A common dogma of the red pill is the idea that indifference, not hate, is the opposite of love. In a similar way, it is important to understand that the opposite of masculinity is not femininity, but stagnancy.
Masculinity and femininity are different sides of the same coin, complementing each other and existing harmoniously in nature to keep our species and countless others alive. Comparing them is apples and oranges, and thus doesn’t advance the discussion on masculinity in any substantive way. There are hordes of men who do not possess feminine features or qualities, but who are the antithesis of masculinity.
A man who dislikes his current relationship, job, or city should take heed and consider this, and double down on his reflections if his discontent is so severe that it’s interfering with his everyday life.
Recall the story of Sisyphus, the ancient Greek King who was punished for chronic deceitfulness by being forced to roll a large boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down. He was cursed to repeat this action forever. In essence, he was banished to an existence of brutal purgatory. This fairytale has very troubling implications in the context of 21st century contemporary masculinity.
A story of stagnation
Three or four times a year I visit some family in a small town in the Midwest, not far from where I went to college. While I largely enjoy the visits, (as family should be paramount in every man’s life) something makes me progressively more uncomfortable each time I take the trip.
Throughout my casual daytime and evening walks, I recognize people not seen in months or years, but whom I remember distinctly. They are usually people I didn’t care to see ever again, for their overt stagnancy both troubled and repulsed me. By definition, stagnancy means showing little or no sign of activity or advancement.
I see the same individuals working at the same gas station jobs they’d worked at eight years prior, long before I had learned game, quit multiple jobs, and traveled the world with a backpack. It was distressing that while my landscapes had changed a hundred times over, they had not expanded their horizons at all, and were still mired in such meaningless work deep within the confines of their comfort zone.
Not only were the full time, tenured employees still there, but I often saw familiar customers I’d run into during my own stops as a local years prior. They hobbled into the establishment in their fleece pajamas, still paying for their soda and chips with their food stamp handouts—the exact same thing they were doing seemingly centuries ago. Experiencing a real life déjà vu like this was a surreal experience, but for all the wrong reasons.
Even worse was visiting the department store where I worked my first job as teenager in 2005, to buy a pair of sneakers. Within ten minutes I saw multiple “lifers” who I knew were already on anti-depressants a decade ago, presumably for their emotional discontent with their lives even back then.Who can blame them, after all? A long term career in retail is a fate worse than death.
I tried my best to avoid talking to these people, and I was relieved they didn’t notice me. Another universal red pill truth maintains that you are the average of the five people you spend the most amount of time with. It should come as no surprise that seeing this stagnancy on such a consistent scale among the local population prompted a sense of severe small town blues in a matter of a few days, having been surrounded by people who literally hadn’t moved an inch since I went through puberty.
The effect it has if you allow it to consume you
Hypothetically, someone might ask why I care at all. In the same way we don’t care about feminists on a personal level, there was an interesting social observation at hand. The expressions on those faces had also not changed. It was a look of dread, struggle, and resignation to their mediocre fate, most of all.
In Stephen King’s classic “Under the Dome,” residents of a small town in Maine are shut off completely from the rest of the world by a transparent barrier trapping them where they stand. Unfortunately, we now live in a culture where people do this to themselves willingly. One family member makes her home in a small town of 35,000 people, many of whom by the midpoint of their sheltered lives have never been on an airplane, or branched out and attempted to learn one of the other 6,500 active languages in the world today. This total absence of self improvement is the opposite of masculinity.
To be clear, the 45-year-old gas station clerk might very well be a good or hard working person, but does his restocking of soda coolers and cleaning of slushy machines with a toothbrush 260 days a year not make him a modern day Sisyphus?
We all know it can be lonely on the dark side. A little sense of camaraderie while we resist societal traps is the reason we all flock to these sites and forums, but I’m afraid we’re largely in this for ourselves. Most people you’re forced to interact with quit on their mission years ago.
As we continue to fight feminism and its dangerous sister afflictions, we ourselves cannot remain stagnant in the world of video games, pornography, or pointless weekends at overrated clubs. Defining our own personalized “great struggle” as a man is hard enough, but one undisputed fact is that stagnancy is one of the things thing that can stop us in our tracks.
Read More: The Opposite Of Manliness
Stagnancy is a poison in Modern Men’s lives. We no longer do anything except just sit there and watch time just click on by until your death. I at times catch myself doing that from time to time and have to bring myself back to reality. Its hard because it feels good to just sit back and do nothing when in reality its the worse thing a Man can do to himself.
We need to live our lives and not Stagnate it. Try something you like to do that does not consist of sitting down and watching TV. Idle minds are the Devils workshop!
Shake off that stagnation and be a man!
Great post JD!
some rest is okay. but don’t watch tv or read or anything. you think you are relaxing, but you are only stressing your brain more, wondering afterwards why you don’t feel relaxed and energized.
to a relaxed and well calibrated mind and body, comfort is as appealing as eating a second portion with a full stomach. it’s just disgusting, meaningless and trite.
