Hi Robert!
Being diagnosed with cancer sounds like a death threat to me. And I really, really do not like being threatened..
All enemies are the same, whether in the mind or in the body. And essentially all enemies are in the mind. So Violence begins in the mind as a merciless intolerance of anything that would seek to weaken your mind.
To this end, having a “bad” temper is an incredible asset, once it’s harnessed for good and disciplined.
I’ve torn my biceps off of both arms. The right arm maybe four or five years ago. The left arm about five months ago. My recoveries from both have made a joke of medical competence, thanks to the grace of God and my own tightly channeled rage.
The first time, some medical hack briefly put his own health in danger by suggesting that I’d only recover 60-70% of function. It never even occurs to me that I will fail because God doesn’t create losers. And I’ve walked the edge way too many times at this point in life to doubt that things always work out damn near magically for the righteous and those who keep their faith.
The first time, I stopped going to physical therapy fairly quickly after realizing what a joke it was. I was doing pull-ups six months after surgery. I started working out again – full body – four days after surgery. Including push-ups – with the cast on.
My surgeon actually called me in the middle of a workout one morning – and I was out of breath, trying to calm him down. My useless physical therapist had ratted me out like I was wanted by the FBI or something. That was her last mistake.
This last time, I tore my left bicep off my arm – working out Thanksgiving morning no less – I think the devil likes to test your resolve, eh? Still thankful, motherfucker?
Oh, yeah, cuz if it doesn’t matter NOW then it doesn’t really matter, does it?
This time, after surgery, I took NO medications of ANY kind following surgery. NOTHING the guy prescribed. Which frankly looked horrific if you read the inserts. No pain meds, no antibiotics, no nothin.
I understood the importance of pain as a training aid. Pain increases safety. If I can fully feel my arm, then I’m more in tune with it and I can feel how much I can push it.
The first time – when I tore my bicep off my tight arm – they gave me a nerve blocker prior to surgery. Not second time. The nerve blocker, to me, was scarier than any pain because I could not feel my arm at all – for awhile after surgery. Did not like that feeling.
After the second surgery five months ago, I walked out of the hospital and literally never saw or spoke to my surgeon again. I never so much as spoke to another medical person again. I had learned from the first time.
The medical profession is good for surgery. That’s it. Reattach my bicep, thank you – now fuck off.
Other than that, these people are damn near criminally incompetent with respect to health, rehabilitation and competence. I’ve been designing and doing unusual training programs for myself since I was a kid. I have a practical, non professional understanding of the human body. Which is also useful for actual violence.
Working out is basically controlled Violence against yourself, after all.
People say doctors are little better than drug dealers. True. But they’re actually far worse than street dealers because they essentially specialize in telling you how fucked you are. And because you’re fucked – like some hack internet marketing scam – you need to be drugged and spend 20 years in rehab. Our medical system is one of the greatest con games of all time. Leading cause of death, I have zero doubt.
Health and recovery begins in the mind, and it is your mind that these people ruthlessly assault. They deserve no respect for this. You gonna spend ten plus years of your life becoming a “professional”.. to do this? Like you’re stupid? Like you never guessed that these meds aren’t exactly healthy? Like telling people they’re fucked will accelerate their healing? I take it personal..
Brainwashed automatons who follow orders do not take me to my happy place.
So this second time, I started working out the second day after surgery. Whole body, including the arm. First day after surgery was rough due to the pain, but I let it go, and felt awesome a day later.
The thing with injury is that you MUST at least begin MOVING the injured area immediately. Imagine pulling a muscle and then you sit on the couch all day. It stiffens up, gets even tighter, and it’s way way more painful when you get off the couch.
You’ve got to keep it moving, and the blood flowing. “Movement is Medicine.”
Training an injured area and training in general is all the same. It’s just progressive stress applied by a progressive series of movements. I violated this principle when I tore my bicep by unnecessarily overloading it.
Which inspired another saying I have now: “Less for longer gets you stronger.”
There’s the saying, “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast,” to which I will add the corollary, “Slow is smooth, and smooth is STRONG.”
If you can do a tough movement very slowly, then you’re way stronger than someone who has to do it fast. By this I also discovered the myth of “quick twitch” muscle fibers. Because I have become way faster by going way slower. It’s counterintuitive.
It’s also way healthier for your ligaments, and also makes your ligaments way stronger. Because muscle strength grows faster than ligament strength, which is got you tear ligaments when the muscle strength overloads the ligament strength. You see this with athletes all the time. They look strong, but aren’t as strong as they look.
Whereas people like gymnasts and circus performers tend to have incredible ligament strength when you consider that they’re putting insane amount of loads of their joints that far exceed any weight you could lift in a weight room. I suspect this principle is the real secret of martial arts as initially conceived – and some of the weird training you hear about.
Flexibility is also critical because strength is applied through a range of motion. So you want to increase strength through the greatest range of motion possible, progressively.
My previous strength and flexibility no doubt aided the speed of my recovery. But the most important thing for me was only listening to myself, and ignoring and voice of doubt.
A month after surgery I tiled a basement of 500 sqft with 12×24 large format tiles. Mostly one armed, but using the injured arm as well. The tiles weighed 8lbs each, and the movement was a part of my “rehab.” That was slow and tedious, but I wasn’t exactly doing much at the time and was helping someone out.
