Bronze Age Mindset Read online

  8

  A truly objective or scientific approach to life would be to start without assumptions. Make no big stories. Take animal and study. Study what it does in nature, not lab, when left alone from human. Study different specimens, the mood, the behavior at different time of year, in different places, at different levels of fortune and well-being. Make no assumption about what it wants ultimately, study how it behave today, tomorrow, in the moment, which is only thing that exists for animal. Look inside its brain! Study its hormones and its internal states with great care, and, with clinical objective eye, correlate these internal states to what it does, or what it’s driving at—and driving at that day or in that moment, not what you think about “reproduction or survival.” This is true path to understand animal, adaptation, behavior and life. There is some of this done, but much too little, and not well. In the end, are you so different from goat, dog or even ant that you look at such beings and really remain puzzled? For sure the real research I just named must be done, if only to convince the boneheads. But the behavior of an animal would be a complete mystery to you if you weren’t very similar yourself; but we understand right away a bear angry at bees, or playing under white-silver birch in thick of forest, or lizard frightened and winding between rocks, why it does what it does. It is no mystery to us, who are also like them. We love dogs because they express so honestly and without dissimulation what we also are and want. They and other pets calm us because promote a kind of carelessness normal to animal life, unencumbered by thoughts of the past or worries about the future, none of which actually exist. Women are, in their natural state, close to this condition as well, or closer on the whole, which is where they get much of their charm and power from (the modern education, that teaches women to be hyper-aware, anxious for the future, abstract neurotics, etc., actually takes away their power to a great degree, while tricking them into thinking they are being tough or sassy; but a hyper-conscious woman is made powerless and charmless). But study must be made of inner state of animal, now in this condition, now that. What anyway would objective study of an organism say? What does life want?

  9

  Darwin and his style of thinking would never have made so much impression or ever had such power if it were simply false. Actually Darwinism is true, but only under certain conditions. It’s not even a “half-truth,” it’s actually the full truth about a kind of life, but the mistake is to think it describes all life. Darwin is meaningless without Malthus, but this is why Nietzsche is right about both of them when he says they describe only life in England, or more precisely the England of that time. The beginning of the industrial age, and England as the first nation that solved the problem of infant mortality: these are the relevant facts. England was able to colonize so much of the New World because it was the first country to solve this problem. Many criticize in some way the Spanish or Portuguese model of colonization but you must know the Portuguese had a population of one million when they began the age of discovery with Henry the Navigator. And of that population, many fewer were young men who could embark on voyages of great danger; some say up to a fourth or more died on these voyages alone. They had no manpower to settle faraway lands but continued the old pattern of “elite dominance,” where brotherhoods of conquering men often took local wives and such. By contrast the English could now transplant entire populations, being surfeit of huemans. But it was still not enough. The cities became crowded, the filth unbearable as the lowest classes swarmed the monstrous new machines of industry. The living conditions of workers well into the 20th Century were purely hellish: Marx and his followers, at least, were right about that, and that’s why they could prey on this condition. It was a condition of misery and destitution similar to or worse than we see in the shantytowns of the Turd World. Solution to infant mortality problem meant these lower classes put all excess income into supporting more mouths to feed, not improving the quality of life of the children they had: just an exponential increase in human biomass! And this is the world of Malthus and of Darwin, life under filth, life under distress. Darwinism describes life under extreme stress. From this very partial view he thinks he has discovered the truth about life in general, but animal under conditions of extreme stress, crowded condition, observed and watched, filthy, beaten and imprisoned, its life severely regimented away from what it would like to do if left to its devices, will not give you secret to what life is. It will be very misleading example, and this is basis of Darwinism and of all thought that comes from it. It is the philosophy of life of the tenement and the slum, of the open air work-camp.