Did you just advocate against reading?
against reading for relaxation, yes.
i used to do this a lot. nothing sticks, because the mind is overtaxed. and it only keeps the subconscious running like crazy, increasing stress.
reading should be a conscious effort with a purpose.
What you readin’ nigga?
recently read “language in thoughts and action”. highly recommended.
I read to learn something or for entertainment. Learning something new or different is fulfilling to me. It allows me to think without the distractions like the kids or wife. Those 2 absorbs almost all of your free time.
Face it, librarians and serial writers will read or write half the time and have prematurely aged bodies that look like shit. There’s really no good posture to place the body into for long stints of reading or writing. The ass gets sore sitting while reading, the back and neck need increasingly popped or elbows get stiff laying on belly while reading. There has to be a better way to incorporate a physical release while reading to keep the body loose and comfortable.
Reading while humping with a book prop or tablet stand set above her tramp stamp would only hold out for a few munites, barely long enough to finish a few pages.
The recumbant position is actually the ideal position to assume for reading but a recumbant bicycle or kayak need eyes focused on the road or water to avoid mishaps. A tablet or bookstand mounted to a rowing machine or better yet a leg press would give the ability to easily do series of reps between turning pages.
I’ve always liked standing while reading.
The high octane stuff like on ROK. It’s like superfood
Hayakawa’s book?
You might appreciate this then:
http://psychedelic-library.org/etchayak.htm
thank you so much.
i actually started to be obsessed with language after my ayahuasca trip. i searched and found the book as a result of that.
as opposed to hayakawa, i take a perverse pleasure in reducing my perception of language to the most hedonistic materialism. where he – maybe due to his heritage – enjoys abstract symbolism of words, i despise it and love to deconstruct it. i have no use for meaningless and vague words like “moral”.
i take lsd for exactly this reason and i would have described it like him: being free from categorizations and values. when i take lsd, i feel and imagine to act like an alpha, because my irrational fears disappear.
Reading your nonsense has stressed my brain
that’s a great retort, brother. is that all you can come up with?
Luckily if you reach what the Scientologists call the state of ‘OT’, then you don’t even have to physically read anything anymore. You just link with the mass consciousness and pull words right out of thin air. You spout new and amazing words of wisdom and fact that have never before been spoken or uncovered. You pull them right out of the cosmos. Then if anyone asks you to back up your words with references, you just point your finger into the air, right above the horizon and say ”there, can’t you see it?” If they can see it too then they wouldn’t have bothered asking.
yes. that is exactly what i meant.
Nice flip Mr Yankovich! That is also true. I like wierd Al. He’d only tweak the hits that went gold.
Empirical evidence anyone?
Great article, and great comment, i have the same issue sometimes, but my will to improve always prevail at the end :P, and it should be like that.
i haven’t regularly worked in 6 months, neither done anything regularly than muay thai and some reading.
i see myself past the end of a dark tunnel that i considered to be life for most of my life.
one might think i just missed the entry point to the next tunnel, but i would have to wonder now why anyone would want to go through a tunnel.
the tunnel is an almost completely unconscious experience. the state takes you from your home, puts you in school, university and then the tunnel would simply continue. you learn to repeat the thoughts of other people. you learn abstract concepts and words without knowing what they stand for. you always feel your normal kind of miserable and rant against assholes and capitalists. never even knowing that there is anything outside the tunnel.
i’m glad i missed the next tunnel. cause there is a whole world outside of it.
something is wrong with the whole tunnel thing.
Same kind of story here, screw the business/money man type. Study Ancient Greek and read Plato, it will change your life. It sounds like you are on the Cynic journey.
i always disdainfully considered cynics to be just disappointed romantics. disappointment is a great catalyst for change, surely, but it’s not a solution in itself.
Cynicism is defined by a detachment from worldly things and heavy handed realism. Romanticism didn’t exist in Ancient Greece, life was too hard.
So travelling the world with a backpack is the epitome for masculinity? Girls love to travel too.
To be everywhere is to be nowhere. Thus every man ever flees himself.
and, we have a winner for the ubiquitous verbiage contest.
At no point in the article did I claim to be the sculpture of masculinity or that backpacking was the epitome of Alpha. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I can tell you certain things that don’t work to improve you as a man based on experience. I think you well know that and you’re just being a troll, but if not please open your mind a little.
You quickly label me a troll.
In your article you pity the guy that’s working in gas station and try to belittle him as a man. You show no appreciation of his work as without people like him you will not be able to travel the world and chase tail.
Every man has a role and this must be appreciated. But it’s RoK’s recent policy to look down on certain groups of men, like Foamey’s article on MGTOW – that’s wrong.
The only reason I was inclined to think “troll” was your “backpacking = masculinity” retort and how women do it too made no sense. I never claimed to be the poster chuld for masculinity. It was the personalized challenge it represented to me That did make me feel like a better man After.
