Limitless Mindset

A few evenings ago walking home from the gym, I had a very dangerous idea (that would endanger those most deserving of danger) about how Western civilization could be saved and society could be made much more sound, sane, and just.

Like many of you, I've taken the red pill and had the unpleasant epiphany that many "first world" developed countries are beyond saving. I had concluded that the United States where I'm from, like the Titanic after its hull was ripped open by that iceberg is on an inevitable course to sink into darkness. I'd reached the conclusion that the only solution to preventing a truly dystopian future was the widespread implementation of human gene-editing technology. But, upon deeper contemplation, I think there may be a second option for saving civilization...

This fish oil and B Vitamin cofactor is a promising agent to improve memory via RNA mechanisms.

In human studies, Uridine has a positive effect on depression and bipolar disorder, among other things.

This article is mostly going to focus on decoding what the human studies are saying about Uridine and how this squares up with the anecdotal experiences of Biohackers online.

Vs Bipolar Disorder

Those yo-yo-ing between rage and blind optimism may find Uridine transformational. An American 2011 human study done on Uridine, conducted over 6 weeks on a small group of adolescents, suggested it's a mitochondrial hack for a healthy psyche:

The collective evidence for mitochondrial dysfunction in bipolar disorder suggests a potential role for uridine in the treatment armamentarium. This evidence includes the co-morbidity of mood disorders with mitochondrial disorders... Rational development of new treatments for bipolar disorder would include compounds designed to normalize the bioenergetic abnormalities associated with mitochondrial dysfunction...

It concluded:

In this pilot case series, uridine was efficacious and well tolerated by study participants. Rapid onset of action may be a distinguishing feature of uridine.

Vs Depression

While the Children's Depression Rating Scale scores lowered (which is an improvement) over 6 weeks in the human trial, the study's conclusion is quite bearish:

Uridine should not enter clinical practice as a primary treatment for depressed adolescents with bipolar disorder until randomized placebo-controlled trials have been performed to confirm its efficacy.

It has a synergistic antidepressant effect in combination with omega-3s. From a 2005 animal study:

Uridine and [omega-3 fatty acids] each have antidepressant-like effects in rats. Less of each agent is required for effectiveness when the treatments are administered together.

Dr. Douglas Kondo and Dr. Perry Renshaw of Salt Lake City, as reported on in 2010, used Uridine and Creatine to treat patients. To quote Dr. Renshaw:

"We're reducing depressive symptoms by at least 50 percent within a couple of weeks... The two things that are remarkable, is one: it's a very large effect; and two: it's happening very quickly."

A Synaptic Hack

Uridine is hypothesized, in a 2010 American paper (Nutritional modifiers of aging brain function: use of uridine and other phosphatide precursors to increase formation of brain synapses) to aid synaptic function by providing phosphatidylcholine; it's a promising building block of membranes and dendrites which aid synaptic function. The researchers concluded in the Abstract of the paper:

If similar increases occur in human brain, administration of these compounds to patients with diseases that cause loss of brain synapses, such as Alzheimer's disease, could be beneficial.

Vs Alzheimer's

Uridine's benefit to those suffering from or trying to prevent Alzheimer's disease is at this point mostly hypothetical. In the limited rat studies in regards to Alzheimer's, Uridine was just one of the multiple dietary factors that had an overall helpful effect.

Cognitive Enhancer

In a 2011 Israeli study 26 elderly human participants experienced after 12 weeks of supplementation...

A significant improvement in memory abilities (recall, recognition, and spatial short term) was observed following 2 weeks of Cognitex treatment... Attention (sustained and focused), visual learning, and activities of daily living (executive functions and mental flexibility) were improved as well following this short supplementation period...

It concluded:

The results indicate that the nutritional supplement may improve cognitive performance in elderly with memory complaints...

Memory Enhancer

Another animal study (Dietary uridine enhances the improvement in learning and memory produced by administering DHA to gerbils) indicated Uridine's potential as a memory-enhancing agent in combination with DHA, from its abstract:

These findings demonstrate that a treatment that increases synaptic membrane content can enhance cognitive functions in normal animals.

This is exciting because most memory-enhancing smart drugs are just demonstrated as aiding the failing memories of the elderly whereas this study is saying that Uridine improved the memories of healthy adults from baseline.

One self-experimenter reported:

"I've personally noticed a gradual improvement in memory retention and flexibility of thinking, also mood stabilization and a certain degree of improvement in thinking skills. It's very subtle, however the gains are really remarkable when I look back over the time period from when I started to now. In a way of putting it, for the sake of verbosity, the long term memories formed over the period of this stack is more mentally accessible, especially with very detailed subjects."

Sources

Beer seems to be the best food source of Uridine with approximately 100 milligrams per liter, a Japanese study found that the alcohol content did not affect the absorption of Uridine. Breast milk and infant formula are also rich in Uridine.

However, you would have to drink a lot of beer (or breast milk!) to get the 500 - 1000 milligrams daily that's been demonstrated to have Nootropic effects. In supplemental form, it's a little more expensive with a one-month supply running around $30 capsuled (powdered it's cheaper).

Downloadable Uridine?

You may be interested in taking it as an infoceutical - a non-pharmacological, side-effect-free version of the supplement that takes advantage of the phenomenon of water memory - which is imprinted on water via quantum collocation and electromagnetism using this device...

Infocueticals typically have 1/3 or half the effect of the actual medicine being imprinted. If you're skeptical of Infopathy that's understandable, it's a game-changing application of a little-known scientific phenomenon. But I'd urge you to evaluate the scientific evidence (presented in my biohacker review) that downloadable medicine is no longer science fiction...

