This, frankly, has been one of the hardest Stoic ideologies to stick to. Sometimes, while working the whisky bar I can’t help but interject and correct someone on a piece of knowledge. It’s a dumb-fuckery thing to do I know but sometimes I can’t help myself. I am working on it.

And not everyone is going to like it. That fact is, I need this to make money. I need to escape bar work. Not because I hate the place or the people, Frankly I love those guys. I just hate bar work and getting home at 2 am. So, the new look.

This morning I read chapter four of ‘The Way of the Superior Man’ by David Deida. HERE It starts; “Know your real edge. It is honourable for a man to admit his fears, resistance, and edge of practice.“ “But it is dishonourable for him to lie to himself or others about his real place. He should pretend he is more enlightened than he is—

If you’re on ‘business X,’ you’ll be familiar with all the young up-start, 10k/month crowd. Those who say working every waking moment, seven days a week, is how to succeed because success isn’t enough. You have to crush your competition, and the only way to do that is to; WORK HARDER, LONGER, LOUDER…

Here’s my take on Men and expressing Joy. Frankly, if you want to see joy in a Real Man, obscure 80’s - 90’s movie references, power tools, cars, and being lazy on a Sunday morning with his woman. Men typically don’t express themselves the same way women do. While women express their feelings and emotions on their sleeves, Men don’t. Why?

Men today are being told they aren’t emotional enough or they should show more of their feminine side, frankly that sounds like an oxymoron. More women are displaying a more masculine side (the girl boss), which is fine and progressive. Yet when Men behave per their nature it is considered toxic. Why?

Let’s try on an MAJOR direction change. Let’s see what happens when I talk (and make videos) about what it is to be a man. Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of crap on what it is or means to be a real man, from leftist, DEI, fourth-wave feminist and Right-wing red pill morons out to make a buck on your insecurities.

I think you can guess where this story is going. The object of his obsession becomes the butterfly. This is what happens when obsession gets out of control. Sure it’s an extreme example and thankfully rare. So, is there a good kind of obsession? Because I’m a self-absorbed narcissist let’s talk about Me. I have recently become obsessed with a Poem.

I can feel that depression rolling in.

The last week has been a grind. Since Sunday I just haven’t had the energy to do much, it could be my body transitioning to Ketones or it could be that I’ve lost my direction and am kinda in a ‘What Now’ situation. So…

What Now?

Unlike last week, where I had three of the four weekly blog posts written on the Monday, this week, I’m kinda struggling to get them done, mostly due to the fact that not much worth talking about has happened. Warmer weather brings people. More people more problems. Living above the Arctic Circle means predominantly colder weather most of the time. I like colder weather, it doesn't bother me. I’m cool with it…

My energy crashed hard yesterday. Normally to relax I’ll just lay back and chill. But yesterday every time I would wake up an hour later feeling worse. You know that feeling, when your brain just won’t engage, like the bulb is slowly dying, or burning out, getting dimmer. You know it’s about to die, but you keep the light on because you don’t have a replacement.

“Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in gear-dagum, þeod-cyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!”

That brings us to now. I have been recently reading books while also listening to them via Audible. This, just works for me, as I can get through lots of books in a shorter space of time.

What’s the point of reading hundreds of books if you're just going to forget what’s in them? You’re just wasting your time. But having an understanding, even a very basic one, of how we learn, how memories are stored and processed by our brains, and what to do to better retain that information will greatly help. There are four things you can do, which will get into later.

Last week I started uploading videos to YouTube. It’s been a long time coming. I would plan a video and then not shoot it because I couldn’t figure out the style I wanted to shoot it in. I started with last week’s Journal vlog. With that, I did a voice-over and just filmed a bunch of random shit to show while I spoke, out of character, into a microphone. I hate that voiceover.

So yeah. It’s my birthday. Let’s talk about that. First, I don’t celebrate my birthday. I haven’t since I was 17 or 18. I just kinda grow out of it. Didn’t see the point of it. I was born on this day in 1977, okay… What now?