Positivity – Blog Post #12

I want to be that infectiously positive person. That one person that never seems like they are having a bad day because they are genuinely so happy and positive that they don’t let things get them down. The kind of person you just want to talk to, even if you have nothing to talk about, simply because their presence makes you feel good inside. A light that brightens the whole room. We have all met this person once before, even if their presence now feels like it was dreamed.

I have been thinking about my environment and the environments I have observed recently. I am a student, and I am preparing to transfer to university next year. College and university, regardless of prestige, have an atmosphere that to me is almost daunting. It is intimidating for me–a freshman, an outsider–to observe high level individuals. People that are strong and passionate; History that has deep roots and forms complex relationships; To witness all the power and potential that is not solely within my control is discomforting. It is the knowing that everyone around me has secrets, many secrets and stories that life itself is too short to experience all but a few. Everyone has these unique tools and competencies and abilities. I have my own too, I must acknowledge this, but is it not natural to fear what we do not know? Is it not natural to fear the mind of another person who might have as many if not more desires and conscious intentions as I do? To know that I am surrounded by an institution formed from the deep inspiration for education by many with actionable knowledge. Like I mentioned, I think what causes me this negative pressure is knowing that within every room and within every individual person lies a mystery I am uninvited to solve or even be cognizant of. These are the temporary feelings of the unfledged.

A school of high prestige carries with it not only an increased pressure but also something unique that I am struggling to put into words. Prestige creates an environment where these unique secrets, tools, abilities, and knowledge maintain a consistency that allows for amazingly beautiful interactions. Incredible competition and also a limitless unity created by the collection of so many passionate people. This ambient power is what I am struggling to put into words

My intimidation is not the focus of discussion today. This is simply one effect that is easily perceived and my be relatable. This intimidation comes from a power and expectation that I am simply maladjusted. I have not yet been implanted in the mentioned atmosphere long enough to adapt to all the dense energy.

I have come to the painful realization recently that I am trying to output dense energy–I am trying to exceed to a high level–while the world around me is not. Like principles of dissipation, I am giving large amounts of energy to concentrate my ambition and it is being diluted by the water I am swimming in. I do not want to complain or come off as petulant, but my home and work environments are passion-consuming. They have in the better of times given me energy and motivated me to do more by supplying me with foundations, but as I ascend my personal ladder, they have felt restraining–even in the fairer times.

Have you heard the quote, “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with?” While I believe this is only vaguely true, anecdotally, I know two things to be consistently true: The people we surround ourselves with either discourage or empower us, and one’s relationships communicate much of who they are. The absolute nature of these statements can be contested, but this observation has helped me to realize that I have not equipped myself with the external energy needed to necessitate my ambition.

I have learned from my assigned psychology reading that emotion is biopsychosocial. Essentially, in vague terms, this means that how we feel and think is affected by multiple factors: put simply, we are a product of our body, our mind, and the world around us. I am new to psychology, so for now, I will only describe the significance of the biopsychosocial model in my context. Ignoring the body for today, I have desperately worked to best my mind over the past year. For a long time, I would only fluctuate, but recently, I have made a noticeable change–a significant growth. However, this growth of my mind does not have immediate returns toward the growth of my environment. This is constrained by time, and accepting that I must be patient has been difficult. It has caused me to doubt and to worry about something that has not had time to form and really does not yet exist.

I must mention Modern Wisdom again. I told you that it would be referenced again, did I not? Contained in episode #688 is pure gold, at least to my ears it is. If I had the time, I would write a book about the conversation they had… about a book. Seriously one of the most eye opening pieces of media I have ever come across. It is so direct toward what I am feeling, with incredible focus and clarity. “The lonely chapter” as Chris describes it (00:58:30), is the phase I have begun to struggle down and relates to the previous paragraph. As it is described, this is the in between, lonely period that results as a person transitions social hierarchies. We must detach (at least somewhat) before we can grow, and this intermediate time is the most painful. This is just one of the many great ideas contextualized in that episode. Many of which complete or overlap ideas of my own. I need to write a book!

Without sounding any more like a sponsor, I can not recommend this episode enough, and I will likely come back to it in the future.

I say all this to say that I, like most people, feed off of what I perceive around me, whether it is conscious or unconscious. For my best, most positive self, I need to supply myself with the best and most positive environment.

I will make a greater effort to smile more and be that infectious cure. Would we all not like to smile more? Within these thoughts I know is the path toward living my happiest life. I will continue to excavate.

Until next week, Tristan from HQ, the happiest guy you know, is signing off. Have a good week y’all!

Citation

Williamson, Chris, director. #688 – Steven Bartlett – 17 Raw Lessons About Human Nature. Spotify, 2 Oct. 2023, https://open.spotify.com/episode/0NsF1BSmU63MRbuNTzUUEv?si=e8bccdb9bf9b45bf. Accessed 5 Nov. 2023.

Risk – Blog Post #11

Before we begin this week, I would like to share a quote that relates to the conversation about knowledge last week that I read as part of my Introduction to Psychology course:

“[We are] bombarded every second by sensations, emotions, thoughts … nine-tenths of which [we] must simply ignore. The past [is] a roaring cataract of billions upon billions of such moments: Any one of them too complex to grasp in its entirety, and the aggregate beyond all imagination…. At every tick of the clock, in every inhabited part of the world, an unimaginable richness and variety of “history” falls off the world into total oblivion” (Myers 275).

This week I want to talk about risk.

Note to reader: this week jumps between many ideas of a similar theme. This week I am putting in one post many ideas that were formed independent of the others–a “salad of thoughts.”

I believe that… I know that people give too much power to chance. We are all fools, neither ever knowing what we are truly wishing for or knowing the reality of what it will take to get us to our wild fantasies. I am seeing this mirage of luck all around me.

I have discovered that we are all near a metaphorical ledge. For a long time I sat on the edge. Partially aware of the dangers then, I can better see the existential threat that waits at the bottom now. Only a handful of mistakes or happenstance events could have catapulted my life in an entirely different direction. I was not born into the financial or social security that allowed me to trip or stumble. Too many people are handed doomed realities before they can prepare, before they are even aware. Awareness seldom comes in the darker moments. It is very dangerous. How many strong men and women have been lost because of their lack of knowledge, because they were never told that behind them was a cliff? I am fortunate to have distanced myself from the ledge; However, I do not have the infrastructure to ignore the dangers and live my life carelessly. Complacency would bring me right back down and off. I am looking to distance myself from the ledges in my life and put up the appropriate boundaries. This is a complicated process because there are many ledges in the world, and some of the most dangerous ones conceal themselves. Identify these traps in your life because without action we all creep closer to falling everyday. Time is cruel. I believe happiness is found in infrastructure. I believe there is great happiness in security. When I get there, I will let you know.

Related to the previous idea is the idea of having safety nets in your life: savings accounts, friends, credibility, education, fame, companionship, etc. We can potentially weigh the risk of the decisions we make by how many of those safety nets could be destroyed versus what could be gained. Changing careers might only cut through savings, but embezzling money could land you in prison. I do not need to say this, risks can be minor or major but all have real consequences.

This has recently been on my mind because I am beginning down a path that has the risk of being interrupted or completely destroyed by life events. If something major were to happen now, since I am working in a narrow window and with tight tolerances, it might not be recoverable. I am being dramatic, but a major life event could seriously set me back. I should not stress paranoia because this is an unavoidable caveat of life. I know in my heart that I am getting closer to my ambitions and nothing will stop my pursuit.

I am applying to university, and I have previously been fixated on admission acceptance rates. My mind naturally correlates percentage with chance, but in this context, chance is mostly irrelevant. These numbers represent nothing but an expectation. These are not odds and the surly do not represent any one person’s chance of admittance. These numbers represent a difficulty, a standard to reach. The hard reality is that you either exceed expectations or are substandard. This perspective is not limited to university acceptance rates; expectation variables are all around us.