  10

  No kind of distress is worse than the feeling you are trapped. My worst nightmares are about opening a door only to find myself in the same aluminum cell, over and over. The exhaustion that sets in after a long night of chess, when you sleep and your mind dreams repeat nonsense moves, I know of few worse forms of torment. And this is self-imposed, through exhaustion, but even worse is when an outside force or being restrains you, yet you are in full control of your spirits and power, at least to begin with. That condition is intolerable for the most noble animals, who choose death if necessary, or at least any way to escape no matter how painful. Many Caribs, trapped into slavery, died because they couldn’t endure this, some bit through their arms to escape their chains and endured any pain to escape captivity. Germanic mothers would kill infants when Roman legions closed in: Tacitus describe life of Germanic warrior, who lived his whole life dedicated to war and fame, never became a domestic! At Masada and at other times the Jews killed their own children to escape subjection, when they were still a noble people. Xenophon describes in Anabasis how mother with infant would jump off a cliff in the highlands of Urartu, to escape the advance of the Greek army: we see same videos in Japan in Okinawa, mother jump off cliff. Buddhist monks Vietnam self-immolated and brought great shame on the West. For this reason Nietzsche say, noble peoples do not endure slavery, they’re either free or they die out. There is no “adaptation” to slavery for some types of life. What is that people, who has chosen survival at any price? The price they paid was monstrous and such a people becomes monstrous and distorted if it accepts this. The distinction between master races and the rest is simple and true, Hegel said it, copying Heraclitus: those peoples who choose death rather than slavery or submission in a confrontation, that is a people of masters. There are many such in the world, not only among the Aryans, but also the Comanche, many of the Polynesians, the Japanese and many others. But animal of this kind refuses entrapment and subjection. It is very sad to witness those times when such animal can neither escape nor kill itself. I saw once a jaguar in zoo, behind a glass, so that all the bugs in hueman form could gawk at it and humiliate it. This animal felt a noble and persistent sadness, being observed everywhere by the obsequious monkeys, not even monkeys, that were taunting it with stares. He could tell—I saw this! He could tell he was living in a simulated environment and that he had no power to move or live. His sadness crushed me and I will always remember this animal. I never want to see life in this condition!

  11

  Just a few weeks ago I was outside night club in city that is still untouched by first-world regimented hygiene: well-lighted, clean streets made safe for women come at a high price for the mood of a city. In this place the government and bureaucracy couldn’t extend its rules and cleanup efforts even if it wanted. There are then many nooks and hidden corners that are under no one’s control. In this no-man’s land there is mafia, so many perverts, there is some crime, but it’s kept at mostly very low or nonviolent level because place is full of off-duty cops on the make and no doubt spooks foreign and domestic, and who knows what else. I find life without such refuge to be almost intolerable, so here I felt free but I think was after day in a haze and the glycine was kicking in. I must have taken 600 mg theanine as well, and after much coffee I was spacing out… under vicious neon yellow lights I stood looking at the bouncer almost in a trance. I wondered what it was like to be him.
He was alert, knew what posture to take for his job and what look in the eye to emulate… or put on an act of being vigilant, and was imposing in broad frame under leather jacket with military-type epaulettes, but there was a kindness or softness in his eyes. Maybe would have taken some power of perception to see this, and I doubt he was challenged often by the customer riffraff because of it, but I could see it, how at times he sunk into a sadness and boredom looking in the distance. I too looked down the long broad street, mostly empty except for some small groups of drunks, hookers, some revelers, in the distance there was great fountain in plaza lighted up on all sides. I don’t know why, maybe the calmness of the blessed aminos hit me but my gaze veered off to one of the apartment buildings on the side of the road. There was just one light turned on in the middle of building and my mind wandered to who lived there and what they were like, and then to how it would be if I was the boy or girl who lived there. Many times I’ve wished, not so much that I was someone else, nor that I was immortal, but that I could live many different lives simultaneously and not be limited to being only one thing. At such moments of mood where you’re both calm and at least feel free every detail of life becomes interesting, all takes the character of images from a peaceful dream that present themselves in turn and don’t move you one way or another, because you see through them. I wonder then at least as a zoological experiment what it would be like to be a Vietnamese girl, a nail shop owner, or even an obese Angolan middle-aged woman running a pedicure operation with pink walls…yes, no form of hueman life is beneath me at such moments. I’ve even had dreams that I was a door or a vase, free to observe—I imagine only the seeing, the satisfaction of curiosity, and not the thousands of cares that must affect these people who I want to inhabit. But most of all then, when to this love of curiosity is added some sudden burst of energy, I start to wonder about men like myself of around my age, and what it would be like to be them, what they think moment to moment, what pulls them this way and that. I feel then a great longing for them and also for myself, and think of the friendships that I could have had with them and the great tasks that could await. I feel beset by this as an almost erotic irritation that is diffuse, and a great sadness and irritation that I will never know who lived in that building at that window, never see what they saw looking out. These ways…this is all my version of “love for mankind.” Of the other abstract kind, it means nothing and those who invoke it are bullshitters.