Citicoline

An MIT study demonstrated that Citicoline is a Uridine source:

Plasma uridine was elevated significantly for 5-6 hr after all three [citicoline] doses, increasing by as much as 70-90% after the 500 mg dose, and by 100-120% after the 2000 mg dose.

Uridine supplementation itself is a relatively unproven biohacking tool, while in contrast, Citicoline has over 50 human clinical trials and I see a whole lot more value in Citicoline than Uridine. Unless you are just an insatiable self-experimenter, who needs to try every sexy new Nootropic molecule, I'd encourage you to go with Citicoline as your uridine source which in supplemental form starts at $20.

A DNA Hack

Uridine promotes DNA repair in combination with B Vitamins, specifically B12 and B9 (Folate).There seems to be some question and debate as to whether RNA-rich foods like...

* Liver* Fish* Broccoli

...are also veritable sources of Uridine. However, there's an absence of a good study that demonstrates Uridine in the blood plasma of human participants after consuming these dietary sources. The Uridine cheerleaders online are all reporting positive effects from consuming it in supplemental form. So this is one Nootropic you'll probably need to take in the supplemental form if you want its purported benefits.

Sleep

For some, it's quite a sleep hack:

"Seems to (on an unpredictable basis) help me need less sleep. Oh, and if I am ever sleep deprived, uridine completely picks me up and helps me feel better."

While at least a handful of others report that it causes various degrees of tiredness:

"...I had to stop taking it after I almost fell asleep while driving."

From a Japanese review of Uridine:

This review deals with the concept of sleep mechanism based on our uridine receptor theory. It is well established that uridine is one of the sleep-promoting substances... We propose here that the induction of sleep may be mediated by…

Gents, if you’re imagining that one day you might settle down with or marry a beautiful, feminine, family-minded foreign woman, understand that the curtain is being drawn on the opportunity to geo-arbitrage your sexual market value as a Western man in a poorer country.

Storytime: He paid $30,000 to get laid in LATAM

The broad strokes of a pathetic story I heard from my brother about an old friend of mine, who I lost touch with, his loss (in a major way!) Back when we used to be clubbin' buddies, he had a disastrous (yet effective) pickup line, he would approach the hottest girl, dolled up in the club, and tell her, "I'm Derek, and I can afford you." He was a good-looking, stylish, confident guy with all the swagger of a hundred rappers, and the ladies in the club found this line less offensive than you might think. Unsurprisingly, he dated some beautiful yet shallow and dramatic women - one of them vandalized the convertible top of his BMW once, I recall.

More recently, he met a sexy Colombian girl online. And she had a lot of financial needs, over the course of their online romance he sent her $30,000 - $800 there for a new iPhone, $1000 there for a medical emergency, $500 there for a flight ticket and a promise to come to visit him in the US - it ads up! Unlike a lot of romance scam victims, he actually got a little action for the avalanche of cash he sent her way. He visited her in Colombia and had sex with her once. He then discovered that she was married to a Colombian guy, this was just the hustle this couple ran to enjoy the high life there.

What really makes me shake my head about this story is that he knew I lived in Colombia for years and enjoyed dating the women there. He could have at any point just called me and asked: Hey Jonathan, I know you know a thing or two about Colombian girls. I met this girl online who I really like, but she is always asking me for money and I haven't even met her in person yet. Does she sound legit? And I would have saved him a small fortune that he could have spent going on a thousand dates with Colombian girls, getting married and starting a family, funding his son's college fund, expatriating from the US to free himself from tax slavery, or buying a respectable farm there in coffee country.

In my book for men, I have an exhaustive chapter on the topic of dating and marrying exotic foreign women. As a single dude in the USA, UK, Canada, or Australia you’ve probably heard about (or experienced for yourself) what an upgrade foreign women can be from modern “Western women”…

Foreign women are more feminine and elegant — they actually dress like women!Foreign women are beautiful and skinny. They even age more gracefully.Foreign women aren’t as shallow, materialistic, nihilistic, narcissistic, and entitled as Western women.Foreign women are friendlier and more receptive, they’re excited to meet and date me just because I’m from a “1st world” country.Foreign women aren’t so brainwashed by feminism and political correctness.Younger foreign women look up to and are more willing to date older men.Foreign women, ultimately, make better girlfriends, wives, and mothers.

If you go to the right countries and focus on the right kinds of women, these stereotypes are pretty accurate. I end each chapter of my book with a photo of something delicious my wife lovingly made in the kitchen to drive home the point of how great it is every day to have a real woman in your life…

The bad news is that the golden age of dating abroad is ending.

In the chapter on dating abroad, I break down why the opportunity is sunsetting for an “average Joe” like you to fly into Colombia, Ukraine, or the Philippines meet a beautiful, family-minded young lady and get married. If you procrastinate for another 5–10 years in your mission to get a great woman in your life while you “focus on your career” I suspect that you’ll eventually find that the girls in Colombia, Ukraine, and Philipines are disappointingly similar to the girls in California, Melbourne, and Liverpool as globalism makes everywhere more like everywhere else. If you see yourself getting married one day to an elegant, traditionally-minded foreign woman, I urge you not to put it off for another few years! From the chapter…

I sometimes (half) joke that in 20 years I’ll have a son, he’ll be a young adult ready to go off into the world and meet exotic (to him) girls. But by the year 2040, even the girls of Colombia and Ukraine will be purple-haired, liberal, feminist, mental health cases. I’ll have to sit him down and say…

