Tag Archives: health
Retro Relapse: 25 Things Guys Do That Make Them Pussies
RETRO RELAPSE is a series of older articles from various places where I used to write before Talking Pulp.
*Written in 2014.
*This is sort of a sequel to the post I did called 25 Things Manly Men Should Do On a Daily Basis. That post was well-received, so I figured that I should follow-up with the other side of the spectrum.
There are a lot of guys out there. In fact, like fifty percent of the population is guys. I’m not going to check the math on that because math is a waste of time and I’d rather allot more time to cooking bacon-wrapped bacon and getting hammered on brewery tours after chopping enough wood to build a town with a moderately sized zoo to house my Kodiak bear army.
Most men do things that make them pussies. I’ve slipped up once or twice in my life, as I am not perfect. Part of being a man is recognizing your faults, conquering them and never doing them again.
It is also a man’s duty to point out to other men when they are not living up to the essence of their testosterone-fueled birthright.
With that, I am going to list twenty-five things that make guys look like pussies and thus, not like men.
1. They would rather look like Jared Leto than a lumberjack with a dead moose over their shoulder.
2. They are a vegetarian or worse yet, a vegan.
3. They drive a Prius or another car manufacturer’s equivalent. A Smart car is a death sentence.
4. Whenever handed a beer by another man, it must be drank. Even if it is a bad beer. Unless of course you have a better beer on hand to share, in an effort to educate your friend’s palate. You should always have a good beer on hand: always.
5. They can’t pitch a tent: an actual tent. There are pills to help with boners and no man should shame another man who suffers from erectile dysfunction.
6. They fold their thumb under their fingers when making a fist.
7. When given the choice of bacon, they say “no”.
8. They watched Twilight with their significant other and then sat through one of the sequels as well.
9. They wear skinny jeans.
10. They use social media as a call for help or pity party or worse yet, they post song lyrics to convey their emotions.
11. They’ve actually voted on an American Idol contestant.
12. They eat their steak (or any meat, really) well-done or worse yet, with ketchup.
13. They refer to Jack Daniels as “bourbon”.
14. They don’t finish a beer. If you order it or it is given to you and you start drinking it, you must finish it.
15. They use the word “cute” to describe anything other than a female.
16. They consider Lil Wayne to be music.
17. They knock someone for drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon but they are holding either a Bud Light, Coors Light, Miller Light, Mic Ultra or anything else in this category.
18. They sneer at cigars or pipes but fill their lungs with cigarette smoke or worse yet, menthols.
19. They carry purses or worse yet, they actually call them “man bags”.
20. They offer you a scotch, in attempt to appear manly, and they pull out a bottle of Cutty Sark or Dewar’s.
21. They use umbrellas on themselves.
22. They are too afraid of bugs to kill them or catch and release them.
23. They own a Fall Out Boy record or worse yet, they paid for it.
24. They have more beauty/hygiene products than deodorant, soap and beard oil.
25. They are offended by this post or they are hurt and offended by words in general. Grow up, man up, nut up and develop a sense of humor that doesn’t need to be approved by the girl who keeps you in the “friend zone”.
Talking Pulp Wrasslin’: Essential Business & Empty Arenas
I wanted to do a follow up to my last Talking Wrasslin’ article after some time passed and I could properly analyze the changes and differences between the wrestling product that now exists in a COVID-19 world.
As many know, professional wrestling is now considered an “essential business” in the State of Florida, my home state. It’s a pretty controversial decision and one that is actually baffling when you look out how other entertainment and sports companies have been hit.
Sure, you could argue that these people aren’t athletes and wrestling isn’t a sport and they can film their shows in an empty arena. However, people still have to physically contact each other, constantly. With the film and television industries halting productions due to social distancing suggestions, I don’t think that you can really make the argument that professional wrestling should get some type of pass when actors in films and television shows don’t have as much direct contact as athletes in a wrestling match. But politics are politics and we all know who Vince McMahon is buddies with and those of us in Florida know that this buddy is also buddies with our governor, who runs the state where WWE’s Performance Center is located. But I’m not going to harp on about politics other than to add context to the current state of the mainstream wrestling business.
That being said, this also benefits All Elite Wrestling, as they are headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida and can now produce live shows, once again, within Florida’s borders.
