This post is inspired by one of Koanic’s comments on another of my posts. It is mostly just a full transcription of the summary of my latest ten day tour in the psych ward; nothing edited, added, or removed and all [sic] intact except for people’s names. I checked myself into the ER at NMCSD at approximately midnight on 4/20/2012 for suicidal ideations. Enjoy.

PROBLEM 1: DISPOSITION …….. TARGET DATE 27APR2012 DATE CLOSED 30APR2012
Disposition: SD VA Psychiatry – Dr. XXXXX 858-###-#####; fax 858-###-####
Evidenced by: Admission to 1 North

Goal and/or Discharge Criteria:
Discharge with mental health follow up plans
Team Interventions:
Social Work Assessment
Recommended Patient Contact Focus:
Discharge Planning

Progress:
20Apr2012: Chart reviewed: No civilian holds, certifications, mandated reporting issues, or domestic violence issues noted. See Social Work Note for clinical encounter(s). Social Worker to follow for disposition plans as indicated by patient’s treatment team. XXXXXXXXX, LCSW
23Apr12: Social Worker contacted VA La Jolla to schedule follow up. Social worker spoke with XXXXXX. Pt. scheduled with Dr. XXXXX Tuesday, 01May12 at 1100. MO and Attending informed of appointment. XXXX XXXXX, LCSW.
24Apr12: Per Treatment Team, patient will discharge Friday, 27Apr12. XXXX XXXX, LCSW
30Apr12: Per Attending, patient not stable to discharge. Social Worker re-scheduled patient with Dr. XXXXX at the VA for Tuesday 08May12 at 0830. Pt. will be referred to Psychology at this time. MO and Attending informed of appointment. XXXX XXXX, LCSW.
Addendum: Per Sub-Attending, patient will discharge [against medical advice]. Pt. reported plan to follow up with Dr. XXXXX next Tuesday, and the VA Sacramento this weekend for labs. Pt. encouraged to contact VA Sacramento to schedule labs. XXXX XXXX, LCSW
Addendum: Per patient, Attending told him he would order labs for Tuesday. Pt. reported plan to come to NMCSD for labs. XXXX XXXX, LCSW

PROBLEM 2: Potential for violence against self or others. Target Date: 30Apr2012 Date Closed: 26Apr2012

Evidenced by:
Pt brought himself to the ER due to “on and off suicidal thoughts for a couple months.”
Goal and/or Discharge Criteria:
Patient will remain free from harm to self and/or others. Patient contracts for safety once a shift, during admission and least [sic] 3 days prior to discharge from the unit. Also, patient will verbalize ways to channel destructive impulses into more constructive expressions prior to discharge from the unit.
Team Intervention:
1:1 Interaction, Recreational Activities, Group Therapy, Scheduled Safety Rounds and Milieu
Recommended Patient Contact Focus:
Crisis Plan, Constructive Communication, Reflection of Current and past behavior, Goal setting and Future Orientation.
Progress:
20APR2012: (+)SI/HI (Suicidal Ideations/Homicidal Ideations) “I am on a fast from food, water, sleep, and medication” (with intent to kill himself this way). Patient refusing to answer this question directly but is requesting to be put into restraints because “I am unsafe right now.” Pt not elaborating on what he might do. “You’ll see when I do it.” Pt not able to contract for safety at this time. Dr. XXXXX aware as nurse, pt and Dr. all present during clinical interaction. 21APR2012: Pt stated in the milieu earlier that he was feeling suicidal. pt stated he was feeling this way because time was going to slow and that he wanted to see the “holy father’s face.” afterwards pt stated he was not feeling this way because the “father” would probably not approv of him killing himself. 22APR12: Pt denies SI/HI and verbally agrees to contract for safety. 23APR2012: Pt denies SI/HI at this time and agrees to seek staff should this change. 24APR2012: Pt denies SI/HI and agrees to seek staff should this change. 25APR2012: Pt denied SI/HI and agreed to contact staff if feeling unsafe or if SI/HI occurs. Pt. reported that he already had five reasons to live and listed them as his country, his family, his community, his friend Max and “the holy father.” **problem closed-patient is not suicidal**

PROBLEM 3: Alteration in mood and thought process Target Date: 30APR2012 Date Closed: (blank)

Evidenced by:
Pt states his mood has been unstable, and that he stopped taking his medication about five months ago. Pt reports having increased motor activity, and difficulty sleeping. Pt presents as religiously preoccupied and makes frequent delusional statements that are religious in nature, he states his goal for admission is “to see Jesus.” and that he must waste his flesh to do this, and that he has been refusing water, food, medication and sleep “for as long as it takes.”

Goal and/or Discharge Criteria:
At time of discharge Pt will be able to state five effective individual coping skills he can utilize to maintain a stabilized mood. Pt will report his mood has been stable for at least 24 hours prior to discharge. Pt will be able to carry on a reality based interaction for at least five min. with no delusional statement or content.

Team Interventions:
One on one staff intervention for at least five min Q shift to asses pt’s mood, provide pt with nsg education on effective individual coping skills he can utilize to maintain a stabilized mood, and on the need/advantages of medication and compliance in the treatment of mood D/O. Milieu groups and activities.