Son, I know that you want a traditionally-minded girl, I taught you to disregard these foolish liberal girls who are good for sex and nothing else. And it’s become damn near impossible to find real conservative girls here where we live. But, good news, I’ve found an impoverished little Belarussian village named Romanovka in the middle of nowhere near the border with Ukraine. According to my demographic analysis, there’s an abundance of young women there and all the young men have moved away because there are no jobs. Fortunately, the village NEVER got the internet and the Chernobyl fallout blocks the 5G signals so, just imagine, there are farmers’ daughters there who have just read their Bibles and tended to farm duties their whole lives, instead of becoming Instahoes. You’ll have to hike through the Chernobyl exclusion zone to reach the town as there’s no highway connecting it to the rest of the world. I’ll give you plenty of Potassium Iodide so you’ll hopefully survive the radiation, but you’ll also face terrifying mutant bears and wolves in those woods. It will be a harrowing journey, but Romanovka is the last place on this planet that has any beautiful, decent illiberal women left, the farmers’ daughters may be slightly irradiated but still better than dating a modern woman, they’ll practically be lining up for the chance to marry you and bear your children!

The final point I hope to drive home is, if you want a great woman as your partner in life, stop procrastinating. Between 2008–2012 when I lived in Denver, Colorado I went out to nightclubs weekly and I met shockingly few women who were even girlfriend-material. In 2017, I was fortunate to meet a marriageable girl in a nightclub in Sofia, Bulgaria. The marriageable girl is a rare bird being pushed to extinction. The longer you wait the harder it’s going to get to find one and the further you are going to have to go. Globalism is doing its damndest to poison every single decent young lady on this planet with toxic industrial chemicals that will make her fat and with toxic liberalism that will make her insufferable. Don’t wait until Romanovka, Belarus is the last place left to go to find an attractive traditionally-minded girl!

What else is in the chapter…

* I list +30 countries with beautiful, elegant, women that you should consider visiting instead of not-so-boldly-going where thousands and thousands of other men go every year to pick up chicks; Colombia, Ukraine, Thailand, and the Philippines.

* What kind of guys will do well dating abroad and what kinds of guys will totally strike out and end up just getting scammed.

* I explain how to meet decent, genuine foreign girls, without wasting a ton of time and money.

* How, counter-intuitively, your financial or career success holds you back from finding love. Dating abroad on a tight budget forces you to date smarter (might save you from being the next guy to pay $30,0000 to get laid once!)

* How to avoid the scammers, whores, gold-diggers, and “blenders” who will take advantage of you.

* Navigating the minefield of multicultural relationships.

* The truth about language barriers.

* I debunk the number #1 lie that you’re told about foreign women, often by the men of their own country.

* Waiting till marriage to have sex? How to date abroad anyway…

* The number #1 mistake guys commonly make when using dating websites and apps to meet fo…

If you have any doubt that we live in the idiocracy timeline, let us cogitate here on the economic absurdity that almost every digital service or good offered in the current year has a free version and then starts at about $10 a month or $100 a year.

Years ago, I paid $2 for lifetime access to the premium version of the Sleep Cycle app. It turns your phone or tablet into a smart alarm clock that wakes you up at the ideal time between REM cycles. If you need an alarm clock, it actually works pretty well and improved my sleep for years - for two bucks.

Once upon a time, I paid about $40 for a lifetime Brain.FM membership, this is an app/website that produces awesome holosync-style psychoactive music for focus, relaxation, meditation, or sleep. Their focus tracks really are an enabler of creative flowstate for me; they provided the auditory wind in my sails while I penned two books, scripted hundreds of videos, and created both my magnum opus course for men and Limitless Mindset's new flagship transformation program. Pretty sweet for forty bucks!

I got life-changing value (for going on half a decade now) out of these digital offerings precisely because they were reasonably priced.

Let's look at an example of another digital personal empowerment tool, that's got its pricing wrong (in my opinion)...

More recently, I trialed the Othership breathwork app. It provides guided breathwork sessions (somewhat similar to guided meditation sessions) for starting the morning right, some pick-me-up energy in the midafternoon, relaxation, gratitude, getting to sleep, and even partner breathwork sessions (for sexytime!) The audio engineering makes the tracks a sublime pleasure to listen to, while there's some room for improvement with the design/UI of the app itself. But when the lengthy free trial that Othership generously extended me ended, I stopped doing breathwork with the app because it cost $18/monthly or $130/yearly.

Now, I'm really not shy about investing money into my health and well-being, a significant portion of our household income goes into supplements, self-quantification, healthy food, and gym memberships. But $130/year for an app membership? Sorry Othership, no thanks! And the Othership offer is similar to so many I see these days across the internet, overpriced. Here's why...

* It's just an app that plays MP3s of guided breathwork sessions. Let's say that I spent two whole hours finding, downloading, and converting to MP3 the best publicly available breathwork sessions on the internet and organizing them in a VLC playlist (emulating what Othership does) - my time would be "worth" $65/hour (this would take a lot less than two hours in reality). If an app costs so much that my digital DIYing of it values my time at above $50/hour, I won't pay for it. My first job was cleaning grocery store floors for $7.25 an hour, so I'm really not above $50 an hour!

* An app that costs $130 a year should be PERFECT. It MUST work flawlessly and instantaneously on every device. It should have every feature my heart desires. It should have a design/UI that would make Leonardo Davinci cry. The Othership app is good, but NOT that good.

