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February, 2025
February 28 I just finished watching Episode 2.07 of *Severance*, "Chikhai Bardo," and I want to record my thoughts. First, what an awesome title — a reference to Tibetan Buddhism?! Hell yeah!
This was the most answers we've had in any episode so far, especially in Season 2. We saw idyllic flashbacks of Mark's and Gemma's relationship, the inner workings of the testing floor, and the "QA" desks that seemed to be monitoring any lapses in severance.
In this episode, we learned:
- Who Gemma is and how she's so mysterious and how she captured Mark's heart
- That Gemma had a miscarriage and had more infertility problems thereafter
- That Gemma was somehow marked by Lemon at the infertility clinic ("put on their mailing list"), which is evident by the "Chikhai Bardo"/"Ego death" cartoon-card and by the fact that the "dentist" was also a doctor at the clinic. This may mean that her car accident was entirely staged by them.
- That, again, her handler on the testing floor is a doctor at the clinic! Yikes!
- That MDR's files correspond to different rooms on the testing floor and that "Cold Harbor" is the only room Gemma hasn't entered.
- The rooms are stress-testing the severance technology by agitating Ms. Casey, according to what makes Gemma fearful and angry, or distressed. So far, the technology is holding. Gemma remembers nothing from inside the rooms.
- That either Gemma or Ms. Casey (probably Gemma) once tried to break her handler's fingers. This suggests that the escape we see in this episode was not Gemma's first attempt.
- One room we know Gemma goes into that we don't see is one where her handler is a coach with a whistle, and, I imagine, she has to do an intense workout.
- Her handler wears different costumes for the different rooms, I guess to isolate the variables. But you would think that Ms. Casey could tell that it is the same man in all the rooms.
- There are four employees at the QA desks, and each is assigned to like-looking member of MDR to surveil. E.g., the guy watching Dylan is fat, and there's one girl, who is watching Helly.
- Lumon plans to get rid of Gemma by making her permanently her innie, as soon as they can verify that severance will hold.
- Devon had an idea to call Ms. Cobel and have her get Mark to the birthing retreat cabin, to activate his innie.
- Gemma's handler is in love with her, and he'll have to let her go "for Kier."
We also have no idea how long ago the inside-Lumon parts of this episode happened. Gemma's escape attempt may have been a long time ago, but it seems to have been after Milcheck became the head of the severed floor.
What Is Cold Harbor? My first thought about it is to create fully severed individuals, devoid of agency, who can become soldiers for really any purpose. But I would imagine that women would be used in a Handmaid's Tale way to propagate the Eagen family.
And the testing room, Cold Harbor, might be where Ms. Casey gets raped. I hate to imagine that, but a lot of signs point that way. I mean, it's a cult, after all. What cult doesn't involve some perverse sex thing? They want to make sure that the severance will hold, even when the innie's agency is violated at the most extreme.
But if that's what Cold Harbor is, why would Lumon be recruiting infertile women? Is that part of it? Do they want sex slaves who can't get pregnant? Would that be a new role or rank within Lumon, where they could dramatically increase the productivity of all workers if they could more often offer sex to them?
It's not clear what Mark's data refinement is contributing to the Cold Harbor test. Maybe he is helping to customize it to Ms. Casey's exact distastes, so that they can be sure the severance technology would hold under any circumstance.
Maybe it's not a sex thing but a missionary/evangelist thing. Gemma asks what happens after she goes into the final room, Cold Harbor. Her handler says, "You will see the world again, and the world will see you." Gemma asks if she'll see Mark, and the handler says, "Mark will benefit from the world you're siring. Kier will take away all his pain, the same way Kier has taken away yours." The verb siring is significant. He didn't say "bringing about" or "conceiving." A sire (noun), is the "male parent of a mammal, especially a domesticated animal." And the verb sire means "to be the biological father."
Maybe Lumon wants an army out in the world, recruiting (or abducting) people to be severed and join their cultish ranks. And if they're infertile, all the better. Soon, they'll be able to clone "Kier's children" anyway, which seems to be what the goats are all about. And the goat-people, it seems, are botched attempts at the first human clones.
That said, Mark did see Gemma's dead body. So, maybe Gemma is a clone already, and maybe she will be the first successful human clone. (Or maybe the body was a clone.)
