The Nomad Soul: Part 2 - Progress

Written by Ubermensch. Published on April 28, 2009 in Upgrades. 0 Comments

Introduction
This is part 2 of a multipart series entitled, The Nomad Soul. You can read Part 1 here.
In my introduction to this series back in January, I wrote…

Law StepsAs we live through the rapid evolution of our species, some of us are choosing to step up and consciously guide the species forward towards and eventually beyond the brink. However, in order to step up and guide the evolution of our species we must take personal responsibility for the evolution of the self. This is where Hardcore Dynamic fits in.

The hardcore dynamic lifestyle is about pushing the boundaries, surpassing all expectations, beating the odds, winning against the competition, and re-directing the impulses towards self sabotage. Hardcore Dynamic is about removing all limitations and never settling - seeking relentless improvement and a hardcore commitment to being a dynamic powerful presence - both physically, psychologically, and spiritually.

This series of posts will bring you inside my quest for relentless improvement. Through hard work, focused determination, and cutting edge science I will continually evolve into a better, healthier, stronger, and more conscious person. I hope my experiences can both guide and inspire the public.

My post did help to inspire some. More importantly however, putting my goals on “paper” improved my chances of attaining these goals. I now want to revisit my goals from January and check in on my progress - to see what goals I have completed, made progress in, and fallen behind in. Then I can come up with new goals and revisit the ones I have fallen behind in to see if they are realistic or not.

Objectives (January 2009)

  • Shift from 15% to 10% body fat
  • Attain cut abdominal definition
  • Attain shredded total body definition
  • Run a 5k
  • Attain zen like presence and peace of mind
  • Recognize and work through negative patterns
  • Completely eliminate any consumption of recreational substances including alcohol unless deemed necessary for research or spiritual purposes
  • Reduce consumption of alcohol to no more than 1 night of “partying” per month
  • Save 1/4 of every months income
  • Complete the $5k/5k challenge
  • Explore more groups and activities for social and professional networking
  • Work towards improving my professional skill set with the goal of eventually entering sales and/or starting my own company
  • Focus more time on meeting women of high personal quality with mid to long term potential rather than one night stands, skanks, or “random” hookups

Retrospective
Desert LeaderI have fallen behind in most of my physical fitness goals. Throughout March and April I rarely visited the gym - though my diet and unhealthy habits have improved significantly. These fitness goals are still important to me, but I must learn to have more discipline.
I’ve made progress in my other goals, however. I’m more present and aware of my thoughts and feelings, I’ve been making efforts to improve my professional profile, working on sticking to a budget, and I am now dating an amazing woman (who has been a good influence on me in everything but the alcohol). I also believe that goal - to completely eliminate recreational substances - is unrealistic and therefore set for failure unless I take it one step at a time. Clearly, smaller steps and reminders are more effective than cut and dry end points. Now its time to look at my approach towards attaining these goals. This very similar to my approach from last time, but I have added some strategies, and removed others. The commentary that follows will explain the changes.
Strategic Approach (January 2009)
Intake

  • Daily Psychotropics: SSRI, SNRI, GABA, Amphetamine Salts
  • Daily Supplements: 6 grams of creatine cycled at 8 weeks, 30 grams of multiprotein & amino acid blend (Pro complex)
  • Daily Nutrition: 5 meals a day to increase BMR; High protein consisting of supplements, white meat, eggs, and dairy; low-medium complex carbs; total calories TBD
  • Workout Supplements: additional 30 grams of multiprotein & amino acid blend (Pro complex)
  • Alcohol consumption capped to no more than 2 drinks per weekend day (Friday-Sunday) and no consumption Monday - Thursday Vigilantly watch alcohol consumption on a daily basis

Activities

  • Strength and cardio training 4x a week
  • Meetup.com social and professional meetups around nyc
  • Spending weekend evenings at non bar venues like dance clubs, restaurants, and other social activities
  • Psychotherapy to identify and eliminate self limiting and self sabotaging thoughts and behaviors
  • Leveraging linked in to maintain professional network
  • Dating more women and cutting non-mid to long term potential regardless of strong sexual desire

Mindset

  • No more taking shit from anyone
  • Focus on the present while keeping the future in full view
  • Never let anyone else define me
  • Vigilantly stick to budget
  • Increase awareness and be receptive to lessons of life
  • Be receptive to the gentle guidance of the universe
  • Internalize the lessons learned in every waking and sleeping moment
  • Reduced discretionary spending and more savvy shopping
  • Avoid clingy people and on my part, clingy behavior
  • Put a high premium on the value of personal time