* For $130, I expect to be personally served by another human being in some small way. The website hosting services that I've paid for most of my adult life often cost less than $130 a year and include real human beings that I can call up or email anytime I have a problem with my website. With an app that just delivers MP3s, nobody is really serving me personally.

I like what the folks at Othership are all about, I appreciate the creativity and effort that clearly go into their guided meditation tracks, and I'd love to support their mission. Othership would be a total no-brainer for me and many others at $20 a year or $40 for a lifetime membership. I'm disappointed that they have deprived me of the opportunity to reward them by grossly overpricing their offering!Instead, they've turned me into a "free rider" - I've cost them server resources for my trialing of their app. I'm a (very small) part of the reason some of their customers have to pay $130 a year, for an app. I don't think Othership is overpriced because the folks behind it are rapacious capitalists. I think it's a case of unoriginal thinking; entrepreneurs see that everyone else is doing digital subscription services at around a hundred bucks a year so they figure that's what they should offer. 

But Othership is far from the only digital offering getting its pricing wrong...

It's an understatement to say that European Biohackers face a challenge in getting quality Nootropics, smart drugs, and anti-aging agents...

Almost weekly I receive emails from Europeans who want to supplement their productivity, happiness, or cognition by using some of the proven, safe, and effective Nootropics that I have written so extensively about. Those in North America do have it easier when it comes to selection and ease of acquiring supplements.

* Europeans often have to deal with a multi-layered maze of their local country's and the European Union's regulations concerning a given Nootropic.

* Prescription requirements vary from country to country.

* VAT taxes vary from country to country.

* Shipping and customs concerns.

I've lived here in Europe myself for over half a decade and in a word, it's just trickier for European Biohackers. So in this article, I share some credible European sources...

Where to get Nootropics in Europe 🇪🇺

Listed in no particular order...

RUPharma

Russia has been a powerhouse of pharmacological research and development since the fall of the Soviet Union. I checked out this vendor, RUPharma based in Moscow which offers some unique Nootropics and performance enhancers that I self-experimented with; the peptides Semax and Selank, exogenous oxytocin, and Russian Modafinil along with Visoluten, a smart peptide that is a vision hack.

What People are Saying: On their website, you can find many customer reviews and on Trustpilot.com they have +130 customer reviews with an average of a 5-star rating. That's impressive!

Money-Back Guarantee: From their service guarantees: 

Get 100% refund if your package gets seized by customs or is lost in transit.

Clinical Studies: This website has a nice search function where you can search for almost any given medical condition and it will show you the Russian products that might treat it. Each product page on their website has a nice description breaking down the science done on the Nootropics.

Web Presence: They have an email newsletter and a very responsive customer service department but no social media presence.

They now ship primarily from warehouses outside of Russia. In case you're wondering, yes you can get Russian Nootropics in the United States. One customer reported:

I have ordered from rupharma twice so far and both times the product was delivered to me very fast without problems. This last order was shipped to California in 7 days! The product is authentic and they are a pleasure to deal with. They always reply quickly to any inquiries and will not hesitate to assist you with any issues. I will definitely keep coming back and highly recommend them to anyone!

Focus Supplements

I recommend this supplement vendor highly to European biohackers, they have higher standards for their Nootropics and antiaging health products than almost anybody else in Europe. I tried their Rhodiola Rosea, LongJack Tongkat Ali, Uridine, and Resveratrol products which produced the effects that you would expect. Importantly, their products are COA verified. They shipped to me several times and I reliably received their packages.

What People are Saying: On the products' pages of their website you can find numerous Verified Buyer reviews. They are highly rated on both Amazon.co.uk and TrustPilot.com.

Clinical Studies: These guys sell mainstream, low-risk supplements. On every product page, they describe the science behind their supplements.

Web Presence: They have a Facebook page and Instagram.

Money-Back Guarantee: 30-Day 100% Money Back Guarantee. Items must be returned to their operation in Kettering, UK.

Indigo Herbs

My go-to for organic herbs in Europe. I have very high standards when it comes to adaptogenic herbs. In my experience, powdered herbs are a whole lot of a better value than capsuled herbs.

Locally I haven't been able to find high-quality powdered Rhodiola and Schisandra, two of my favorite adaptogens for energy, mood enhancement, immunity (important during the wintertime!), and libido. I did some research about European herbal vendors and decided on Indigo Herbs out of Glastonbury, UK.

Unfortunately, the only shipping option from the UK to Bulgaria where I live was Royal Mail Airmail, this shipper loses about 50% of the packages I've had shipped to me here in Sofia. I waited for about a month for them to deliver my package of Rhodiola and Schisandra and it never came so I contacted them and they shipped out another package free of charge which arrived in about 2 weeks. To my pleasant surprise about a month later I received a notification that the original package was at the post office. So I ended up getting two-for-one from Indigo Herbs.

* My wife and I enjoyed the Rhodiola and Schisandra, we like to consume these herbs as a tea, they make a very tasty, earthy-tasting tea that has a similar effect to a cup or two of coffee.

* These herbs met my expectations of organic herbs, previously I used Lost Empire Herb's excellent COA-verified products.

* The Adaptogens are noted for having a potent pro-immunity effect. Using these Adaptogens daily during the eastern European winter we managed to avoid getting sick during the winter of 2019.

Money-Back Guarantee: From their Returns and Refunds page

This means you can return your purchased goods to us within 30 days of the date of delivery and cancel the sale and receive a refund.