Whatever the test inside Cold Harbor is, it is the final step before Gemma is killed by being permanently severed. The file is at 96%, Mark is reintegrating, and Gemma is trying to escape, even using violence. Lumon wants to complete Cold Harbor at all costs, which means doing whatever they can to get Mark to work. And Mark wants nothing but to not work and finish reintegration to figure the shit out. The stakes are supremely high right now.
//
Okay, after watching Think Story's video on ep. 2.07, I have some additional thoughts.
I didn't notice that Gemma had been severed into many different innies. But, in retrospect, that's obvious. In the dental room, she asked for a break, because she had just been to the dentist. And in the thank-you card room, she said, "It's always Christmas." And when she goes up the elevator, she seems to become Ms. Casey for the first time since her final session with Mark, and starts to ask (presumably) where he is with: "Where is—"
Lumon wants to "take away the pain of the world." They could sell severance chips to everyone, advertising specific use cases. You could only be severed when you're on a plane, or only when you need to write thank-you notes, or only during childbrith, or — here's where the sex-cult stuff comes back in — only when your partner wants to have sex.
As we know, Lumon has much more control of severed individuals than they advertise or share to their outies (as evident by the OTC). So, maybe they can get everyone hooked on the Huxleyan, pain-free existence of severance, and then, once they reach a critical mass, flip a switch that kills all the outies and permanently severs them, creating a kingdom of Kier.
February 27 I'm doing something right. I received a cold email with the following subject line — my ideal subject line! — that may lead to a short-term, full-time employment gig:
I'd love to chat with you about curriculum development and writer coaching
This came from a real person from a reputable organization, and we're going to meet next week. This is, what seems, a perfectly suited opportunity that came to me without me pursuing it.
February 27 Sometimes I write words that I have only ever spoken or heard, and it baffles me that I have no idea how to spell them. Recently, I used the word clamber (to climb awkwardly), and I had no idea whether it was O–R or E–R, or whether there was a silent B. (I still don't know — misspelled it just now.)
And just now, on feedback for a client, I used the phrase "I rescind my suggestion," but I spelled it as resend. Upon learning the spelling, I realized that I had never written that word. And it reminds me of the fact that language is something spoken, by nature, not written.
Fluency is separate from literacy. One measures oral skills, the other visual (cognitive) skills. (That's why great orators aren't always great writers, and vice-versa. My writing is much better than my speaking, and I want to close that gap over time.)
February 26 I must never summit Snæfellsjökull. Maybe in the afterlife — maybe someone who survives me might carry my ashes to the summit and pour me out into the wind as if smoke billowing up through the conduit of the subglacial volcano. In life, no matter where I go or what heights I reach, I will always be beneath Snæfellsjökull.
February 26 Life happens between where I have been and where I’m going—i.e., where I am. To arrive somewhere is to depart from elsewhere.
February 25 Being coachable means you posses the skill to transmute abstract concepts into embodied action, and thereby into empirical knowledge.
This is one of the most important skills I want to teach my young children — as early as possible, via sports.
February 25 I saw a burly man in his early 30s walking two German Shepherds. When I passed him, he was peering into the behind of one of his beasts, lifting its tail, and with the other hand wiping the dog's anus with a tissue. I crossed the street and walked half a block before looking back. The man's face was still inches from his dog's crotch.
February 24 There is nowhere to get yet all the reason to go. It does matter where I’m headed, but it doesn’t matter whether I ever arrive.
February 24 I am on day 11 of my Pimsleur course in Icelandic, and I just thought of a joke (a playground, grade-school-level joke):
I saw a beautiful woman at the pool in Akueyri and I asked, "Sex?"
She splashed water in my face and started to get up from the pool.
I called after her, "Er klukkan sex?" ("Is it 6:00?")
I currently feel that marriage is philosophically misaligned with what I believe to be true about reality. For implicit in the promise of marriage are the following propositions:
- There are certain things that last forever.
- The highest possible aim for a relationship is to remain together.
I believe that everything in life is fleeting and ephemeral and ultimately, at its essence, empty. And I believe that the highest possible aim for an individual is to be so utterly autonomous and self-reliant that he need not anyone or anything to deliver him to peace or fulfillment in life. The ideal individual is one who is content to sail alone and die at sea, unreconciled (because I believe that to be the only option, an inescapable fact of existence). The ideal relationship is one created and maintained by two individuals in harmony for the benefit of each other and the universe. And the highest possible aim for a relationship is for it to harmoniously catalyze each individual's growth/maturity/evolution—again, for the benefit of others and the world at large.
