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Attacking Adversity

Bookish Weapon Number Thirty

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Dan Carlin has the best podcast on history in the history of the world! Now he has a book. The title of the book is, “The End Is Always Near.” It is not the most uplifting subject you might be able to imagine, but it does hold your attention and is certainly timely with the new Coronavirus from China making the news. Is it a bookish weapon. Sure! It prepares you.

Anything Carlin would write of course would be about history and his point, I believe is that over the course of time the “end” has come again and again to civilizations. Hence it is always near. However, if you think his title is too morbid, he says he had an alternative title which was, “And They All Lived Happily Ever After.”

Scary Chapters

If all I did here was to list the titles of Carlin’s chapters it would be enough to get you to crawl back under the covers. So let’s do that!

Chapter 1 – Do Tough Times Make for Tougher People? (not scary, maybe positive-sounding)
Chapter 2 – Suffer The Children – (we are warming up here)
Chapter 3 – The End Of The World As They Knew It (now we are talking)
Chapter 4 – Judgement at Nineveh (this is not the biblical Jona story)
Chapter 5 – The Barbarian Life Style (interesting – certainly not scary)
Chapter 6 – A Pandemic Prologue (Very timely. I am going back to bed)
Chapter 7 – The Quick And The Dead (crawling back under the covers)
Chapter 8 – The Road To Hell (Can’t get any scarier than this)

Just by scanning the table of contents you get the idea. Pretty thought-provoking material.

Tough Times

Carlin discusses the great depression, the Second World War (which came right after the depression), the Blitz in London where the Germans dropped bombs for eighteen months. Then he talks about nuclear weapons. He speculates if people from the “Greatest Generation” were by percentage tougher than those of today. My guess is that it would be a higher percentage than what Carlin says.

“Perhaps we’re living in a time when toughness in the old sense doesn’t matter as much as it used to. If that is the case, then what advantages might a “softer” society have over a tougher one?” asks Carlin. I don’t think there are any advantages and I doubt Carlin does either.

He discusses how the Spartans, who were known for their toughness became “luxury-loving and corruptible.” If it can happen to the Spartans it can happen to any society.

The Children

It was really tough for children in the past. Even for those of the Great Generation who grew up thinking corporal punishment was ok. Take a look at some of the ways their parents punished them: “whips of all kinds, cat-0-nine-tails, shovels, canes, and Iron and wooden rods.” I knew a girl who’s father would beat her with a horsewhip and a boy who’s father beat him with a razor strap (he was a barber). Of course, my Junior High School Principal had one of those paddles with holes in it that would raise blisters and I had a math teacher that threw me up against the wall. My parents did call the school about that, but only because he tore my shirt.

In prior generations, children were sold, says Carlin. They witnessed torture and violence of all kinds. Mothers didn’t nurse their kids. They had wet nurses do it.

The Ending of Civilizations

The Bronze Age ended quickly and Carlin says historians argue about what happened and how it happened. It could have been a number of things or one thing. Read the book

Nineveh was an ancient city mentioned in the Bible. It was destroyed in spectacular fashion all at once. Carlin says the locals living in the area didn’t even know how it happened.

Carlin discusses the Roman Empire and what happened to them. It was interesting how the Roman legions became more and more germanic.

Plagues

Carlin speculates about how the reformation of the Catholic Church may have been at least partially due to plague deaths, because the plague killed most of the officials in the church so they had to replace them with very young inexperienced men who had no one left to teach them. This then led to all sorts of nastiness.

Carlin says, “We can’t know how many in all died. While estimates put the figure at 75 million, countless out-of-the-way farms and towns and even cities may not have been included in the final toll.”

Atomic Bomb

Then Carlin begins to discuss the bomb. I was born six days after the very first atomic bomb was detonated and one month after I was born the United States dropped one on Japan. It has only been 74 years since then and that is not very long if you consider the scope of history. Carlin wonders how long we can keep a nuclear war from happening.

He recounts the Cuban Missile Crisis and discusses what was said in meetings with Kennedy and his staff. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I recall riding home on the school bus wondering if we were all going to get nuked.

As usual Carlin makes history more interesting by considering the human side of it. Get this book and read it. Then you won’t be so surprised at what might be coming just around the bend.

