[Audio: Stop Falling in Love with Women You're Not in a Relationshi]

If this interests you read The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. A fantastic read and I hand it out to almost everyone I care about. As a self defense instructor these are the EXACT scenarios that individuals must be prepared to deal with in an educated fashion. Awesome job! 

[****ed up wrists]

I am going through a similar situation. And it hit me like a freight train despite everything I know. I am Krav Maga instructor and have had chronic shoulder pain for a little over a year, my ortho believes I have a bursa that is pretty much gone. I lead a very active lifestyle and have had a lot of time to work through the frustration of knowing that until I have some form of surgery I will not be able to continue a passion of mine. I have had some life changing events occur during this as well, the pain and inability to physically work off a lot of my aggression has been incredibly frustrating.

 

I took up a few unhealthy activities over the course of the year that I have since dropped. Over the past month I started dating a massage therapist that has been doing work on my shoulder every couple of days. The pain is there still but the muscles are beginning to loosen up enough that I am regaining some of my range.

 

As a fighter I am very aware of what you must be going through. I have gained 25lbs, lost speed, lost cardio, and most important some of my sense of identity. I teach people  survival tactics and how to use their natural abilities to know they can handle any situation life throws at them. Or I used to. I want to again. I will again.

 

I am back down to close to training weight, 180lbs. I am working out my arm again using basic techniques. After a year of real struggle I am beginning to feel like myself again. All that aggression you have is normal, take your time with that and know your gonna fuck up some. Remember why you started fighting in the first

place. I mean fighting, not just boxing. You'll get there.

[Why did Cheryl Brooks commit suicide?]

Sometimes the facts of reality are just too overwhelming. Just leaving her husband would not solve her existential crises. James was merely a piece in a much larger puzzle that when Cheryl finally put it in place she saw everything. And in that moment of clarity she felt hopeless to do anything about it except escape. Completely, and forever.

I think that her act was justified, and at the same time very tragic. A person who can grasp reality. Even if for a brief moment, truly grasp it. That person is worthy of value on some level. That is why it is tragic, she was capable of seeing the truth and had no ideas with which to save herself and continue living.

 

Just my two cents.

[Reblogged: PJ Media’s Walter Hudson Previews Bernstein-D’Souza Deb]

Bear in mind this is a conversation I have been having with my wife since the debate and no one else. He left my wife with an impression that something was missing from his argument. Bernstein did not break down the ethical implications in enough detail for her. I personally thought that Bernstein did a fantastic job of stating the atrocities that the fundamental concepts of Christianity lead to. The main break was that you had to understand and except objective axiomatic concepts as well as their corollaries to follow Bernstein's direction, there was not an explicit break down of each of the horrors from politics, to ethics, to epistemology, to metaphysics.

 

There was not enough time to break each and every one of them down. He did a fantastic job of presenting the primacy of consciousness as false through explaining the primacy of existence in terms that my thirteen year old can grasp. There was not enough explicit discussion surrounding the links up through epistemology to ethics. I get that logical chain of ideas that follow from each of these premises. I have also been reading Rand and applying Objectivism throughout my life for twenty yrs. You argue for the good and integrate your concepts down to A is A and I got ya. Anyone there who just became familiar with these concepts, or an in depth discussion of them probably needed more time with them. 

 

D'Souza had such weak arguments that I did not think it was needed. Until the car ride home with my wife. I am not sure how Bernstein could have used a different track that would have been more compelling. I have never heard of D'Souza before and thought based on the discussions I have had with Christians he played almost all of the same cards. Mostly the good of altruism and the charity it inspires in Americans to help the global community. Bernstein did not rip this apart. He presented a case for the value of mans life, each mans life, in terms of a value system based in reality. Very professional and almost classy by not shredding such a terrible ethical system outright. Base the good in a reality based metaphysics, or Christianity's option, a reality where consciousness is the primary and anything goes. 

 

D'Souza did use as attacks on atheism examples of atheist horrors perpetuated on humanity by the likes of Pol Pot, Marxist Russia, and Adolf Hitler. Could have been convincing if Bernstein had not shown that these were not men and movements  that had their roots in a system that accepted the primacy of existence. That they still followed from a primacy of consciousness based philosophy, maybe not Christianity, but they were the same fundamental system.

 

I had a great time seeing Bernstein in action again. I attended The Mind as Hero in Atlas Shrugged lecture way back when at The University of Houston . It was a real pleasure to see that Bernstein had all of the same passion and energy from so many years ago.

[Reblogged: PJ Media’s Walter Hudson Previews Bernstein-D’Souza Deb]

I went. I enjoyed seeing Andrew Bernstein again. Honestly, I have never been to a formal debate so all I can go on is my experience with low level non academic debates. Based on this Bernstein put forth an air tight case later in the debate, but I don't think that anyone not familiar with Objectivism would have followed very well.

Rebuttals from Bernstein were spot on. My wife (not an objectivist) had a hard time with how convincing Bernstein was.  

 

All in all I had a good time. I was on the front row next to a microphone for Q&A and got to see a lot of the facial expressions and cool little aspects of each of the guys physical reactions.

 

Any thing in particular you want to hear about?