Recommended Patient Contact Focus:
Reinforce and focus on reality, recreational therapy/diversionary activities

Progress:
20APR2012: Pt is religiously preoccupied and continues to answer specific assessment questions with “check for yourself” and then pointing to the Bible. Loose, D/O. 21APR2012: pt has been preoccupied with religion, practicing religious rituals while by himself in the quiet room. pt had stated that during his brief period of feeling suicidal that he does not feel the “father” would approve of him doing so. 22Apr12: Pt states that he is motivated to go back to active duty even though he has already been medically retired. Pt states that he would like to come back as a Chaplain, if he can become stable without any medication. 23APR2012: Pt reports that he has found the way to the truth and it is his job to show others the way. 24APR2012: Pt denies AVH (audio/visual hallucinations) at this time, but remains very fixated on religion. Pt states that he has found the way to the truth and it is his calling to spread the word. 25APR2012 Pt continues to walk around the unit with his bible. Pt continues to read scriptures to people. Pt stated he was “possessed by an evil spirit last week” Pt talked about how this has happened before. 26APR12: Pt is preoccupied with religious ideations; delusional thinking; but redirectable. Pt is medication compliant. 27APR2012: Pt is focused on realistic goals such as getting his parents here to see him and working on discharge. 28APR2012: Pt was very goal oriented asking for step three and looking forward to his father visiting. 29APR2012: Pt stated he was feeling very good today because he was visited by 3 very important people in his life. Pt stated he is ready for d/c. 30Apr12: Pt states that he is ready for D/C and is goal directed. Pt’s mood has been stable at “ok” throughout the shift. Pt is being Discharged against medical advice. ***problem closed***

Here’s the medications I was discharged with. I’ll let someone else do the research (I suggest “uptodate.com”):

1. clonezePAM 1mg daily
2. risperiDONE 4mg daily
3. ESKALITH CR 450 mg daily

Here’s the medication I took at one point or another over the 9 days I was medication compliant, many multiple times in multiple doses:

• Tylenol 650 mg
• Benztropine 1 mg
• Benadryl 25-50 mg
• Ativan 2mg
• Maalox 30ml
• Milk of Magnesia 30ml
• Pitrex
• Trazodone 100mg
• Haldol

And some others I can’t remember.

On Friday May 4, I checked into the ER at VA Sacramento for approximately 5 hours because of nightmares from the medications I was taking. I have since been doing fine.

Your brother,

John

[John 4:24] God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

This post was originally written by hand just hours before I checked myself into a psychiatric ward for the fourth (fifth if you count an ER visit that was over in one night) time, for suicidal ideations. Additional commentary not in the original handwritten manuscript will appear [in brackets].

[1 John:7-9]: But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ Yeshua Messiah His son cleanses us of all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[Your sins need only be confessed to the Holy Father, AHYH ASR AHYH or YHWH, in order to be forgiven. However, it can be edifying to confess your sins to fellow Christians, and that is why I have written this post. I hope you can join in my example and confess your sins publicly in the comments below, and feel the freedom it brings.]

I have sinned. When I was young, I came to hate my mother. Though I understood she had come from a massively abusive home and left at an early age; though I understood her first husband had left her to raise her first son on her own; though I understood she supported me and my sister on her own without child support from our father (her second husband), I could not forgive her the harsh words she spoke to me. I refused her love and refused to love her. And now I ask — Lisa, will you forgive me of this?

I have sinned. I have dishonored my father. I have spoken harsh words about his financial stewardship and refused to seek him out because he refused to seek me out. [I harbored bitterness and resentment for the way he seemingly abandoned our family.] I have refused his love and refused to love him. And now I ask — Ross, will you forgive me of this?

I have sinned. I have in my heart of hearts hated my siblings. I hated my sister for her attitudes and life choices. I have hated my brother [--- the only true family I felt I ever had] for his words, actions, and faults. I have refused their love and refused to love them in turn. And now I ask — can they forgive me of this?

I have sinned. I have hated my friends, my peers, my colleagues and my coworkers. I have hated their opinions, glorying in my own; I have hated their lack of knowledge, glorying in my own; I have hated their works, glorying in my own. I have refused to love them and refused their love in turn. And now I ask — can they forgive me of this?

I have sinned. In my heart of hearts, I have hated my leaders and supervisors [to include my doctors], taking pride in my own mind and thinking myself better than they. I have refused their counsel and despised their wisdom, thus refusing their love and refusing to love them. And now I ask — can they forgive me for this?

I have sinned. I have borne false witness, lusted after women, indulged in alcohol and pornography, lied, sewn hatred, prophesied falsely, worshipped idols, bowed my knee to Satan, knowingly refused the love and calling of the one true God (AHYH ASR AHYH is his name) and I am sure many other things. In fact, I have sinned every single day of my earthly existence. And now I ask — who among you can forgive me these sins?

I have sinned. My best friend in the entire world, who loved me when my family could not, taught me how to write, taught me how to reason, looked after my home while I was in the wilderness, took ownership of my finances yet stole nothing for himself… in my heart of hearts I hated him and cast him out because he would not accept “Jesus Christ” as his Lord and Savior. I refused his love and refused to love him back, and now I ask — Kai, can you forgive me for this?

I have sinned. I have hated myself and uttered vile deceptions about myself. I have convinced myself I was evil, unlovable, ugly, putrid, vile, hateful, [weak], [stupid], and without redemption. Satan deceived me into reveling in these ‘truths’ while I rejected AHYH ASR AHYH and his Truth. I have refused the love freely given by the one and true living God in the universe, and refused to love him back. Can I be forgiven this?

I have sinned. I have composed this entire document savoring an old favorite sin of mine — a Lagavulin with one ice cube. It tasted vile and burned as it went down – just as it should. It cost $16 and for $35 I could sponsor a needy child’s education, food, water, and healthcare in the third world for an entire month. This sin was not as pleasurable as I remembered it being.

