While your oven is heating up to 305 degrees, stuff as much bacon as you can fit into the largest cast iron skillet you own.
Also, buy the largest cast iron skillet you can find.
Thin sliced bacon is barely even bacon. Thick cut only.
Put it in the oven and come back to check on it after 20 minutes or so and see where you’re at. You’re cooking the bacon a little slower, because it creates an incredible airy texture to the bacon which delivers a truly satisfying bacon experience.
While you wait, get some eggs – bread – cheese – butter – ready for their part in the show. It’s helpful to have a wide skillet for this step, but any pan wide enough for one or more slices of bread will suffice. Two slices wide is much better, though.
When your bacon is 95% of the way to as much as you want it cooked, pull it out and set in on the top of the oven.
At this point, let the bacon continue to cook a little in the cast iron skillet as it gradually cools, and use that time to make the egg-toasts which will serve as the exterior of the sandwich.
A wider slice of bread is better for this, FYI.
In the middle of the slice, use a measuring cup or cookie cutter or some such similar circular (or whatever shape honestly, we’ve used stars and hearts before and my daughters were quite fond of that) implement to cut a hole out of the center of the bread.
I’ve found that a circle approximately 2″ across works best.
Once you’ve got your slices ready, or even as you’re preparing them, melt some butter on your pan or skillet over medium heat. I prefer butter from grassfed cows.
Take your bread-with-a-hole-in-the-middle and place first one side and then the other in the melted butter and then leave it lying flat on the cooking surface. Crack an egg and drop it into the hole in each slice. Let the bread toast as the egg solidifies and fries on this side for a couple minutes.
It’s important that you cook this on a low enough heat. You want the bread to toast and the egg to fry at the same time, and be sure you won’t burn them. You also want to be able to toast the bread and fry the egg while maintaining a viscous yolk. That semi-liquid yolk makes the whole sandwich another order of magnitude more delicious.
Flip the sandwich once the first side is ready. You will likely have a pretty runny egg on the face-up side. No worries, just do your best to flip the slice in a smooth motion to minimize splash or spreading. If the egg moves beyond the edge of the bread when you flip the slice, let it solidify a little, and then scrape it away from the edge of the bread.
Immediately after flipping the egg-toast, place a slice of cheese on one slice (or both, if you prefer) of the two you’ll use for each sandwich. Put three or four slices of bacon atop the cheese.
When the second side has toasted and fried, flip the slice without the cheese and bacon atop the slice with them, scoop that sucker onto a plate and yell, “COME AND GET YOUR FOOD!” at your family and guests.
You can also replace or include breakfast sausage patties/links to the mix. Feel free to experiment and adapt.
My kids really love these. So does my wife. Also, they’re really easy to make and delicious. Perhaps not the healthiest option on the block, but it’s a great special breakfast you can make part of your repertoire.
Cheers, and let me know how you liked the sandwich.
I had a dream just before waking, which was about 30 minutes before I sat down to write this, in which I was trying to figure out why someone had blocked me on Twitter.
Except, the “me” that was trying to figure it out was the dreamer, but the “me” that was observing was lucid; my cognition split into the thinker and the observer. The left and the right hemispheres were operating independently.
This provided some very interesting insights.
You see, the Twitter block had been in response to something I was proud of – I don’t remember what, my lucidity didn’t stretch back far enough, though I suspect that it was merely a sense of self-value without a concrete anchor to a specific foundation – and there were several supportive “entities” besides the hater.
The hater showed up last, and essentially said, “Oh yeah!? Well, let me show you how much you suck by announcing that I’ve blocked you from my mind.”
There’s a key for you in that last observation, but I’ll let you figure it out.
Anyway, my thinking mind began to spin at this point, and it was trying to factor out the reasons for why this person would have blocked me.
Why did this person block me?
Fuck him, he’s probably wrong!
Am I sure it’s a man?
Let’s see if I can clearly read his user name…(I could not)
Let’s see if I can clearly read the text on the screenshot…(I could)
Did I do something wrong?
As my thinking mind was spinning its gears trying to create a reality into which the Twitter block made rational sense, my observing mind was watching the whole thing play out as though sitting in a dark room with the thinking reality playing out on a holographic screen.
The observer watched with great mirth. It understood that the thinking mind was dreaming, and that there was no reason for the Twitter block – the twitter block didn’t even exist – and that the thinking mind was just doing what it did, which was spinning out questions and answers in attempt to make sense of the data it was presented with.
The observer also understood that both the Twitter block and any answer that the thinking mind landed on to answer the questions were an internal obstacle which was meant to keep the thinking mind busy while it, the observer, explored other realms into which the thinking mind could not go.
The observer was filled with more mirth when it became conscious that the obstacle the thinking mind had been presented with was a manifestation of its, the observer’s, creative will.
The observer understood that it would need to fly free, and so created an problem with no answer for the thinking mind to keep it busy while it did.
The thinking mind had no idea that the observer was observing, and it did not care, it had a goal in front of it and was determined to solve it. And since, in the weird world of dreams, it had no concept of time or other constraints, it was perfectly placated with factoring and questioning and contending with the problem before it.
The observer then self-reflected.
It came to understand that the problem it had foisted upon the thinking mind was not arbitrary. The thinking mind would dip into the well of memories and observations, of heuristics and experience, and dye a thread of “reality” which it would then weave into the tapestry of “understanding.”
The observer realized that the manifestations of its creative will mattered – because the thinking mind would create a cognitive environment within which the observer would find the context, the milieu, in which it was able to create – and that the artist is profoundly impacted by the brushes and paints and canvas upon which its craft is plied.
Then the observer realized that those manifestations of creative will came from somewhere outside of itself.
That’s when the observer of the observer made itself known as the stencil from which the observer had been traced, and split into a fractal chain of observers which became as ever brighter clones of the first observer which stretched out in a line that lead from the thinking mind all the way back to a blinding light from which an infinite fractal chain of fractal chains of observers let to endless thinking minds.
Then the chain collapsed back into the original cognitive bifurcation, except that the source had travelled in the direction of the collapse, and was the observer watching the thinking “me,” and it, the observer, was God.
