You grew up in Israel? I thought you immigrated to Australia from Europe?
Nope, think across the border. Never been to Israel. Lived out there till I was 13, then I went to boarding school in England.
While I would never, ever want to repeat my childhood until I was around 15 or so, it turns out a big part of me feels a deep connection to where I grew up. Makes no sense, my Arabic isn’t very good, I didn’t have many Arab friends, and I’m not Arab ethnically but I do feel like part of me belongs there.
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Hmmm Palestina or Westjordanland (Jordania) would be my guess.
You have an interesting mysterious past. I’m intrigued for sure.
Never heard it referred to as that before.
Yes, there.
It’s just the German word for the region that’s also called Samaria or Judäa (mainly by Israel) or Westbank.
It’s the land west of Jordania, boardering Israel.
Edit: Names according to Wikipedia, I actually only know Westjordanland and Jordanien.
West of what?
The West bit of it is now either Israel or Palestine
Lmao that would be like watching The movie Snatch and checking to see if I am a pikey!!! 
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That’s true. Turns out Westjordanland is what we call that geographic region. The country would be Palestine… Or Israel. The official German position is to not acknowledge Palestine as a state although that isn’t necessarily the public opinion, I think.
Edit: Westjordanland is a literal translation (in one word) of “land west of the river Jordan”
Pretty much every country’s position. It isn’t a state. It used to be part of Jordan. As far as I’m aware most Arab countries now want it to be the Palestinian state, or at least say that. Jordan’s population is over half Palestinian anyway, or it was when I was there.
Everything is very complicated there.
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I’ll just delete the question if you deem it to personal or chose not to answer for other reasons but my curiosity insits that I ask this:
You look Caucasian, your names strongly suggest a German and Polish heritage - how is it that you grew up in the middle east, then go to England and finally end up in kangaroo land?
Woke at 254.6 lbs, looking pretty much the same. Slept a little better too.
Well, you’re right about the heritage.
It’s a long story, the TL; DR is my parents met while working in Jordan (mother Australian born in Germany, father Polish), and decided to stay there when I came along. My father died when I was 11 or 12 and by the time I turned 13 my mother decided me getting a scholarship to go to boarding school in England was a good idea. When I turned 18 reality hit that as an Australian staying in England wasn’t going to happen because I’d have to get a visa either as a student and university was too expensive as a foreigner or through work, which was unlikely. So I ended up here. I turned up in Australia with a backpack and a guitar. My mother came too because she didn’t have many options either, but hadn’t lived in Australia for close to 25 years.
Honestly, I’m Australian by passport and fuck all else.
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Quite a story!
Nationalism is way overrated anyways. Look where it frequently gets the world.
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Nationalism is one thing, and almost always negative (as opposed to patriotism, although the two seem to often get confused).
Having a sense of cultural or ethnic identity is another thing. It’s something I don’t have, because it’s hard to develop when you’re effectively a foreigner everywhere you’ve ever been and you aren’t raised with any real connection to anything.
Thought your ethnic identity was Powerlifter !
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All joking aside, that’s not far off the truth. It’s a sport or community or whatever with a fairly strong tribal vibe and I don’t doubt that’s why in part it is so important to me.
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I was only half joking, I think it is fairly common for people to not associate with a particular ethnicity especially if you have lived in lots of places or countries. Finding a group of like mined people who fit some unknown reason seem to understand you and just get how you think isn’t easy. So when you find it you tend to associate yourself as one of those people. In your case powerlifter.
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Ok, so I am fucking TIRED. Long (but good) day at work and still going on that broken sleep. I shit you not, without the CPAP I would be in serious trouble right now.
Todays training
Two rounds of pull aparts and bottoms up press
Pullups
5x3
For whatever reason the easiest fives have felt. Go figure. Probably because I’m that tired I had to commit absolutely to every single rep
Feet elevated pushups, hands at sides
3x12
Hard but not painful and felt more training-like that standard pushups
KB rows
3x12x70 lbs
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Eh, I’d say that’s nationalism’s little sister. I consider myself very lucky to be born where I am because our society today features a lot of attributes that I value. But that’s it. I am not proud of my heritage because I contributed nothing to it. I didn’t shape our modern progressive society, didn’t contribute to it’s culture and art, just as I never killed Jews.
There is an awesome quote by Arthur Schopenhauer about national pride that I would like to post but it’s of course in German.
It basically (in much more beautiful words) says that being overly proud of belonging to a certain nation only tells that you lack individual attributes and skills to be proud of. Otherwise you wouldn’t choose to be proud of the one thing you have in common with millions. He who has meaningful personal assets to be proud of will be aware of his nation’s flaws as he sees them before his eyes constantly. He on the other other hand who has nothing to be proud of, takes the last opportunity: To be proud of the nation he currently belongs to. Therefore he will gladly defend all it’s flaw’s and mistakes.
Just as relevant now as it was when it was written in 1851.
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Now, you see, that quote is a damn good one.
My view of what constitutes patriotism is a true friend of one’s country; in that a patriot loves their country while at the same time being aware of its flaws and wanting to improve on them, and acknowledging the qualities of other countries as well.
So that a patriot in that vein will say, I love my country but I can see that other countries do some things better, and we can learn from them, and we must respect them and their people.
To me, a nationalist is blindly devoted to their country, and looks on others their populations with disdain.
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