One of the more common stereotypes of the manosphere is that it is full of angry, depressed men. Like most stereotypes, I believe this is true. However, I do not think it is our message which makes men depressed, but rather, men who are already bitter at the world tend to find the manosphere while searching for answers to their own miseries of life. There are mainly three types of manosphere readers:
1. Men who had shitty childhoods, and often grew up without any male role models.
2. Men who got screwed over, in way one or another, by a woman, and want to improve their love life.
3. Men who are already successful, but are looking for yet more ways to leverage their success.
This post is dedicated to the men in the first two groups. Invariably, men who are plagued with troubles go searching the internet for answers, since it is anonymous and avoids being shamed by others, and they stumble across one of the bigger manosphere websites while looking for answers. Then, once they find out that most of everything they’ve been told is a huge lie, it makes them angry and depressed. They hate the fact that a woman’s love is conditional. They hate the fact that America is a feminist state which actively destroys fatherhood. They hate the fact that our education system is nothing more than a glorified indoctrination system that teaches almost nothing of real world value while emasculating men.
I suppose that learning these harsh truths is not going to help a man who’s already on the brink of his emotional health. But, what is important to realize is that being depressed isn’t itself important. What is truly important is to understand your own emotional self, and to try and understand what it is that makes you depressed so you can avoid it.
Let me elaborate.
I do not think humans have much, if any, free will. You do not control how you feel, you do not control how you are raised, what you learn, your culture, your physical health, etc. Thus it also seems plainly obvious to me that a man’s emotions are controlled by external stimuli. So while you cannot choose how you feel in reaction to certain stimulus, you can, at the very least, attempt to control what stimulus comes your way.
So the easiest way to alter your surroundings is to travel. And indeed, travel is the only cure that I have found to depressions throughout my life.
I have suffered from numerous depressions since I turned 16. At least ten different depressions, two of which lasted over a year. Daily thoughts of suicide and all that. But I pressed on. I did not want medication because my rational mind understood that being dependent on drugs for my happiness was not a long term solution. For most of my depressions, I just waited it out. And slowly they went away. But the time lost during depressions was unacceptable.
When a man is depressed, he lets everything go to waste: his body, his mind, his money, his relationships, and his professional life. It is as bad as being struck with a debilitating illness such as cancer. The worst part? There’s technically nothing wrong with you – it is only emotional in nature. And this realization only feeds into your depression even more, because you convince yourself that you’re just a fuck-up who can’t do anything right even though you’ve got every reason to succeed.
That’s why finding a cure to depression is extremely important – your time is precious. And the only times I can remember when I overcame my depressions quickly occurred at two points in my life:
1. When I went to college.
2. When I visited an old friend in Atlanta.
Both times I had been depressed beforehand, and both times when I changed my environment my depression went away. For college, it was because I finally got the hell out of my overbearing parents house and no longer had to attend my shit high school, while with Atlanta, it was because it gave me a fresh perspective on American culture that had been sorely lacking from my New England existence.
That is the most mysterious part – other than changing my environment, I cannot put my finger on exactly what happened to improve my mood. For college I totally uprooted myself and changed locations, while for Atlanta I only went for a week to hang out with a good friend I hadn’t seen in years. But by simply removing myself from my old toxic environment I had stopped the pollution from entering my emotional mind, which was all it took to bring about a clean slate. And although coming back from Atlanta I re-entered the shitty culture of the North East once again, at least I knew for a certainty that it was not the norm, that there exists a part of the USA where people casually say “Hello!” to one another, where people still live in segregated communities yet aren’t afraid to acknowledge or talk to someone who isn’t of their own kind.
Even with temporary travel a man gains perspective, which is often enough for him to set goals on what to do next with his life. And with a permanent relocation, you can completely remove yourself from the old environment that was causing you to feel like trash all the time.
So if you feel sad, angry, or just plain unsatisfied with life – remember, it is your emotional mind telling you something. Your emotional mind does not like whatever circumstances you are in, and by making you feel like shit all the time, your emotional mind is hoping you’ll change locations so that your emotional mind no longer has to deal with whatever poison it is currently saturated with.
And do not travel with the mere intent of getting fucked up and banging sluts. Instead, go somewhere for at least a week or more, and spend it totally sober, preferably with a good friend of yours, simply giving yourself as much time as you need to recover. Few things are more important than your health, and your emotional health is a necessary component of that.
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Escapism is not the best answer (but better than medication, I’ll give you that).
A better, but harder, answer is to be 100% honest with yourself. This takes time. No psychologist required. Just be honest. Easily said, I know, but it’s the real answer.
Escapism is not the best answer (but better than medication, I’ll give you that).
A better, but harder, answer is to be 100% honest with yourself. This takes time. No psychologist required. Just be honest. Easily said, I know, but it’s the real answer.
The escape may give you the time and distance necessary to be honest with yourself, under circumstances where you may not be in the position mentally to do so.
The escape may give you the time and distance necessary to be honest with yourself, under circumstances where you may not be in the position mentally to do so.
This isn’t escapism. I explained why traveling is effective and it has nothing to do with escapism.
Traveling is a great relief for all kinds of drepssion and hate. The quesetion is whether it’s a real cure or a temporary relief, while we should be searching for a “real” solution.
Stiil I think travel is better then taking the meds the quacks dish out like candy. Either way one still has to find a solution.
You guys are thinking about this the wrong way. You presuppose that a man is automatically chained to whatever his “home” is, when in fact there is no such thing as a home, just a place you’re most familiar with.
Thus you assume if a man goes traveling for only a short period of time, it is just “temporary relief” when in fact it is permanently broadening one’s horizons and giving perspective to his life.
a.k.a. escapism.
Traveling is a great relief for all kinds of drepssion and hate. The quesetion is whether it’s a real cure or a temporary relief, while we should be searching for a “real” solution.
If by traveling you mean “changing your circumstances,” broadly defined. You seem to touch on this in your article.
I agree wholeheardedly that traveling/changing your circumstances will work wonders. if nothing else, non-clinical depression usually comes from not acting in accordance with reality. In today’s day and age, with indoctrination, this is largely unavoidable. If you had a shitty childhood, then it will take some time to heal from that, provided that you’re on the right track and can put 2 and 2 together on your own. Guidance might be there, or it might not. Hard to tell unless you arrive at that point not just intellectually, but emotionally.
My only caveats with traveling away from the source of shittiness are:
1. Wherever you go there, you are. So, avoid escapism and be mindful of WHY you’re traveling in the first place.
2. All over the world, people are more or less the same. Very apropos of women. Though they might come from a different culture, women are still women. And, men are still men.
Women in the South of the United States are very different from women in the Northeast. They are on average much less feminist and narcissistic, put more effort into their appearance, and can appreciate a masculine man.
*Obligatory mention of feminine EE women.
So I’ve heard. However, I was referring to characteristics like hypergamy and solipsism. Certain areas of the world, as we know, let these two qualities run rampant. Others keep them under a tight lid.
You’ve had depression 10 times. This is largely due you trying to escape your environment to make yourself feel better (a.k.a. escapism). Denial is a motherfucker.
Wrong again. I’ve had depression over 10 times – and only twice did I travel to remove it. Most of the times I tried to stay and fight through it, which was in hindsight a terrible strategy.
I suggest you try reading the article.
“I do not think humans have much, if any, free will. You do not control how you feel, you do not control how you are raised, what you learn, your culture, your physical health, etc. Thus it also seems plainly obvious to me that a man’s emotions are controlled by external stimuli. So while you cannot choose how you feel in reaction to certain stimulus, you can, at the very least, attempt to control what stimulus comes your way.”
I read enough of the article – I strongly disagree with your logic. I have tonnes of free will because I enforce free will upon myself, much like Spock. Only those with a weak mind will make claims that we have little or none of it.
Thus it’s painfully obvious to me that a man’s emotions will forever be in flux if he thinks external stimuli is the cause of his problems.
If you’re too dumb to understand this, then you probably shouldn’t be writing articles on this subject.
You just keep watching Star Trek bro, meanwhile I’ll be living according to experience and logic.
Nope, you’ll be living with depression just around the corner ’cause you’re too dumb to acknowledge the things in yourself/life that are the root cause of it.
I know my shit. I had depression once… for 7 years. Drugs, sex, psychologists, legal medication are all shit. And so is escapism.
Happiness and contentment don’t come from outside, dude…
Whatever, you’re almost definitely too dumb to understand how dumb you are.
So, your contention is that you DID control your own raising, you DID control your ENTIRE culture, etc.; so with the power of your mind alone, you were able to single-handedly create the universe and all that exists in it. Good thing we’ve got realists like you to set us all straight…..
^This guy clearly doesn’t understand the nature of clinical and recurring depression; it is not merely some cognitive impairment. You assuage your own ego with satisfaction in your own limited and shallow concepts.
