There is an awakening when you realize how much of human behavior is driven by unacknowledged motivations. Polite social fictions are peeled back to reveal our basest drives. There is a churning Darwinian world of desire behind the civilized façade of cordiality. However, this insight does not usually translate into any kind of success or rise in the world. The replacement fiction – “I am a clear-eyed realist in dog-eat-dog world” – is just as wrong.
Self-deception is the skeleton key to understanding human nature... and this is a deeply counterintuitive Insight, because to figure this out, first you need to realize and identify you have been lying to yourself about some fundamental truths.
Finding your own blind spots is an intense challenge, which usually happens on accident after life punishes you with some kind of unexpected, self-inflicted tragedies.
Ouch. That's me. Living through one of those episodes now. I would say that my confusion of "meaning" with "feeling special, important and chosen" (actually status) suckered me into several clueless theatres of meaning. I am just now (hopefully) recovering.
Most people recognize they made a mistake, they experience regret, and then they make a huge error by punishing themselves and being strict, in an attempt to "raise their standards" and improve their habits, to achieve transformational results.
The solution is counterintuitive... you need to be easier on yourself, start small, and make a choice to love yourself, accept yourself, and forgive yourself TODAY.
Not in ten years when you are a millionaire, not in 5 years when you marry your dream woman, not in 3 years when you have perfect abdominals, not in 1 year when you earn a lucrative promotion: make the decision today, this week, this moment to love and forgive yourself.
Shame only interferes with the suffering necessary for self-improvement.
I recently waded into dating discourse on Twitter. I tried to communicate an insight that took me years to figure out - that all one really has to do to find a wife, girlfriend or lover is show up and not think of one's self as fundamentally unlovable or a burden on others. It is accepting the frame of unlovability that creates unlucky-in-love-men (and I suspect many women as well). The primary purveyors of the myth that only some top 20% of successful, high status giga chads are lucky in love is, ironically, other men.
I should heed your advice and apply this insight to other areas of my life as well.
Much love brother. Feel free to comment on my Substack articles if you want to connect anytime. It's a hard world, we're all doing the best we can to be strong.
Sorry to dump a bunch of reading on you, I don't expect you to read all of it this week, but these insights all speak to the struggle every man goes thru in the modern West. Hopefully the data is useful and encouraging.
My take is actually that men do not need to sculpt themselves, they need to detach their sense of self worth from the sexual validation of women. Once this is done, courtship becomes unburdened, carefree, even fun, rather than a grim, high stakes task.
“You only know how to add to the noise and garbage of the world, not how to create value. You’re absolutely fucked and your only hope for redemption is to burn it all down and start over.” I found myself here, with my old life on fire. After it burned out, I acknowledged the falseness of the previous path and started down another. I got my integrity back, along with some childhood wonder. I lost my concern for what others think of me. It was perhaps an accident that I had this opportunity but I’m grateful.
'Both the wicked and the saintly must step outside the codes of their society and prepare to suffer the consequences.'
This is probably the most powerful insight for me from this essay. Question that I'm curious to know your answer to:
Probably there are a (very select few) who can jump straight to sainthood. For rest of us, do you think we have to learn to out our garbage first before we can learn to stop?
That's been my experience anyway. Don't really know how to stop being wicked until you have been.
Part of the point of this article is that "base" drives must be worked through to their logical conclusion before they can be fully discarded. Moral objections to pursuing these drives can appear prematurely as weakness and excuses and later on as valid moral and spiritual critiques.
This is like the "rockstar who finds God in rehab" approach. Burning out to move on.
"If you hack and playing in easy mode, there is a danger you will get exactly what you wanted only to discover that you are a total piece of shit. At this point, you cannot build on your accomplishments seamlessly and begin trying to contribute to the world. You are completely unprepared for the challenges at the upper levels of the hierarchy."
Feel like this is where I'm headed if I don't course correct. I understand I need to burn it all down. but a part of me is like, "I just got here, do I need to let it go already?". It's really hard to think about.
This article has left me wrecked. I have to burn it all and start over again. I tried so hard to make everything fit, to become the person I needed to be, but this path was just never for me. I am tired. I think I’ve read this piece before as well and fate has led me here again. Thanks and stay blessed
Solid. I've been leaning more into enlightened selfishness lately, and stuff like simply acknowledging "I like money" without allowing that simple truth to be tarnished by either:
🫣 some childish postmodern narrative around how that makes me greedy and is bad
😈 some edgy dark redpill narrative around how money is my *true* or *only* motivation (in biz)
Self-deception is the skeleton key to understanding human nature... and this is a deeply counterintuitive Insight, because to figure this out, first you need to realize and identify you have been lying to yourself about some fundamental truths.
Finding your own blind spots is an intense challenge, which usually happens on accident after life punishes you with some kind of unexpected, self-inflicted tragedies.
Ouch. That's me. Living through one of those episodes now. I would say that my confusion of "meaning" with "feeling special, important and chosen" (actually status) suckered me into several clueless theatres of meaning. I am just now (hopefully) recovering.