Foolishly, I underestimated expectations once before. Never again will I allow myself to carelessly fall short. If I am going to be rejected, I need to know that my commitment was ceaseless, that I lost because there was someone better. I will find my place to be better, but luck will never guide me there. In the past, I have had my perspective on risk, probability, luck, and unfortunate events all mixed together. In our trying world, every outcome, every random event, has a probability. Nothing is ever absolutely guaranteed or off the table. The secret to creating the future before it happens is by controlling as many variables that go into the probabilities that you desire and maximizing the probability of those outcomes. This is ultimately what envisioning a future, making goals, and taking actions toward goals leads us to do. This also applies to the little things in life. If you never maintenance your car, the probability that it will break down increases with every drive. If we constantly neglect the small variables in our lives, it can appear as if we are unlucky, when in reality the fault lies in our actions (These actions affect us whether we are conscious of them or not). In my online psychology class, I listened to a great video by psychologist Albert Burdura where he talked about happenstance:

“These experiences showed me that there’s a lot of fortuity in our life paths. Psychology avoids fortuity and chance like the plague. It really screws up our prediction models and so on. But I felt that we should be able to bring some science to bear on the fortuitous character of life.

Now, psychology can’t predict fortuitous events. But psychology should predict that once they occur, are they going to leave you untouched? Are they going to influence you? Or are they going to branch you into entirely new directions in life? So I set up a conceptual scheme as to predicting the effect, depending on your own personal attributes, and also the nature of the inaugurating environment. I was bringing in some sort of novel features into psychology.

There are two ways in which you can exercise some influence on the fortuitous character of life. One, you can make chance happen by leading an active life and exposing yourself to a lot of different ideas. And the second, you can make chance work for you by developing your interests, your competencies, and other personal characteristics so when a fortuitous event occurs, you can take advantage of it” (Albert).

Bandura’s philosophy can be likened to the quote, “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” – Seneca.

I don’t believe in luck anymore, and I am going to prove it by beating the “odds” and finding the success I seek… As I write these words, I get an uneasy feeling in my core. I feel like the world is going to make me eat my words, and I am going to choke on them. That is the shortcoming of young confidence… but I can no longer conceive my confidence as arrogance, inexperienced, privileged, untested, or phony. I know that I am competent and work diligently; I will not succumb to imposter syndrome and doubt.

Risk is delicately interwoven with time. Time is both conceptually and metaphorically interesting. Our universe is defined by it yet we as people can only perceive it so linearly. The bond between man and time leaves us to relinquish freedom into camps of finiteness (limitation of the time of life), absolute or limited destiny (we only have one experience of life. If we have free will, I can not know), and perceived luck (fundamentally, what causes randomness in our world I am uncertain of, but luck as we conceive it is not concrete. Luck is just the outcome of many complicated events. Too many to even formulate). In the future, I will extract more from this idea, but I will leave this as gum to mentally chew until I next mention time. I love time!

Speaking of time, this is it for the week. Don’t you just hate time!

As always, this has been Tristan from HQ. Till next week!

I will leave you with a quote from Siddhartha as it relates to destiny, time, and the future:

“‘Yes, Siddhartha,’ he spoke. ‘It is this what you mean, isn’t it: that the river

is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the

ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and that

there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow

of the future?’

‘This it is,’ said Siddhartha. ‘And when I had learned it, I looked at my life,

and it was also a river, and the boy Siddhartha was only separated from the

man Siddhartha and from the old man Siddhartha by a shadow, not by something real. Also, Siddhartha’s previous births were no past, and his death and

his return to Brahma were no future. Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is present’” (Hesse 91).

“Oh, was not all suffering time, where not all forms of tormenting oneself and

being afraid time, was not everything hard, everything hostile in the world

gone and overcome as soon as one had overcome time, as soon as time would

have been put out of existence by one’s thoughts?” (Hesse 92).

Citation

“Albert Bandura.” Performance by Albert Bandura, Macmillan Learning, Worth Publishers, 2022, https://achieve.macmillanlearning.com/. Accessed 29 Oct. 2023.

Myers, David G., and C. Nathan DeWall. Exploring Psychology. Worth Publishers, 2022.

Hesse, Hermann. Philosophy.Lander.Edu. Edited by Lee Archie and John G. Archie, 1.0 Edition ed., Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha: An Open Source Reader, https://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/siddhartha.pdf, Accessed 1 Oct. 2023.

Speed – Blog Post #10

Round of applause to everyone who makes this show possible… just me? Thank you! Thank you!

Welcome one of ones and ones of many! This week I just want to take a moment to appreciate making it to my tenth post, appreciate the little wonders of my life, take a deep breath, and relax with you all for this special second… and… done!

At this moment many facets of my life are converging. It is stressful, but it is empowering. Having the challenges and experiences in my life give me substantial meaning—this is where I find purpose, so I will take a moment to take the heavy, fresh air deep into my lungs and appreciate the glow of the cool morning sunrise in my heart.

When I think about relaxation or when I think about meditative moments, I think of the sky. I think about watching the clouds on a peaceful day or gazing through the night sky to catch magical dots of light. Do you ever take a moment to look at the sky and embrace its almighty encompassment, to become entranced by the wisdom of the Sun and the Moon, to be serenaded by the artful tapestry of the clouds, to gain humility by the incomprehensible power completely outside of our control, to synchronize with the furiously constant yet seeming slow transverse motion of the heavens above?

Everything has been so fast paced recently that I have almost forgotten one of the principles of why I write this blog, why I work so hard: I work hard so that I can take these little moments to appreciate life. I also work hard so that when the time is right, I can simply and plainly have fun.

I am honestly afraid that a time will come that I will be unable to express my ideas or that I may become lost with words unsaid. A big motivation for this blog is to alleviate those worries. I want to share many things about myself and many of the wonders I discover with the world. Although not all words carry knowledge, the loss of knowledge is a great failure to all of humanity. Whether or not the words I can speak are knowledgeable, I can not say. However, to lose my words entirely would be a loss of something valuable, and I will not contribute to that invisible void, not if I can help it. Words are only an intermediate for knowledge. This preservation of knowledge is expressed in my YouTube channel, in all the work I do, and in all of the interactions with other people I have. All of these are knowledges–knowledges that are stored in work, in memory, in future thoughts, in emotion. While text can be pretty (and I love pretty words), text is only a tool for communicating. Let’s leave nothing unsaid. Let’s leave nothing to the void.

Having said that, I want to enjoy every part of my blogging process while giving you as much knowledge as my words allow.

I haven’t talked much about my last couple of months. In fact, I rarely talk about myself at all. Put starkly, these last ten weeks have been an education in the next chapter of my life. I will refrain from being dramatic, but starting this blog and starting school have been unbelievably formative milestones to take toward the person I am becoming. To those that do not know (I’m not sure why most would), I am a 20 year old college freshman. I am already talking about knowledge and education so much today that I might as well tell you more.

For anyone that is considering furthering their education, I would recommend that you pull the trigger on whatever it is that you wish to study. For too long I worried that I would make a mistake. The irony of worrying about mistakes is that focusing on worries often leads to the most regrettable mistakes. I can tell you something about regret; do not get me started on that topic. I worried that I would graduate with a “useless” degree, four less years of my life, and a mountain of debt. What no one ever told me is that I was going to make—at best—just as many different mistakes outside of college as I would in college. In life, mistakes are inevitable. While they can be minimized, they can not be avoided. I thought that I was minimizing mistakes by not attending university, but I was really avoiding risk. Risk is a complicated and extremely delicate balance. We will continue this conversation more next week. Also I ignored the simple fact that statistically college graduates have better outcomes than high school graduates. I was brainwashed by the many that influenced my old beliefs.

I do appreciate that I took the time to organize myself and make mistakes before furthering my education because now I can go into it better prepared to make the most of the experiences.Now that I am in college, it is like I have opened up a door to deeper maturity. It is like I had been living my life with only one eye open, and now, with two, I can see depth in the future. I have a future. I have new connections to knowledge.

If advice is what you seek from my blog, I will tell you to take my experience with a grain of salt. I will always stand behind education, but your story will likely be different than mine. Finding one’s own path could be considered the conflict of life—then making it life’s purpose. I can not attribute all of my awakening to school alone. This time has been a slow build up and compounding of many factors. If you take anything from this, take away that no one should be afraid to explore the great world before them and make mistakes along the way. Even if we are wrong now (and because we do not know what we do not know, we likely are), we might discover a new path that leads us to that which is right but previously unknown.

