R. Lee Ermey Passed Away Yesterday

A man of many talents:

And the infamous Jelly donut scene:

He was a Marine, a fine actor, a Glock spokesperson, and most of all a great American patriot and a gentleman who spent much of his time making himself available to Military, Law Enforcement, and Fire Rescue personnel, for no other reason than they loved to shake his hand.

He was also a master of amygdala. This posture, particularly struck me:

I look at this and my asshole puckers a little. Look at the bent knees, on the balls of his feet instead of the heels, with the shoulders pulled down and back by the lats, and a touch of tricep tension straightening the arms while the biceps still keep the elbows bent slightly. It all makes it feel like this is a crazy cocksucker primed, wound up, and ready to explode, and I don’t know what the fuck he is about to do next.

He struck a similar posture in the Jelly donut scene:

Bent knees, bent elbows, tensed abdominals, balls of the feet, and head almost jutting forward. Even the way his weigh is shifted to one side and unbalanced conveys stress, much like movie directors make shots of buildings slightly not-parallel vertically, because the subconscious effect of seeing buildings leaning irregularly and not parallel vertically, creates subconscious stress in the mind.

It is an interesting skill he had, and he had it in spades. Even his voice was an amygdala trigger, and not just for humans. I played the first scene above on my TV before deciding on this post, just drinking it in, in the light of amygdala. Within the first two seconds, my dog popped up off the floor, trotted over, and went on alert just at the sound of his voice. He looked cautiously at the TV, and let out little tentative, disapproving “yups!” while looking curiously at the TV and then at me, as if he wasn’t sure what was going on, but felt it might be a threat. When Ermey turned on his crazy, even animals perk up and realize this guy was a crazy son of a bitch just from the timber of his voice, and they conclude he is too dangerous to do anything but assess his insanity from a distance while yipping cautiously. I laughed at the effect he had.

If you think about it, that is an incredible skill. He could hack into the machinery of brains, just by looking at you with the crazy eyes and striking a posture, without even saying a word. Your amygdala would light up, and create a feeling in you and change how you would respond to other things. His voice even set animals on edge. And back when he was a DI, that was all before you even considered that he now had the authority to PT you until you died, and would gladly fuck up your shit on a moment’s notice. Meditate on his skills as you consider how to manipulate the brains around you, using amygdala-stimulants to control your opponent’s brains. There is so much more to the amygdala hijack than mere words.

It is tempting to feel bad about his passing, because he had become a master at so many disciplines through dedication and hard work, and how by his very existence he enriched all of our lives and did so much good. Twenty years ago I would have felt bad, even though we never met. But the reality is, he is not dead.

I believe in r/K. I think the right-wing of politics is correct, and the best way forward. But I know, based on all the evidence, the testimonials of those who have passed over and come back, testimonials of all the nurses who work in fields where they see death, and personal experience, that death does not end who someone is. I am beyond certain. It does not end here.

R. Lee is somewhere at the very moment you are reading this, and I will bet it is the best ride he ever took and he would not want to go back even if he could.

So celebrate what he left behind for all of us, enjoy his movies, respect his legacy as a great American, and hold out hope maybe if you’re lucky you’ll bump into him one day yourself. Because the next ride, by all accounts, is even better than this one, if you make the grade.

And that is even if without considering all the amazing people you may run into.

Tell others about r/K Theory, because this life is a wild ride, and the next one is even better