Each and every Friday — I outline a few of the articles and/or books that I have read over the last week or two that are worth taking a look at.
Physique Secrets: The Complete Playbook For Building An Amazing Male Body By Nick Schlager
Every man can build an amazing body that is muscular, strong, lean, and healthy…
In fact, accomplishing it will always follow the same simple body-transformation steps. Yet, most men will stumble their way through these steps, wasting time, money, and energy until they eventually hit each one or fail.
Physique Secrets is the map outlining this step-by-step process and the shortcut to get you there efficiently.
Physique Secrets pulls back the curtain on the strategies that the best coaches use and simplifies the latest science and research on training and dieting.
It takes a systematic approach that builds from practical knowledge into real-world implementation to ensure you get better, more consistent, and more efficient results.
Packing on muscle, dropping to a single-digit body fat percentage, building incredible strength, or even just vastly improving your health and well-being doesn’t have to be difficult, unenjoyable, expensive, unnatural, or time-consuming.
Go here to get a copy of this great book: https://a.co/d/gGmiZVV
Eternal Muse: Be Your Kind of Beautiful
Within the enchanted world of creativity, there is an everlasting muse — a wellspring of inspiration that is not limited by time or location. This muse reflects the essence of individuality and uniqueness, unencumbered by traditional criteria of beauty. It calls out to us, asking us to celebrate the beauty of who we truly are and to embrace our brand of beauty.
The muse whispers to artists’ spirits like a celestial symphony, unleashing a rainbow of feelings and ideas. It dances around the mental corridors, using the colors of imagination to produce vibrant pictures. It is the spark that kindles the flames of passion within us and inspires us to express and create beauty both inside and outside of ourselves.
The eternal muse takes on a multitude of shapes in the realm of art. It can be the eerie melody of a depressing song that tells tales of love and sorrow. It can be a dancer’s elegant steps, which encapsulate the poetry of motion. It might even be the brushstrokes of an artist, bringing to life a lifeless canvas to create elaborate portraits and stunning landscapes.
However, in a world where strict beauty standards frequently rule, the immortal muse acts as a ray of hope. It exhorts us to celebrate our individuality and to break free from the chains of comparison and self-doubt. It challenges us to rethink what beauty is, to value flaws as beautiful peculiarities, and to value the diversity that makes each person a unique work of art.
Being your sort of gorgeous means accepting the unadulterated, unrefined nature of who you are. It’s dancing wildly, singing from the bottom of your heart with unrestrained emotion, and wearing your scars as emblems of fortitude. It is to use your personality as a paintbrush, your dreams as clay to shape your reality, and your experiences as ink to tell your tale.
Go here to finish reading this post: https://medium.com/@Author_Emily/eternal-muse-be-your-kind-of-beautiful-71f9434d3234
What is a Good Steward
Every one of us adheres to a set of value systems.
The value system of the majority?
More.
Faster.
Higher.
Better.
Consumption.
I don’t know about you, but it was a constant thing that I couldn’t ever escape. Maybe I’mjust crazy? That’s possible.
It. Could. Never. Be. Satisfied.
I’ve had many conversations with successful entrepreneurs, and it seems the same.
It’s never enough. Ever.
That’s how I felt in that restaurant, chewing on that delicious potato. My friends looked at me like I was crazy.
I was at the “top.”
It didn’t matter because, in my mind, it wasn’t good enough.
No matter how many levels, millions, planes, or accomplishments were achieved.
There was always more. There wasn’t an ounce of contentment, very little joy, and not much peace.
It was a form of slavery.
Slavery to a value system.
Slavery to what people think.
Slavery to more.
Slavery to higher highs.
Slavery to a culture of consumption.
Slavery to money.
Slavery to false identity.
Slavery to the rat race.
We think (as entrepreneurs) we control so much. The truth is we don’t control much. Think about it. We are the ones controlled. To me, that’s slavery.
What’s the alternative?
Stewardship.
Go here to finish reading: https://chrisaevans.beehiiv.com/p/good-steward-36fa
‘Marcus Aurelius and His Legacy: Seeking Rome’s Kingdom of Gold’ Preview
A Brazen Horse
There is extant a small book, called Mirabilia Urbis Romae, ‘the wonders of the city of Rome,’ which was the standard guidebook to Rome for visitors from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries of the Christian era. For many travellers of both the active and the armchair kind, there is nothing more delightful than a guidebook. It offers information in digestible bites, and best of all, it invites you to imagine yourself travelling to the destination. Medieval readers throughout Europe – for of course, the little book was written in Latin – must have read, mused, gazed out their window, and planned their own pilgrimage to the Holy City.
At the time the Mirabilia was written, much of Roman history had been completely forgotten, and where faint recollections were preserved, they were often inaccurate where not entirely fanciful. This, it need hardly be said, only enhances the book’s charm. It is as much a tale as a guide, offering entertainment as much as instruction.
The author details Gates, Arches, Churches, Theatres and Bridges, as they were known and understood a thousand confused years after their heyday. Among these marvels one was allocated its own chapter: ‘Wherefore the Horse was Made, that is called Constantine’s.’ Our author begins:
There is at the Lateran a certain brazen horse, that is called Constantine’s Horse; but it is not so, for whosoever will know the truth thereof, let him read it here.
The Lateran complex, on the Caelian Hill, had become an important site of papal residence, but in earlier times it had been the site of family property of Marcus Aurelius’s family, and probably Marcus had been born there. Our author in fact fails to clarify why the horse was not Constantine’s, but rather goes on to relate a truly medieval legend:
In the time of the Consuls and Senators, a certain full mighty king from the parts of the East came to Italy, and besieged Rome on the side of the Lateran, and with much slaughter and war afflicted the Roman people. Then a certain squire of great beauty and virtue, bold and subtle, arose and said to the Consuls and Senators: If there were one that should deliver you from this tribulation, what would he deserve from the Senate?
The squire – riding a horse ‘without a saddle’ – sets a trap for the besieging king, taking him captive, while the city’s troops defeat the king’s men.
And the Romans had from that field an untold weight of gold and silver…and all that they had promised to the aforesaid esquire they paid and performed, to wit, thirty thousand sesterces, and an horse of gilded brass without a saddle for a memorial of him, with the man himself riding thereon, having his right hand stretched forth…
Here we see a confusion of actual traces of classical Rome – consuls, senators, sesterces – overlaid with a medieval apparatus of the individual questing squire and his reward.
A later writer offers additional detail. In the tradition of guidebooks, the Mirabilia became a key source for many later works. One of these was by an English writer, Ranulf Higden (1280-1364), whose historical compendium Polychronicon was widely read and influential for centuries. Higden describes the brazen horse, presenting competing theories about it:
Go here to finish reading: https://modernstoicism.com/marcus-aurelius-and-his-legacy-seeking-romes-kingdom-of-gold-preview-by-judith-stove/
Hope you enjoy these articles and books. Have a great rest of your Friday an amazing weekend!