This last paragraph might be tangential… Who am I kidding? This week is everywhere, but that is okay!

Two themes keep recurring in my life: numbers and speed. I will keep this idea vague for now, but I want to talk about speed. Going forward, in my own personal development, I would like to become faster. I believe that I progress through tasks and projects with great efficiency, but, unlike the sky, I struggle to maintain a steady pace. I am aware that this post has a major contradiction: I want to take time to slow down, but I also am not satisfied with the speed that I am going. As paradoxical as it might sound, out there I know that there is a way I can achieve both. I know that I can fly with the clouds while running or dance with the moon while moving faster than any star. With trial and experience, I will unlock this skill. This is a mission for me to reflect about later.

One last mention for the week. I need to do more to write down my goals, intentions, and thoughts more clearly. I learned this idea and many other great knowledges from the podcast Modern Wisdom, episode #683. I will likely mention the episode again, and the show itself will become a familiar topic. I can assure you of that, but this is where I will end today.

Thank you all for being here. We can all take a moment to appreciate… and… done! Seriously, I would like to take a moment. This blog has made it to the end of its tenth installment. Even if I am the only person to ever read my words, this is an accomplishment that carries with it a special meaning to me. Ever forward!!! This has been Tristan from HQ. I will see you in number eleven! bye!

Citation

Williamson, Chris, director. #683 – Shaan Puri – 7 Semi-Controversial Rules For Success. Spotify, 21 Sept. 2023, https://open.spotify.com/episode/1Qo3DSAM13GCAaCWGymkhL?si=18d9e1d55d264944. Accessed 5 Nov. 2023.

Distance Running – Blog Post #9

Hi.

Welcome back!

This week, I was running, and I had a thought.

I run weekly. This is a habit I formed in a more desperate time in my life, but running has become a crux of who I am. Running has grown with me, and I respect the seeming limitless expanse of this sport.

If you have read some of my other posts, you might have noticed my interest in nutrition and overall wellness. I do not think that I have to be the one to tell you that running is… well… directly related to nutrition and health.

I have been running for a couple of years now casually. My routine averages out to about a mile a day. I am very much still a hobbyist runner, but I will be running a 10 mile race at the beginning of next month–November 5th, 2023. The race is Run for the Water, a fundraising event presented by the “Gazelle Foundation.” I thought I should mention it for anyone interested, but the point is that I am going to be running a 10 mile race soon.

I have been cutting weight and adding miles to my normal routine in preparation. I find the contrast between running for weight management and running for sport quite fascinating. I have really just begun my dive into distance running nutrition. What is so fascinating is that I started running so that I could increase my daily activity to help lose body fat. I am so accustomed to running to burn calories that, when I was introduced to the sport side, I realized I know very little about eating to run.

Just recently, I have been eating in preparation for my morning runs, and I have discovered that running for sport is not only mentally entirely different but also offers a unique experience to running for weight loss.

Running for weight loss has felt to me like a constant uphill battle. Even as I have lost significant amounts of weight, the requirement of being in a calorie deficit makes it so that my body is not ever nutritionally near peak to perform.

Now that I am nearing my goal weight and preparing for a race, I am better monitoring my calories and macros to intake more. I normally ran hungry. I now eat a medium sized, carbohydrate rich meal in preparation for each run. This small change has completely changed my experience, so I did some research.

I only learned recently about “The Wall” from ChatGPT:

“Is it common to have an energy crash when running if I start out too fast?”

ChatGPT

“Yes, it’s quite common to experience an energy crash when running if you start out too fast. Beginning a run at a pace that’s too intense can deplete your energy stores quickly and lead to fatigue, making it challenging to maintain your performance throughout the run. It’s often recommended to start at a comfortable pace and gradually increase your speed to avoid this energy crash” (“Is it common”).

“Does this have a name?”

ChatGPT

“Yes, this phenomenon is often referred to as ‘hitting the wall’ or ‘bonking.’ It occurs when your body depletes its glycogen stores (the primary energy source for muscles) faster than it can replenish them during high-intensity exercise, leading to a sudden drop in energy and performance. Proper pacing and nutrition can help prevent hitting the wall during activities like running” (“Does this have a name?”).

“Tell me more about “hitting the wall”

ChatGPT

“‘Hitting the wall’ is a term commonly used in endurance sports, particularly in activities like marathon running and long-distance cycling. It refers to a sudden and significant drop in physical and mental performance during exercise, often characterized by extreme fatigue, muscle weakness, and a feeling of exhaustion” (“Tell me more about”).

“Why do runners carb-load? Your body can only store enough glycogen (energy) to sustain 90 minutes of exercise. After this point, without sufficient extra fueling, you’re in danger of running out of energy and coming up against the dreaded ‘wall’” (THE RW EDITORS).

Running hungry, I was starting out fatigued. Eating before my runs, I can sense this metaphorical wall when I hit it. It feels like running through water. While the shift is not entirely immediate, when it hits, it is felt. Almost like someone slowly turned a dial for how much each leg weighed, my legs had a fatigued resistance. This unseen weight reminds me of a video I watch recently by youtuber Will Tennyson “It is sending electrical pulses to your muscle to contract harder and longer […] your legs are going to feel super heavy” (“I Tried World’s”).

In that video, Will is experimenting with different workouts. One of the exercises he tries involves a medical grade electrical muscle stimulation equipment. While I have never experienced this type of exercise before, I find Will’s reaction to be a great proxy for how I felt on my run.

I will not spend any more time talking about this video, but Will Tennyson is a very entertaining, informative, fun youtuber that I not only enjoy watching but has taught and inspired me. If you are interested in fitness or just want to have a good time, go check him out (video link in citation).

There is a beautiful complementarity between calorie minimalism and hyper nutrition. At the point that lies in the middle is a challenge for all endurance athletes. A challenge that I am at best a novice level interpreter.

Oh, before I go, the infamous “runner’s high” (I have noticed) is only felt when blood sugar levels and glycogen stores are sustained. There are no highs after hitting the wall. From my anecdotal experience and understanding of physiology a runner’s high is a combination of a childlike sugar high, and the endorphins that circulate throughout the body as a result of heightened heart rate, adrenal pain responses, heightened metabolism, and mental euphoria all gained from running. Running—when done properly— acts on many positive stimuli that then produce that iconic, natural bliss runners crave.

Now, I must go. I am behind this week–both in schedule and in sleep. I am so sad because I didn’t even get to mention how much I liked the word “bonking” that ChatGPT mentioned.

The time is ticking! I will see you next week. Till then, Tristan from HQ signing off. Bye!

Citation

“Does this have a name?” prompt. ChatGPT, GPT-3.5, OpenAI, 11 Oct. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.

“I Tried World’s Most Expensive Workout ($100k).” YouTube, YouTube, 24 Sept. 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_PVFrHtbH8&t=570s.

“Is it common to have an energy crash when running if I start out too fast?” prompt. ChatGPT, GPT-3.5, OpenAI, 11 Oct. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.

“Tell me more about ‘hitting the wall’” prompt. ChatGPT, GPT-3.5, OpenAI, 11 Oct. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.


THE RW EDITORS. “When to Start Carb Loading on Marathon Week – Runner’s World.” Runner’s World, 21 Apr. 2023, www.runnersworld.com/uk/nutrition/diet/a27178213/when-to-start-carb-loading-marathon/.

Productivity and Delusion – Blog Post #8

Hello and good day to you all!

I need to start this week off with a one-to-one because I know that you miss me. I just want to reestablish that connection to you, my reader. This blog is intended to be many things, but I want it to be fun. So, laugh, and let us enjoy the game. I have given you my weekly food-for-thought below. We are getting serious! I know, I know, I am so funny. I am glad that you are here. Since it is time to roll the dice again, I will go… This has been Tristan from HQ as always. I’m here every week! I’ll catch you next week. Bye-bye!

Productivity

What do you define productive to mean?