I don’t try to belittle anyone on a personal level. I even said he might be a stand up person, but the point of these blogs and forums is to define masculinity. Are you really arguing that the chubby bald dude who never moved from behind that counter in 18 years is the best man he can be? It’s nonsense, because almost everyone is good at something other than stocking shelves.
The chubby bald guy is the best he can be, yes. That does not make him less of a man. In a forest you have all sorts of vegetation, they are all important in their own way.
There’s no shame in working a shitty job if it’s a means to pay the bills while you work on side hustles or personal projects or your life’s mission that will reap great rewards in the future. Of course if you don’t have that overarching goal, then yeah, you’ll probably become a drugged up zombie. You all recognize that look some retail lifers have.
You got it.
If I did not have an “angle” on something that improved my life I’d go mad.
Ok madder.
Have you worked a shit job lately, if you are a half way competent employee you’re picking up the slack for the assholes who can’t seem to tie their shoes, and the cunts who sucked the manager’s dick for favorable hours. All because the owner needs his fucking vacation or new sports car.
From the article: “To be clear, the 45-year-old gas station clerk might very well be a good or hard working person, but does his restocking of soda coolers and cleaning of slushy machines with a toothbrush 260 days a year not make him a modern day Sisyphus?”
When I buy a steak at the grocery store, that piece of meat was raised by a rancher, then passed on to a butcher, then a loader, then a delivery truck driver, then an unloader, and then into the hands of a guy just like your modern day Sisyphus—he then places it on the shelf that he recently cleaned with his little toothbrush. I then seamlessly walk into the store and buy myself a steak. An IQ of more than 85 wasn’t necessary for anyone in involved in getting that piece of meat into my hands.
When I’m on my way to the airport for a long day of autopilot monitoring, and I pass a crew of guys digging ditches in 90 degree heat—I’m certainly not jealous of them. However, I’m glad that they’re out there working, doing the shit I don’t want to do that still has to get done. The gas station clerk or ditch digger may not be living the dream and they may not very bright, but they are useful. I can’t help but respect that. For some people, their dead-end job is their maximum potential. Sisyphus had no utility, these people do.
Great article otherwise.
The point is that it doesn’t have to be you. There will always be lifers who don’t have the red pill knowledge, so don’t resign yourself to the fact that it has to be someone. It sure as hell isn’t gonna be me.
I understood his point fine. He seemed to overlook the fact that people who find themselves in that kind of work are there because that’s as good as it gets for them. Stupid people exist, and the red pill doesn’t work on stupid. Your average Walmart lifer doesn’t have the brainpower to do better. There are people who just aren’t destined to “make it.”
If that’s true, then I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for this guy’s next best selling ebook on crushing pussy in southeast Asia…
One of my closest friends is like that.
He just doesn’t give a shit about all this “self-improvement” and asking “deep” questions when he is quite content being comfortable, eating tasty food, playing video games, and having sexy time with his girlfriend. He seems genuinely content doing crappy jobs for the rest of his life so long as he gets his time off. He has every opportunity to go back to school and do this or that, but in his mind it’s time spent not being happy.
I could not possibly live like that, the monotony would drive me insane… I’ve always been driven by curiosity or ideals that I set for myself. But guess what? That has its own pitfalls and struggles. Despite my buddy’s simplicity he is one of the few people I’ve known that hasn’t betrayed someone close to him. Sure he’s a lazy fuck and I laugh at him at all the time, but he has been a loyal and generous friend and you can’t put a price on that.
Who is the more masculine guy? Sometimes it doesn’t matter. Live your life.
Being broke and lazy isn’t masculine, but loyalty damn sure is. Being motivated and chasing cash is masculine, but being a lying, back stabbing little faggot certainly isn’t.
I would much rather hang out with guy number one, if forced to choose. Some people are happy with less. I was broke for several when I just started out in aviation, but I still enjoyed life: traveled on the cheap (thank you flight benefits), got laid etc.
I have no problems with people if they’re being useful and happy with their station in life.
Money is an unreal thing. And never count on a man’s loyalty in American society. Most conservative type men are the ones who but ‘me’ first in opposition to more important things.
Well said. I work with a group of 8 guys and there’s this one who is completely outcast from the group because he is a snitch. Cool to your face, but always sneaking back to the boss and telling him your doing something wrong or bad.
And the dude really has no idea why we give him such a hard time
It’s in the agency of men that we take responsibility for our choices and respect the choices (and expect them to be responsible) of other men.
In the end though, you die. Nothing changes that.
I used to be one of those guy who would just go and go until health began to fail. Then one day I thought “Will there be a monument to me in the office lobby after I’m found dead at my desk? The best there will be is some picture on the wall with me shaking hands with some boss on my last day. And then someday that picture is going to be pulled off the wall by some interior demolitions guy or laborer gutting the place because the company long folded and he’s going to look at my picture and think ‘who’s the dumbass?’ before pitching it into the dumpster. And that will be that”.
