ON HAPPINESS

I realize that, based off how I write and the material I discuss, it is very easy to conclude that I am a miserable person.  I constantly speak on the topics of misery, pain, suffering, etc, and my propensity to force myself to experience them for the sake of overcoming.  However, I want my readers to understand that nothing could be further from the truth.  I am immensely happy.  I live in a state of significant joy.  And this is BECAUSE I force myself to experience that pain, misery and turmoil, as these things are what allow me TO experience this joy.  And not in the sense that, in the presence of contrasting stimulus, one can more greater feel the other, much like how a hot shower after being out in the cold feels even hotter.  No, this misery allows me to feel joy because it is the result of overcoming it that makes me a joyous person.  Believe it or not, dear reader, I am happy.

Check out that smile

What do I have to be happy about?  The fact that, for 24 hours a day, I am exactly what it is I have always wanted to be: big and strong.  Ever since I was a kid, that it all I wanted, and it is what I am.  And yeah yeah, it’s really cute these days to say stupid meme crap like “The first day you lift weights it the day you will be forever small”, but quit it with the false modesty: it’s not endearing to anyone.  Am I as big and strong as I’d like to be?  No, but I am certainly big and strong enough to be happy with it.  I am existing exactly as the human I wanted to be as a child.  I have met my goals and became someone my childhood self would be proud of.

And how was that accomplished?  By spending an hour in misery 4-7 times a week for 18 years.  Yes, I had to regularly “suffer” in training on a consistent basis and experience discomfort over and over again to get to where I am…but it was just an hour.  An hour of pain for 23 hours of complete joy?  What a deal!  Who wouldn’t sign up for that?

I mean, it worked for ACDC

Apparently everyone, that’s who!  I’ve had people bemoan my writings.  “Why does it always have to be about suffering and pain?!  I LIKE lifting.  It’s my escape!”  Jesus man: what the hell are you escaping from?  Is it, by chance, the 23 hours a day you spend being miserable because you AREN’T what you want to be?  Is it that, your life requires escape because you failed to live up to your own potential?  But then, riddle me this: does your escape simply in turn become a self-fulfilling prophecy?  Because you spend your 1 hour a day NOT improving, does it in turn make your remaining 23 hours far more miserable?

This doesn’t even need to be about lifting anymore: this is just about self-realization.  We have a finite amount of time in any day, and invest it how we see fit.  However, strategic investments pay off dividends, and vesting a small fraction of your life suffering may in turn make the remaining portion of your life blissful, whereas trying to schedule an hour of bliss a day in turn may make your 23 hours miserable.  It may initially appear that you are simply compounding suffering onto suffering, experiencing 23 hours of misery in life and then an hour of misery in training (WHATEVER that self-improvement may be), but you will observe that, in time, the balance shifts.  Soon one spends 22 hours being miserable existentially, 1 hour being miserable in training…and then a brief hour of joy.  And that hour becomes 2.  And soon the scales are tilted the other way.

Sometimes though, you can't wait for those scales to tip

I focus so much on the misery because it is NECESSARY to produce the results that CREATE happiness.  Existential joy is not a given; it is earned, it is earned by toiling away under miserable conditions to become what one wishes to be.  And as joy increases, so must misery in scale, so that one can overcome to greater degrees and become something greater by extension.  It’s about taking that 1 hour and making it worth it: not wasting it “escaping” from oneself, but compounding 23 hours worth of suffering into a 1 hour slot to experience a remaining 23 hours of joy by contrast.

I attended a seminar by Bill Kazmaier where, on discussing other strongman athletes, he stated that he legitimately felt sorry for athletes that had a normal, well adjusted homelife and childhood, because they were at a serious disadvantage when it came to succeeding in strength sports.  And keep in mind, Bill believed (with good reason) he was the strongest man to ever live.  He got to experience that 24 hours of existential joy, by realizing himself as exactly who he wanted to be, and it simply necessitated some front end suffering at the start of his life, and the necessary overcoming and adapting that came along with it.  Contrast that with the people that grow up well off, have normal, well adjusted lives, and exist in a state of existential nausea, never realizing their potential and experiencing the necessary anxiety of never becoming what they wanted to be.  In their attempt to experience comfort and joy for all 24 hours and spend no time whatsoever in suffering, they instead suffer for all 24 hours as a result of never becoming what they wanted to be.  To steal from Kierkegaard, they suffer the despair of not knowing that they are IN despair, because they refuse to experience despair.

This is what someone not knowing they are in despair looks like

I write about misery and suffering because that is what is necessary to produce happiness.  Don’t confuse my focus on the topic to mean I am in turn miserable and that I suffer, for I am instead as joyous as I can be.  And I am joyous BECAUSE I experience this suffering.