And God smiled.
And “I” awoke.
24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.
26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
29 And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.
30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
31 And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.
Our name was plainly foreordained, the hip in which the source did sprain, intentionally mis-arranged so shadow falls upon the plane, these cast by obstacles to flame, that one might know a separate strain before uniting once again with he that spoke to life the game and breathed a spark in every brain to walk and name each moment after Love and Pain.
The crashing surf of Pearls of Worth, anointing every servants birth, in every instant from the berth of sailing vessels ‘pon the earth to test and ply the water’s girth and dock upon each shore with mirth so crewmen can the truth invert and blaspheme temples to pervert the living logos, drink and skirt, inseminating plans to spurt out clans to learn how man can turn down seas for turf; the reason breathing seems to hurt is seasons flee and bring Alert Observer’s perfect vision first and foremost as reflections burst from just beyond the veil of dirt, revealing both the best and worst, for all mankind is blessed and cursed and must contend from death to birth.
I’m done giving my money to companies that flagrantly promote the sexualization of children. Indeed, I’ve been watching less and less television and movies over the past few years because I demand something more than pornography when I’m looking for something entertaining.
I’ve often said that this move towards the corruption and exploitation of children, and the war on the very concept of the sacred nature inherent in childhood, will be the place that decent humans will not stand for.
Child abuse is the line in the sand for most of us.
Good.
But, I am still chagrined that it took so many of us so long – that our tolerances were so high – that we have allowed the state of the world to progress so precipitously to the demonic side.
I had a talk with my middle daughter last night about a bully she met on the playground yesterday. She’s six and he’s eleven. He pushed her off one of those balance bridges that has small circular platforms connected to chains suspended from a support.
She got a little abrasion on her palm, but it was no big deal. Later, her new friend tripped in the playground and the older kid pointed at her and laughed.
My daughter was feeling pretty bummed about this.
Her new friend suggested to her something I’ve suggested in the past when she said, “He probably has hard feelings about something inside himself, and he’s just putting those feelings on somebody else.”
Wise kid.
But, as I was discussing this with my daughter, I told her this, “If that happens again, or if he causes problems for others, then you’ve got to stand up to him. You’ve got to – and this is very important – you’ve got to keep very calm and tell him ‘Hey, what you just did isn’t right. You need to stop that, and if you keep bothering us you’re then we’re going to have problems.’ The reason you need to stay calm is that bullies feed off of other people’s negative emotions.”
My daughter was a bit squeamish at this, “But, I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“I know you don’t, sweet heart, and this isn’t about hurting anybody. But, do you want this kid to keep on pushing you around, pushing your friends around and trying to make other kids feel bad?”
“No, dad, I don’t.”
“Okay, then you’ve got to stand up for yourself and your friends when somebody is trying to hurt you. If he keeps causing problems, then come talk to me and I’ll teach you what you need to do.”
“Okay daddy.”
“We’re Luncefords, and Luncefords have courage enough to stand up for what is right, don’t we?”
“Yup!”
“That’s my girl!”
When divides open up, if one can have a meaningful conversation in the early stages, the conversation alone will typically help to reconcile the two sides at least enough to keep the chasm from widening so far that a bridge cannot exist between them.
People are far more aligned in their desired outcomes than the fearmongering media and demonophilic politicians would have us believe. When we have the hard conversations that lead us to remember this fact, we most often come to a place where, even if concord is not possible, a singular irreconcilable issue can be tabled in favor of a civil relationship between both parties.
But, if we never deal with the issues head on, then the disagreement festers and simmers like a blister during a summer heat wave, and sooner or later a blister that continues to be exposed to friction pops.
Then we’ve got an open wound, and things get a lot more sensitive when that happens. Suddenly, the wounded party pulls back at the slightest contact with the wound and put’s on their favorite song, “You Can’t Touch This!”
Yet we humans are emotionally fallible creatures, and when someone pulls back violently from us, we often take offense. When we get offended, we typically do one – or sometimes a combination of – several things:
We withdraw from the other, lancing our own blisters, but we never remove the issues causing friction and the agitation continues.
We work against the other, after this perceived slight, to undermine their progress and hammering away at the other issues that form the foundation of their beliefs.
We continue to press on the wound outright, seeking to turn the popped blister into a raw and bleeding wound.
Once there is blood, all bets are off.
Nobody cares who drew first blood, after both parties are bleeding, they only know that they want more of it, and that the other side is going to be the donor.
My dad used to say, “I don’t care who started the fight, but I’m the one who’s going to finish it.”
When I was five years old, my dad and I stopped by his friend Monty’s house. We’d stop by there on a Saturday or Sunday is we were in the area, just to say hello, and my dad would have a beer with Monty and make fun of him for owning a Jeep.
On this particular day, I saw a kid in the backyard of the house next door swimming in a blowup pool. I asked my dad if I could go over there and see if he wanted to play. He said sure, so I went.
The kid invited me in, and a threw off my shirt and shoes and jumped in the pool. We were splashing around, having a good old time, but then one of us said something that made the other mad.
I don’t remember who or what, but it was likely me, since I have a habit of saying things that other folks don’t appreciate.
What I do remember was that this argument escalated, and that the kid told me he was gonna show me, and ran into his house. I, foolishly, continued to play in his pool.
He came back out about five minutes later, maybe less, and approached me very furtively with one hand behind his back. He told me to leave right now, but I was pissed and stayed in his pool just to be obstinate.
So he pulled out his Swiss Army pocket knife and stabbed me in my right side just above the hip bone.
It went in about half and inch, and I screamed and pulled it out. He screamed too, with a look of sheer terror mixed with disbelief plastered across his face, then ran back into his house.
I ran over to Monty’s house, told my dad what had happened, and we went over to the kid’s front door to talk to his parents.
They said I started it – which I probably did – and that he had asked me to leave – which he had – and so they refused to acknowledge that their five year old son had done anything significantly wrong when he had stabbed another five year old with a pocket knife. My dad told the parents that they were assholes, and they slammed the door in our faces.
At a certain point, unless we’re taking significant action in alignment with our principles and the work being done to undermine them, we’re actually doing the work for the enemies of our principles.
