Author Archives: Mishkin Berteig

Love is Love - or is it?

Thoughts on “Love is Love”

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Intersectionality/Privilege Disclaimer: I’m a strait white male in a 1st world country who grew up in a minority religion, in poverty, and with a mild medical disability.

“Love is Love”, the Pride slogan, is propaganda of the highest order.

The word “love” in English covers many types and they have important differences that should not be hidden. Often the specific meaning is obvious from the context of a discourse… and that may even apply to the Pride slogan. But, the slogan actually challenges anyone who wants to make a distinction about different kinds of love and is implicitly critical and judgemental of that. Here are examples:

Love between friends, platonic love.

Love between parent and child, familial love.

Love between lovers, passionate love.

Love between newly married couple, romantic love.

Love between long-married couple, patient love.

Love between strangers on a one-night-stand, animal love.

Love between a pet owner and pet, playful or comfort love.

Love between work colleagues, common-cause love.

Love between a person and their work, their food, their travel, their reading, their hobby, pastime, or interests, intellectual love.

Love between a person and their tv show, game, food, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, drugs or other addiction, dysfunctional love.

Love between a person and the cosmos or God, ideal love.

I’m sure there are many more ways that the word “love” is used in real life in English and they are not all the same, we would never advocate that they are all the same, and in many cases they have important legal differences. I hope I don’t need to give examples of some of the twisted things that people do that they call “love”.

The slogan is a very Orwellian thing: it simplifies and twists language for political and power purposes.

Weeks 11 to 14: Catching Up is Hard!

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Well, I got sick during Week 11, and let my numbers go way way down, and that lower pace, while getting better, has been the norm for the previous three weeks. I’m done week 14 and I’ve set two new records: 1415 reps in a week, and 335 reps in a day!

Next week, my goal is 1800 reps total, one day over 400 reps.

I’m using some new abbreviations as follows:

  • SU – Sit Ups
  • CR – Crunches
  • LL – Leg Lifts
  • AR – Ab Roller
  • SC – Standing Clench

Here’s the boring numbers (Including raw data for week 10):

Week 10

20190320 230.4 25CR+25SU + 25+25+25CR+25+25+25SU
20190321 229.0 25CR+25SU + 25+25+25CR+25+25+25SU+25CR
20190322 25CR+25SU
20190323 25CR+25SU+25CR + 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU+25CR
20190324 25CR+25SU+25CR + 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU+25CR + 25CR+25SU+25CR+25CR+25CR
20190325 100SU + 25AbRoller + 25KneeLift + 25BenchSU
20190326 day of rest

Week 11 (275)

20190327 50CR+25LegLifts + 25AR (100 total)
20190328 none
20190329 none
20190330 25AR+25SU + 25+25AR (100 total)
20190331 none
20190401 none
20190402 25AR + 25AR+25SU (75 total)

Week 12 (600)

20190403 25AR+25CR + 25+25CR (100 total)
20190404 35+35+30CR (100 total)
20190405 25AR+25CR + 35SU+35+30CR (150 total)
20190406 none
20190407 25+25CR (50 total)
20190408 25+25CR (50 total)
20190409 25AR+25CR+25SU + 25AR+25LL+25CR (150 total)

Week 13 (475)

20190410 25+25CR+25AR + 25AR (100 total)
20190411 25+25+25CR+25LL (100 total)
20190412 none
20190413 none
20190414 25AR+25CR+25LL+25SU + 30+25+20CR (175 total)
20190415 none
20190416 none

Week 14 (1415) – NEW RECORD!!!

20190417 25StandingClench + 40+20SU+20+25CR+15LL + 25+25+25+25CR (245 total)
20190418 25+25SC + 25+25SC (100 total)
20190419 25+25SC + 25+25AR + 25SC + 25+25SC (175 total)
20190420 25 + 25 + 25 + 25 + 30SC + 30+30+25CR+20AR (235 total)
20190421 30+30SC + 30+30CR + 50SC + 30SC + 30+30SC+20+15LL+30AR (325 total)
20190422 35+35SC + 25+25CR + 50SC + 20LL + 30+25CR+30+30+30SC (335 – NEW RECORD!!!)

My weight has gone back up to the 236-range which is a combination of bad eating and lower exercise levels. However, this past week I’ve started cycling. I’ll be starting to cycle to my office daily soon. Maybe next week. And I’ll start sharing my cycling progress.

Week 10: 5560/500000 – I’ve done 1%!!!

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This post is several days late due to a crazy work schedule. The above number doesn’t include any reps I’ve done since Monday (today is Saturday). It was an interesting week exercise-wise. I had another record week and another record day: 1175 reps for the week and 325 reps in one day. The last day I did some of my reps at a hotel gym with the advice of the person supervising the gym. She suggested that I try the “ab roller” (proper form here) from the knees (harder version here – I’ll get there eventually) and doing some “knee lifts” while hanging (proper form here) but I didn’t do the form for those properly. Also while I the gym I did some tilted bench sit-ups, but my form wasn’t very good. The end result of the gym workout was some pretty serious sore muscles (good sore) and I couldn’t really do any more stomach exercise for a few days (until today).