He who has not sinned, let him cast the first stone. Of those who’ve refused to cast stones… who will forgive me?

Your brother,

John.

Debate to understand
That we all have a flaw
Then fail to represent
Your life as you know it
God grant you one wish
To turn back the time
Correct and create,
Making sense of…

It has been exactly one year and one week since my last post was published on In Mala Fide, and since that time, I will be the first to tell you that I haven’t “kept up” with what’s going on around here or any of the other places you may have seen me before (such as The Spearhead). My life, in many respects, has been a mad quest for the Truth — some of you may remember just how mad that quest was, reading about it in my “God Complex” (not currently available, though it may be coming back if enough people are interested) series of posts on my now defunct Internet Hate Machine.

Indeed, that quest saw the destruction of my career (and for a while, identity), the loss of faith in my own mind’s ability to discern truth, the devaluing of my own experience, three separate tours in psychiatric wards and much more. I fell in with some Christians and was remiss to see that they were not amenable to questions about God’s Word (aka the Bible). For the Bible, you see, is the inerrant Word of God. Ironically, this is quite true, however, they were misunderstanding just what that meant. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself at this point.

Because I was having these difficulties, I began to feel isolated and alone. And I continued to isolate myself — since that was what I was being “taught,” things like “goodness and darkness cannot dwell together” and that once you become a follower of Christ you must abandon your old friends. Things like that. I could say much about these teachings, but I will instead let the Word say it for me, in Proverbs 18:1 — “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment.”

Before we get much further, I want to lay some foundations. I do not like using the term “God” when talking about “God.” “God” does not call Himself “God,” nor LORD. He has a name, just like you have a name and I have a name. I have gone by many names on the internet (J. Durden and Dr. Deezee to name two of my more recent and recognizable ones), and I’d like to dispense with all that. My name is John William (after my grandfather) Donner, and over the course of the next while I’m going to be gathering up all the various things I have written and, in some ways, “hidden” throughout the vastness of the Internet into one easy location. For now, if you’re at all curious about me, you can do the digging by reading my backlog here on In Mala Fide, at The Spearhead, my blog from 2004-2009, 2009-2010, another blog, some Facebook notes (feel free to “friend” me if you so wish), and what will likely eventually end up as the place I gather up all these disperate elements. I share these not for the sake of promoting myself but rather instead so that you can know exactly where I have come from and exactly the kinds of deceptions I used to believe in.

Continuing our discussion of names, I will be using His name, which you can begin to learn about here, from now on. On the same token, Jesus’ name while he was on earth was actually the Hebrew “Yeshua,” and so I prefer to use that name as well. Another important foundation to lay is that you should not take as truth what any man, myself or the authors I may link to, has to say about YHWH. The Word itself is clear that if you will seek after YHWH, you will find YHWH, and YHWH Himself will teach you, by His Spirit, what is true, if you are willing to live in the Spirit. Indeed, YHWH’s words are so true that if you are truly one with his Spirit, it will not matter which of the 1700+ translations of the Bible you use to learn about Him.

It is at this point that I suspect many of you will will question me as to how I can be so certain that YHWH is the “One True God” when there are so many other religions and other paths out there. I will be the first to tell you that I am not deeply versed in all world religions — I have poked around in a few, here and there. And I will tell you that many of the principles you find in the Bible are taught elsewhere: love, brotherhood, peace, things of that nature. I will also tell you it is not my place to tell you what you should believe; your belief system is the most important thing that you have in this world and it is one of the only things I can think of that is completely under your own control. Again, I say, let no man tell you what you should believe — but consider “he who answers a matter before he hears it, it is a folly and shame to him” (Proverbs 18:13). Listen to what others have to say and then test what they have said to see whether there is any truth to it: “Test all things; hold fast to what is good.” (Thessalonians 5:21)

For most of my life, my heart’s desire had been to know the Truth. Virtually every person I have ever met has told me it is impossible to know the Truth. I am here to proclaim that this is patently false, that indeed, it is EASY to know the Truth, should you want to know it. Many do not want to know it. I cannot force it upon you and I cannot “give” it to you, though I may be able to help guide you to it. In fact, I think it is because the Truth is so easy and so simple that many will not believe it. “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3) “I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.” (Matthew 12:25) Many will (and already have) scoff at me for saying there is a Truth and that it can be found, and that is perfectly fine. I wish them all the best in their own personal journeys and pray peace and happiness for them.

The thing that I cannot stress enough is that you must decide within yourself what is true. I’ve always been fond of what Kierkegaard has said on this matter, that you must find a truth that is true for you — a reason for which you can live and die. Do not let the doctrines and teachings of other men rule your life if you do not in your heart agree with them, for this road leads to spiritual death. If you’re bored and looking for something interesting to read, I might suggest this freely available ebook.

In closing, I would like to thank the many people who have involved themselves in my own personal journey throughout the past two years by reading my thoughts and responding to them. I would like to thank especially Bill Price and Ferdinand for giving me platforms to get my thoughts out there, even when I was in the height of mania and delusion. And of course I give thanks to our father YHWH for blessing me richly and beyond anything I deserve. It is my hope and prayer to help, as In Mala Fide’s tag line goes, shout Love at the heart of the world.