Productive is starting to mean something different to me. I see people all the time completing tasks that feel productive, but that ultimately only maintain the world that they have created so far. My definition of productive is changing to mean something different: to be productive is the act of doing something that improves your world. By this, I mean completing tasks that do more than just get us back to zero. For example, doing the laundry is a necessary task, but doing the laundry only makes up for the dirty clothes that are dirty. There’s no way to wash the clothes ahead of time. Unless we can improve our processes or gain something new, we only get back to zero, back to a neutral state. This also applies to work and income. If we are working to only make ends meet, we are not being productive–we are simply surviving. To be productive we have to work ahead of our schedule. We have to work beyond maintenance. We have to improve. There is no issue with only being able to survive. Survival alone is a mighty task, but dreams are made from small percentages. Every percent beyond baseline one hundred compounds overtime almost magically. To be truly productive is to acknowledge this reality and work beyond our minimums. Only then can we ever hope to provide ourselves with something greater, can we ever hope to dream.

To be productive you have to exceed one hundred. For example, if someone is, let’s say, living paycheck to paycheck, there one hundred would be equivalent to however many hours they work a week. This is just a financial example, but one hundred represents the amount of work required to maintain the lifestyle we have and survive. To magnify this number we either need to require less or output more. Someone who can only output one hundred will never grow. Anything less than one hundred means something is being lost. Someone at two hundred, by factor of compounding, will traverse life at many times the speed of someone at one hundred and fifty. This is not linear. This is exponential.

The rules for productivity vary between each individual because we all have different situations and priorities that complicate what being productive means. For a student, it might mean completing an extra assignment every Tuesday. For a working professional with a family, it might simply mean spending an additional afternoon with the kids. Since we all have different goals, what is productive for one person might not be for another. If we hope to be our best selves, we must continue to analyze our motivations, our goals, and the actions we are taking every day to be as productive as possible.

The ideal version of yourself that you see exists. Realize that there are over 8 billion people in the world. There exists individuals that exceed your greatest imagination. Realize all of the propaganda and distractions that exist in our society to keep the impoverished where they are. There are people building empires as the majority slave away at the daily, expected routine. Look back at history, look at the severely impoverished, look at an older version of you. At this moment, anyone viewing this blog has access to incredible tools and resources. Realize that your greatest limitation is psychological. Don’t let the world brainwash you into believing that you need to relax every day. Beware of thinking that places you as average. We sleep for 8-9 hours. That is all the time needed to function efficiently. Anything beyond that is luxury. Luxury is great and at times just as necessary as work, but unearned luxury is a sacrifice; it is weakness. There is no problem with relinquishing yourself to pleasure as long as you are content with the consequences. Every action has an… you reap what you… what goes around… Each individual has incredible power. If you want to know your power, use what you have been given. No. Excuses. Your friends can talk tomorrow. If they can not, they are not your friends. We live in a great time where almost all media is on demand. Your show can wait. Cherish relationships and little moments, but set yourself up for success before you indulge. GO! GO! GO! NOW! Your time now means as much as it ever will. Compound it! Improve your life, and in doing that, improve our world!

Delusion

Do you really want it?

If you want it bad enough you will work to get it, but you have to delude yourself into sensing what you do not yet have. This is the abstract energy of motivation. Let me write a formula to simplify my thought: Ambition x belief x delusion = motivation/energy. Ambition is the amount that you want something. Belief is the probability that you believe your ambition is attainable. Delusion is the mental state you put yourself in to both minimize doubt and amplify ambition.

Allow me for a moment to inject a perspective: First, looking at your life by the struggles you went through to get to where you are now. Now, looking at your current struggles. While life has no guarantees, realize that all the self improvement sacrifices that you make today define you already as the you of tomorrow. You are already there, time just has not caught up. It is like a math equation. If x+y=z, you have gotten to “z” by doing “x” and “y” in the past. If this equation remains consistent, then we can also look into the future knowing that our “x2.0” and “y2.0” will equal “z2.0.” Define your “xs” and your “ys,” and you can predict your future. This is of course a delusion, but results ultimately can only come from certain variables. We are intelligent creatures that can comprehend consequences. Your life will eventually reflect your variables. Do you see your “z3.0” yet?

Siddhartha – Blog Post #7

Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse

Chapter 3

“‘I have not doubted for a single moment that you are Buddha, that you have reached

the goal, the highest goal towards which so many thousands of Brahmins and

sons of Brahmins are on their way. You have found salvation from death. It

has come to you in the course of your own search, on your own path, through

thoughts, through meditation, through realizations, through enlightenment. It

has not come to you by means of teachings! And—thus is my thought, oh

exalted one,—nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! You will

not be able to convey and say to anybody, oh venerable one, in words and

through teachings what has happened to you in the hour of enlightenment!

The teachings of the enlightened Buddha contain much, it teaches many to

live righteously, to avoid evil. But there is one thing which these so clear,

these so venerable teachings do not contain: they do not contain the mystery

of what the exalted one has experienced for himself, he alone among hun-

dreds of thousands. This is what I have thought and realized, when I have

heard the teachings. This is why I am continuing my travels—not to seek

other, better teachings, for I know there are none, but to depart from all teach-

ings and all teachers and to reach my goal by myself or to die’” (Hesse 28-29).

“I have never before seen a person glance and smile, sit and walk this way,

he thought; truly, I wish to be able to glance and smile, sit and walk this

way, too, thus free, thus venerable, thus concealed, thus open, thus child-

like and mysterious. Truly, only a person who has succeeded in reaching the

innermost part of his self would glance and walk this way. Well so, I also will

seek to reach the innermost part of my self.

I saw a man, Siddhartha thought, a single man, before whom I would have

to lower my glance. I do not want to lower my glance before any other, not

before any other. No teachings will entice me any more, since this man’s

teachings have not enticed me” (Hesse 29-30).

Chapter 5

“‘You shall know, Sid-

dhartha has set harder goals for himself than such trifles, and he has reached

them. How shouldn’t I reach that goal, which I have set for myself yester-

day: to be your friend and to learn the joys of love from you! You’ll see that

I’ll learn quickly, Kamala, I have already learned harder things than what

you’re supposed to teach me. And now let’s get to it. You aren’t satisfied

with Siddhartha as he is, with oil in his hair, but without clothes, without

shoes, without money?’” (Hesse 48).

“Suddenly, pride flared up in him. He was no Samana any more, it was no

longer becoming to him to beg. He gave the rice-cake to a dog and remained

without food.

‘Simple is the life which people lead in this world here,’ thought Siddhartha.

‘It presents no difficulties. Everything was difficult, toilsome, and ultimately

hopeless, when I was still a Samana. Now, everything is easy, easy like that

lessons in kissing, which Kamala is giving me. I need clothes and money,

nothing else; this a small, near goals, they won’t make a person lose any

Sleep’” (Hesse 51).

“Siddhartha said, ‘Yesterday, I told you I knew how to think, to wait, and to

fast, but you thought this was of no use. But it is useful for many things,

Kamala, you’ll see. You’ll see that the stupid Samanas are learned and able

to do many pretty things in the forest, which the likes of you aren’t capable

of. The day before yesterday, I was still a shaggy beggar, as soon as yesterday

I have kissed Kamala, and soon I’ll be a merchant and have money and all

those things you insist upon.’

‘Well yes,’ she admitted. ‘But where would you be without me? What would

you be, if Kamala wasn’t helping you?’

‘Dear Kamala,’ said Siddhartha and straightened up to his full height, ‘when

I came to you into your grove, I did the first step. It was my resolution to learn

love from this most beautiful woman. From that moment on when I had made

this resolution, I also knew that I would carry it out. I knew that you would

help me, at your first glance at the entrance of the grove I already knew it.’

‘But what if I hadn’t been willing?’

‘You were willing. Look, Kamala. When you throw a rock into the water,

it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water. This is how

it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution. Siddhartha does nothing, he

waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world like a

rock through water, without doing anything, without stirring; he is drawn, he

lets himself fall. His goal attracts him, because he doesn’t let anything enter

his soul which might oppose the goal. This is what Siddhartha has learned

among the Samanas. This is what fools call magic and of which they think it

would be effected by means of the daemons. Nothing is affected by daemons,

there are no daemons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his

goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.’

Kamala listened to him. She loved his voice, she loved the look from his eyes.

‘Perhaps it is so,’ she said quietly, ‘as you say, friend. But perhaps it is

also like this: that Siddhartha is a handsome man, that his glance pleases the

women, that therefore good fortune is coming towards him’” (Hesse 51-52).