Your “you’re too dumb” dismissal is a mirror on the level on confidence and understanding you have of your supposed more intelligent viewpoint…
If you had a foundation to stand on you wouldn’t revert to infantile behavior so that you can avoid reality. You think you’re in line with Truth?
This isn’t escapism. I explained why traveling is effective and it has nothing to do with escapism.
Making lists is a great idea. Write down a list of what made you feel worst in life and acknowledge them. Write a list of what made you happy, however trivial, and pursue similar things.
I don’t know if it was Remy Sheppard, Captain Capitalism, Victor Pride or whoever the fuck, but some manosphere blogger wrote about how work is a waste of your time.
Compare the time you waste (Netflix, your mundane day job, etc.) to the things that actively make you productive. Perhaps sharing a similar approach (e.g. stop watching porn, start cleaning your house) can help relieve depression.
Remember, a lot of the manosphere is about designing one’s self.
Making lists is a great idea. Write down a list of what made you feel worst in life and acknowledge them. Write a list of what made you happy, however trivial, and pursue similar things.
I don’t know if it was Remy Sheppard, Captain Capitalism, Victor Pride or whoever the fuck, but some manosphere blogger wrote about how work is a waste of your time.
Compare the time you waste (Netflix, your mundane day job, etc.) to the things that actively make you productive. Perhaps sharing a similar approach (e.g. stop watching porn, start cleaning your house) can help relieve depression.
Remember, a lot of the manosphere is about designing one’s self.
Can’t say I agree with you on free will, and needing to travel to change depression. Other than that, great points, and it’s great that you were able to work your way out of depression.
I’ve only had some short term depressions. One was when I had a job that was making me absolutely miserable, but I couldn’t find another one to get out of there. I was finally laid off, and it felt great! Seriously, that job sucked.
I had a depression hit earlier this year when I realized no matter what I did, my wife was going to divorce me. That one lasted a few weeks. I slowed down and tried to get more rest. I changed my schedule somewhat, since travel was out of the question (I’ve been a geographic bachelor for 3 years, and living in two places costs a lot of money, but I couldn’t get a decent job where the ex and children are, which is New Jersey, which I hate anyway).
Usually when I have a depression coming on, I stop and evaluate things. Sometimes I change my diet. Sometimes my schedule.
A silly, stupid thing I picked up that actually works is, force a smile. It releases endorphines, and provides a quick pick up.
Can’t say I agree with you on free will, and needing to travel to change depression. Other than that, great points, and it’s great that you were able to work your way out of depression.
I’ve only had some short term depressions. One was when I had a job that was making me absolutely miserable, but I couldn’t find another one to get out of there. I was finally laid off, and it felt great! Seriously, that job sucked.
I had a depression hit earlier this year when I realized no matter what I did, my wife was going to divorce me. That one lasted a few weeks. I slowed down and tried to get more rest. I changed my schedule somewhat, since travel was out of the question (I’ve been a geographic bachelor for 3 years, and living in two places costs a lot of money, but I couldn’t get a decent job where the ex and children are, which is New Jersey, which I hate anyway).
Usually when I have a depression coming on, I stop and evaluate things. Sometimes I change my diet. Sometimes my schedule.
A silly, stupid thing I picked up that actually works is, force a smile. It releases endorphines, and provides a quick pick up.
Great post, and I can confirm that travel certainly alleviates many of the difficulties associated with tough times. However, I made the mistake of permanently moving to a different country expecting my problems to vanish with the move, when in reality they were only temporarily subdued and persisted regardless of location.
Marijuana, hedonistic self-medication, music, and reflection are all temporary solutions – but lasting, long term solutions need to come from within yourself, not induced by external stimuli.
Keep your chin up dudes!
The problem is just because one environment does not work for you does not mean another environment will work for you either. I got lucky when I traveled in that I really ended up liking where I went, but it could have easily gone the other way.
That’s why I suggested only traveling for a week or so, because in that period of time you should be able to tell if your new environment is an improvement or not.
Refer to my other comment above:
Wherever you go, there you are.
There is no such thing as “you.” Your environment dictates your feelings and until you get off your ass you won’t understand this.
Quite a big assumption to tell someone else there isn’t a ‘you’ independent of environment. ‘You’ can speak for yourself, Samseau. I have traveled to many places and stayed in many for longer than a week. Each taught me something important, but my intrinsic self was still present, because (wait for it)
“wherever you go, there you are.”
What I am finding, having now lived in one EE city for nearly 40 days, is a) that I cannot run from my personality and b) I can examine myself better in the context of honest reflections from strangers and how I interact with people who don’t already know me. Being outside the comfort zone of your home country is a big psychic challenge, and one any man would do well to welcome.
PS From a true, awakened perspective, there is no where you can go and be anywhere BUT here. Traveling has the virtue of helping reveal this to ourselves if we pay attention to what in our experience changes and what doesn’t change.
The problem is just because one environment does not work for you does not mean another environment will work for you either. I got lucky when I traveled in that I really ended up liking where I went, but it could have easily gone the other way.
That’s why I suggested only traveling for a week or so, because in that period of time you should be able to tell if your new environment is an improvement or not.
Great post, and I can confirm that travel certainly alleviates many of the difficulties associated with tough times. However, I made the mistake of permanently moving to a different country expecting my problems to vanish with the move, when in reality they were only temporarily subdued and persisted regardless of location.
Marijuana, hedonistic self-medication, music, and reflection are all temporary solutions – but lasting, long term solutions need to come from within yourself, not induced by external stimuli.
Keep your chin up dudes!
Great post.
I used to think I was clinically depressed until I left the country for the first time.
When I got back, I fell into depression again. To cure it I developed a new social circle in a new area of town.
Your environment is everything.
People radically underestimate the effect of their situation on their actions.
60+% of people would kill someone if some random authority figure told them to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
This is no joke. To the extent that you can control your surroundings do it. The way to be the person you want to be is to put yourself in right situation.
Great post.
I used to think I was clinically depressed until I left the country for the first time.
When I got back, I fell into depression again. To cure it I developed a new social circle in a new area of town.
Your environment is everything.
This is good advice that I’ve never taken.
I had never seen that Althone article on Universities feeding female delusion, lol. I got a good laugh from the exchange between Roosh and that girl pretending to be a law student. How many upper-division classes has she taken and she isn’t familiar with the first amendment?
This is good advice that I’ve never taken.
I had never seen that Althone article on Universities feeding female delusion, lol. I got a good laugh from the exchange between Roosh and that girl pretending to be a law student. How many upper-division classes has she taken and she isn’t familiar with the first amendment?
Travel to a country where a badass full contact martial art has been developed and train with the locals: BJJ/Capoeira in Brazil, Sambo in Russia, Muay Thai in Thailand and Shoot Wrestling/Judo in Japan.
“After fighting everything else in your life has the volume turned down.You could deal with anything.” -The Fight Club-
Travel to a country where a badass full contact martial art has been developed and train with the locals: BJJ/Capoeira in Brazil, Sambo in Russia, Muay Thai in Thailand and Shoot Wrestling/Judo in Japan.
“After fighting everything else in your life has the volume turned down.You could deal with anything.” -The Fight Club-
Capoeira is not full contact per se, but its game, music and roda can put one in a trance of quasi religious nature. It is worth to give it a try.
Capoeira é bom
Capoeira is not full contact per se, but its game, music and roda can put one in a trance of quasi religious nature. It is worth to give it a try.
Capoeira é bom
I like it. Its true, its a shit state of affairs for men, but brooding on it won’t change it. Either make the changes or get about thinking of something else.
I like it. Its true, its a shit state of affairs for men, but brooding on it won’t change it. Either make the changes or get about thinking of something else.
The reset button is a great strategy. But as someone who has dealt with this very serious issue as well, there is more to it.
#1 – Exercise. No matter how hard it is to fight depression inertia, nothing helps cure you better than regular vigorous workouts.
#2 – Sunshine. Get out of bed in the morning and spend 20 minutes in the sun, even if it’s the only thing you manage to do all day. It’s biochemical and makes a difference.
#3 – Engage. I think depression is 90% you psyching yourself out about what you can’t do. Thinking too many steps ahead and putting your whole life into paralysis by analysis. So just do something. Join the stupid dodgeball league even though you know you’re going to suck and look stupid. Get moving and start tiny steps toward things you actually want from life.
#4 – Do a To Do. Put together your list of things you’ve neglected and break it down into small pieces. You’ll build momentum if you put a separate piece of paper with some of those tasks, one at a time, to do for the day. You’ll feel way better about yourself when you’ve actually made that call to schedule a dental appointment and handled your online bill-pay and have a sheet with checkmarks and a to do list with a dent in it.
#5 – Family and friends. I know, we don’t really have time. But call or visit. It throws off your day, but paradoxically puts you back on track.
What’s funny is that most of these steps are actually some component of the PUA lifestyle transformation. It’s probably no small coincidence that an article on fighting depression is a good fit for a men’s site.
Agree on exercise and engagement. Exercise gets the blood and the natural endorphins flowing. Even something as simple as a daily walk can help. Then, start running and lifting weights until you reach the point where you’ve left the old you behind.