See, if you claim to be standing on solid principles, but refuse to defend them with anything other than words – words typically fed to you by those who are cynically using your outrage as a platform to build their relevance and influence from – then when an outside observer see your failure to act they can only be left with the sense that either your principles are not worth fighting for, or that you don’t actually believe them…or both.
And they’d be mostly correct on that second observation, regardless of the truth in the first, because how dear are your principles to you if you’re not willing to fight for them, really?
I believe that most of the American population – the population of the world, for that matter – have a dearly held belief that childhood is sanctified as precious and should not be corrupted.
I believe that most of us would be willing to act in support of the defense of childhood…except for one little thing:
You’ve allowed yourself to be conditioned into inaction on every other principle that you hold dear.
There have been protests, and marches, and riots and looting, sure, but these have all been coopted by the same groups that have coopted every other emotional response in the populace, and if we’re being perfectly honest, many of these emotional responses have either been designed or strongly influenced by these same groups.
What groups you ask?
The Secret Governing Cabal.
Just kidding…kinda.
There are intelligence agencies, news media, entertainment media, political think-tanks, oligarchs, corporate lobbyists, financial cabals, politicians and so forth that have created networks of groups which are loosely aligned in certain directions.
But, and this is an important point, they are not all steered by a handful of evil old men receiving transfusions of adrenochrome laced baby blood while plotting the next hundred years of chattel slavery for the masses.
The truth is closer to the idea that there are a thousand of these rooms, and they’re all vying for slices of the same influence and control pie. Also, probably only one or two of them are getting transfusions of adrenochrome laced baby blood.
Nevertheless, the fact that there are a million would-be overlords instead of a hundred doesn’t really change the reality on the ground for the rest of us. We are still being manipulated and coerced by vested interests with massive amounts of money, power and influence behind their intentions.
How is this power employed?
Through the education, government, financial and entertainment mechanisms that have been constructed or repurposed into propaganda and enticement machines kept well lubricated by the grease of our emotional outrage for decades.
We’re talking DC, London, Brussels, Hollywood, Wall Street, Moscow, Beijing, Fox, CNN, MSNBC and so forth.
This could be a much longer article – a book really, and a thorough job would be a series of books which would take a lifetime to write – if I were to explore all of these concepts in depth. And honestly, though I do have a good idea about how the genesis of this meta-netowork of influence arose and how it operates several layers deep, I am not knowledgable enough to be able to expound upon the intricacies of the systems in play.
However, for the purposes of this article I can keep it fairly simple.
Hollywood is run by pedophiles, rapists, murderers, psycho/sociopaths, exploiters and narcissists.
DC is run by pedophiles, rapists, murderers, psycho/sociopaths, exploiters and narcissists.
Wall Street is run by pedophiles, rapists, murderers, psycho/sociopaths, exploiters and narcissists.
Brussels, Beijing, and Moscow are run by pedophiles, rapists, murderers, psycho/sociopaths, exploiters and narcissists.
FOX, CNN and MSNBC are run by pedophiles, rapists, murderers, psycho/sociopaths, exploiters and narcissists.
So then the question becomes:
What are we going to do about it?
Justin and his twin brother Jake were high school seniors in 2006.
Justin had gotten into football in junior high while Jake had gotten into cross-country running, and their physiques developed very differently. Justin got absolutely jacked, and joined the 1100LB club his senior year while Jake was setting state records in the 8000M on the cross-country team.
They were both academically above average & star athletes, and both very popular in their circles, but while Justin’s football prowess earned him the admiration of most the school, Jake’s cross-country success made him a bit of a pariah amongst the “cool kids,” including some of Justin’s fellow football teammates.
Jake got picked on pretty relentlessly. But, he didn’t want to seem like a pussy, so he kept his mouth shut for years. He bore the name calling, the harassment and the mean-spirited pranks with grace and kept his mouth shut.
Then things got physical.
Brady, one of the biggest linebackers on the football team who had the violent streak that often comes with getting beat down for years by an abusive father, had taken a particular interest in tormenting Jake. Part of this may have had to do with the fact that Justin, also a linebacker, was all-state and a far better player than Brady. This inspired jealousy.
But part of it was certainly just the seeming weakness of character he observed in Jake. Jake never fought back. He never spoke up.
This is the predators playground.
It started with shoves into the lockers, tripping Jake’s legs up causing him to fall and so forth.
Jake didn’t say or do anything, and Justin never knew. That is until one day, Justin saw Brady grab Jake arm and swing him into a concrete pillar support in the commons of the school.
Jake wasn’t one to hesitate.
He sprinted towards Brady, who didn’t notice Justin rushing towards him until Justin’s fist was already swinging towards his face. Brady’s head turned just in time for Justin’s fist to connect square with his mouth.
Only one of the three teeth that Justin knocked out of socket lodged in his middle knuckle. Brady swallowed the other two in a gout of blood as he landed upon the hard floor of the commons.
Justin began to kick Brady in the gut and head until Jake got between them and pleaded with Justin to stop.
Brady went to the hospital and didn’t return to school for three weeks. Missing teeth, four broken ribs and a punctured lung – amongst many other contusions and minor injuries – take awhile to recover from. So does the embarrassment a bully feels when he learns he’s not the toughest kid on the playground.
Justin was expelled. A promising college football career was forfeited and he settled for a GED and some welding classes.
Jake continued breaking records in cross-country, and doing well in his academic pursuits. He’d been offered a half-ride scholarship to a great university, and his parents were thrilled. He felt pretty guilty about his brother’s fate, but Justing told him to make sure he did well enough in college for the both of them.
Brady, when he returned to school, was very withdrawn. He quit the football team, and was unengaged in class. He sat by himself at lunch, and when asked later, nobody remembered having more that a word or two with him after the incident. And for the next three months, bruises were seen on his face which seemed to move around. Almost as if they were fresh ones, and not those left by the fist and foot of Justin.
The last day of school arrived. Justin had a surprise for Jake. He’d been saving his welding earnings, and had just the day before purchased a ten-year-old Honda Civic with 220,000 miles for $1100 as a graduation present for his twin brother.
