my kids don’t like my lightbulb jokes.

It’s true that in our lives, physical preparation in athletics or training for work often takes precedence for the mental preparation for what we do.  The physical preparation is easy to see.  It’s easy to objectively measure.  How many pushups can you do in one minute?  At work, the training for the job can be measured in certificates and completed coursework and compiled grades.  And don’t ask candidates to prove how many pushups they can do in one minute no matter how amusing you think that might be.  Have them do something like wax your car instead.

But mental preparation is tougher.  You can’t directly see it.  But yet it’s crucial to performance in nearly everything we do.

In athletics, the mind must be ready for the task at hand.  If you’re wrestling, you’re going to war.  You’re preparing to try to spend the next six minutes making the other guy regret he ever stepped on the mat with you.  A bad place to be is to focus on what can go wrong before a match.  A better place is to focus on the moment – to understand that no matter what happens, there is a way.

If I focus on what happens if I lose, I will wrestle not to lose.  If I live life focused on what could go wrong, I will live life not to lose.  My entire life would be spent in damage control, defending against failures that may not even exist.

focus

Whoa!  This is most excellent and triumphant!

The solution is focus.  I wasn’t born with it.  But focus can be taught.  There’s even John Wilder’s Patented Focus List®, presented below with only limited commercial interruption thanks to a generous sponsorship by the MacArthur Foundation™ (hint, hint, I’m still waiting for my #GeniusGrant).

  • Know what you want. This is basic, but yet there are hundreds of people walking around who don’t know what they want out of life.  In sports, it’s easier – people want to win.  Some more than ever.  But we’ll talk more about that next Wednesday.
  • Believe that it’s possible. I had a boss that was exceptional at this.  He often had more belief in me than I had in myself.  But if you don’t believe that what you’re doing can be done, you’ll find ways to make sure that you’re right.  Plus believing it’s not possible is one way of making an excuse for failure before you start.  Heck, most things are impossible, right up until someone does them.  But enough about me losing my virginity.
  • Know every second counts. Clocks are unrelenting.  0:00 is coming.  Every second that passes without you taking action is a second that can never come back.
  • Give everything, right from the start. Closely tied to using every second, is using every bit of you for every second.  It’s your force multiplied by your time that is your momentum.

calc

See, it’s so simple a fifth grader could derive it.

  • Prepare relentlessly. That means working through every detail you can, and as close to the real thing as possible.  I guarantee your opponent is.  Well, one of them is.  When his iPhone® battery is dead.
  • Focus on winning, not losing. Reasons eloquently established above.

ccamp

Too soon?

  • Lock out distractions. Everyday life tends to intrude in your brain.  Push it back.  Like an ex-wife it will be there after you’re done.
  • Avoid feeding your ego. Your ego, that part of you that holds all of your self-importance?  The ego that thinks that people remember silly mistakes you made?  It will fight with everything it has to be protected – it will sabotage you to prevent you doing your best.  Sure, in rare circumstances people will remember your silly mistake (putting hydrogen in that dirigible, for instance), but that’s not the norm.
  • Have confidence in yourself.
  • Have faith. I’ve been lucky time and time again.  I know the old saying that “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” – but that was the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca who said that.  And where is Seneca, hmm?
  • Remember why you’re here – not a specific way to win, but to win.
  • Focus on now, not the next game. Nor the next match.  Nor the ride home.
  • Use your tension to build focus. Being nervous is okay, and can, if used properly help your preparation.
  • Use music. There is nothing that so impacts emotion and sets mood than music.  Good rock music helps a workout.  Appropriately aggressive music helps focus – Come Out And Play by the Offspring, or Electric Worry by Clutch or even Shoot to Thrill by AC/DC come to mind.  Please feel free to suggest your favorite music that psyches you up below.  I promise not to make too much fun of your choice, unless you pick something like Madonna or Justin Bieber.  Yes, that includes that odious little man, Phil Collins.  He knows what he did.
  • Have a routine, once you get it right. Play the same songs every time.  Play them in the same order.  Spend the same amount of time warming up each time.
  • Be ready physically. We’ve spent all this time getting your mind ready.  It would be a shame if your body weren’t ready, too.
  • Have a strategy. Execute it.  Having a strategy is important.  Having the courage to execute it is important, too.  Will it have to be sufficiently broad to account for surprises?    But why do you have to bring broads into it?
  • Don’t deviate from the strategy too soon. There may be a time to give up on your plan, but it’s not immediately.  Unless it is.  This is more of an art – there is absolutely a time when Plan A will fail, and you’re stuck with Plan B.  Or Plan C.