I believe that:
- Nothing lasts forever
- Two partners should only stay together as long as the relationship is helping them both grow.
So, how could I marry and live according my philosophy? It would have to be a non-traditional marriage without "the forever promise." It would have to be a marriage that is a commitment to loving each other rather than not leaving each other. That, I could commit to.
February 24 I want to prepare myself to die by pursuing in this moment my highest possible conception of what is Good, True, and Beautiful.
Jordan Peterson defines God on this episode of Diary of a CEO:
God is the Good to which all goods point.
I would add to this that God is also the Truth and the Beauty to which all truths lead and all beautiful things aspire. God is the highest conceivable ideal, which must by definition be always beyond reach.
February 24 You are both a particle and a wave. Start acting like it.
God was pregnant with man in Eden, the womb, and the fall was when Her water broke.
[[Eden Is Hell Too]]
February 24 Living in The Third means living in harmony with the world and within oneself.
[[Live in The Third]]
We are each trees in a forest, with movable trunks. One can inhabit one's own grove, but if one is so far from any other tree such that no one hears when one falls, did one live at all?
February 24 When you teach yourself a lesson, there's not much of a story to tell (because there's little if any external conflict). There's about as much drama in it as there is in the moment you recall a memory from childhood. But is drama what you want in life? What if your maturation and evolution were as smooth and natural as remembering?
[[Transformation Without Trauma]]
In Eden, Adam and Eve were not fully human. They were alive but unborn. They had autonomy but no agency. With Original Sin came the knowledge of good and evil and, thus, moral agency. And it was God's punishment of banishing man from Eden that made Adam and Eve mortal. That's what made them human: autonomous moral agents with divine knowledge, who are subject to death.
[[Eden Is Hell Too]]
February 24 The truth of The Fall is that it defines humanity as mortal beings with divine knowledge. The lie of The Fall is that we are meant to be otherwise.
[[Eden Is Hell Too]]
February 22 My main takeaway from Epicurus's "Letter Menoeceus," which I love and just re-read (on mortality): The event of death is outside the experience of life, which means we living have no reason to fear it.
[D]eath, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more.
February 22 New favorite poem unlocked? I just read for the first time Edgar Allen Poe's "A Dream Within a Dream." It's two short stanzas, seemingly one in the waking world and one a dream-scene. But both feel illusory in fleeting, like life, which begs the question: "Is all that we see a dream within a dream?"
Take this kiss upon the brow! / And, in parting from you now, / Thus much let me avow — / You are not wrong, who deem / That my days have been a dream; / Yet if hope has flown away / In a night, or in a day, / In a vision, or in none, / Is it therefore the less gone? / All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream.I stand amid the roar / Of a surf-tormented shore, / And I hold within my hand / Grains of the golden sand — / How few! yet how they creep / Through my fingers to the deep, / While I weep — while I weep! / O God! Can I not grasp / Them with a tighter clasp? / O God! can I not save / One from the pitiless wave? / Is all that we see or seem / But a dream within a dream?
Here are two more beautiful and apt quotes from the Thesaurus of Quotations, both on solitude.
Nature has presented us with a large faculty of entertaining ourselves; and often calls us to it, to teach us that we owe ourselves partly to society but chiefly and mostly to ourselves. – Montaigne, Essays
The bonds that unite another person to ourself exist only in our mind. Memory as it grows fainter relaxes them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we would fain be cheated and with with, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we cheat other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature that cannot emerge from himself; when he asserts the contrary, he is lying. – Marcel Proust, The Sweet Cheat Gone
February 22 I just came across this quote in my Thesaurus of Quotations, in which Schopenhauer expertly distinguishes between pride and vanity:
Pride is an established conviction of one's own paramount worth in some particular respect; while vanity is the desire of rousing such a conviction within others. Pride works from within; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without.
February 21 Is the word superfluous superfluous? I tend to think that it has no direct synonym. Extra might be the closest to its meaning, but that word is informal and may be ambiguous in some contexts. Unnecessary, redundant gratuitous, and excessive could all be reasons why something is superfluous, but they each have their own subtle differences in meaning.
February 21 The best evidence that the Old Testament is merely a story written by man is that Adam and Eve, upon gaining the knowledge of good and evil, are ashamed of their nudity. That is a purely human concept, and a delusion. From the perspective of God, how could nudity possibly be a moral issue? [Fetch a fig leaf for // Drape a cloak over] Michelangelo's David! Strap a bra to Venus de Milo! We are God's work of art. What is there to be ashamed of?