Bookish Weapon Number Twenty-Nine

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Dave Asprey’s book Super Human is the kind of book that gives people hope. At least that is my take on it. He is the rich guy that has said he is going to live until he is 180. Maybe it was only 150 years. That is a long time.

Right now it costs a lot of money to take the supplements, get the procedures done and buy the equipment and devices necessary to prolong your life. For example, recently Ben Greenfield, who also reports on longevity, did a solo podcast where he told everyone exactly what supplements he took every day. One of the listeners added it up and it would cost you over $800 a month. Now Ben doesn’t pay that much because companies send him the product for free or he uses his own supplement company. And Ben probably takes less than Dave Asprey.

So I suppose it depends on your station in life. If you have the money you can do it and it is only going to get better as new things are developed. There are also many things Dave recommends that do not cost a thing.

So let’s dig into Dave’s book and see what you can use now, even if you are poor, to extend your life.

The Four Killers

This is the title of his first chapter. In it, he discusses heart disease, diabetes Alzheimers and Cancer. In his discussion of heart disease, he links mold exposure to it and inflammation. With diabetes, he says, “High blood sugar also causes dangerous nerve damage by injuring the walls of the capillaries the bring blood and nutrients to your nerves. This is called peripheral artery disease and it is especially common in the legs and feet which is why you may have heard of people suffering from diabetes needing foot or leg amputations.” He says that “The risk of diabetes was reduced by 32% in this with even moderate muscle strength.” That is certainly worth considering. Do some lifting and it doesn’t cost a thing.

Dave discusses Alzheimer’s and how inflammation is once again a culprit. He says the earlier you attack this the less likely you will have this disease as you age.

With Cancer, he says it is a “double-edged sword when it comes to anti-aging. Any time you do something that makes your cells grow faster and get younger, you are inherently increasing your cancer risk because cancer cells can potentially grow and rejuvenate along with the healthy ones. Then you end up with this weird dichotomy. You can grow old “normally” with a roughly 40% chance of getting cancer, or you can get younger and maybe as a result slightly increase your risk.” He goes on to discuss the benefits of autophagy. Fasting promotes autophagy and during this process, your body scans for damaged cells and eliminates them. The process also reduces inflammation. Autophagy is why I fast.

What More You Can Do

There is far more here than I can tell you so be sure to buy the book, but here are a few things. Work at lengthening your Telomeres. They get shorter as you age. There is a synthetic peptide called Epitalon. It increases mice’s lives by 13% Dave says. You will discover that a lot of these things work very well on mice. Keep in mind you are not a mouse. Another one Dave mentions is TA-65.

Food is a big topic for Dave. You especially shouldn’t eat the combination of protein and sugar. Not too much meat and be sure the meat you do eat is good quality. However, if you are old like me keep in mind that the risks of over-consuming protein decrease after age 65. That is because old people like me do not absorb it as well. I have read elsewhere you should take in more protein when you are older, not less.

Fasting

I mentioned this above but Dave gets into it a couple of times. He says, ..in 2019 scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology discovered that just fifty-eight hours of fasting dramatically increases levels of forty-four different metabolites, including thirty that were previously unrecognized.”

I have fasted for as long as three days, but typically 15 or 16 hours a day. I think it is worth it and I do feel a lot better afterward. Especially after I eat!

Sleep

Dave has a whole chapter on sleep. He talks about his Aura ring that measures his sleep. I use a Whoop which does even more. Dave says teens need 1.7 to 2 hours of deep sleep per night and if over 18 need 1.5 to 1.8 hours. Oh, before he tells you all this he tells you that if you don’t get enough sleep it will kill you. He makes some cheaper sleep tracking recommendations too. Read the book!

The Brain

Dave says that none of us should experience impaired cognition as we age, but it happens and Dave says, “…we jokingly refer to instances of forgetfulness as “senior moments’ instead of calling them out for what they are – symptoms of dysfunction that are also precursors of Alzheimer’s disease and senile dementia.” So do you remember what you just read in the first paragraph of this post?

Dave suggests Neurofeedback for improving your brain, light therapy and avoiding certain foods. He quotes a doctor Bredsen as saying, “the biggest risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease are chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, and exposure to toxins.”

“Lights that blink forty timesecome Super Human  a second can break up amyloid tangles in the brain.” Maybe at some point you will be able to get something like this. Right now there are those working to get them in nursing homes.