If you can’t get regular sunshine, take vitamin D supplements. Most folks are D deficient.
B12, also. Seriously, it smooths out the mood swings.
These are all great suggestions too. Especially on exercise. I guess I should have included a disclaimer in the article to keep maintaining a great lifestyle even if you travel. I guess for me I would always do the above 5 points no matter what I’m doing.
The problem is, if you’re depressed, you’re going to have a hard time maintaining your life because you feel like shit all the time. So first, you need to get rid of the depression, and then it’s easy to go back to productivity.
I think it’s important (for a variety of reasons, but one is to pull you out of a slump) to develop, early in life, some sport or hobby that you’re passionate about, that involves other people, and that forces you to focus “outside” of yourself, completely engaged in that activity. I spent two and a half years not too long ago teetering on the brink of a full depression, but remained more on the edge- cycling quite flat to almost alright, instead- and most times that I was pulled away from a state of being too emotionally detached and sad, it was vigorous physical activity or my sport that pulled me away. Fortunately, I exercised vigorously most days, a habit developed years earlier. Most people here seem to see the power of vigorous physical activity to change the chemicals inside of you. But the other one, the “hobby”, I found separately important:
The sport mattered because it forced me to completely engage in the moment (or suck- which was not an acceptable option to me, because I was so committed to doing my best at that activity, I was proud, and I had always enjoyed being there, so enjoyment was begging me to engage and return to it), and then my tendency to be internal was fought, and my inhibitions went away, and I was filled with the intense chemicals to ACT that I used to have, but somehow shied or was pulled away from during the borderline depression. If your depression is at all related to a learned helplessness, you need those emotions of engagement and efficacy, and it’s almost impossible to force yourself to feel a shadow of them (because it takes the same feelings to force themselves. Vicious cycle)- until they grow for real, because that shadow can be a seed- unless you really care about something, like a particular person who you’ll lose if you don’t force yourself to try, or, for me, a hobby I was really into. And the human connection provided by that shared activity, in which I didn’t have to be happy, I just had to show up, helped a lot. It can be hard to have that human connection when you’re flat, and it’s hard to seek great relationships, and pretend until your feelings are real, when you feel you don’t deserve other people’s time because you’re lousy company compared to how you used to be. So, having the connection as icing, as an “extra” to continuing the hobby you’ve always done, a consequence of being there engaged together, is great. After each lift “up”, I soon enough was pulled down again, but managed to keep going. And, eventually, the circumstances causing the flatness, hopelessness and extreme inhibition went away. (Yay!! … But I remember. It’s easy to forget the past and stupidly think it’s never happen again. Optimism. There’s a personality component to depression, so I know I remain at risk. I had a bout of almost-depression for years in highschool, too; this one was the second time. … You can’t forget, or you won’t prevent). Besides exercise, a very personally important hobby involving other people was the key for me…
For that and a variety of other reasons, helping my children find and get really into a sport or other hobby (acting in plays or dancing would work, too) that includes other people, but that they’re passionate about for the thing itself, not the friendships, is one of my priorities. If they have a hard time showering, they might find the will to go to their dance rehearsals, because they always liked it and did it, and if they don’t engage while performing, they will do a lousy job, so they’ll find it in themselves to engage, etc. Or, that’s my plan…
The reset button is a great strategy. But as someone who has dealt with this very serious issue as well, there is more to it.
#1 – Exercise. No matter how hard it is to fight depression inertia, nothing helps cure you better than regular vigorous workouts.
#2 – Sunshine. Get out of bed in the morning and spend 20 minutes in the sun, even if it’s the only thing you manage to do all day. It’s biochemical and makes a difference.
#3 – Engage. I think depression is 90% you psyching yourself out about what you can’t do. Thinking too many steps ahead and putting your whole life into paralysis by analysis. So just do something. Join the stupid dodgeball league even though you know you’re going to suck and look stupid. Get moving and start tiny steps toward things you actually want from life.
#4 – Do a To Do. Put together your list of things you’ve neglected and break it down into small pieces. You’ll build momentum if you put a separate piece of paper with some of those tasks, one at a time, to do for the day. You’ll feel way better about yourself when you’ve actually made that call to schedule a dental appointment and handled your online bill-pay and have a sheet with checkmarks and a to do list with a dent in it.
#5 – Family and friends. I know, we don’t really have time. But call or visit. It throws off your day, but paradoxically puts you back on track.
What’s funny is that most of these steps are actually some component of the PUA lifestyle transformation. It’s probably no small coincidence that an article on fighting depression is a good fit for a men’s site.
Thanks for sharing your story, Samseau. Seems like you didn’t have an easy path in life, and I respect you a lot for talking about it candidly. However, I must respectfully take you to task on this statement:
“Thus it also seems plainly obvious to me that a man’s emotions are
controlled by external stimuli. So while you cannot choose how you feel
in reaction to certain stimulus, you can, at the very least, attempt to
control what stimulus comes your way.”
This is very weak, and accepting this philosophy as a given is precisely what’s wrong with most people, who amble through life like a cork tossed around by the waves. Actually it’s backwards: you may not always be able to control what comes your way, but you definitely should and CAN control what you think and feel about it. Your emotions come from your beliefs and thoughts, and no one else but you controls them. It’s not what happens to you that matters most, but what you tell yourself about it. Becoming internally strong is all about learning not to let your emotional health depend on the external.
Other than that, I certainly agree that one should be proactive about improving their environment as much as possible. Get rid of shitty relationships, stop associating with negative people who drag you down, make positive changes and take your life in your own hands. Changing your environment can definitely help, but in the end it all starts and stops in our own mind. As someone said, it’s not that life is full of problems, it’s that those problems *are* your life. How you deal with them is what matters.
THIS.
Changing your situation is often the low hanging fruit. Have trouble not eating junk food? Just don’t bring any into your house. Do the easy things first.
Write an article about this story:
http://aidanfromworcester.com/2013/06/10/chad-johnson-gets-30-days-in-jail-for-slapping-his-own-lawyer-on-the-butt-child-please/
Female judge on power-trip send to jail an Alpha Male for armless joke.
Thanks for sharing your story, Samseau. Seems like you didn’t have an easy path in life, and I respect you a lot for talking about it candidly. However, I must respectfully take you to task on this statement:
“Thus it also seems plainly obvious to me that a man’s emotions are
controlled by external stimuli. So while you cannot choose how you feel
in reaction to certain stimulus, you can, at the very least, attempt to
control what stimulus comes your way.”
This is very weak, and accepting this philosophy as a given is precisely what’s wrong with most people, who amble through life like a cork tossed around by the waves. Actually it’s backwards: you may not always be able to control what comes your way, but you definitely should and CAN control what you think and feel about it. Your emotions come from your beliefs and thoughts, and no one else but you controls them. It’s not what happens to you that matters most, but what you tell yourself about it. Becoming internally strong is all about learning not to let your emotional health depend on the external.
Other than that, I certainly agree that one should be proactive about improving their environment as much as possible. Get rid of shitty relationships, stop associating with negative people who drag you down, make positive changes and take your life in your own hands. Changing your environment can definitely help, but in the end it all starts and stops in our own mind. As someone said, it’s not that life is full of problems, it’s that those problems *are* your life. How you deal with them is what matters.
travel is a (fantastic) temporary cure and works so long as the environment you inhabit is better than the one you came from.
but i’ve known a ton of hippy ass traveller types and they’re always travelling, never settling, it becomes a new form of hedonic addiction, much like chasing pussy.
The thing is to be in the game but not of the game. Environmental changes can only take you so far, if you don’t sort out your internal mindset and conflicts all a venue change does is make you temporarily forget how pissed off you are. [which is ironically the appeal of buddhist desireless philosophy, a way of thinking i can respect but not necessarily subscribe too]
Same with short term travelling versus long term. Spend two weeks in a place and you get the tourist experience and high. A brief repreive from one’s shitty 9-5.
spend 3 months and you get to see how things are like when the veneer and sheen is gone, its damn near impossible to make deep long lasting friendships unless you put in the time. otherwise its all surface level at best. and when you spend a long time in a new place old habits slowly creek through.
If one doesn’t take care of their internal shit, it doesn’t matter how far or fast you travel you’ll always be chasing that junkie high never quite reaching that first time you upended your roots and went somewhere new, you will eventually run into the same problems again and again because the problem isnt just who you’re with, its with what and who you are.
travel is a (fantastic) temporary cure and works so long as the environment you inhabit is better than the one you came from.
but i’ve known a ton of hippy ass traveller types and they’re always travelling, never settling, it becomes a new form of hedonic addiction, much like chasing pussy.