My life has improved exponentially since that day.
Amen, two of my friends actually work at a company where, I shit you not, high blood pressure and heart disease are entirely expected ( unofficially of course ).
I was there one day and when people heard an ambulance nearby multiple people sighed “there goes another one”.
How sick does one have to be to work in such an environment voluntarily? “But the money is good!”
Terrible.
“After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.” – Italian Proverb
Have had that same (painful) revelation myself. What’s even worse is when you find your Herculean efforts aren’t appreciated by those close to you. Hero to zero in no time flat.
A buddy of mine was taken away from work last week kuz ems saw him and checked him out. No joke.
“What’s even worse is when you find your Herculean efforts aren’t appreciated by those close to you. Hero to zero in no time flat.”
Can’t steal my being a hero. I’m on a Mission From God.
We [Christians] are the Heroes of Time:
Sung to a bunch of semi-nude dudes [probably meant to be sodomites] in foreground: The defenders of the faith we are… although no one understood we [Christians] were holding back the flood [of God’s Wrath]… watch your mouth son or you’ll finding yourself floating home… there were more of them than us [Christians]… now they’ll never dance again… we were holding back the flood… we will meet you [God] where the lights are.
Next song, SOS: …we’ll get a five minute warning to divine intervention…
Supreme Court Ruling Makes Same-Sex Marriage a Right Nationwide:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage.html?_r=0
Half a million Americans singing, “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie” by Don Mclean at 2008 Obama inauguration:
Obama singing it:
Babylon [notice the American flag on the finger], by Don Mclean:
http://www.tribulation-now.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/American-Pie.jpg
American Pie
D. Mclean
Mayday [distress signal] Music
Yahweh Tunes [Yod-Heh-Waw/Vav-Heh, Yahweh, “the LORD” in all capitals, the personal name of the Triune God]
Revelation chapter 18 (the destruction of Mystery Babylon):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+18&version=KJV
What industry was this? Investment banking?
This is where I’m at at the moment. 23, doing manual labor jobs. I quite enjoy them actually. Something about being outside in the 100 degree heat, busting my ass, and not having to think about anything that just feels good.
You can make 100k plus doing that kind of stuff in Hollywood, sounds crazy but there’s tons of work, bust your ass and get in the union and within a couple years you’ll be making six figures, not as glamorous as being a movie star, but a very small percentage of the people who move here for that become rich and famous, meanwhile the “blue collar” Hollywood jobs all pay six figures once you break in. Just a thought.
by the way you also get full medical, dental, vision, and two pensions
check out page 67 of http://www.local724hollywood.org/assets/pdfs/master-agreement.pdf also keep in mind a standard day in entertainment is 12 hours, and we always have “12 hour guarantees” so you alway make 4 hours of overtime every day you work, even if you don’t work the entire day. also meals are catered, etc, i’m not sure why i’m sending you this info, but i wish somebody had sent it to me at 23, i would have been a millionaire by now
This is exactly why we need more male-only spaces: Practical knowledge and ideas passed between men without harpies screaming “YOU NEED A GRADUATE DEGREE IN COMMUNICATIONS TO BE SUCCESSFUL”
Yeah man, sometimes I feel like a paid advertisement but I try to tell all my friends about it, there is pretty much a high paying job for whatever your skills/interest are, and it pays more than in any other field, and you do way less work, and sometimes it’s fun. A gardener doesn’t make much money (unless he owns the business) but if you’re a Greensman for movies you make bank to just take care of some plants it’s crazy. Plus here is the only place that there is a chance (even though it’s like winning the lottery) that something crazy might happen and you meet the right person, or you’re in the right place at the right time and some crazy hollywood story type thing can happen to you…and if not, worst case scenario you just make a much better living doing whatever it is you do than you would anywhere else!
I know that feeling. There’s something that just makes you feel like a man to come home after a long day and kick your feet up.
You don’t get that with office jobs and I’ve done both.
Correct me if I am wrong but doesn’t the People’s Republic of Kalifornia have an effective 50% tax rate, all in? So 100K becomes 50K cash money let’s say after all deductions. Then you have Cali living expenses to account. Maybe its a decent living for some folks but it strikes me as alot of hard work for not as much reward as one might think.
I’m talking about clearing 100k, making 100k+ after taxes.
I retract my statement, that does sound sweet.
I appreciate the heads up. My current job is seasonal, but once you get into the city’s employment a full time job is just an application away. I’m trying to decide now whether I want to get the full time job or try out a new city.
I live in a really small town, few oppurtunies and the people are, well, dull. The women, intolerable. And the jobs pay isn’t very good. Great insurance, but minimal income otherwise. I’d probably be pulling 20-30k a year after a couple years being there.
Moving somewhere else is an appealing thought, but it makes me nervous as well. Especially somewhere like Hollywood
Sweet indeed. I’m making like 15k this year and it’s more money than I’ve ever had.
