Modern man has made a great error. He has abandoned the natural order of things. He has rejected intensity, and he has rejected rest. And in doing so, he has condemned himself to mediocrity.
Life itself functions in cycles. The sun rises, and the sun sets. The tide crashes, and the tide recedes. The heart contracts, and the heart relaxes. Nature has always understood that true power, true energy, comes from extremes. From pushing to the edge, and then retreating fully. But man—especially modern man—has lost sight of this.
He is never fully engaged, and he is never fully resting. He has become addicted to the lukewarm. Addicted to the constant hum of productivity without true effort, and the illusion of rest without true recovery. He is a machine that never powers down, yet never operates at full capacity. A light that flickers dimly, never shining bright, never going dark.
This is why he is exhausted, yet unfulfilled. This is why he trains, yet does not improve. This is why he works, yet produces nothing of substance.
The simmering 6 is the great disease of modern existence. It is the state of never being fully immersed in anything. Never working with full focus. Never pushing the body to its true limit. Never disappearing into deep rest. It is a dull, grinding, never-ending existence. And it is why most people—most athletes, most workers, most seekers—never touch greatness.
The Modern Athlete: A Study in Perpetual Exhaustion
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the world of athletics.
Once, there was a time when an athlete trained like nature intended. He trained brutally hard, pushing his body to its breaking point. And then he disappeared. He lay in stillness. He allowed his body to rebuild. He did not “sort of train.” He did not “sort of recover.” He burned fully, and then he rested fully.
But today? The modern athlete is never fully on, and he is never fully off. He is always in a state of mild activity. A constant, low-grade level of work that never truly exhausts him, yet never truly allows him to recover.
He trains at a moderate intensity. Not enough to truly push himself into new realms of performance. Not enough to truly trigger deep adaptation. Just enough to accumulate fatigue.
He rests, but not really. He foam-rolls, he “actively recovers,” he stretches, he jogs lightly. His nervous system is never fully shut down. His mind is never truly free. He believes he is “recovering,” but he is simply prolonging his exhaustion.
The result? He never reaches peak performance, and he never truly feels rested. He is constantly fatigued, constantly stiff, constantly running on reserves. Always slightly overtrained, never fully recovered. Always training, yet never really improving.
And what does he do in response? He trains more. He optimizes more. He spends more time analyzing his metrics, tweaking his schedule, micromanaging his performance. But he never asks the real question:
Why am I always slightly tired? Why am I never fully on, never fully off?
The answer is simple. He has been conditioned to believe that “more” is the answer. That effort is found in consistency, rather than in intensity. That discipline is found in daily commitment, rather than in total immersion.
But this is a lie. The greatest athletes in the world do not train this way. The greatest athletes in the world live in extremes.
The Runner: A Case Study in Greatness or Mediocrity
The runner is a perfect example. Running, at its core, is a study in total exertion and total surrender. There is nothing in between. A sprint is all-out. A marathon is an act of complete engagement. Even an ultra-marathon, for all its duration, is a test of extremes—full suffering, full release.
But the modern runner does not run like this.
Instead of training at full intensity, he trains at 70%. Instead of collapsing in exhaustion, he logs more “miles.” Instead of pushing his body to its absolute limit, he runs “efficiently.”
And so, he never truly improves.
He believes that because he runs often, because he increases his mileage he is making progress. But he is simply accumulating fatigue. He is never pushing his body to the point of real adaptation. He is simply grinding himself down, little by little, until injuries appear and motivation fades.
And what does he do in response? More of the same. More moderate miles. More training at a simmering 6. More of the in-between.
But look at the best runners in the world. Look at the Ethiopians. The Kenyans. They do not train like this. They train in extremes. They either RUN, or they do nothing at all. They RUN, then they rest. They push their bodies to their absolute limits, and then they disappear into recovery. They are either fully on, or fully off.
And this is why they dominate.
The Great Lie of Balance and Moderation
Modern life tells a great lie. It tells people that “balance” is the key. That moderation is the path to success. But this is nonsense. No one great has ever lived in moderation. No athlete has ever become the best by training at 70%. No artist has ever created a masterpiece by working in half-measures. No thinker has ever reached the depths of truth by engaging with the world only partially.
Greatness is not found in balance. It is found in extremes.
The body does not adapt to mild effort. The mind does not sharpen with mild engagement. The spirit does not grow through mild suffering.
It is only when one goes fully in—when one burns with total intensity—that real change occurs. And it is only when one rests completely—when one disappears into true stillness—that real recovery happens.
But man is afraid of this. He is afraid of true intensity, because it requires him to abandon safety. He is afraid of true rest, because it feels like death. So he lingers in the middle. He stays at a simmering 6.
And this is why he never breaks through.
The Only Way Out
One must see the trap. One must see the lie.
There is no prescription. There is no formula. The mind that seeks a technique is the same mind that will remain trapped.
But if one sees it—truly sees it—then one will have no choice but to abandon the in-between. One will no longer tolerate the dull exhaustion of the modern world. One will no longer accept a life of never being fully on, never being fully off.
One will either burn, or one will rest. Nothing in between.
This is the way. And there is no other.