Focus On Results, Not Appearance Or Labels

When you are young, it is profoundly important, to learn about Artists, Adventurers, Philosophers, and Great Beings.

But also to understand that appearances are misleading, and that growing up requires constant learning and effort.

Just because someone looks like an adult, does not mean that they are an adult yet.

As we grow, we move past labels, and value results, over anything else.

I used to call it the sum of all intent across a person’s history, but I think perhaps, the word results captures it better.

This is not about drawing divisions, or belittling adults, this is about reminding ourselves…

That we must continue learning and creating, being an adult is not about being older, it is about being wiser.

It is also about safety, we have to eplain to young people, that just because someone looks wise, it does not mean that they are.

We must teach to judge adults by content of character, by wisdom, and by how they rose from their mistakes.

This is very important in politics, image is not enough.

Overwork and stress, ended in me driving to a distant hospital with blood-clots in my lung.

This is what I mean by the word result, I got what I deserved.

As I begun my second life, I once noticed paramedics by a nearby highway.

It was an old car, he had time to pull aside, to protect others.

The paramedics look at me on my bicycle, and we understood the right from wrong.

Work does not set you free, and overwork kills you.

Not in an abstract way, but right on the side of the highway.

This is why we must young people understand, that Artist, Adventurer, Philosopher, and Great Being are not just labels.

But stages in life, that will keep their minds healthy and safe.

A universe without those words, or words like it, would be a terrible place.

It makes for a fine attack on a civilization, to trick children into believing, they are not good enough to become any of those.

Or that philosophy is unnecessary, or even funny.

But as you can clearly imagine, an artists without results, without works of art to display is in BIG TROUBLE.

It means a young person is stuck, and hurt, and unable to think, and without achieving, or thinking they can grow.

An adult without results, is not a fraud, but they are unwell.

Allow me to speak of my Bodybuilding Technique, and Programming, to show you what an adult should show.

In my programming, as in life, I begun following the main trend, and ended up being able to work for a company.

But when it came to making Desktop Applications that I could sell, Languages like Perl, ASP and PHP, SQL Databases, Web Pages were not good.

Even ActionScript which I enjoyed and Java which is neat but useless, didn’t hep me much.

Moreover, being a single developer, I had to abandon the idea of multiple languages and closed platforms.

I needed libraries I could reuse without modification, on the server, in the browser and its add-ons and even database.

I moved towards node.js for server work, and electron.js for Desktop, which actually includes node js.

I rewired my brain for JavaScript, of which I think of as ECMAScript, and privately I see it as my dreams of Perl, the language that was most beautiful to me.

The result is that AI makes apps for me that run live in the chat, that I completely understand, and can do better.

I have an XML parser which combined with a solid and tested grasp, on tagged template literals will give me a simple language that uses signals.

It has been done before, but not so simply, that AI does not need instructions to understand it.

This language, gives me the ability to use SVG graphics, with components that automatically update when data changes.

The result is easy to generate AI applications, with minimal code, that I can put into Firefox Addons especially devtools and make programming simpler.

A developer tool, is not an app, it is oxygen, it is critical and vital, and actually worth paying for.

Developer tools for hardcore programmers, and especially the new to programming is where I will build my business.

This is not something a child can do, because it takes 20 years, to explore, understand, and most importantly for me, master.

So it is a thing of adulthood, an investment of years, and now with AI, I am speechless.

All my tangents closed, all my curiosities satisfied, all the side quests complete.

Don’t start your software empire hoping to win, win first, and then go into battle.

And now for my bodybuilding, an extension for finally conquering obesity, and becoming healthy, not just fit, but guaranteed to stay that way this time.

I started by seeking evidence of muscle growth, so I begun looking at the results I knew I could trust.

And slowly jogging while heavy revealed my calves, as a source of understanding bodybuilding.

So it is a weight you can carry for extended durations, with as little stopping as possible.

I also approached bodybuilding with a childlike misunderstanding, because when I was a baby I just assumed Conan’s Wheel of Pain is how it is done.