I wouldn’t know wtf to do with 100k lol
I’m from a small town too, LA is big but so spread out you can live in any time of environment you want, I live in suburbs, but you can live downtown in a city like area, country like area, by the beach etc, it’s not like a normal city. moving obviously makes anyone nervous but that’s only because it’s something new etc, you can alway move again if you don’t like a place etc bla bla bla, good luck man
Each of your boys has his own life. Naw’mean?
Wise words. Are you Superman? People have been talking.
Dunno what you’re talking about.
Who is more masculine really doesn’t matter, but without being masculine, is not worth living a life…if you are a Man.
Unfortunately, the world certainly needs beta males in the same way producers need consumers. Sometimes, knowing this helps to have more empathy for consumers and the mediocre, when the initial reaction is visceral resentment. Glad you liked it.
Hear hear!
These men lack ambition and intelligence. Some others may be intelligent, but still lack ambition. Sooner or later, your ambition step on others dreams, and I am currently in line for a rare job in aviation that I’m competing for with other men my age, (and not surprisingly women too). Some are betas and are married, and they won’t think twice trying to get me kicked out, some have already tried because of my red pill ways, but they don’t understand ambition like I do. Each man longs to pursue his dream, and each man that does is tortured by his dream, but the dream gives meaning to his life. Even if the dream ruins his life. Man cannot allow himself to leave it behind. In this world, is man ever able to possess anything more solid, than a dream?
Something to consider.
Your dream is your identity. What you yearn for is what you learn for. Continuous yearning means continuous learning.
I make it a point to look those in the eye who’re doing the work I don’t want to, or have chosen not to anymore. It’s a sign of respect that they’re efforts don’t go unnoticed. I wished people had done that to me when I held those types of jobs.
I’ve never looked down on a Man who didn’t have money, heck if a Man doesn’t have a dollar to his Name as long as he can Self Sustain and isn’t working the welfare system i’ll probably get along with him, I just can’t stand the able bodied Males who work the welfare system and take my tax dollar so they can sit around all day. I’ve always thought, it’s not the size of a Man’s fortune that makes him a Man, but his Character.
If you could use extra income of about 50 bucks to 300 bucks each day for doing work over internet from your couch at home for few h each day then try this…
For many years I saved and lived frugally so I could buy that nice house with 4 bedrooms either outright or with a minimal mortgage. When my goal came ever closer I became increasingly uncertain and uneasy.
Why was I going to buy a big, fancy house? Because I wanted to? Because my friends were?
After many restless nights I had an epiphany, rather than put all of my money into a house I was, upon reflection, buying 10% for myself and 90% because it’s what other people thought I should do and then slaving away to pay off the remaining mortgage I chose to buy a small appartment instead ( with a very minor mortgage ), using my savings to buy a second one outright to rent out.
Over the next for years I threw as much money as I could at the mortgage on the first appartment, paying it off within only a few years ( I’ve never made over $45k ).
After saving up a fair nestegg I left my home country ( the Netherlands ) in favor of warmer, more hospitable grounds ( the Phillipines ). Rental income of ~1400 a month + income generated from stock market investments/interest on savings allow me to live my life exactly how I want it without HAVING to work.
My friends who bought the big house are corporate slaves, one and all. They have an income that is at least 5 times mine but their quality of life is a thousandfold worse.
If you ever do try to do something like this ( whether it be adopting minimalism, moving to a foreign land or pretty much anything else that goes against being a good worker bee ), know you will be shamed endlessly by women and beta males. Look at these people and decide, do you truly want to take advice from these people on how to live a happy life?
congradulaions on taking a risk and seeing the benefits!
It is hard to decide whether you want the materialistic world or to leave the materialistic world.
Thank you very much.
It is indeed a very difficult thing. The pressure from society, peers, media and family and internalized desire are extremely potent. You always want more, it’s never ( good ) enough. Not everyone can, should or wants to do what I did but I do know one thing to be absolutely true.
For most of us, if we look within, more material goods aren’t worth the precious time we give up to obtain them. At the very least I think every man should, unless he thoroughly loves what he does, strive to minimize the amount of hours they need to prostitute themselves in order to afford their lifestyle.
Whether it be by upping your market value and thus being able to command a higher wage ( allowing you to theoretically work fewer hours for the same amount of $ ) or by practicing minimalism it should be a priority for every man who values his freedom. The 40 hour ( and let’s be honest, how many of you actually work 40 hours, it’s more like 50, more like 60 if you include the commute ) work week is counter to the nature and dignity of man.
The man who, on his deathbed, wishes he had worked more has never existed and never will.
The world is an amazing place and also, contrary to the cautionary tales spread by middle aged women who have never left the general vicinity they were born and raised in, generally a very safe place.
As long as you stay away from the obvious ( IS, boko haram, North Korea, slums, ghettos and favellas ) you will very likely be fine.
No they won’t cut out your kidneys as soon as you leave the airport in Brazil. No, corrupt police officers won’t beat your ass and steal your shoes after 6pm in Budapest. In fact there are many places in the “developing” world that are much safer and pleasant than many Western cities.