  12

  Very young rams, very young stag even when fawn, well before horns appear, play-fight with heads butting. This is in anticipation of horns that will grow. Yet no one teaches them this, but they know it in the blood. What came “first” for this animal, the development of horns or the “knowledge” and will to fight in this manner? In phenomenon like this is kept the secret and truth about evolution and life.

  13

  Struggle for space—A healthy animal not under distress, not maimed, not trapped by man, seeks first when young: space. Animal seeks space in physical sense, territory. But this meaning isn’t crudely physical, I give this as vivid image which is true for many animals that seek ownership of concrete territory. But more generally you must take it to mean something else, space to develop inborn powers. Monkey that lives in trees seeks skills to master canopy, beaver seeks ownership of river and banks and reeds in its grasp, many big cat of course seek mastership of actual territory and claims to prey and mates in this territory. Big feline, hunting dogs seek full use of claws, fangs, development of smell and other senses, to extend their reach over space. They seek these things because they want to master matter. All of this is higher organism organizing itself to master matter in surrounding space. Successful mastery of this matter leads to development of inborn powers and flourishing of organism, which allows it to master more matter, to marshal the lower to feed the higher. It is mobilization of matter to develop the inborn character or idea or fate—this true not only for food literally. In social animals an analogous process takes place within social relations or social “space”: there are some important changes that happen here, but principle is same. Important to understand that there is a circular process: organism seeks mastery of space, environment, to master matter in ways particular to its own abilities, and as a result of this mastery of matter there is development of its body, its senses, and all of its faculties, and the unfolding of its inborn destined form or nature, in time, its particular form flowering in the spring of its season. All of this requires precisely freedom from struggle for survival, or time away from this, a reprieve from this pressure. As for reproduction, animal in natural state will not even seek at this point, will not even think it. Very far from its aims: it seeks to become strong, skillful, to master problems and feel the expansion of its powers, and not just feel them, but perceive it to be truly so, perceive intuitively its mastery over its space. Only after full development of its powers and its mastery over space specific to its needs does the need or desire for reproduction come. Reproduction is side effect of animal desire for discharge of strength, after mastery over space is achieved. For this reason many lower animal breed very fast and in great hurry, but the higher and more organized the form of life, the more complex its needs for development are, the longer is delayed the time of reproduction and the more vulnerable it is to the stresses of competition for survival. Animals that have “evolved” under intense competition are in some sense “stunted,” less beautiful, less intelligent, less magnificent. There are many “factions” in nature and many paths that pull in opposite directions. You must learn to see the secret language of nature and what it drives at: there is one path that drives for the production of a supreme specimen. It is the path that governs higher life; survival and reproduction are only side effects of this path. Life is at most basic, struggle for ownership of space.