They offer support:

If one of the following has occurred:

· your package has not arrived

· the order arrived incomplete

· you were sent the wrong items

Intellimeds

This website carries a wide variety of a bit edgier, more experimental Nootropics, and smart drugs. Intellimeds is the place to get Racetams in Europe. I tried their Bacopa, Tianeptine, and Nefiracetam. They sell both capsuled and bulk powders so if you've figured out a Nootropic that works great for you and want to save some money by getting it in bulk, Intellimeds is a smart option. They accept payment in crypto.

What People are Saying: On Reddit, there's a handful of discussions of Intellimeds. They have an excellent average reviewer rating on Trustpilot.com, where they have been rated by +280 customers (that's statistically significant!) Apparently, I'm the only Vlogger that has reviewed their products.

Clinical Studies: Their website contains thorough descriptions of the science behind the products often with links to Pubmed. However, some of their offerings are research chemicals that you won't find evaluated in human clinical trials.

Web Presence: They have no social media presence. Their customer service is very responsive to inquiries submitted to [email protected].

Money-Back Guarantee: From their website: should you be unhappy with the product you receive, you can return it within 28 days providing it is unopened, unused, and ‘as new’. Once we receive the product back, you can choose to receive a refund or an exchange.

Performance Lab

The EU-based branch of the vendors of the classic stack Mind Lab Pro™ offers a lot of interesting things to make you a leaner, meaner human machine. Like stimulating pre-workout mixes, vitamins, nutrients, immune stacks, and functional foods along with multi-vitamin stacks formulated specifically for men and women.

Youth & Earth

All of Youth & Earth's products are COA-verified as pure and free of toxins or additives by an accredited UK lab. This proof of purity is what you should demand when supplement shopping, especially when it comes to a product in this price range. Because of their commitment to quality Youth & Earth makes the cut to be included as a recommended Limitless Mindset Secret Society, pick up over £200 worth of their products and you'll be eligible for a 30-minute biohacking consultation and membership in our elite biohacker community.

Lifetropics

Based in the UK, offers lab-tested Clean Supplements for Happy Lives; several Adaptogens, nutrients, and stacks for women. They offer free shipping to British customers.

Life Extension …

I’ve been a digital nomad for the better part of a decade and in that time have experimented with over a hundred different Smart Drugs or Nootropics. I’ve crossed at least 30 borders with all sorts of interesting, pharmacologically active potions and powders on my person.

The truth is that you're taking a bit of risk anytime you're crossing borders with smart drugs, Nootropics, supplements, or medicine that are not immediately identifiable by the border guards as something that might be bought at a pharmacy in that country. If they can't identify they may pull you out of line, detain you, deny you entry to the country, or interrogate you in a backroom (you better have some good answers for them!) And you never know when you may cross paths with a corrupt border guard who will use your pills, powders, or other Biohacking goodies as an excuse to extort a bribe out of you.

Before bringing Nootropics or smart drugs to a new country; you want to do a little thinking and research about what kind of country it is. I wouldn't bring white, powdered supplements to a theocratic Muslim country, Singapore, or Brazil. These places are infamous for throwing foreigners in the slammer for seemingly insignificant infractions.

However, I've crossed over 30 borders carrying all manner of supplements (even powdered ones) and I've never had a hint of trouble. When I travel I keep my supplements in a deep, secluded corner of my luggage that security has never checked. I don't talk to anyone while in transit on a bus, plane, or train about what I'm carrying. And I don't declare anything upon entering.

Bottom line

I don't think you need to be really paranoid about traveling with your Nootropics stash. Of the hundreds of Biohackers and travelers I've spoken with, I've never heard of someone being badly harassed or imprisoned in a Brokedown Palace situation as a result of carrying Nootropics, supplements, or medicine across borders. Keep those white powders out of sight and you should be fine.

Travelers 🗺️ Check out the Biohacker Connect - Our geodirectory platform for meeting like-minded Biohackers wherever you're headed...

Globetrotters, nomads, and vagabonds - check out some more of my travel-hacking stuff in this playlist...

Share this with a traveler…

Support me on Substack? For $7/monthly?

Inspired by the style of Memoir from Antproof Case

It was a romance that burned hotter than most, which is no extraordinary thing - what’s extraordinary is how long it has burned hot.Not all men (if they are being honest), can say that they’ve had a grand and all-consuming passionate love affair in their lives - that they’ve had a “love of their lives.” Most men settle; they find their partners in the space between lurching after the biological urge and compromising their values and standards to buy a bit of comfort.I have had a love of my life - a star that shines so bright that it blots out all others while serving as a celestial beacon to navigate by to a mythological land of abundance. This is our love story, what we kindled now burns hotter than ever.

We met at a club, which might surprise passing acquaintances of mine - people tend to meet their partners online, at work, or through friends nowadays - but not anyone who has known me for more than a decade.Nightclubs, discos, dance clubs - whatever you want to call them - always made something in me come alive, even when I was sober. I’m an unapologetic dancer. The beat of the bass, the undulation of the revelers under the disco ball, the contrast between the crispness of the cool night air and the sweaty hotness of the inside of the club, I find it all thrilling. And I’ve had some of the most unforgettable nights of my life clubbing across three continents.So it’s really quite fitting that I met my wife at a club.

