I remember listening to a conversation on Joe Rogan's podcast. He was talking about MMA and the advantages of fighting as a young fighter (25 years old, for instance) vs fighting as as an older fighter (40 years old), and how performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) throw a monkey wrench in the balance.
For instance, he said that pitting an older fighter against a younger fighter can be surprisingly balanced. He said that this is because the young fighter has an advantage with agility due to having a younger, more spry body, while the older fighter has an experience advantage: he has been fighting for a much longer time than the younger fighter. The two advantages they both have can have the effect of canceling each other out.
But if you pump up the older fighter with steroids, then the younger fighter has effectively lost his advantage because steroids effectively give the old fighter a new body. So now they're equally agile and spry, while the older fighter still has the experience advantage. Not fair!
Indeed, I had a girlfriend around ten years ago who was a nurse at the time. She told me about the widespread use of steroids seen in nursing homes. Apparently TRT (testosterone replacement therapy) is extremely common among the elderly. This is because it effectively makes them young again. It has positive effects on so many things, including cognition, mobility, energy--more or less everything. One of the effects of this is that it makes them extremely horny. She explained that STIs are comically common in retirement communities, because the excess testosterone has such a powerful effect on libido. And try and guess what these elderly are not using in conjunction with TRT. Condoms.
TRT and steroid use is extremely common in today's society--not just among the elderly--for the positive effects it has on people--energy, strength, mobility, cognition. And why not? As long as you use it responsibly, it seems the benefits outweigh the negatives.
Of course, there's no such thing as a biological free lunch. I'm positive that testosterone is the main reason men don't live as long as women. And it's not due to the stupid risky things that you see men do that women tend not to do. I think it's more to do with the cascading biological effects testosterone has on the body, and hardening of artery walls that testosterone seems to play a role in. I'll probably get on it in my mid-50s, but my body still works basically like it does when it was 20 (I am now 40), so I'm holding off for now.
That's one of the perks of having undergone this journey of vision therapy. There are a number of reasons I did it.
One is that I knew my eyes and basic hardware were good, and that gaining stereopsis as an adult, in principle, would be a matter of training and work. In principle, it should be possible. Other people in a similar situation to myself have done it. I should be able to do it as well. And indeed, if my hardware is good, and it's possible for me to gain stereopsis, then it would be a crying shame for me to not at least attempt to put in my hand and fix my vision.
Another reason is that I knew it would be difficult--if not, the most difficult thing I ever do. If I actually were able to achieve my goals, I knew I would learn extremely valuable skills and lessons along the way: skills and lessons that I would be able to use and apply to other unrelated challenges and goals in life. I could use this challenge as a unique opportunity for building my person and adding value to my neural net.
And finally, I want to help others who are in the same situation that I'm in. The shit situation that I was in, and which I know with certitude that many others are currently in. I mean, I'm not a UPenn neuroscientist like Susan Barry, who had access to world-renowned vision therapist Dr. Theresa Ruggiero. I'm just a curious, hardworking IT nerd with a ton of grit who's willing to do anything. I did what Susan Barry suggested for others to do: get a COVD vision therapist. I did that for a year, and didn't achieve much.
So I did vision training on my own and went on my own investigations. I met Heather, someone who gained stereopsis at around the age of 50, by initially firing her first vision therapist, got a new one, and then quickly gained stereopsis with the new one. She's the one who introduced me to Syntonics (the reason for the name of this blog). She also introduced me to Columns. She quickly gained stereopsis with her new vision therapist through a combination of Syntonics and the Columns exercise. I tried following what she did, but like with Susan Barry's suggestion of getting a COVD vision therapist, that didn't work either. I spent at least 2-3 years doing Syntonics in combination of vision therapy no little to no success. But she did instill the idea in me that success in vision therapy as an adult requires priming the brain, softening it, and increasing neuroplasticity in order to allow vision therapy to work.
Many years later and through experimentation, I found that a combination of cold exposure and ketogenic diet would allow me to make progress in Columns that was required. I think I'm very close.
So yeah, the journey has been incredibly long, painful, and lonely, but I did learn some incredibly important and useful things. You are alone in this journey. No one is going to fix your vision for you. You have to do everything. It will be hard work, and you will probably have to do some painful and unpleasant things for long stretches of time. It definitely hardened me.
The things that worked for others did not work for me, but they did sort of get me on the right track. Susan Barry inspired me, and demonstrated that it could be done. She started it all for me. Heather showed me Columns, and that the nervous system needs to be primed and put into a ready state in order for vision training to be effective. There is a shitload that I had to figure out on my own. Was the vision therapist I had 12 years ago going to tell me to build a cold plunge in my shed and to submerge my body into 35 degree water for five minutes at a time every day, or to do keto? No. I had to figure that shit out on my own.
But I did figure it out. And I'm glad as fuck that I did. These techniques are life-changing. I'm sure that these two things: cold exposure, and keto, have made my brain young and agile again. So now I kind of have it both ways. I have many years of experience (I'm almost 40 years old), and I have a youthful and agile mind. I'm excited to see what the future holds for me, and I hope others can benefit from what I've learned.
In addition, I hope people who were in my shitty situation can use what I've learned to gain stereopsis, and achieve things they might not have thought were possible. And of course, we're talking about the brain--so this journey is not just about vision. It's about the brain, and human potential. Press on!
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