Digitalization and Addiction
This issue is about calisthenics, internet addiction, and the power of comparing.
In this issue we’re (re-)discovering one of the most organic and efficient physical training methods with a minimal time investment and we’re learning about the addictive nature of social media and pornography and the severe consequences of overuse to our health. And finally, in a new article we’re exploring why we should compare anything and everything and how this is one of our most important tools of liberation.
✨ Sparks
🏋🏼 Exercise: Calisthenics/bodyweight training
Mark Lauren redesigned physical training programs within the U.S. Special Operations Community and trained elite level forces for many years after he broke the underwater record by swimming subsurface for 133 meters, on a single breath, for 2 minutes and 23 seconds, until losing consciousness, within the Pararescue/ Combat Control Indoctrination Course.
After I first discovered Mark Lauren’s teachings about bodyweight training in 2015 and made various detours with different training concepts and classical gym sessions afterwards, I just came back to calisthenics this week when I couldn’t find a decent gym in the realms I’m currently dwelling in.
Calisthenics is the art of physical training simply with one’s own bodyweight or with minimal equipment and is therefore one of the most natural and functional methods of exercising. Especially in a world where we severely lack movement. I personally found it to bear much more potential for having fun while exercising compared to classical gym sessions. At the same time it demands a much lower time investment. If you want to get started I recommend checking out Mark Lauren’s program, alternatively Chris Heria with THENX. Chris also got tons of free content on his YouTube channel.
🌐 Website: Porn Use & Sex Addiction Studies
Collection of studies, scientific papers and research related to pornography and internet addiction. Pornography as well as other forms of artificial sexual stimuli—basically any stimulus that is not directly connected to physical intimacy with a real partner—are one of the main threats to the development of healthy masculine traits in men; not to mention the effects on a growing share of female consumers. This consequently leads to an imbalance of embodied masculine and feminine traits within a population, affecting stability, resilience and health and resulting in an overall degeneration of society.
Pornography has been around for millennia, but it is only since the digital revolution and the development of the internet that the majority of entire populations regularly consumes such content within an ever growing multi billion US$ market.
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🎬 YouTube Video: Quit social media | Dr. Cal Newport
Cal Newport, author of the book Deep Work, explains the harmful hidden traits of social media platforms and how to make more conscious decisions in one’s consumptive behavior in order to live a healthier life.
Social media tools are designed to be addictive. The actual designed desired use case of these tools is that you fragment your attention as much as possible throughout your waking hours; that’s how these tools are designed to use. We have a growing amount of research which tells us that if you spend large portions of your day in a state of fragmented attention [...] that this can permanently reduce your capacity for concentration. In other words, you could permanently reduce your capacity to do exactly the type of deep effort that we’re finding to be more and more necessary in an increasingly competitive economy.
If you loose your ability to sustain concentration, you’re going to become less and less relevant to this economy.
We know from the research literature that the more you use social media, the more likely you are to feel lonely and isolated. We know that the constant exposure to your friend’s carefully curated, positive portrayals of their life can leave you to feel inadequate and can increase rates of depression.
🆕 New Content
📝 Article: The Prohibition Of Comparing
If someone tells you a specific comparison is not appropriate or allowed, red alert should start flashing in your mind.
Ferdinand Kutschker
🙏🏻 Gratitude Journal
One of the most powerful daily practices to liberate yourself from mental downward spirals is to bring the things to your attention that you are grateful for.
- I am grateful for the wind that tousles my hair.
- I am grateful for the tranquility of the place I currently live in.
- I am grateful for the sinuous sound of the waves as they steadily and patiently hug the shores.
What are you grateful for?
💡 This Week’s Wisdom
At last she reached her fifteenth year. “Well, now, you are grown up,” said the old dowager, her grandmother; “so you must let me adorn you like your other sisters;” and she placed a wreath of white lilies in her hair, and every flower leaf was half a pearl. Then the old lady ordered eight great oysters to attach themselves to the tail of the princess to show her high rank.
“But they hurt me so,” said the little mermaid.
“Pride must suffer pain,” replied the old lady.
From The Little Mermaid by HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.
Captured and resurfaced using the phenomenal Kindle reader.
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