The thing is to be in the game but not of the game. Environmental changes can only take you so far, if you don’t sort out your internal mindset and conflicts all a venue change does is make you temporarily forget how pissed off you are. [which is ironically the appeal of buddhist desireless philosophy, a way of thinking i can respect but not necessarily subscribe too]
Same with short term travelling versus long term. Spend two weeks in a place and you get the tourist experience and high. A brief repreive from one’s shitty 9-5.
spend 3 months and you get to see how things are like when the veneer and sheen is gone, its damn near impossible to make deep long lasting friendships unless you put in the time. otherwise its all surface level at best. and when you spend a long time in a new place old habits slowly creek through.
If one doesn’t take care of their internal shit, it doesn’t matter how far or fast you travel you’ll always be chasing that junkie high never quite reaching that first time you upended your roots and went somewhere new, you will eventually run into the same problems again and again because the problem isnt just who you’re with, its with what and who you are.
Simply untrue. Traveling can permanently change you in ways you weren’t expecting when you discover something new about the world.
Information is destiny – you can only do what know – and traveling is one of the best ways to understand what you truly want out of life.
Yes. So true.
question. how long have you been travelling for, samseau?
this might be a YMMV type deal but i’ve known and lived with people who are basically semi permanent nomads, people who’ve been searching each haven each high for 10-15 years.
it does change you sure in certain areas and for a bit. some environments are better than others sure [we’re not equalists here, some places are better]. but long term, who you are is as big if not greater effect than where you are.
travel is a temporary cure to a long term problem. settling down in a new environment, unless you’re planning to fully settle and go native [people living and marrying in uruguay costa rica/whatever actually becoming a part of that new culture. which is not something i’d want to do, why settle?] all temporary travel does is sustain the high.
another place another high, another destruction of a traditionalist society by british and american sex tourists. it’s all in the forum datasheets
don’t get me wrong, its fun. its a lot of fun. i wouldnt be a regular commenter and reader if it wasnt. but mental space and environmental space are not perfectly interchangeable
i’m not here to answer the question of what a man wants out of life, i think that’s subjective [though the ted doc http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100.html is probably what i’d go for] and i do think man should travel
but he shouldn’t expect too much out of it.
do a roosh. go all over the globe and then go back down in the US. wait for the same frustrations to kick in, the same problems. get frustrated and leave again. find poland and your old haunts and see they’re not as magical as they were the first time.
or better yet settle somewhere in asia, open a bar. its fun for the couple months, then you realise instead of planning regulations and government codes and costs, you are expected to give massive kickbacks to the local mob. you’re disrespected because you will no matter how much you want to be, always be a foreigner to them.
the same people that were all very friendly and ‘this is paradise’ with you at the beginning scheme to put heroin in your bags and falsely get you in prison over some percieved slight.
this has happened to people i know, its not some bullshit out of thin air thing.
wherever you go, you find out that unless your internal shit is sorted, a lot of life is the same. a fool in america will still be a fool in ukraine on a long enough timeline. geographical distance doesnt change much about that.
please dont get me wrong and i sincerely mean no disrespect, i get that travel helped you out a great deal, but its not some catch all cure for everything
“this might be a YMMV type deal but i’ve known and lived with people who are basically semi permanent nomads, people who’ve been searching each haven each high for 10-15 years.”
These guys are escapists. I’m talking about traveling for the sake of traveling, not for the sake of maximizing pleasure.
Not that you can’t do both at the same time, however, but I do believe the emphasis on traveling to new locations should be on what it can offer you culturally, not just hedonistically.
That said, a man should settle in a new environment permanently if he really does enjoy it. But it may not be all cookies and rainbows like you’ve said. However, if a man keeps traveling for long enough he should eventually find either a lifestyle that he enjoys, or a culture he can settle in.
Simply untrue. Traveling can permanently change you in ways you weren’t expecting when you discover something new about the world.
Information is destiny – you can only do what know – and traveling is one of the best ways to understand what you truly want out of life.
Those “hippy-ass” types of which you speak are, essentially, vagabonds. On the surface, it looks enticing, but not when you have to worry about where you’re going next. Great for some, bad for others.
Also, it always takes time for your mind to adjust to new surroundings. I’ve heard it said that it takes at least a week for your mind to adjust out of “vacation mode” into something more in tune with your surroundings. But, of course, having lived overseas myself for a few years, unless you have the social network, it will be hard for you to adjust, even if you do speak the language.
Well-said and spoken with authority, vs. the reactive defensive replies.
I believe some commenters are talking past each other, yet saying similar things. Traveling is worthwhile” as common denominator. “Traveling ITSELF can help you” is one contention, “Traveling ITSELF won’t fix you” is another.
Yes, stepping out of a toxic environment is wise; you may not know you’re in it until you leave – even temporarily. But there will likely be something not seen within you that could be revealed during traveling. It could also be revealed in therapy, meditation retreats, family constellations work, psychedelic/shamanic journeying, etc.
One can start traveling simply for its own sake but persist in it long enough and you’ll realize what anon1, myself and others have said – you end up right back …. here, with yourself. It seems Roosh knows this now, otherwise this site would not exist and he would likely still be writing Bang guides. I think he’s tired of getting laid for its own sake – I know I am. I need something more intentional, meaningful, considered. Just like I won’t jump on a plane, train or bus to go anywhere unless I feel a good reason for it. It took nearly a year to decide to travel but when I did, I am totally resolved to it.
Everyone has their own process of maturing. This false posturing of ‘get off your ass’ and discounting others direct experience is sad, funny, and anathema to what being a king is. Any real king is wise, not condescending. But there’s no filtering process apparently for who gets to post, so an avatar and this-is-my-shtick-I-must-defend-at-all-costs is all that’s needed.
Samseau, your experiences are valid for you and those who identify with them. Open your mind *and* heart – you’ll find it even easier to connect with other people.
exactly right. in fact you probably worded it better than i did
What is this? Do you guys really fit the stereotypes that well?
I had a good male role model growing up, I’m not depressed, the women I know are good to me, I’m happy with my job. Life ain’t bad at all.
Then again I’m gay, maybe that’s the variable.
There’s the secret to a happy life.
Fag hags!
What is this? Do you guys really fit the stereotypes that well?
I had a good male role model growing up, I’m not depressed, the women I know are good to me, I’m happy with my job. Life ain’t bad at all.
Then again I’m gay, maybe that’s the variable.
“Don’t panic before the picture of your life. Don’t dwell on all the troubles you’ve faced or have yet to face but instead ask yourself as each trouble comes: What is so unbearable or unmanageable in this?” – Marcus Aurelius…..
“Don’t panic before the picture of your life. Don’t dwell on all the troubles you’ve faced or have yet to face but instead ask yourself as each trouble comes: What is so unbearable or unmanageable in this?” – Marcus Aurelius…..
My life followed a similar trajectory. I was born and raised in Massachusetts and went to school there. After spending some years living overseas after college, I realized how totally hosed up America was. I always suspected it, but actually living abroad was mind-expanding in the extreme. I realized how substandard the women were here, and how the culture is anti-intellectual and jingoist in the extreme. This awareness brought on a real disillusionment and depression. It also made me seethe with resentment at the system that allowed such things to happen. But the positives were that I expanded my mind and knowledge in ways I never thought possible.
I remember the first manosphere site I stumbled on. It was a long time ago, and the site was called “nomarriage.com”. I don’t think it exists any more. This guy wrote a pretty devastating screed on why American women were messed up, and why we should only date foreign women. It was such a relief to discover this. I felt exhilarated. I had knows this stuff for years, but back in the 1990s, we didn’t have any internet. Red pill knowledge in the 1990s was confined to small groups and circles of men. There was no way to get the message out.
And then one day I came across, by total accident, one of Roosh’s old videos. And like Paul on his way to Damascus, I was hit by a bolt of lightning.
I’ve come to more of a balance now, but some resentment is still there. But I like a bit of anger. It keeps me sharp, keeps me on the edge, where I need to be. It’s good not to be too happy.
But Samseau is totally right: travel is a key component is maintaining your mental balance. It definitely keeps me sane. I don’t know what I would do without foreign travel.
I think it’s been this way for years, even centuries.
I remember the Greek philosopher Plotinus advised his protege Porphyry, when he was faced with a severe depression, to spend some time on vacation in Sicily.
Or even think of the first few paragraphs of the novel “Moby Dick”, where the narrator talks about how he has to go to sea whenever “it is a cold November in my soul”.
Travel soothes the tumescence of the imaginative man.
Nomarriage.com appears to be still there, but I think I know that other site you’re talking about. That was about ten years ago or so when I first stumbled upon it, and I found it very enlightening. Nothing earth-shatteringly new, but definitely pre-‘spherian.
“Going to sea” is a common mariner’s metaphor. No true sailor ever stays on dry land for very long.
Yeah, that guy was one of the first trailblazers. He was hawking a $10 pamphlet of pure bitterness and angst. It was great. Glad you had heard of him. I think he sold his domain name to some other company. The site now is lame as hell…..no resemblance of what it was in 2002.
“But I like a bit of anger. It keeps me … where I need to be.”
