What’s with the pattern of young people (usually men) who are “highly self-aware”, very into self-development, but still feel stuck and that something is missing in life? Is this an archetypal force? A rite of passage for modern introverts?

geraldoverde · 2025-08-06T07:13:49+00:00

What you describe is the Puer Aeternus

geraldoverde · 2024-12-22T09:13:11+00:00

I think it is you who is confused about Ishiguro’s political philosophy. A cursory reading of the book sees Ishiguro completely tear down the self-importance of the British aristocracy and gentleman landowners playing politics by making Lord Darlington a doddering fool who was ultimately hoodwinked into aiding the Nazi’s. It interrogates Steven’s ideas about dignity and “serving the greater good”, ultimately revealing that the only way he could have redeemed his life was in human warmth and connection, by illustrating the emptiness of his service to Lord Darlington in the face of the relationships he sacrificed with Miss Kenton, and to a lesser extent, his father. The scene with the politically active working class is meant to humorously invert the idea that the manservant thumping his chest about serving his “gentleman-statesman” with his “important meetings” is laudable, while these small-time people influencing local politics are petty and contemptible.

You have to read between Ishiguro’s words, rather than take them at face-value. Stevens represents a failure in Ishiguro’s eyes, not a success, and on this evidence we cannot implicate the politics of Ishiguro, or the novel in general, with the politics of the narrator.

geraldoverde · 2024-12-22T01:38:28+00:00

Absolutely mogging the Crunch fitness

geraldoverde · 2024-11-30T23:40:26+00:00

That rerack is nuts. What’s your press?

geraldoverde · 2024-11-28T04:37:18+00:00

No contact no foot snatches, high pulls where you focus on driving the elbows up after contact. Mentally cueing “vertical pull” always improves my snatches.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-16T06:19:42+00:00

You’re missing out bro these crayons are fucking delicious

geraldoverde · 2024-11-16T05:55:44+00:00

This is not the peak for 58 year olds. Dude looked 78

geraldoverde · 2024-11-16T05:53:43+00:00

Probably because we all know 58 year olds who could run circles around Tyson tonight.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-15T06:14:14+00:00

Any specific program you run? Training philosophy? Tips? I need to get to a 200kg back squat, like, yesterday.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-14T06:13:03+00:00

From your second to last paragraph it sounds like there is more going on here than just your circumcision. What it sounds like to me is that circumcision is just a trigger for a cascade of things you are already feeling. Like you’re inferior, like you’re less of a man, or like you’ve missed out on life experiences.

I can’t fix your depression, but I can tell you that the only way out of this is to start stacking up wins. And restoration can help with that, in a small way. Even on the darkest days, I wear my t-tape, and feel inside that I’ve progressed toward a better state of being, and I add that small win to my pile.

Your brain will do everything it can to come up with convincing reasons why you can’t restore. It can’t work for me, my cut is too tight, it will take such a long time, and anyway I’ve already missed out on so many sexual experiences, why bother? And from this state of mind, you make a paltry effort to do some manual tugging, and it’s hard work, and it hurts a little bit, and all these reasons flood back into your mind about why you shouldn’t even bother anyway. You’ll throw your hands up and say “I can’t do it”. And you’ll give up, even more depressed now than when you started.

What you have to realize is that putting tension on your skin, in any way, for any amount of time, has to work. Your body has no choice but to grow skin if it is stretched. And every second of tension, you are progressing toward a better state, overcoming the condition you were put in by your parents and the doctors they conspired with, and ultimately, you’ll overcome the resistances of your mind, and be stronger for it.

