The Savage Gentleman

There's been a lot of dialogue lately around the state of opiate use within our society.  While I'm not advocating on either side of this complex debate, my aim is to provide more of an understanding of opiates, opiate use and addiction. Let's start with a story...... Throughout my life I've been an active person.  To say that athletics consumed my life was an understatement.  From playing Soccer and Baseball in the spring, to Volleyball, Hockey and Basketball in the fall and winter, I was deeply involved in athletic pursuits.  This endless pursuit lead to college basketball scholarships and two national championships. While I wouldn't trade my experiences in athletics for anything, the regular wear and tear of competitive sports, along with a genetic predisposition led to significant back problems. In 2007 I suffered my first of two back injuries.  I initially herniated my L1/L2 and L2/L3 spinal discs.  Unless you've experienced nerve pain, you c...

Adapt or Die Charles Darwin once said, "it is not the strongest of a species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives.  It is the one that is most adaptable to change." Now fast forward 130 years.  We now have a world where change and adaptation are completely unnecessary.  A world so soft and automated that the idea of change actually insights fear, panic and anxiety in an overwhelming majority of the population. We are currently living in the pinnacle of human civilization.  Due to technological advances and genius minds, the vast majority of people live a life almost completely free of struggle and adversity.  While human advances have allowed most to reach prosperity.  They don't come without drawbacks.  We now live so comfortably that humans are regressing to a more primitive form.  We are now in the midst of a devolution of human kind.   Adaptation occurs as a result of adversity, resilience and overcomi...

I'll preface this by saying  say that a lot of my opinions do not jive with a popular or mainstream perspective.  However, I've always been a reflective person who has put a lot of emphasis and effort into understanding and assessing myself, analyzing my flaws and developing practices so to improve upon things that I think are weaknesses that need to be addressed. One of the things I have been focused on developing over a number of years is expressing my thoughts and opinions despite the reaction or popularity of those thoughts and opinions.  It's interesting how many times a day I see on social media posts about living your authentic self, expressing your truth and accepting everyone for who they.  It would seem to me that everyone is on board with at least some of the same practices that I also try to implement in my life. It would seem that I am incorrect in this assumption.  What I've noticed though is an interesting circumstance of being authentic....

When did niceness be the only standard that we judge each other on?  On the spectrum of acceptable behavior, when did nice be the ultimate goal? "Be nice" is  bullshit.  We need to stop saying it.  It's bad advice.  Niceness is a slippery slope.  What about situations where being nice is not the appropriate action?  "Excuse me sir, please stop punching my face, I mean I'm being nice" or "Thank you for your verbal abuse, I appreciate your hatred for me and it's greatly appreciated."  See how being nice doesn't always lead to positive interactions?  Maybe we should just stop using it.  Not convinced yet?  Okay, check this out. In psychology "Agreeableness" is considered a big five personality trait.  It can be argued that niceness can be classified under this category.  While having a moderate level of agreeableness helps a person to interact properly in social situations, get along with people or stay out of jail,...

Unless you're a child and just beginning to learn about your sense of self, emotional resilience and what constitutes opinion versus fact than words don't actually hurt.  There I said it.  Call me an asshole if you like but I will redirect you to my previous statement.  Your opinion doesn't matter to me and your words and just that...fucking words. We all need to give our collective heads a fucking shake.  How often does someone get butt hurt because another person made a slightly politically incorrect statement that was meant with no malicious intent.  Can we all just agree that political correctness was a shit idea?  Can we please get back to being able to speak in clear and direct ways instead of the constant pandering to others' feelings.  Are we going to get to the point where all we do is speak in subliminal messaging?  This shit needs to stop.  Here's a fun fact.  Throughout my life and my athletic career I have probably been ...

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, "All of humanity's problems stem from a man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."  Based on my recent experiences, there are no truer words spoken.  It is also remarkable that these words were spoken in the 1600s. Over the past 7 months I have been in the midst of what I call aloneness.  This is not to be confused with loneliness.  Where loneliness is sadness because one has no friends or company.  Aloneness speaks to something different.  It is a disposition towards being alone.  It can be used as a miraculous tool to truly understand yourself.  However, there's a catch. Aloneness is really fucking difficult.  My deep dive into aloneness really came to fruition organically through a number of factors occurring all at once.  First, I too a new role at work where I spend a good 90% of my time alone.  My wife, with whom is my workout buddy, broke her foot and as such I spend 100...

Earlier this year the American Psychological Association released a document aimed at the treatment of men and boys.  Within this document it states that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and can be addressed through counselling. So everyone is clear, traditional masculinity is defined as: "Traits traditionally viewed as masculine in western society include strength, courage, independence, leadership and assertiveness" Being a man and also currently raising a young boy, this peaked my interest.  Since these are traits that I've found to be virtuous and that I try to display on a regular basis, I started to wonder where this whole, "all masculine traits are harmful and need to be counselled out of men and boys" came from.  It baffled me since these are traits that I in high regard and they have shaped a lot of who I am and the mindset that I have.  I've also never used these attributes to harm others, or to insight the destruction that...