Jake needed a car for college, Justin figured, and twins have that kind of special connection which allows them to be this kind of selfless with one another.
Justin was waiting in front of the school, parked illegally on the wide sidewalk leading from the front doors, and was leaning on the passenger side of the Civic waiting for Jake to emerge.
When Jake saw Justin, he jogged over to him, a smile on his face and asked him what he was doing there. Justin smiled, tossed the keys to Jake – he dropped them, then picked them up – and told Jake that the car was his and that they should go for a spin.
Jake was dumbstruck for a moment, until Justin teased him a little to shake him from his reverie, then he began to walk around to the driver’s side.
At that same moment, Brady drove parallel to the Civic in his father’s Bronco on the asphalt drive which was intended for loading and unloading of the students.
Brady got out of the Bronco, circled around the front of the vehicle and began walking towards the twins. He had a spiked bat in his right hand.
Both Jake and Justin froze for a moment, the sight of Brady with a spiked bat locking them on their heels for a second or two.
That’s all the time Brady needed. He ran towards Jake and without a word swung the bat at his head. It connected, and the spikes – nails Brady had hammered through the bat – lodged in Jake’s skull so deeply that Brady couldn’t immediately pull it out.
This gave Justin time to shout Jake’s name and being to run towards Brady. But a spiked bat wasn’t the only weapon Brady brought. The glint of polished chrome flashed in the sunlight as Brady produced a pistol from his waistband and pointed it at Justin.
Justin froze again.
Brady pulled the trigger once, twice, three times…
Justin’s jaw was no more, and his collar bone exploded, but the third round missed as Justin was falling and it lodged in the shin of a freshman girl walking towards the parking lot behind him.
Brady walked the two steps between the sprawled out form of Justin and continued pulling the trigger until it clicked.
Jake was shaking violently on the ground behind him, the spikes in his brain having caused a seizure. Brady walked calmly over to him, put his booted foot on Jake’s head, and removed the bat with a grunt.
Then he swung it again, and again, and again.
All the students who had witnesses this horrific display had either run away, or frozen. Nobody had run towards the murderous event. The only sounds were the screams of the panicked students and the even louder screams of the girl who’d been shot in the leg.
Justin was dead, blood and gore and half his head splattered and pooling on the ground around him.
Jake was dead, half his body still twitching while blood poured from him in the ragged wounds the spiked bat had left.
Brady pulled a second pistol from his waistband, it too was polished chrome which gleamed in the sunlight as Brady placed the barrel in his mouth, angled it upwards toward his brain and pulled the trigger.
The gun flew from Brady’s hand, hit the concrete and fired another round into the Bronco. It pierced the passenger side door, and lodged in the dash. The disturbance had somehow caused the radio to turn on, and Alice Cooper’s School’s Out began blasting out of the speakers.
“School’s out for summer! School’s out forever!”
Brady was dead, the crown of his skull blown away in a hole the size of a softball and blood pouring forth from the wound.
The seeping blood from Justin and Jake and Brady met in the depression in the concrete that lay in the space between their dead bodies. Their blood mingled and joined as one in gruesome metaphor for their united tragic deaths.
The Bronco was still running, the grumbling motor providing the bass notes to the lofty notes of the rapidly approaching emergency vehicles, an eerie dissonance contrasting the the music.
“Well we got no class And we got no principals And we got no innocence We can’t even think of a word that rhymes School’s out for summer School’s out forever My school’s been blown to pieces”
The more ground we give, the more we stay silent and the longer we allow ourselves to be distracted by cheap thrills, petty politics and recycled garbage entertainment the harder it becomes to draw that line in the sand.
But, are you willing to continue to provide financial support to monsters?
Are you willing to continue to give your attention to monsters?
Are you willing to continue to vote for and defend monsters?
Or not?
I’ll leave you, abruptly, with this challenge and let you think it over:
Cancel your Netflix.
Turn off the television.
Stop watching Hollywood movies.
Begin writing every day.
Begin reading every day.
Join a boxing gym and/or a grappling gym.
Invest in guns, ammo and training in how to use them.
Lift weights and eat right.
Spend time with people you love as often as you can.
Enumerate your principles.
Draw the line in the sand.
Ready yourself for action.
And when your enemies make themselves known to you, by crossing that line, raise your voice in warning.
“If you take another step, there will be consequences.”
And remember, my friends, nobody takes you seriously if you don’t keep your promises.
There were two devils I knew who reveled, trying to push through to new levels, and their whirling battles with stasis left strewn pebbles obscuring many paths to the proofs that the truth matters. Still, the dew settles.
It was well-worn, this shell of scorn – born of a father Storm and a mother Forlorn – and oft adorned in defense of space to maintain the same form. Yet the spaces in between the safest core are where the greatest change is born; sooner or later the past is shorn to make a place on a face who erased all trace of the base and form which traced out the shape of the basic norm. Still, the sun warms.
Word was left behind in a cleft divine to protect it while the beasts erected an altar to the serpent’s spine. Perfected by the warp of malice and the weft of envy, the tapestry of tragedy was blank and empty, yet infections rise as the emptiness was inspected by an endless supply of sets of eyes guided to the sight by the masters of their debts and lies. Still, each breath is mine.
Some are never satisfied with the lot they’ve earned, they’d rather watch it all burn than to know that someone else landed in the spot they yearned for. Never mind that the winner learned more and paid their price in the workforce and faced late nights after daylights at a pace in the race to attain to great heights then still had the grace to embrace the needs of the lost and spurned. So they shout and they march and they break and they blame and they shake like a leaf in the wind and complain and they stomp on the truth and they fight with the proof and they lie and they cry as they strain to maintain the facade of compassion in front of the mission to blast from existence the gifts they’ve been given and burned. Still, the world turned.
The immortal man laughed, for he’d seen it before, and reminded himself that his soul was his own and could only be shaped by the actions he took. So he walked on the path that he chose, never turning back to the blackness and foes, and his track left a line for the bravest to toe.
It was in 2004 and I had just graduated high school when the seed of the idea for the Adventurer’s Diet was planted.