Haha yes very good points. I had made a firm decision at the age of 20 that I will never become a slave to the rat race. Being 21, i might have to slave for a bit but long term I would never.
Very good, as long as you have your eye on the prize ( whatever that may be for you ) you’re golden as long as you don’t allow yourself to get tied down with a relationship you’re not really into or kids you didn’t want.
I wish you all the best on accomplishing your goals and if they happen to include travelling South East Asia be sure to hit me up.
Great post and inspiring story.
I’m aiming to do something similar, you’re right that the pressure is enormous to align with mainstream values and as i save for my goal of relocation and less work, i constantly run up against these values in conflict.
My life shifted greatly a couple of years ago towards a more minimal lifestyle and in that time I’ve been refining this and learning how to be satisfied with less. The idea of having more weather it be materially or financially is very alluring and its hard to really commit to accepting having less.. or rather giving up the ‘pursuit of more’. But when you realize it’s endless, you can start to focus on creating a lifestyle you can enjoy. I’d rather set myself up to have enough money each month to enjoy myself in a place i want to be, then be stuck in the grindhouse so i can maintain a materially rich life.
Hearing that someone else has achieved this and is happy has reinforced my confidence in my goal, and assured me it can be done if you want it enough.
Thanks.
I am always happy to inspire other men to pursue whatever it is that makes them happy. You are so correct when you say it’s an endless race, when I reached my goal of having enough passive income and savings to do what I wanted I still felt that gnawing voice in the back of my head telling me “more, more, more”.
Despite knowing what I wanted, despite having embraced minimalism and despite knowing what was within my reach I was still considering working just a few more years to get more money, to get an extra rental property. It’s incredibly pervasive in our culture and within most of us but being aware of it is half the battle.
I don’t know man, but I kinda want one of these.. Kidding..
http://www.homedsgn.com/2015/04/27/bentley-bays-essential-miami-beach-penthouse/
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.- Henry David Thoreau, Walden
This is a very good article. Most people simply don’t have what it takes to branch out beyond what they learned in childhood and adolescence. Whether that something is in the guise of curiosity or necessity.
I can take you to my hometown right now and find almost all of my childhood friends and I would guess somewhere north of 75% of my classmates would be found living somewhere within about an hour. Many of them working jobs they have worked since some time shortly after high school graduation twenty years ago. They are in their culture. Comfortable enough and comfort is the greatest enemy I know of, even if I know that many of them aren’t truly happy.
Had I contented myself, I can see where I would have ended up with a plump little wife that controls me, two or three kids, and a few half trained dogs in the yard. Most likely, I would have ended up giving myself a life sentence working at the county jail. I would have silently gone to pieces wondering where I went wrong.
I am happy that the fates had something else in mind for me.
I think the best thing that can happen to a man, is to bust the dust a couple of times..
The ups and downs, and the ability to crawl out of the whole life put you in is one of the best mental allies one can have. I’ve done it before, I can do it again if it comes to that… Gives you the freedom to branch out, and take risks..
I try to tell my friends that for all the times I have had what amounted to bad luck, I know to save a little and that I can get back up. Most of them just shake their heads.
Feminity and hypergamy are opposites and the stagnant man becomes complementary to the hypergamous woman, two sides of another coin altogether.
You can’t just “keep improving” in life
There is the aging problem to deal with…..
and the bell curve problem of diminishing returns
this is why influence is important, the ability to gain a second intellect through influencing the mind of another therefore doubling the IQ
“the bell curve problem of diminishing returns”.. When I was taking uni classes 15-20 years ago, I had a colleague who I think was in his 70s.. It doesn’t matter..
Let’s say you have a plan to accomplish something, it doesn’t matter what, and that something will take you let’s say 5 years… The question is, if you don’t do it, how old are you going to be in 5 years? So you might as well, do it.. That’s how I look at any endeavor.
I agree with everything the author says, though I’d like to add that working the same simple job for a long time is not necessarily a bad thing, so long as that job allows the man working it to flourish in other ways.
Here’s my theory on simple jobs. If you can’t master them, I mean total mastery of efficiency, theory, yield, and performance, and do it for a substantial period of time to prove you know it inside and out to where you can do it with your eyes closed, you don’t deserve to move up. I hold myself to that standard.
Since no one else has posted it so far, here’s the ABC speech from Glengarry Glen Ross. (I like to think of ABC as Always Be Cultivating).
I got 970,000 upvotes last year. How many did you get? You see pal, that’s who I am, and you’re nothing. Nice commenter? I don’t give a shit. Good video uploader? FUCK YOU, go home and play with your camera. You don’t like it, leave for Gawker.
http://cdn.meme.am/instances/61264577.jpg
Stagnation is the mindset that will keep you stuck in a beta dungeon until the day comes when you are scheduled to be butchered. The masculine mindset on the other hand will empower you to call out the bitch and kick the faux nuts right off of her.