(When we look at a chimp or a bonobo, do we think it immoral or shameful for it to be naked?)
[[Eden Is Hell Too]]
She's the type of girl who responds, "It's going" when you ask her, "How's it going?"
February 21 The Climb of Life Is Not Sisyphean
If we are, as Camus suggests, to imagine Sisyphus happy, we must imagine him happy to climb without ever reaching his destination. That is true enough for man. But the climb of life isn't quite Sisyphean. Think of how often Sisyphus gets to rest. . . every time he descends to retrieve his boulder. How often do you get to rest?
The climb of life, like Sisyphus's, has no destination. But it also has no descents. We climb for finite durations of time on infinite mountains, where we are always pushing boulders uphill. Rather than the boulders rolling back down the hill, we roll our boulders over the crests of many hills, only to realize, upon each, that it was not the summit. In the climb of life, there are ever steeper grades and ever higher altitudes. And all the summits are false.
Maybe the weight of one's boulder is proportional to one's desire to reach a destination, one's desire to be delivered to the summit. Maybe one's load gets lighter the more one enjoys the climb itself. The only climber I can imagine happy is one who is content to climb regardless of whether the summits are false, and content to die on the ascent. For that climber, the load is lightest.
Even atop that mountain, I was beneath Snæfellsjökull.
February 21 I cannot experience a destination; I can only convince myself that I have arrived.
Defining Allegory / "Philosophical Fiction" / "Narrative Philosophy"
In the case of allegory (or "philosophical fiction"), proposition precedes plot; the story serves an argument. For myths, novels, and most short stories, the opposite is true. And I'm fascinated by the allegory genre: stories that sim art immortalizing arguments (via character and compression). I want to study this craft and write masterful allegories in my life. The Greek Myth of Sisyphus is a masterful allegory, which is how Camus was able to summarize absurdist philosophy with one sentence: "We must imagine Sisyphus happy." I consider Camus the model, a master of philosophical fiction (The Stanger but especially The Fall) — right next to Plato and the authors of the Bhagavad-Gita and Nietzsche in the case of Thus Sprach Zarathustra.
February 20 It only matters how much money you make if you aren't miserable. If you are miserable, work on the misery, not on increasing your salary.
She's the type of girl who bakes her own birthday cake.
February 20 Examples of an oxymoron: "unique cliché"
February 18 These are the only three quotes listed under "Immanuel Kant" in my recently acquired Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (Second Edition). All of them are wonderful, but, of course, I wish Kant were better represented in this collection.
Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind o thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within me. – Critique of Practical Reason, conclusion
The first formulation of the categorial imperative, from Foundations/Groundwork:
There is. . . but one categorical imperative: 'Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.'
And look at this cheeky little allusory aphorism, which I have never read and which is attributed to Kant with no text referenced:
I ought, therefore I can.
This final one, to me, means that the moral law is foundational and even precedes action. It is fact that we ought to do certain things that makes us able to act at all. And, as I know Kant would say, the antitheses of this statement ("I can, therefore I ought") is totally untrue and exactly what Kant is refuting with these words. It's also carries the inherent claim that one has no excuse for not doing what he knows one ought to do..
February 18 The model for transformation without trauma is a glacier. It is always moving, churning, eroding, progressing, even when it is melting. It is both hard and fluid, which means that threats either ricochet or flow right through it. A glacier integrates all debris and metabolizes it quickly. A glacier charts its own path by filling a cirque then carving a valley. It makes a home for itself that is perfectly suited to its shape, its true nature. The glacier transforms as a way of being, not in response to some shocking event. A glacier is unflappable.
[[Transformation Without Trauma]] [[Live Like a Glacier]]
February 17 I need hubris enough to go after what I want and humility enough to receive it.
February 17 An editor is not a judge but a mediator, simultaneously vying for the interests of both the writer and the reader.
Takeaways from Mike Isratel's video on diet, nutrition, obesity, and the American food system (with discussion prompts from RFK):
- More than food subsidies, food deserts, regulations, seed oils, obesity at the level of the individual can be explained by two main factors: food drive and conscientiousness. Food drive is genetic and impossible to change without medical intervention (Ozempic and the like). Trait conscientiousness is not all that malleable either, although it can be improved or worsen over time. Given the accessibility of ultra-palatable, calorie-dense foods someone who is low in trait conscientiousness and has a naturally high food drive is highly likely to become obese. In other words, the only way to counter weight gain without medical intervention (and without food becoming much more expensive and much less accessible), according to Dr. Mike, is to exercise your will and be highly contentious and mindfull about what you consume and how much, over a long period of time.