It was my second time in Sofia, Bulgaria and I had arranged to meet a friend, Nikolay at a language exchange at the Culture Beat Club.A “language exchange” is a cultural phenomenon that you can find in any cosmopolitan city and undeniable proof of my personal evolutionary psychology theory of sexually-driven linguistic adaptation and divergence. In short, since we came down from the trees as a species, men have desired the luscious loins of women but have been left wanting if there was a lack of fertile women in their tribe. Thus, many of our ancestors were men who ventured out into the unknown - across rivers, plains, and mountains - to find themselves a woman. They either had to take a woman by force or win her from her tribe with persuasive charm and/or meaningful labor, both options demanded linguistic adaptation. Either the man had to pick up the woman’s language to talk her family into handing her over or the woman was kidnapped and dragged back to the man’s tribe. Thus, language learning and the novelty of a foreign accent became entangled with one of the most exciting of human experiences, falling in love - that great descent into the depths of our carnal urges for each other.Culture Beat is located in the Bulgarian National Palace of Culture, this gargantuan white building (that looks like it belongs in a science fiction movie) looming over downtown Sofia.I got more than a bit lost in my meeting with destiny that night. I navigated the wrong way around this building that likely produces its own gravity well, entered the wrong entrance, rode the elevator up and down, and explored the cavernous and increasingly unpopulated and unlit interior in search of the club. Eventually, I ended up in a parking lot where I accosted a mother and daughter for directions; they led me to an architectural outcropping of the Palace of Culture where the club is perched. Finding my friend in the dimly lit club would prove a lot easier. 

Funnily enough, the moment of our first encounter is a matter of debate. As I remember it, I was standing at a table with Nikolay and a few other forgettable occupants, and out of the crowd of darkened silhouettes, I gestured for a cute girl passing by to join us. Which she did with a smile, I introduced myself, and we had a brief yet pleasant conversation about something, well, totally forgettable.But by my wife’s account, she approached us because she knew Nikolay, and then Nikolay introduced me as his “drug dealer” friend. To settle the debate we’d have to audit the club’s security camera footage for the night of February 23, 2017.We ran back into each other a little while later, and I wouldn’t call it love at first sight, but there was electricity between us. I regaled her with my tales of travel and adventure. She was especially entertained by the account of the abuse I suffered at the vicious paws of a territorial cat with whom I had to share an Airbnb with in Odesa, Ukraine.But, with my three-word answer to a question of hers, I owned her body, mind, and soul forever. She asked what I did for work, and I responded, “I’m a writer.” My wife is, was, and will eternally be a voracious reader. She loves books so much that I suggest to our descendants that she be buried with books (in case of reanimation). Visibly, she could barely contain her curiosity about me - from that moment on she was mine to do with as I pleased. After finding each other and finding each other again in the club, we exchanged Facebook contact details and went our separate ways into the crisp Bulgarian night.

Some romances are like stubborn logs piled in a fireplace, that take a bit of effort and prodding of kindling to become inflamed - such was ours. Shortly after meeting, my tourist VISA in Bulgaria ran out of time, and I boarded a train for Istanbul. I was uncertain at the time if I’d even return to Bulgaria and I wanted to give Istanbul (supposedly, one of the great cities of the world) the chance to entice me, so I left a few messages from her unanswered which did not please her. While I enjoyed sipping dark Turkish-style tea in the cafes of Taksim, Istanbul would prove disagreeable to my tastes (well, mostly my taste for fast wifi). So I decided to leave that city where the kitties so boldly stroll through grocery store aisles.

Back in Bulgaria, I hadn’t noticed that she unfriended me on Facebook, she was understandably irate that I hadn’t stayed in touch as I ventured toward Asia Minor.But, fate saw fit to give me a second chance; “Hello Mr. Roseland” I heard from behind me at a Couchsurfing meet-up as she ran her curious fingers over my shoulder. The seat was open beside me and she required about 11 minutes of charm to be persuaded to re-friend me on Facebook, that night she and a friend invited me to a nearby local hip-hop show. When a bouncier beat moved me I grabbed her and dragged her (inspired, no doubt, by my cavemen ancestors) to the dancefloor for a bit more vigorous interaction. We’d part ways again into the night and I’d do a little better job with my QWERTY communications.

A few weeks later we arranged our first (let’s not call it a) date in an appropriately ambient environment. Intending to escalate beyond dry conversation, I selected seating and maneuvered our bodies at a 90-degree angle to each other. Impatient to taste if her tongue was as sweet as her accent, I leaned in to kiss her at the closest thing to an opportune moment. Half expecting to be rebuffed, I was pleasantly surprised at her surrender. I withdrew and we continued the conversation as her stare spoke much. Our tongues would continue to tango there between talk of travel, family, pets, and... I really don’t recall what else as I was so enjoying the tenderness of her lips! Her beauty and womanly softness were such that I resolved to seduce her, maybe not that night, but I resolved to explore every inch of her. I walked her home, hand in hand, with a newfound lightness in my step. I drifted off to sleep imagining the thrill of dining, wine-ing, and intertwining further with her.

After a few more encounters, it was clear that our bodies were aching for each other. She lived with her mother and I was staying at a hostel with sweaty tourists, so I booked us an Airbnb downtown. As a prelude to the seduction, I enlisted her assistance as …

Gents, you might think that sexual hedonism means promiscuity, sleeping with a lot of women — having a lot of casual sex. I’ll make the case that it really doesn’t…

My book for men, Don’t Stick Your Dick in a Blender, details exhaustively the strategies, lifehacks, and biohacks for holistic optimization of sexual hedonism. If you want to maximize sexual hedonism and do it smartly, you want to think seriously about monogamy and even the other (dreaded!) M-word, marriage.

Monogamy, done right, means a lot more, and better sex than promiscuity does.