Up to this point, World Wrestling Entertainment and All Elite Wrestling have had to produce their content in empty arenas or other locations where there isn’t a crowd. Most of the content has been pre-taped with long shoots in an effort to create multiple weeks worth of television, allowing the wrestlers and production staff to not have to travel nearly as much.
Both companies are essentially doing the same thing but there is a difference in how they are doing it and presenting it.
WWE has been filming TV at their Performance Center in Orlando but despite having million dollar production value, the product feels soulless and flat. It doesn’t connect well with the audience and this is pretty apparent when you look at how the ratings have dropped, even with everyone sitting at home now, desperate for content to watch on television or online.
AEW has filmed in an empty arena they own, as well as at a wrestling school owned by one of their wrestlers and backstage agents. The big difference and the advantage that AEW has is that they were smart enough to take some wrestlers from the back and put them around the guardrails outside of the ring area where they cheer and boo and get involved in the in-ring conflict. It creates crowd interaction even though the crowd isn’t actually comprised of fans. There’s a cool energy about it and it can also work to enhance stories, rivalries and the television show doesn’t feel like it’s taped in a morgue.
Granted, AEW wasn’t doing this and Jim Cornette suggested that they should in one of his podcasts. That very next week, they did add wrestlers to the crowd. But with most guys at AEW having beef with Cornette, I’ll doubt they’ll ever give him credit for the idea. And while they could’ve come up with this on their own, this alteration to their show suspiciously happened at the next broadcast.
Additionally, AEW has had the benefit of having Tony Schiavone and Chris Jericho on commentary. Jericho deserves a fucking Emmy but I don’t think they give those out for wrestling because it wouldn’t be fair to Grey’s Anatomy and Modern Family. Sorry, Sheldon Cooper but you’d get the Buckshot Lariat from “Hangman” Adam Page on that awards stage.
AEW is killing WWE in the commentary game, right now. WWE just can’t top the great Schiavone and there’s no one WWE has on color that can come close to Jericho. If only WWE actually had Mauro Ranallo on a marquee show, they might have a chance. Sorry, Michael Cole… to fans, you’re never going to be that guy despite Vince McMahon being stubbornly convinced that you’re the voice of a generation.
I’ve kept watching both WWE’s Raw and AEW during the pandemic. However, Raw is really damn hard to sit through, especially for three hours, and it all just feels like filler until they can just go back to business as usual. It’s so bad that Raw is all I can do each week. I can’t watch Smackdown and I’d rather watch AEW than NXT, as AEW has more energy and is more engaging.
WWE was already getting shittier and shittier before COVID-19 hit and this pandemic certainly didn’t do it any favors. But it also sort of exposes how out of touch the company is with its own audience, as it just sticks to its guns, looks down its nose at its competition and won’t adjust their product to something similar to what someone else is doing. They’d rather die than adapt or follow the lead of a company they perceive as beneath them. At this point, they’ll be lucky if I can even get through another abysmal episode of Raw.
AEW, despite its current limitations, is still a show that I feel is worth watching and supporting. They’re actually trying really hard over there to make the best out of a bad situation. Their product is far from perfect but they seem to learn from their mistakes and adjust to new changes and challenges without ego being in their way. They certainly seem a lot less stubborn and are open to trying new things while not pretending that they’ve got the game figured out.
Wrestling is really weird, right now. But this is probably just temporary and things will slowly go back to normal. It’ll be interesting to see how these companies come out of this when the dust settles. Sure, WWE will still be top dog but I don’t think that they’ve won over new fans or impressed anyone with how they’ve handled all of this. Their attitude of “People will just tune in because we’re f’n WWE” isn’t a sound strategy and they are probably going to learn that the hard way.
But with rumors of them trying to sell, they might not care anymore. Granted, rumors are just that and this isn’t the first time rumors like that have surfaced. However, Vince McMahon is getting up there in age, despite him thinking he’s immortal, and with the XFL failing again (probably not his fault) and his kids might not wanting to take the reins, the future isn’t guaranteed.
Talking Pulp Wrasslin’: PandemicMania 2020
Well, 2020 has been a real kick in the balls. So much for going into a new decade with optimism and hope for the future.