Your brother,

John

From the words that carve our lives
To the words that take us by surprise
From the sounds that disappear
To the changes we begin to fear
One day I’ll fail to breathe
And all you’ll have are memories

I recently finished up a second hospitalization for my bipolar condition, for which I have been medically retired from the Marine Corps (as of March 30th; I retired while in the hospital system of Chicago, the dates of my internment being from March 22nd to April 12th). Being that I was manic, I was again prone to religious delusion, believing I was (for lack of a better word) God. The first time this happened, back on February 14th, 2010, it was very disconcerting and I oscillated between belief that I was God and belief that I had been chosen by God to carry out His (technical aside; I prefer “Its” but am retaining Biblical standbys) plan.

This second time I was much more fully convinced I was the Lord incarnate. Thankfully, during both incidents, I never had thoughts, intentions or perform actions that would bring harm to myself or others. In this regard I was lucky, and while my stay in the hospitals both times hovered between 3 (for the most recent) and 4 (for the 2010 incident) weeks, most of that is because the medications I am on are very heavy and have a lot of nasty side effects. (Some 30% of people cannot tolerate my medication whatsoever.) Why would a self-described apatheist have religious delusions, you might wonder? And what does this have to do with you?

For the first question, my religious preoccupations almost certainly stem from my upbringing. I was a devout Baptist Christian until about the age of 12, when my parents divorced and I started to become dismayed with religion. While I abandoned my faith and tried out atheism, agnosticism and apatheism (in that order), I never abandoned the ethical and moral underpinnings I had been raised with. The upshot is that I often felt I was depriving myself of “Earthly pleasures” for “no good reason” and thus had a very negative impact on my mood and disposition. Of course, because I had a limited understanding of the Bible and actively avoided reading it or discussing it or studying it further, I thusly had drawn incorrect conclusions about the value of, say, celibacy. (PROTIP: take almost nothing in the Bible as literal.)

What this has to do with you is simple. Many intellectuals, particularly online, fall into the atheist camp. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. One can be a spiritual person without belief in a deity, but generally speaking one needs to believe in some kind of power which is higher than oneself (for example, the human spirit, nature, or ancestors). Many atheists, it seems to me, fall into the trap of being atheists merely to attack other people’s belief systems in the sort of way a bully picks on others in order to feel better about him or herself. I’ve also noticed, at least as recently as a few weeks ago when I was more current on my reading, that the rhetoric from our MRA camp has become increasingly toxic and virulent towards women as a class. No, I’m not about to go white knighting or anything of the sort, but we would do well to remember that feminism is an ideology, not a class of human beings.

Spirituality was absolutely critical to my recovery and to my recent turn around and enjoyment of life. I have a very “open” sense of spirituality and incorporate all sorts of philosophies into my personal conception of metaphysics – from Hindu ideas of reincarnation to Christian resurrection, redemption and baptism to Taoism and Buddhist notions of Zen…the list goes on. The key to being happy and healthy rests in taking care of your mind (intellectual stimulation, which the MRA is great for), body (exercise, as I wrote about in my last piece) and soul (the focus of this piece). Again, you don’t have to believe in God (or Allah or Buddha or any other deity) in order to be a spiritual person, but it is vital that you find other people of your same spiritual leanings and enter into communion with them. Spirituality is best enjoyed in the company of others.

Amen, brothers (and sisters).

Introduction

It's like this.

The Marine Corps is well known for its physical fitness, and things being what they were, I kind of didn’t fit in. For those unaware, I spent most of my life as a shut in, neck-bearded closet nerd trolling GameFAQs and other online forums. Ferdinand is quite hard on places like these – and justifiably so – but they taught me a lot of lessons which applied later in life…but I digress. The point here is that becoming a Marine had been a childhood pipe dream of mine – the way kids dreamed about being President or an astronaut or what have you, I thought of Marines as super heroes (perhaps because my grandfather had been a retired Lieutenant Colonel who survived the battle of Iwo Jima; look it up, get learned).

Suffice to say, the adjustment from a sedentary life to the rigorous demands of the Marine Corps was a rough one. I struggled to keep up but mostly I struggled not to be a burden on fellow recruits during training and later my fellow Marines in the fleet. When I first went down to my recruiter, I was a “triple threat,” which meant that I could not pass a single event on the IST or initial strength test – which is kind of embarrassing. All it required of me was to perform two dead-hang pull ups (I went down to boot camp without being able to do a single one and in the three months only managed to get up to three just by the skin of my teeth), 44 crunches in two minutes, and run a mile and a half or something like that in some paltry slow time. (I don’t remember exactly.) Point is? I was out of shape – I wasn’t fat, I just wasn’t fit.

Throughout the course of my career I worked really hard to get to just below what is considered a “1st Class” physical fitness test score, and I also scored the bare minimum for 1st class on the newish Combat Fitness Test. I was able to accomplish this thanks in huge part to the mentorship and guidance of several of my peers who had previously been body builders and personal trainers – in particular, one who goes by the nickname Julio and another who is still serving as a Corporal out in Okinawa. They have continued to provide me instruction and guidance in physical fitness and overall health, which I have found a much superior alternative to managing my condition as compared to “doctor’s orders.”

I have refined a routine that I think could work for anyone who is self-disciplined and believes they can benefit from my system. I am sharing it here, free of charge, in the hopes that it gets tested and I get word whether it works for others or not. Physical fitness is a key component of Game, as well, so if you’d like to do well with the ladies, you’d do well to be in shape. I’ll be talking about three key areas of fitness and my strategy for managing them. First up…

Technique

Technique is super important when it comes to working out effectively. Amateur enthusiasts get caught up in the lust for lifting heavier and heavier weights. Some manage to get a degree of success with this strategy – even having “sculpted” bodies – but often their bodies are useless. Pretty trinkets with no real strength. But I digress. Technique is absolutely essential. If you’ve never trained with a personal trainer or someone who knows the proper form for performing the exercises you are attempting, make sure you do at your earliest convenience. Even if you only work with them for two weeks in order to perfect your form, this will pay you dividends in the long run.

