Troy Walling

Sometimes, when people say they are wired a certain way it means they are wounded a certain way & have learned how to respond a certain way.

If you belong to Christ, then nothing that happens to you can un-belong you. Thank you, @BenSasse for demonstrating how true this is. scottsauls.substack.com/p/the-miracle-…

My statin thread went viral. Thousands of you read it. But the messages that hit me the hardest were the ones that said: "Mark, I have heart disease in my family. My dad had it. My grandfather died from it. Am I next? Is there any hope for someone like me?" I need you to hear me. There is hope. Real hope. Backed by science. Look at this chart. A 2016 study in the New England Journal of Medicine followed 55,685 people. Even those dealt the WORST genetic hand for heart disease cut their risk in HALF through lifestyle alone. You are not your diagnosis. You are not your family history. Let me show you why. 🧵

“You got me at the end” @BenSasse with @DouthatNYT

Ben Sasse: "What’s really happening is these superdevices in our pockets — the largest tools any median individual’s ever had access to in all of human history — allow our consciousness to leave the time and place where we actually live, the places where we break bread, the people who are living next door to us, the people that you can physically touch and hug, the small platoons of real community, and we allow our consciousness to go really far away"

Ben Sasse has the face of Christ. His bloodied visage is the result of treatment for his pancreatic cancer; the new treatment might give him a few more months. Read or listen to the interview. It's staggering, this man's hope and faith. nytimes.com/2026/04/09/opi…

Joseph of Arimathea pulled a corpse off a cross with his bare hands. Blood under his fingernails. The weight of a dead man sagging into his arms. He wrapped God in linen, pressed the fabric into wounds that were still wet. Nicodemus brought seventy-five pounds of burial spice. A king's funeral for a man the world just murdered. They carried Him into a hole in the rock and rolled the stone shut. And everything you've ever done went in with Him. Every night you can't sleep because of what you did. Every morning, you can't look in the mirror. The thing you did to her. The thing you did to them. The lie you've been carrying so long it feels like bone. The version of you that drinks alone and pretends tomorrow will be different. That man was buried with Christ. Stone sealed. Done. Not managed. Not in therapy. Not on a payment plan with God where you slowly earn your way back. Buried. In a tomb. Under rock. Gone. Three days of silence. Three days of a cold body in the dark. Then the stone moved. And when He walked out, the grave clothes were folded on the slab. He didn't stumble out tangled in death. He left it sitting there like a man who's done with the clothes he used to wear. Lazarus needed someone to unwrap him. Death still clung to him even after he was breathing. Jesus folded His own burial linen and walked out clean. That's the difference between religion and resurrection. Religion unwraps you slowly. Asks you to manage your sin. Attend the class. Read the book. Try harder next week. Resurrection says the man who walked into that tomb is dead. The man who walked out doesn't know him. You're not fixing the old you. The old you is in a sealed tomb in Jerusalem, and he's not coming back. The man reading this, the one who thinks he's too far gone, you're not too far. You're already buried. The funeral happened two thousand years ago. Now get up. The stone's already moved. The linen's already folded. Walk out.

I'm going to keep posting this Alstair Begg clip "The Man on the Middle Cross" (less than four minutes in length) every Holy Week, because its message is true in 2026, it will be true in 2036 and it will be true in 3036. "If i take my eyes off the cross, I can then give only lip service to its efficacy while at the same time living as if my salvation depends upon me. And as soon as you go there it will lead you either to abject despair or a horrible kind of arrogance. And it is only the cross of Christ that deals both with the dreadful depths of despair and the pretentious arrogance of the pride of man that says you know, I can figure this out."