I’m pretty happy about getting to the 1% mark, and also about my acceleration. Isn’t this incredible:

Cumulative reps per week.

This week might break the pattern of acceleration as I only have three days to do 1400+ reps… not likely, but I’m going to try!

I also did a little home workshop project. I had a fantastic loop magnifier lamp that broke after about 8 years. I bought it to use for my coin collecting activities, but ended up using all the time for general electronics stuff, mechanical stuff and just general lighting. Anyway, rather than throwing it away when it broke (mechanically), I decided to try recover the lamp and electronics to mount it above my main workspace. It worked out well:

Mounted to ceiling.
Turned on.

Basically, I just packed up the electronics into an old Apple magic mouse plastic container. I used a little bit of plastic packing material to make sure that things stayed in place. And a few screws to hold the electronics and the lamp to the ceiling. It provides great lighting to my workspace. I’ll miss the magnifier, but I still have the magnifying glass so maybe I can do something with that later on.


4385/500000 and 17th Day of the Baha’i Fast

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Last week I was on vacation so some discipline slipped. My sleep schedule became very poor: staying up til 4am, lots of long naps. And I missed a whole extra day of exercise besides my official rest day. And, I also accidentally had a sip of water one day when I was supposed to be fasting (I blame it on tiredness diminishing my mental awareness).

But, I still did well overall with my exercise. I did 900 reps in total for the week. Three days were 200 rep days, and the last day was 200 reps in 5 back-to-back sets of 20 sit-ups followed immediately by 5 back-to-back sets of 20 crunches. Admittedly, the last 50 crunches weren’t done with great form. However, I feel confident in setting a goal for 1200 reps this coming week. I’m getting serious enough that I’m starting to consider getting some equipment to help me, like a bench. I haven’t researched it yet, but if you have suggestions, I’d appreciate them! I’ve been putting off a proper start to my cardio work due to a foot injury. Tomorrow I finally see my GP about it, and hopefully I can start healing soon. I hope to start cycling soon since I think that will be okay for the type of injury I have. I’ll ask tomorrow.

Here are my records for the last two weeks:

20190305 232.6 day of rest

20190306 233.2 40SU + 30+20+20+20SU

20190307 50SU + 20+20+20+20SU

20190308 233.0 100SU + 15+15SU

20190309 232.8 30+20SU + 20+20+20+20SU

20190310 230.6 20+20SU + 20+20+20SU + 15+15CR

131/92 89bpm 30.57%

20190311 231.4 50+25+25SU + 25+25CR

20190312 day of rest

20190313 25SU+25CR + 25+25SU+25CR+25SU

20199314 none – failed to exercise

20190315 25SU+25CR+25SU + 25SU+25CR + 25CR+ 25SU+25CR

20190316 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU

20190317 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU

20190318 20+20+20+20+20SU+20+20+20+20+20CR

I admit that the period of fasting has not been as spiritually rejuvenating as I would like. I think that’s partly due to my own lack of discipline wrt prayer. I’m typically not saying prayers in the mornings. However, I also think it’s because I haven’t been forming or strengthening bonds of friendship. So, I have a plan: I’m going to set aside Saturday nights for visiting. I’ll start by inviting friends and acquaintances out to dinner, and hopefully bringing along a family member or two. Eventually, I hope to have people coming over. I’ve realized that I’m actually pretty lonely. As an introvert it has kinda crept up on me.

In other news, I’ve done some nice ceramic art work. I’m working on another “vase”. It hasn’t been bisque-fired yet. I’ll post photos of it and some other pieces soon.

The featured image for this post is a double rainbow seen a few days ago from my deck.

3485/500000 and 10th Day of the Baha’i Fast

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My day of rest was good and I’m taking another ont tomorrow (one a week). This past week I set two new records: 100 reps of sit-ups in a single set (!!!) and 800 reps total for the week. The 100 reps was really hard and I felt awful afterwards. I also did another 150 reps day. However, I’ve added crunches to the traditional sit-ups, and I’m just calling them all “sit-ups”. So now, I will do 100 proper sit-ups per day and start working on increasing my crunches. I’ve also lost a bit of weight, about 7 lbs, mostly due to eating only one meal per day due to…

The Baha’i Fast has been great this year. It’s a little harder than last year, truth be told, probably because of my week off of work. I find it hard to ignore hunger and tiredness when I don’t actually have to do anything during the day. The part I’m having a hard time with is really getting some good prayer time in. There are distractions, but also I’m just having a hard time remembering. I have, however, been trying to spend time with each member of my family during this week. I have to do something with Ocean and Justice still. I went for dinner with Melanie, dinner with Haifa, and a movie with Verity (Captain America – good, but not great, btw).

