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Mentoring is very key here. There is an art to doing it effectively and gracefully. Right now my mentoring relationships with younger people are the brightest parts of my life, certainly my work life. (Right now I am mentoring only men, but I have mentored women in my field as well and that is fine too.)

However, I lack male fellowship on the plane of equals -- especially spiritual fellowship -- and that weighs on me. I have some particular challenges here, challenges that relate to some abstract questions at the margins of the subject of tonic masculinity and tonic femininity. But for another time, maybe...

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I think I understand. Worst of all, the opportunities to mentor the young in postive ways are being crowded out by obscenities like "Drag Queen Story Hour" and the like. Even the conservatives are so freaked out and demoralized that the market for saner, healthy mentorship has been seriously compromised across the board.

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Quite similar to the way that the mentorship system in ancient Greece was undermined by pederasty.

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You do the best you can with the situation you're in. Most of us have no opportunity for connection with like-minded peers outside of the Internet, sadly.

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Your words resonate with me, and it is no surprise that those of us creating fellowship on Substack struggle to find a local in-person community of "equals."

I don't know about you, but I have spent my entire life on the fringe, and whenever I "tried" to fit in with the masses, it *never* turned out well for me. Now, as a mature, individuated adult, I am at least fortunate that my husband (my favorite creative outsider), one close friend, and my sister are all I can "count on" in person. We are all working to integrate our wisdom into society, wherever we can safely do so.

Also, thank you for candor. I know it's difficult to disclose personal challenges online due to all the data-mining. But I feel strongly that we must maintain the subtleness of our humanity in every realm! It's the only way to heal from the trauma and to reclaim our Creator-given status as rightful beneficiaries of Mother Earth.

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I propose the next thing that gets knocked around is "Tonic Famility".

The smallest cultural unit is arguably the family. If the body of the larger culture is dying, it's likely because the cells are weak or invaded

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Society depends on the family. The family depends on the man. This is why the powers that be hate men / fathers and want to replace them with government.

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Very good essay. I thought for a bit you were going to go the direction of the tension between the warrior man and live in civilized society, ala Victor Davis Hanson. I think you very much nailed the point here, though, that tension is necessary to keep men within the range of virtue, and that too much that tension has pulled all in one direction.

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Thanks. Unsure which VDH article you are referring to, Doc. Got a link?

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I think it was in the book "Soul of Battle". I like VDH's history a lot better than his contemporary articles.

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Great essay! I, too, am learning to operate within a pack instead of as a lone wolf, which has been my default (maybe that's a feature of being on the spectrum -- you think quicker than you can communicate and you don't see the point in all the arbitrary social games required to give your ideas the social proof that means so much to normal-brained people?). Anyway, we got a great Wolfpack forming here!

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Glad to see you writing about it too.

I'm with you.

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I like the idea and the message. The goal of men supporting and encouraging each other is worthy.

However, two quibbles (three if we count Andrew Tate demonization):

First, though I do think mentorship is important in teaching men masculine behavior, I feel that masculinity comes more from within than without. Other men can inspire, but the self and identity (God, I hate that word now) comes from within from men. With women, other women tell a woman who/what they are, men develop that themselves from within. No man, not even my father, told me what it means to be a man, it's something I pieced together from examples I saw and distilled into my own understanding.

Second, it's a nice idea that fellowship, construction and learning takes place but the reality is that dominance is the goal. I've seen too many examples of 'first we have to tear you down before we can rebuild you' to think otherwise. You can see that in our politics, where power is the goal, the struggle to tell others what they must do. Too much of the world is force and compulsion and that is expressed as well in how men treat other men socially as well as politically. That makes it very hard to trust as there are very few men who are Henry the 5th, but there are many, many would-be Richard the 3rds.

Finally, I'm not on social media so I have no idea who Andrew Tate really is or what his latest thoughtcrime is, but anytime anyone is so demonized by the Left, it makes me inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt before I've seen evidence of wickedness. If there's more knowledge about there about him, feel free to lay it on me.

