Also See :
-Optimal Rest Times for Workouts
-The Kendrick and Drake Saga
-Walks are Nice
We as people often fail to grasp the concept of time. As of 2020, the average lifespan in the United States is 77 years. Most of us don’t even remember the first few years of our lives, and in our latter years sickness and disease can leave us equally as cloudy. Assuming a consistent 10 hours of sleep, time spent at school and work, filing taxes, and more, life is but a ticking clock, whose length we willfully overestimate. Death is a depressing thought, and so we push it away, choosing to live in the moment.
This is how humanity as a whole feels about undoubtedly the largest problem in store for our future, one that will require more cooperation than any other to solve, one which we are more than aware exists, and one we ignore in favor of addressing more immediate issues like war and money: Climate change. To some extent, the mere mention of it can prove tiring. People hear of it again and again, agreeing with the sentiment that change is needed without making any, and I am guilty of this. Since the industrial revolution, CO2 emissions have risen worldwide, but without a solid financial incentive to change, the world at large has seen no considerable shift in its emissions. Tackling this issue would require perseverance, empathy, foresight, and above all, cooperation.
The thing is, by far the biggest source these feelings would have to come from is companies and corporations, which simply don’t have any emotions. These are complex systems built by groups of people working in unison for a common goal, which in most cases, is money. When it is industry standard to act without regard for the environment and no imminent repercussions are present, it is practically common sense for companies to ignore climate change, and keep profits high.
At that point, it is left to us as individuals to bring forth change, but we are failing as well. Now, while we could make a million small tweaks in the way we consume products to help lower our carbon footprint, our use of products that rely on significant CO2 emissions to be produced is so ingrained into society that trying to stay away from them is actively inefficient for ourselves, not to mention costly. As companies that focus on fighting against climate change have to use more expensive production methods, their products have to come at a greater price and thus in some cases, avoiding CO2 emissions through selective consumption is limited to people with the funds to make that choice.
As CBS News stated, “Shoppers do care about the environment, polls show--until they're forced to make a trade-off….‘When consumers are forced to make trade-offs between product attributes or helping the environment, the environment almost never wins’." At that point, you might be left with a few small tweaks you can still make, which do make a small difference, but that won’t do enough to stop our lightning-fast race to extinction.
That takes us back to the corporations. We already know that by their own volition, they won’t bring forth the necessary changes, so that’s where our voice as consumers comes in. While I would say some climate activists have approaches that do more to hurt the public perception of activists than change the minds of companies one can see the train of thought they might have. Climate activists have been trying for decades to advocate for change and have been speaking out against corporations for their refusal to change their production methods, but they have not seen their desired results. Stuck between a rock and a hard place creating disturbances is what a lot of activists resort to, which has proved to be even less effective than speeches.
As we get closer and closer to the point of no return, undoubtedly we will start showing more concern for the fate of the future and more people will start making serious changes. In an ideal world, protests or the people running corporations may lead to many abandoning the cheaper and more harmful approaches of production that are currently the standard, and the indomitable human spirit will triumph. However, if we don’t, what will happen to us? we might get slightly hotter summers and colder winters, and some animals will start dying. However, it is not our children nor anyone that we will ever meet that will experience the death of humanity at the hands of global warming if it doesn’t stop, so it is simple to dissociate from the issue.
I do recommend using reusable bags, recycling, and such efforts as these aren’t hard to implement into one’s life and help, even if very slightly, in our efforts. But will we stop the world from ending, and avoid the death of countless generations to come? At this point, there’s frankly no way to tell decisively, as we still have time to change course. At our current pace, with estimates giving us roughly 10 years before the damage we do is irreversible, we need to make considerably more progress than in previous decades soon. However, as grim as our current situation is, there is something to keep in mind.
We have faced plagues that have taken the lives of millions, some during times when our understanding of medicine was so limited we thought they were punishments from a higher being. We have endured through wars in which defeat was all but certain. People have made it to the top even after lives full of nothing but poverty and abuse. People are finding their purpose in societies built to shape people into subservient slaves to their work, struggling in hopes of one day waking up without the stresses they endure. People have fought for their lives to make it through life-threatening diseases, and have run when they were told they would never take another step. As easy as it can be for most to be completely pessimistic and discard any chance of survival, there will always be those who carry on, who strive for success despite how uninspired and demoralized everyone around them may be, and those are the people who could lead us to a brighter future.
What Are the Best Rest Times for Workouts?
This Week’s Tip
When I first started working out, I assumed that about a minute of rest in between each of my sets for any exercise was the way to go. It was what was standard whenever I did exercise at school and I thought that transferred to weightlifting. However, as I’ve spent more time working out I’ve realized that it’s not as simple as 1 minute of rest.
Now, a minute of rest isn’t necessarily a bad amount of time depending on what you’re training for, and depending on your goals even less could be the best. However, something to keep in mind is that you have to train differently depending on your goals.
Shorter rest times are good for exercise like cardio and HIIT training, where you’re primarily focusing on building up muscular endurance. According to Healthline, rest times under 2 minutes, as short as 20 seconds are the most efficient for building muscular endurance (Healthline.com).
