The Golden One - June 14, 2020


Spartans, 300, Physique Motivation. Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. Book Review


Episode Stats

Length

10 minutes

Words per Minute

160.2696

Word Count

1,609

Sentence Count

77

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Greetings and salutations, my esteemed Laddingtons. Today I come bearing a book recommendation,
00:00:26.000 from Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. Shout out to my good friend Johan, who borrowed me this book
00:00:33.860 actually a few years back, and I only recently got around to read it. But before I begin to talk
00:00:40.140 about the book, I would just like to encourage you all to follow me on Telegram and the Legu Gloria
00:00:47.400 Instagram account. We will release this fine Hammer of Thor tomorrow, so if you want more information
00:00:54.060 about that, I will post on Instagram and also on the newsletter that you can sign up for on
00:00:59.660 leguogloria.com. Now, anyway, oh, also a second thing I will mention before I begin to talk about
00:01:08.380 this book. I know everyone is always eager to comment something in the beginning of the video,
00:01:13.040 so I might as well throw out a suggestion. Now, let me know if you have read any historic fiction
00:01:21.360 or any history books set in ancient Greece. After all, it's summer and we need to optimize our
00:01:27.220 motivation levels, and I always find that reading something about Greece or Rome in the summer,
00:01:32.360 it's a good fit. So comment down below if you have any book recommendations on ancient Greece.
00:01:39.240 So, true to my word, I've read this fine book, and as you might discern from the title,
00:01:45.460 it's about the Battle of Thermopylae. Now, a note on the film 300. I saw it when I was 17. It made a huge
00:01:54.140 impression on me. You know, it's basically made for, you know, ultimate testosterone motivation,
00:01:59.980 and, you know, I was pumped up and I said to myself, you know, one day I want to look like
00:02:05.820 Gerard Butler, Leonidas, in that film. So it's always been a great motivating factor for me,
00:02:12.420 gym-wise, to just remember how the Spartans look there. So nothing over the top like, you know,
00:02:20.620 Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a lot of guys grew up watching his films. I didn't because, well, I'm not
00:02:26.900 old enough to have grown up with him as a hero, so my physique ideals were never, you know, bodybuilding,
00:02:34.580 but it was more, yeah, how Leonidas look in that film. So anyway, the film is based on a comic that is
00:02:44.180 based on the battle, so it's not super historically accurate, but it's a nice film anyway that you can
00:02:50.080 watch before hitting the gym. This, however, is more historically accurate, so if you want a good,
00:02:56.800 you know, somewhat brief overview of Spartan society, Spartan relationship with the subjugated
00:03:03.280 slave cast of the Helots, how their military structure looked like, this is a good book.
00:03:10.160 The only critique I have in terms of it as a fiction novel, it's a bit gruesome at times,
00:03:15.260 I don't really need to have, you know, any sob stories to make the main character more appealing,
00:03:21.180 but other than that, it's a very good book, very immersive. I read it through quite quickly.
00:03:27.100 It's not overly thick, but it's also very immersive, so you want to read through it in one go.
00:03:33.280 And, uh, basically it follows a guy who's not a Spartan, but he fights as a squire for the Spartans,
00:03:39.720 so you get sort of like a third-person view of Spartan society. Um, and it follows 10 years
00:03:47.540 previous from, and it follows from 10 years before the battle of Thermopylae up until the battle itself.
00:03:53.820 And yeah, as is my custom, I have picked out a few segments which I thought would be good motivating quotes
00:04:00.540 for you to, uh, partake in, so let's delve into the book. So this is a quote on, um, Spartan mentality
00:04:08.540 in terms of individualism, and it's a quote from a man in the book here.
00:04:12.880 Have your instructors taught you why the Spartans excuse without penalty the warrior who loses his
00:04:19.180 helmet or breastplate in battle, but punish with loss of all citizenship rights the man who disregards
00:04:25.280 his shield? And that is because a warrior carries helmet and breastplate for his own protection,
00:04:32.320 but his shield for the protection of the whole line. So basically it's a good, you know, metaphor
00:04:39.880 also for putting your tribe or putting your mannerbund, putting your military unit, putting
00:04:47.100 your brothers first. You know, you can be careless with your own security, but dropping your shield,
00:04:52.400 dropping the, dropping the defense of your brothers, it's inexcusable. So that is also something to keep
00:04:58.600 in mind in this day and age of, you know, super, um, hyper individualism. So, you know, take care of