Granted, all this COVID-19 stuff could actually be a wake up call but humans will probably just do what they always do and that’s be pissed for awhile, promise to make changes to ensure a catastrophe like this doesn’t happen again and then forget all about it after some time passes.
I hope I’m wrong about that but our leaders just react to things that happen and don’t put too much thought into preventing these problems in the first place. But I digress, as I don’t want to go on a political or social rant because that’s not what this is about, it’s about the state of the wrestling business.
Since The ‘Rona showed up and bitchslapped Earth, almost all industries and businesses have been adversely affected by it. The wrestling business is no different, as it can no longer have live shows in front of crowds and because the athletes and personalities involved have to be especially careful, as you can’t have a wrestling match and practice social distancing at the same time.
I noticed how negative it was on the wrestling community when a lot of the indie wrestlers I follow on Twitter were posting about shows being cancelled and not having any real income coming in. Some of them found ways to combat this in pushing their merchandise and by coming up with creative ways to fundraise for those most in need within their community.
The real big blow came just last week, however, on what many are now referring to as Black Wednesday.
In the much larger landscape that is World Wrestling Entertainment, many probably assumed that nearly everyone there was most likely going to be taken care of and a complete loss of their livelihoods wasn’t in the cards. But not too long after WWE’s flagship event, Wrestlemania, the company released and furloughed nearly forty employees, most of them being wrestlers.
Fans and the media haven’t been too kind in criticizing this decision with some calling it “morally heartless” and “not the way”. While it does suck, there could be a silver lining in some regards, as there was such a big pool of talent released into the wild and that could significantly alter the professional wrestling landscape going forward. Also, I’m sure that several of these people will be back sooner rather than later. For those that don’t make it back into the WWE in the next few months, there are at least more options available to them than there were even a year ago.
While they can’t all jump to All Elite Wrestling, the young company that may be able to become real competition for the WWE, there are still other places like New Japan, Ring of Honor and my personal favorite promotion, the National Wrestling Alliance.
I definitely think that AEW will scoop up a few and they could use the help, if I’m being honest. There’s some wrestlers that could flourish in fresh waters and be literal goldmines for that company.
Some of these released wrestlers have already hinted at where they could be going with one of the top tag teams letting it be known that they are most likely going back to New Japan, where they were once superstars as part of the most popular stable that country has seen in years.
All of this happened just a few days after The Revival got their release after wanting it for quite a long time. I put them at the top of the free agent list and I hope that they do stop off in the NWA because it fits their style and what they’re all about.
The landscape isn’t just going to change because of an influx of free agents into the open market, however.
It’s also going to change due to how these marquee wrestling companies have had to adjust how they present their product. Both WWE, especially at Wrestlemania, and AEW have gotten really creative in how they’re trying to make their programs work without live audiences and without being able to show their product in the traditional way that it has been presented in since the start of the television era over half a century ago.
That being said, a lot of this experimental content has been met with mixed results and it is going to be interesting to see what this means long-term.
Are we going to get more unique “matches” like the Firefly Funhouse Match or the Boneyard Match? Is it even wrestling if there’s movie style presentations, multiple camera setups, special effects and obvious edits and cuts? Does this somehow diminish the art of wrestling? While some fans may love this stuff, others don’t and won’t if this becomes the norm and with the wrestling business already having problems with ratings and audience numbers, should they try and reinvent the wheel beyond this pandemic?
While traditionalists will probably turn away, can these new creative changes possibly attract new audiences? I don’t think that they will but stranger things have happened and we live in a time where a new generation of fans don’t really know about the business before WWE became the only mainstream attraction in town.
Wrestling, like everything else, has mostly seen tradition stamped out and replaced with something that barely resembles what it used to be. I guess it’s all subjective but as a wrestling fan, I’d rather see the business thrive. But then again, if it becomes a business I no longer recognize and it can’t generate the same emotion and passion out of me as a fan, then what’s the point?
The great thing about wrestling, especially in a time where there are more mainstream options, is that there can be something for everyone. But if I’m being honest, AEW is guilty of some of the same things they claimed they disliked about WWE.
Plus, modern wrestling fans tend to have blind allegiances towards the things they deem superior. A lot of the things AEW fans claim they like about their favorite promotion’s product are the same things they say they hate about modern WWE. I’m mainly referring to the comedy shit, the goofy shit and the obvious favoritism that gives certain talent more screen time than those who probably deserve it more.