Forget about stagnancy and all that rubbish; just find what makes you happy and do it for the rest of your life
And what causes stagnancy? Fear. Most people stay where they are because they are too afraid to go anywhere else. I’ve read in various places that people who spend too much time in prison begin to fear their own freedom.
Like the character from ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. He spent just about all of his adult life in prison and became institutionalised.
A few concepts that have sunken in over the years for me are:
1) Fear of success is a very real evil deeply rooted in people with the greatest potential.
2) Fear and anger go hand and hand. Be weary when one emotion lashes out because the corollary is secretly hiding behind it.
3) One’s success in life, fulfilling their dreams, etc., can be measured by the amount of uncomfortable situations they addressed, be it a phone call, text, email, or face to face meeting they were fearful or nervous to make.
The author of this article fails to realize that there are people out there who don’t have the financial means to just quit their job and go backpacking across the world.
Most men nowadays come from dysfunctional family systems. If you had an absent father or a father with a myriad of issues would you have the example to make all the right choices? No?
You make mistakes and incur debt. Debt=stagnation, financial prosperity=freedom.
Most men are stagnant because they have no choice. If you don’t have the means you don’t have the means.
This of course leads to stagnation. Most men have been so beaten down by the “man” or the “woman” they have lost all hope and have gone into the forest to die.
Unfortunately, I see stagnation being the norm. Very few people have the capacity to stay positive and focused enough to better their situation and climb out of stagnation hell.
That is probably why that gas station attendant is still pumping gas and my college roommate is making $12 a hour at Dicks Sporting Goods.
I don’t fail to realize it at all. This article is not a now or never proclamation, it’s message is to work towards your goal and don’t leave room for long-term excuse making. The backpacking is just one example – a personal goal I set for myself and chased. The goal can be anything. I was talking about people who had worked in these department stores for decades. That is where I have very little sympathy. A common belief among successful people is “if you’re born poor, it’s not your fault. If you die poor, it’s your fault”
I don’t know your socio-economic background but the point I was making is that people who have the means can many times hold opinions on others because they see their lack of inaction as stagnation.
Yes, I agree. Some dude who has been toiling away at a department store for decades doesn’t get any sympathy from me. That’s my college roommate. He is almost 40 years old, married, and living in his wife’s parents house. He has no drive to better himself, his wife is unhappy, and will complain to me that he hates his job- but doesn’t do anything about it.
He is not a risk taker. He’s a loser! That is why I don’t hang out with him much if ever.
I have more respect for the man who takes a big risk to better himself and fail than one who just toils away and dies a loser.
Good article!
MAN UP
AND DON’T MARRY THOSE SLUTS
No excuses not to man up and try to make the world a better place. I just made a video calling for a children’s series that has had sex fetish themes put into it by a former porn producer to be canceled. It’s not perfect but it took me about a half an hour at the most:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU5XW0SXysE
There is a link in the video description to a petition to stop this blatant use of fetish themes in kids shows. Please sign it: https://www.change.org/p/nickelodeon-viacom-keep-sex-fetishism-out-of-children-s-television
That is my favorite show. Who are you to decide what I get to watch?
I think at the end of the day it comes down not looking down at others other than learning from their mistakes. Some people are o.k with being stagnant. They might have other motives. Family is usually the case. Most guys find a job that covers their overhead and as long as the bills are paid then they’re happy. They could be cool guys that have realized that simplicity is where its at. Ironically most people that get caught up in blue pill mentallity like keeping up with the joneses at all costs. Who’s the real sucker?
As long as you respect and be cool to people that deserve respect and you’re not ripping people off, then thats admirable. So called people that have “good” jobs can be the shittiest people. You know people that have jobs that prey on people whether its some sheisty lawyer, Wall street hedge fund scam artist, politician or fast talking used car salesman. They are the scum of the earth
. Joe ditch digger or menial job worker may have been dealt a hard hand of cards. Maybe the guy needs to work another job that fits into his already 60 hour a week to help pay for his mothers cancer medicine. You never know what they’re going through. My rule is as long as your not a douchebag then I’ll give you a chance. I can usually tell within the first minute if they are a piece of shit by their character and how they handle themselves.
This scene is very fitting relating to this article.
I was relatively stagnant from spring 2005 to spring 2008. What I wouldn’t give to have those three years back now.
I don’t think stagnancy is necessarily the opposite of masculinity. Its prime characteristics Strength,Honor,Mastery and Courage.(Perhaps adaptability can be added in considering the high mutation rate of the y-chromosome that is 15x faster than the regular x chromosomes).
Stagnancy is in actual fact the bane of masculinity.
The ‘Y’ is indeed (Y)WILD and can be mutated backwards or foreward. Advanced or ‘put back in its place’. We can control it to a greater extent than it can control us. The eventual order is set in our fixed frame, not theirs.
???