Dave says that if you stop eating sugar you will reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s dramatically. He says to take 400 to 1000 mcg of chromium picolinate daily with 25 to 100 mg of vanadyl sulfate at the time you eat carbohydrates.

Like I said there is so much more in this book. Read it!

Bookish Weapon Number Twenty-Nine

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This book entitled “Monastic Wisdom” was written in 1999 by Hugh Feiss, a Benedictine Monk. If you find God and all things spiritual appalling you might want to skip this. However, thinking about and applying this wisdom in your life gives you a powerful weapon for dealing with suffering and malevolence.

As I write this it is Christmas Day 2019. It seemed an appropriate book to discuss on this Christian holy day. As Hugh says in the introduction, the Benedictine tradition “…has something to teach men and women of all walks of life about how to live wisely and joyfully, how to budget time, how to get along together, how to walk gently on the earth.” I would add or hike.

Time

Benedict separates the day into three activities. These are work, prayer, and reading. Well, I have two out of three down. Hugh says the “Rule of Benedict conveys a sense of urgency: one must hasten and run toward the goal of everlasting life. The goal is precious; there is no time to waste getting there.” I sure don’t want to rush things when it comes to death, but maybe he is saying something different.

Laced in and between those primary activities it is important to make time for mutual support and help. We all can take a lesson from that and make time to support one another. Hugh says,” …after God, other persons are the most important realities in our lives. If we are too busy to make time for people who need us, whether they are strangers or neighbors, there is something wrong with our priorities.”

Prayer

If you don’t pray you can skip this, but if you pray even once in a while this is a section of the book worth reading. The first thing that jumped out at me was the statement that “…lack of concentration at prayer is a sign that our minds are too cluttered.” I really need some work in this area.

Then he quotes Monks from the past about prayer. They are lengthy and I suggest that you read the book if interested. Hugh suggests that there are three important things to remember about prayer: that it is a means of “self-offering,” and that it is a part of life. He says, “One brings one’s activities and concerns to times of prayer; one slips short prayers into the intervals that occur in working and walking and weeding. In the end, prayer is about awareness of the divine presence, and that presence is everywhere.”

Reading

He says the first thing to decide is whether you will devote yourself to reading and the second is what to read. As a Benedictine, he suggests the Bible and early church writers. Of course, I would add for regular folks that they should read from all disciplines so that their “map of the world” is closer to the actual territory.

Just to give you an idea from the Rule of Benedict regarding the importance of reading, here is a snippet: “ During Lent, they should each receive a book from the library that they are to read straight through to the end.” And from the Life of Wulfstan, “At Wulfstan’s table, edifying books were read. Silence was rigorously kept so that all might listen attentively. When the meal was over and the eating place quiet, he would explain what had been read in their native tongue, so that he could provide heavenly alms for those to whom he had already served bodily sustenance.”

And here is an admonition to me. It was like it was written just for me. It is from “Mirror For Monks,” by Louis De Blois. “Do not imitate those who follow no order in their reading but are content to read whatever reading chances to come their way. They are interested in nothing except what is new and unheard of. Whatever is familiar and everything old, however useful, bores them. Avoid such instability, for it does not build the spirit but scatters it.” He is describing me to a tee! My only defense is that it is better I read than not read and I know many who do not. Yes, a flimsy excuse.

Silence

There are so many wonderful sections on this subject. Silence was important in Monastic tradition. Hugh says, “The principal enemy of interior and exterior silence for most of us is our tongue.”

There is one quote that stood out for me. It is from Esther De Waal’s “A Life-Giving Way.” She says, “ …When God’s voice is drowned out by incessant clamor, whether inner or outer, in whatever shape or form, then continuous dialogue with God becomes impossible. An inner monologue with myself, constant chatter with others, the invasion of the spoken word through the press or television are all the ever-present realities in my daily life over which I need to exercise some sort of discipline if I am to keep any quiet inner space in which to listen to the Word.”

There is so much more in the book on peace, patience, stability, obedience, authority, longing and love. It is a great resource for wisdom in all these areas.

Bookish Weapon Number Twenty-Seven

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“You Are Awesome,” by Neil Pasricha is an inspiring book and certainly a weapon for you to use as you make your way through this life. This is a fun book with interesting and uplifting stories in it that keep your attention.

