It’s often an upstream issue, and I’m not keen on people who suggest men in middle age (40s, 50s) should automatically jump to supplementing testosterone. I had low T for a while and it turned out it was due to a vitamin B deficiency (I’m a T2 Diabetic and my medication basically leeches vitamin B from my body, as well as blocking absorption). Started supplementing vitamin B and eating more foods with vitamin B and the next two tests over several months went from low, to the lower end of “normal” range, and seemed to be steadily increasing back to normal.

Here you go man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L08vWPkMftQ

I watched that some time back when I was rehabbing with bands, and it’s got a ton of resistance band exercises you can do for a full body workout. Find the motions that work for you and go for it.

Consider kettlebells as well going forward. I’m in my mid-forties now, and I lifted weights a lot between 30 and 40 to the exclusion of a lot of other options, and found over time the injuries and joint pain rack up. Over the last few years I’ve leaned into more cardio and kettlebell work for explosive movements and keeping a lot of that natural motion and mobility compared to static lifting. Heck, I even got back into playing Dance Dance Revolution (via ITGMania on PC and a cheap dance mat). It’s a lot of fun, and somehow, my knees haven’t murdered me in my sleep yet. 😂

The book was confirmed ghost-written. He didn’t even write that shit. There is no art of the deal.

Grim Dawn was an excellent and finished game on release, and said DLCs came out years later via DLCs that acted as expansions to the campaign.

Last Epoch doesn’t even have a complete story, just some unfinished tripe with no real lore and oh here’s a bunch of alternate versions of how the unfinished thing you encountered could have happened differently.

They’re not even in the same class. It’s why I have 440 hours on Grim Dawn and would play it more still. I dropped LE at 170 hours and don’t really see any reason to play more. Hell, Last Epoch had a cash shop before the game even left Early Access. It feels like the development and costs were mismanaged out of the gate. I waited to buy it on discount.

Stargate Atlantis was bad enough.

How dare you. Atlantis was great.

Another great thing probably killed by the internet. R.I.P. Bat Boy.

Omg I never thought I’d encounter a random bat boy joke in 2025.

Hmm, can’t think of anything to do with that with a need for food globally. Not like it preserves food or… oh wait, it does exactly that.

If you put as much effort into considering ways this could be done as you do looking for excuses why it can’t, we’d have already solved world hunger.

We already have the means. Hell, we can even desalinate ocean water into potable drinking water if needed.

Capitalism just means we’ve decided societally that it’s too cost prohibitive so fuck those people, we’ve got artificial scarcity to maintain for profits.

Way shit’s going, at some point you’re going to have to break your own kneecaps and there will still be a fee associated with the self-service.

Would absolutely hang on my wall, that’s fantastic.

Yeah, high desert living. I don’t love the rain, but it ain’t bad, and we need it. Plus, it keeps the dust down for a bit.

Everyone is capable of darkness.

Capable, yes, but why indulge it intentionally? That seems counterintuitive, and the studies I linked agree.

How does denial and repression represent “engaging with their emotions”?

We don’t teach young people, young men in particular, to engage with their feelings in healthy ways, and in many cases rely on violent outlets. In a sense, young men only learn two viable feelings: horny, and angry. Just look at what’s going on these days with young men, incels, red pillers, etc. We need to teach men that it’s okay to feel things, take time to process it, understand that having negative or painful feelings doesn’t make you weak, or bad. Repression is the opposite of what I’m talking about. Western society has practiced repression to the ill of men (and the adverse affect to women who engage with them, willfully or otherwise).

I didn’t mention anything about denial or repression in my original comment. Your response inferring that tells me more about you than the topic.

Of course we wanna believe in a world of good guys and bad guys. But that’s only real in Hollywood.

I didn’t mention good guys or bad guys, this isn’t hollywood shit. I’m talking about engaging with feelings and emotions in healthy, productive ways. It’s nothing to do with black and white thinking, it’s about mental health.

Disagree. Not everyone has horrible urges that need safe outlets, and some actions in games are repugnant, even virtually. I remember reading a comment on reddit about someone who played RDR 2 and just randomly decided to kidnap a civilian by hog tying them and loading them up on a horse. They took them to a cliff bound, and tossed them off. For no reason whatsoever. And expected people to relate. It was repulsive, and made me feel extremely uncomfortable even reading about.