Chapter 6

“‘I can think. I can wait. I can fast.’

‘That’s everything?’

‘I believe, that’s everything!’

‘And what’s the use of that? For example, the fasting—what is it good for?’

‘It is very good, sir. When a person has nothing to eat, fasting is the smartest

thing he could do. When, for example, Siddhartha hadn’t learned to fast, he

would have to accept any kind of service before this day is up, whether it

may be with you or wherever, because hunger would force him to do so. But

like this, Siddhartha can wait calmly, he knows no impatience, he knows no

emergency, for a long time he can allow hunger to besiege him and can laugh

about it. This, sir, is what fasting is good for’” (Hesse 57).

“Siddhartha got to know many new things, he heard a lot and

spoke little. And thinking of Kamala’s words, he was never subservient to the

merchant, forced him to treat him as an equal, yes even more than an equal.

Kamaswami conducted his business with care and often with passion, but

Siddhartha looked upon all of this as if it was a game, the rules of which he

tried hard to learn precisely, but the contents of which did not touch his heart”

(Hesse 58).

“Siddhartha knew little about rice and wool, shipping and

trade, but that he acted in a fortunate manner, and that Siddhartha surpassed

him, the merchant, in calmness and equanimity, and in the art of listening and

deeply understanding previously unknown people. ‘This Brahmin,’ he said

to a friend, ‘is no proper merchant and will never be one, there is never any

passion in his soul when he conducts our business. But he has that mysterious

quality of those people to whom success comes all by itself, whether this

may be a good star of his birth, magic, or something he has learned among

Samanas. He always seems to be merely playing with our business-affairs,

they never fully become a part of him, they never rule over him, he is never

afraid of failure, he is never upset by a loss’” (Hesse 58-59).

“When, one day, Kamaswami held against him that he had learned

everything he knew from him, he replied, ‘Would you please not kid me with

such jokes! What I’ve learned from you is how much a basket of fish costs

and how much interest may be charged on loaned money. These are your ar-

eas of expertise. I haven’t learned to think from you, my dear Kamaswami,

you ought to be the one seeking to learn from me’” (Hesse 60).

“‘No,’ said Siddhartha, ‘that’s not the reason why. Kamaswami is just as

smart as I, and still has no refuge in himself. Others have it, who are small

children with respect to their mind. Most people, Kamala, are like a falling

leaf, which is blown and is turning around through the air, and wavers, and

tumbles to the ground. But others, a few, are like stars, they go on a fixed

course, no wind reaches them, in themselves they have their law and their

course. Among all the learned men and Samanas, of which I knew many,

there was one of this kind, a perfected one, I’ll never be able to forget him. It

is that Gotama, the exalted one, who is spreading that teaching. Thousands of

followers are listening to his teachings every day, follow his instructions ev-

ery hour, but they are all falling leaves, not in themselves they have teachings

and a law’” (Hesse 62-63).

Chapter 7

“He had learned to

play with dice and on a chessboard, to watch dancing girls, to have him-

self carried about in a sedan-chair, to sleep on a soft bed. But still he had

felt different from and superior to the others; always he had watched them

with some mockery, some mocking disdain, with the same disdain which a

Samana constantly feels for the people of the world. When Kamaswami was

ailing, when he was annoyed, when he felt insulted, when he was vexed by his

worries as a merchant, Siddhartha had always watched it with mockery”

(Hesse 68).

“These people were all

of the time in love with themselves, with women, with their children, with

honours or money, with plans or hopes. But he did not learn this from them,

this out of all things, this joy of a child and this foolishness of a child; he

learned from them out of all things the unpleasant ones, which he himself

despised” (Hesse 68).

Chapter 8

“Deep was his sleep and without dreams, for a long time he had not known

such a sleep any more. When he woke up after many hours, he felt as if ten

years had passed, he heard the water quietly flowing, did not know where he

was and who had brought him here, opened his eyes, saw with astonishment

that there were trees and the sky above him, and he remembered where he

was and how he got here. But it took him a long while for this, and the

past seemed to him as if it had been covered by a veil, infinitely distant,

infinitely far away, infinitely meaningless” (Hesse 77).

“What a wonderful sleep had this been! Never before by sleep, he had been

thus refreshed, thus renewed, thus rejuvenated! Perhaps, he had really died,

had drowned and was reborn in a new body? But no, he knew himself, he

knew his hand and his feet, knew the place where he lay, knew this self in his

chest, this Siddhartha, the eccentric, the weird one, but this Siddhartha was

nevertheless transformed, was renewed, was strangely well rested, strangely

awake, joyful and curious” (Hesse 78).

“‘Remember, my dear not eternal

is the world of appearances, not eternal, anything but eternal are our garments

and the style of our hair, and our hair and bodies themselves. I’m wearing a

rich man’s clothes, you’ve seen this quite right. I’m wearing them, because I

have been a rich man, and I’m wearing my hair like the worldly and lustful

people, for I have been one of them’” (Hesse 80).

“‘Non-eternal things change quickly, Govinda, you know

It’” (Hesse 80).

Chapter 9

“‘Yes, Siddhartha,’ he spoke. ‘It is this what you mean, isn’t it: that the river

is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the

ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and that

there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow

of the future?’

‘This it is,’ said Siddhartha. ‘And when I had learned it, I looked at my life,

and it was also a river, and the boy Siddhartha was only separated from the

man Siddhartha and from the old man Siddhartha by a shadow, not by some-

thing real. Also, Siddhartha’s previous births were no past, and his death and

his return to Brahma were no future. Nothing was, nothing will be; every-

thing is, everything has existence and is present’” (Hesse 91).

“Oh, was not all suffering time, where not all forms of tormenting oneself and

being afraid time, was not everything hard, everything hostile in the world

gone and overcome as soon as one had overcome time, as soon as time would

have been put out of existence by one’s thoughts?” (Hesse 92).

“For a long time he knew that there was nothing standing between

Gotama and him any more, though he was still unable to accept his teachings.

No, there was no teaching a truly searching person, someone who truly

wanted to find, could accept. But he who had found, he could approve of any

teachings, every path, every goal, there was nothing standing between him

and all the other thousand any more who lived in that what is eternal, who

breathed what is divine” (Hesse 93).

Chapter 10

“‘Oh yes, he too is called upon, he

too is of the eternal life. But do we, you and me, know what he is called upon

to do, what path to take, what actions to perform, what pain to endure? Not

a small one, his pain will be; after all, his heart is proud and hard, people

like this have to suffer a lot, err a lot, do much injustice, burden themselves

with much sin’” (Hesse 101).

“‘But look, how shall I put him, who had no tender heart anyhow, into

this world? Won’t he become exuberant, won’t he lose himself to pleasure

and power, won’t he repeat all of his father’s mistakes, won’t he perhaps get

entirely lost in Sansara?’

Brightly, the ferryman’s smile lit up; softly, he touched Siddhartha’s arm and

said, ‘Ask the river about it, my friend! Hear it laugh about it! Would you

actually believe that you had committed your foolish acts in order to spare your

son from committing them too? And could you in any way protect your son

from Sansara? How could you? By means of teachings, prayer, admonition?’”

(Hesse 102).

“Indeed, he had never been able to lose

or devote himself completely to another person, to forget himself, to commit

foolish acts for the love of another person; never he had been able to do this,

and this was, as it had seemed to him at that time, the great distinction which

set him apart from the childlike people. But now, since his son was here, now

he, Siddhartha, had also become completely a childlike person, suffering for

the sake of another person, loving another person, lost to a love, having

become a fool on account of love. Now he too felt, late, once in his lifetime,

this strongest and strangest of all passions, suffered from it, suffered miserably,

and was nevertheless in bliss, was nevertheless renewed in one respect,

enriched by one thing” (Hesse 103).

Chapter 11

“‘So many, so

many thousands possess this sweetest of good fortunes—why don’t I? Even

bad people, even thieves and robbers have children and love them, and are

being loved by them, all except for me’” (Hesse 110).