- Access to healthy food is not a major cause of obesity. There are cheap, whole foods available — e.g., canned vegetables. Obesity is, very simply, caused by indulging in too large quantities of unhealthy food. It's cheap, relative to the average wealth of a citizen today, and it's quick and accessible and easy and tasty. And that ultra-palatable food is super calorie-dense. It's easy to overeat, and overeating leads to obesity.
February 16 The first glacier I ever saw was Perrito Moreno in Patagonia. The first glacier I ever walked on was Eyafjallajökull in Iceland. But no matter where I have walked on earth or what mountains I have climbed, I have always been beneath Snæfellsjökull.
There are many ways I hope to emulate glaciers. For one, I want to be strong and reliable and solid and on the surface yet always imperceptibly changing.
[[Live Like a Glacier]]
February 16 Outside of marriage, the default is that you are both individuals, and you have to work to remain together. Within marriage, the default is that you will remain together, and you have to work to retain your individuality. I prefer the former.
All destinations are false summits, even death itself. For upon death, you merely cease to climb; you do not arrive. There are no summits or descents in life. You and I are climbing towards ever-greater altitudes, until we can climb no longer.
[[Life is not Sisyphean but rather asymptotic. We do not struggle in cycles and fail to reach a goal we can see. Instead, we struggle daily to stay on course toward some indeterminable goal that is ever beyond the horizon.]]
February 16 The skeptic is not one who dogmatically doubts but one who doubts dogma.
// The skeptic is not dogmatically doubtful but doubtful of dogma.
// The skeptic is not dogmatically doubtful; he is doubtful of dogma.
// The skeptic does not dogmatically doubt; he doubts dogma.
// The practicing skeptic is not doubtful of everything, but he does doubt every form of dogma.
February 15 At Bookmobile in Rutland, VT, a used bookstore, I discovered a new genre of reference books: dictionaries and thesauruses of quotations. And I acquired one of each such book (both hardcover, both mid-century printings, both in good condition) for $10 total. You use the thesaurus to search for an apt quote, for it is indexed by topic; you use the dictionary to explore a writer's thinking and style via selected quotes, for it is indexed by author.
February 15 Now that I'm self-employed as a writer and editor, books are, justifiably, business expenses. I can buy books with pre-tax dollars! That means that, effectively, every bookstore I enter is running a store-wide discount of between 20 and 30 percent.
February 13 Word Association Cognition Game
In his video "How to Get Better at Free Associating", Harry Mack describes the two ways that one might do a word association game, which map onto convergent and divergent thinking, respectively:
- Imagine it as a web of words around a central keyword, where each word must relate directly to that keyword.
- Or, imagine it as a list beneath a keyword where the next word must only one related to the previous.
I love doing this exercise with friends and not giving any instructions to see if they're naturally a convergent or divergent thinkers. The "web" and "list" language that Harry uses is a very good way to distinguish between those two ways of doing the exercise. With the web, you're building something (natural for people high in conscientiousness and maybe low in openness). And with the list, you're on a journey with no clear destination (good for people high in openness and maybe low in conscientiousness).
Someday, I want to standardize this and publish it as a web app, as a sort of public survey. Convergence/divergence would be measured by the ratio of number of words divided by the total number of categories/subjects covered (within one minute of transcribed speech).
February 13 Readers recommend great books, not good books. And the only thing that can take a good book to great is the quality of the prose. Greatness happens at the level of paragraphs, sentences, words. Greatness is the result of an author's relentless pursuit of mastery of her craft.
Given that, line-editing is unbelievably valuable. If an editor can help you make every sentence in your book more concise and clear, that editor might just help you crest the threshold between good and great, which will disproportionally increase the number of readers who recommend your book, leading to a disproportionate increase in book sales (and a very high ROI on the line-editing).
February 12 Last week, I saw a teacup pig star in a Shakespeare play: Hamlet.
February 12 The slower you go, the easier it is to find beauty along the way. And the more beauty you find, the easier it is to feel that the journey is worthwhile, [regardless of its outcome // regardless If whether you arrive].