Quibbles aside, good and pleasant essay. #IWantToBelieve

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"First, though I do think mentorship is important in teaching men masculine behavior, I feel that masculinity comes more from within than without."

I agree with this in many respects. Of course, some of that might be due to my lone wolf inclinations. Not sure about the women-teaching-women thing, though. Demons of biology haunt both men and women, and the female version seems to include quite a bit of passive-aggression, fake friendships and thinly veiled dominance games.

"Second, it's a nice idea that fellowship, construction and learning takes place but the reality is that dominance is the goal. I've seen too many examples of 'first we have to tear you down before we can rebuild you' to think otherwise."

I know what you mean. But I think the kind of examples you're talking about are those "mostly true" illusions. To break a man down in order to fit him for slave chains is different than the recursive construction process of tonic masculinity. The former is indeed the tactic of evil men (and evil women, frankly). The latter is something older and better, and something I believe we are in good position to recapture now that International Evil Inc. has fully unmasked itself.

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I touched on the first point in my own TM article. When it comes down to it, each man creates himself, as you say. But having models on which to draw is helpful, and feedback along the way.

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Yeah, I agree that it might be too much to say "men are made," without adding that at least part of that creation is self-creation. Or, at the very least, self-improvement.

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The problem with Taint isn't what he says, it's what he does. He makes money by pimping out egirl camwhores. On the one hand he's telling guys to be more masculine, and maybe even saying some good stuff in that regard, although a lot of his advice is just on how to be an e-pimp like he is; on the other he's profiting off of coomers' porn addictions.

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Ah. Thank you.

I guess I don't consider that worth condemning, unless he's more like Max Hardcore instead of Roger Corman.

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Don't misunderstand, I'm not moralfagging. It's wrong because the coomer lifestyle is toxic to testosterone levels. If you're trying to make men more masculine preaching the gospel of masculinity, predating on their porn addictions is not coherent with that message.

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Amen. It's like a whoremonger of the Wild West charging cowpokes to watch his ladies blow him. Sad!

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Imagine paying for that.

Oh wait thanks to Taint I don't have to.

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Speaking in generalities re: the sexes and their innate characteristics is most certainly presumptive, ie ‘self for men comes from within’ and ‘self for women comes from what other women tell them who/what they are.’ Reductionism vs complexity. The latter being life’s expression

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This was great.

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Thanks, Harrison.

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Σ male lone wolf gang represent! I know exactly that tendency you're talking about, to take everything onto yourself rather than delegating or requesting assistance. Something I struggle with myself.

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Jan 24, 2023·edited Jan 25, 2023Author

Fucking curse, it is. But when you're in the thick of it, it doesn't seem that way. It doesn't seem like anything at all, really; just reducing a dynamic, chaotic environment to the natural state of comand and control. And when you're competent (as I imagine both of us are), that game can run a long ways before anything goes FUBAR.

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Yep. And competence itself is largely the source of that curse, if you're used to being the only competent person on the team. Dunno about you but group projects in high school and university laid the foundations for my 'fuck it I'll just do it myself' attitude.

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Probably means we gotta find better teams, aye?

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I returned to college as a mature adult to earn a B.A. in Communication Studies and I was fucking *floored* to see these "best and brightest students in California* always capitulate on team projects. I always emerged as the leader. It sucked.

The worst time, though, was in an 11th-hour meeting before a major performance, when the pharmaceutical-riddled helicopter-children decided to override my — I'm just going to say it — *brilliant script* with a bunch of ridiculous non-sequiturs and puerile scenes from their favorite movies, that also happened to push our time-limit over by almost two minutes, taking our "collective" grade down substantially. (I still got a solid "A" because I was in regular contact with the instructor throughout the project.)

Now, it's me and my husband in charge of every session, event, or project in our lives. We delineate duties based on our skills.

(I could go on, but I know we all have more articles and comments to write and read!)