“Though he was near

perfection and was bearing his final wound, it still seemed to him as if those

childlike people were his brothers, their vanities, desires for possession, and

ridiculous aspects were no longer ridiculous to him, became understandable,

became lovable, even became worthy of veneration to him. The blind love

of a mother for her child, the stupid, blind pride of a conceited father for his

only son, the blind, wild desire of a young, vain woman for jewelry and ad-

miring glances from men, all of these urges, all of this childish stuff, all of

these simple, foolish, but immensely strong, strongly living, strongly prevail-

ing urges and desires were now no childish notions for Siddhartha any more,

he saw people living for their sake, saw them achieving infinitely much for

their sake, travelling, conducting wars, suffering infinitely much, bearing in-

finitely much, and he could love them for it, he saw life, that what is alive, the

indestructible, the Brahman in each of their passions, each of their acts. Wor-

thy of love and admiration were these people in their blind loyalty, their blind

strength and tenacity. They lacked nothing, there was nothing the knowledge-

able one, the thinker, had to put him above them except for one little thing,

a single, tiny, small thing: the consciousness, the conscious thought of the

oneness of all life. And Siddhartha even doubted in many an hour, whether

this knowledge, this thought was to be valued thus highly, whether it might

not also perhaps be a childish idea of the thinking people, of the thinking and

childlike people. In all other respects, the worldly people were of equal rank

to the wise men, were often far superior to them, just as animals too can,

after all, in some moments, seem to be superior to humans in their tough,

unrelenting performance of what is necessary” ( Hesse 110-111).

“Had his father not also suffered

the same pain for him, which he now suffered for his son? Had his father not

long since died, alone, without having seen his son again? Did he not have to

expect the same fate for himself? Was it not a comedy, a strange and stupid

matter, this repetition, this running around in a fateful circle?

The river laughed. Yes, so it was, everything came back, which had not been

suffered and solved up to its end, the same pain was suffered over and over

again” (Hesse 111-112).

“Siddhartha

looked into the water, and images appeared to him in the moving water; his

father appeared, lonely, mourning for his son; he himself appeared, lonely,

he also being tied with the bondage of yearning to his distant son; his son

appeared, lonely as well, the boy, greedily rushing along the burning course

of his young wishes, each one heading for his goal, each one obsessed by the

goal, each one suffering. The river sang with a voice of suffering, longingly

it sang, longingly, it flowed towards its goal, lamentingly its voice sang”

(Hesse 113).

“Everything was one, everything was intertwined and

connected, entangled a thousand times. And everything together, all voices,

all goals, all yearning, all suffering, all pleasure, all that was good and evil,

all of this together was the world. All of it together was the flow of events,

was the music of life. And when Siddhartha was listening attentively to this

river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffer-

ing nor the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular voice and

submerged his self into it, but when he heard them all, perceived the whole,

the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single

word, which was Om: the perfection” (Hesse 114).

Chapter 12

“‘There have been many thoughts, but it

would be hard for me to convey them to you. Look, my dear Govinda, this

is one of my thoughts, which I have found: wisdom cannot be passed on.

Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like

Foolishness’” (Hesse 120).

“‘I have found a thought,

Govinda, which you’ll again regard as a joke or foolishness, but which is my

best thought. It says, The opposite of every truth is just as true! That’s like

this: any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided.

Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with

words, it’s all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness,

oneness’” (Hesse 120).

“‘The sinner, which I am and which you are,

is a sinner, but in times to come he will be Brahma again, he will reach the

Nirvana, will be Buddha—and now see these ‘times to come’ are a decep-

tion, are only a parable! The sinner is not on his way to become a Buddha, he

is not in the process of developing, though our capacity for thinking does not

know how else to picture these things. No, within the sinner is now and today

already the future Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship

in him, in you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the pos-

sible, the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or

on a slow path towards perfection; no, it is perfect in every moment, all sin

already carries the divine forgiveness in itself’” (Hesse 121).

“‘Perhaps it is this which keeps you from finding peace, perhaps it is the

many words. Because salvation and virtue as well, Sansara and Nirvana as

well, are mere words, Govinda. There is no thing which would be Nirvana;

there is just the word Nirvana’” (Hesse 122).

“‘Let the things

be illusions or not, after all I would then also be an illusion, and thus they are

always like me. This is what makes them so dear and worthy of veneration for

me— they are like me. Therefore, I can love them’” (Hesse 123).

“‘Even with him, even with your

great teacher, I prefer the thing to the words, place more importance on his

acts and life than on his speeches, more on the gestures of his hand than his

opinions. Not in his speech, not in his thoughts, I see his greatness, only in

his actions, in his life’” (Hesse 124).

Citation

Hesse, Hermann. Philosophy.Lander.Edu. Edited by Lee Archie and John G. Archie, 1.0 Edition ed., Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha: An Open Source Reader, https://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/siddhartha.pdf, Accessed 1 Oct. 2023.

Calories III – Blog Post #6

What were we talking about? Oh, now I remember. Let me apologize. I have been on a calorie restrictive diet for a long time now. It affects my mind in mysterious ways.

Continuing from “Calories II,” Let’s talk about diet.

I now view food through an educated or at least experienced lens that allows me to see food as more than a pretty logo or a pleasing mouth feel. I want to help anyone who is struggling to understand food get to a basic level of understanding. That I guess has become the overarching theme and goal of this series. A lack of education (and our stubbornness sometimes as Americans to learn) is what I have observed as a low barrier that prevents so many people from living healthier lives. I can not blame the majority. As consumers in this capitalistic society, we are often fed, figuratively and literally, the wrong things. Let’s take a step toward clarifying this today.

I mentioned in the first part how eating a carb rich meal can often lead to being more hungry. I want to talk briefly (anecdotally) about how we should perceive hunger.

We can learn to understand our body’s needs without being slaves to cravings. Recognizing when our bodies are simply sending hunger stimulus and when our bodies are in need of nourishment. Eating to satisfy an emotion or eating when in a calorie deficit often leads us to overeat because our hormones are not in balance. I have also noticed that sleep has a significant role to play toward this balance. More on this another day.

Take a step back and observe those cycles of hunger. Learn what triggers bad habits. If you have a snack now, will you be able to control your hunger till dinner? Maybe you are not hungry but bored. Maybe you are not hungry but dehydrated. Learn to be better than spontaneous habits. We are behind the wheel. Do not let the chimp part of your brain drive from the backseat. Monkeys can not drive!

They cannot even get a license, and you are going to let one drive your car? What?

There are so many diets out there to try. Some popular ones include keto, vegetarian, carnivore, paleo, pescatarian, vegan, juice, grain free, DASH, Mediterranean, intermittent, flexitarian, Weightwatchers, Atkins, and supplemental diets just to name a few.

Now, which is the best diet to follow? Do not let this list intimidate you. Diet is only a tool. I’m sure that I have already mentioned this is some capacity, but find a diet that works for you and allow it to give you structure. Which diet should you choose? The diet that makes you feel healthy, the diet that you can follow, and the diet that doesn’t interrupt your life. Let “control” be your guiding light. Whatever keeps the monkey in the backseat. Any diet is good with the right intention and goals.

If you are unhappy with your health, just start the one that appeals to you and learn. This is not end-all-be-all. I believe that we should be strict with our diet, but we should also adapt to new knowledge. Following any one diet does not make you healthy. It is consistently eating food that is good for your body and lifestyle, in the right proportion, that makes you healthy. Like I said, you will get it wrong at first, but if you work at it and learn as you go, you will see results. Now I am going to narrow this conversation and leave the rest for another day. Trust me, that day will come.

For someone that is unhappy with their weight (over or under), I mentioned starting a diet. I think that there is only a correlation between diet and weight loss. Obviously, diet ultimately causes weight loss, but I think it is the knowledge, understanding, and discipline that people on a diet learn that provides a lifestyle for change. It is a refined lifestyle that makes someone healthy. I will find some evidence of this… give me a moment…

“In summary, dietary tracking was found to be an important component of successful weight loss” (Ingels).

“Regardless of assigned diet groups, 12-month weight change was greater in the most adherent compared to the least adherent tertiles” (Alhassan).

“Adherence to diet, weight loss and weight-loss satisfaction, measured during the late weight-loss phase, are associated with weight-loss maintenance” (Calugi).

This evidence does not entirely support my claim, but diet adherence does appear to have a strong correlation with weight loss.