Okay, I never said it was a short list.

One other piece of advice:  Be as outcome independent as you can be.  The poem If by Rudyard Kipling makes this point well (The Chinese Farmer, Kipling, Marcus Aurelius, and You). Winning everything you try, every time you do it is impossible for everyone.  But after the victory or the loss, you will remain.  Yes, losing sucks.  But the outcome of any specific event in your life is much less important than the input that got you there, which is (more or less) something Seneca also said.

homer

I swear, I got lost for 20 minutes looking at Bill and Ted related information while writing this post.  The Internet is the devil.

Yes, you read that right.  You can’t control every outcome.  But you can control your attitude.  You can control your effort.  You can control a large part of your preparations.  You can control the virtue of your actions.  If you do all that and still lose?

Winning is still better than losing.  Winning is always better than losing.  Losing sucks, and you should never really be proud of it – it will become a habit.  But look for the lessons you can pick up for next time.

More next Wednesday when we look at how this impacts the rest of your life.

(And don’t forget to leave your psyche up to be aggressive music suggestions in the comments.)

How To Spot Propaganda In 2020, Featuring Stonks

“PBS, the propaganda wing of Bill and Melinda Gates.” – The Office

pledge

Okay, and what does anyone do with two new “tote bags” every year?  How many objects do you need to tote?

I used to listen to National Public Radio® (NPR™) on the way to work.  Sure, I like music, but the local radio stations are simply horrible.  NPR© had a good mix of news and information.  Of course it was left-leaning:  it’s in the name – “Public” radio – and at least 55% comes from reliably liberal sources like universities, foundations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting™, and Fedgov.  But it was left-leaning in the “Kinda Feminist Grandma Who Just Didn’t Want To Be Called Sweetie At Work” way, and not in the “All Who Oppose Us Will Be Re-Educated or Shot for Comrade Sanders” way.

Listening to them wasn’t new for me – I’d done so during the latter part of the years when W was president, and during many of the Obama years.  There was a detectable liberal bias, which was understandable given that they have trouble with the capitalist system.  Why, one time when I was tending bar, an anthropologist, a philosopher, and a journalist walked in.  I said, “Hey, Brad.  Still no job?”

Arizona State University and Texas A&M recently did a study about bias in journalism and found that 4.4% of financial journalists described themselves as “somewhat or very” conservative.  The totals for those that identified as “somewhat or very” liberal?  58.5%.  If you wondered why the journalists were crying on election night back in November of 2016, this is it.

Journalists are lefties, and they’re surrounded by other lefties, and probably don’t even know anyone who would claim to be on the Right.  And those in the study were only financial journalists, who one would expect to be somewhat more “conservative” than journalists as a whole since they could probably do basic addition.

stonk2

I guess I was fine listening to NPR© because I felt I was good at filtering out the bias that I heard.  A lot of news is just facts, and listening to NPR™ was good because I liked to get a second version of the news – and sometimes the stories that NPR® brought up were utterly different than I’d see on my regular run around the web.  It was nice having the variety.

The decision to stop listening to NPR© was gradual, but I certainly remember the first big day that led me down this path – it was August 2, 2016 when then-candidate Trump was giving a speech at a rally.  A woman had a baby at the rally, and the baby cried.  Trump said, “Don’t worry about it, you know?  It’s young and beautiful and healthy, and that’s what we want.”