  14

  Some things make my blood boil far more than a direct physical challenge might. I once left the gym and some Chad came up to me and started to feel me up. Then I discovered he was feeling up my pockets, was trying to see if someone stole his missing stuff. I found this very amusing. Maybe was post-workout and I was very calm, but was not offended by this, partly his manner was not obtrusive despite what he was doing. It was possibly a form of muscle worship. But rarely do I feel angrier as a violation of my privacy than if I eat in restaurant alone and someone comes to sit right next to me when the whole place is empty. Vilest of all is when a group of something, I think were subcons or Han, came and sat just by me in entirely empty restaurant and started to eat with mouths open. That sound too, fewer things grate on the nerves and present themselves as imposition on your space than the sound of so-called hue-man eating. Other animals making sound eating don’t bother me, but I find charming. Different types even within same grouping of animals—I refuse the word species—have very different needs of life. My blood starts to boil, against my kindness and judgment, even when I stay with gril and she insists on setting air conditioner off or closing window because “too cold.” I like open spaces and slightly cool, and there can be no living together with creatures who like a huddled and over-warm existence. I believe also the white race, or rather some groupings within it—there are far more races than people want to admit—is in general hostile to the way of life of the tribes that like a close-packed existence. These are biological requirements of this or that way of life, and no laws, no common beliefs, can bring such different types together. A hybrid of such types would probably be born and remain physiologically confused or sick.

