The last few weeks I have gotten back to my usual reading habits. By usual I mean my reading habits I had pre-army life. I read quite a bit before joining the Army and even in the Army I probably read more than the average person does; averaging a few books a year. (More if audio-books count!) But as of the late I have devoted myself to reading every night before bed as I used to. This has benefited me in several ways: 1) I get tired quickly when I read in my bed and can fall asleep faster. 2) I go to bed earlier as... 3) ... I don't spend as much time on my phone. 4) I am exposed to thoughts and ideas that challenge me to think beyond my normal perspective and exercise some real philosophical filtering muscles.
Reading through Viktor Frankl's A Man's Search for Meaning, I was challenged to see my life in a different way. To realize, perhaps, that a man's greatest satisfaction is living for something other than himself. (By that I mean for more than just simple self gratification portrayed well by so many reality shows on TV today.) By living and sacrificing daily for your family, your God and your work then perhaps you can find satisfaction by changing your perception of how you manage these 3 spheres. While he doesn't implicitly state it, I think that perhaps the underlying theme is a man can only be completely satisfied should he succeed in all three of these spheres and that a lack of spirituality is the cause for much undue dissatisfaction with life. The stories of his experience in the different concentration camps really made me appreciate the simple things in life a lot more as I attempted to mentally put myself in the shoes of the prisoners with him every night. I could almost feel the unrelenting Bavarian winter wind whipping through thin cloth onto my skin as Frankl went through memories of the nightmare he lived.
This has given me much to think about as a dive into a second round on the carnivore diet. I'm taking it slow and am going to eat according to the paleo diet for a few days/weeks until I am ready to go full carnivore. As I transitioned back into my normal eating habits I noticed my lack of attention span, energy levels and mental fog taking turns for the worse. My only vice while on the diet will be my morning espresso, americano or non-sugar latte. I invested in a rather pricy espresso machine but I did the math and in a few months it will pay for itself; this is based off my habit of going out for coffee only 3-4 times a week at local coffee shops to order a plain espresso.
I am currently finishing up Breakfast With Seneca by David Fideler. I am not new to the concepts and structure of stoicism but I am certainly learning a lot more in depth about the exact tools one can use to practice stoicism in a more practical and rational form. As I was reading through this book I often found myself substituting some phrases such as fate, fortune, destiny, etc with "God" or "Christ" as I think the way stoics and Christians claim to conduct themselves are often parallel in nature. I was thinking to myself of writing an essay for myself comparing the two and answering the question "How can Stoic teachings and practices benefit the Christian in the modern day" only to discover there is a whole book about that. I'm not sure if that is what I will read next but it's on my short list of books to slay.