Now let me give you my experience: I am a vegan, yes? I am a vegan… yeah, “a vegan.” Another lifeform that is satisfied by the soil-born calories and rejects animal products for sustenance. I will let you unpack that for a minute… Does this mean I think being vegan is the best approach toward diet? I will make a whole post related to this because veganism and the “plant based” world is so fascinating. Although I personally have found success here, please explore to find what works for you.

Many of us have heard the stories from friends and family of someone who became x or y and changed their life. Being vegan ironically makes it more difficult to lose weight if we look at it logically from a surface level. Less options does not equal better food. Vegetables and healthy snacks were never previously excluded. Reducing options does make us more likely to avoid the less healthy option we excluded but also the healthier ones.

What I have learned is that someone who is willing to make this type of sacrifice and commit to dieting is also someone who is more likely to change their life. There is some deeper psychology to dieting that I will not pretend to be able to express today. I can not say whether it is the same initial desperation that prompts someone to start a restrictive diet that ultimately leads them to success or if it is the act of dieting that promotes greater discipline and determination over the long term. All that I can say is that those who can find a diet that works for them and stick to it are going to be the ones that find results.

Now, for the reveal!–My ideal diet would consist… well I do not know conclusively, and have you not been listening? You must find your own ideal. I will suggest whole plant based foods (think vegetables, nuts, legumes, mushrooms, and fruit). Because I could not live without them, I also must add plant based proteins (powders and other related products). To a lesser degree (I might be biased), I will also add high quality meats and eggs to this list.

This will be the last of the “calories” series. There are so many topics that I want to talk about that have spurred from this initial dive into nutrition. Expect more health posts to come in the future. I will take a break from nutrition for the next few weeks.

I will leave you with this till next week: What do you think is more important? A life of freedom or a life of commitment?

This has been Tristan from HQ. I’m out y’all!

Citation

Alhassan, S, et al. “Dietary Adherence and Weight Loss Success among Overweight Women: Results from the A to Z Weight Loss Study.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 12 Feb. 2008, www.nature.com/articles/ijo20088.

Calugi, Simona, et al. “The Association between Weight Maintenance and Session-by-Session Diet Adherence, Weight Loss and Weight-Loss Satisfaction – Eating and Weight Disorders – Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity.” SpringerLink, Springer International Publishing, 21 June 2018, link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40519-018-0528-8.

Ingels, John Spencer, et al. “The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time.” Journal of Diabetes Research, Hindawi, 9 Aug. 2017, www.hindawi.com/journals/jdr/2017/6951495/.

Calories II – Blog Post #5

“Calories I” continued:

Whether you like eating down the stream of cola to the familiar land of pizza or refreshing in the verdant fields of cherries and leaves, we all eat, so let’s get to it!

Now unlike some of you out there, I have been a consumer of food since I was a child, and eating is something that connects me to my nostalgic beginnings–ignore me. Food is something we all need. I am here today to continue with where I left off last week and share with you my knowledge. Take my advice at your own discretion, but I am being genuine from this point on.

Before I begin, I would like to say that many of these ideas and conclusions are observations and anecdotes that I have made or developed through experience. My intentions are to be informative not persuasive. While I will avoid bias, I am biased by what I have experienced. I am not a doctor and hold no official qualifications. In part, this exchange of ideas is for the me of the future to reference, but I know that you will have something to take away from this. I did not say this in the first part, but the same goes for “Calories I.”

Having said that, let us get into the meat and potatoes… yeah, I did that. One of the first things you have to realize before you try to make a lifestyle change or simply a diet change is that you are going to get it wrong at first… that is part of the process. If your goal is to become healthier (i.e, lose weight, feel better, live longer) your diet is going to be challenged numerous times. You will have to scrutinize your habits and reshape your perception of food continuously. While we all start at different points in our journey, we all make excuses and write narratives to justify where we are now. There is almost always a better version of you in reach. The best advice I can give you is to stick to your new habits long enough to make them a lifestyle and grow with them.

Although I did not have it written out like this (I had to figure it out along the way), I faced my own battle with obesity by developing the personal philosophy that I now live by: envision the change, consistently work toward the goal, learn from failure, adapt with new knowledge, and recognize growth. Each of these could be broken down into a whole paragraph, but this is an overview of my process for rising through challenges in my life. This is what I have learned, and applying it to many different aspects of my life, it has worked for me.

The days you waver and ultimately persevere are the days that define who you will be. There is always a reason to tell yourself “yes” or “just today,” but that day is the day you break any psychological fortification you had built.

Back to calories–

I mentioned intake and output last week. I wanted to add on to that: Caloric need is proportional to body mass (fat or muscle) and activity. I like to think of it like this: net calories = intake – passive functions – activity. “Intake” is all of the calories that we consume in a given day. Remember from last week, calories are not made equally, but, for most purposes, we will be okay to simplify them. “Passive functions” include everything our body does to keep us alive; this mostly includes autonomic body processes. Passive functions are mostly influenced by body mass but generally remain static. “Activity”is the sum of how much we physically and mentally “burn” calories. While this is a simplification, our body uses calories in many ways (e.g. locomotion, homeostasis, thermogenesis, growth/ recovery, cognition, ect.). This is where we account for a majority of our outs. There are no ways around science. Once food is consumed, no pill or special technique will make them seemingly vanish. We either control the input or the output. Exceptions can surely be found–they are not relevant today.

If you have ever looked at the amount of calories it takes to run a mile, you might be disappointed to know that it only takes a fun sized bag of chips. This is because a majority of daily calorie expenditure is slowly used throughout the day to keep us alive and functioning. Diet is the sum input. Muscular exercise is only a fraction of what the body spends its output on. Unless you are an athlete that trains multiple hours a day, this applies to you too. Because of this, the focus of anyone trying to change their body composition should be diet–calories in. This also means that time will always be a main factor in weight loss. Time is your best friend and worst enemy. Our bodies will take care of the fat for us if we give it the time to, but the patience and persistence required for this can at times feel defeating. We must stay consistent like… our life… depends… on it…

If you are not at the weight you want to be (this is great for people underweight too), a simple experiment that I suggest anyone do is to get a genuine average of your daily calories throughout the week, and then use an online calculator to determine an estimated amount needed to lose or gain weight. Make sure that you learn how to read a nutrition label, and then do your best to honestly measure every meal and every sauce or addition. The goal is not to change anything during this week. Just observe and learn. To make this easier, I would suggest buying a food scale that allows you to measure your portions in grams. If you like to eat out, many restaurants will post calories on their menu or website. It will be tedious, but I am confident that you will have an a-ha moment. Counting calories is not a new idea, but it can be intimidating–ignorance is bliss afterall. You should think of this not as a lifestyle change (although it might become that). This experiment only needs to last a week for you to gain significant data about where your habits are and expose you to ways you can possibly improve your diet. Reference the philosophy above if you find it helpful. This is simply giving you the knowledge you need to adapt. Ideally, it is best to become attuned to your body’s needs and intuitively know how many calories various foods contain–this comes with time and practice. This is only an idea of course. Worst case scenario, you now have a food scale, and you lost a week of joyful eating. What is the best case scenario?

I recently learned about neuroplasticity. What an inspiring scientific understanding. We do not know how capable we are until we meet our future selves—until we meet the consequences of our actions. This concept perfectly aligns with the self improvement side of weight loss and body transformation, so I wanted to mention it. I will continue this conversation in another week.

This has gone on too long again, and I have more to say. I am going to be kicking myself over this all week now… How could I let this happen again? Silly me I guess…

Am I being as concise and organized as possible? Absolutely not! This is my world. Ha Ha!

There is more that I want to say… till next week. As always, this has been Tristan from HQ. I will catch you next week!

This would be a great time to try that one thing he mentioned… Just one more bite…

Calories I – Blog Post #4

Calories in versus calories out. You’ve heard this before, but if it truly is that simple, why do so many people struggle with weight? There are many factors to this. Let’s get started!

You may be saying “well okay, I’ve got it. How do I do that?” The science is simple, the human is complex. I am going to tell you what I have learned.