  15

  Whoremoans: Energy and higher life the same—If we had very advanced sensors where we could observe the inside of animals from far and in great detail, without interfering, without them feeling irritated or oppressed by our impositions, we could learn much about what life means. From observing many different ones in different places we could see what conditions an animal seeks in life in general. Such sensors would need to be much more advanced than equipment we have now, and to show what
parts of the brain are activated, to see the relationship of this to blood pressure and heart rate, the actions of the immune system, the level of various inflammatory and anti-inflammatory markers, and most of all the balance and action of the various hormones on the body’s systems, on the brain, and how these correlate to what the animal is doing at any one time. Any information we have right now on this subject is at most rudimentary. The medical literature is confused, is presented with great confidence, but is corrupted by money, career, and other interests of all kinds. The scientific literature is less known, and itself remains contradictory. We know at most a few relations of what, say, elevated thyroid or cortisol means at such and such time of day, and its multiple effects on various body tissues and systems. We have no real overall understanding of how such things interact, nor what they mean for the body’s overall processes, still less in the life of an organism as a whole, and the few who have attempted to achieve such understanding, like Ray Peat, are treated as cranks. But it’s not possible to understand what life means, nor what an organism drives at, nor what any specific behavior or physical adaptation means until this is taken up. If biologists had been honest people they would have tried to proceed in this way, without assumptions, just amassing observations about different organisms in different situations. But they did this only very little, and it’s always distorted by their various agendas and prejudices. The data we have itself is therefore at this point much too sparse and it will take decades to get what is needed even if researchers begin now. It will be a genius of the ages who will really be able to understand and explain the complete view of how hormones act in an organism. There is no irony here: I don’t do irony! Learn that I don’t understand the gay idea of “irony.” Hormones hold the key to the meaning of life in the most fundamental way, and if this sounds “reductionist” to you, if you think I demystify things too much, it’s because you think you know what you don’t, or you think scientists know, when they actually don’t. These substances, seen with fresh eyes, are pure Big Magic. They govern all cycles of an organism’s growth and its decay. They can turn small calf or baby gorilla into giant elephant or half-ton silverback on diet of greens, they can turn skinny man into Herculean half-god or make strong man take on the aspect of woman, and change tendencies and feelings, mirroring the magical transformation of some animals that switch sexes by signals we don’t yet understand. This doesn’t even begin to cover the different meanings of thyroid, progesterone, the various neurotransmitters, and many others that act one way on the nervous system, another way on the gut, another way on the immune system, that govern cell division and the preservation of function in ways that are for the moment a mystery to doctors and to science. Only a complete understanding of these hidden substances will reveal the fullness of life in its glory! The study of life as a “black box” has led to misunderstandings because the observers are dishonest and stupid and will report an action, but not what comes before or after, nor its place in the life of an animal, nor do they try to intuit from within themselves: the study of hormones, among many other internal processes of an organism, will prevent them from lying in this way. For example, an animal may act one way under stress and pressure, but then appear to do the same action out of a spirit of openness and self-increase, and the same action or behavior may actually have completely different meanings biologically: this will be shown by actions of hormones, neurotransmitters, cytokines in the body. And I will tell you what they likely to discover! So far only Ray Peat, a man blessed by a grand and alien understanding, has tried to decipher the secret language of these blessed substances. Learn that there are at least two kinds of life. Usually you think of life versus inanimate matter—how strange that the most primitive languages, the agglutinative grunts of Neanderthals like Basque, distinguish not between gender of noun, but between animate and inanimate! I wonder then what they would call yeast. Learn that there are two kinds of life, and yeast is different from higher life. Higher life means many fancy and mysterious things too of course but at its most basic it has to do with differentiation and structure. Yeast is an “amorphous blob” that expands, whereas a higher organism has different parts with different functions, different organs, different systems within itself. The sexes are different because it reproduces sexually, and some have taken this to be the main distinction, asexual versus sexual reproduction. But it’s obvious that “differentiation” in higher organisms goes much beyond this. And to preserve the function of the different organs and different systems within itself, an organism sacrifices the ability to expand and replicate indiscriminately, like yeast does for example. You can think of it as “sacrifice” of this ability, or just say that these two modes or tendencies, expansion and replication of cells on one hand, and preservation of higher or differentiated function on the other, are at odds with each other. They are governed by different hormones and neurotransmitters, where estrogen and serotonin are “stress” substances that govern cell division, but thyroid and progesterone are those that govern the preservation of function. It is not correct to call estrogen then a “sex hormone,” but a stress hormone, and its greater proportion in body of female is because female is under greater stress due to demands of inner cell division and menstruation. The picture is far from complete of course, but this leads to many good observations. Considering this from the other side, the side of pathology, the indiscriminate cell division, the return of “primitive life” within the human body is called cancer, which looks and acts very much like a fungus does. Conversely, from the side of health, the structure of the body is preserved to the extent that cells successfully command energy, and so, to speak artistically but to be right, on one side the hormones that promote cell energy are precisely those that promote the preservation of function, namely thyroid and the like, whereas the hormones that promote “lassitude” and that take away energy are precisely those that promote cell division, inflammation, the production of free radicals, the breakdown in order and function. At a deep level this must be connected to the fundamental truth of nature, that structure and energy must be the same, that energy is not as “diffuse” as we imagine it, but has an inner “intelligence”—this word is very bad in this case, because it is rather the imperfect intellect of our brains that is a mere approximation of this primordial and primal Will. This Will is almighty. Its forms are endless. It is no different from the fire of Heraclitus, a pervasive energy at play, inside all things, that seeks to order and reorder itself into ascending, uncanny objects. Its intent is mischievous, and beyond our ability to understand in words. In the life of organisms, this seeks to order itself into higher and more differentiated forms, that is, concretely, seeks the production of one supreme specimen. Peoples are nature’s circuitous ways to great specimens and for this reason the peoples that have arisen out of nature must be preserved in their distinct forms. In same way see from all this that aesthetic physique has the most cosmic significance, and it is because of what I have said so far that aesthetic bodies are a “window to the other side,” because they are the pinnacle of nature. The gods that surely exist but remain hidden have the most beautiful bodies we can imagine—they appeared to the ancient Greeks in dreams. Contrary to this exists the surfeit of flesh we see on the obese and in general the lassitude, the spiritual obesity, not only of modern life but of many historical forms of life as well, the domestic life of the village, of the village sewer, of the fetid valleys, of matriarchy and domestics, of slaves, the pollution of cities built on filth, the life of the swamp, the life of the human animal collapsed to mere life, life for the sake of life, as it devolves to the yeast form aesthetically, morally, intellectually, physically. On the other side is the life of the immortal gods who live in pure mountain air, and the sign of this life, where energy is marshaled to the production of higher order, is the aesthetic physique, the body in its glorious and divine beauty. What of the mind then? Well as rare as beautiful bodies are, the mind in the same condition is even more rare. Let us strive, in our
decrepit, cancerous and fetid world, for what is concrete and what we can try to attain. Those who forget the body to pursue a “perfect mind” or “perfect soul” have no idea where to even start. Only physical beauty is the foundation for a true higher culture of the mind and spirit as well. Only sun and steel will show you the path.