With a single click of a button, I made a decision that would forever change my life.
I remember it well. It was Springtime, 2019, AD…
The winter winds of the Icy Fringes of the Frozen North had finally receded, and the blossoms from the Season of Rebirth had sprung out of their Earthen Prison, rising high toward the Sky and Shining sun.
It was in that spirit that I would click the order button on Amazon.
The book in question?
Don’t Get Boned: The Harm City Handbook by James Lafond.
RIDING THE TRAIL AHEAD
This book would be the first of James Lafond’s many tomes that I would read over the years.
It would introduce me to the work of a man who would ultimately become a mentor, role model, and more than that…one of my best friends.
My pal means that much to me because he’s ridden the trail a few miles up ahead of me…and has made it his mission to share his wisdom to drifting young men all over the world.
And some of the best wisdom that he has shared in print comes in his “Checklist for Breaking Minds”.
BAPTIZED IN BLOOD
James Lafond’s “Checklist for Breaking Minds” is also called his “Emotive Cue Checklist”.
It’s a simple step-by-step system to see if somebody is on the edge, at the breaking point of a complete mental meltdown…ready to crack into violence, despondency, or worse.
This checklist is hard-won wisdom gained from decades of Boxing, Stick Fighting, and surviving the Ghettos of “Harm City” Baltimore.
You know it’s the real deal, because it’s been battled-tested in the trenches…baptized in blood, toil, sweat, and tears.
HARD-WON WISDOM
“One look at this list and an assessment of people you know,” James Lafond writes, “Will reveal that virtually every person you come into contact with is at or beyond the psychological breaking point, and hence easily manipulated and broken.”[1]
Taking up that offer, I’ve been going over the Emotive Cue Checklist for years. I’ve used it to measure people in my family, friend circle, workplaces, combat sports gym, and even myself.
And I’ve come up with a few observations of my own based off of it.
So without further ado, I present to you James Lafond’s “Emotive Cue Checklist”…
Followed by my own analysis based off my own hard-won wisdom.
BREAKING MINDS: THE EMOTIVE CUE CHECKLIST
- “1. Fearful
- “2. Angry [the surest indicator of a brittle and easily broken mind]
- “3. Talkative
- “4. Argumentative
- “5. Loud
- “6. Boastful
- “7. Pitiful [crying and whining]
- “8. Seeks approval
- “9. Needs approval
- “10. Impressed by size, appearance and style.”[2]
Expanding upon this list, James Lafond notes from his experiences in Coaching:
“Fearfulness [#1] and the need for approval [#9] are responsible for the low level of participation of women in combat sports. Coaching most women is a constant exercise in the infusion of will into a soul that is not content to be alone under stress.”[3]
“The duality that causes most male combat athletes to wash out early is a combination of anger [#2] with the tendency to be impressed by size and other appearance issues [#10].”[4]
TWO WAYS OF LIFE
In all the places I’ve lived and all the jobs I’ve worked, I’ve seen everything on this checklist over the years. And not always from the people you would expect.
I’ve thought about this a lot. Heck, I think everybody has experienced every emotion on this checklist at some point or another in their lives.
But it’s one thing to experience these emotions.
It’s quite another to make them a way of life.
And within this checklist, there are two ways of life available…and both equally bad.
ACTIVE VICE & PASSIVE VICE
I break the Emotive Cue Checklist down into two categories…Active Vice of an expanding nature, and Passive Vice of a shrinking nature.
#1 Fearful; #7 Pitiful [crying and whining]; #8 Seeks Approval; #9 Needs Approval; #10 Impressed by size and appearance…all these are passive, shrinking.
#2 Angry; #3 Talkative; #4 Argumentative; #5 Loud; #6 Boastful…all these are active, expanding.
Furthermore, each Active Vice has an opposite Passive Vice that pairs alongside it.
- #2 Anger and #1 Fear are opposite sides of the Active Vice and the Passive Vice.
- #6 Boastful and #7 Pitiful [Crying and Whining] are opposite sides of the Active Vice and the Passive Vice.
- #4 Argumentative and #8 Seeks Approval are opposite sides of the Active Vice and the Passive Vice.
- #3 Talkative and #9 Needs Approval are opposite sides of the Active Vice and the Passive Vice.
- #5 Loud and #10 Impressed by Size, Appearance, and Style are opposite sides of the Active Vice and the Passive Vice.
The Active Vice and the Passive Vice are both ways of life that many people live today.
And you don’t want to be living either one of them….but the deck is not stacked in your favor.
THIS SICK PYRAMID OF SERVITUDE
The reality is, today’s society promotes both the Active Vice and the Passive Vice as the ideal to achieve!
They promote both of these things in order to keep the people under their slavish control…but there is a secret social ranking involved in this sick pyramid of servitude.
If you are granted a higher rank in society, you can be active and expanding…the Active Vice is sold as your baby. However, you can still be controlled, because the Active Vice makes you brittle and breakable. It’s a false Neitzschian “Master Morality”.
But with the Active Vice, you are allowed a certain freedom. It’s the freedom of the “Tantrum” or the “Meltdown”, to take a phrase from modern Psychology’s parlance.[5]
You can get loud and psycho and nihilistically violent as hell…until you tire yourself out, and your brittle self is broken down and put back in your slave box.[6]
If you are granted a lower rank, you are only allowed to be passive and shrinking…the Passive Vice is for you. Of course, it’s clear that you can be controlled. It’s a true Neitzschian “Slave Morality”.
So in order to control these people of the lower rank, you’ve got to trick them. You’ve got to make them think Active Vice is terrible to adopt, and instead make the Passive Vice look like the greatest thing since sliced bread.
“Oh, look, you are so much better than those psycho active, expanding people,” goes the sucker line. “We can control them. But you are too smart for that! We can’t control you, can we?”
But here’s the catch…you’re not allowed the freedom of the “Tantrum” or the “Meltdown”.
No, you’re allowed what our Psychology pals call “Shutdown”…dwindling, diminishing, and fading away into a defenseless nothing.[7]
The whole con is a slick trick to keep you a passive, shrinking slave.
And this sick pyramid of servitude?
It’s embedded within the culture all around us.
WHAT THE RAPPERS AND THE ROCKERS KNEW
Turn your radio on, flip through the dial, and you’ll see that the Music scene today sells Active and Passive Vice non-stop.
All Gangsta Rap is built around #6 Boastful and #7 Pitiful [Crying and Whining].
You know… “I’m da s*** motherf***er! I’ll kill everybody in dis joint!” or “You don’t know how hard it be out on deez streets, yo? Give me some luv, will ya?”
Eminem is the master of #7 Pitiful [Crying and Whining], with #2 Anger mixed in as well.
Even though he’s raking in millions of dollars and Millennials worship the ground that he walks on, he’s always talking about how depressed he is and how he wants to whack himself.
If he’s not going on about that, he’s cussing out his Mom and ranting about how he wants to kill her, too.
Metal Rock is #2 Angry, pure and simple. Nothing more to it. Raw Rage with drums and distorted guitars.
DOWNHILL FAST
Club Rap is just straight up #6 Boastful. No #7 Pitiful Crying and Whining needed like in Gangsta Rap. It’s Active, and there’s nothing Passive about it.
You know, “I got da biggest Glock and I’m a playa, baby! Deez strippers luuuuuuv me!”
A lot of Kid Rock’s songs fall into this category as well. You know, “I am an: American bad***!”
It is interesting to note that Club Rap not only boasts about the violent toughness and sexual prowess of the Rappers, but it also boasts about the Martian Sexuality of the Strippers they love.
Meanwhile, Modern Pop by male artists is all built on #8 Seeks Approval and #9 Needs Approval… always from a Woman.
This is mixed with #1 Fear that woman is gonna leave, making this manifestation of the Passive Vice super–passive and super-shrinking!
Ed Sheeran is the master of this. Note that his music is always used at Weddings by Millenials and GenZers, replacing Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin Bridal Suite.
No wonder so many marriages go downhill fast.
TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
Music isn’t the only incarnation of the Active Vice and the Passive Vice, however.
The way it shows up in people’s lives is just as opposite and predictable as two sides of the same coin.
If you exhibit Active Vices in public, you probably are enslaved to the Passive Vices in private.
This is how you break these seemingly “super-tough” people…because inside they have the Passive element within them, big time. You break the brittle Active exterior to reach the Passive and Shrinking interior.
As my good friend Naida says about these kind of abusive, Active Vice guys, “Deep inside he wants mommy to whoop his a**.” [8]
On the flip side, if you exhibit the Passive Vices in public, you probably exhibit the Active Vices in private.
This is the case of someone seemingly meek and mild all of a sudden becoming a raging psycho…“going postal” as they say.
Note that the Joker series is so popular with these Passive Types. He’s a clown who makes everyone laugh, who then becomes a craven killer.
Also he wins the Martian Sexuality of psycho-criminal Stripper Harley Quinn.[9]
But it doesn’t stop there.
WHAT THE GYM REVEALED
It’s not just in the superhero movies where the Active Vice and the Passive Vice are on display.
It’s in the Combat Sports arena as well.
It’s interesting that James Lafond’s Women problem in the Combat Sports consists of two passive traits, while his Men problem in the Combat Sports consists of one active trait and one passive trait.
In my experience, I’ve found that the majority of MMA and BJJ culture aimed at Men today is geared toward mitigating #2 Anger and #10 Impressed by Size, Appearance, and Style.
That’s why you hear phrases like “Be Humble. Kill your Ego. This sport will Humble you.” The obsession with Humility comes from trying to calm down the #2 Anger.
This is also why New Age type psychology is popular, the “Kill the Ego” stuff. It’s to get #2 Anger dialed down.
This is also why you hear phrases like “Size and Strength don’t matter, technique is what matters.” Coupled with this type of phrase, you often see the iconography of Bodybuilders humiliated by MMA and BJJ people shown a lot.
This is to get the Passive Vice #10 Impressed by Size, Appearance, and Style overcome.
It is interesting to note that the famed Russian Army Kettlebell trainer Pavel Tsatsouline also did this a lot with his writing…he’s always talking about Bodybuilders being humiliated by Kettlebell people and wiry Russian Endurance athletes.
But there is one fact that James Lafond did not account for, however.
THE TIMES YOU KNOW, ARE A CHANGIN’
James Lafond penned Don’t Get Boned: The Harm City Handbook in 2014.
At that time, the feminization of the majority of Men in the Western World was not yet complete.
At the present time of this writing in 2025, many Men have become so effeminized through the machinations of Postmodern Feminism, that they have psychologically become Women.
Therefore, their main barriers to entry in the Combat Sports become the same ones that gave Women problems a decade ago…they’re dealing with Fearfulness [#1] and the need for approval [#9], and have been conditioned by society to to not be content alone under stress!
They need Will infused into their souls!
Their vices are totally Passive!
Subsequently, the “Kill the Ego” and “Be Humble” advice used to help Men overcome the Active Vice of #2 Anger is poison to these feminized Men battling the Passive Vice.
In fact, it just makes their Passive Vice worse!
I mean, if you need Will infused into your soul, the last thing you need to hear is “Kill the Ego” and “Be Humble”.
You are a shell of a person and a humiliated slave. You have no Ego and the Humility you possess in spades is like a Public Service Announcement warning people of what happens when you become a broken female house dog.
Giving someone a double dose of the poison already killing them will not turn them into Heroes. It will just kill them faster.
GET THE ORIGINAL MASTERPIECE TODAY!
Well there you have it.
My take on James Lafond’s “Checklist for Breaking Minds: The Emotive Cue Checklist”.
In the near decade since I first read it, I’ve gone through quite a few of my own experiences, getting dunked in that tank of blood, toil, sweat, and tears many a time…from work to home, from gym to life, from Blue Collar to White.
James Lafond’s checklist works…and has aged like fine wine.
If you like it, and are looking for a baseline of wisdom to stay sane in this mad, mad world…
And a foundation to build your own wisdom off of, like I did…
Then get James Lafond’s original masterpiece today:
Don’t Get Boned: The Harm City Handbook!
Available in Print and Kindle now!
Sincerely,
Richard Barrett
03-29-2025
Written at 9:26 PM, somewhere in the USA…
Sources Cited
[1] Lafond, James. Don’t Get Boned:The Harm City Handbook. CreateSpace: Lexington, KY, 2014. Pg. 170.
[2] Ibid. Pg. 171.
[3] Ibid. Pg. 171.
[4] Ibid. Pg. 172.
[5] Patrick Casale (@patrick.casale). “Autistic Meltdowns are Intense”. Instagram Post, February 14, 2025. https://www.instagram.com/p/DGDpW-3uuXb/?img_index=1.
[6] For further details on this, see Remsberg, Charles; Anderson, Dennis. The Tactical Edge: Surviving High Risk Patrol. Caliber Press: Northbrook, IL, 1986. It’s in the James Lafond kind of genre, but written for Cops instead of Average Joes and Janes. It was the Gold Standard “Tactical Bible” for Cops in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.
[7] Patrick Casale (@patrick.casale). “Autistic Meltdowns are Intense”. Instagram Post, February 14, 2025. https://www.instagram.com/p/DGDpW-3uuXb/?img_index=1.
[8] Naida. Personal Interview. 09-04-2024.
[9] A Rahu Woman a la Margot Robbie to embody the Martian Sexuality. Now that is something else!
PULP FICTION RENAISSANCE 