That only pushed me towards duration, expanding my workouts to one and then two hours for seven days.

I now do three hours for 5 days, it just seems like it is good to have two days to heal.

But as everyone else, I initially grew muscles, and I stopped growing,

My body handled the challenge of a crappy workout, and stopped adapting.

It was not possible for me to lift heavier weights, so I went to the beginning of the rack.

To try to lift non-stop for an hour, people thought that was strange.

I needed the dumbbells by my side, but I was not able to pick them off the ground.

So I took one of the stupid benches that force everyone to sit, rotated it sideways, and I put my dumbbells on it.

Now I was able to put the dumbbells down for a moment, and quickly pick them up, ad continue pushing to lift more frequently.

Being able to pick the dumbbells up, and put them down put me in the zone.

Apparently bodybuilder refer to the zone as flow, today I just call it focus.

And I try to avoid people that stare at me inappropriately, people who wear perfume, loud speakers overhead with gym music.

And I push myself further into the flow and focus, by moving to the beats of songs, which induces a dance trance.

I get so comfortable, that my three hour workouts, feel like 15 minutes, and I do a solid 10 minutes of programming in my imagination.

I just close my eyes, visualize my programs, make something really nice, and it is time to go, three hours are up.

As you can imagine putting your body under three hours, of progressively heavier weights, 5 days a week, builds the muscle.

Burn the fat, grants frightening flexibly, and without injury, because I am still in the 15lb per hand zone.

I try lots of little experiments, I change music genre to control movement speed.

I try slow and heavy, which is questionable, find 20 lb per hand non-stop for three hours, dangerous.

Though 17.5 seems alright, which would indicate, I have not yet adapted to a higher weight.

I tried trail mix, discovering peanuts and dried fruit, as a source of incredible power.

I use an energy electrolyte drink mix with a cola amount of caffeine, but I avoid citric acid, so I flavor my drink with root beer.

Without the electrolyte drink mix, I get back pain, and I keep on the low, as not to have too much of it in my sytem.

Because, salt does seems suspicious, but you need some of it.

Each time I add something, I try to see if there are results.

I slowed down my music once too much, and I seemed to have stopped making fast progress.

Returning to dance music and lighter dumbbells, not only gave me larger muscles but also diminished my sides.

I am becoming movie star shaped, but I also care about flexibility.

It has been years since I needed to put my dumbbells on a bench, but I still want flexibility.

And for that I dance, flex, turn, my flexibility is realistically improving daily.

I am not a large bodybuilder, I am aware that muscles atrophy, and I consider muscle isolation exercises a waste of time.

My dancing however, is about building a life long workout routine, that I can perform anywhere.

I can totally imagine people tossing a coin into my cowboy hat, during a workout in my 80s, I can do dancing with dumbbells well.

My total bodybuilding result, is the result of me seeking little results along the way.

I always check if what I am doing, is producing results.

Compare that to sets and reps, which are like a label, you show up for the gym, do sets and pres and go.

That grows muscle only once, when you go from sedentary lifestyle, to doing something, even when it is done incorrectly.

It is very sad for me to see that people go through the effort of going to the gym, but expect different results from doing the same thing.

I came up with a short little instruction set, but, even so the few people that I mentioned it to did not care.

“Lift light, but not so light that you can lift more, and never so heavy that you are forced to stop”.

I tell some people looking for a backbone or quick results, about interval times.

Noting that the aim of an interval timer, is to eliminate the rest period, just like joggers do it.

In closing, you can see that labels only point the way, and it is the results that matter.

Bodybuilding and programming, shows results that can’t be made up.

Also, both programmers and bodybuilders would be able to quickly tell, how a person go to their results.

But ultimately the person who does the pretending, is the fool.

Shortcuts in bodybuilding kill, shortcuts in programming lead absolutely nowhere, it is a very delicate art.

Use labels to navigate, to measure how far you will travel, how wonderful and fantastic your arrival is going to be.

But stand in the area, learn, wisely evaluating the results of every effort you make.