While I’m personally not against the expression of creativity and I’m all for trying new things, I hope that those that hold the keys to the business going into the 2020s don’t lose sight of the great history that existed before them.
Wrestling is fragile, right now. While it does need something to get it over this current hill, it can’t forget about the hard journey it had in getting to this point.
Side note: If you do want to help out your favorite wrestlers through this time, buy their merchandise. A lot of the current wrestlers have their shirts and other stuff available on ProWrestlingTees.
Book Review: ‘Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs’ by Michael T. Osterholm PhD MPH, Mark Olshaker
For what this is, it’s pretty invaluable.
I first heard of Michael T. Osterholm when he appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast to talk about the COVID-19 pandemic and gave his very informed and personal take on what’s going on. In fact, I’d implore people to watch that episode, just to have a better grasp on fact vs. fiction in a time when there is a lot of misinformation and fear floating around.
You can actually watch the episode on YouTube and I’ll link it at the end of the review.
This book goes through the history of Osterholm’s work in this field, as he breaks down how they scientifically figured out a lot of viral mysteries over the last few decades.
This also talks about how pandemics can be prevented and what needs to happen for the world to take these things more seriously and learn how to protect itself. In fact, the writing has been on the wall for awhile and things could have been done to manage the spread of deadly germs and viruses.
Deadliest Enemy is superbly written and frankly, everyone should read it, especially now. There needs to be a collected effort from as many people as possible to push our governments towards taking these threats more seriously. Plus, it would be in everyone’s benefit to understand this stuff on a factual level, as opposed to emotionally reacting to sensationalist headlines and social media rumors.
If it’s hard to find a physical copy of this book, which I imagine is probably true now that the COVID thing has hit us this hard, you can download the Kindle version (see here), which I did.
Rating: 9.5/10
Talking Pulp: A Few Words While Dealing With the “Mexican Lager Viral Event”
This coronavirus insanity has made the world go bonkers. I think people are just scared and allowing the media and others to work them up into a panic that makes them hoard strange things like toilet paper and garlic.
In the meantime, I’m trying to keep my head up, maintain as positive of an attitude as I can while trying to weed out the bullshit, hysteria and conspiracy theories, in an effort to digest just the facts and maintain a rational mindset.
Since I know that I get a lot more readers here than I have followers on Twitter, I thought that I’d share something that I said on that social media platform a few days ago:
As someone who’s lived thru multiple bad hurricanes, it’s important to see how these things bring us together, as opposed to fixating on the a-holes that turn to fear, panic & general douchery. There are more good people than bad, even though sometimes it doesn’t look that way.
I wanted to expand on that, though, as Twitter limits the size of your tweets and you can’t always jot down your complete thoughts in better detail or context with just 280 characters. Granted, most people these days can’t seem to process information larger than a sensationalist clickbait headline but I digress.
So, here we all are, at an interesting time in human history. It’s the start of a new decade, mainstream culture has gotten really weird the last few years and frankly, people nowadays bitch about absolute nonsense and are always looking to get offended because they’re seeking out conflict where there is none.
An intelligent, rational person would probably think that we no longer have any real problems because the ones that people seem to get so worked up about don’t remotely compare to the gravity of a World War, the Holocaust, the Cold War, the Great Depression, Vietnam, civil rights, the Civil War or a plague. Now people get hella pissed because the President tweeted out something rude and crass. Granted, I don’t think Twitter really benefits the guy but whatever, I’m not going to diarrhea all over the Internet about it.
My point is, what’s happening in the world, right now, could be the biggest thing that’s happened in a generation. I’m not discounting 9/11 but this COVID-19 pandemic has already directly affected a lot more people and it doesn’t look like it plans on slowing down, as the world’s greatest minds are doing what they can to try and limit the damage it is going to cause.
Many people think that the governments are overreacting and maybe they are but ultimately, this is a more serious problem than what many are seeing it as. The reason why it is this big of an issue is our lack of preparedness. The writing has been on the wall for quite some time and this virus could have been more effectively countered at a much earlier stage.
More than anything, I hope this is a lesson and that those who have the ability and the power to do something about this, will be much more vigilant in the future. The spread of viruses needs to be more of a priority and I’m speaking as someone that doesn’t like big government and is pretty laissez-faire. But if I’m paying taxes, which I always will in America, I’d rather it go towards science, medicine and technological advances that can enrich the future and make it safer.