Monogamy is a big upgrade in both quantity and quality of sex from the promiscuous single life of Tinder dates and stumbling home from bars or clubs with strangers. When you’re monogamous you get to have a lot of sex (every day if you want!) And, you get to enjoy guilt-free unprotected sex, everybody who has had much sex agrees that unprotected sex is a whole lot better!

Promiscuity is extremely fashionable; Hollywood, celebrities, along with multitudes of self-styled gurus and “sexperts” are constantly telling us how great promiscuity is — if it feels good, DO IT! But there is a lot that pop culture isn’t telling you about promiscuity…

* Often, the sex itself is awful. You go to bed with a new person and you have no idea what each other like in bed. They are bad at giving oral sex. They won’t give you a blowjob. They are too rough. They just lay there like a corpse. They say rude things that ruin the mood. They don’t actually look good naked. The condom robs you of the actual pleasure of lovemaking. The sex is over after 5 minutes. They don’t want to cuddle afterward, they want way too much cuddling. They get a weird guilt trip in the middle of sex. There are erection or lubrication issues because of too much booze. About half the time, a one-night stand is less fun than simple masturbation.

* There will be drama. Inevitably, when you invite a stranger into your bed, you invite all manner of drama, pettiness, headache, and heartache into your life. There will be jealousy. There will be gossiping. There will be stalking. There will be betrayal. There will be lies and false accusations. There will be covert contracts, unvoiced expectations, and ridiculous double standards. Their ex-lovers will send you threatening messages on social media. Your overnight guests will drunkenly cause drama with your roommates. They will get you to waste your money. They may even steal your money or your stuff while you’re in the bathroom post-sex.

* There will be pregnancy scares. Intentions and mindset matter in sex and relationships. If you go in with promiscuous intentions, not taking a relationship very seriously or evaluating their character, you will within a few dates cavalierly dispense with the condoms and begin raw dawging. It feels so great that you become so intoxicated by the oxytocin that you don’t soberly consider if you want to have an 18-year legally-mediated 3-way relationship with this person, a child, and the government (Yikes!) Then someone’s monthly period doesn’t come when it should and you’re racked with stress, guilt, and anxiety. You might need to pay for an abortion. You might become a single parent.

* The boozing. Promiscuity and alcohol are inextricably linked, very few women will sleep with someone new stone sober. If you’re going to have a promiscuous sex life you’re going to be doing a lot of drinking.

* It’s expensive. For men, promiscuity is not cheap; you’re going to be buying a lot of drinks and dropping coin in overpriced restaurants, bars, and clubs.

* You will get STDs and STIs. Sexually transmitted diseases are so common that it’s just an inevitability that you’ll pick up something in the course of your philandering. Even if you use condoms, if you’re sleeping around a lot, some nasty little bug will get through that pleasure-robbing rubber barrier. Or you could get genital warts on your groin which the condom doesn’t cover. Almost all sexually active girls insist on doing BBJs (bareback blow jobs — not using a condom or dental dam for oral sex) so even if you use a condom for intercourse, you still have a chance of picking up something nasty from that dirty mouth of hers. In addition to condoms, If you’re having casual sex take immune-support supplements and apply a natural antiviral, disinfectant solution (like oregano oil dissolved in coconut oil) on and around your genitals (this may sting a bit, but it will be less painful than getting warts burned off with a laser or acid - which I got to experience) after a first-time encounter with someone new — you don’t know if they are clean.

Considering the high cost of promiscuity in time, money, health, stress, and peace of mind if you’re a true hedonist — who chooses the greater pleasure over the lesser pleasure — it’s clear that monogamy is the $60 steak dinner and promiscuity is the $2 candy bar.

Now, I know what you might be thinking…

I’ll just find a girlfriend who is OK with a double standard, with one-way monogamy. I’ll tell her that she needs to be loyal to me, but that I can sleep with other women on the side. If she’s not OK with that, I’ll find another girlfriend who is.

I remember a (very mediocre, in retrospect) woman I dated who actually suggested this, telling me…

“Jonathan, I like you and I’m really not interested in sleeping with guys. I only sleep with one guy at a time. But, I know you want to get out there and have fun. We don’t need to use condoms because I’m on birth control, just use condoms with the other girls so you don’t bring me any surprises…”

Some women that you’ll date will seem surprisingly willing to let you have your cake and eat it. And there’s this cottage industry of internet marketers selling the idea that you too can have a harem of sexy girls worshipping your cock, and only your cock. Gents, this is really a case of, if it seems to be too good to be true it is.

* The women who might agree to such an arrangement will either have low self-esteem or (worse) too much self-esteem; either way, they are going to be a bunch of drama and not very trustworthy. Over the years, I’ve known a lot of guys who shared with me that their girlfriends agreed to one-way loyalty or wanted to have threesomes with them. The arrangements NEVER lasted long and seemed to result in a lot of trouble. These arrangements are very tempting, especially when it’s her that suggests it, but they are “sticking your dick in a blender.”

* The gurus selling this lifestyle are not very credible. Most of them are anonymous Internet personalities, who provide very little real evidence for the lifestyle that they brag about.

One-way loyalty will persist as long as she doesn’t think that she can do better than you, which (unless she’s morbidly unattractive) will be about a week. A woman you’re casually dating may agree to one-way loyalty but as soon as another charming guy hits on her, she will want equal rights in your monogamish arrangement and will make you a cuck, THAT is certainly not what you want, is it?