The same cannot be said when it comes to weightlifting though. According to the National Library of Medicine, studies showed that 3-5 minutes of rest time using weight between 50 and 90% of one’s ORM(One Repetition Max), “allowed for greater repetitions over multiple sets” and proved more effective for both strength and power in comparison to 1 minute rest times (nih.gov).
However, when you’re doing various exercises for multiple sets with that much rest time in between each, the time for each session can quickly pile up. One thing you can do to counter this is supersets, in which you choose two exercises that work for different muscle groups and take a brief rest (30-60 seconds) in between each set. Assuming it takes you close to a minute to do a set this would give you three minutes of rest between each set of a given exercise and since the exercises work different muscle groups they shouldn’t interfere with each other. It would also make it much easier to fit in time for the gym as workouts would be more condensed.
The Kendrick and Drake Saga
This Week’s Recommendation
*Trigger Warning for serious subjects like physical and sexual abuse*
Now, originally here would’ve been an album review, but with a beef spanning 11 tracks not including tracks from those outside the main players, and the fact it might be over now, I thought it’d be a good time to go over why you should listen to the tracks, the origin of the beef, and the results.
Now of course, if hip-hop and rap aren’t your cup of tea, this might not be the best sequence of tracks to listen to. Assuming that’s not the case though, we have two of the biggest rappers of the past decade putting forth some of their best lines in years and coming out with an increasing amount of genuine venom in their words. With how widely acclaimed Kendrick’s lyricism and meaningful messages, as well as Drake’s ability to make popular hits, this exhibition of skill-turned genuine confrontation has, for a good reason, captivated the attention of the masses.
Another massive aspect of the beef has been some serious accusations raised, with Drake claiming Kendrick has an illegitimate child and hits his fiancée, while Kendrick claims Drake has done illegal acts with minors, facilitates them within his house, and has been hiding another child, this time a daughter from the world (among other accusations). Since neither artist has concrete evidence that leaves no room for interpretation, people are interested to learn which claims are true and which were made up to harm the other rapper’s image.
The beef officially started with the tracks “First Person Shooter” and “Like That”. First Person Shooter was a song with both Drake and J. Cole, two famous rappers who are both part of what is often referred to as the “Big 3” of rap, being them two and Kendrick Lamar. Both pronounced themselves as the best of the trio, and that’s where things were for months, until the release of the track “Like That” on Future and Metro Boomin’s album We Don’t Trust You. On this song, Kendrick comes out boldly stating, “F**k the big three, n**ga It’s just big me”, while also throwing several other disses pointed at both Cole and Drake.
However, this was far from the start of the tensions, as years prior, Kendrick had a verse on Big Sean’s 2013 song “Control”, in which sent out shots at many of the famous rappers at the time, including Drake and Cole. Clearly, he meant to bring out the competition, as shown by the line, “I’ve got love for you all but I’m tryna murder you n**gas”. Others understood the message, but Drake notably took offense to his disses, and while before the song they had an amicable relationship and were even in tracks together, afterwards small disses started being sent both ways until everything boiled over with the release of Like That, an official declaration of war.
The first to fire back was Cole, with his release of “7 Minute Drill”, a diss on Kendrick. The reception to the song was mixed, but ultimately Cole apologized for the track 2 days later, mentioning his regret and how, “…when it comes out and I see the talk, that s**t don’t sit right with my spirit”. After the apology, the track was removed from streaming platforms, and Cole bowed out of the conflict, to both praise for his emotional maturity and criticism for what at the time seemed like a simple sparring match for rappers, with each rapper displaying their lyrical skill to prove they deserved the top spot of rap.
Drake then responded with a track called “Push-ups” making fun of Kendrick and addressing the many other rappers who started dissing him at the same time. This track was well-received because of its humor and lyricism.
The same wasn’t as true for the follow-up “Taylor Made”, a song pressuring Kendrick to release his track soon after and using the AI voices of Westside rappers Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg, both of which Kendrick holds in high regard. While some appreciated the effect of teasing Kendrick with his own idols, some thought that the AI voices simply didn’t sound too good and Drake didn’t say much.
Two weeks after the release of Push-ups though, it started to become evident why Kendrick took so long to respond, as he came out with the track “Euphoria”, a track over 6 minutes long in which he deconstructed Drake’s character and made several threats, like with the line “But don’t tell no lie about me, and I won’t tell truths ‘bout you.” He later doubled down on his threats on a second track “6:16 In LA”, where he stated that he had moles in Drake’s entourage feeding him information.
Drake came back with “Family Matters”, which many deem his best diss track out of the bunch and was supposed to be his ‘big red button’ to push. This is where Drake made all of his allegations concerning Kendrick about beating his fiancée and having a child who’s father might have been his best friend’s.
However, unexpectedly Kendrick dropped a track about 20 minutes later called “Meet The Grahams”, in which he talked to each member of Drake’s family, giving advice to Drake’s son and alleged son, and speaking directly to his parents and him. He methodically went through aspects of his character like his negligent parenting, hiring of sex offenders, and alleged ghostwriters, drug abuse, pedophilia, and other such horrible acts. This was by far Kendrick’s most aggressive track, with him straight-up wishing for Drake to die.