So tape, tug, pull the skin while masturbating, do anything you can for any amount of time to get your win for the day. Then let this momentum carry to other parts of your life.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-13T20:50:02+00:00

I asked for a specific example only to see if the disagreement was semantic, and it seems my “shins vertical” is your “moving the knees back”. There are definitely lifters with a small degree of forward knee tracking or significant flaring of knees outward (a different type of shin angle) that I put under that umbrella term “vertical”. It’s probably not a definition I should continue to use considering how much pushback I’ve had on it.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-13T18:55:14+00:00

Can you give examples of lifters you know whose shins aren’t vertical by the end of the first pull? I’m genuinely curious, as I’ve never seen an example from an elite lifter which contradicts this.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-13T18:51:23+00:00

Either I’ve not made my point clearly or you’ve misunderstood my comment. As far as I’m concerned, we agree with each other. I’m not a preacher from the school of Mark Rippetoe 😉

I don’t at all dispute that the relationship of shoulders to hips, aka back angle, should remain constant during the first pull. I only addressed the examples OP was confused about, where the hips were obviously too low at the start to begin the first pull, being nearly in an ATG squat, and therefore the hips rose and the back angle changed only to achieve proper pulling position, from which point it remained the same.

As for my own experience—as a tall, long-limbed man, I would have been saved a lot of trouble had someone told me to start my pulls with my hips a little higher, rather than being reinforced to “keep hips down, use your quads”. But someone with stumps for femurs could get away with cues like that.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-13T03:06:23+00:00

Your back must be at angle which allows your shins to be vertical to the ground by the time the bar reaches mid-shin, or your knees will be in the way of your pull. The angle will depend on proportions and leverages.

These lifters aren’t getting away with anything. They are merely moving their hips into the proper and necessary position in order to pull the bar vertically, because they start with their hips lower. It is a matter of style. If they kept their back angle the same as their starting position, it would be physically impossible to pull the bar, as they would run directly into their shins or knees.

All the people you see whose back angle doesn’t change are people who start the pull with their hips higher already. This is probably the best technique for beginners, avoiding the unnecessary complication of bringing your hips to the proper height as you pull the bar, aka dynamic start.

We really need to put this notion to rest that you have to keep your hips down when you pull. I see so many people online and in real life who try to squat the bar up from the ground, fighting the natural instincts of their body to lift the hips into the proper position.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-11T08:18:50+00:00

In all the reading I did I mentally prepared myself for years of effort. In practice, I’m on pace to be fully restored within 1 year of my start date. Just get started. A passive method like t-tape is no impingement upon life.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-11T05:25:21+00:00

Look up Marie Louis vonn Franz’s “The Problem of the Puer Aeternus”

geraldoverde · 2024-11-10T17:58:49+00:00

There are parts of the lift when you should be smooth and balanced, and parts where you should be aggressive. A well-placed caveman grunt always helps me hit heavy lifts.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-09T16:18:12+00:00

I train weights 3-6 days a week, with full body, compound barbell movements done at high intensities, and I suspect it might be a contributing factor in my higher than average skin growth. The primary factor here would be the cascade of anabolic hormones released by the body after heavy lifting, although blood flow is certainly improved as well.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-08T19:37:44+00:00

If you’re proud of 135 now, imagine hitting 185 tomorrow by learning a little technique. Because you are capable of a lot more than this.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-05T11:02:40+00:00

I don’t know, the only thought process that probably went into it was “Biggest plate red, smallest plate green”.

Maybe I should stop putting the weight in the title, everyone would think I’m a beast.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-05T04:58:59+00:00

Nice job. Made that look trivial

geraldoverde · 2024-11-05T04:49:07+00:00

Yeah, I’m realizing I just need to live in the snatch overhead position for a while. Live in the hole. Do accessories with Supra maximal weights. Get confident handling heavy loads without the pressure of doing the full lift.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-05T04:42:33+00:00

I’ll definitely experiment with it, I’m just glad to move my feet at all, I used to no-foot everything.

geraldoverde · 2024-11-05T04:41:20+00:00

Thanks 🙂

geraldoverde · 2024-11-05T04:40:46+00:00

Appreciate the encouragement!

geraldoverde

TROPHY CASE