“me years living overseas after college, I realized how totally hosed up America was. I always suspected it, but actually living abroad was mind-expanding in the extreme”
I attended college in New York City and even though I had not stepped out of the USA, I noticed a vast difference between the foriegn female students in my classe who were right off the plane and the native americunts.
My life followed a similar trajectory. I was born and raised in Massachusetts and went to school there. After spending some years living overseas after college, I realized how totally hosed up America was. I always suspected it, but actually living abroad was mind-expanding in the extreme. I realized how substandard the women were here, and how the culture is anti-intellectual and jingoist in the extreme. This awareness brought on a real disillusionment and depression. It also made me seethe with resentment at the system that allowed such things to happen. But the positives were that I expanded my mind and knowledge in ways I never thought possible.
I remember the first manosphere site I stumbled on. It was a long time ago, and the site was called “nomarriage.com”. I don’t think it exists any more. This guy wrote a pretty devastating screed on why American women were messed up, and why we should only date foreign women. It was such a relief to discover this. I felt exhilarated. I had knows this stuff for years, but back in the 1990s, we didn’t have any internet. Red pill knowledge in the 1990s was confined to small groups and circles of men. There was no way to get the message out.
And then one day I came across, by total accident, one of Roosh’s old videos. And like Paul on his way to Damascus, I was hit by a bolt of lightning.
I’ve come to more of a balance now, but some resentment is still there. But I like a bit of anger. It keeps me sharp, keeps me on the edge, where I need to be. It’s good not to be too happy.
But Samseau is totally right: travel is a key component is maintaining your mental balance. It definitely keeps me sane. I don’t know what I would do without foreign travel.
I think it’s been this way for years, even centuries.
I remember the Greek philosopher Plotinus advised his protege Porphyry, when he was faced with a severe depression, to spend some time on vacation in Sicily.
Or even think of the first few paragraphs of the novel “Moby Dick”, where the narrator talks about how he has to go to sea whenever “it is a cold November in my soul”.
Travel soothes the tumescence of the imaginative man.
I have twice moved to the mountains in a different country to work temporarily, both times after about a week of integrating myself socially with the group, I was in a completely different state of mind – minor concerns and happiness levels were different, not to say everything was suddenly fixed, but definitely improved. both times, I’ve come back both times to a city and have adjusted back to the lower level of happiness that goes with the metropolitan life.
I have twice moved to the mountains in a different country to work temporarily, both times after about a week of integrating myself socially with the group, I was in a completely different state of mind – minor concerns and happiness levels were different, not to say everything was suddenly fixed, but definitely improved. both times, I’ve come back both times to a city and have adjusted back to the lower level of happiness that goes with the metropolitan life.
I agree wholeheartedly about the influence of environment on your mood. The act of simply removing yourself to a different environment is important to help you realize that your old environment was the problem in the first place. You can try fixing your living situation, work, game, gym, sports etc., but if you are in the wrong environment, a thousand minor annoyances will still drag you down.
I spent 6 months in Poland last year. My parents are Polish but I was born in California. Even though the economy and standard of living there is lower than America, the femininity of the women, the connection of society to it’s history, close family ties, more genuine friendships, etc., make me think that I’ll never be as happy here as I would be there. The decline of American society means it won’t be getting better anytime soon, maybe not even in my lifetime.
As a practical suggestion, I highly recommend taking a leave of absence from work (or a semester abroad) and moving to another country for at least several months. If you can move to your ancestral homeland for a time, even better. Being a Roosh or a Maverick Traveler is only going to appeal to a small number of men, but you owe it to yourself to detach from your environment for an extended period and see what else is out there. You can get by in many places in Eastern Europe on $1500 a month. I’m in the midst of saving for a 3-month return to Warsaw.
There are overseas volunteer options, too, that might be worth exploring.
Good article. I remember being the first person in high school to travel to Europe – Italy to be exact – for a month and when I returned I felt I had a lot less in common with my fellow peers.
As an older guy told me once when I was still in East Asia:
“The hardest thing you’ll encounter when you return is Main Street thinking. You’ll regale friends and family with all of your experiences and recount them with gusto. Then they’ll say ‘That’s nice.’ and lean over and change the channel.”
I went on a two and three quarter week European odyssey last summer that took me from Italy to Paris. I took over 1,000 pictures on that trip and am currently posting them all on my facebook for two reasons: 1. To share with family and friends who I actually care about my adventures, and 2. To show everyone else in the most explicit and undeniably unambiguous manner that I am truly and forever different from them; particularly the insular.
Did one of those pics include you flipping the bird? 😉
Yup.
“.. I took over 1,000 pictures on that trip and am currently posting them all on my facebook …”
The interesting thing is that for many americans, with our social media driven culture, something doesn’t exist unless it is on facebook or other places on the net.
“So if you feel sad, angry, or just plain unsatisfied with life – remember, it is your emotional mind telling you something. Your emotional mind does not like whatever circumstances you are in, and by making you feel like shit all the time, your emotional mind is hoping you’ll change locations so that your emotional mind no longer has to deal with whatever poison it is currently saturated with.”
Man, I wish this article came out sooner because recently I have a friend of mine who attempted suicide and now is in a coma. He falls in category 1. And I’m inclined to agree that depression is more a natural state which is designed to make one re-think the direction of their lives.
Both his parents are dead and he has no one. They say that having some kind of family is important, and when they say family they do not mean some nagging shrew wife and ungrateful kid; but rather some kind of kin that you get along with. Being unplugged is not easy for most when you do not have some kind of centering means that having some kind of family or family member offers. I’m no expert but I can see how this would make sense.
Depression in the modern era, for males, is primarily caused by the perception of a lack of choice.
I just read “between two ages” by Brzezinski. It explains a lot of the problems we see in the West today. Consider this statement: “The definition of freedom is thus
derived from a subjective inner conviction that one is right and not from the external pattern of relations guaranteeing choice and protection to the individual, whatever his views”. Doesn’t this sound like modern day feminism?
There’s no point complaining. As a man, no one really cares and your problems have to be yours to own and solve. I guess trying to get a real education (not the ‘edumacation’ of college) by reading BOOKS and doing stuff is going to be important in the coming era to succeed and sometimes just to survive.
Life isn’t always meant to be a happy experience. Its okay to feel negative feelings. But you can most times shape a situation to yield acceptable choices in such a fashion that your life is somewhat happy. I guess that has got to be good enough.
All excellent points. I managed to end my frequent depressions by changing not only major things in my life, but also minor things.
1. Lots of exercise, especially weightlifting and hiking. I’ve managed to bulk up quite a lot over the last few years, which is a huge boost to confidence and mood. This goes hand in hand with cutting out highly processed and refined foods, reducing alcohol use (but not eliminating), and learning some basic cooking skills. The personal achievement of finishing a long hard trail through high mountains is also a great boost.
2. Take a good hard look at your circle of friends, and cut off those people who are losers, drug users, or just generally unhappy. I was actually worse off just after I did this, but as I made new friends, I found that associating with confident happy people rubs off on you.
3. Change the type of music you listen to. This may seem trivial to some, but as most are constantly surrounded by it, your music choices can’t help but alter your mood. So much music nowadays is super nihilistic like emo, death metal, and rap. Listening to Bach, Handel, and baroque in general helped me appreciate the true positive beauty that can exist in this world. Don’t surround yourself with all the “SATANSATANSATAN SACRIFICE TO SATANSATANSATANSATAN BLAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!! I CAN FEEL THE PAIN THE PAAAAAIIIIINNNNN!!!!! YO NIGGA BEYOTCH CAP DA WHITE BOY ASSSSS YOYOYOYO!!!!” crap.
4. Stop watching most TV and movies. GBFM is always telling us to read the classics. Listen to him!!!!! He is right!!!!
Indeed!
No more Patsy Cline!
Don’t try to cure depression on your own. Get expert advice. Two good books:
http://amzn.com/1593851286
http://amzn.com/0380810336
“There’s no point in taking life too seriously, it’s not like anyone gets out alive.”
The best cure for depression is getting laid. Hunting for a pleasant sexy woman requires emotional fortitude, so it doesn’t seem like the best antidote…HOWEVER the only way to beat feeling depressed is to get active and engage life. What have you got to lose, you’ll soon be dead anyway.
Once again the glaringly obvious truth that, yet, everyone seems not to realize. Changing your environment, especially for the better, will make depression go away in a jiffy. It has happened to me as well. Once I moved to NZ I just stopped being depressed, and that lasted for 2 years before my next remission.
“Thus it also seems plainly obvious to me that a man’s emotions are controlled by external stimuli. So while you cannot choose how you feel in reaction to certain stimulus, you can, at the very least, attempt to control what stimulus comes your way.”
How foolish. This is like trying to cover the entire earth’s surface in leather instead of buying a pair of shoes.
Actually your analogy supports my assertion. Because in the case of wearing shoes, you control what stimulus your feet experiences. Conversely, by going barefoot you cannot control how your feet feel when it steps on any surface, i.e. you lose control of what stimulus your feet experience.
Perhaps I wasn’t verbose enough.
Your theory is like trying to cover the earth in leather insofar as your approach is an attempt to control which sense objects one encounters. Your theory is that you can’t control your reaction to sense objects, so you have to control which sense objects you come in contact with. What I’m saying is that you can train your mind so that you have control over how it reacts to sense objects. This is a much more simple and robust solution. You don’t need to move to a new place to control what you encounter, because you are able to encounter anything and handle yourself. This solution works better in the long term and is preferable to me.
It is meant to be a metaphor for the difference between internal vs. external development.
This is a very timely article for me since I’ve been battling a nightmarish, suicidal depression for the last few months that is unraveling my life.
Basic backstory – Fiance broke up our six year relationship and initially I shrugged it off, but two months later she moved across the road to an apartment next to mine. This has effected my energy and recovery tremendously and I fell into trying to win her back with every desperate and pathetic move. Now she won’t talk or respond to me in any way which makes it more torturous. She also has no problems flouting her new life in my face, daily.
I’ve kept up my training, seen counselors, and even considered anti-depressants because my mind constantly dwells on suicidal thoughts. I took off to Thailand for a short time, but found that the depression was heightened because I was all alone and constantly dwelling on the relationship despite the change in environment. I have no family to turn to, friends provide temporary relief, and other females avoid me like the plague because they can sniff out depression from miles away.
Basically I feel trapped for a time because I’m in a lease I can’t get out of, and a job as a teacher that I have a commitment to seeing out at least until the end of the year…..if I last that long. Getting sick all the time and feeling like I’m destroying myself from the inside.
Any advice from those that have been there?
Vince, I really feel for you. 10 years ago, was in a similar situation related to an intense relationship ending. Ended up crashing my car from the mental stress which drove me to Qi Gong, chanting and meditation, plus changes to foods I ate (more organic, un-processed) and seeing a therapist. Maybe these suggestions will be helpful to you…
-Sunshine and walks (or run, bike ride, swim, whatever is easy and available) -> they’re free, just make some time to do it. Consider it a ‘big brother knows best’ thing.
-Do consider talking to a therapist, counselor.
-Straight therapeutic deep tissue massage, with acupressure / acupuncture as additional modalities. Treat yourself, do it today, now, soon, and a few times a week if you can afford it. Drink lots of water to purge the toxins (physical and energetic) from you.
-Find your favorite comedian on Youtube or Netflix, or favorite funny movies and watch. Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, anyone you makes you laugh (not necessarily think, you got enough of that right now). Laughter is its own medicine. And yeah dude, it’s okay if you get emotional, we’re frickin human and you know good things are happening inside when laughter turns into tears and then back again to laughter.
You can’t escape from what you’re going through and I’m not suggesting that, but you don’t have to keep it bottled up inside.
I’m not sure how you feel about spiritual / ‘new age’ practices, but depending upon where you live there may be lots of experiences you could have. Sound healing and chanting are VERY powerful … Tibetan bowls, etc.
Most of all, we want you to be here. Remember…
“This, too, shall pass.”
Thankyou TruthTiger for taking the time to respond in such detail. I will definitely be putting your advice into action.
Even a small 1-week vacation to visit an old college friend could do wonders to improve your mood.
Vince,
Move to a different town, as far away as possible, as soon as you can. As for that teaching commitment, what will be the negative effects of breaking it? Serious career repercussions? Or just really a few ruffled feathers? If it’s not going to hurt your career or professional reputation or anything like that, than just give notice and leave. Don’t stay if the only reason you can think of for doing so is “Dash it all, chaps, it’s the decent thing to do.”
What about the lease? What are the consequences of splitting before it’s up? Probably a question of money, I imagine. Any chance of living on potatoes and milk for a couple months and saving enough to break the lease? Time for desperate measures! Sell your comic book collection and your guns!
Consider going overseas and teaching English for a while; you are already a teacher so you’re totally ready to go. You’ll earn some money, keep busy, and your recovery will be faster. If you can get a job lined up, then you might want to risk borrowing some money from a friend to deal with that lease perhaps?
See my other post here … I’m being an advice-giving busybody …. I’m advising you to ESCAPE. Just RUN AWAY. Why not?
Seriously, why not? “He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.” If putting your exit in these terms offends your self-respect, then stop thinking so highly of yourself. The fact is, it really doesn’t matter what you think about anything. Nobody really cares and you have no family. So run away from an unpleasant situation and spin it any way you like. Put the blame on others. Make yourself out to be the offended party. Tell yourself (and everyone else) that you’re going where you’re personally and professionally appreciated, dammit. But whatever you do and however you do it, LEAVE TOWN AS SOON AS YOU CAN.
I’m glad Samseau touched on this topic. Throughout my early twenties I was depressed because I couldn’t get laid and I was recovering from long term recreational drug use (since high school). I was brooding all the time and couldn’t get better. Through the travel aboard programs offered through my college it gave me a profound new insight to my original toxic environment. I realized that not all woman were like that. There are traditional feminine woman out there.
Travelling aboard helped me to recover from my depression and most importantly helped me recognize that there’s nothing inherently wrong with me. The woman in my city are stuck-up and cliquey. It was a relief to have this epiphany through travelling aboard. Thanks again to Samseau for touching on this topic. For those suffering from any type of depression, travel. It’ll provide you with new experiences and insight into your inner core issues and identify the toxic nature of your home environment.
So while you cannot choose how you feel in reaction to certain stimulus,
you can, at the very least, attempt to control what stimulus comes your
way.-S
Great post, but the sentence above is back words. If guys who are stuck in POW camps can be happy at times, I suspect it is not so much ones environment, but the mood with which one “chooses” to remain content with what they have.
It is true what they say, it can ALWAYS get worse. I have learned that more than my environment is my willingness to find something positive. It amazes me that even though you could be stuck as a prisoner, or left financially and emotionally broken immediately following a divorce, or left bereft and alone; there is still positive things happening.
I had to learn to draw from that experience and the positive in my surroundings. It is not a callous refusal to allow the negative to rule as it is drawing strength from whatever source of positivity I can find in the face of negativity.
I just get better, or perhaps the word is stronger, as I continue to choose that route.
“If guys who are stuck in POW camps can be happy at times, I suspect it is not so much ones environment, but the mood with which one “chooses” to remain content with what they have.”
I doubt any POW is actually happy. He may keep his spirits up on the hope he will be freed, but if God told him that it was a certainty he would remain in that camp for the rest of his life for another twenty years before his execution, I doubt he’d be happy about it.
All POW’s ride on is hope, which may be legitimate, but take away that hope and they’d be depressed as hell.
most depressed guys are broke, where do you get money for travel?,that too international travel ,hotel booking, flight charges are very expensive
That is why, in the above article, I suggested traveling with friends. Either split the costs or find a friend to stay with for a brief period of time.
word
A couple of supplements can be a big help.
Try 5-HTP (a metabolic product of tryptophan) to increase serotoin.
For dopamine boost, try L-phenylalanine, but beware that it can increase obsessive-compulsive symptoms..
Are you trying to get people (legally) hIGH?
Jah is the one and only God. Lord have mercy.
I have to say this is a very timely article. I just came back from my second international trip and I now see the importance of changing your surroundings. In my case, my depression was being caused by the demoralizing, toxic culture in the Anglosphere, one that despises men and pedestalizes women.
Within 24 hours of being in SE Asia I met one of the hottest girls I’ve ever had in my life, and she was genuinely interested in me. She treated me like a man, not like a disposable ATM machine. In fact, within the first day of just being there I began to see my value as a man and as a human being.
My depression instantly went away. I had been taking St. John’s Wort, but there’s not therapy like changing your surroundings – not just geographical ones – but most importantly, changing your cultural surroundings!
I went to a place where men are actually VALUED. I haven’t felt so good about myself in years. It actually made me want to do even better things with my life. The trip inspired me to get in even better shape and invest in myself in more ways than one.
I felt such happiness and bliss and was able to have such a carefree attitude while I was away, I think my life has been forever altered. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. I can’t wait to get back to not only Asia, but to explore new realms and places ASAP.
As soon as I got back on the plane to come back to America, it was like I walked under a big black cloud. Instead of women who loved men, I was back around Anglo women and instantly felt repulsed by their attitude and the way they look down their nose at men.
I wondered to myself…why did I stay in this toxic situation for so long? Why did I ever believe for a second that women here were the norm? I’ve had a breath of fresh air, and an eye-opening experience and I crave more of it.
I look forward to more adventures soon. It’s the start of a new life for me. I’ll still keep one foot here for merely familial and financial reasons, but my heart has truly wandered away from this place.