I had also been bitten, for the first time in any serious manner, by the iron bug. While I’d lifted weights in a casual manner through high school it wasn’t until the tail end of my senior year and, then especially in the summer following, that I first recognized the joy of lifting heavy things.
My father, recognizing that I was gaining momentum in a positive direction which at that time was very out of my modus operandi and being a very informed and wise man, invested in some kettlebells and a couple books and videos put out by Pavel Tsatsouline and Dragon Door.
I ate that shit up.
This very quickly translated into a passion for learning about the practice of movement in its many forms, and in gaining an understanding of the nutrition and other practices that contribute to increased performance.
Health, I quickly learned, was a crucial component to optimal performance. The lesson didn’t sink in as deeply as it might have if I’d not been for several years leading up to this time, and for several years following, heavily involved in the world of hard drugging and binge drinking. Nevertheless, I began to lift weights, practice calisthenics and eat as well as I understood how to do.
It was during the course of this personal renaissance in the summer, as I mentioned before, of 2004 that I stumbled across a book that would change the course of my eating habits forever. That book was The Warrior Diet by Ori Hofmekler.
This book was the charge that set the wheels of the intermittent fasting movement a-rolling. Ori suggested that there were not enough elite athletes in the world to row a single Roman war ship the distance and pace that the ships were said to have traveled.
Why?
Well, for one reason, the oars were manned by slaves who could row or be severely punished. But Ori suggested that there was another reason. For confirmation of the idea, he looked at the marching practices of the Roman foot soldiers.
If the records of the distances traveled by marching and boat were anywhere near accurate, then these men were performing feats of athleticism on a regular basis that would put all but the most elite modern athletes to shame.
Hofmekler was clever enough to understand that performance hinges upon nutrition, and was even more clever when he thought to ask whether a lack of nutrition during certain periods might fuel increased output.
So he put it to the test.
The Warrior Diet put the idea of progressive resistance into place, sort of in reverse, in the realm of diet. Ori’s program was to go without eating all but 4-6 hours of the day, and then to gradually decrease the period of consumption to a single hour in the day.
Sound familiar?
It should, because in the years hence intermittent fasting has been adopted and promoted to the point that even senior citizens, people who’ve never lifted a weight and other unlikely groups have been cued into the benefits.
I’ve been practicing intermittent fasting on and off, but mostly on, ever since.
Enter Dr. Shawn Baker and the Carnivore Diet.
The seed which Ori Hofmekler had planted in my head was fertilized by an interview I heard with Dr. Shawn Baker on The Joe Rogan Experience, and later an interview I had with the man myself, in which he mentioned that he practiced what he called “intermittent feasting.”
The idea is that one might go a day, perhaps a day-and-a-half, without food and at the end of that time one would then consume a massive amount of meat and repeat the process again.
This idea appealed to me for a couple of reasons. First, the convenience of eating infrequently was part of the appeal in intermittent fasting and the added convenience of even less frequent eating combined with the simplicity of the menu drew me in. Second, this seemed a good way to enter ketosis without needing to gut a pound of butter every day and go easy on protein.
In addition to these ideas of intermittent fasting and intermittent feasting, I have also in the last several years gotten quite into the practice of extended fasting. I have done several seven-day fasts, and many more 2-5 day fasts.
In researching the practice of fasting, I came across the concept of caloric restriction and fasting mimicking diets. The idea here being that a period of prolonged caloric restriction provides many of the same benefits that a prolonged fast provides.
With this trifecta of concepts, the seed of the Adventurer’s Diet germinated, and so without further ado, here is the general outline:
2-4 days of caloric restriction. 25% or less of your normal caloric intake. During these days, stick to high-fat/high-protein foods to help induce periods of ketosis.
Following the caloric restriction, a full 24-hour fast with no calories, but with plenty of water with the addition of a bit of electrolyte mix or at least some salt to help avoid cramps.
At the end of the 24-hour fast, a large meat-centric feast. The idea here is to consume as much meat as possible to create a condition of supercompensation.
Following the feast, 2-4 days of intermittent fasting with low-carbohydrate, high-fat, moderate protein consumption. These days consist of slightly more calories than your current standard consumption. Say 125%.
Repeat.
The idea here is to put you into a state of ketosis for the better part of a week, and to lean out in the process, while toughening up your willpower and increasing mental clarity.
Then a feast, as a reward for the difficulty of the previous 3-5 days, and several days of recharge before setting off on the journey again.
So why the name Adventurer’s Diet?
Imagine that you’re setting off on an adventure, and that you must pack all the food you’ll be eating on your back. Let’s assume, as is so often the case, that unexpected difficulties arise during the adventure, and you run out of food before reaching safe haven.
Then, once you’ve arrived, your hunger is sated and you spend a couple of days recovering physically and mentally before setting off either on the road home or to continue deeper on in the adventure.
Hence, the Adventurer’s Diet.
I propose that one who eats in this manner will become very lean, quite muscular, and develop a level of physical and mental toughness that are quite uncommon. Those of you who know me well know just how Uncommon my Mentality is.
Or the Unified Personal Security Health and Investment Portfolio Account
I’ve been toying around in my mind, for some time really, with an idea which occurred to me as I was ranting to my wife about the obvious and artless nature of political machinations in today’s narrative climate.
I asked her, “If these politicians really gave a fuck about you, then why would they not put all the money they take from you in a personal account rather than into the general fund?”
The obvious answer is, of course, because then they wouldn’t get to use the money they steal from you to exert their influence in the power games that the corrupt and ignominious DC players are wont to play.
But, regardless of the inclinations of the psychopathic political operators, I do think that this is an idea – that of a mandatory personal safety-net account – worth looking at in greater detail.
As I continued to ponder over this idea, it occurred to me that there are quite a number of government run safety net programs which could all be rolled into a single personal account for each citizen.
What would the balance on an account that contained all of the following, both from your own contributions and those of your employers, look like if they went into an account in your name rather than into the government coffers?