That is we grow we mutate therefore we have to lead. The fixed ‘x’ lays the egg whilst we leapfrog over her. With each jump, we advance the DNA chain. The fixed ‘x’ more resembles our footprint we leave behind while we are the motive foot itself.
Scientific papers?
The opposite of up is down. The opposite of love is hate.
Is the opposite of up still down if you are rotated 180 degrees on the vertical plane? What about in outer space?
It’s not so black and white and has more to do with perspective…
Embrace the chaos. Five years ago I had no idea that I would be living in China. Five years before that I had no idea that I would be a divorce attorney in British Columbia. Five years before that, I had no idea just how much life could suck. Five years before that I was not even contemplating law school. Five years before that I planned a trip to Australia while romancing the fish that got away (my bad). Five years before that I was a geeky teenager who thought I would end up in some STEM job, but then I cut my hair, joined the military and sang in a rock band.
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I suppose there are a few schools of thought about this. The basic dichotomy is whether to “stick to your vision” or “go with the flow”. One problem with the former is having a vision in the first place. What teenager really knows anything about anything? The problem with the latter is that you become a cork in the water or a cog in the machine.
.
I have a philosophy that sort of splits the difference. Always have two jobs: one to pay the bills and one to get rich off of. “Rich” in this context can mean monetary wealth but also richness of the soul. Do what you must for 40 hours a week to put a roof over your head and food on the table and then spend at least another 20 hours doing something crazy that is the real you. Learn the guitar, three chords, and cut a death metal album. Hit a place like *LIFT and make fucking movies. Do porn, *design a board game, make music or something artsy, do something *crazy STEM shit. Maybe, just maybe these extra curricular activities will make you enough money to kiss your day job good bye. If not, then you still had a good go at it. If you simply resign yourself to being a workbot, then you deserve both a boring life and a boring death.
http://lift.ca/
http://worthplaying.com/article/2015/3/3/news/95136/
http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/outrageous-acts-of-science/
I understand your point completely. It seems that some people understand sticking points in their lives and address them accordingly in a manner that positively effects their lives. Other people may not have this attribute or will acquire it after many years of suffering and discontent.
I agree that retail is a slow death.
But some people low life expectations, and this may be from laziness, low self esteem or parental and social environment.
It takes courage to leave what is comfortable and venture out and strike it on your own. Good points and good article.
Another way to look at your course is stagnation versus MOTIVation. Like reading the gagues on your dash with the engine vitals: oil pressure, rpm, alt output, temp and vehicle speed – the same applies to YOUR running stats – your motive state, your direction and velocity, your gravity and inertia, your impact and your intelligent ‘footprint’ or the works, monuments, testaments and the progeny that you leave behind.
The question is where you are right now relative to your timespace and the energy you posess to either crunch the elements and situations at hand, to dominate and tame the women or jobs around you and terraform your own sphere OR to abort and run from them to another venue like an etch a sketch tablet and start again.
nice article. nice indeed.
I’ve always said that a man should be able to beat a past version of himself, be it physically, intellectually, or financially. If you’re not better than you were a year ago then you’ve failed.
But as you mentioned, most men are content with complacency. I hung out with a friend last night and I saw this in full effect. My friend and I both grew up in the same town, went to the same schools, were in the same social circles, and now we live in another city but close to one another, so we’ve had very similar life experiences. The difference is I took the red pill and he slips further and further into the blue pill world every day.
My friend is living with a fat ugly feminist girlfriend who is 10 years his senior (She’s almost 40) in a smelly apartment that’s overrun by cats. He walks on eggshells any time he tries to talk to her because her temper is so volatile (I’m guessing BPD or bipolar). He works a job he hates but doesn’t try to find anything else. Since living with this girl his hair’s begun to fall out and he just looks beaten down all the time. Talking with him is depressing because he’s just lost all hope.
Meanwhile I quit my last traditional day job 5 years ago and I’ve been freelancing since then in a field I love. I play in a band that’s recording an album in a multi-million dollar studio. I began going to the gym a few months back and I’m in the best shape of my life. I’ve grown more confident and I’m able to talk to people more easily and make more friends (Even though I’m a classic introvert). This past year has been insane in terms of self-improvement, and I love it. But the difference between me and my friend is that I wanted to do stuff so I did it, while he wants to do stuff but won’t ever put his needs above his girlfriend’s. Which is why most of the time I ask him to hang out he’s busy doing something that his girlfriend obviously wanted to do but he was too afraid to say no to, then justifies is by saying he likes it (“No, I enjoy going to Sephora”).
If the man is happy and coasting through life, not really too worried, then let him be. Some people want adventure. Some want the stability of knowing tomorrow will be the same. Let them be. You go for your adventure. They will enjoy their life, knowing tomorrow that the deli they go to everyday will still be there, serving their favourite sandwich, like it has done many years.
I think an important thing the adventurous must also ask himself is this – is he afraid of monotony? Or is he traveling the world because he is curious? Travel because one is genuinely curious and seeking adventure and not because one is afraid of monotony.