C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

    Lately, my life has been pretty awful, and yet pretty awesome at the same time.  And, although most of the awfulness in this case is because of my own stupid choices, I think most of our lives are like this most of the time.  But that doesn’t mean that my life is just a mixed “blob” of these two ways of living - in other words, I truly mean that it’s both awful and awesome at the same time.     Many years ago, and in much better - not to mention cleaner - prose than I could ever hope (in the first case) or want (in the second case) to ever write, the pretty-much awesome writer of great Catholic apologetics, GK Chesterton, wrote that Christianity loves red, and it loves white, but it has a healthy hatred of the pink.  You see, good, healthy religion - and I think this can apply to Zen as well as Christianity, although Christianity at its finest is the best example - is never a blending together of opposites.  Nor is it a rejection of one pole in favor of the other. (Thi

If you haven't noticed, the blog has a new look.  You may have also noticed a new Header, with a subheading that explains the fact that this blog will now focus on essays - as opposed to traditional articles - on a wide range of subjects. I thought it fitting, then, that the first essay with this new focus would actually concentrate, in some way, on all of the topics that I will be writing about. *** "Damon of Athens said, 'when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.'  Artists cultivate our culture.  Politicians can write as many laws as they wish, but they will never change the heart of the culture.  This belongs to the artists - we do battle for the soul of society."   -Jonathan Jackson in The Mystery of Art: Becoming an Artist in the Image of God The above quote by the Nashville actor Jonathan Jackson covers fundamentally what I'm going to cover in this essay, only with more detail.  But if you underst

      Although my posts on Stoic philosophy are not as popular as those on lifting (or drinking beer, or good literature), I am going to continue with them nonetheless.      For those interested in lifting weights – whether you’re a bodybuilder, powerlifter, or just casual lifter (or, hell, even for you Crossfitters) – Stoicism is the philosophy par excellence.  Lifting weights, particularly hard and heavy lifting, can teach us a lot about how to live our lives, but we have to learn to listen to what our lives have to tell us.  For some, the art of listening is a little more difficult.  This is where philosophy comes in.      This particular piece comes from Seneca.  Seneca has long been my favorite of the Roman writers on Stoicism.  Perhaps this is because he is not just a Stoic, for he borrows on other philosophies of antiquity when they serve his purpose.      This piece on death, and how it’s one thing to live a life, and it’s another thing to just exist, is also one of my

     When I started this blog several years ago, it was with the intention of making it an “integral” blog – hence the name “Integral Strength”.  At the time, I was quite enamored with Eastern philosophy – Buddhism in particular, having practiced strains of both Theravada and Zen for some time – and so I thought it would be a great way to combine my love of lifting weights and philosophy, not to mention martial arts – a passion of mine that has existed since childhood – into one website.  Add into the fact that I was also reading quite a bit from the “integral” philosopher Ken Wilber at the time – some of my earliest posts that you can still find on here attest to this – and you can see why I thought that Integral Strength would be such a cool, not to mention accurate, name.  (Let me say this right off the bat, however: I don’t care much for Wilber or his philosophy any more.  I think it is, on the whole, quite reductionist, and actually has many of the problems that plague fundament

     Simplicity can be a virtuous thing.  For some reason, in our current age, we want to make things decidedly not simple.  Perhaps this is because our lives are not simple – we have made them more and more complex by a stream of never-ending texts, instant messages, YouTube videos, music streaming, and the general need to always feel as if we need to be doing something.  I might add, however, without us actually doing anything, since we are more slothful and gluttonous – not to mention pear-shaped; especially the younger generation – than ever before.      Life should not be that way.  We were built for simplicity – in fact, the only way to enter into the complexity of things is to purposefully simplify.  If for instance, you want to enter the depths of your consciousness, the very depths of your being , you don’t do so by anything so complex as various ascetic feats of standing on your head or other odd yogic poses, or by flailing yourself in a medieval manner; you do so by t

      “I gave myself a full year to recover. Literally, I walked, did a little this and that, biked a bit, waded in the ocean and lived like what I call a “normal.” A normal human being. They are wonderful people, really, but they don’t wear singlets, weightlifting boots and smell of fear and chalk.”   -Dan John      The above quote from Dan john is from a post he has on his blog about his return to Olympic lifting competition.  The post, in general, can be said to be rather pedestrian – although John seems to do “pedestrian” better than most any other writers in this field – but this quote made me smile, and got me to thinking.  Thinking about the times I lived as a “normal” myself – times that I sometimes look fondly upon, sometimes view it with little other than indifference, but, on the whole, look upon it with something akin to disdain.  And then there’s the fact that I can’t really live as a “normal” even if I wanted to, even when I’ve tried to do such a thing.  (Although

     “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to contemplate, to enjoy, to love.” – Marcus Aurelius      The Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius, of Seneca, of Musonius Rufus, and – yes – of Epictetus is a philosophy of life.  As William Wallace says in the movie Braveheart, “Every man dies, but not every man really lives.”  How many people do you know who waste their lives on things that have no purpose?  The truth is this: the vast majority of the people of this world waste their lives on trivial matters, on concerns with “fun”, on things outside of their own lives.  Let us not do this – let us return to Epictetus so that we may learn how to live, and how to imbue our training with philosophy itself, let our training be a place where we can apply philosophy so that it carries over into all of our life outside of training. Epictetus on the Importance of Training Our Minds:      When walking, you are careful not to step on a

     In the beginning of the original “Conan the Barbarian” movie, the title character’s father is discussing what you can trust and what you can’t trust in life.  In one of my favorite lines in movie history, he quips, “You must learn its discipline.  For no one, no one in this world can you trust.  Not men, not women, not beasts” – and then he points to the sword he has just forged – “ this you can trust.”      I agree with Conan’s father in that I feel the same way about philosophy (and I feel the same way about lifting weights – the iron is always the same; it never lies).  To follow Epictetus’s way – and the way of the other Stoics – is to follow a path that can be trusted.  The ways of the world are folly, but the way of philosophy is a sure path – not to success, or power, or many of the other things that humankind too often puts its faith in – but to peace of mind.      Let us return again to Epictetus’ Enchiridion, and see what other wisdom we can gain from its pages.