I was a big fan of David Carradine’s character in Kung Fu the Legend Continues. He was so cool, composed, and collected.
One episode I really liked featured John Saxon guest starring as a bad guy running a work camp. Kwai Chain Caine gets himself imprisoned and is instrumental in getting people out (of course).
But before freeing everyone, he gets in trouble. He sticks his neck out for a woman who was being punished for a transgression by being sent to “the cooler,” an ice box.
Caine convinces Saxon that he should go in her place knowing she would not have been able to survive.
Caine is sentenced to some absurdly long time in the cooler without food and water. It’s several days. Each day he is called out. All he has to do is apologize and can be removed from the cooler. He declines each time and is sent back in, and locked up.
“What will it take to break you, Shaolin?” Saxon’s character asks Kwai Chain Caine.
“A lifetime,” Caine replies slowly and measuredly, “possibly…yours.”
I love it! I appreciate the ability to be so comfortable in your knowing of who you are that nothing can put you out of sorts. That is some deep rootedness.
What will it take to break you?
For some, a driver cutting them off on the freeway is enough.
Others are so placated through alcohol, drugs, coffee, cigarettes, food, and various medications that they can “handle” more–but remove any of these vices and pills and watch out!
Yet, you’ll never make real progress as long as you rely on these adult pacifiers to quell your emotions.
Admittedly, much of this coming from being influenced by Steve Maxwell and John Tilden. And the Neo-Tech challenge. But having put more and more of it into practice and feeling the benefits—it’s powerful stuff.
Taking control over what you put into your mouth leads to more consciousness. When you don’t control what you put into your mouth you live in a sort of animalistic, bestial haze with regards to health. You get sick because you don’t take care of yourself, you get fat (or soft, or clogged up) because you eat too much, you feel run down because you’re devitalized.
It’s not easy. You take step forwards and then you slide back again. You squash feelings of guilt and proceed with newfound resoluteness. You cast your eyes above your suffering and realize you’re gaining freedom from useless addictions and compulsions that ultimately mess up your life, in one way or another.
If you can learn to appreciate life without all the crutches we routinely glorify, you have learned an extremely valuable lesson. You have elevated yourself to a new plane of existence. You have learned something about sufficiency and adequacy. You can handle occupying your own skin–even without vices.
There’s a caveat. This type of thing would be incredibly simple if you weren’t faced with temptation. Going to a cave is not an option. Taking it out on your family is not an option. Showing it on your face that you’re suffering is not an option. This is a private conquest. If you do it right, people will ask you what is going on because they want what you have.
From the Neo-Tech Pocket Therapist
Neo-Tech is a tough philosophy that calls out all our irrational behavior and really forces you to take a hard, cold look at yourself. Here’s an excerpt from the Neo-Tech Pocket Therapist by Drew Ellis.
Take the one year Neo-Tech challenge. Go all out. Give 100%. Give everything you have. Gain control of the most powerful entity in existence — your own conscious mind. Just do it. Live life the way it was meant to be lived. Do this for one year and see where it gets you. It is 100% guaranteed that if you do this you will be sober, happy, and directing your life to forever growing prosperity, excitement, romantic love, and happiness. Take this Neo-Tech challenge. You have nothing to lose but hangovers, drug stupors, and neurotic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. You have everything to gain. And if you “fall off the wagon”, then get right back on. Do not indulge yourself. For if you do, it will be a week, a month, six months, a year, five years, a lifetime of default, rationalizing, drinking, drug use — a lifetime wasted because you “fell off the wagon” and indulged yourself with lies and mind-created realities. And the exact same thing is true for procrastination. Procrastination is nothing but self-dishonesty and laziness. Procrastination delays, limits, and stops your success, achievement, and happiness. Indeed, the buck stops with you. The lies stop with you. The denial stops with you. The procrastination stops with you. No one can do this for you. No one can do this but you. The only route available is self-honesty, self-effort, self-control, and self-power.