FLOOD MYTHS AND REBIRTH

 

If you look into it, pretty much every culture on earth has some sort of “flood myth”.  For most of my audience, the most easily accessible one is the “Noah’s Ark” flood myth from the Christian Bible/Jewish Torah, which for my readers who somehow AREN’T familiar with that story, I’ll quickly summarize: God realizes humanity was a mistake (I mean…) picks one man out of the lot, tells him to build a big boat for him, his family and 2 of all animals on the planet (because humanity was a mistake but the animals are alright, and if you’ve ever had a pet dog you surely agree with that), then floods the Earth for 40 days and nights, effectively etch-e-sketch erasing the species, then the family safely docks and generations of inbreeding re-populates the planet.  The Gilgamesh Epic has a similar such story to it, Viking “Ragnarok” is to lead to the eventual re-start of existence once the battle is done, Hinduism has a concept of a continual destruction and recreation of existence (meaning a non-linear timeline, and instead a cyclical one), and Nietzsche wrote about the eternal recurrence in his own philosophy, which he borrowed heavily from 19th century understandings of Hinduism and Buddhism. And outside of “myths”, we, as a planet, actually DID experience our own flood story.  It’s wild to think that, prior to the existence of humanity, there were f**king DINOSAURS roaming the planet, living full lives, eating mega-fauna and living in a balanced eco-system only to have a goddamn meteor strike the Earth, disrupt everything and set in course a chain of events eliminating one species and allowing the creation of another. 

If you want a quick summary

The fact these myths exist in all cultures AND that we’ve actually, as a global populace, have experienced a real-live version of this phenomenon is proof-of-concept that we, as a species, AND the universe as an entity have some sort of inherent and intrinsic desire to experience this wiping the slate clean and starting over.  There’s something appealing about it in the very fiber of our being as a sentient species AND within the cosmic energies that it’s simply an undeniable drive.  We will it from within AND it’s willed upon us as well.  In turn, fighting against this drive is to fight our own nature AND to fight against the will of the very universe, which, like fighting the tide, is a losing battle.  No matter how much we thrash, no matter how much progress we feel we are making, we will eventually succumb to this drive.  It is simply what we are.

 

And as grand-scale as this discussion may appear, it absolutely still relates to how we train and how we eat.  I’ve alienated some of my reading base recently due to my current obsession with carnivore style eating, but ultimately what I am expressing is a flood myth and rebirth within my nutrition.  I had one way I had been following for years (“low carb” via tons of hacks and cheats and VERY frequent food consumption) until a catastrophic flood event resulted in a total wiping of the slate clean and starting over from scratch.  The transformation happened live, all was documented, I was drawn to “high speed/low drag” and found myself where I’m at now, which is in turn the catalyst for the e-book I’m writing based off 3-sentences, which I’m honestly writing THIS piece JUST to give my readers a break from that book as I write it, because I know it’s not everyone’s jam.  But I’ve already digressed.

I am quite talented at this trick

 

This is NOT the first time I’ve experienced a flood in my training and nutrition.  This is one of several flood myths.  My first bit of ANY sort of formal training was martial arts when I was 8 years old, and martial arts consumed my life until I was 21, at which point I hung up my gloves and switched my entire focus to lifting.  Yes, I lifted before that time: to supplement my martial arts. Now, suddenly, I was married and had to pick my priorities: martial arts, lifting weights, being a loving spouse.  I could manage 2 of those: not 3.  And hey, at that same time, my nutrition experience a flood: I went from low-carb college dinning hall living to full tilt Dave Tate early 2000s style junkfood binging to put on as much weight as possible.  And this flood lasted for 3 years until I actually COMPETED in a powerlifting meet, at which point my reality got hit with another flood (you’re eating and training like an a-hole) and I had to wipe the slate clean and start over again.  And when I had my kid: a flood: it’s time to start eating and training like a role model.  And when I blew out my knee, a flood.  Etc etc.

 

And often, these floods coincided with me obtaining new (to me) information/education, for good or for ill.  Pavel Tsastouline’s “Beyond Bodybuilding” completely wiped my slate clean when it came to training, and overnight I switched from Muscle and Fitness workouts to sets of 5 for everything all the time.  Randall Strossen’s PhD in psychology was absolutely put to use when I read “Super Squats”, because he had me bought in hook-line-sinker on 20 rep squats and a gallon of milk a day, completely reversing my low-carb college dinning hall living up until that point.  After missing a 500lb squat the second time in a powerlifting meet, I decided to see what all this “5/3/1” was all about.  Mark Bell’s “Power Magazine” (which, at the time of its publication, my local Barnes and Noble would only ever order 2 copies of each issue, so I had to work FAST if I wanted to read it) is where I rediscovered Jon Andersen after having first seen him compete in a 2005 IFSA competition, wondering who that super-jacked strongman was, and my first exposure to Deep Water and the WILD ride that followed there.  A flood of new knowledge, to inspire a cleansing flood to change paradigms.

Perfectly built to survive flood

 

Which is why I speak to not fighting these floods as they occur.  We have within us both a drive to wipe the slate clean AND some inherent seeking of comfort in things NEVER changing.  That, alone, is a fantastic demonstration of the duality that is humanity.  But people forget the former, and instead get upset with their favorite sources of training and nutrition WHEN those very beings experience their own floods.  “Why does this person keep changing their views!”  Because they are GROWING.  They are BECOMING!  Nietzsche, alongside his eternal recurrence, wrote of “the overman”, noting that humanity, in its current state, was simply a stepping stone in the course of history that would eventually result in the arrival OF the overman.  We are not done growing.  And, in turn, if the source you turn to for training or nutrition changes their views on things, this should be an EXCITING time rather than a time of anxiety.  It means we still have more room to grow, more potential to activate, and, ultimately, more avenues for success available to us.  How awful would it be if there were, in fact, limits to the ways we can succeed.  If a former carnivore finds success with eating carbs: outstanding!  More ways to win.  Same if the reverse occurs.  If one was initially an advocate of super high volume and now espouses the benefits of minimalist training, this person is no “traitor”: they are a shinning beacon of periodization.

 

It is the “lukewarm” transitions that we must reject, as THEY are unnatural.  There is no myth about gradual change: that is evolution (which, yes, some may contend that evolution is the myth and the flood is reality…some other day, perhaps, we discuss that).  We are a species that exists in a universe that promotes and supports the belief in a radical, destructive change from which we are reborn like a Phoenix.  THAT story is far more compelling, and it’s impacts far more substantive.  Embrace the desire to just scrap everything and start over from scratch.  Take everything you know, throw it out, and start over doing exactly the opposite of what you were doing before.  Periodization through complete and total self-destruction, as soon to follow will be self-Reconstruction, and what will result is something unique and incredible.