The Rugged Gentleman

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Quick Bursts

A few things I really enjoy reading about are survival, fitness (the science of it) and complex systems. The more you learn about them, the more you see that they all share common properties. Most things in life do; first principles spread across disciplines.

One common theme that recently stuck out to me is the importance of rapid response. Good things generally take time to accumulate. But danger comes hard and fast. You rarely see deep trouble creeping up, but it arguably has the most impact. The response to the quick onset of unfavourable conditions can be the difference between life and death, but in less extreme conditions it can also be the key in being successful versus the pack.

“Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm:”
– Publilius Syrus

The ability to think and act quickly is a complex reaction. It’s shaped by your past experiences, mental models, risk tolerance and your natural response to the cascade of hormones released by stress. To do the topic justice requires a book, and many have been written. I’m currently just finishing up Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzalez, and that’s where the idea for this post really took root. There is a quote from a man name Mark Morey, who runs the Vermont Wilderness Survival School, referencing an exercise where he has kids build a fire in four minutes as part of hypothetical scenario to save him after falling in a freezing cold stream, where he says ‘The fight for survival requires a burst of energy’.

I think most of us know that extreme situations require a quick response, so the comment itself isn’t that striking in isolation. But what really stuck out is the fact it’s such a recurring theme almost everywhere you look. While the book highlights many examples, the first thing I thought of upon reading that was the ‘The Quick and the Dead’ from Pavel Tsatsouline, CEO of StrongFirst and programming (physical training, not computers) genius. If you don’t know him, he introduced kettlebells to the Western World and creates brutally efficient training programs, some of which are designed to train special forces soldiers. The book is centered around a program built to develop power, and is filled with the science of why you want to be both strong and powerful. The prologue really builds the case the nicely; when a predator in the wild loses their ability to rise to make an explosive kill, it’s the beginning of the end.

2020 is another perfect example. Years of slowly built progress was quickly destroyed within a matter of a month as COVID spread exponentially around the globe. Businesses built around physical interactions and locations were hit hard and were forced to adapt or see how long they could bleed before they die. The stock market was hit even faster. Anyone who panicked and sold, without a clear plan for action on when and where to re-enter, got fleeced as markets bounced back quickly and fiercely.

There are examples everywhere. A relatively organized crowd can quickly turn into a death trample. A small argument with a significant other can turn into a relationship ending fight.

That highlights the problem, but presenting a problem without a solution is something that happens too much these days and is a sign of stupidity in my opinion. So what can we do with this information?

The most beneficial thing we can do is plan for these fast onset, high magnitude events. They say that in stressful times, we revert to our training. If you’re talking about physical survival, it means that you should have the power and strength to jump into action quickly. In my mind, that favours training for power over steady state cardio. In investing, it means spending the time to have a plan for market volatility instead of acting on the nerve. For life in general, it means exposing yourself to various conditions in controlled settings; heat, cold, night, conflict, difficult conversations.

These are all things that interest me, and I’ll write about each further in later posts.

Tags investing, outdoors, philosophy, survival, training, workout

rugged

The Switchback

‘The shortest distance between point A and B is a straight line’. It’s a common saying, usually used to simplify things and probably by someone who has a bit of condescension in their voice. It’s kind of like ‘buy low and sell high’ in the investment world; easy said but good fuckin luck if that’s all you got to guide you. Though theoretically true, it’s best used for simple, abstract exercises and is mostly bullshit in the realm of real world complexity.

If you’ve ever been hiking anywhere with some decent elevation change, you’ve probably stared at the map and thought ‘why does this trail have me winding all over the damn place instead of taking a more direct route’. That, friend, is a switchback. But it has a purpose. It breaks a steep incline into more manageable chunks where a direct route would be too difficult and at the same time limits the erosion and damage to the trail itself (steep inclines don’t wear nicely). It makes it easier for the average individual, and keeps more integrity to the trail itself for multiple hikers. The same concept applies to roads as well. I’m sure you’ve at least seen pictures of the beautiful hairpin turns going through mountain ranges in Europe.

I think it’s fair to assume a fair amount of complexity in life. That’s why switchbacks are important in more than just trails. Here are a few examples where the concept sticks:

Training: If you’re lifting, or working out in general, you can’t just dial the crank to the max every workout. Ramping up to to a 1RM bench press, or even a 3 or 5RM, puts a lot of stress on the nervous system. You can do it for a couple of weeks, but eventually you’ll fry your nervous system. It needs recovery built in, and that’s why most programs wave the intensity workout to workout and week to week.
Investing: Despite what you’re hearing in 2020, stocks do not always go up in a neat straight line. Most stocks that go vertical tend to have a pretty violent correction at some point. Just look at a long term chart of weed stocks or Bitcoin. It’s much less stressful to focus on something that goes up, consolidates in a range, then decides on its next direction.
Relationships: If you find a relationship that always keeps getting better, good for you. But most are subject to the ebbs and flows of life. That’s why there’s what is called the ‘honeymoon phase’. Once you clear that initial trajectory, things start to pop us. If you expect it to stay on the same path, the odds are stacked against you. If you can manage to overcome things like careers, family, finances, and changing personalities, your relationship will hit new peaks. If you can’t, the hill might just be too steep to climb.

Tags gentleman, hiking, lifting, outdoors, powerlifting, relationships, rugged, training, workout

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An Introduction…

If you’re reading this, welcome. But know that this blog is a selfish place, it’s really more of a place to jot down some ideas about the things that interest me than for achieving widespread attention or readership. Some of the things you’ll see pop up include living a meaningful life, lifting heavy things, investing, philosophy, and just knowledge that’s impactful across many areas of your life.

The idea of the ‘Rugged Gentleman’ might sound like an oxymoron at first. After all, thinking of each word individually probably conjures up very different archetypes in your mind; two things that rarely intersect. And there is an element of truth to it in that they are two different lifestyles that are generally in opposition at a given point in time, but in reality life is like a pendulum and having the flexibility to adapt to the needs of the situation at hand is key.

This idea has roots across history and geography as well. There is a Chinese proverb that says ‘civilize the mind, but make savage the body’. In ancient Greece, the famous philosopher Socrates has a quote saying ‘No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.’ There are many examples everywhere. Henry David Thoreau is a more contemporary example, an American academic , and naturalist who built the house that he wrote his magnum opus from, while living a mostly self sufficient existence (though his views on seeking enjoyment and pleasure in life seem a little too restrictive and dull for my taste).

This is all just a long winded way of saying that my ideal life is one of physical and mental sharpness, with the ability to seamlessly cross between the worlds of nature and modernity.

Tags gentleman, rugged, rugged gentleman