I was a pickup artist and nomadic seducer for seven years, devoting myself to chasing skirts, ever driven by the thrill of the hunt. It was fun, but it also came at the cost of a lot of disappointment, frustration, drama, wasted money, and lost sleep. I wish someone had made the case to me earlier that monogamy was a lot more pleasurable without all the brain damage. I wish someone had explained to me earlier that seduction wasn’t just a recreational activity but could be used as a tool for filtering and attracting into my life a high-quality woman who would make me happier than ever. If I could have deprogrammed myself from the promiscuous mindset earlier, I would have enjoyed more of the $60 steak dinner and less of those regrettable $2 candy bars!

I’m not going to sell you the illusion that somewhere there’s a goldmine…

This book begins with a treatise on free speech by Quintus Curtius, he makes the point that we assume incorrectly that society will just get better and better. We assume that we will just become freer and freer, we see the tremendous improvement in human quality of life in the past hundred years of history recorded via grainy photographs, shaky newsreel, and newspaper clippings and we assume that it's just going to get better but Quintus warns that progress is not our birthright...

It's especially easy for young people with no children to assume that the nature of the world is just to get increasingly free over time, barring some extraordinary life experience it's likely that over time all they've personally experienced is their freedom expanding.

We do associate the abstract idea of freedom with our concrete quality of life, consumer choice, and the advent of new technologies making our lives more convenient and amusing. Since there is no sign of the Cambrian explosion of consumer options slowing, the idea of freedom contracting seems incomprehensible to most. But Quintus writes...

Time is as much a destroyer as a creator: and perhaps more of the former than the latter.

He makes the case that our society of unequaled freedoms wobbles on a knife's edge and that there is a good chance that human rights will regress within our lifetimes. I've long believed likewise that... human rights are antithetical to human nature.Human nature is evolutionary - of course - and prone to devolve into brutal competition. Human nature is a strong man taking power, money, women, and resources from those who he can by sword, law, or guile. Human nature is a tribe being fiercely unsympathetic to an outgroup. Human nature is a syndicate of elites depriving the common people of the fruits of their labor. Human nature is a dictator depriving his people of the ability to defend themselves from their overreaches. Human nature is a ruling narrative stifling and censoring dissenting voices.

I lived in the motherland of truly great coffee for two years; Medellin, Colombia, where I had a passionate love affair with the anti-oxidizing dark nectar.

I frequently hung out at some of the best cafes in the world there, which served straight black coffee that was as smooth as wine going down, I got quite hooked on the stuff.

Then I moved to Europe, where I proceeded to have short-term relationships with various cities and countries...

It would be an understatement to say that I found it a challenge to find coffee in Europe that measured up to the standards that Medellin set so high.Sometimes I'd find a good cafe but in a short matter of time, I'd move on to a new town and my search would begin anew.My search for great coffee was confounded by Europeans' delusional optimism about their coffee; they are quick to call Starbucks out for the garbage brand it is but woefully unaware that most of the coffee served here is no better. Every trendy young European I met was quick to assure me that I could find truly great coffee in their city, yet they needed to dilute and load it up with milk and cream to make it barely palatable.

Now my snobbishness is not just because I can't stomach sub-par coffee. As I've become more mindful of how what I consume affects my mood, focus, and productivity, I've become more aware of the negative effect that bad coffee has on my day.

Begrudgingly I decided I needed to go off coffee or at least cut back sharply on the stuff - make it a once-a-week type treat instead of a daily habit. Which turned out to be pretty rough; Caffeine is the second most addictive Nootropic I've become acquainted with. I would quit for a few days and then have some and be disappointedHoweverut, I discovered an energizing morning cocktail that replaced and effectively assuaged my coffee withdrawals...

 Adaptogenic Herbal Tea

This is a cocktail of three potent tonic herbs from traditional Chinese and Russian medicine; Rhodiola Rosea, Eleuthero, and Schisandra Chinensis.

Day one of no coffee is usually the roughest, so I was amazed to find my caffeine withdrawals non-existent when I started using Adaptogenic Herbal Tea. While it doesn't quite imbue the peppy headspace that coffee does, it's a stimulant that helps wake you up and evens out your mood.

Black Tea

At cafes I began ordering Black or breakfast Tea, it's sometimes called the man's tea because of its slightly bitter, yet hearty, savory taste. All cafes serve it, it's cheap and it doesn't have the mycotoxin fermentation issues that so much coffee does. Black tea does have some caffeine in it, so it's not like I've gone cold turkey off the 1,3,7 Trimythelxanthine that I so adore.

Nicotine USP Solution

Finally, I began starting my mornings with a drop under the tongue of this pharmaceutical-grade Nicotine. It is addictive so you need to regulate yourself and be strict about not letting your daily dosage creep up. It provides a near-instantaneous boost of alertness and focus.

In my days as a raver I remember a DJ friend of mine lamenting that Ecstasy is a great drug but an inconsistent one; sometimes you drop a pill and your friends are awesome, the music is near orgasm-inducing and the night is epic but sometimes you drop a pill and it doesn't work, you get paranoid, the crowd is annoying and you awake Serotonin depleted with the emptiness in your soul crying out to you. Anyone who has done much Ecstasy knows what I'm talking about. Thank God I didn't know about Phenibut at the time. I might still be a raver! I feel kind of the same about coffee as a performance enhancer; sometimes it's the wind to the sales of my productivity and the hoverboard that elevates my mood but sometimes it just barely assuages my chemical dependence and leaves me frenetic.

My current Nootropic cocktail for a kickass morning is all the more potent and reliable. If you've carried on a rocky, on-and-off daily relationship for far too long with coffee that often leaves you high and dry I hope you'll try it!

Share this with somebody who drinks three coffees a day…

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