Whenever the term “mental edge” comes to mind, I think about Dual Survival, and how Joe Teti uses the phrase at least once every single episode. But the instance that stands out the very most of Joe’s constant pursuits of mental edges was the one episode where Joe and Cody were in some desert, and like in most cases, dehydration was a massive issue.
Despite Cody’s logical (and truthful) objections to doing so, Joe insisted on drinking his own urine. And despite fully agreeing with Cody’s rationale why drinking urine while teetering on the edge of dehydration was a bad idea, Joe overruled logic, stating that simply getting the feeling of wetness in his mouth would give him the mental edge needed to persevere in the desert a little bit longer, even if the source of said wetness was his own piss.
Joe pissed into a helmet and drank his own piss.
For that mental edge.
As funny as it would be to associate the term “mental edge” with “drinking piss,” the truth is that it’s more in the fact that often times, Joe’s actions that supposedly give him a mental edge are often flawed logics. Sure, drinking piss is an extreme case of pursuing a mental edge, but truthfully, not everything is at all that terrible.
Ever since I laid down the gauntlet of attempting to burn 1,000 calories on the stationery bicycle once a week, I’ve actually kept up with it for the last month or so. It’s actually quite the physical challenge if you slap on a time limit to it, and for me, to accomplish it within the confines of an hour, I find to be pretty taxing. It’s kind of chess game of finding out which resistances I can set, in order to find a happy medium of optimal calorie burn without gassing myself too quickly.
But the thing is, on the days in which I complete this goal, I feel that I have the mental edge on the rest of the day, where I feel like I can relax my eating habits a little bit. The mental edge declares that my metabolism is racing at a 1,000 miles per hour, and since I’ve wiped 1,000 calories off of my daily intake, it’s like I’m allowed to eat more delicious food. The lunch I eat not long after burning 1,000 doesn’t even come close to pairing up with what I’ve worked off. Improving my physicality is all but a layup on days like this.
Naturally, none of the flawed logic that comes with this mental edge is true, but in some regards that’s the point of mental edges – you feel better, regardless if the logic behind the actions aren’t necessarily legit.
But hey, at least I’m not drinking my own piss out of a helmet. I think that’s a mental edge I’d be willing to forfeit getting.