Hey bro, we all go thru similar periods of life.
Most people recognize they made a mistake, they experience regret, and then they make a huge error by punishing themselves and being strict, in an attempt to "raise their standards" and improve their habits, to achieve transformational results.
The solution is counterintuitive... you need to be easier on yourself, start small, and make a choice to love yourself, accept yourself, and forgive yourself TODAY.
Not in ten years when you are a millionaire, not in 5 years when you marry your dream woman, not in 3 years when you have perfect abdominals, not in 1 year when you earn a lucrative promotion: make the decision today, this week, this moment to love and forgive yourself.
Shame only interferes with the suffering necessary for self-improvement.
Here is some good, practical advice:
https://illimitablemen.com/2016/02/28/champions-mentality-how-to-stop-being-a-loser-become-epic/
Rooting for you, brother!
I also recommend "Atomic Habits", and the website by the same author:
https://jamesclear.com/continuous-improvement
I recently waded into dating discourse on Twitter. I tried to communicate an insight that took me years to figure out - that all one really has to do to find a wife, girlfriend or lover is show up and not think of one's self as fundamentally unlovable or a burden on others. It is accepting the frame of unlovability that creates unlucky-in-love-men (and I suspect many women as well). The primary purveyors of the myth that only some top 20% of successful, high status giga chads are lucky in love is, ironically, other men.
I should heed your advice and apply this insight to other areas of my life as well.
The world is full of beautiful women. What's hard is sculpting yourself into the ideal version of yourself.
We live in a poisoned environment, it's not easy.
This article will help:
https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/10/terrible-good-advice/
And this:
https://brighteyes.substack.com/p/the-fuck-rate-is-about-to-implode
Much love brother. Feel free to comment on my Substack articles if you want to connect anytime. It's a hard world, we're all doing the best we can to be strong.
These are also 2 good Twitter threads about dating, marriage, etc. from my fren, Bobdaduck.
https://twitter.com/bobdaduck/status/1557480305258217472
https://twitter.com/bobdaduck/status/1478093773246660609
And two from my friend Windreign.
https://twitter.com/WindReign/status/1440184682356752399
https://twitter.com/WindReign/status/1441538092213567493
Sorry to dump a bunch of reading on you, I don't expect you to read all of it this week, but these insights all speak to the struggle every man goes thru in the modern West. Hopefully the data is useful and encouraging.
“Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor”
― Alexis Carrel
Everything you want is on the other side of pain.
My take is actually that men do not need to sculpt themselves, they need to detach their sense of self worth from the sexual validation of women. Once this is done, courtship becomes unburdened, carefree, even fun, rather than a grim, high stakes task.
Ehhh.
I mean, you're half-right.
There's 2 separate dynamics at play here:
1.) Woman judging man.
2.) Man judging himself.
You are correct about judging yourself; men should have contempt for the opinions of women.
But you also have the burden to perform as a man, and the advice to "just be yourself" will ensure women reject you.
“You only know how to add to the noise and garbage of the world, not how to create value. You’re absolutely fucked and your only hope for redemption is to burn it all down and start over.” I found myself here, with my old life on fire. After it burned out, I acknowledged the falseness of the previous path and started down another. I got my integrity back, along with some childhood wonder. I lost my concern for what others think of me. It was perhaps an accident that I had this opportunity but I’m grateful.
'Both the wicked and the saintly must step outside the codes of their society and prepare to suffer the consequences.'
This is probably the most powerful insight for me from this essay. Question that I'm curious to know your answer to:
Probably there are a (very select few) who can jump straight to sainthood. For rest of us, do you think we have to learn to out our garbage first before we can learn to stop?
That's been my experience anyway. Don't really know how to stop being wicked until you have been.
Part of the point of this article is that "base" drives must be worked through to their logical conclusion before they can be fully discarded. Moral objections to pursuing these drives can appear prematurely as weakness and excuses and later on as valid moral and spiritual critiques.
This is like the "rockstar who finds God in rehab" approach. Burning out to move on.
"If you hack and playing in easy mode, there is a danger you will get exactly what you wanted only to discover that you are a total piece of shit. At this point, you cannot build on your accomplishments seamlessly and begin trying to contribute to the world. You are completely unprepared for the challenges at the upper levels of the hierarchy."
Feel like this is where I'm headed if I don't course correct. I understand I need to burn it all down. but a part of me is like, "I just got here, do I need to let it go already?". It's really hard to think about.
The sink cost fallacy is why you stay too long. Got me too.
This article has left me wrecked. I have to burn it all and start over again. I tried so hard to make everything fit, to become the person I needed to be, but this path was just never for me. I am tired. I think I’ve read this piece before as well and fate has led me here again. Thanks and stay blessed
Solid. I've been leaning more into enlightened selfishness lately, and stuff like simply acknowledging "I like money" without allowing that simple truth to be tarnished by either:
🫣 some childish postmodern narrative around how that makes me greedy and is bad
😈 some edgy dark redpill narrative around how money is my *true* or *only* motivation (in biz)