Hello everyone! I just wanted to let you know that I believe I may have started this community prematurely. I am focusing so heavily on other things right now business-wise, fitness-wise, and ministry-wise that I don’t think I can contribute enough to a strong community here. So, as of tomorrow afternoon, I am going to deactivate this community. Don’t worry, I 100% intend to have it up and running before too long in the future, with multiple courses and better-defined features to make this a proper community. In the meantime, if you do want to rejoin this when I relaunch it, please give the Order of Aurelius Instagram and YouTube your follows, as any news will be announced there. There is much content that is Aurelius-related on the way, so following on those platforms will give you continued access to this type of media. I thank you for joining me in this brief chapter. This will be thoroughly revisited at the proper time. I look forward to interacting with you all on other platforms until the right time comes. Thank you again! -Nate

I just swam a mile in the Atlantic Ocean without any training. The first half, I was swimming with the current. It wore on my shoulders and triceps mainly, but I was able to offset this by switching to backstroke periodically, and so reaching the half mile mark took roughly 30 minutes. Little did I know the second half would be a nightmare. I turned around and realized I was now swimming directly against the current. The waves were now slapping my face every few seconds, which made me realize a few things. First: timing my breaths was about to be 10x more difficult. Second: I couldn’t switch to backstroke anymore because I wouldn’t be able to predict the waves for my breathing. Third: I couldn’t take anymore brief rests, because every rest could cost me 10 yards or more. So I began shoving water behind me, trying my best to have the cleanest stroke possible. I found out afterwards that a lifeguard on the shore was worried about me because of the amount of water going over my head every few seconds. I was taking salt water through my nose and mouth at random. My throat began to sting terribly. But this wasn’t the worst part at all.. The worst part was that I was barely moving. I would use the buildings on the shore as a marker. I would swim with all my might for 10 minutes, only to look over and see I’d barely overtaken half a building of space. Remember how I said that the first half took a half hour? By the time I was halfway through the second half, I had spent an hour. My click read 1.5 hours of swimming, and I still had a quarter mile to go at this grueling pace. And yet, as the first sentence of this account proclaims, I did complete the full mile, and in roughly 2 hours. Why did I do this? To seek out discomfort to further callous my mind and to prove to myself once again that my limits are far beyond my initial consideration. I suppose part of why I did this was to show my ancestors that their bloodline of conquering the sea would remain alive in me. And conquer I did.

I apologize for the gap in time between the release of my first course and any following content. It has been a busy couple weeks, but I am getting close to being back in the groove. You can expect some very cool stuff coming soon. Stay tuned.

Today, I completed something I never thought would be possible for me. I ran ten miles, off of zero real training. I maintained a 12 minute mile pace, and I finished with roughly 2 hours of running and three 5-minute rehydration breaks. I am 6'3" and 260lbs. Guys with my build are not supposed to be able to do this. Would you like to know how I did it? I broke the governor off my mind. Just like a car engine has a governor which keeps it from going as fast as it can, your mind has a governor which keeps you from your fullest potential. Pain responses, in particular, are simply your mind's effort to trick you into thinking you're at your limit. We are wired to pursue comfort, so your mind instinctively tries to limit your exposure to discomfort. As I ran, I felt pain. I felt pain constantly. I do not enjoy running. Matter of fact, I HATE running. There are few activities I hate more. And THAT is why I chose running. I knew my governor would trigger pain responses near immediately, and that I would have constant opportunities to face that governor and break it off my mind. So this is what I did. This is what I did for two hours straight. My governor screamed at me, and I screamed back. My legs, shoulders, ankles, and feet sent continuous pain responses, and I gave them no mercy. To the voices in my brain which constantly questioned why I was doing this, I took no quarter. DEATH SENTENCE. All of them. And lo and behold, I completed my mark. And the crazy thing was... I still had more left in me. Your governor is a liar. And the sad thing is, it's a liar to whom we give full authority. Break it off.

I would appreciate the opportunity to delve into a study of how Stoics approached self-discipline, especially in terms of their assessment of the internal will, external factors upon decision-making (including any distinction between the social and the celestial in terms of what I would assume to have been a numinous cosmology), and the pursuit of finding proper directions for self-application. No rush.