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...
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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
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.
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!
Glad to see you writing about it too.
I'm with you.
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
This was great.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
"Stirred, not shaken..", that the feeling that this brings forth... Indeed! What a wonderful tribute to awakening the essence of being a Man.
Fap fap fap
I’d prefer you talking about things and concepts instead of watching you masturbating.
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🤗💖