00:05:05.320 your brothers, don't be a liability. And this can also be, if you are, you know, in a group of men
00:05:11.440 and you know yourself that you are weak, it's the same thing as dropping your shield. You become a
00:05:15.940 liability to others, so it's not okay. Um, anyway, that was just a nice little quote there, I thought.
00:05:23.200 Moving on to a very interesting term, pseudo-Andrea. And what this means is basically a
00:05:31.320 faked courage. And the example they use here is when the enemy starts banging their shields,
00:05:38.840 starts shouting, start behaving really aggressively. And this is something I've talked about before as
00:05:44.080 well, that it's usually not the most confident guy that needs to, you know, posture up and act all
00:05:49.880 tough. The truly tough guys, they have no need to, you know, posture in that way. They have no need to
00:05:56.440 act tough because they have that calm confidence. The best example I know of this is Fedor Emelianenko.
00:06:03.960 He was the best MMA fighter in the world, um, 15 or 20 years ago. And it was quite fun. I remember one,
00:06:12.300 a classmate I have, when I went to school, he said, uh, because we talked about him and he was like,
00:06:16.980 yeah, this guy looks like he's going out for a grocery shop when he was going into the ring. And, uh,
00:06:22.940 it's completely true. He was completely untouched by any emotion. He just walked into the ring,
00:06:27.380 got the job done, didn't, you know, need to have an intense stare down, etc. Now, of course,
00:06:33.500 I understand certain fighters, they have intense stare downs to, you know, hype the fight and
00:06:37.620 everything. But, uh, Fedor, he has, uh, no pseudo-Andrea at all, calm as could be, walked into the ring,
00:06:44.420 no emotion showing on his face and, um, yeah, got the job done. Same thing with the Spartans,
00:06:49.380 you know, they don't need to hype themselves up overly much. Um, so that is something to keep
00:06:55.900 in mind as well. And a term you can remember, pseudo-Andrea, if I pronounce it correctly,
00:07:01.880 I don't know. But, uh, keep that in mind also. When you see a guy who's posturing really much in,
00:07:07.980 uh, you know, he wishes to appear dangerous, it's one thing to be, you know, posturing in, uh,
00:07:13.300 you know, cocky, funny way, uh, in a charismatic way, uh, that is one thing. But if someone tries
00:07:20.560 to be intimidating by being all, um, obnoxious, you don't have so much to worry about if you know
00:07:27.420 how to fight. So anyway, moving on to a motivating quote if you want to hit the gym. I thought this
00:07:35.700 was, uh, a bit fun. Uh, just, you know, well-written to, uh, explain how, um, aesthetic someone is.
00:07:43.260 So I'm jumping right into a quote here.
00:07:45.880 Polinike's supreme physical beauty. In every aspect of his person, face as well as physique,
00:07:51.780 the knight was formed as flawlessly as a god. Naked in the gymnasium, even alongside scores of
00:07:57.840 youths and warriors blessed in comeliness and elevated by their training to the peak of condition,
00:08:03.480 Polinike's stood out without equal, surpassing all others in symmetry of form and faultlessness of
00:08:10.920 physical structure. Clothed in white robes for the assembly, he shone like Adonis and armed for war
00:08:18.720 with bronze of his shield burnished, his scarlet cloak across his shoulders and horsehair-crested
00:08:25.460 helmet of a knight pushed back upon his brow, he shone forth, peerless as Achilles. So if you have,
00:08:32.820 uh, need of some extra motivation to push through some reps in the gym, just envision yourself as,
00:08:39.160 um, such a character. And then a last quote also by said beautiful man, and he explains why he hates,
00:08:47.980 uh, younger man and is, um, a bit harsh with the discipline. So, um, so he's asked, why do you hate
00:08:54.520 the young man so much? And he responds, because he does not love glory. It's, uh, good a reason as any
00:09:01.000 to hate someone because they don't love glory. So anyway, that was just some epic quotes I found,
00:09:07.120 but all in all, you know, I've talked about historical fiction as a genre before, and this is a great
00:09:13.500 example of it that you can gain so much wisdom from it by just, uh, reading a good fiction book. Uh, so all in
00:09:20.240 all, I can definitely recommend it. Um, you know, it's not overly long, as I said, it's very immersive,
00:09:26.620 so you'll probably read through it quite quickly. It gives you a good insight into Spartan society and,
00:09:33.060 you know, in reawakening a sense of European identity, uh, Greece, the cradle of civilization,
00:09:39.780 and, um, yeah, why not take the opportunity when it's sunny outside to read about some ancient,
00:09:46.460 glorious Spartans. So anyway, that was just a, uh, book recommendation, and, uh, again,
00:09:52.680 follow me on Telegram and Instagram and all the usual social media, and, uh, I will see you in the
00:09:59.280 next video. So thank you for watching. XOXO. Boom!