Jocko Podcast 336: Your Superpower. How To Get It. How To Use It.

I have to confess when I came across Jocko Willink a few years ago, I didn't want to like him, I wanted him to be some ex-Jarhead gung-ho all-American fuck-knuckle who I could dismiss as a product of the American military-industrial complex, getting old and fat on war kudus on the TED talk circuit ... BUT then I listened to a snippet, a slither, a wafer-thin segment, the core, the essence, the absolute gist "Extreme Ownership."

It was revelatory, and I realised I was just suffering from extreme envy and resentment and that this geezer put himself in the line of fire with all the awful risks that go with the job, to protect the freedoms we in the west enjoy. Frankly, I was ashamed of myself. I adopted extreme ownership and being responsible for everything (If you read here, then you will know I almost came off the rails completely). But at my back, and in my head, Jocko and Jordan Petersons' words and ethos's made me get back up and drag myself kicking and screaming through another twenty-four hours, another day, another week, another month and so on. 

I think we can safely say the incremental interest of small positive changes have accrued. Thank you, Jocko, thank you, Jordan Peterson, you helped me, put me back together.

I don't listen to all Jocko's podcasts, some of them are for want of a better phrase culture-specific, so, while they may be informative in some way, they sit outside my niche interests. This one piqued my interest because when Jocko talks about your powers, he does so in the context of your mindset, not that you can hump 40kilos in a backpack 40-miles through a field of broken glass while it rains hailstones the size of golf balls.

I will say no more, watch the podcast, absorb the information on offer. Your life will improve, it really is that simple. 

 

The Importance of Being Ethical, with Jordan Peterson

The title "The importance of being ethical" short changes this discussion. I can never quite put my finger on what it is about Jordan Petersons' speech that grabs me and holds me. It's like there are two of him running in parallel, one orates the moment while the other simultaneously takes the free elaboration of an idea (from a question posed) and condenses it down to a gist (one of his favourite words). However, the form of the gist -if you have the vocabulary and the ability to extrapolate- hits your brain and unpacks like a Zip file. It's quite extraordinary.

I watch a lot of these Youtube broadcasts instead of mainstream TV, so much so that I subscribe to Youtube (ad-free is better). I don't review them as a rule, I just repost them with my recommendation in brief, likewise this one. Just watch it, it's an hour of two smart people hashing out topical ideas and putting some Post-Modern mores under a microscope and finding them to be at best foolish and at worse counterproductive to us all. 

I will say this, you can't watch Jordan Peterson and not grow up a bit, and in some cases a lot. You put yourself your ideas and opinions under the same microscope the protagonists in these interviews put the world and themselves under and that has great utility.

Specially from Russia! Documentary "SEARCH FIND TELL" (not my title not my content GGRF).

I don't quite know what to make of this video. I watched it end to end. I have effectively got skin in the game by dint of family connections and sit in an odd position of not wanting to believe either of the major players could either be so stupid or duplicitous to the detriment of seven billion people (I suspect that's self-preservation... possibly denial). However, it would be ludicrous of me not to look at the events of seventy years ago and think it's unthinkable in our time; from the comfort of our apparent consumerist democracy, all but inured to the effects of wars that by-and-large for the last few decades "always happen at their place, not ours."

Search and Tell (Russian viewpoint of the Ukraine-Russia war).

Clearly, as a piece of documentary film it's built around a certain dramatic `lean' possibly in a style relative to its home culture that makes me look at it with a slightly jaded eye, and in the slightly cynical knowledge that all of the links, the narrator connects together over a period of nineteen years directly, and with tangential links dating back seventy-six years, look to that same jaded eye like the kind of random connections conspiracy theorists put together to bolster their case.

However, the pragmatic me says to ignore the style; I don't get Bollywood, so why should I understand this guy's style straight off the bat? And instead, look at the overall content, however, propagandic it feels to my western European heart (for want of a better word), and wonder how close we actually are to war after thirty years from Glasnost? And from what felt like the end of all that cold war shit that plagued our childhoods, only to bimble through the nineties, noughties and now the twenties to find ourselves looking at new ICBM's that get here before the four-minute warning has finished telling us we are fucked.

I get the metaphor at the end regarding Russia being backed into a corner and feeling like it has nothing to lose, and better to end a horrible existence with a horrible end than to endure the horrible existence. But, that footnote also makes me think this could be very clever wrong-footing or coercion of people like myself and others, who do see our governments and media organisations as a bunch of hypocritical bellends in need of a dry slap. And that this is just another slice of misinformation to muddy already murky waters.

So the disclaimer is that I am posting this here because I don't know the truth, I suspect many of our politicians don't know the truth either, they just brief what they have been briefed on and take the paychecks.

There is plenty of information from both sides of the once Iron Curtain that suggests toxicity at a political level that exists almost entirely to justify military budgets and by dint of that, multi-billion dollar corporations that make things go BANG! So, My eye is jaded. I don't know what to believe anymore, but I do think the broader the spectrum you view the less likely you are to be taken in by any ideology. And you now have the opportunity to do likewise.

Tek Across the Somerset Levels

The third ride out since I reassembled my bike.

An approximate measure using Google Earth says I cycled 26.58km (in old money 16.5 miles). The route went south down the esplanade through Highbridge, Walrow, and out towards Watchfield, and from there the video starts.

Interestingly the Western Power Distribution truck was a contractor doing security, because the new pylons need to be looked after in case of activists or idiots.

https://www.bikehacks.com/trek-4300-mountain-bike/

Silage

Haylage

Easter and Christmas Cacti

Every plant in this tray was grown from a single leaf of a plant my mother owns or owned. The flowers are truly spectacular. I find it amazing that some people do manage to kill these plants.

Image courtesy of T'Tinternet because none of my photos are equal to this one. I have this colour flower I also have peach, Pink, and near Red.