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For me, now, at my age, the answer is simple. Not easy, but simple. Don't fight your lone wolf, use him to become leader of a pack. You decide the pack, and ruthlessly run off any wolf who doesn't make the hunt better.

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John, I'm a woman and I do this too. I think it has to do with being a "lone wolf" regardless of being male or female. I slipped through the cracks in early childhood, maintaining my Divine freedom, but it came at a great cost. My mother despised me for questioning EVERYTHING. I became an outcast almost from birth ("weird" first name didn't help!), but I craved truth and freedom more than "belongingness." So, struggle is something I well comprehend.

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Jan 26, 2023Liked by Mark Bisone

If you can breathe, fully and deeply, and if your breath is consciously attuned, through feeling, to the tangible and infinite energy of the universe - only then can you love.

If your attention is always free of obsession with your own thoughts and reveries and memories and reactions - only then are you capable of genuine participation in life, even in the matters that might otherwise preoccupy you.

If your living body is open, relaxed, fluid with feeling, supple and graceful in its action and expression, and not bound up in a physically visible knot of tension and self-possession - only then van you live a truly effective and moral and relational life in this human realm.

And - only then are you happy

Such happiness, or unobstructed feeling-attention in every instant of relational life, is the principal obligation of every human being. Such happiness never awakens as a result of the strategic efforts of one who is self-possessed. Happiness is identical to sacrifice or self, or love. And love is not properly a goal, but a responsibility , presently and always.

Moral action is not the suppression or ritual control of pleasure. It is to be so full pf pleasure, already, without cause, that you always and gracefully adhere to the universal laws of energy. The truly moral human being recognizes that we are each wholly responsible for the quality of life that we communicate in every moment, and that we must be expressive in an intelligent and wholly benign way. We must be love, if we are to assume full responsibility for our humanity.

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Jan 26, 2023·edited Jan 26, 2023Author

While I appreNietzscheate this comment, I Kant understand how it relates to the case at hand.

And while I may not be truly moral, or wholly benign, or perfectly happy and aligned, I am participating in a story. And I think it might be the best story, whether I survive it or not.

(SPOILERS: I will not, anymore than any other mortal will)

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To take a long walk off a short branch, the mention of Marduk and Tiamat caught my eye.

They appear in a Babylonian document known as the Enuma Elish. Most traditional scholars interpret this and similar writings as pure myth. However, I being who I am and aware of least one (and I think there are more) attempt to interpret such writings as ancient history. Though Zecharia Sitchin has been severely criticized for his lack of scholarship, there are various other findings and clues indicating that he was onto something.

In Sitchin's interpretation (as I understand it), Marduk and Tiamat are planets, one of which was destroyed and the other damaged by an ancient calamity. Courtney Brown's work indicates that such a calamity actually occurred and that it was the product of an ancient war between two civilizations that lived on those planets at that time. What remains of that destruction today includes Earth, Mars and the Asteroid Belt.

This is just a sort of random example of how our assumptions about our stories and our pasts could be very very incorrect.

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Jan 26, 2023Liked by Mark Bisone

I’m on a limited income or I would choose to be a paid subscriber to your and the other authors you mention that I enjoy reading all of you.

If things get any better for us financially and we’re not so tight I will happily help support all of you as it is so interesting and so comforting to read what young men think and that you will fight for all the rest of us. My husband is now retired so his physical fighting days are behind him but his spirit of fighting and mine as well are far from dead.

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No worries, Sonya. I completely understand, as my wife and I are in a similar bind. I haven't paywalled any content yet, and when I do, I'm going to repost it at my donation site, so people don't need to make an ongoing commitment to read it. It will mostly be short or serialized fiction (can't imagine paywalling anything like I've been posting so far). Hopefully that will stake out a good middle ground.

In the meantime, thanks for your comments. In many ways they are the equal to payments.

