The majority of modern men are soft. And the world is suffering as a result.
We live in a time of unprecedented prosperity and ease. And before you point your finger at the billionaires at the top, point your finger back at yourself and acknowledge just how fucking easy your life is compared to the life of your great grandfather.
Men’s ability to be patient is dwindling. Men’s desire to take responsibility is lacking. Men’s willingness to stand for something and be committed to it is abysmal.
We are all allowing ourselves to be lulled to sleep by the systemized comfort that so many before us fought to create.
And hey… if you’re totally content getting fed your rations, having a body that barely functions, and slaving away at a job that you hate for the rest of your years, then by all means, stop reading now.
But if you crave something more…
If you want to turn the pilot light of your potential into a roaring fire in your belly…
If you want to forge through the forest of other people’s unhealed trauma response projections of seeing empowered masculinity as toxic, predatory, and unsafe…
Then there is work to be done.
I used to see men as unsafe. I wanted to be anything but like them. That was simply me being afraid of my own power, and seeing those who were connected to their power as a threat.
Men who are truly in their grounded, internally sourced sense of power are rare in this world. And there are two main factors as to why this is the case.
First, second wave feminism shot up in the world (a necessary movement) in the 60’s and 70’s, and with all of the finger pointing at the patriarchal structures, a lot of men internalized the things that men were doing in the world to mean that being born male was an inherent offence.
Second, as this was happening, fathers were being swept up by the modern industrial complex and were off working in factories and offices like never before. As a result, young men didn’t get the physical or emotional presence of their fathers in the home, and were left to largely be raised by their mothers. With no fathering energy present, there was a distinct lack of initiatory processes that allowed men to feel welcomed into the world of manhood.
Between men not having the attention or energy of their fathers in the home, and second wave feminism pointing out that men were responsible for a lot of the pain and suffering in the world, many men grew up disconnected from their masculine core while also interpreting the message that maleness is bad.
But in this message, so many men threw the baby out with bathwater. Everything male is bad. Competition is bad. Penetrating energy is bad. Being connected to the part of yourself that will tear someone’s throat out if they bring suffering to your village is bad.
But it isn’t masculinity that is bad. It’s living by hyper-strict rules of what being a man needs to look like that is harmful. Being so disconnected to your body that sex is the only way that you can feel anything is harmful. Being so disconnected from your hurt, anger, sadness, and pain that you can only express your emotions explosively when they pour over the brim of your bottled up stuff is harmful.
But there is another way.
There is a world in which the full penetrative power of an empowered masculine force is seen as a gift. And the work begins with this.
1. Lean into your wounds
A man has not transitioned from boy to man before he has marched headlong into his own grief.
If you have not yet met with (and accepted) your pain, your hurt, your rage, your sadness, then nothing beyond this point will get you any closer to your goal. It is a necessary initiatory process.
Grieve your daily dying. Grieve all of the ways in which the world has ripped loved ones away from you. Grieve the pandemic levels of unhealed trauma that exist in the majority of people’s bodies… and start by grieving your own.
This kind of intentional grief will help cleanse your soul. But don’t let your ego co-opt this practice and let you think that you have then become better than anyone else. You have simply shed emotional weight, like a warrior washing heavily caked mud off of his feet.
Experience the full spectrum of your emotions with totality, and the world will be better for your efforts.
2. Take responsibility for your mind
Stop battling the ghosts of your mind out in the world.
If you go about your day and you meet someone who is an asshole, then fine, there are assholes in the world. But if you go about your day and you routinely meet twenty assholes, then you are the asshole.
The amount of solar energy that men waste bitching in back-alley internet forums is truly depressing.
Instead of going MGTOW, take responsibility for healing your wounding with the feminine. Instead of spending ten hours a day watching YouTube videos about conspiracy theories, take responsibility for the fact that you had a shitty relationship with your father and you’re projecting that ‘the man’ is out to keep you down. Instead of spewing all of your disowned pain all over the world and seeing everyone else as the bad guy, take ownership of the part of you that is simply afraid of life and hasn’t yet deployed the courage to move forwards in a powerful way.
In other words…
DO YOUR FUCKING WORK.
The world isn’t interested in saving you from your cognitive distortions.
If you have been to a dozen protest rallies in the last year but you haven’t gone to therapy or read a book recently, then you are the problem.
If you want to be an effective human being who has a life of any consequence, stop seeing the enemy out there, and become intimate with the demons in your own mind.
3. Don’t bullshit
Don’t lie to people.
Every time you lie, you weaken yourself.
Every time you lie, you communicate to yourself, “I am not enough as I am.”
Every time you lie, you communicate to yourself, “I can’t handle other people disapproving of me.”
It doesn’t matter how long you have been in the habit of warping your truth to shape other people’s perceptions of you… stop doing it, starting today.
4. Make commitments, accomplish tasks
Modern men often remain ineffective by spreading themselves too thin, and having a to-do list a mile long that they make no real progress on.
If you want to weaken yourself, erode your word by committing to dozens of things and doing them all terribly. If you want to strengthen yourself, the fastest way to build mental strength, resiliency, and honest, hard-won confidence, is to make deeper commitments to fewer things and putting energy into consistently completing tasks associated with them.
5. Give your energy fully
Weak men are afraid of truly giving their penetrative energy to the world.
Instead of making himself (and, by extension, the world) better, he numbs out with video games, beer, porn, and endless distraction.
Instead of working through his tension with his partner, he pretends to be tired in order to avoid the confrontation.
Instead of giving his true gifts to the world, he phones it in by picking a safe job and spending his life hitting quotas that slowly erode his soul.
An empowered man knows exactly what his gifts are and he gives them fully.
An empowered man doesn’t settle for quiet resentment, simmering anger, or chronic relationship dissonance.
An empowered man doesn’t sit idly by while his closest confidantes piss away their potential and settle for less than they are capable of.
Penetrate the world open with your gifts.
Penetrate your partner open with your energy.
Penetrate yourself open with your full emotional experiencing.
Stop collapsing in on yourself and making yourself ‘safe’ for the world.
There is no honour in dying with your songs unsung.
Aim to die with your gifts fully given. Leave it all on the playing field. Stop holding back.
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Do all of these things, and aim to do them all to the best your ability every day, and the world will benefit as a result.
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Ps. If you enjoyed this article, you will also benefit from reading:
– How To Start And Run A Men’s Group Successfully
– 5 Ways To Help Reduce The Male Suicide Rate
– How I Learned To Have Male Friends
