This is what happens when a troll runs the obstacle course
SUMMARY
If you're author, internet marketing troll, and self professed "media manipulator" Ryan Holiday, you see an obstacle in your path and recognize that — far from being a barrier to progress or a warning to "TURN BAAAAACK!" — the thing obstructing you is actually an opportunity for you to succeed!
You think, woah dude, the obstacle is actually, like, totally the way! And then you clean that up a bit and make it the title of your new self-help book.
Should it matter that your silly, central platitude is a C minus Freshman English interpretation of Stoic philosophy which loses its credibility simply by being associated with your name, the name you made for yourself as American Apparel's amoral PR con man-in-Chief? Of course not! You've read a few "notes to self" written by famous ancient Romans like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca the Younger espousing this easy-to-package philosophy and so, hitching your wagon to their Stoic chariot, you've decided you're more than happy to burden their horses all the way to modern fame and fortune!
Because it's the 2nd Decade of the Digital Age and thanks to geniuses like you, facts, standards, and reality are all now fully negotiable.
You know what isn't negotiable?
Max.
Max's apparel is all-American, his carriage is Greco-Roman, and his philosophy? Army special issue. For Max, the Obstacle is the First of Many Which Make Up: The Course.
And that miraculous revelation you just had? That the hardships one might encounter during the running of said course are actually opportunities for one to succeed? Well, whoopti-sh*t, Private Holiday, congratulations on drawing your first observationally-validated, sweat-confirmed human conclusion.
But actually, shut up and get moving.
In this episode, Max tunes you up for the obstacle course by putting you through an obstacle course. Maybe the obstacle really is the way.
Watch as Max trolls your weakness memes, in the video embedded at the top.