Not too much later on in that same rally, the baby cried again.  If you watch the video, it’s hilarious – Trump says, “Actually, I was only kidding, you can get the baby out of here.”  You can clearly hear in his voice he’s kidding.  In reality, anyone who wasn’t looking for something, anything to smear Trump would have heard the joke.  You can watch the video – NPR© did put it up (LINK).  But when the story was read on air?  “Trump Hates Babies And Wants To Deport All Of Them, Probably to Mars.”

But, Unlikely Voice of Reason, Washington Post® (LINK) came to the rescue with this quote:  She [the mother – J.W.] said that she decided to leave the auditorium on her own because “it’s the considerate thing to do for others around, trying to listen or for those presenting,” adding that “it was blatantly obvious he was joking.”

Who would write and report a story like that?  A deranged person.  A person looking for something, anything to hang on Trump.  It was pure propaganda, but a clumsy sort of propaganda that only someone who had it in for Trump would report.

groundhog

Rumor has it that if Bernie Sanders sees his shadow on Groundhog Day, he’ll avoid the Clintons for six more weeks.

That was the first strike – and several more went by, and I found that I simply could no longer stand listening to the distortions popping out of NPR™.  I doubt that NPR© is better now, but even if they were, why would I bother?  I have a better cell phone now and listen to podcasts on the drive to work.

In a one-dimensional world, I’d still have the choice of NPR® or the local rock DJ telling really stupid stories about their fart collection or I could spend the drive time listening to a CD.  But we now have access to a vast array of news, so if you go poking and prodding, you can debunk the propaganda if you smell it.  And, boy, there’s plenty left.  It’s gone beyond distortions to become propaganda.

biddle

That’s Biddle in the middle with the fiddle near the griddle while his puppy has a piddle.

The power in propaganda is in creating a common worldview.  It’s herding.  If everyone believes the same thing, then why argue about facts?  And that’s also the danger of propaganda.  One of the early propaganda theorists (besides, of course, Edward Bernays) was William Biddle, member of the Minbari Hair Club for Men© pictured above.  Biddle’s ideas on how to make propaganda work include:

  • Rely on emotions, never argue.  Almost all decisions, no matter how rational we think we are, are based on emotion.  Every single actual transformative change in our lives is built on emotion.  The Mrs. recently emailed me pictures of our first date, but I couldn’t open them.  I guess I have trouble with emotional attachments.
  • Cast propaganda into the pattern of “we” versus an “enemy”. This is derived, at least in part, from emotions.  Everyone has a fear of the other, of those that aren’t like them.  If the Left didn’t have an enemy, it would have to manufacture one to make propaganda work.  And if I am president, we will arm all our troops with acid to destroy the enemy base.
  • Direct suggestion through using repetition in slogans or phrases. Simple phrases, repeated often, replace the truth.  “I like Ike.”  You may or may not like Eisenhower, but it’s easy to say, easy to remember, and easy to repeat.  If Biddle were lecturing in 2020, I’m sure he’d understand the power of memes in driving public viewpoint.  But if Biddle were speaking to you in 2020, you’d probably be horrified because a corpse dead for 47 years makes a terrible lecturer and often stutters.

chant

Morgan Freeman:  Today Chester learned that chanting “U-S-A” at the illegal alien march was a mistake.

  • Reach groups as well as individuals. Getting individuals to agree is easy, but why convert people retail when you get more going wholesale?  Thankfully, I can dress differently so I can look like everyone else.
  • Indirectly appealing to emotion through cloaking propaganda as entertainment or news media coverage. I had a friend – I know, crazy, right? – who would never directly try to convince upper management of anything.  He’d leave clues – breadcrumbs – so that upper management would come to the right conclusion, his conclusion, without him stating his conclusion directly.  But there certainly isn’t a reason that Thor™ is going to be replaced by a woman, is there?
  • Biddle emphasized the importance of the propagandist being hidden when conveying their messages. If the Left thought that Trump wanted them to eat vegetables, half the vegans in the United States would go on a full-carnivore diet and begin stalking cows.  If you’re trying to do propaganda, don’t mix the message with the messenger.

And after PETA armed the Cows, this happened.