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Jan 30, 2023Liked by Mark Bisone

You are so kind thank you! I was thinking about it and since all of the corona madness began the result of it has been to bring a whole community of likeminded people together from all over the world, from all walks of life, helping one another, supporting one another in a myriad of ways, encouraging one another. Humans are actually kind and will still instinctively help one another when required in whatever way they can so despite all of the identity politics being shoved down our throats and this unnatural push for individuality reigning supreme humanity still shines through the darkness.

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Jan 26, 2023Liked by Mark Bisone

Very good insight into what is happening and I just wanted to add that with all of the young men including all of the various athletes dropping dead from heart attacks globally daily is also part of the plan to wipe out all young men of fighting age. Notice the old men aren’t dropping dead? It’s only the young men of fighting age while the young women are biologically ruined to get pregnant to carry on the human race.! I think this was also their plan all along, kill off the young men and destroy young women’s fertility. How utterly sick and disturbingly evil… I am trying to stay positive but it is very difficult these days. Thank you for your article I really appreciated your words and thoughts.

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Jan 26, 2023·edited Jan 30, 2023Author

Thank you, Sonya. I agree with you. There's nothing I've witnessed in my life quite like this. I have friends in the military and the medical industry who can speak more fluently about it, and have been courageously fighting back. For instance, check out Major Grant Smith at The Radical American Mind:

https://radicalamerican.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=profile_page

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Thank you for the referral and I have some good news today for once as all of our victories seem so few against this massive authoritarian dictatorship grab for complete power we are fighting, so we must savour each and every one we have. Have you heard of Canadian world renown psychologist and educator Dr. Jordan Peterson who travels the world giving lectures and speaking? I believe him to be the smartest person in Canada today and now one of the bravest too! Dr. Peterson was on the Joe Rogan podcast yesterday I believe and now it is on YouTube where he says he is planning a platform for the brightest minds that he knows from the EU, the UK, the USA, Australia, as well as from others around the world in order to create the very best way for humanity to govern ourselves going forward and it will be in direct opposition to the views and plans the WEF has for us all going forward. You know the one where we will have lost all of our freedoms and autonomy, where we will be under surveillance 24/7, where unelected private global entities like the WHO and the UN will be fully in charge of all global health practices and public health policies and all of our countries sovereignties will cease to exist, we will be living in a gulag and eating bugs and own nothing and be happy?! Oh and I forgot where they want to implant an electronic chip in our heads…Dr. Peterson is in the process of fighting not to be cancelled in Canada as a group of woke Liberal citizens in Ottawa where Trudeau governs and lives, as well as Trudeau himself do not like Dr. Jordan Peterson’s points of view as they run in a completely contrary and opposite direction to the current woke madness we are living in. This meeting is set and booked for the latter part of this year and it will be held in London England and everyone invited to attend will be asked 6 deep and complex questions they will need to answer versus a seminar or lecture format. This is the first step only but hey it’s a beginning if we make it to there with the US industrial military complex lusting for nuclear war…

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Feb 1, 2023Liked by Mark Bisone

Inspiring!

You haven't worked hard enough to burn out forcing a delegation as I, twice, the second time I still didn't delegate enough!

What I learned is how to know who to trust must first be trusted, with smaller tasks at first.

I am now a delegating lone wolf able now to use more time musing than working, and I own a piece of a swamp!

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Jan 25, 2023·edited Jan 25, 2023Liked by Mark Bisone

"Stirred, not shaken..", that the feeling that this brings forth... Indeed! What a wonderful tribute to awakening the essence of being a Man.

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Jan 25, 2023Liked by Mark Bisone

Fap fap fap

I’d prefer you talking about things and concepts instead of watching you masturbating.

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My friend, this was a great article. Thank you also for including links to your friends' posts on the subject.

I gotta say, I love, love, love to discuss "men and women," just ask anyone who knows me deeply. But I'm going to need some time to gather several skeins of gorgeous, colorful, organic cotton yarn and knit a sweater to keep us all perfectly warm in the worst of winters, if you get my poetry.

I've got a lot of intricate weaving to do.

And thank you for yours🤗💖

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