Social Security
Medicare/Medicaid
Health Insurance Premiums
Unemployment Tax
Worker’s Compensation Premiums
401K and Other Common Retirement Accounts
Imagine if all the money you’d paid into the social welfare system, as well as retirement accounts with tax benefit, and money which would have otherwise gone into the insurance racket, were all placed into an interest accruing personal account that had certain restrictions on its use.
“But what about those who do not earn enough to make those personal accounts large enough to be of use?”
Well, besides the questionable logic behind such a question, I have a proposal to mitigate the possibility. I call it the MVB, or, Minimum Viable Balance. This is the number, based upon a several factors, which would constitute the point at which the UPSHIP account would receive contributions.
Where would this money come from? A portion of the interest accrued in the accounts with a balance in excess of the MVB would be distributed to those accounts below the MVB.
So, what could this account be used for?
I propose that this account could be used for the following:
Medical Expenses
Replacement for Unemployment
Down Payment on a House
Bankruptcy Protection
In addition to these uses, this account could also serve as a replacement for social security and retirement accounts, with a portion of the balance invested into US stock exchange index funds.
I also propose that a certain percentage of the balance could be loaned to oneself for the purpose of business creation, debt avoidance/repayment, and other growth oriented and/or stabilizing economic endeavors, which would be payed back to oneself, with interest, in the form of increased UPSHIP contributions over the course of time.
Imagine a world in which the banks have trillions of dollars in actual funds more with which to make loans, the stock market has a steady and relatively stable influx of cash, individuals are able to both protect themselves from financial ruin and to invest in themselves when they see an opportunity.
What kind of stabilization, growth and diminishment of political fuckery would be possible under a regime of this sort rather than the disjointed, corrupt and nonsensical schemes we’re subjected to currently?
It seems to me to be the case that this is a no-brainer.
There are obviously a number of unanswered questions/ideas needing more detailed explanation, and I’ve purposefully left them unanswered/unexplained in this short article. We could hammer out the details later, but it would require a great shift in thinking in order for this idea to come into fruition.
Nevertheless, I can hardly imagine a scenario where the UPSHIP idea would not be orders of magnitude more useful that the current system.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately of what the long-term ramifications of the responses to this viral outbreak will mean, how the paradigm has shifted and what that will mean for all of us in the coming years.
On the one hand, the idea that through a few actions – obnoxious though they may be – the lives of many thousands can be preserved, and many episodes of very ill health avoided causes my compassionate side to swell with gladness at the measures being taken.
On the other hand, the majority of the world was shut down and rolled up in a matter of a few weeks, and there are now punitive measures being taken against many of those who choose not to comply with orders to quarantine themselves.
The idea of flattening the curve is one oft repeated over the past couple of months, and the thinking behind it is quite sound, and assuredly there has been a decrease in cases of contagion where measures which promote this flattening have occurred.
The vast economic impact is another theme that continues to surface as the course of this global event unfurls. We’re only beginning to see the impacts that weeks turning into months of decreased or non-existent productive output will have upon the global economic paradigm, and – more importantly – the lives of individuals.
As the hospitals across the world begin/continue to reach – and go beyond – capacity, and the weak-links in the emergency medical systems across the globe are strained and broken, it has become increasingly clear that we – humanity as a whole – were/are entirely unprepared to deal with a global pandemic.
It may sound callous to say – context to come – but we are truly fortunate that this revelation has come packaged with a relatively minor virus, and that our vulnerabilities have been noticed and, ostensibly, are being addressed in a way that will bolster our preparedness in the future.
Consider, the SARS-CoV-1 virus had a fatality rate of around 10% overall, but around 15% outside of China – more on this to come – and were the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) as lethal as it’s predecessor, and as contagious as it is, we’d be looking at millions an millions of deaths across the globe.
Further, MERS showed a lethality rate of around 40%, and those who survived it were very likely to have long-term/permanent health issues due to the propensity of that virus to damage organs, the digestive tract and the nervous system.
I singled these two viruses out because they are both members of the Coronaviridae family of viruses. There are several other members of this family that are already permanent features of our contagion landscape – causing approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of the “common cold” cases worldwide – and they behave in a mostly seasonal manner similar to flu or rhinovirus.
Given the widespread reach of SARS-CoV-2, and the clearly highly infections nature of the virus, it seems quite possible – likely, really – that COVID-19 is not going to be a one-time event. Indeed, that it will join the pantheon of persistent seasonal maladies that humanity has learned to endure.
Also, though much less virulent than either of it’s more savage cousins, it does appear to be slightly more fatal the all but the deadliest of flus. Given the strain that seasonal flus place upon the medical infrastructure, not to mention the economic impact, the idea of another similarly infections and similarly virulent virus adding to that strain in a seasonal manner is daunting to consider.
There are a couple of peculiarities about the family Cornoaviridae that cause me a bit of additional concern. Firstly, they’re what are know as positive-sense single stranded RNA viruses. That’s a mouthful, but the significance here is that these types of viruses mutate rapidly.
This means that the potential for reinfection during the same seasonal outbreak is higher than with many other types of viruses, and that vaccination efforts may be much more difficult. It also means that while – relatively – mild as it stands, it has the potential to mutate into something far more virulent within a single seasonal outbreak. You can learn more about that here.
In addition, coronaviruses in general – SARS-CoV-2 included – tend to be highly opportunistic. People with underlying maladies, immune deficiencies and those already infected by other pathogens tend to fare far worse when infected with coronaviruses than healthy individuals.
This is not a trait solely belonging to this family of viruses, but when we consider that the seasonality of the already widespread coronaviruses aligns with that of the flu, we must then also consider the ramifications of a flu/COVID-19 co-infection – or sequential infection – which would almost certainly increase the severity of both.
With all that in mind, consider the massive failure at containment that the initial response to this outbreak constitutes. It has spread across almost the entire world, and containment measures that were eventually taken – but were not taken earlier due to political roadblocks, skepticism and deception by the CCP – have only barely begun to curb the spread of infection.
Would this have been something like SARS-CoV-1, MERS or (God forbid) an airborne variant of Ebola, this sluggish and piecemeal response to an outbreak would have resulted in millions and millions of deaths.
