7 DEADLY SINS, SLAVE MORALITY AND ASCENDING INTO THE OVERMAN

 Continuing on with the Nietzsche theme, let’s go full “anti-Christ” here and examine how the famed “7 deadly sins” are, in fact, aspects of “slave morality” intent on preventing you from achieving your goal of physical transformation, which is, in turn, to ascend to the overman (I avoid “ubermensch” because guys with shaved heads and high socks have totally ruined that).

 

But this DOES look pretty cool...

WHAT IS SLAVE MORALITY?

It doesn't refer to the karma hit you take when you get this trait

To quickly summarize: Nietzsche presented an idea that there are truly TWO different classifications of morals: slave and master.  This coincides with the differing classes of people: those who are ruled, and those who rule.  With two classifications of peoples, you need two systems of morality, for the qualities that make one a good peon do NOT make one a good leader, and vice versa.  Good leaders need aggression, ruthlessness, cunning, ambition, and an ability to operate within the morally grey in order to make the tough decisions to keep civilization in tact, but if a member of the ruled class develops these qualities they run the risk of attempting to topple over society via a revolution, so they, in turn, need to be meek, subservient, chaste, moderate and pacified. 

 

Nietzsche goes on to discuss how Christianity is a prime example of slave morality.  It emphasizes chastity, peace, equality, love, etc etc.   Fantastic qualities for a ruled class to be cohesive and manageable: not great qualities for someone with a job of leading people FORWARD and, eventually, allowing for the arrival of the overman.  The overman, of course, being the next phase in human evolution: that which we are ASPIRING to be.

 

With this established, allow us to examine the 7 deadly sins: Gluttony, Sloth, Wrath, Avarice, Pride, Envy and Lust, and how they apply positively to the qualities of physical transformation.

 

GLUTTONY

It can save your life!

Starting with the simplest here: gluttony stands in opposition of moderation and temperance.  The glutton is all consuming, traditionally considered with foodstuffs and beverage but, in truth, gluttonous behavior can manifest in all variety of manor.  We can be gluttons for entertainment, social media, adulation, punishment, etc etc.

 

Those seeking physical transformation, those seeking to ascend, must ABSOLUTELY engage in gluttony.  And whereas gluttony tends to be in opposite of the balance of temperance, we seek a balance IN gluttony by being gluttonous in MANY avenues.  We SHOULD be gluttons for food and drink…but that is primarily because we will be gluttons for TRAINING.  We will absolutely slam our bodies with hard, rigorous intense lifting and conditioning work, and then feed it copious amounts of food in order to facilitate the recovery from the training.  And again: we are gluttons.  We do not eat to FUEL the training: we eat in celebration of the training being DONE.  The food we are gluttons for is in response for the training we are gluttons for.   And how else will we recover?

 

SLOTH

The Superman shirt just made it too perfect

How interesting that sloth will be the opposing force of gluttony in order for us to find some sort of harmonious sin to achieve our overcoming, but here we are to discuss that.

 

I took a LOT of heat for a post I wrote a few years ago, and I’m going to die right on that hill again: if your goal is to get bigger, stop lifting weights 6 days a week.  PLEASE READ THE WORDS THIS TIME.  “Bigger”, not “stronger”.  “Lifting weights”, not “training”.  I train every day, and twice a day tends to be my standard, but I lift weights with a goal of growing muscular size 3-4 days a week.  I’ve been writing this blog for over a decade now: I’m VERY particular about words, and it’s for a reason: words mean things.  In this instance, my point is clear: lifting weights 3-4 days a week is a far superior approach compared to 6 days a week for most trainees.

Ask yourself this question

Those with the slave morality of “work ethic” BRISTLE at the idea of only lifting weights 3-4 days a week.  They only feel satisfied when they are ALWAYS working.  How else will they achieve their “reward” unless they are constantly at their Church of Iron, dutifully performing worship with work and acts of penance?

 

Meanwhile, the slothful sinners get by only lifting 3-4 days a week…and in doing so, transform into something monstrous in the process.  Why is that? In truth: these individuals NEED this sloth and gluttony paired together in order to recover and grow.  Why? 

 

WRATH

Because these individuals are the masters of the sin of wrath.  They bring wrath INTO training.  And no: I do not mean that these individual get hopped up on pre-workout and nose tork and crank up the thrash metal and slam their forehead on the bar before a set.  Those “in the know” recognize that this is FEAR, NOT wrath.  These are the acts of a trainee terrified of what lay before them in the training hall, and they are doing everything in their power to “scare the fear away”.  Fear is not what we seek.  Fear is what controls “the slaves”.

 

No, wrath in training is that ability to take that burning and seething that exists inside of you and pour it into your training in white, hot, pure concentrated unrelenting force in order to absolutely destroy what’s in front of you.  And once again, this is not about slamming bars and throwing plates: this happens on the INSIDE.  This is about being able to pour EVERY OUNCE of yourself into a single set.  Those without wrath, those who are peaceful, they can spend an entire training session never once actually accomplishing any sort of meaningful training reps or sets: training so painfully away from their capability that they do nothing to spark change.  Those who have mastered wrath can do just ONE set for a workout and, in that one set, pour every ounce of their wrath into the set that they have done more than enough to grow.  These individuals will require a substantial amount of sloth and gluttony in order to support their wrath.