Heads held high. ❤️

The past week was a masterclass on how bad ideas spread. It started with one bad take by someone who is world-class in their domain and out of their depth on the subject at hand. The now mega-viral clip of Marc Andreessen saying he's not introspective starts the way all bad ideas do: with a kernel of truth. Yes, talk therapy can be a circle jerk. But the same can be true of exercise. Let me show you what I mean: The American College of Sports Medicine, the gold standard in exercise science, recommends a minimum of 20 minutes of vigorous activity three times a week. That's not going to get anyone far fast. But anyone who is decently fit knows that. If you've been to a gym, you know that's baseline advice for the sedentary to start somewhere. Same with talk therapy. People who have never been to therapy think it's just lying around wallowing in your problems. And in some cases, it might be. But almost no serious practitioner is doing vanilla "talk therapy" at this point. More modern methods like CBT, EMDR, IFS, and somatic experiencing are all way more effective. It turns out, we've gotten better in the last hundred years. And when Andreessen called introspection a 'guilt-based whammy manufactured in Vienna in the 1910s,' well, so was exercise. Just like therapy, it didn't exist in the 19th century. But this is more than just a bad take. It's potentially harmful. First, it could keep someone who desperately needs it from seeking help. But more insidiously, it validates every founder who is running from their underlying wounds, trying desperately to achieve their way to enoughness. It's permission from someone who is running to give others permission to keep running. To keep grinding away in the name of greatness. And then, suddenly, everyone has a take. This is how bad ideas spread. One person with a massive platform says something wrong with confidence, and an entire ecosystem of influencers repeats it because alignment with the highest-status take in the room is easier than forming an original thought. Which brings us to the bandwagon take: "Talk therapy is a waste of time." Is this from experience? Because I don't know a single person who sought out a vetted, qualified therapist, engaged honestly with the process, and came away saying it was a complete waste of time. More likely, this is a blanket dismissal of an idea of what therapy is, rather than an experiential critique. Which makes it a strawman. It's an intellectually lazy way to borrow credibility by taking cheap shots at a caricaturized version of something that the person has never actually done. And then, in perhaps the most damning moment of the whole cringeworthy clip, the appeal to authority by claiming that the great men of history didn't need introspection. But who exactly are we considering to be a "great man?" J. Paul Getty? Steve Jobs? Elon? You want to build a dynasty at the price of those closest to you? Be my guest. This is the recipe. I'll never have as much money as Andreessen. But I'm wealthy in the ways that actually matter. I've healed myself. I've excavated my psyche. I've challenged every inherited belief and chosen my own values. There was a time when this might have resonated with me, too. Before I took the first step. Before I dared to look behind the curtain as to why I was white-knuckling my way through life, and it still wasn't enough. But I've always been a truth seeker. And when the cracks started to show, the whole scaffolding came crashing down. And as a result, I have my own hot take: Being introspective is the single most important quality to a life well lived.

@BarteltLab @nicknorwitz Understood. I was unaware you had interacted with him before. I'll keep reading everyone and relying on my doc. Everyone is a grifter. It's the ones that don't think they are grifting or divulge it that bother me!

@TroyWalling @nicknorwitz I know my homies, they start reasonable like yeah that’s a good question but it always goes down South to grift country from there.

I’m a lipid biochemist by training and for 20 years I have been saying: The lower the LDL-C the better for you. nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

@BarteltLab @nicknorwitz She seems to tilt toward using them judiciously and for those with CVD history or other risks when I asked questions I could think of. I don't want to have a heart attack at age 58 and am willing to turn to drug interventions She has my trust but I still try to educate myself.

@BarteltLab @nicknorwitz I have discussed this with my doctor and she gave me a CAC scan before X ever taught me what that was and said that even though my cholesterol is a bit high, my 0 CAC result suggests I shouldn't go on a statin.

@nicknorwitz @BarteltLab These kinds of threads disillusion me. I want to be a learner. But, at least they are instructive of where I should point my learning and I look forward to learning more about the questions Nick is asking.

@nicknorwitz @BarteltLab I'm just a lay person trying to learn the best way to be healthy and stumbled across this. Much of what I read is above my head, but I try. I'm not credentialed in anything but sports fandom, lol, and I know every single time I've called the other team names, my team lost.