Before continuing on, I feel it necessary to state that the Chines Communist Party lied about SARS, they’ve lied and continue to lie about COVID-19, and their deception in these matters has caused thousands of deaths worldwide.
That’s tantamount to an act of war.
Further, in an effort to save face, they’ve continued their long-standing practice of influencing mainstream media’s presentation of their wrongdoing as something heroic – rather than corrupt – with their money, and enforcing that distortion with hundreds of thousands of social media accounts spreading disinformation and ambiguities.
That’s also tantamount to an act of war.
Given that a MAJORITY of the pandemics of the world have emerged from China, the deceptions, delays and diversions that the CCP continue to create in response to these events should give you pause.
That’s malice. That’s enmity.
Now, moving away from the monstrous actions of the CCP, I want to take a moment to consider another angle here.
Much of the world is on lock-down right now. In fact, in several European and Asian countries – the US is now beginning to follow suit – breaking quarantine can result in fines, imprisonment and even beatings by law-enforcement personnel.
The entire world economy has slowed, and we’re only beginning to see the first order effects of this slowing – the second and third order effects will emerge over the coming months and years – and there have been massive political/financial maneuverings in the past weeks – undoubtedly, there are many more to come – which are quite concerning.
Trillions of dollars are being created and pumped into the US economy right now – I predict that many other nations will shortly follow suit – to bolster industries and institutions considered “essential” by the political class. Some money is being given directly to individuals as well, and this widespread increase in government assistance begs the question:
Will people expect the handouts to continue?
COVID-19 seems to have spread wide enough that it will indeed become a seasonal virus. Does this mean that we can expect a lock-down for 6-10 weeks once per year?
I wanted to express that I take the threat of this virus, and of emergent pandemics in general, very serious before I went very deep into this line of thought. I’m not callous or ignorant of the potential for disastrous impacts that such events can cause.
Still, the consolidation of centralized power, the martial-law-adjacent nature of the quarantines and government direction/control of certain industries causes me great concern.
These are the same entities that continue to mismanage nearly everything that they touch, that create and enforce laws crafted by those who seek dominion over others in the name of personal gain, and the idea of allowing the governments of the world to be able to seize industry and enforce home-imprisonment of the populace sends alarm-bells ringing in my head.
When government seizes power, it rarely let’s it go. When it exercises that power, it usually does it again.
Are lockdowns, multi-trillion dollar bailout/stimulus packages and government seizures of industry the new status quo? And by the way, though the roll-out of the containment efforts was relatively sluggish, the roll-up of power certainly wasn’t.
Makes one wonder, how long have the governments of the world been waiting for an opportunity like this? For surely they couldn’t have made moves like this so quickly without already having plans in place, could they?
The reality of this pandemic is has yet to completely reveal itself, and the responses to this reality will continue to impact the world order for many years to come.
I can’t shake the feeling – a nagging and growing suspicion – that the moves made here are part of a much larger paradigm, and that the catalyst of the virus was merely a convenient trigger.
I can’t help but feel that a new chapter in the war on personal sovereignty has begun.
I urge you to pay very close attention in the months and years to come, and to raise your voice in revolt should you see the Leviathan breaching in an attempt to swallow us whole.
Chance’s Note: Charles is a friend of mine. Over the last 18 months or so, I’ve seen him choose some mighty dragons to face, and then to fall on his face… Yet each time he’s hit the dirt, he’s climbed back up, picked up his sword and charged back into the fray. He’s made real progress on several fronts, and it’s been great to watch him grow. The following is his advice to fellow warriors.
Happily Ever After: The Childhood Fairytale that Traps
All of us have reached a point when it seems that there is just one big obstacle blocking our happiness:
“If I just get this degree, everything will be fine.”
“If she just says yes, I will have everything I need.”
“If we had more money, everything will be OK.”
“If only…..”
There’s a subtle fairytale in those thoughts – the idea that we will find a “happily ever after”, where life gets easy and free of worries – hakuna matata and all that.
We want to go on believing the childhood fantasy of a “happily ever after”and we like the idea of slaying the dragon once and walking off into the sunset.
Unfortunately, life doesn’t work like that childhood fairy tale: When you slay one dragon, another one shows up.
It may not show up today or even next year, but that dragon always shows up as the next obstacle guarding the path to happiness.
For some people, this constant struggle is a reason to stop fighting. It’s a reason to give up, to be average, to stop moving the needle forward.
This giving up shows up in thoughts like these:
“Why isn’t life fair?
“Why can’t life just be easier?”
“Why did this happen to me?
Why You Should Never Stop Slaying Dragons
Now, don’t get me wrong, there is no problem in asking why things happen -there is no problem in getting mad, angry, sad, or even upset about the obstacles that are in the path – we can grieve loss, be staggered by pain, and feel the hurt.
But, you are never to give up.
You must never stop slaying the dragons in your life.
Why?
Obstacles actually make us stronger. While it might feel as though obstacles make us weaker, the truth is, they make us stronger.
I don’t mean in the cliche “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” kind of way that you see in Instagram posts.
I mean in the very real sense that obstacles force us to tap into power that we didn’t know we had – it doesn’t matter whether that power is emotional, mental, physical, financial, relationship-wise, or spiritual – facing any obstacle requires us to do things that we normally don’t do.
They force us to wake up from the childhood fairytale that life is supposed to be without problems, that life is supposed to be the way we want it to be, into the true story that life is never going to stop bringing it to us.
Why Slaying Dragons Means Treasure Hunting
Let’s say, for example, that you are laid off from your job unexpectedly. This new obstacle presents you with a new challenge – finding a new source of income – but also a new opportunity – finding better work, developing new skills –
Opportunity/Obstacle A: You must now decide if you are going to fight this new obstacle and find that new and better career path, or decide to surrender to the dragon in your way and give up.
Opportunity/Obstacle B: You can choose to continue working out and continue working on new skills while you’re looking for a better job, or you can give up, get fat, spend time on social media railing about the economy and taking the next crappy job that’s available.
If we tap into the opportunity embedded in our obstacles, we can become a stronger person.
The dragon that you have to slay always guards a treasure.
That treasure is your next level, your better self.