I love video games, but I don’t like realistic violence generally. It’s why I don’t play games like GTA and Manhunt, and why I only enjoy FPS games that involve fictional stuff like aliens and monsters (Doom, Halo).

Plus, multiple studies have proven that indulging in violent urges in games like Call of Duty and such actually leads to more aggression and violent impulse, not less.

• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6790614/
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563224002097
• https://www.center4research.org/violent-video-games-can-increase-aggression/
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6790562/

Your suggested “safe outlet” is anything but. Young people need to be taught empathy and how to engage with their emotions and address them in a healthy fashion. Not indulge in virtual depravity when they feel bad.

This is what happens when you abandon Splinter Cell.

What are you talking about? We mostly buy whole foods. I literally posted the kinds of things we’re buying in a comment below.

It’s not as if we’re taught to do that in school.

It’s crazy, isn’t it? I went to a “good” school (non-public school, better education from elementary through high school) growing up and even then our home economics courses only taught us how to sew and make pillows and shit (I’m not entirely knocking it, I can stitch up and patch clothes). The only teacher who taught financial education was a substitute we might have seen for one lesson twice a year or something. I still remember him too, Mr. Roland. He called it his Roland-omics course.

It’s been like… 25 years now or something. Mr. Roland, bro, sir, if you’re still out there, thanks for the head start. I completely bombed financially in my 20s, but recovered in my 30s after bankruptcy, in part remembering and working on a lot of the stuff you taught, and I’m thriving now.

Like, a lot of people in the thread talk about how people overspend on vehicles. Okay, I don’t disagree: America could generally do just fine with less-extravagant vehicles. But…think about how many decades and how many marketing resources have been devoted to achieving that state. There are a lot of experts with a lot of data working very hard on that.

I mean, yeah. But… consumerism. It’s literally the problem. People need to work on their susceptibility to this. Just because something is sold to you does not mean you have to buy it. I don’t buy anything major without at least a few weeks to a month of research, and longer the more expensive it is. And I’ll commonly wishlist something if I feel an overwhelming sense of desire to buy it and can’t figure out why. Sometimes I legitimately want something, but other times it’s just social or advertising pressure, memetic desire. I figure if I come back later and still want it, it’s worth considering, but often it just gets removed from the list. The desire, the want is temporary. Marketing is very good at manipulating your base desires and making something seem like a need when it’s far from it.

People and businesses will always be selling, always manipulating.You have to learn to curb your impulses and tame the monkey brain. There is a level of personal responsibility required.

I’m with you. I’m around $120-125k depending on bonuses. I could in theory make more, but I work remotely, have plenty of PTO, the job’s pretty cushy for several months the year and only rarely super busy and stressful, and I’m already saving aggressively. I haven’t capped off and could make more (heck, I’m not even senior where I am), but it would likely come with work life balance issues and a side helping of misery. No thanks.

Having enough money to live and thrive is important, but knowing when it’s enough and enjoying your life outside of it is just as important.

Same, we’re not buying anything fancy. Bulk meats, some fresh fruit and vegetables, and we buy a lot of dry and powdered goods that keep (wheat gluten, pastas, beans, etc.). Milk, sour cream, eggs, butter, orange juice, some bread. We get some snacks here and there, but minimally and generally it’s stuff that can be added to make meals anyway, like tortilla chips and the like, or dips that can be thinned to make convenient sauces.

We even make our own treats, like I make my own yogurt and peanut butter from starter and whole peanuts and cashews, and my wife makes homemade ice cream sometimes.

I’d like to see that too. It’s probably terrible. My wife and I probably spend $600 every 5-6 weeks and it’s just the two of us, no kids. And we bulk shop (Sam’s Club) so it’s cheaper. Back when we went to the supermarket it was like $500 every 2-3 weeks.

We both have health conditions, so we don’t do takeout, do all our own cooking to account for our needs. Our bill is probably a bit higher do to that, but it mostly involves avoiding salt and sugar and eating healthy as possible.