The more aimless your wandering, the more wondrous that wandering will be. For ideas come from aimlessness. Without a clear destination, you have no choice but to remain creative and make your own way.
A volcano in dormancy is one between periods of activity, eruption. A glacier in dormancy is one that has melted; it is merely between periods of activity, glaciation.
February 11 Before Iceland, I thought I had to figure out what I would do with my life. After Iceland, I realized that all I had to do was to hold all the extremes of life in harmony. And that's a life-long journey.
[[Feeling Fire and Ice]]
February 10Van Neistat's latest video, "EASY Flow State vs. Hard Flow Sate is about how writing is harder than tinkering. Van reaches the same feeling of flow both when he writes and when he tinkers, but writing requires so much more to reach and maintain that state. He cannot listen to podcasts while writing, is more susceptible to distractions, and must face what's on his mind. I feel the same. The difference between myself and Van is that I don't have an Easy Flow state activity that I do as regularly as he tinkers (building, fixing, cleaning, organizing). If I want the hard flow state — writing — to be easier, I need to spend more time in an easy flow state. And, for me, I think that should be via physical activity: walking and working out.
February 10 The NFL's female flag football Super Bowl commercial was toxic masculinity feigning allegiance to feminism. (Yes, females can exhibit toxic masculinity, of which one expression is to achieve at the expense of others.)
- The only named characters in the 2-minute commercial are Chad and Brad. The female protagonist we only know as "the new girl."
- The cheerleaders are portrayed as bullies, as is every member of the football team.
- Why wasn't the whole commercial about female flag football? Instead, the whole thing was about a girl vs. some boys (and unrealistically beating them at everything — literally juking and leaping over men).
February 9 At times, I have felt that I could live and die on the Moon and do so happily.
February 9 Clarity is knowing what you want and ought to do. Congruence is exerting your will to follow through. Detachment is to pursue the True and Beautiful and to uphold the Good unconditionally, without the promise of arriving anywhere and without longing to be delivered from here.
Among the Islands of Conditional Truths are a few most notable: Eternity, Pleasure, and Meaninglessness. When you encounter these and see the many people camping or building homes on their shores, do not be deterred from your pursuit of Truth. Do not dock there and die. Wave graciously and sail on by.
[[Die at Sea]]
February 9 One way to state my greatest fear: Becoming a man so domesticated that the family dog is more wild and free than me
February 7 A subconscious feeling I had about going to Iceland: If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere.
(This, for anyone reading decades hence, is an allusion to Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York.")
February 7 Another example of an oxymoron: "hot honey"
Reading is leisure. To read is to learn. Learning is leisure.
February 4This video with Jeff Nippard and Jesse James West is very informative and a great source of information for building an exercise routine. A few insights surprised me that I want to note. Jeff says:
- You only need 8–10 sets per week per muscle group (12 is plenty), and anything beyond that is junk volume. Rather than spending more time in the gym and doing more reps, you'd be better off focusing on form, force production, and progressive overloading within the fewer sets (higher-quality reps instead of more volume).
- Your front delts are going to get action on any heavy press, so you don't need an overhead press. For shoulders, you might only need four sets of lateral raises (with a lean for a greater stretch). (And maybe the same — four sets — for rear delts on back day.)
- The most anabolic parts of an exercise are the eccentric and the final reps in a set, so be especially controlled and focused during those reps and parts of each rep.
- After your full range of motion has been exhausted, do partial reps with the same amount of control, just less ROM. Do this especially on the final set of an exercise (as long as the muscle is loaded in the stretched position).
- A chest-supported row targets your mid-back, whereas an unsupported row involves your lats more. Also, to isolate the lats, do a lat pull around on a cable machine, on one knee facing perpendicularly to the cable.
And here are some bonus insights from Jeff in this video on fitness myths:
- Training within 1 or 2 reps in reserve has the equivalent hypertrophic effect of taking every set to failure.
- The rep range for hypertrophy is any number of reps per set between 3 and 50.
If I ever debate an atheist, this is the first question I'm going to ask: Which of the following statements do you most agree with?
a. I am certain that there is no God. b. I believe that there is no God. c. Given the evidence, God's existence is unlikely.
That question, or one similar, would be a good way to determine how dogmatic the atheist is.
February 3 There is no meaning to find but all the meaning to give.
February 2 The most ambitious thing I can do is whatever would make my future-self most free.
Identity is fluid; gender is biology.
February 1 I am most alive and most myself when I'm alone in nature.
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