J.R. Warden

#Blogger of words. Seeker of sovereignty. I write #fantasy with a dash of strange. Tech is real life magic. #Bitcoin or CBDC slavery.

[J.R. Warden @TheWardenWrites]

‼️📝 New #blog post:
Body Awareness: A Gateway to Mindfulness

If you are stressed, your breathing will be shallower, faster, irregular. In modern life, this happens with no real or present physical danger.

https://t.co/z8lq4RSQD2

[J.R. Warden @TheWardenWrites]

‼️📝 New #blog post:
Open to Beta Readers and Collaborations

I want to build slowly, intentionally, and in connection with others one-on-one rather than through algorithms, so I’m opening myself up to beta readers and small collaborations.

https://t.co/zawFR5QJMC

[J.R. Warden @TheWardenWrites]

‼️📝 New #blog post:
I'm Quitting

https://t.co/OdueMvCu1w

[𝔊𝔲��𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯 @_GVNTHER_]

Gollum — Frank Frazetta

[J.R. Warden @TheWardenWrites]

Sometimes you have to let go of a beautiful fantasy about yourself to make room for what actually matters.
For me, it’s calligraphy and mapmaking. I love the image of myself as that person, but I don’t have the skill or the time. My bread and butter is writing.
What fantasy version of yourself are you ready to release?

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

The greatest knight who ever lived was English. He defeated 500 knights, served five kings, fought for over fifty years in war — and saved the English crown personally leading a charge at seventy years old. He started with nothing — a fourth son with no land, no title, and no inheritance.

William Marshal was born around 1146 into a minor gentry family wrecked by the civil war between Stephen and Matilda. At the age of five, he was handed over as a hostage to King Stephen, who threatened to catapult him over the walls of his father's castle. His father told the king to go ahead — he still had the anvils and hammers to make more sons. Stephen could not bring himself to do it. The boy survived.

Sent to Normandy as a teenager, Marshal trained as a knight and found his calling on the tournament circuit. These were not the regulated jousts of later centuries. They were brutal, sprawling melees — hundreds of mounted knights charging into each other across open country, fighting with lances, swords, and maces. Men were dragged from their horses, beaten, and held for ransom. It was organised violence for profit.

Marshal was built for it. At one tournament, his helmet was so battered they had to find a blacksmith to hammer it off his head. He and his partner Roger de Gaugi captured 103 knights in ten months. Over the next sixteen years, he remained undefeated. On his deathbed, he claimed to have bested 500 knights across his career. He said he had kept their arms, their horses, and all their gear — and if that meant the kingdom of heaven was closed to him, so be it.

But Marshal's story is not just violence. It is loyalty under impossible pressure.

He served Henry II's eldest son, Henry the Young King, as mentor, bodyguard, and tournament captain for over a decade. When the Young King died of dysentery in 1183, Marshal honoured his dying wish and carried his crusading cloak to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. When he returned, Henry II took him into his own household.

Then came the moment that defined him.

1189, near Le Mans. Henry II is retreating — broken, betrayed, his sons in open revolt. Richard, the future Lionheart, is hunting him. Marshal rides the rearguard. He meets Richard head-on. He unhorses him — clean. One thrust of the lance and he could have killed a future king. He doesn't take it. He strikes Richard's horse instead and rides on. Skill with restraint. Power without cruelty.

When Richard became king, he did not punish Marshal. He rewarded him — recognising a man who kept his oath even when it cost him. Richard arranged his marriage to Isabel de Clare, one of the wealthiest heiresses in England. The landless fourth son was suddenly one of the richest men in the kingdom.

Marshal went on to serve Richard, then King John — standing beside him at Runnymede when Magna Carta was sealed in 1215. When John died the following year, the heir to the throne was a nine-year-old boy and half the country was in the hands of a French prince who had proclaimed himself King of England. England was on the edge of becoming a French vassal state.

William Marshal, now seventy years old, became regent.

He reissued Magna Carta. He won back the wavering barons. And on 20 May 1217, at the Battle of Lincoln, he personally led the charge — bursting through the gates of the city at the head of his knights, so eager for the fight that his biography says he forgot to put on his helmet. The French were routed. Their commander was killed. The invasion collapsed.

He died on 14 May 1219. On his deathbed, he was received into the Knights Templar — a promise he had made years earlier in the Holy Land. He was buried in the Temple Church in London, where his effigy still lies.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, called him the greatest knight who ever lived.

Five kings served. Over fifty years of war. 500 knights defeated. A kingdom saved at seventy. And he never broke his word.

© The Stoic English

#archaeohistories

[J.R. Warden @TheWardenWrites]

‼️📷 New #blog post:
A Potential Update to the Warden's Way
https://t.co/rpAlqcDJcs

[revelinai @revelinai]

Day 28 of @JasonVitale14's Myths & Legends March challenge!

Chimera Empress - #MythsAndLegends

[J.R. Warden @TheWardenWrites]

@thedarshakrana Great article. I’d love to guest-post this on my blog.

[Epictetus | Stoic Philosopher 📖 @EpictetusSays]

“Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.”

[J.R. Warden @TheWardenWrites]

‼️📝 New #blog post:
The Road Opens Wider: A Quiet Update

https://t.co/ZgyGodWNTF

[M.W. TYLER @MWTYLER]

@PhilosophyOnX "We are navigating a profound tension between rapid technological acceleration and a deepening human desire for authenticity, privacy, and tangible connection."

[PHILOSOPHY @PhilosophyOnX]

“There is no such thing as freedom of choice unless there is freedom to refuse.”

David Hume

[J.R. Warden @TheWardenWrites]

Get off X. Go outside. Ground yourself today.

[Dave of Wisconsin @DaveXDavieau]

Winter Tournament

[PARSIFEL @Parsifel1]

THE ALCHEMIST

[Natural Philosophy @Naturalphilosy]

“Practice any art… no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.”

- McKellen reciting Vonnegut

[Jack Moses ∞ @jackmoses777]

If you don't transmute your anger into courageous action, it will manifest as intense apathy, depression, escapism, or disease, and you will constantly feel like you're wasting your incarnation.

Don't suppress it. Use it to create motion.

[Growth Labs @growthhub_]

He literally explained how to break the loop of being stuck.

[Mastery Mindset @_masterymindset]

You'll regret not listening to him: