“GOD IS DEAD”: CREATING OUR OWN PURPOSE WITH THE ABUNDANCE OF CHOICES

It’s no secret that I’m a total Nietzsche fanboy, so it’s always a delight when I can write about him (and DnD and Magic The Gathering for that matter, and I’m sure I’ll combine them all sometime soon, but stick with me).  Nietzsche is famous (or infamous depending) for the quote “God is dead”, which appears in many of his works, to include “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and “The Gay Science”, but many tend to take it at face value as some sort of rallying call for atheism, which severely undercuts the meaning and intent behind it.  Irrespective of one’s personal beliefs, Nietzsche was expressing the notion that the BELIEF in God had died on a cultural level, for era that Nietzsche wrote it was an era wherein the Church and God no longer had the cultural significance that they held during the presiding eras (from Rome to the Dark Ages to the Middle Ages to even the Renaissance).  Not only does this have an immediate cause for a crisis of faith, but it is also, in turn, the catalyst for an existential crisis: when God originally gave us purpose, and now God is dead…what is our purpose?  And what specifically is the SOURCE of our new purpose?  And to resolve this, Nietzsche proposed the following solution: we make our OWN purpose.  In that, he has many outstanding quotes as well, to include “I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible” and “Become who you are.  Do what only you can do.  Be the master and the sculptor of yourself”, and “One must give value to their existence by behaving as if ones very existence were a work of art” and honestly a ton more, but this post could get VERY huge if I just keep slinging baller Nietzsche quotes, so let me just go into HOW in the world this relates to physical transformation.

Honestly, you could do worse as far as a training plan goes

Many who proclaim to be pursuing physical transformation are, in truth, “seeking God”.  I don’t mean in a true religious sense, but in the sense that these folks want the ONE TRUTH.  They want to know what is the 100% absolute most true and accurate way to achieve physical transformation, so they can cast aside all the false idols and beliefs and find their way to heaven.  And they want studies and facts to back it all up, which is comedic to me, given that religion is faith-based, yet these folks need hard evidence.  But that’s a discussion for another time.  Let’s, instead, take time to lament these poor misguided souls, because they seek monotheism in a world where the gods are many and exist in a pantheon, constantly bickering, plotting, scheming, but also partying, cajoling and causing mischief.  These God seekers are Christian Pilgrims that just stumbled onto a 2 week long Viking mead festival, and Loki is pouring with a heavy hand.

And while I’m sloppily applying religious metaphors to training, allow me to channel religious scholar AND track athlete AND amazing coach Dan John, who has gone on to say on multiple occasions “Everything works…for 6 weeks”.  And with that, I’ve finally arrived at the point of what I’m writing here: “God” is dead.  There is no ONE true way to achieve physical transformation.  But, in turn, we should not see this situation as lamentable but as FREEING, because what it means is that we have SO many ways to achieve our goals of physical transformation.  We are not BOUND to ONLY one way to succeed: there is, in fact, an ABUNDANCE of methods to get where we are going.  In turn, it means that the odds of us failing to achieve our goals are incredibly slim: failing in ONE approach could quite literally be the path of success on another avenue.

Redefine the terms of victory and you can never lose!

Let me go back to the religion bit again here.  Within the 10 Commandments (Judiasm/Christianity/Islam) is “Thou Shalt not kill”.  It’s pretty clear.  In Dante’s Inferno, the wrathful are condemned to an endless war against each other, constantly engaged in battle, facing dismemberment and “death”, only to be respawned and forced to fight again for all eternity.  Then we pivot over to the Vikings again, who believed that the greatest virtue was to die violently in battle, wherein they would be rewarded by going to Valhalla, wherein they would…engage in an endless battle against each other for all of eternity, experiencing dismemberment and “death”, only to be respawned and do it all over again.  One man’s sin is another man’s virtue, and one man’s punishment is another man’s reward.  This holds true in systems of physical transformation.

Did you oversleep and miss out on breakfast this morning?  That’s the most anabolic meal of the day!  Oh wait, no: you just did some accidental intermittent fasting!  Hey: there’s a TON of research on how valuable that is.  “Accidentally” binged on the weekend?  No way amigo: you’re doing the ABCDE diet!  Or the Zig-zag!  Or maybe you’re carb cycling!  You were doing carnivore and “caved” and had some peanut butter: cool, we’re doing keto now.  Or was it organic?  Today is a paleo day it looks like.  Oh, it was a full on PBJ on white bread with skippy and grape jelly?  Know who loves PBJs?  Dan John for “Mass Made Simple” and Paul Carter for Blue Collar nutrition/training.  And this is JUST the nutrition side of things.  In contrast to Deep Water’s 10x10 squats, you have a single set of 20 with Super Squats, or a set of 50 with your bodyweight with Mass Made Simple, or 6x1 with Easy Strength, or 3x1 with Conjugate, of the classic 3x8-12 with so many other protocols, that if you “mess up” a squat workout, you’re bound to have succeeded with a different one at the same time.

This guy is all set for success SOMEHWERE...

This drives “truth seekers” nuts!  They are constantly looking for studies to REFUTE the findings of other studies so that they can KNOW for sure that the path that they have personally chosen IS the “one true path”, but instead it becomes necessary for us to make our own purpose THROUGH this abundance of choices.  We construct a patchwork religion comprised of the various bits of pieces of information and approaches that suit US.  Because what we are discovering from all the studies and reports of success with so many different approaches to training and nutrition is that pretty much EVERYHING works (for 6 weeks!)  But, like religion, it works WHEN we believe in it.  When we fully invest ourselves into our approach, giving it diligent and authentic effort and intensity, when we know that it’s going to work because we know it’s going to work, when we are “bought in”, we make our own purpose.  It’s only when we merely dip our toes in the water while clinging onto shore that we find our results wanting, because we were never really “believers” in the first place there.

Read whatever studies you want to read.  Listen to whatever stories you want to listen to.  Believe whatever you want to believe.  God is dead, and through his death you have been granted unlimited freedom to create your own purpose.