Most of us are good people. Most of us want the best for not just ourselves but also our neighbors. We live in a world where technology has made us closer and our communities aren’t just our local neighborhoods. Collectively, we should be working to survive and thrive. It’s in all of our best interest to make sure that the world is healthy on all levels.
Yes, there will always be shitty, terrible people. But we can’t let those few speak and act for the rest of us. They aren’t us and I think that many people lose sight of that when they turn on the news and see spring breaking Millennials being self-absorbed dipshits or normal people, full of fear, fist fighting over toilet paper and snack cakes. These people aren’t the majority but it is really easy for the majority to get pulled into this destructive, paranoid orbit and become what they fear.
I know it’s become a cliche statement but everyone should be the change that they want to see in the world. Be better, be positive, try not to lose your cool in times like this and know that, most likely, most of us will get through this.
We’ve had a pretty easy existence for a long time but once in a while, shit hits the fan. This is shit hitting the fan. But how we handle it is up to us. You control how you respond to the shit that the world throws at you.
In the end, this will be much easier to get through if more people have each other’s backs and we all try to help where we can. The media just exists to make money off of our fear, paranoia and insecurity, so it is in their nature to try and generate more, especially in times like these.
Learn how to read through the bullshit. Know the facts. Don’t take every rumor or clickbait headline you read as a stone cold truth. But also, be vigilant in your own life when it comes to the safety of yourself and your loved ones.
Honestly, I feel like everything I’m saying here, should be common sense. But when my social media and news feeds are full of 95 percent negativity, I thought that I’d have to put something positive out there.
People keep talking about flattening the curve, well… we also need to flatten the fear, paranoia and negativity. We need to be rational, logical and willing to build the world up instead of tearing it down.
Lets treat this threat as a reminder that we need to look beyond petty differences and actually see the good in other people, regardless of politics, religion or whatever other bullshit that divides us.
Human beings have been wired to seek out conflict; it’s in our nature. But we can also evolve beyond that and try to be something better. It’s on us whether or not we destroy ourselves or reach a higher purpose.
I don’t want to lose faith in humanity, as I see good, kind acts every day. So maybe it’s time that we all start making a real effort to push the needle in the other direction.
Retro Relapse: 30 Things You May Find In a Man’s Beard That Aren’t Poop
RETRO RELAPSE is a series of older articles from various places where I used to write before Talking Pulp.
*Written in 2015.
Recently, some asshole did some bullshit study about how beards are full of poop. That asshole was immediately put on blast as many came out to debunk that libel against masculine plumage.
Snopes, who fact checks the crap out of everything, even spent time debunking the agenda-riddled claims of a person who is probably a hairless feminist with a grab bag full of phobias (Snopes article here).
The fact of the matter is, if you are into facesitting or other ass-to-mouth sort of activities, you may just end up with some feces in your majestic beard. That also doesn’t mean that you can’t take a shower like a normal person after some intimate tomfoolery. With a good scrubbing, you can have a shit free beard.
The thing is, it is probably pretty goddamned rare that some dude is just going to have some shit chilling in his whiskers.
This is why I have comprised a list of thirty things that are more likely to be found in a manly man’s beard. And if any of these seem unsettling, you aren’t a manly man or wouldn’t be worthy enough to court one. And again, all it takes is a good scrubbing to clean one’s facial mane. Just be clean people.
So here are thirty things more likely to be in a beard than poop:
1. whiskey
2. beer
3. coffee
4. steak blood
5. scales from a devoured Alaskan king salmon
6. piece of a hot dog or sausage
7. a whole piece of bacon
8. tobacco
9. hot sauce
10. mushroom sauce from a schnitzel eating contest
11. toothpaste
12. soap
13. pine tar
14. motor oil
15. hay
16. drywall
17. sawdust
18. scorched bits of hair from blacksmithing
19. precious metals and minerals
20. slobber from our beast dogs
21. cat tongue residue
22. lipstick from an admirer
23. glitter from an aggressive stripper
24. sweat from doing sports or man stuff
25. old baseball cards
26. attractive girls’ phone numbers
27. broken shards from a devoured Rammstein CD
28. wild fur from headbutting a bison
29. diamonds from coal that wasn’t immediately scrubbed out
30. a family of new beards hiding in the safety and comfort of the older more robust beard
Retro Relapse: New Year? New You? Keep It Simple
RETRO RELAPSE is a series of older articles from various places where I used to write before Talking Pulp.