One key is to “mentally trigger” the muscle groups you are supposed to be using during the exercise. Imagine that you are using your chest to push the weight when you do a bench press, instead of your arms. If you get caught up in the lust for more and more weight, this is an easy pointer to miss. Mentally triggering helps activate your muscles and moreover is a sort of mental device for helping ensure your body does the exercise properly. You can tell if you’re doing it right because you will feel it in the muscle groups you’re targeting.

I cannot stress enough that you should start out at low or no weight (ie body weight – maybe less, depending on your capabilities – there is no shame, we’re all different) exercises in order to master your technique. Once you have mastered it you can work on upping the weight and the investment you put into mastering the form will pay off in spades as you sky rocket ahead of people who did it all backwards.

Frequency

Most research (and all of my friends who are in very good shape corroborate) indicates that training to failure is stupid and should be avoided. An ideal work out regimen should be designed around doing small sets, if you can, all throughout your day. For example, if you are training to increase your pull ups, the best idea is to get a pull up bar installed in your home, and then every time you go to the bathroom, do a small set of pull ups that doesn’t tire you out. Or so the wisdom goes.

Unless you’re a professional body builder who really knows what the fuck you’re doing, you probably want to stay away from training to failure, otherwise known as training until you’re dead fucking tired. It’s far better to keep your work outs energizing and fun. That being said, there are many ways to make sure you don’t overtrain; a commonly cited technique to break up repetitions is called the “pyramid” method. What you do is set a target number of repetitions to perform without stopping – say, 10 – but you start out by doing only one, and then taking a break to recover. Then you do 2, take another break, do 3, and so on. When you complete 10, you go back down to 9, then 8, and so on.

The mind is easy to trick. If you count to ten, it seems like you’re doing an awful lot of work. If you break up your counting, you can trick your mind into thinking you are doing less work; so I prefer to count my sets in threes. For example, my first “block” so to speak, using the pyramid method, will go 1, 2, 3… If after 3, I feel tired, I go back down to 2, then 1, and stop. If, however, I still feel fresh, I commit to another set of 3, and I go down and count “1, 2, 3, 1…” Then “1, 2, 3, 1, 2…” Then “1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3…” In this way I can continue to assess whether I should continue my pyramid and abort. Sets of three are good because the extra two or three repetitions isn’t really enough to push you over the edge too much if you do commit to them, and counting in sets of three is pretty easy to keep track of.

Nutrition

Your body is some 80% water. Go buy a BPA free water bottle (such as a nice camelback one) and carry it with you wherever you go. Drink as much water as you comfortably can and refill it every chance you get. You will piss probably once an hour, or maybe once every other hour, and if your piss isn’t clear as water you aren’t drinking enough water. Seriously. Drink water. You will notice you have less of an appetite and more energy. Just drink water. Avoid soda unless you’re treating yourself. Juice is okay from time to time. Milk is a good source of calcium. And I drink alcohol socially. But stick to water.

Your diet, unless you are super careful, probably won’t give you all the nutrition you need. So you might need supplements. My friend recommended a very good basic set, which consists of a good multivitamin, basic 100% whey protein, and a thermogenic. Brand name wise, I went to GNC to get all this shit, and got the Mega Men Ultra Sport multivitamin, some kind of GNC generic brand protein shake mix, and “Refine” was the thermogenic. Wake up, take your vitamins and thermogenic, wait thirty minutes, then go hit the gym. Afterwards, drink your shake and have breakfast (I usually just have something light like cereal and some bananas).

I eat a lot of fish, rice, pasta, and chicken. I try to avoid beef but it really doesn’t matter. Just try to eat protein and stay away from obviously unhealthy food. It’s pretty simple really. Anybody can do it. If you follow through with an exercise routine but you aren’t properly managing your nutrition you are shooting yourself in the foot and you won’t see the benefits. Drink lots of water, eat right, and consider basic supplements. It’s pretty easy.

Conclusion

People come up with every excuse under the sun to not start working out. “I can’t figure out how to fit in in my schedule” or “I’m not sure what my goals are” or “blah blah blah.” Truth is, if you start doing it and you do it right, you’ll enjoy it and you’ll figure out a way to fit it in. You increase your testosterone levels which are awesome for your health, you’ll start feeling more confident, you release endorphins, and you’ll overall just start feeling great. But if you sit there convincing yourself there’s no point, and you don’t believe you can do it, then you’re never going to do it. Physical fitness is very much a mind over matter situation, so stop feeling sorry for yourself, stop making excuses, and just fucking do it.

Originally published at The Spearhead on March 20, 2011.

Only in the West would we call this a "lady."

For as long as I can remember, I have been extremely skeptical of popular things. For every Lady Gaga, there is a Kevin Gilbert writing beautiful magnum opuses no one will hear; for every WalMart there’s a mom and pop store treating their employees right and providing competitive prices; for every Transformers there’s an underrated 25th Hour; so on and so forth. At first it was just an unbridled elitism that led me towards alternative tastes, but disconnecting from the hive mind has been good for me for much of my life. Moreover, these sorts of choices you may view as meaningless (spending your dollars on the next iMbetterthanu rather than a technically superior alternative) have real world impacts – sometimes quite grave and ugly.