@KetoCarnivore @drjamesdinic @caloriesproper2 @carnivore_jt As a lay person who reads broadly on things that interest me, I like to read to the end of respectful debates and then comment on the person whose approach, citations, demeanor, and tactics suggest a lack of unconscious agenda that helped shape my views.

I didn't say I didn't read studies in general. I said I'm not going to read your gish gallop. That's different. As to negative calcium balance, I have in fact reported that myself in my own paper on the topic. And I even already said in this conversation that I'm not criticizing your conclusions particularly only the quality of your arguments. Lions are a bad comparison. Full stop.

@carnivore_jt When your entire identity is tied to a carnivore diet you tend to overlook the evidence. Lions (and other big cats) fed only muscle meat, without bones, organs, or proper supplementation, commonly develop bone problems, including conditions that weaken bones significantly, often described as osteoporosis-like or leading to osteoporotic changes. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12437150/ This stems from a severe calcium deficiency combined with a poor calcium-to-phosphorus (Ca:P) ratio. Muscle meat is very low in calcium but high in phosphorus (typically a Ca:P ratio around 1:10 or worse in red meat like horsemeat or beef). Wild lions and big cats eat whole prey, including bones (rich in calcium and phosphorus), organs, skin, and other parts, which provide a balanced intake—roughly 1:1 to 2:1 Ca:P when bones are consumed. scribd.com/document/15229… This Happens Due to Nutritional Secondary Hyperparathyroidism from an All-Meat Disease - The body maintains blood calcium levels for critical functions (nerves, muscles, heart). When dietary calcium is insufficient, parathyroid hormone triggers the release of calcium from bones. - Over time, this causes bone demineralization, thinning, softening, and reduced density, leading to fibrous osteodystrophy, rickets (in growing animals), osteomalacia, fractures, deformities (e.g., bowed legs), lameness, reluctance to move, and in severe cases, paralysis or death. - In big cats like lions, tigers, and leopards, this is well-documented in veterinary literature as metabolic bone disease (MBD) or nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism (NSH). Classic historical cases include lion cubs at the London Zoo in the late 19th century fed lean horsemeat, which developed fatal "rickets" that improved when bones and cod-liver oil were added. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21092876/ Similar issues occur in captive big cats fed cheap ground or boneless meat without supplements, and in domestic cats/dogs on all-meat diets. wildcatridgesanctuary.org/metabolic-bone… AND agmv.ro/wp-content/upl… Evidence from Studies and Cases - Historical zoo data (London Zoo, 1889 onward) linked lean meat diets directly to bone disease in lions and leopards; adding minerals/bones helped. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19349374/ - Modern reports confirm NSH in lion cubs fed meat-based diets with inadequate calcium, causing soft, flexible bones and fractures. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15214697/ - Captive feeding guidelines stress that muscle meat alone is deficient; balanced diets include whole prey, bone-in meat, or supplements to maintain proper Ca:P ratios and prevent MBD. birdsandexotics.com/blog/exotic-fe… - Related animal studies (e.g., mice on high-meat diets) show weaker bones linked to nutrient imbalances (like relative copper deficiency), supporting the broader principle. Wild lions rarely face this because they consume carcasses holistically, including calcium-rich bones (especially marrow and smaller bones). They may preferentially eat organs and softer parts first but still ingest bone material. Captive animals on "meat-only" (boneless muscle) diets are at high risk unless supplemented. bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1136/ve… AND mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/a… @Alexleaf

41-year Nebraska announcer Kent Pavelka’s (@KentPavelka) call of the end of #4 Nebraska’s win over #5 Vanderbilt and advancement to their first Sweet 16

Kent Pavelka calling the final seconds of the Husker's win over Vanderbilt! GO BIG RED! HUSKERS ARE GOING TO THE SWEET SIXTEEN!! MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY!!

@Stuckey2 It's like 3 hours additional driving from TN versus Nebraska. Totally jobbed.

Happy for Nebraska fans but feel so bad for Vandy. Got jobbed more than any team in the field with their seed and then had to play a road game.