*Written in 2016.
Resolutions are stupid and 99.9% of us fail at keeping them. They are too extreme and come with too much pressure. And then we beat ourselves up over some impossible task that we were so certain we would do before coming to the realization that we underestimated the difficulty of the change or we just didn’t think it through well enough.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I haven’t since high school, when it was pretty much customary to return to class after winter break and tell everyone what your resolution was. Back then, it was better grades, to be better at sports or the one you didn’t say out loud, to get with that hot chick in your chemistry class.
As an adult, people join the gym on January 1st, go on some extreme juice cleanse bullshit diet or decide to do some sort of extreme behavioral modification – thinking they can completely change on an instantaneous whim like magic. Shit just isn’t that simple. Well, joining a gym and staying fit is fairly simple but those who fail seem to push too hard, too fast, right out of their comfort zone – physically and mentally.
There is nothing wrong with bettering yourself. Hell, one of the key points of life and growing older, is bettering yourself. You learn from your mistakes, you make changes, you adapt and you improve as a human being and at finding what you’re good at, what you enjoy and who you truly are. That is why growing older is truly fucking awesome.
And yeah, it is January 3rd, as I write this. Maybe I’m a few days late at reaching out to people regarding the New Year’s resolution hysteria. But then again, many of you may have already faltered at your annual promise already. That’s fine. Fuck it. Don’t hate yourself over it. Instead, be a bit more realistic because maybe you went hardcore out the gate and immediately crashed into a wall.
Think about the end result of what you want to achieve. If it is weight loss, getting diesel or something else, think about the end result of your ideal goal achieved. Forget about the time, the amount of work involved and trying to take it all on at once. Make it your decision to reach that goal, no matter how long it takes and at what pace. If you fall today, move forward tomorrow. Starting at an extreme rate usually has an equally or greater extreme rate of crashing and burning. Know your pace and don’t kill yourself over it.
Again, I don’t do the whole New Year’s resolution thing. I make goals around the beginning of the year that I want to achieve. They aren’t resolutions and they have nothing to do with it being a new year. It just so happens that New Year’s Day is just after the holidays and my birthday, a period of time where I am the furthest away from being a master of diet and fitness. In fact, I am pretty much drunk from Thanksgiving till around January 2nd or so. It just so happens that the beginning of the calendar year is a good time to hit the reset button.
Anyway, I look at where I am, decide where I want to go and I work towards it. I don’t try to hike twenty miles on a mountain trail on day one; I start slow and work my way up. I approach it realistically. If I ran out of my house, hungover but gung ho, in an effort to scale mountains and epic distances, I’d probably fall down the side of the mountain sliding down a trail of my own bourbon-scented puke.
If you’ve already quit, get back on that damned horse and get back to it. Just slow your roll. Exist in reality, you aren’t a superhero.
My time for getting my shit together is tomorrow morning. I always start on my first day back to work after the holidays. Besides, who wants to actually start their “new you” bullshit on New Year’s Day, hungover and fiending for a bag of McMuffins and a bottle of Excedrin Migraine?
As long as you keep working towards your goal, you are succeeding. And failure today doesn’t mean failure tomorrow. Unless you continue to choose failure.
Retro Relapse: Men & Adventure
RETRO RELAPSE is a series of older articles from various places where I used to write before Talking Pulp.
*Written in 2014.
Men need adventure. I don’t know why, it is just in our DNA. It is something that burns at our very core and something that needs to be quenched once in a while, otherwise we start to turn into some formless goo of a person.
Most men today, are this goo. I guess that’s good for bossy bitchy women, as their goo men are more or less putty in their hands. However, to the good not-so-bossy non-bitchy women out there, you’ve got to understand our thirst for adventure and respect it. Just like men need their other men friends to go out and be men and shit, they also need to feel like Indiana Jones every so often.