It’s an interesting idea, changing your environment to change yourself. It’s an interesting view of self-improvement and one I rarely think of. A similar thing is changing who you are around (I know that new people are a component of a new location, but one can choose new people in the same location, too); choosing your influences, knowing you’ll be influenced. I rarely think of this view of self-improvement because I tend to think of myself as not influenced much, in a permanent, emotional/personality way, by my environment- which is true, by the way. No matter where I was, I was myself (even painfully myself, unable to alter myself to fit in if I tried). Finding a good romantic relationship has changed my view of my influencability, though- someone made me more by providing me with opportunities I could not have made myself due to major limitations in my personality, and those opportunities changed my emotions (“who I am”), allowing me to create more of those opportunities myself. (I don’t care to describe it particularly.) The additions to my life as a result of the change in emotion, due to following him around and easing my way into some scenarios, have been tremendous. I’m mostly the same, but different in just the ways I needed to be- allowing me to bring myself, without him by my side, just the things lacking in my life (outside of lacking a romantic relationship, I mean).
This scenario is only analogous to the one the author describes if, in fact, were my boyfriend and I to break up, I maintained the changes in “who I am” and my corresponding behaviour. That is the way in which a new environment can change you permanently. Consequences of the influencing stimuli must be self-sustaining, even if the stimuli is removed. Otherwise, it’s “escapism”, as someone else here commented, not a solution.
The idea of changing your environment to change yourself has a way of making you feel weak, if you’re attached to seeing yourself as something an island in the ways that matter most to you.
The author’s view of himself as without free will seems to me to be a big part of seeing yourself as being influenced by your environment and EMPOWERING yourself by choosing your environment- you cannot do the latter without the former. Traveling clearly showed the author that the environment changed him, when he could not change himself, and I’ll trust him if he says some of the changes were permanent.
As a general concept, the idea of choosing your influences, after you have observed your limitations and cannot seem to change yourself, that is a great concept to accept (they say to seek people you want to be like, for example; that this will influence you in the direction you want to go). It makes me very uncomfortable, though. But improvement is exciting. The only “influence” I whole-heartedly embrace, that other people seem not to, relates to knowledge. I devour information and insight, from all corners, adding it to the pile and filtering using my wits, and never do I stubbornly think “I should know everything from my own experience”. Haha, ya, right. Maybe it never feels weak, because you still have a brain reasoning through it. BUT, if you’re in a new place and see your feelings changing, you still have a brain watching that, so maybe that shouldn’t feel weak, either. … I’m going to try to use the knowledge-seeking thought to get rid of my pride and see if people can influence me in other ways.
Y’all are so into travel, here…
Keep in mind you are a woman. I wrote this advice for men. A man’s environment will dictate who he is, but a relationship will dictate who she is.
Just like a man cannot control how an environment makes him feel, a woman cannot control how a relationship makes her feel.
What’s wrong with being a vagabond? Or an escapist? Or a dirty globe-trotting hippy? Who are you trying to impress by not being such a character? The International Board of Men with Manly Standards and Codes of Acceptable Bourgeois Behavior?
As a great (but tragic) writer said a few years ago, “Who is to say that the life of a saint is better than a life spent sniffing glue?” Work out your own destiny! Not everyone was put on earth to accomplish things. You don’t have to accomplish ANYTHING if you don’t fucking well want to, and it may very well be the case that you’re not really cut out to achieve ANYTHING. (Most people aren’t.) Live your life the way you want and try to get some enjoyment out of it — and remember that NO MATTER what you do in life, there will be people who disapprove and give you endless, eloquent, thoroughly reasonable arguments about how what you are doing is WRONG. Plug your ears and stop listening if necessary. You don’t have to win any arguments; you don’t have to convince anyone. Use a bit of strategic stupidity! Go off on your own, irresponsible path despite knowing everyone thinks you are being a stupid meathead! They can all go to hell for a while (some of them will get over it, forgive you, and things will be fine again — you will see. Some won’t.)
If you absolutely can’t live with yourself unless you sacrifice your personal happiness to a wife and family, or some religious/spiritual/intellectual/political/moral cause, then fine, that’s the way you’re made, it’s the path you’ll have to tread. The world will never be without moral busybodies whose entire existence is dedicated to annoying others for the sake of “improvement” of one kind or another. If you are such a person, it’s regrettable, but you’re a perfectly ordinary and normal type of human. Follow your path (there are a few such types on this particular thread.)
Samseau is right. Travel IS an instant and effective therapy for depression. If the bug bites you, go with it; maybe it will burn itself out, maybe it won’t. But it’s up to you to please yourself in life — you weren’t put here to seek the approval of a bunch of bloggers and commentators. And don’t listen to any silly advice about the “right amount” of travel. Such decisions are yours and yours alone, and you won’t know what is the “right” amount of travel UNTIL YOU’VE TRIED IT YOURSELF.
If you’re travelling aimlessly (but pleasurably) around the world, a bunch of people will despise you. If you’re plugging away at a full time career and making “progress” then a bunch of DIFFERENT people will despise you. You’re never going to be universally loved and admired. So choose your friends, and add and drop them as necessary, to go with your lifestyle and beliefs — because you’re a member of the human species and that means you MUST have a minimum of supportive (or at least not negative) human contact to maintain mental health. Aha — you think there’s something wrong with such a philosophy? You think *someone will disapprove* if you hold such a ‘practical friendships’ philosophy? Fine. Go back to constantly seeking someone to pat you on the back and say “good for you, you are behaving like a real man” or whatever; continue to punish yourself by refusing to stop associating with people who fundamentally disapprove of your choices and aspirations.
Why is ‘escapism’ a dirty word? What does it mean to ESCAPE? It means, to successfully flee from an intolerable situation. What if your character is such that you find EVERY situation intolerable after a while — so that throughout life, you constantly abandon everything, run away, and start something new? So you’re a dilettante. (Be a decent fellow and don’t have children.) So you have no grit, no staying power, you never finish anything, etc. etc. So fucking WHAT? If that’s the way you’re made it’s no good trying to pretend you’re not. Lots of people are like that. Live your feckless life and have some fun, and don’t worry about what these tsk-tsking old aunties say.
Go travel the world and meet hundreds of new people who will show you that the variety of human character, personality, motivations, etc. is quite literally infinite in its possible combinations. And EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING has a crowd of naysayers who insist, eloquently, reasonably, and at length, that he is living his life WRONGLY. You yourself are quite convinced that many people you know are making one stupid decision after another — aren’t you? You yourself disapprove of many people you know — don’t you? And you know that if they would just follow your advice, their lives would improve, don’t you? Of course you do; because it is human nature to do so.
It is hard for young people to admit to themselves that they are nothing special, that they have absolutely nothing of any originality to contribute to the world, that they are utterly undifferentiated from the gray, average masses. But consider: There are seven billion people on the planet, and the number of people who manage to stand out from the crowd in even the tiniest way is no more than one out of tens of thousands. The odds that YOU are special in ANY CONCEIVABLE WAY are vanishingly small. (Successfully faking it, as probably many of manosphere readers know, has its practical uses; if you end up believing in your own fakery, of course, you’ll end up as a common type of bore — but probably a happy and harmless one.)
Realizing that you are an utterly ordinary and unspecial human being who will never be, or do anything the least bit remarkable in life sounds like a depressing prospect — and it is until you get used to the idea. Then you will begin to see its advantages. It is LIBERATING. It means you don’t have to try to live up to anything. You don’t have to PROVE yourself if you don’t want to; and best of all, almost nobody else on the whole planet gives a flying fuck who you are and what you do, and they never will; so you are FREE. Work hard if you want. Climb the career ladder if you want. Become a sporadically-employed alcoholic or drug addict (or moral busybody) if you want. Almost nobody cares.
Like everyone else on earth, you are going to die one day, and when you do, you will utterly cease to Be. No matter how “well” or “badly” you lived your life, it won’t matter; you won’t remember your achievements, or lack of them, after you die, because there will be no You to remember them. If you reach the end and find yourself feeling guilty because you wasted your life, no worries! Every bad feeling or unpleasant/scary thought that you may have while dying will simply fade away and vanish forever, leaving no trace — because that which EXPERIENCES those thoughts and feelings vanishes forever and leaves no trace. Dying is just a rough patch to go through, exactly like falling asleep while worried about something. At a certain moment, one’s mind becomes calm, then *poof* you’re unconscious. Dying is like that except you never again emerge from that ‘nothingness’ — because there is no more you to emerge.
Find such thoughts depressing? Well, I can’t help that; they’re the truth. So treat the depression! Travel! The human mind has a remarkable capacity to get used to absolutely any set of ideas whatsoever, no matter how bleak or hopeless. The mind is the ultimate escape artist. As John Milton said: “The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a Hell of Heaven, or a Heaven of Hell.”
For me I have only had one serious depressive episode in my life and to be honest it was awful, truly awful. I was suicidal and wanted to die and my self worth was in the toilet. The only reason I did not kill myself was I did not want to disappoint my mother and take her through the pain of losing her son. I got through it and here is the strange part,It made me stronger. I became a better man as a result of it.I could not see it at the time, but things were not going my way because of my own bad decisions and I had to take my own life in my hands and make it better. And I had to move to do it. A lot of us men all go through changes in our lives that can make it look as if there is no way out and we are all alone, it is good to know that others out there have to suffer too and got through it. One more thing, it never hurts to be kind to a another man suffering even if you do not know him.