Fake perspectiveMost of these initiatives are ones that I started earlier and am continuing. I’ve added an amphetamine salt (Adderall 10mg, prescribed by my doctor for mild ADHD) to improve my focus on day to day tasks while I have removed my need for GABA (neurontin) for sleep. Strangely, the adderall taken in the morning has seemed to improve my sleep at night. As far as diet goes, its difficult to have 5 health meals a day so I want to start just focusing on eating healthy - and work on the BMR raising diet once the healthy food is internalized. Again with alcohol, I need to be easier on myself and realize that this will be harder than I thought it would - so I will go slow and relish indicators of progress. I need to make my cardio and strength training a priority so that it stops falling by the wayside as it has in recent months. Meanwhile, I have found linkedin to be ineffective and I no longer want to go searching for women now that I am in a monogamous relationship. As far as mindset goes, I will continue strategies employed over the past few months - which have on the whole been successful - with the addition of new strategies that will increase my vigilance in sticking to these goals and initiatives. I have also already, almost organically, started adopting some of the initiatives I had planned for the future - such as becoming more aware of synchronicities and the voice of the universe.

Updated Objectives (April 2009)

  • Stay at 15% body fat
  • Attain cut total body definition
  • Run a 5k
  • Improve zen like presence and peace of mind
  • Recognize and work through negative patterns
  • Reduce consumption of alcohol to no more than 1 night of “partying” per month
  • Save 1/4 of every months income
  • Explore more groups and activities for social and professional networking
  • Continue improving my professional profile

Updated Strategic Approach
Intake

  • Daily Psychotropics: SSRI, SNRI, Amphetamine Salts
  • Daily Supplements: 6 grams of creatine cycled at 8 weeks, 30 grams of multiprotein & amino acid blend (Pro complex)
  • Daily Nutrition: High protein consisting of supplements, white meat, eggs, and dairy; low-medium complex carbs; total calories TBD
  • Workout Supplements: additional 30 grams of multiprotein & amino acid blend (Pro complex)
  • Vigilantly watch alcohol consumption on a daily basis

Activities

  • Strength and cardio training 4x a week
  • Meetup.com social and professional meetups around nyc
  • Spending weekend evenings at non bar venues like dance clubs, restaurants, and other social activities
  • Psychotherapy to identify and eliminate self limiting and self sabotaging thoughts and behaviors

Mindset

  • No more taking shit from anyone
  • Focus on the present while keeping the future in full view
  • Never let anyone else define me
  • Vigilantly stick to budget
  • Increase awareness and be receptive to lessons of life
  • Be receptive to the gentle guidance of the universe
  • Internalize the lessons learned in every waking and sleeping moment
  • Reduced discretionary spending and more savvy shopping

Future Strategic Initiatives

  • Workout Supplements: Add NO2, NOS, or AAKG supplement
  • Cardio training 6x a week
  • Yoga and camping

Conclusion…for now
As always, I will keep you posted as my nomad soul continues its quest to never stop moving, never stop growing, never accept settling, and never stop progressing through the evolution of my personal state of existence.

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The 2012 Question - millenarian fantasy or future teleology?

Written by Ubermensch. Published on April 21, 2009 in Fictional Truths and Spirituality. 3 Comments

I cannot really blog on these esoteric subjects and ignore 2012. For the uninitiated, 2012, or December 21, 2012 more specifically, has been a date with much weight attached to it in the occult and new age circles. To give a brief summary, the Mayan calendar, one of the most advanced calendars ever created (and more accurate than our modern Gregorian calendar) has an end date of December 21, 2012. Their ancient texts elaborate on this end date, albeit cryptically:

Tortuguero Monument 6, recording the 2012 Bak’tun ending:
Bolon Yookte [This creator God is referenced on the glyph]
“The Thirteenth ‘Bak’tun” will be finished
(on) Four Ajaw, the Third of Uniiw (K’ank’in).
? will occur.
(It will be) the descent(??) of the Nine Support? God(s) to the ?.”
- UT Mesoamerica Center Discussion Board (Google Groups)

Another text also elaborates on this point - however this prophecy and interpretation has been noted to be colored by the influence and interpretation of Spanish Christian Missionaries. The astute reader will notice the parallels between the Christian “second coming of Christ” and the Maya prophecy in the following text:

Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, XXII:
Katun 4 Ahau . . . . The katun is established at Chichen Itzá. The settlement of the Itzá shall take place [there]. The quetzal shall come, the green bird shall come. Ah Kantenal shall come. Blood-vomit shall come. Kukulcan shall come with them for the second time. [It is] the word of God.
- Michael Finley’s Maya Website

Bruce Fenton, a very knowledgable 2012 researcher and writer, pointed me towards these two Maya texts. He rightly points out that while there is nothing definitive here, there are some clues that can guide our speculation:

The only thing to bear in mind perhaps is that much was lost when the Spanish invaded, and that the Maya used prophecies from other eras over again by reinterpreting them whilst in trance. So we can posit they would have likely had more than this to tell us. What we can’t say is that anything like a 2012 Doomsday exists in the texts we have available today.