Following this track, Kendirck’s final track up to this point, “Not Like Us” was a song made to be a club banger that would leave him winning in terms of numbers without a doubt, a goal which it accomplished. It also had many memorable lines doubling down on the predator aspect, most famously, “Tryna Strike a chord and it’s probably A minor.” with his previous track immediately taking steam from Drake’s big track and this song playing in clubs everywhere, people started concluding that Kendrick won.
This sentiment was further cemented with Drake’s most recent track, “The Heart Part 6". While the track had some disses it mostly consisted of Drake trying to defend himself of the allegations, which he did horribly. He first dropped what could have been a bombshell in that he allegedly fed Kendrick the information that he was a pedophile and was hiding a second child, which, even if true, would have been a horrible move to begin with. With Drake having already hidden one child that was exposed on another diss track towards him and several extremely suspicious interactions with minors over the last decade, giving your opponent information that could highlight these two things regardless of the surprise factor is not very smart.
Additionally, if he did fake the information someone like Drake would have undoubtedly had screenshots or some form of proof that they plotted the information leaking. He also contradicted himself in the same track, stating “The ones you’re getting your information from, they’re all clowns.” He also slipped up by mentioning that he never liked women like Millie Bobby Brown (whom he allegedly groomed) when Kendrick never brought her up, said he was too famous to have been a pedophile as he would have been caught, said he expected the “Epstein angle”, and said Kendrick had no proof while his allegations had no proof either.
One of the final nails in the coffin for the track was Drake’s misunderstanding of Kendrick’s track “Mother I Sober“ from his most recent album, where Drake assumed Kendrick was molested when he explicitly stated he was not. Drake goes on to make fun of this multiple times and claims that it is the reason Kendrick believes Drake committed those actions.
It is safe to say that, assuming both of their allegations are real both rappers are horrible people that should face jail time, but with the only evidence of Drake’s allegations being a video from 2014 of a third party making the allegation while there are mountains of evidence on Drake being creepy and neglectful, paired with his awful response, most of social media has taken the side of Kendrick Lamar.
Walks are Pretty Nice
Recurring Ramblings
Life has its ups and downs, from moments of deep regret and sorrow to overwhelming joy and prosperity. However, most of our life consists of elements somewhere in the middle, moments that may be notable to some extent, but nothing crazy. While these may not be the moments we remember on our deathbed, reminiscing about the good old days, there is still value in them, and among these for me, is some of the walks I’ve taken.
Now, my perspective on walking may be slightly biased, as while some of the places I’ve lived at before weren’t the prettiest, right now the area is pretty beautiful, with nature all around, especially on the trail I sometimes walk on.
That aside, last summer I was trying to stay getting my steps. As a result, I decided to take a 5-mile walk every afternoon, going on the trail. At first, it was a bit of a hassle as by the end my feet were tired and I was really sweaty. On top of that, while I had some music on the whole time I was just thinking of how I could be lying down in bed, cleaning the house, or a million other things instead of just walking.
Time passed though, and as the days went on I got used to the fatigue but more importantly, I started to actually appreciate the times I went out for walks. Walking gave me time, time to appreciate the beauty of my surroundings, time to reflect on where my life was heading and what I needed to change, and time to simply cool off from more frustrating days. Above all though, walking gave me some moments of clarity, where I had no real concerns, and to exist, all I had to do was keep walking. Now I wouldn’t go as far as to say it felt euphoric or anything, but these moments felt peaceful, and even though I was walking and sometimes jogging the same path for months, I still appreciated it.
Of course, on longer walks you have plenty of time, so you can also listen to podcasts, audiobooks (which I personally haven’t delved into), and new music. Over the summer I found a lot of new music and artists, and I can’t wait to have that time to discover more again.
Exploring a bit can also be pretty entertaining. One time I took a weird and complicated path and somehow ended up walking a mile beside the freeway on a road mostly empty aside from a man chopping something with an axe behind his car (which fortunately turned out to be wood), and an electrical substation. While a tiny bit dangerous, just seeing something so mundane yet uncommon to stumble across was interesting.
Nighttime walks are a bit more eery sometimes but have their peaceful vibes. I’ve only gone on a few on my own, but once I went on one with friends, just going from path to path, neighborhood to neighborhood, and exploring seemingly unending trails. The slight breeze paired with the nature of the seemingly infinite paths and the slight feeling we were being watched would have been creepier alone but was fun with others.
There are health benefits to walking like calorie burning, a known increase in lifespan, and more, but those are pretty well-known and aren’t the main reason why I’ve come to enjoy walking in the first place.
Side Note
As you handful of subscribers may have noticed, I didn’t post on Thursday, and that is because I will be moving the release date for these to Friday as that gives me more weekdays to work with and those are where I get the most done. One would think two weeks would be plenty enough to write some paragraphs but I always find a way to be busy anyway. Thanks for tagging along for the ride!