Two and a half months after surgery I was carrying 120lbs of Luxury Vinyl Plank up stairways and laying about 1400 sqft. I had previously agreed to do this for someone and wanted to make sure it got done. I don’t usually do flooring – it just worked out that way. No doubt part of the Grand Design, if you will, because it was a great addition to my “rehab.”
Now, I’m almost fully back, doing pull-ups and everything else. But the interesting thing is that I can feel that my capacity for strength is far greater than before. So when I reach my previous state – I’ll actually still be behind!
Every surgery I’ve had – bicep or otherwise – has ultimately made me stronger. It’s important to understand that recovery doesn’t not mean merely attaining what was lost but – gaining even MORE!
IF – you view it THAT way.
Aside from the surgeries over the years, I have lost count of the numerous physical ailments I have overcome with enraged positivity, if there’s such a thing. I literally keep telling my ailments to die and to fuck off – until they do.
I once sprained my back. Quite painful. And pain makes me quite angry. I decided to do push-ups out of spite. That was very painful, but pain mixed with anger creates a very pure kind of focus. The back pain never came back after that.
My point is that whatever your problem is can go fuck itself. And I’ve always had another personal favorite saying:
“The existence of a problem is PROOF of the existence of the solution.”
So Rejoice! Celebrate! It’s gonna be WAY better than you EVER thought it could possibly be. You WILL overcome. You WILL recover ALL. You WILL destroy your enemy.
So you can see how this mindset so easily transfers to the arena of actual violence. If my ailments were people, just imagine what they would look like when I was done winning. So it will be for you.
Why? Cuz I just fuckin said so.
Also, when recovering, absolutely be ruthless about who you let TALK to you. The worst people – however well meaning they think they are – are the ones with pity.
It was amazing to me the first time I tore my right bicep how damn near every person was basically acting like it had happened to them! Fearful. Full of pity. What?! They had ZERO clue what I was actually thinking about it.
Which is one of the reasons I keep saying that empathy is a mental illness. I don’t need “empathy,” I need overwhelming destruction. Empathy is a projection of your OWN fears onto others. Very dangerous. Very delusional. You cannot allow these people to influence you.
The single, only, and greatest response to my first bicep tear was this Russian guy I knew who immediately started making fun of my injury in vulgar terms which I will not repeat here for your delicate ears.
I loved that shit. Injury?! What injury? Just some more ass to kick.
I find that I think foreigners seem to be mentally tougher than Americans, who seem to increasingly be very weak individuals to me. I can’t say for sure, because anecdotal evidence isn’t really evidence.
Nevertheless, during recovery – which is essentially all of life – you must NOT tolerate the mental input of the fearful and the full of pity. The victims. Who feel like victims – even if they’re just LOOKING at OTHER people who LOOK like victims to THEM!
This tells me something about how these people think about EVERYTHING. However, my faith in God – in the Flow of Perfect Good – is not church faith. It’s real world, destroying enemies, faith. Not lip service. Actual respect. I feel I have a duty to overcome. God doesn’t create losers.
So I may be a little over zealous and crazy at times, but this is FAR better than surrender. I have been in the edge of complete disaster way too many times to doubt at this point. Things ALWAYS work out. They NEVER work out how I plan them, but I KNOW they WILL work out.
Do not doubt. Do not fear. Celebrate! If you can celebrate BEFORE the enemy is crushed then it is a harbinger to then of their impending doom. You don’t even have to know how.
The Flow of Perfect Good is ALWAYS moving through you. It’s always working. It is, in fact, the NATURAL state of reality is you let it flow unimpeded.
I shouldn’t be alive. I shouldn’t be able to move around. I should be a complete disaster.
Everything in this world appears designed to destroy your faith. So feel the rage, but channel it into useful Good.
I was just talking to a friend. We were commenting on the fact that our tempers were even worse now, but just more highly controlled. Instead of maybe a forest fire burning everything when we were younger, now I feel like I’m carrying around Ironman’s Ark reactor, or something. I feel the power, but it’s increasingly stable.
The more stable and more controlled – the more powerful when unleashed. Because you’re not bleeding energy all the time.
If you think about – serenity IS the most powerful state of mind precisely because it is the most difficult state of mind. To be calm requires more power than being agitated. So controlled rage is actually a kind of super serenity. It’s so focused that it appears to others at complete calmness.
In a sense then, it’s just KNOWING.. Victory is inevitable. It WILL happen. It IS flowing. Now, and forever.
So do not permit others to infect you with anything less than total and overwhelming triumph.
It’s called the Grace of God because you can’t earn it. Only believe it. It does the work for you and thru you. You are merely a vessel.
Cancer is just a lie. It’s just a temptation. It’s just an attempted mind rape. It’s just a failure. It’s just your bitch.
I tore my left bicep “Thanksgiving” morning.. Coincidence? Someone wants to see just how I serious I really am..
However serious I was before.. That was nothing. That was just the preamble, and that was just the warmup..
So just imagine leaping thru the side of cancer’s neck with a giant pipe wrench, at full acceleration and with perfect balance..
Does anything feel better than THAT?
