Of all my successful Expeditions, I'm going to like the results of this one. The 13th Expedition has been by far the least active, so much so that it makes me wonder if weightloss is more of a function of doing things we like to do. C'mon, how herculean it is to push through as a vegan with another bag of spinach? Whereas yesterday, I had:

• 4 tbsp of coconut oil
• 3 tbsp of butter
• 10 oz of pork shoulder
• 3 eggs
• 3 oz of cheddar cheese
• a cup of bone broth from pork neck
• 1.3 oz of raw sunflower seeds
• 2 tbsp of ground flaxseed
• 2 oz of spinach
• 24 oz of coffee
• 2 tbsp of cacao powder

I have NO idea how many calories that is and don't care. It does hit or get close to my goals:

• Fat (190): 190.6 g
• Protein (140): 139.4 g
• Carbs (30): 28.7 g

OK, OK, so I also had 1.6 oz of pork rinds from a barbecue shack, but, C'MON, it was the last night of being 41!

My diet throughout The 13th Expedition has been some sort remix of the above; when I went with chicken instead of pork, I'd add butter for more fat; and lower and raise sunflower amounts to hit nutritional needs. I just keep working the levers on Cronometer.

With the exception of a few days, I haven't had my 3AM something workouts with the exception of an occasional series of sun salutations and warrior poses. There hasn't been the 2 1/2 hour morning grind with a follow-up lunch or dinner cardio. Whereas exercise is awesome as it adds to mind, body, and ability, I no longer see it as the driver of weightloss success. However, as a proponent of fitness—well, OBVIOUSLY...

And as this whole Expeditionary is all about approaching optimized fitness—well, OBVIOUSLY...

What's amazing to me is that a meal plan that I list above not only works, but works effectively well. I can point my indomitable spirit not at my plate, but direct it toward greater dividends.

I am absolutely stoked: for my upcoming birthday, I received a sleep mask headphones with bluetooth technology! I've been wanting it since April when I heard from it from Ferriss' Tribe of Mentors—OK, my skimming of the book. After awhile, the message the author seemingly tries to bring home is 1) be a Buddhist; 2) do his hobbies; and 3) here's some random stuff from the best click-bait people he could find. It wasn't exactly the cream of current cognition, but, to be fair, I wouldn't know where to start and definitely not in the confines of a popular audience. And honestly, if we are to write on what we know, how can I fault the author? Maybe the book's title implies something more grandiose? Then again, some tribes just wipe out other tribes. <shrug>

Nevertheless, I did mine the book for nuggets and unearthed the headphone sleep mask!

At this point, like everybody else, I love music, so there's that concept for sleep mask application. However, I've also been experimenting with binaural beats as a soundtrack of my meditative space, not unlike focusing on my breath. Now with the sleep mask, I suppose it comes a little bit like Eleven from Stranger Things. You can be sure if I can find the gate to another dimension, I'll post a blog on it, or at least find the me on the other side to cross the divide and post—assuming of course he's not wearing a goatee to add to his crazy eyes (ST:TOS) or has WAY over-the-top behavior while hopped up on a full 64 oz cup of Mountain Dew salaciousness (ST:DS9) or is just too busy at the pool building his Americana army (Stranger Things). Honestly, I'm convinced that instead of doubling back in a linear context, when my Future Me swings by in our DeLorean, he won't be from my universe, but, "I" will shatter through the membrane between universes in all 88 mph glory!

We live in a global community, albeit a sprawling one with critical thoroughfares I'll never cross. Even the places I know so much about and where my ancestors lived and died, I have barely been, whether it was on 3 separate trips to London or nary a step in Scandinavia, Lithuania and so it goes on. In 2004, with a train layover in Strasbourg, I had an hour on my hand to wander the town, not knowing I was on the border of another ancestral home, the region of Baden-Württemberg.

The thing is: memories fade; borders disappear; and our definition of our world changes. In time, as we push into our solar system and beyond, our world will drop the weight of its political boundaries. The more mobile we are, the faster that we travel, the more this transition will take shape.

It's already in place with trade. I don't really think about what countries were involved in the making of my breakfast. Even my upcoming order from Black Rifle Coffee Company, which is about as 'Merica as you can get with its support of the military and first responders, whose website basically comes off as Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" (and really makes that Seattle coffee company look like they hire a bunch of Richmonds from The IT Crowd) illustrates this point:

While I'll likely be receiving my order from their roaster in Coffee County, Tennessee, 130 miles as the crow flies from my home, the beans themselves are from Columbia and none of us give it a second thought about it.

(Sidebar: the detractors might rail against the low pay of the workers involved, but let's step back and think, "Do the workers not realize the work is hard and the pay is low? That they can just quit that job and work at the high tech firm down the road? Or, is it more likely that they literally have the highest paid job that their local economy makes available to them. What happens to them if that farm/factory closes down? We should trust that the actors involved will try to take the best position available to them.)

So, trade globalization is something that we don't otherwise think about because of the speed involved (or our awareness thereof). In time with technological expansion, will our political hegemony fall as well?