 

What, in turn, fuels this wrath?

 

ENVY

Oh my god thank you!

I, to this day, STILL do not understand the big deal about “unrealistic expectations” as it relates to achieving physical greatness.  ALL of my heroes, idols and role models have been unrealistic.  From the ones that actually existed, like Arnold and Hulk Hogan, to cartoons and comics like Juggernaut and Colossus, to myths and legends like Hercules and Samson, I’ve always wanted to be just like these people.  And before I go on any further: stop getting upset about people in the spotlight using steroids.  Even if these dudes were natural, you would STILL never come close to them, because they picked better parents than you did.  You want to talk “unrealistic expectations”, how about we talk about how unfair it is that some folks are simply going to be born better than others.

 

But onto envy: it is BECAUSE I envied the success of these individuals that I had the drive to make myself INTO something “greater than”.  Envy is good: covet the success of others, because it is this covetous activity that will fester that wrath inside of you that is the driver of progress in your training.  Those told not to envy, to find “realistic standards”, to be satisfied with mediocrity…are mediocre.  Slaves.  Those that want only the best will set their sights on obtaining the best.  And once again, on that subject of genetics: they may not rank AMONG the best, but they can be the best that THEY can be.

 

And what should that result in?

 

PRIDE

It's working well for this dude

Much like how gluttony and sloth become the two balancing forces of sin, so too are Pride and Envy, for envy gave us the catalyst to pursue greatness, pride allows us to maintain that pursuit.  And just because we have pride in what we’ve accomplished does not mean that we cannot still have envy as we pursue even greater feats. 

 

But what pride ALLOWS us to do is actually train appropriately for the goal we are in pursuit of.  Oh my God (HAH!  Lord’s name in vain!  Let’s break some commandments too!) can you dudes running beginner programs for over a year PLEASE drop the false modesty and call yourself a “non-beginner” so that you can FINALLY start doing some REAL training?  Your unwillingness to take pride in your work is actually causing you to have results you SHOULD be ashamed of: it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy!  Instead, have the pride necessary to say “I know enough that I can train for real now”, and give yourself permission to run those programs that are going to get you results that OTHERS will envy.  Do your 12-16 weeks of a beginner program and then move immediately on to Super Squats, take a deload, then go after Deep Water.  Oh my God, if a beginner actually did that I would be so ENVIOUS of them, because that’s one HELL of a foundation to start kicking sand in the face of others on the beach.

 

And exercise that pride when it comes time to challenge those whom pride is their downfall.  Engage in that metaphorical sand-kicking.  When someone who has NO business offering advice is out there corrupting the youth with their own slave morality and mediocrity, ask them how much they bench.  Question why they are not big and strong if they know so much about how to accomplish those results.  Ask them why they have not TRAINED anyone to be big and strong if they respond that great coaches are not always great athletes.  Flex your pride and rob them of theirs.

 

And in that robbing…

 

AVARICE & LUST

I'll let you decide which is which

I’m going to combine these two, one reason being that this post has already gotten long, but the second being that both of these serve the function of driving us forward and being the balancing force of wrath.  Avarice and lust are both forms of passion and compulsion, and stand in contrast to the virtues of charity and chastity.  Once again, the “life denying philosophy” of slave morality shows through, in telling the ruled class that they must share amongst themselves their material goods yet keep to themselves their flesh.  An interesting bit of paradox there, but a ruled class that shares does not look to the ruler for wealth, and a chaste ruled class encounters far less instances of the dramas that result from too much promiscuity.

 

Well that was a wild tangent.  Let me bring it back to physical transformation: greed and lust are what compel us to continue toward this pursuit and, again, the balance to wrath.  Training is awful.  Eating well is awful.  In truth, these activities tend to be more associated with the virtuous than the sinner, and engaging in them with such frequency and regularity is sure to drive us to be wrathful.  We will grow to resent these activities rather quickly, and the repeated impact of performing them grows our wrath…but then why do we keep doing them?

 

Because we greedily lust after the RESULTS of this training.  We obsess over these results: we covet them and drool over them and fill our minds with them and will ourselves to perform all manner of nastiness in order to achieve them.  Our lust compels us to chase these results, and our avarice compels us to get more and more and more, with no end in sight.  There’s no satisfaction, there’s never “enough”.  But that is what is needed for physical transformation.

 

Those that are satisfied are those that are ruled.  The rulers are those constantly seeking more.  They expand their empires rather than maintain their households and they, in turn, are the bridge to the overman.  Going for a light walk after a light dinner is the journey of the chaste and the charitable: Super Squats and a gallon of milk a day are for the lusters and the misers.