Our modern age is rife with the fallacy known as argumentum ad populum; the idea that because something is popular that is proof enough that it is good. Success in the West has typically been associated with a disgusting infatuation with value – value defined not by intrinsic quality, but by how much money something can generate. “Good” music is not necessarily well composed, performed, or emotionally stirring – “good” music is that which generates a lot of sales. Good writing is not necessarily perceptive, striking, or insightful – good writing generates sales (or hits). Public discourse over the value of things often boils down to this line of reasoning; Transformers 2 is superior to 25th Hour because Transformers 2 outperformed 25th Hour at the box office.

Our age is totally fucked. People take their philosophical advice and metaphysical insight from comedians. People write their senators about the “right” for anyone to serve in the military at the behest of a manufactured corporate shill whose only claim to bravery is to support a popular agenda at a convenient time. People buy their clothes and gadgets in a futile attempt to belong to a culture robbed of them by their very own consumerism.

Interesting though it is, I don’t have my ducks in a row to write an expose on the effects of buying from Apple or WalMart or all those other popular large companies, and the kind of evil that is wrought by it. I figure most of In Mala Fide’s readership is already savvy on those details anyway. There’s something a little more sinister at work, however, that may not have been considered.

Is it any surprise that feminism – one of several ideologies responsible for our decline – is the sworn enemy of logic? The argumentum ad populum was known long ago as total bullshit – things are not good merely because they are popular. The masses do not dictate quality (thank God). Appealing to pathos (yet another fallacy), feminist academics likened knowledge unto rape and even went so far as to suggest that Newton’s Principles of Mechanics could more aptly be called Newton’s Rape Manual. And feminism is propped up by something almost unquestionably sacred in the West – the most sacred right of “liberty” and freedom and our hallowed “democratic” institutions; the power of individual adults to vote.

Plato rated democracy as the second worst form of social organization next to tyranny, in part because democracy merely substitutes the tyranny of one for the tyranny of the many. And the many are fucking stupid. Some might nit pick and say “but J. Durden, we don’t live in a direct democracy, we live in a republic!” which is technically true. Just imagine how much worse off we’d be if we were living in a direct democracy! My favorite thing to listen to from the talking heads in the mainstream media is the “intentions of the founding fathers.” This is especially true if the talking head is a poor, non-white non-male. The founding fathers didn’t intend for you to have shit if you weren’t rich, white, and land-owning. Sorry!

But they may have been on to something. I could quibble with their criteria but a massive restriction to voting rights is in order. Corruption in our political system can be traced all the way back to the popular election of Andrew Jackson following the revolutionary and unprecedented expansion of voting rights via “universal white male suffrage.” This trend continued until everyone with a pulse who reached the age of 18 could cast their ballot to select who should be making our laws. Why should my vote – a misanthropic, nihilistic, apathetic, high-school-drop-out 22 year old troll – count the same as, say, a Ph.D holder (ignoring for a second the red herring about how the public credentialing institution is bankrupt and also without merit)? What the fuck kind of governance is that?

Laura Grace Robins had a great post which touches on how more voters doesn’t translate into anything good. John Lott has done a lot to track the growth of government and the welfare state in America and tie it to women’s suffrage. John Bagot Glubb pointed out the pattern of decline amongst all empires or large nation states is incredibly similar and generally involves both feminism and the welfare state. Yet the average person rarely questions the value and utility of universal suffrage, that most popular of ad populums.

I’m sure you’ve heard “everyone is entitled to an opinion and you should respect that,” or worse, some tripe about how everything is just a matter of opinion. This is the mantra of the loser always whining about his best (meanwhile the winner goes home and fucks the prom queen – hat tip to John Patrick Mason). Given two different ideas, one must necessarily be better than the other; this is inescapable unless comparing identical propositions. Burying your head in the sand and abandoning every metric for evaluating merit only makes the world a worse place, not a better one. Sure, you can have the right to voice your ignorance, but having the right to voice it does not confer upon you the right to be heard, considered or respected.

Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion — and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion… while truth again reverts to a new minority. – Soren Kierkegaard

The bitches - they always be triflin'

In the first of what may become a series here at In Mala Fide, I’d like to regale you with tales of my experiences on the dating website “OkCupid.” I think the site is awful and stupid, and I have thought so for a long time. However, one of my best friends has used it almost since its inception and swears by it. When I was deployed over to Okinawa and realized the severity of the sausage fest I’d gotten myself into, I decided, well, why the hell not? This decision, like most of the decisions I’ve made in life, would prove to be awful.

In about six months I managed to rack up over 300 significant (ie., more than just me telling a broad off because she was fat or a single mom or more than just a broad telling me off for being an insensitive cock hole) conversations, yet found no suitable matches. I was suddenly reminded why, exactly, I had been ignoring women in the first place. After an initial serious business phase, I proceeded to do on that site what I generally do on any site: troll and cause butthurt.

I am still regularly messaged by women, though usually they’re quite obviously “not my type.” For one, fat women love to message me still, even though my profile is highly narcissistic and I come across as callous and shallow. I oscillate between messaging these women back with signature “wit and charm” and ignoring them completely; both can lead to humorous results (the latter being more desperation-enhanced). Single mothers are my next favorite group of frequent messengers – looking for a stable guy with a good head on his shoulders and money in his pocket to fix all of their terrible mistakes, complete with some other douche’s kid. Sign me up! Or not. Asians in general message me too – big white guy in the military? Yes prease!