What Biddle missed was herding.  As opinions change, people must be herded to follow the new opinion – outliers must be ruthlessly outcast.  The pleasant part for propagandists is that people will tend to self police.  You’ve probably heard that crabs stuck in a bucket trying to get out will pull any crab that gets out back into the bucket with them.  I have no idea if crabs do that, because my relationship with crabs involves steam, fancy vice grips, and a cup filled with liquid butter.

stephen

Kim Jong Un loves Stephen King books – he’s a fearless reader.

Stephen King only wishes that he was stuck with crabs.  Wait, that came out wrong.  Anyway, Mr. King made the epic error of arguing that with his votes for the Oscars®, that diversity didn’t matter, only quality.  In any universe where rational people discuss things, that’s an entirely reasonable statement.  But in Hollywood©?  Not a chance (LINK).   If Twitter™ could burn people at the stake, it would be very warm in Mr. King’s house tonight.

And if they only reported it on NPR®?  I’d never hear it.  Unless it was during pledge drive.  Why is it always pledge drive?

Living Forever, The Uncomfortable Way

“Cannibalism is one thing, but increasing longevity by eating human flesh….” – The X-Files

inline

I’m not going to tell an AARP® joke:  they’re all pretty old.

David Sinclair isn’t a medical doctor, but he’s got a laboratory at Harvard© Medical School.  That’s the real Harvard®, not the Haarvard™ School of Witchcraft and Legal Studies I started a few years ago.  It was accredited by Madame Kim’s Korean Restaurant (located under the Vance’s Bowl-a-Rama in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  One of my students turned me into a newt.

But I got better.  (R.I.P. Terry Jones)

Anyway, Sinclair actually teaches at the real Harvard© and not my scam internet school beloved privately held institution of learning.  Dr. Sinclair is not a medical doctor, but is instead a PhD, which is troubling to me now – there was no real reason he should have checked me for breast cancer.  And do most of those checks really take an hour?  But as I watched a video of him chatting about the future, it struck me:  he looks just like Christian Slater.

drjek

He may look a lot like Christian Slater, but the good Doctor Sinclair looks sheltered.   I mean, who doesn’t have a three day cocaine, heroin, and tequila binge resulting in assault on a police officer and three months in the slammer?  Oh, only Christian?   

Anyway, Dr. Sinclair is mainly interested in longevity.  When I say mainly, he’s done research on longevity since the 1990’s.  Currently, he feels he has the reason that we age:  as we get older, our cells forget what it is that they should be doing.

What, a cell can forget?  How does that work?

DNA is a long strand in a cell.  How long?  If you stretched out a DNA strand, it would be (by most calculations I’ve seen on the Internet) over six feet long.  Obviously, just like Tom Cruise, your cells aren’t six feet long.  Therefore, the DNA has to be wound up to fit inside a cell.

inbread

Remember, sharing DNA with those you share DNA with can have consequences.  Just ask the governor of Virginia!

In a really neat trick, it’s not the just the DNA that determines what a cell does, it’s the way that the DNA is wound up in little knots to fit in the cell.  Since every cell has the same DNA, it’s not the DNA that determines what a cell does:  it’s how the DNA is coiled in a cell that defines what that cell does.  That available information on the coiled up bits of DNA is what makes a cell a nerve cell.   Or a skin cell.  Or, for you lucky people, a hair follicle.

Wait, that’s not true.  I have hair.  It’s just in my ears.  What gives?

The answer is simple.  The skin cells had the DNA originally coiled up to be skin cells.  But after a while, the winding became . . . not as good in a few of them, so skin cells decided that they wanted to start a hobby:  making hair.  So places that didn’t have hair in my 20’s, now have hair.  Just not where I wanted it – sure I feel the wind blowing through my hair still, but now it’s my back hair.

kardash

Fun Fact:  Lloyd’s of London® will not insure the Kardashian family against Velcro©.

Sinclair thinks that part of the key to having humans live to be 170 or longer is in resetting that mechanism so the DNA coils up correctly in the cell.  He suggests the reset might be possible, but it involves viruses, PEZ®, and painters scaffolding.  I kid.  Except for the viruses.  Dr. Sinclair has several theories on how this reset can be done, and, yes, one of them includes a virus.  Some of them involve drugs or supplements.  I’m not planning on selling supplements here (though I hear that can be lucrative if you’re in talk radio) but you can look up his advice on supplements.  Remember, he’s not a doctor, at least not the medical kind.

But he does have some advice that’s certainly (mostly) free to pursue, and probably harmless:

  • Be cold. Apparently The Mrs. is right that the air conditioning should be set at 54°F in the summer, since being cold appears to activate mechanisms that reduce inflammation.  We also keep Stately Wilder Manor cold in winter.  Sometimes when your author is writing in winter I actually rub two verbs together to keep warm.
  • Be hot. Not like supermodel hot, but actually physically warm.  If you’re both, you probably get bonus points.  Saunas have been documented to lower blood pressure and much lower death rates.  I don’t have a sauna, but I have a hot tub (I keep it warm by burning $100 bills) and I’m in it 4 or 5 times a week.  I can’t keep it at 175°F like the Finnish people do, but I imagine that 104°F is close enough.
  • Work out.   This isn’t news, since this has been done to get people healthy since at least the time of the Roman Empire.  But it appears that higher intensity workouts, stressing the body increases the body’s aging defenses.  Sinclair suggests high intensity interval training.
  • Fast. This actually saves you money, since you’re not spending money on food when you do it.  I wrote a bit about fasting here (The Last Weight Loss Advice You’ll Ever Need, Plus a Girl in a Bikini Drinking Water) and think it’s something that I think would benefit most people.  Fasting appears to lower blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and lower inflammation.  The downside?  You’re fasting.
  • Don’t eat so much protein. This is the tough one.  Sinclair noted that too much protein causes lower levels of NAD – heh hehe heh heh, he said “NAD” – and NAD is a nucleotide called “nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide” that decreases as you age.  NAD is one of Sinclair’s main keys to aging.  But I like steak.  I’m not sure that I want to live to 170 without steak.  Plus, if I’m not supposed to eat carbs, and now not supposed to eat protein, what’s left?  Sticks of butter covered in grass clippings?

downside

Not only do you have to set your cake on fire, you can’t eat it.

Again, those are (mostly) free to do, and in some cases put money back in your pocket.

Observationally, the things on the list are things that suck.  We want to be at comfortable temperatures, sitting on the couch with chocolate and steak smeared faces.  We want to live in malls, comfortable and cocooned against all discomfort.  But longer life appears to be triggered by being uncomfortable.  Since you’re not happy when you’re uncomfortable, that means time goes more slowly.  So not only do you live longer, it also feels like you’re living longer.  You might live to 170, but it feels like 1,700 years.

But what about the other things that kill you besides growing old?

In the past week, it looks like (fingers crossed) there’s a breakthrough against cancer.  Despite cancer being utterly curable in mice for, oh, decades, this particular cure uses the body’s own immune system to eat the cancer cells.  I’m betting this has about 1 chance in 10 of working, but that’s better news than any cancer news in recent memory.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg seems to not need this, though.

ginsburg

Remember, the Supreme Court is just regular court with sour cream and tomato.

If we cure cancer and aging, we’re home free, right?

Well, there are still things like dementia, liver failure, kidney failure, diabetes, and heart disease.  Certainly following Dr. Sinclair’s suggestions will help with some of these, but it’s not likely it will help with all of them.  I’m not trying to be pessimistic here, but solving all of the body’s problems isn’t as easy as jumping in the hot tub with a supermodel or avoiding steak.

For a long life to be worth it, it should be one where I don’t live from year 70 to year 140 as a rambling, dementia cursed old man.  And Dr. Sinclair’s dad, who is now 80, has been following Sinclair’s advice and is still quite active.

Or was it Dr. Sinclair’s advice after all?  It could have been Christian Slater.  And always remember my motto:

Shoot now, ask Christian Slater.

cslater

Here’s a video of Dr. Sinclair, if you want to check either my facts or the Christian Slater resemblance.