First let us form a basis of understanding calories. Calories are a unit of energy. Energy that is metabolized from the food that we eat. While all foods are labeled for one unit of “calories” they are not all nutritionally equivalent. We all instinctively know that a bag of potato chips is not the same as a bag of carrots. To completely understand calories we have to understand what they are and the other nutrients found in food. There are six macronutrients. There are three macronutrients we must understand to understand calories. Understanding these three nutrients on a chemical level is not the focus here today. All that you need to know is that all food is made up of carbohydrates (carbs), proteins, and fats. Each macronutrient has a unique metabolic effect, and even beyond that, there are differences between each depending on the source (carbs have the glycemic index, proteins have amino acid profiles, and fats vary in quality). What you should take away from this today if nothing else is that hunger, fatigue, and energy are all related to macronutrients.

Understanding how food interacts with your body is something that has to be learned, but I will give you the typical overview to start. Carbs are used as our primary source of energy. Carbohydrates on their own do not provide much satiation. Against intuition, carbs alone will usually increase appetite. This is where the glycemic index and blood sugar/insulin levels come into play. If you have never researched the glycemic index, I recommend you do so today. Next is protein. Protein requires more work to digest, so foods with higher amounts of protein tend to be more satiating. Because fats are calorie dense, higher fat foods tend to be more satiating. Fats are important nutrients, but because of their calorie density, they tend to be overconsumed.

I mentioned that there were six macronutrients. The other three are water, fiber, and cholesterol. Ignoring cholesterol for today, I want to emphasize the importance of water and fiber in diet. Neither water or fiber contribute calories to our body, but they both help to make food more satiating. Too many people underestimate the importance of both water and fiber, especially those on calorie restrictive diets. Have you ever wondered why an apple is so filling?–water and fiber.

I will not focus on micronutrients much here today. The focus today is calories. Honestly, my knowledge on micronutrients is limited. From my understanding, almost any diet with enough diversity will satisfy micronutrient requirements. In more severe cases, micronutrients can be supplemented (e.g. someone with anemia might take an iron supplement or someone on a restrictive diet might take a multivitamin). The one micronutrient to be aware of is sodium. High sodium is known to affect blood pressure and in severe cases, affect the kidneys. Salt is not something we should avoid but be mindful of in our processed food culture.

There are no shortcuts, only strategies. Ultimately there is no way to get around calories once they are ingested. If body composition is our focus, we must look at ways in which we can modify our intake or our output. I will give you the top three that have worked for me:

Intake

  1. Stick to a diet plan. This advice is intentionally vague. Being on a diet (any diet) for extended periods of time forces you to learn more about the foods you eat. On a diet a person can discover many things about how their body responds to food. Diets require us to take a moment and analyze what we eat and what we buy. Ultimately even if the diet is “unsuccessful” it will teach you something about your nutrition.
  2. Bad eating habits tend to be in response to some other stimulus. For me, I crave food as an activity to relieve boredom and as a destresser. The better that I can manage my time staying focused on tasks the less I eat. Also forming a daily routine has been a major help (sleep, diet, work, planned daily tasks, etc.).
  3. As we spoke about above, eating satiating foods is important. Finding alternatives to the foods you are trying to avoid or low calorie additions to the meals you are already eating can make a significant difference. I recommend trying to add more protein into your diet, just about any vegetable will be a great low calorie addition, and you can never go wrong with a fresh apple!

Output

  1. I am going to sound like a broken record, but once again, it is routine. Maybe you do not have the time to go to the gym multiple times a week, but even something as simple as committing to walking around your neighborhood twice a week can have profound effects. Remember, there is a great amount of psychology to health.
  2. Resistance training is so wonderful. It burns calories, It builds muscle (that will then burn more calories), it boosts our psychology, and improves our overall physical health. Win and a win and a win win!
  3. Make your life more active. One of the best ways to do this is to work in an environment that promotes movement. Do not limit yourself to your obligations though. Activity is not defined as work. Being active should be fun! Picking up a hobby, joining a local team, or volunteering in your community are all great ways to get out there!

Since I have more to say and little time this week, I am going to continue this conversation next week. Do me a favor: before you eat dinner tonight, look at a nutrition label. Just do it for me.

This has been Tristan from HQ! I appreciate you all! I’ll catch you next week!

My View – Blog Post #3

There was a boy. Not so mighty a boy, brave heart, timid body. The essence of purpose sprinkled in flakes like dry snow melting on temperate earth. Undefiable was the nature of the earth until the change of season. It was upon this point that the sun diffused through the icy crystals to illuminate meaning—a light that had not shown through a timid body but longed for this eager soul. Once enveloped, the boy knew not what he had suddenly taken a part. The quest had begun.

He now rules over the game from humility, seeking more, contentlessly enraptured by progress and the illustrious glamor of light. He was gifted a seed to grow within him until its definition was no longer beneath his name. A mighty undertaking in which the child consumes the parent and becomes something only new. Demons strike the most legendary of heroes for the fact that humanity is cursed. This boy is rooted in humanity, the world of endless delight yet at a cost. This cost might be more than his existence can afford. Indebted, his brave heart never sleeps. It senselessly ventures through the body. Only shame will it be privilege to here. Maybe, only if the wind blows north, his mind will surrender to the heart’s intention and obey peacefully. Maybe then, only when the wind blows south, can the heart skip a beat.

This is a boy. Perhaps someone you know. Someone who lurks in your mind’s eye like a lost spirit. If you reach out far enough your fingers can catch a glimpse, but he shall remain faceless. Since he is pure imagination, to give him an image would be to give him form. To give him form would be to lock him down and define him for eternity. He is limitless in thought alone. He has a body which bleeds through two eyes as do you. With too, his eyes will berate his body down to the cell–a relentlessness toward what uniquely he sees. When the red tears drop, they never dry. The pool that light shines grows deeper. He sees so many broken, sad, hopeless, human. If he has a reflection, what do you see? He will not let you. Looking through the peephole of time subjugates us to no image. He is on the other side melting into light.

Give him a sword and he will manifest the digits to wield and the skill to maneuver. Give him purpose and he will reshape the ecosystem of his life to produce the results and affirm destiny. Chains now guide the brain. The heart has won. The warm rays of spring shine. The marionette opens his two eyes to see that the destruction of the world is only a twitch away. Rays shine through every doll occasionally as the marionette sleeps. Send nails through every finger and tie him up in twine. Everything burns when the light reaches both.

Let’s begin the play! The boy has seen the rain and knows how wet pain remains. Tears are wiped away to dry. If we can sacrifice the unbroken mind it too will see red. No more will the boy’s body soak lifelessly. How uplifting are the shackles of the heart to produce a determination. He would be nothing without the heart he holds in his hand. Shy, it stays concealed. It looks shiny and wet when it rains. Truth versus reality: two eyes make one image. Put the heart to rest, the boy’s body becomes black. Noir excellence in its purest most decrepit. With day comes night, to live in a twilight means to never see the stars. The dark remains so cold when alone.

Improvements are made. The third eye looms around to find you in darkness. Slay the assumption pressed by those that are hungry. In darkness the bait of light makes everyone singular. Ignite and transcend like the ashes off the phoenix’s back to be softly carried by the wind. Where ashes rest will be the tomb that we share as the boy matures into a young man. Unburn the body daily with the flicker of morning light. This is the light we hold in a crystal jar. Turn around and it will be gone, so put it away, and no one will see. Let both sides of the scale amass light and dark until the boy breaks or the young man finds his tomb. Thank the producer for making this show possible and cringe for the cries of the third eyes. The third eye lives in fiction but longs to gain the wisdom only his eyes can see–his view. Wisdom is aroused by loss. The others are not impelled to turn to ash. They do not have enough to lose, but wind will blow. Gently guided, pray it be to the north. Salvation finds us all, for the south is our only hope.

We return to the boy. He is my sole obsession and thought. He clouds me with light. He has given darkness to my sight. The infectious heart has dominance over the timid body. Fragility only takes the form that we give it. Will what we have been given sprout an eternal garden. The boy has tried fruit from every tree. The Garden of Eden was so wonderful. Maybe next time if the wind finds its courage all eyes can see the same image, the young man can take form, and the fixed flow of light will keep him dry; however, he knows when the pressure drops rain falls. Ultimately we can only dream of his two eyes. I will keep watching him from this special place, extraneous to the desires of the heart. This is __ ____.