Rarely (and I mean, very rarely) there will be a message in my inbox from a woman who doesn’t weigh 400 pounds, doesn’t already have a child, and passes most or all of my other immediate disqualifiers when it comes to browsing a profile on a dating site. (Here’s one: don’t post a pic of gratuitous cleavage and then caption it something like “DON’T STARE AT MY TITS YOU PIGS LOLOL” you solipsistic hags. ) Yet more infrequently, they’ll send something beyond a “wink” (a stupid meaningless feature for people who are so socially inept they can’t even message other people on a site designed for messaging people), and if the moons and the stars align in just the right phase, there may even be a hint of intelligence or wit in their message.

One such woman messaged me recently, around Valentine’s Day, and this is the story of our extremely brief acquaintance. She started off with a little bit of sass, remarking that I was incredibly well-read “for a Marine,” which actually isn’t a good foot to start on (the whole “Marines are stupid LOL” angle is way overplayed). But she passed my visual inspection and she was messaging me, so I give her a little of the ole’ back and forth. The conversation is about petty inconsequential bullshit (military and books), but I couldn’t really care since she’s halfway across the country and my odds of filling the gaping void where her penis should be with some penis are real, real low. After a while, she asks about my writing and what I’m doing with it.

I suppose I could have directed her to some of my work on The Spearhead – I’m sure she would’ve enjoyed my proposition to turn all women in the military into prostitutes or my piece on abortion – but my military therapists suggest I should be more “open” with people, so instead I linked her to one of the pieces on my personal site about why I am being medically retired from the Marine Corps. I think it was specifically this one, which is where the “action” (so to speak) begins. I don’t hear from her for a couple of days, so I figure she’s either actually reading the damn thing, or she poked around the rest of the “Internet Hate Machine” and figured out I’m a big misogynistic jerk.

Turns out it was the former, as she messages me back and wants to continue talking through something more convenient – like email or chat. Of course, she couldn’t be bothered offering any addresses or screen names herself, because that wouldn’t make any sense when you’re inviting someone to communicate via another medium. Women. Anyway, I kill two birds with one stone and give her one of my gmail accounts, telling her she can either email me there or use Gtalk. Some time passes and she starts chatting with me.

Right away she wants to know a lot of really personal details about what happened and why it happened. I respond, I think, as any regular person would – “Bitch, I don’t even know your first name and you want to know my deepest secrets? As the kids say, slow your roll.” She kept pressing me for details and I told her she could more or less wait like the rest of everybody else who cares (read: the two or three Marines who’ve been reading my drivel since the day I started writing it). I change the subject by talking about less personal and slightly more trivial things – like music. The learning curve on my mental malfunction is a lot higher than I estimate this harlot’s mental faculties can truly appreciate and if there’s one thing I hate to waste when I’m wasting my time, it’s my time.

She begins talking about how much she can offer a “real man” and how she thinks I fit her ideals of “real men.” Pause. What is it with Asian bitches and their fascination with real men? I’ve been noticing a trend with them lately – is it just me? Anyway, I directly ask her what more than a vagina she brings to the table, but her answers were as vague as my intentions. She tried to play up her listening skills and empathy (which were quite poor) and her college degree. A poet once remarked, “I can’t put my fist in your college degree so why are you sharing all these feelings with me” and that’s more or less my stance on edu-mah-kated women.

Eventually, she wants to know my dating preferences, or something of the sort. So I mention that I generally hate “intellectual” chicks, because they’re always trying to defeat me in an argument in order to feel good about themselves. Probably about five minutes after I finish explaining this, she starts up a stupid argument. She says she feels (note the irony – feels) I am illogical. I say, “Well that’s interesting. Have any argument as to why that may be the case?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Looking at these ideas that you’re writing about on your site, well, they don’t make a whole lot of sense. I don’t think they’re very logical.”

“Oh,” I respond. “So you mean to say that time a year ago when I went MENTALLY INSANE, I was illogical? You should be a fucking detective. Got anything else?”

She argues with the intellectual ferocity of an eight year old about how if I’m writing about these ideas now, it must mean that I really believe in them. She must’ve never heard of therapeutic writing or journaling or have any idea how memory works. I tell her, “Hon, if I really believed in these ideas, I’d be starting a cult based on the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.”

This really pisses her off, because she thinks that I am implying ALL Christians are cultish (about the Second Coming, or just in general, she never made it clear and I didn’t care to find out). After maybe five minutes trying to explain how my statement had nothing to do with what ALL Christians believed or thought or cared about and how she was projecting her own delusions on to me, I gave up. I asked if there was any reason for us to continue talking, she said no, I said “Best of luck,” blocked her, and never looked back. I’m told not all women are like that, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

The end.

It works, but you're still doing it wrong.

When Ferdinand wrote about his reasons for launching In Mala Fide 3.0, it caused me to reflect upon my own experiences. Alte called him out for his position of leadership in whatever you might call this community. She had said “I know you guys don’t like to think of yourselves as leaders because leadership is a burden…but leaders aren’t defined by self-declaration. Leaders are defined by the fact that they’re followed.” What follows could be described as my personal philosophy of leadership. Take it for what it is worth.

I have been in leadership positions for much of my life and I would characterize my leadership style as “reluctant” at best. I don’t like the burden but I’ve been in many situations where I could tell no one else was capable of shouldering it. Some of these positions were trivial, such as leading a video gaming clan and teaching casual players how to play to win. Others were more serious, such as being an assistant manager for a high volume store, responsible for managing the inventory and the professional growth + training of the employees under me. And others were “no joke,” as the kids say, such as shouldering the hopes and dreams of an entire company of Marines as I conveyed their grievances to our battalion commander. Writing this post will be somewhat in violation of my own principles; in order to talk about my strategies I must tell you my successes and I wouldn’t normally do that, but I digress.