I hike for my health, sure. However, I could just walk on the sidewalk or go to easy trails and still get pretty good results. I choose to hike in dangerous, swampy, murky and reptile-infested places because it is an adventure. When I complete a ten mile hike in the Everglades or nearby, I don’t just feel a sense of accomplishment from the miles I walked, calories I burned and the hot Florida sun I absorbed. I also feel accomplishment from knowing that I once again conquered an area of the world that most people are deathly afraid of even going into. I certainly feel great from doing the physical challenge but I feel more elation from the adventure. The times I was in real danger, I walked away feeling high.
This doesn’t mean that a man needs to go out and do stupid shit and take ridiculous risks but facing hard and heavy shit and weathering the elements has a pretty big spiritual payoff and does wonders for the ego and a man’s sense of self. There are a lot of societal pressures on men, as to what makes a man. Well, first of all, fuck what anyone else thinks. Secondly, every man is different. Thirdly, one of the things that does make a man is adventure.
Finding adventure or even time for adventure in the modern world is difficult. We wake up, shower, eat breakfast, go to work, go to lunch, go back to work, go home, eat dinner, go to sleep, wash, rinse, repeat. That is our daily life and for some of us, we don’t really get to escape the modern adulthood cycle even on weekends. If we do escape work some days, it is usually replaced with errands. There is very little time for ourselves and when we have it, we are usually too exhausted to do anything about it.
As far as time goes, I do have the benefit of not having a wife and kids. I’m not saying that my lifestyle is preferable, it just is my lifestyle and it gives me the benefit of having more time to myself than most men my age. Although, I do have friends with wives and kids and a few of them are fortunate enough to have wives that allow them their time to themselves, as they also repay the favor, allowing their wives to have their own personal time. I think that’s a definite good sign of a strong marriage built on respect and understanding. But this post isn’t about marriage, so let me get back on track.
The thing is, you have to make time do get out there and do what you need to do to feed the fire inside. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to your significant other and your friends. If you have kids, you owe it to them because you certainly don’t want your kids to look back and remember you as that guy that would just conk out on the couch with a glass of whiskey every Sunday afternoon. The things that you really want for yourself and who you want to be ideally, are what you should be instilling in your children. Unless your ideal self and what you want for them is to be a semi-buzzed couch potato that can’t make it through the first half of a football game without passing out and snoring like a power chipper. And to the wives out there, is this who you wanted to marry?
Nowadays, adventure seems like something of the past that there isn’t room for in the modern world. Technology and innovation has changed a lot. For instance, nearly every inch of Earth has been explored and millions of people have scaled massive mountains. Treasure hunting has been reduced to retirees on Florida beaches with metal detectors and spades. Modern adventure has become a sort of simulation or a thing achieved through extreme quick fixes like bungee jumping, skydiving, base jumping, etc.
Personally, none of those appeal to me. I prefer roughing the elements on the ground and encountering seemingly life-threatening scenarios that way. Alligators and venomous snakes give me more of a rush, even though they mostly hightail it when you get near them. And I’ve yet to see a bear, boar, deer or panther that hasn’t ran away at the first sight of me. But there is always that chance of danger and being caught in the moment is what feeds my fire. But each man is different, you have to find what your thing is. Maybe figuring out what your favorite form of adventure is, could be an adventure in itself.
You can’t keep ignoring this part of yourself and tucking it away somewhere. It is a big part of what we are and not just men but human beings. Our entire history and our entire lives up until a few decades ago was nothing but adventure. That shit doesn’t just die because technology has made life easier. That’s like the best baseball player in the world quitting his sport to focus on playing MLB The Show from his couch. But that is essentially what we have done. We live vicariously through movies, video games and shit we see on the Internet but that doesn’t do anything other than make that fire burn more, at least for me. I’m not satisfied with simulation and watching someone else do it. I want the real thing.
Some guys are satisfied enough getting adventure through sports. It worked for me. I even raced cars for a bit and that did serious wonders for my adventurous soul. Everyone has got their thing or several things. It is imperative that you find it and act on it though.
It’s way too easy to keep making excuses and convincing yourself that you don’t have the time or energy to devote to anything other than your modern life cycle. Life isn’t about mundane cycles. Life is something you live and you aren’t living it passed out on the couch during your downtime. Teddy Roosevelt’s ghost is laughing his ass off right now.
Men need to experience and discover new things. Why have we stopped?
You see, adventure isn’t just about cheap thrills, adrenaline and the high you get, it is also about finding yourself, testing yourself and truly getting to know who you are, what you’re made of and pushing yourself even further than what you thought you could. That’s living life to the fullest and no one can say you wasted your time if you just went out and made the effort. You never know, you might like what you find.
Retro Relapse: The Truth About Strength & Resilience
RETRO RELAPSE is a series of older articles from various places where I used to write before Talking Pulp.
*Written in 2014.
Whether you’re a man or a woman, chances are you’ve heard the phrase “You don’t know your own strength” at some point during your life. Never have truer words been spoken to you. It doesn’t matter if you are a strongman able to throw giant tires half the length of a football field or a petite girl trail running. Inside all of us lies more strength and resilience than we know. All it takes is that extra something to push it out of us.
I’ve had a few situations in my life where I’ve come to realize this after being faced with a scenario where I had to tap into something deeper in order to succeed or in some cases, survive. The most recent example came just yesterday, as I pushed myself harder than I should have and found myself in a potentially life-threatening situation.
I went hiking at Estero Bay Preserve, which I like due to the muddy and watery spots, as well as the changes in environment for a seemingly small area encased within the outer trail: a 4.5 mile loop. I have mapped out a course using every inch of trail available at this state park. My custom course is a hair over 6.5 miles, using unmarked trails I can extend it to about 10 miles. Yesterday, I attempted to do the 6.5 mile version because I knew that I could complete it in well under three hours and I needed to spend my day productively, as I was getting cabin fever sitting at home on a Sunday.
The mistake I made was starting at just before 1 p.m., as I usually start at 8-9 a.m. The reason why this was a mistake is that it was hot as shit outside. My weather app said it was 96 degrees but it said it felt like 105. It wasn’t unbearable when I started but by the time I got over 3 miles in, 96 degrees felt like 120. I found myself at a point in the trail where I was the furthest out and no matter which route I walked back, I had 3 miles ahead of me. In this situation, I chose the path of least resistance.
When things got unbearable, it hit me like a brick wall. Leading up to it, I felt myself getting hotter and I rested here and there but when it hit, it hit hard. I drank three liters of water, not to mention the two 20 oz. bottles I had within an hour before hiking. It didn’t seem to matter. My skin was extremely hot, my head felt like it was boiling inside and I was sweating profusely. When I got about another mile, I was still sipping on the water I had but I was no longer sweating. I felt the need to piss but my body couldn’t urinate. My vision was somewhat blurred and I was really sluggish as I continued down the trail. I was feeling the effects of what was close to becoming heat stroke.
Each time I got to a place with sufficient shade, I would rest for a few minutes out of the sun: sipping water. There weren’t a lot of shady areas, so the stretches between them seemed almost endless, as I struggled in the heat. When I got to some shade that I knew was less than a mile from my car, I could feel myself getting worse, even as I laid in the shade. I was alone, no one was there and I had to rely on myself to get me back to my vehicle, more water and a cold A/C. I didn’t think I could move at all but I knew I had to push myself because if I stopped again, I wouldn’t get up. I had carelessly put myself in one of the most dangerous situations I have ever been in.
But I got up, I pushed myself harder than I ever had. It was hard, part of me wanted to keel over and just wish for sunset and rain. I kept on walking. What was less than twenty minutes seemed like hours and I got hotter and hotter. I tried to distract my mind and think of other things but it wasn’t possible. It was literally hell but I didn’t stop.
After getting to my car, getting home, taking a cold shower for an hour and passing out, I woke up knowing that I had tapped into something that usually isn’t there. When I’m in the gym and need to push that extra bit, I do but I know if forced I could go even harder. Same thing goes for when I do other physical activities. If it gets too hard and there is an easy out, usually we take it. It isn’t until we’re forced or some other circumstance arises that most of us unlock that extra resilience and strength.
When I get to that point where I feel like giving up, I remember moments like this. I remember that I’ve faced some harrowing shit and walked away. I’ve also dealt with the worst that the universe could throw at me and overcome that. It’s not to brag because I’m not special. We all have this. We just have to remember it when we’re down or when we need to overcome an obstacle whether physical, mental or emotional.
It’s too easy to tap out.
Talking Pulp 
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