I’ve tried doing a bit of pottery/ceramic art, but I feel like I haven’t got the hang of it right now. I tried an experiment for making tentacle sculptures, but it didn’t work out so well. And this evening I started a new “vase”, but it’s too early to say if it will work out.

I finished reading “Great North Road” by Peter F Hamilton. Fantastic sci-fi/detective/creature novel. Some really touching moments. Nice long read too, and completely self-contained. No sequel to wait for. No really unique ideas, but extremely well-written and enjoyable. I highly recommend it!

6th Day of the Baha’i Fast

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Today I was sick. I woke up with a bad sore throat. Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, has provided a number of exemptions to fasting. Specifically, if one is sick, one is exempt. So today, I decided that I would drink water, but I would continue to avoid food between sunrise and sunset.

I broke the fast in the evening with a nice meal out with my daughter Haifa. We went to an Ethiopian restaurant here in London called Addis Ababa. The food was great! It was also plentiful… when I’m fasting, my stomach seems to shrink very quickly and I’m not able to eat meals nearly as large as before. Which is good. Haifa and I had a very short visit, we didn’t linger, but it was still really nice to go out with her.

Melanie and I had a good discussion about addiction and other aspects of mental health. I realized very young that I had a strong tendency to addictive behaviour… I can certainly place that realization back to at least age 12. I also realize that a huge part of avoiding major problems with addiction is my inspiration from the Baha’i Faith: both the community and the writings. I recently went out with some friends for dinner and one of them asked me if I had ever had alcohol… nope. I’ve also never tried smoking, or any other substances… wait for it… except for food. That’s the one addiction I struggle with. Like most people, I’m not completely emotionally healthy so, for example, when I’m travelling for work, and lonely, I eat. A lot. Anyway, Melanie shared the idea from Gabor Mate that we can sometimes consciously replace addictions with more healthy ones. I hope my sit-ups goals can become a more healthy addiction than food and eventually replace it.

In other news, I finished building the second set of book shelves for our mini pottery studio. Just some cheap Ikea Billy shelves to put all our forthcoming pottery on! I’m super happy about my upcoming week off. I’m hoping to make two or three new pieces by the end of the week.

2685/500000 3rd Day of Baha’i Fast

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770 sit-ups in a week. 70 reps in a single set. And 150 total in a single day!!! (And I met my goal of 100+ every day too. ) Here are all the details:

20190226 30 SU + 30+20+20 SU

20190227 236.6lbs 40 SU + 20+20+25 SU

20190228 5×10 SU + 20+20+20 SU

20190301 30 SU + 35+20+15 SU

20190302 235.6lbs 30 SU + 70 SU

20190303 235.2lbs 30 SU + 20+20 SU + 20+20+20+20 SU

20190304 234.4lbs 30 SU + 25+25+25 SU

This coming week I’m going to start with a day of rest. Then, 130+ per day for six days to total at least 770. I feel like my stomach muscles need the day of rest.

First day of work since the Fast started. It was a bit tough in the afternoon, but really, not bad.

2nd Day of the Baha’i Fast

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Much much easier!

No headache, less tired. Had a great visit with an old friend that I don’t see much, Daniel. We went for a walk together. However, I forgot to have my mom over. Bad son!!! Got a glaze run in on the kiln… see photos. And best day yet for total sit-ups: 150. My goal is in looking more and more possible (full weekly update tomorrow). Sat with Verity and Ocean at prayer time at the end of the day and talked about the rules and purpose of the Fast. Oh… and I built an IKEA bookshelf for out new mini pottery studio room!

Here is the loaded kiln before firing:

Here is the main piece after firing:

1st Day of the Baha’i Fast!

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First day of the Baha’i Fast was tough… but I got through it. Lots of service to my family including shopping, chauffeuring, and cheffing. Went to the market in the morning, didn’t snack (like I normally do). Went to Costco and the Chinese grocery store in the afternoon. Took my family to pottery in the morning, and took Ocean to sleep over at a friends in the afternoon. Made dinner (with Melanie’s help) in the evening: fruit smoothie, turkey and onions, and yucca fries. I also took a nap and did some pottery stuff at home, and built the LEGO set Melanie got me for Ayyam-i-Ha.

My eating plan is simple: eat between sundown and two hours after sundown, eat healthy and no sugar/sugary foods, drink lots of water throughout the evening and early morning. Sunrise, say some prayers. I’m also continuing my sit-ups goal… not sure if it will be sustainable… but…

Today I set a new personal record for continuous reps of sit-ups: 70. I did it listening to “bury a friend” by Billie Eilish.