Homeowners outfit their properties with cold plunges
wsj.com
wsj.com
Zuckerberg spends his free time trying to outrun his demons with insane workouts posted on social media, but I can be broke and pretty much do that.
1: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/02/style/mark-zuckerberg-wor...
Being disciplined is a step above, and spending time working on yourself rather than working for someone else is even more upper class.
Also, there is still expensive real estate (more than Austin for sure), private jets, boats, servants, etc if you want to strive for “lavishness and decadence”.
Zuckerberg is not upper class in the classical sense. He doesn’t have the resources or molding to truly be able to fuck off, live in the woods in a centuries-old mansion, rolling in debauchery and in complete disassociation from humanity.
I.e. if you know about them, they’re not upper class, but very high upper middle class (they still “work” and participate in vulgar activities like business, rather than utterly “worthless” activities that are driven by innate desire, not glorified peer pressure).
Mitt Romney is upper middle class. The Bushes are upper middle class. The Sacklers, the Clintons, the Kochs, Buffett, Gates, the Siemens, the Onassis’, the Waltons — all relatively new players, and haven’t yet been aged by centuries of absolute apathy and detachment. Ellison is definitely getting there.
I think the biggest difference between him and the rest are upbringing. Ellison was not raised upper middle class, and had little regard for his family and circle. He did not have countless other upper middle class people around him in his formative years to mold his soul into conforming with upper middle class sensibilities (make money, gain influence, be interesting, important, play the image game, etc.). And now he’s fucked off to Lanai.
The only thing that man values is himself and his capricious desires — that is what the upper class is. There is no internal need within him to conform to external pressures. The man is a cunt.
What about the rest of the list? They grew up in relative affluence, and the upper middle class sensibilities have been imprinted onto them. To use a pop-culture example, none of them are Logan Roys. They care how people view them — especially their intimates. They might feign thoughtless excellence, but deep down they’re driven by the external forces that molded them.
If there’s any amusing note it’s that the true upper class has more in common with the lower class than it does with the middle. The middle lives on lies and self-deceptions, while the upper and lower only care about themselves and their authentic desires.
For example, compare Roedean to Philips Exeter. The people are utterly different — and the wealth and money is but a surface measure.
See: what happens to most people who win the lottery, not having been first acclimated to that sort of wealth and leisure.
Look at the sorts of things the Victorian aristocracy indulged in. It's not that they couldn't instead have been diving face first into mountains of cocaine and very top shelf booze. They just also had the ability to pace themselves and find forms of leisure that weren't debaucherous, but nor were they work.
New money typically goes one way or the other -- it's that middle path that the old upper class manages to find a way to travel.
Being able to drive up the aircraft right before takeoff without having to worry about tickets and security screenings and delays and gate changes would make travel so much nicer.
Or if you have that kind of money, you could simply not care about what other people think.
I haven't tried it myself but people who do it regularly say that if you do it every day - say starting in the summer and continuing until winter - you don't notice the temperature dropping so much.
We also have the same rumours about health benefits, but I'm not sure what the science says. I'd guess if there are any, it's more from being somewhat active (locals usually walk to the lake) than the temperature. We also like to roll in the snow after sauna. Our life expectancy isn't any better than warmer climates.
https://hubermanlab.com/dr-susanna-soberg-how-to-use-cold-an...
I also regularly fill a tub with cold tap water and add ice to soak my lower body after long runs or rucks (long here is north of 2.5-3 hours).
I worked up to it gradually over a period of months, maybe years, when I first got into marathon training.
The nordic countries have been doing polar plunges for a long time for similar reasons. They say it helps with depression too.
Chris Hemsworth, the actor who plays Thor did a mini series on National Geographic and one episode feature it.
The evidence for the health benefits is extremely weak. It can help accelerate “recovery” from exercise, but at a cost of diminishing the benefits of the exercise in the first place. Your body gets sore when you workout for a reason. The only reason you’d want to stop that process is you’re in a multi day competition, which you’re not.
I'm a former Green Beret and combat diver. You know what cold plunges are good for? Practicing will power, and bravery.
It sucks. It's the worst thing ever. But it won't kill you. So you do it for the shock and the pain and the fact that you can safely push yourself to do something you and your body realllllly hates, and you can do it without becoming David Goggins or Jocko or whatever.
Just run a cold bath, dump some ice in, and practice being brave.
louis ck complained about it quite eloquently on joe rogan.
It is just another fitness gimmick with limited use that most people will get and never use. Most people I know with hottubs barely use them once the novelty wears off let alone cold.
Most people's diet and sleep is not dialed in enough to worry about an ice bath.