End Of The Sentence

What comes at the end of a sentence? A question mark? Maybe, but more often it is a period. Neil suggests that we should all be open to making that period a “…” A what? A dot, dot, dot. This tells the reader there is more to come. You lose a job and it is not just “I lost my job.” It is I lost my job…” There is always more to the story so you need “the quiet courage to change the punctuation.”

He goes on to say that “Everything you do, every path you take, every diagnosis you get, every wall you hit, every setback, every failure, every rejection. All of these experiences are part of the unfinished sentence of your life story.” Isn’t that the best? It is a perfect way to look at everything that happens.

The Illusion

Neil calls it “the end of history illusion.” It is when one thing happens and you decide that is it. Everything is over. My life is over. He puts it so well when he says, “We all think that the way things are now is the way things will always be.” I lost my job and I will never find another. I got a divorce and I will never have another relationship. Well, that is the case with me, but that is another story. Neil says the researchers call this the “end of history illusion.” Then he goes on to say that “everything we go through in life is a step to help us get to a better place.”

Questions

Questions seem to be the answer to a lot of things. Tony Robbins talks about asking higher quality questions and that everyone has a “Primary Question” they ask themselves, but that is another article. Neil discusses the necessity to “tilt the lens.” To see the stories you tell yourself from a different perspective and he gives you three questions to help with this.

The first question is “Will this matter on my deathbed?” Good question. Will it? The second is “Can I do something about it?” Another good question. And finally, “ Is this a story I am telling myself?” We can really spin some stories on top of any situation or reality. Be careful with that and be sure to ask this question.

Confession

In my Catholic days going to confession always felt better after the event. Neil has a section devoted to the importance of getting it out. He suggests that you give yourself three prompts every morning.

The first one has to do with letting go of regrets that you are aware of. The three questions:

I will let go of…
I am grateful for…
I will focus on…

I can tell you from experience that the second of these really helps your perspective on day to day life.
The book contains much more so go get it and read it. You will be happy you did.

Bookish Weapon Number Twenty-Six

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“The Code Of The Extraordinary Mind,” by Vishen Lakhiani includes many ideas. I disagreed with many of them, but there were some I thought were more than worthy of discussion.

Vishen has not only written this book but owns “Mindvalley” where you can upgrade your existence through a host of self-development programs.

Extraordinary

If everyone were extraordinary there wouldn’t be anyone that was extraordinary. Lakhiani makes the case that we all have that potential if we read his book and apply what he teaches.

There are many twists and turns of words and phrases in this book. One I liked was “Recoding Yourself.” Lakhiani has a background in computer engineering so coding is in his blood so to speak. All we need is a new algorithm inside us or maybe more. One of the ways to do this is to identify your “Brules.” Brules stands for bulls**t rules that guide our lives but that we should have gotten rid of long ago. I disagree with him about this, but that is another story. Certainly, there are some rules we could change for the better.

He discusses your systems for living or your software and in law number three he says, “Extraordinary minds understand that their growth depends on two things: their models of reality and their systems for living. They carefully curate the most empowering models and systems and frequently update themselves.”

Gratitude and What I Love About Myself

Eventually, every self-help writer gets around to the subject of gratitude. I loved these exercises Lakhaini gives you to do. I read somewhere else that with gratitude the key is to focus on your feelings when you write down the things you are grateful for. He wants us to do this in the evening, but I think you can do it in the morning as well.

The “Reverse Gap” is a concept from Dan Sullivan he discusses to help you experience gratitude daily. He says most of us are trained to experience the “Forward Gap.” That is the gap from where we are to where we want to be, but it doesn’t work so well. Instead, we should look backward to see how far we have come – the reverse gap.

The second exercise is asking yourself what you love about you. He says, “Think about what it is about you as a human being that you can love.” Make it three to five things.

These two exercises help you rewire your beliefs so you can be extraordinary.

Goals

“A good goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot.” I like that. He also says people confuse means goals and end goals. A career or college major are means goals. You should ask yourself what do you ultimately want to experience or have in your life. He says end goals are about following your heart and they are often feelings.

So ask yourself what experiences do I want to have in my life? How do you want to grow? How do you want to contribute? All good questions. He discusses “self-fueled goals.” These are goals that come from the inside and are not impacted by circumstances. An example he gives is “I will always be learning and growing.”