I’m retiring from an organization which is obsessed with leadership and cultivating leaders. It has been my experience that most people have a lot of misconceptions about effective leadership. Many think of the archetypal authoritarian – say the hard ass manager on a factory line, or the snub-nosed Drill Instructor at boot camp – as the ideal. But their power is more often the power of fear than it is of respect, and a fearful person will only provide the bare minimum output required to avoid repercussion; contrast this to the person who will willingly go above and beyond for a leader they respect and admire.

Cultivating respect isn’t as hard as you might think it is. I’ve found that there are certain tricks that work very well. It is an irony of effective leadership that in order to lead you must not be thought of as striving to be a leader; by this I mean to say people cannot and should not view you as power hungry or out for personal gain. Humility is key in this regard, and I usually go one step further than downplaying my abilities. Rather than being merely humble, I exaggerate my weaknesses. For example, when I receive a compliment about my intelligence, I deflect it by saying something like “I’m just a high school drop out who enlisted in the Marine Corps – what do I know?”

Another “trick” is to be consistent. Consistency is best achieved by adopting (cringe now or forever hold your peace) morals and ethics. You cannot just say that you believe in something; you must demonstrably live your life according to the virtues you espouse. After all, honor, integrity, valor, courage, arete, and virtue, are just words. This is where “leadership by example” comes into play. In a sense, a leader must be much better than his followers, or they wouldn’t follow him; yet he cannot boast about his worth, or his followers may begin to distrust his motives and intentions or otherwise undermine his efficacy.

Dependability is similar to consistency but fairly important. (I suppose I could just write a dissertation on the “14 leadership traits” of the Marine Corps – easily remembered with the mnemonic device JJ DID TIE BUCKLE which stands for  justice, judgment, dependability, initiative, decisiveness, tact, integrity, enthusiasm, bearing, unselfishness, courage, knowledge, loyalty and endurance – which are all quite good, but I have a more specific focus here.) Your word must be your bond and people must know they can count on you to do what you say you will do. If you are humble, consistent and dependable, you will cultivate a lot of respect. When the opportunity for leadership presents itself, people will be inclined to follow you if you seize the initiative.

But respect isn’t necessarily the best thing to cultivate if you’re looking to be a leader. Love is. Love in the West has become a stupid concept, but the ancient Greeks had four words to describe it, and I am talking about these other conceptualizations of love, rather than the romantic/passionate kind that English has come to imply. In particular, “philia” or “brotherly love” is particularly worthwhile. You might think that being in the Marine Corps gives me some automatic philia with every other Marine, but this is usually only the case amongst veterans; not amongst active duty Marines. Especially when you are new to a unit or otherwise serving with Marines you don’t yet know, you must cultivate philia.

This is done by first winning their respect but going beyond that. You must strive to be the best at something which matters; have some kind of skill or proficiency that others do not. (It would theoretically be best to be the best at everything, but that’s rather difficult.) When I was leading my video game clan, I was the best at organizing everyone and calling out our team’s strategies, dictating the tempo and flow of matches. When I was promoted to assistant manager, it was because I was the top salesman and one of the best repairmen in the shop (we sold and repaired watches and clocks). I built a reputation for myself quickly in the Marine Corps by demonstrating my technical acumen; as a Lance Corporal (a rank acquired after a paltry year or so of service) I was holding the billet (or job) of a Staff Sergeant (a rank acquired after eight to twelve years of service).

I was never – never – the strongest Marine, or the fastest Marine. Physical fitness is key in the Marine Corps and I was lacking it. However, I earned the respect and even philia of men who were in much better shape than me, and this in turn made it easier for others to respect me as well. (“Well, if Roidrage thinks Durden is a pretty cool guy who doesn’t afraid of anything, why shouldn’t I?”) I tried as best I could to have my friends’ back and take care of them – be it with work related problems or personal problems (often related to manosphere stuff – bitches be triflin’, 24/7). If I couldn’t personally figure something out for them, I’d find a way to get it figured out.

I became the company’s hero – earning the respect of just about everyone regardless of rank or time in service, aside from the company commander and 1stSgt who I had burned by my actions – when I compiled a list of all the things that were fucked up (and according to military law, illegal) that had been going on around the company and took it to the battalion commander. The key here is that I went and did something. Other leaders were not stepping up to the plate to correct these issues and I wasn’t content to stand around and be miserable, or watch everyone else be miserable either. I demonstrated to everyone that I could put my money where my mouth was when I told them I was concerned with justice and integrity and what not.

I never served in combat, and again, I wasn’t the rough ‘n tumble type. Even still, I had my Gunnery Sergeant (who had done 10 years in the infantry and seen combat) tell me I was a true leader and I had many express that they would follow my direction in a war zone. This gets down to something often neglected in our declining times, something Generation Zero could generally give a fuck less about – character. Hedonists and nihilists and degenerates are fun and all, but they have no character.

If you want to lead, a noble spirit and virtuous character – shown through action and not so much through words – go a long way. But I would advise that you do not be an overachiever; do not be greedy or lustful for leadership opportunities. You learn much by being at the bottom, least of which is learning about the people you intend to lead. When the time comes and the current leadership fails, and if you have been cultivating respect and philia, people will readily start accepting your suggestions. As Alte said, leaders are followed, and this is a different thing entirely than merely having authority over someone. (Authority obligates; leadership inspires.)