This is a great article- I have suffered from depression for almost 20 years- I am now 36. It’s a real struggle. Great comments too- will be reading them all and more articles on this site 🙂
RB; depressed for 20 years and now 36? In my opinion, that means you are entitled to do or to try ANYTHING AT ALL to relieve your depression (short of harming innocent people of course). Clearly everything you’ve tried until now hasn’t worked. It’s now time to free your mind from taboo thinking. Quit your job and your life, and TRAVEL.
What about drugs and alcohol? Become a drunk and/or a drug addict. In the long run things will probably get bad, but you will have hundreds of happy hours in the meantime. Isn’t that better than never ever experiencing any happiness at all until you die?
Read some biographies of famous people. A HUGE proportion of these people practically kill themselves with drugs and alcohol, sometimes for DECADES, having endless fun, before it finally becomes a drag and they totally clean up and become physically and mentally healthy and just tickety-boo. Why can’t you do the same? Because somebody would disapprove? (There is one, and only one worthwhile objection to this position: famous people seem to be usually rich enough to pay for the best quality drugs and later, the best quality treatment. A word to the wise is sufficient.)
Read the archives on this website:
http://www.drunkard.com (If that link doesn’t make it then just google “modern drunkard magazine”)
Why do I mention drugs and alcohol, and none of the other things that are said to fight depression? Because yours is obviously a hard case requiring desperate measures. A little Prozac ain’t gonna do it — well it does KINDA work for a few (expensive) years, but then it pretty much burns out, and it completely fucks up your wedding tackle while you’re taking it. (I don’t keep up with med news so perhaps they’ve finally invented a seriously effective anti-depressant without fucking intolerable side effects — but i’m pessimistic; I suspect a miracle med like that is still about a hundred years in the future. However, you may wish to thoroughly inform yourself about anti-depressant meds and their side effects, and try anything you haven’t tried yet, before you go off the deep end which I’m recommending as a last resort.)
Bike riding and fitness ain’t gonna help; I know you already know that through experience. Meditation, prayer, ‘cognitive theraby,’ etc etc — it’s all useless rubbish, isn’t it? I know you know that because you’ve tried all that sort of thing, haven’t you?
Some recent studies have shown that there is a kind of U-shaped happiness arc that many people travel in life; happy in childhood, less so with maturity, worse and worse until nadir (lowest point) in 40s-50s; then gradually less miserable until fairly happy in old age IF LUCKY AND COMPLETELY HEALTHY. Sounds like a fucking RIPOFF to me!!!
I’m sick to death of being lectured by the whole fucking world about being healthy, not drinking too much, not doing drugs, etc. There is a time and a place for everything. If being in great physical shape, eating right, not drugging or drinking and all the other stuff, DOESN’T make one feel that life is even worth living, then RADICAL MEASURES MUST BE CONTEMPLATED. If the prospect of a long, healthy but miserable life is ahead of you, then SHORTEN YOUR LIFE. Scottish folksinger Hamish Imlach famously said: “I would hate to die with a heart attack and have a good liver, kidneys and brains. When I die, I want everything to be knackered.” (He died at 56 — you can probably imagine his lifestyle.)
Eating right, exercising, avoiding too much alcohol and drugs, and all that sort of thing is fine if it makes you happy, but that healthy lifestyle is only one among many ways to pass one’s time on Earth. One of its shortcomings is that it increases the chances of living to old age. Who in their right mind wants to be old???
Go talk to a bunch of random people over 70; try to really get to know what their daily lives are like; and remember, the ones you meet are only those healthy enough to be on their feet and not shut away in old folks’ homes. The uncomfortable truth is that most old people are miserable in one way or another — broken health, senility, incapacity, loneliness, etc etc. Don’t believe the lies the mainstream media tries to tell you about the “golden years.” By the time you’re old, almost all of your friends and relatives will be gone; your children will have lives of their own and will avoid you because there’s nothing in the world more depressing than hanging around with old people; and perhaps worst of all, you will have only other old people for company, and the single biggest topic of conversation will be all the physical ailments you are all experiencing. (I know this from conversations with health-care professionals.)
Since I’m talking about radical measures, here’s another crazy idea: Get a full-time manual labor job which is totally physically exhausting, like loading and unloading trucks all day, or landscaping. You come home feeling so tired that you actually don’t feel much of anything else; you have dinner and just a couple of drinks and watch a bit of tv or play a bit of computer games, then you sleep like a corpse for 10 hours. Stay slightly tipsy all weekend. With this lifestyle you will almost certainly not be depressed. It’s in the Old Testament for god’s sake: “The sleep of the laboring man is sweet.” This is also one of the world’s oldest and most effective ways to avoid depression — being worked half to death. Manual-laboring slaves are not depressed. They may be tired, chronically angry, burning with resentment at their unjust situation, etc. but DEPRESSION IS WORSE (only those who have actually experienced depression will be willing to accept that this might be true.) Slaves or prisoners who are kept hard at work from sunup until sundown have shitty lives, but actual depression is, I am convinced, rare under such conditions.
The all-day manual labor regimen has very little in common with the five vigorous exercise sessions per week regimen. Healthy, strategic exercise isn’t meant to utterly exhaust you for the day, as we all know. I’m talking about a job where you are utterly physically drained at the end of every working day. If you are depressed (but not to the point where you have to be hospitalized), that will clear it up — at least for as long as you continue the job.
Human beings evolved being very very busy, all day long, for millions of years (I’m including all the proto-human stages since we were two-bit shit monkeys no bigger than your fist). The periods of plenty wherein we got enough to eat with only a few hours’ work per day were almost certainly few and far between, over the millenia; most of our evolution happened under conditions which required us to be active and anxious for most of waking hours. Nowadays, we are paying the price for our progress; human beings become demoralized and unhappy when they are idle, because our whole genome was developed by SERIOUS BUSYNESS. ‘Boredom’ is really just a kind of low-level depression whose direct cause is lack of activity.
I should end this, it’s already too long: Let’s be realistic — nobody is going to quit his high-paying office job for a low-paying laboring job to to treat depression (I salute you if you do.) That’s where drugs and alcohol come to the rescue.
Your weird rant actually makes sense, but I also agree that nobody is going to quit a cushy job for labor intensive work. That said, for those you who might remember the famous american tv show “All In The Family” you’ll notice that Archie Bunker character who worked on a loading dock was never depressed, (he complained and wined a lot) and his son-in-law Michael, who was attending liberal arts college had all kinds of psychological first-World “issues” and seemed to periodically suffer from depression.
Excellent article–well written and spot on in its advice. Keep up the good work.
“So if you feel sad, angry, or just plain unsatisfied with life – remember, it is your emotional mind telling you something. Your emotional mind does not like whatever circumstances you are in, and by making you feel like shit all the time, your emotional mind is hoping you’ll change locations so that your emotional mind no longer has to deal with whatever poison it is currently saturated with.”
Actually, it’s your higher mind or “self” – the non-physical aspect of your consciousness which sees your circumstances as unfit of your truest desires. It uses your emotions to communicate this to you in the hopes that you’ll take some fucking action to change your circumstances. Since feeling shitty, being a “noble sufferer” who is quite literally addicted to struggle is so indelibly woven into our culture – most of us just accept it as our reality.
Everything else is spot on here. Relocating myself several times throughout my life from the dogshit weather and loser mentalities of the people I’d surrounded myself with back in Chicago was far more therapeutic than any conventional therapeutic or medication regimen could ever hope to be.
Always Follow Your Bliss.
Thanks for this post. It’s good to know I’m in good company. And judging by the number of comments on it, a lot of you/us feel the same.
Here is my thttp://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11213767.htmrue story, hope it can help
Go up to craigslist.org.
Find a nice slim clean whore whose specialty is ass to mouth, and anal.
Fuck her holes till you’re satisfied. Then repeat again.
Come home, shower. Eat a hearty steak. Sleep.
Full service, nasty Sex is the best way to relieve a depression. Unfortunately, only whores provide it with expertise.
First of all you should eliminate physical reasons for a depression. Orthomolecular MDs have treated depressions for decades now with simple by far more effective tools.:
1. High potency Multi of a good company
2. L-Tryptohpan or 2-HTP at doses of 500-2000mg daily
3. Vitamin D3 5000IU or enough sun exposure
Within days you will feel much better – this works on close to 100% of the people. You will surprised to find out that even if you have real emotional reasons for being depressed your body simply is more up-beat and cope with that much better. Also you correctly assessed that the current drugs are highly addictive and actually increase depressions if you take them long-term. There are no side-effects with those supplements – they actually help you with other body issues as well, so it’s more of a win-win – just a loss-loss for the pharma lobby which is one reason why they don’t promote it.