The Quest

This small section stood out. It is about finding your mission. Lakhiani says, “Recall a time when you experienced Heaven on Earth. What was happening?” Then, “Imagine you have a magic wand and with it you can create Heaven on Earth. What is Heaven on Earth for you?” And then ask, “What simple, easy concrete step(s) will you take in the next twenty-four hours to make Heaven on Earth real?

There is so much in this book that I have not discussed so please read it.

Bookish Weapon Number Twenty-Three

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Do you want to make better decisions and respond appropriately in more situations? Then this Elizabeth Stanley’s book, “Widen the Window,” is for you. It is a weapon you need in your arsenal.

This is a 400-page book so to pick one idea is pretty much impossible. So I won’t do that. I am going to give you the basics.

Basic Knowledge

Stanley asks that you read the first part of the book before reading her “solutions.” This makes sense because you need to be motivated to use what she suggests. She developed a course called MMFT or for short M-Fit and the book is mostly about the scientific and intellectual concepts that undergird this course. With that in mind, let’s continue.

She says that her “…window of tolerance to stress arousal was adaptively wired in response to my early social environment. It was narrowed during exposure to prolonged stress and trauma without adequate recovery.” Stanley had a tough childhood and then had more difficult times in the military which she discusses in the book.

We have two brains. The survival brain and the thinking brain is what Stanley calls them. They usually fight. It is not good when they fight with each other. The “thinking brain” engages in top-down processing which includes cognitive responses to things. It memorizes and learns stuff. Got it? The “survival brain” is “bottom-up processing.” “One of the survival brain’s most important functions is neuroception, an unconscious process of rapidly scanning the internal and external environment for opportunities/safety/pleasure and threats/danger/pain.” Its memory and learning system is “implicit.”

One of her main coping strategies was “suck it up and move on.” Some people have addictions or adrenaline-seeking behavior, disordered eating and a whole host of other things like isolation. She says these dynamics affect all of us and …they’re shared by anyone who fails to recalibrate their mind-body system after a distressing or traumatic event, such as a flood, car accident, or loss of a job or loved one. They are also shared by anyone who habitually over tenses their mind-body system during prolonged stress without adequate recovery, such as crashing to meet a deadline or working long hours over an extended period without some days off.”

Our childhood affects how wide our window is and works as a negative stressor as an adult. Even in daily life. She cautions that “By understanding how stress and trauma are a continuum, we can see how we might devalue things that are extremely stressful for the survival brain but “not that bad” to the thinking brain.” But, “…the survival brain believes the traumatic event was never complete.”

You might have a mind-body system that unconsciously craves a crisis. That’s not good

There is a lot more basic knowledge, but this gives you a decent look.

The Fix

Stanley wants us “to use our biology in a new way. By systematically training our attention, we can widen the window within which our thinking brain and survival brain work together cooperatively.”

She gives us two exercises to do. The first one, called the “Contact Point Exercise,” involves sitting in a chair and getting a sense of how it feels, how it supports your body and then you notice all the contact points of the chair with your body. You scan your body for tightness or tension. See if the tension shifts. Then you bring the sensation back to physical contact with the chair and she says to pay attention to three areas: 1) between your legs, butt, and lower back and the chair; 2) between your feet and the ground and 3) where your hands are touching your legs or each other. Then pick one point where you feel most contact. Then direct and sustain your attention at that point. Just like meditation, if your attention wonders ring it back. Then after 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes notice your whole body and notice if anything has changed. Higher energy? Less or more tension? That’s the first exercise in a nutshell.

The second exercise she calls “Grounding and Release,” which is a lot like the first. Get yourself into a chair, bring your attention to your symptoms of stress activation (she has a whole list f these in the book). Pay attention to the physical sensations. Once you notice that you are “activated.” Then notice that contact point again with the chair. Keep your focus on the contact point until you feel release from the stress or “activation.”

The idea with this second exercise is to “…let the thinking brain be the survival brain’s ally, by disengaging attention from the stress activation and redirecting the attention towards stimuli that will facilitate the survival brain neurocepting safety.

Rest Of The Book

The rest of the book is more or less typical self-help information. It is interesting, but not as crucial as the above.