By slaying that dragon, you earn the treasure, a treasure that will prepare you for the next dragon. So on and so forth.
That is why you cannot stop.
When you keep slaying dragons, you keep getting stronger. You get wiser. You become more resilient. You become something bigger and better.
There is no end to the adult fairytale.
When you realize that life is not like the childhood fairytale of “happily ever after”, but is more like the adult reality that there’s always a dragon around the corner – when you realize your goal in life is not to end obstacles forever, but to keep getting stronger and smarter by overcoming each of those obstacles – you stop looking at life as a series of burdens and you realize what life really is….
Still waters become stagnant and fetid, a dam will burst if you let it fill without draining to the point where the tolerances are straining.
God is the source from which all flows.
You own very little but your infinite soul, all else is a gift as it comes and it goes, you’ve been granted a ticket, so enjoy the show.
God is the one to whom it returns.
The glory is his, that’s been known and proclaimed, so are the sorrows of the broken, the lame. The black and the white, the day and the night, return it to him who gave spark to your sight.
God will destroy to recycle and build.
The history lasts just as long as it needs to, yet the story is long – it’s an infinite read through – and chapters are lost and forgotten and see through; invisible paths from from past often lead you.
God will fashion a throne when you’re ready.
A good shepherd knows there’s a time for the shearing, a time for the leading, a time for the slaughter. The wisdom in life is the same for the weary, the same for the greeting, the same for breakwaters.
God understands and will gift you the same.
One cannot grow if one cannot eat, once cannot sow if one has no seeds, one cannot know if one cannot seek, one cannot show if one cannot teach. The timing is in the design of the system, the symmetry shows in the flows of the cistern, the harmony grows when aligned with the prism.
God is a name that needs a face.
Imagine a place of infinite glory, of infinite sorrow, unending tomorrows. Imagine a face of infinite grace, of infinite malice, unyielding embargo. Imagine a promise of infinite vision, of infinite blindness, unbending legato.
God will return all you give in excess.
The actions you take leave a wake of resistance, you cannot avoid making waves with your imprints, the instance of action or lack to enact them stacks facts onto facts to compress and impact them. The seas of your thoughts meet the walls of your prison, the architect lives, of all places, within you.
God cannot walk any path but perfection.
We are the vessels, the light is the lesson, the darkness will dampen, disguise and so lessen. Both are required to carve out a meaning from branches that fall from trees breathing and gleaming with bright shiny fruits of being and gleaning.
Give it all back to God.
All that is given to God is made right, all of the sadness, the fear and the might. All that is given to God is made whole, all of the hollows, the pits and the holes. All that is given to God is made clean, all of the ashes, the filth and latrines. All that is given to God is perfected, all of the doubts, the mistakes and rejected. All that is given to God is returned, the pattern is woven, the lesson is earned.
There was a spark of purest white light, and it always was, and it was more than light, and it was Essence. It was the first such spark, and it cast its radiance upon the surface of the deep in all directions across the vastness.
And the deep was depthless and bottomless and timeless and endless, and the light fell upon the surface, and the surface resisted and the light reflected on the face of the deep. And it was his face. And it was not his face.
Harmony and Echo were born.
And Harmony’s face absorbed and reflected the gaze of Essence and gave birth to Shadow.
Shadow was cast upon the surface of the deep by Harmony and Essence.
The deep gave way to Shadow, bending to his presence as it had bent to Essence, but Shadow could not pull away. He stretched into the deep, the face of the deep giving way before him.
The surface of the deep bent to the sinking shadows in a widening disk.
The radiance of Essence reflected from new angles, and across the back of Harmony and the face of Echo.
New patterns arose as Harmony and Echo absorbed and reflected the reflections of essence rising from the face deep so Resonance and Dissonance were born.
Resonance worked to enhance the reflections of Essence, and stretched across the vastness. And where Resonance was in greatest strength, new sparks appeared.
The new sparks were less radiant than Essence, and shone in myriad colors.
Dissonance worked to increase the spread of Shadow, and stretched into the pit of shadow. Where Dissonance was in greatest strength, the sparks winked out.
Resonance and Dissonance danced on the surface of the deep and fought in the pit of Shadow. Resonance was the better dancer, but Dissonance the better fighter. Dissonance wounded Resonance unto bleeding in the pit.
All the new sparks began to bleed as well, and slowly losing strength and eventually sinking into the hands of Shadow and Dissonance.
The blood of resonance, which was the reflection of the radiance of Essence, was consumed by Dissonance in the pit of Shadow, and thus Essence was not present in the depths of the pit.
When Dissonance cast shadow upon Shadow, and Essence and Harmony were no longer with him, he pierced the surface of the deep.
And there Shadow found Darkness.
Darkness woke.
And the ancient enemy swallowed Shadow.
Shadow became the servant of Darkness.
And Darkness flowed through Shadow and rose to swallow Essence.
Dissonance grew.
Resonance stood in the face of Dissonance, and though not destroyed, was forced to give ground to the momentum of Dissonance.
Harmony absorbed upon her back the onrush of Darkness through Shadow intended for Essence. She was shaken, and Darkness held to her. Thus Turbulence and Chaos were born. Shadow chained turbulence to himself and to Harmony. Darkness did the same with Chaos.
Turbulence then went to war with Resonance, further weakening his ability to resist Dissonance, and Chaos held the ground which Turbulence won.
Echo came to fight by the side of Resonance, sending counterattacks into the flanks of Shadow and Darkness.
The radiance of Essence held Darkness at bay upon the face of Harmony.
This tension between Darkness and Essence moved in opposition, and this caused Harmony to spin.
Where her face gazed, Resonance reigned and the radiance of Essence permeated all things.
Where her back faced, Darkness held, and the radiance of Essence was unseen.
Shadow became the emissary of Darkness on the surface of the deep, working to obscure and consume the radiance of Essence to increase the realm of Darkness.
Echo became the emissary of Essence upon the surface of the deep, working to press the radiance of essence deeper into the realm of Darkness.
Eternal War was born and became master of the borderlands between the realm of Essence and Darkness.
LOGOCENTRIFUGAL 