What the astute reader will notice about the end of the cycle writings is an emphasis in importance on returning Gods. Notably a creator God is included indicative of some rebirth before the new Long Count. The significance of the nine God’s should also be noted, as this is cross-cultural mythology. Pantheons of nine Gods are found in ancient Egypt and Norse scripts as well as elsewhere in history. They can often be seen as archetypal energies, which govern both our reality and our own inner nature.
- 2012 Rising (Bruce’s Website)

Despite the lack of definitive prophecy, many been quick to develop their own. It must be said that what the end date really meant to the Maya is still unknown, and therefore all prophecies are purely speculation. CalendarMany believe this to be the day of apocalypse, when climate changes will hit earth and we are killed and/or born again. Some on the other hand posit that this day will usher in a new level of consciousness - a mass Kundalini awakening of sorts. John Major Jenkins elaborates on 2012 in his two works, Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 and its follow up, Galactic Alignment. In Galactic Alignment, Jenkins builds on his work in Maya Cosmogenesis and finds the end date of 2012 is encoded not only in Mayan astronomy and astrology, but also in the works and monuments of the ancient Vedic, Egyptian, and Persian civilizations, among many others.
This analysis is strong and does seem to carry some research backed authority. However, Jenkins offers more than simply facts to his readers as he takes his research further and speculates as to the meaning of the date. His interpretation has to do with a galactic alignment that occurs every 26,000 years – what he describes as a metaphorical alignment of chakras on a galactic scale with tangible impacts for humanity.Labna Mayan Arch
One can either immediately buy into this belief or immediately dismiss it as a purely millenarian fantasy – either route would be foolhardy. Jenkins work, extremely well researched and thorough as it is, will only convince those who have already been convinced.
The 2012 enigma gets even more interesting than simply speculation on ancient astrology and monuments. Terrence McKenna also independently posited a December 2012 end date at a point in time when he had no knowledge of the ancient prophecies – and nor did most of the existing counterculture. While under the influence of hallucinogenic compounds, the spirit of the mushroom told McKenna to research a Chinese oracle called The I-Ching, or the book of changes. The I ching is an ancient Chinese divination tool that has a long history and was believed by Carl Jung to work through synchronicity. After doing some complex mathematical transforms to convert the I ching into a graph, McKenna matched the valleys and peaks to major known events in time to create what he called a graph of novelty. Basically, he mapped the I-ching against what we know of universal and human history to create a measure of novelty over time. The graph had an endpoint - The zero point, or point of infinite novelty. According to McKenna’s mapping, falls in December 2012.TAIPEI1?1 Mandala (Kaleidoscope) <???: ??101> (by Nokia 6230i)
What can we make of all this? Did the ancients know something we have since forgotten? Was Mckenna given a clue to our future by communication with the collective unconscious? Or is 2012 simply a crackpot millenarian fantasy born of new age occult revivalism and active imaginations? We can be certain about some things: McKenna’s idea of infinite novelty does match up with what we know the future holds for us, technological Singularity. Now, what Singularity means for human civilization is another question entirely – it is entirely plausible that time (as we know it) will end. It is also possible, though very unlikely, that technology gone wild usher in an apocalypse. But then there still remains the question of a consciousness raising event from the stars?
I can have only one conclusion – ultimately, December 21st, 2012 does not matter. I certainly hope singularity will happen soon and 2012 is quite close. In that case, visions of apocalypse may simply be a noospheric or subconscious metaphor for a time of chaos as humanity adjusts to singularity.
The question of consciousness still stays with me though. Daniel Pinchbeck, who has tried to be the 2012 Slave Leias with Jabba the Huttmodern day McKenna, has promoted his own theory - one in which 2012 signals a grand awakening of consciousness and Pinchbeck is the channel for the ancient mayan god Quetzlcoatl. Its a hard pill to swallow - at least a lot harder than the ones that Pinchbeck did to get those visions. However, I will not write off Pinchbeck either. I think he has the message right in some sense, because I pray, for the sake of the masses of humanity, that the stars will hold the solution to a problem that has plagued humanity since the first man asked “Why?”. 2012, real or not, is still a metaphor for a time we hope to reach, when our wrongs will be washed away, our consciousness will be raised to the necessary level to handle singular novelty, and our every fantasy of the future will come to fruition.

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