A framework for growth.
Readership: All
Author’s Note: Source materials originally compiled on 2016 May 20.
Reader’s Note: This is a shortlist of descriptors of maturity and factors that contribute towards maturity that I put together for a lecture on the topic.
Length: 1,300 words
Reading Time: 4.5 minutes
Keys to Success in Life
Take responsibility towards your Work/Purpose – A Man’s Connection to the World! (These must be done in this order!)
- Make a decision and Take Action!
- Think it through as you increase efficiency.
- Sort out your emotions and maximize Flow.
Owning Yourself
On the first point above, making good/right decisions in life requires the personalization of the ego and the internalization of your life experiences. To do this, a man has to own up to himself (AKA “coming to terms” with one’s self).
- Open your heart, use your noetic nose. Learn to trust God. Learn how to selectively trust others, and how much. Exercise discernment. Set appropriate boundaries which are necessary to keep your heart open and alive. Knowing who to trust is key.
- Recognize your convictions, emotional constitution, personality, and values.
- Identify the nature, sources, or causes of your desires, fears, triggers, turn-offs, and must-haves. Remember that strengths and weaknesses go hand in hand.
- Develop effective and personalized habits of communication and self-expression.
- Find and take an acceptable and effective path of resolution.
- Periodically reflect on your experiences. Learn from your mistakes. Revise your mental paradigm, and continue.
If a person follows this outline with regularity, he should be making incremental progress towards his own personal maturity. However, there exist certain complicating factors that can interrupt this process. I may cover some of these factors at a later date. &
Elements of Maturity
I have come to understand maturity as the level of development and/or a state of completion of the self. So the remainder of this post will address the topic of maturity as it relates to the self.
Because maturity is a rather complex topic, I’ve put together a Cliff’s Notes version of descriptors of maturity and factors that contribute towards maturity. Readers are encouraged to use this list to gain insight, as an inspiration, for brainstorming, jumpstarting a discussion on the topic, or simply as a reference.
Accepting and Appreciating Your Human Identity
- Any unique features you may possess (e.g. physical comeliness or homeliness, social affect, mental acuity, psychological disposition, learning disabilities, etc.).
- Your culture.
- Your family background.
- Your generational characteristics and related social issues.
- Your height, weight, and appearance.
- Your nationality.
- Your nominal religion.
- Your personality.
- Your political views and affiliations.
- Your race.
- Your sex.
- Your socio-economic class.
In mentioning these, it is important to be aware of the characteristic attitudes and values of the above, and see them as distinct and unique from those who are different. This gives one a sense of one’s place in the world.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It (1869, 1872)
Self-Acceptance
- Being calm and comfortable in yourself, especially in situations out of your control.
- Letting others be who they are without trying to manipulate, control, or change them.
- Making your own independent decisions and taking responsibility for your life.
Self-Awareness
- Being aware of how you impact others through your attitude, behavior, and speech.
- Being aware of how other people, environments and situations influence your moods and thinking habits.
- The cycles of your body: hunger, circadian rhythm, menses (for women), aging, etc.
- The needs of your body: sleep, hygiene, nutrition, leisure time, exercise, libidinal expression, etc.
- Your attitude, and knowing what makes your attitude change.
- Your emotional triggers, their sources, and how to handle them.
- Your feelings, and knowing when they do or do not convey the truth.
- Your gut reactions and what causes them, and what they mean.
- Your impressions, and being able to gauge the accuracy of them.
- Your opinions, and how they are different from others’.
- Your repetitive thoughts and trains of thought.
Self-Control
- Accepting the discipline necessary to achieve your goals in life.
- Being patient.
- Being rational and reasonable.
- Keeping to a schedule.
- Keeping your speech honest, pure, and constructive.
- Maintaining hope, a clear mind and psychological balance, especially in the face of confrontation with others and during adverse situations and circumstances.
- Managing your emotions well (especially anger).
- Not letting yourself be distracted nor wander too far from your goals and purposes.
- Sticking to a budget and spending wisely.
Self-Esteem
- Developing socially acceptable, appropriate, and efficient ways to satisfy your needs.
- Dressing in an appropriate and/or respectable manner (e.g. clean, kempt, professional, etc.) in order to create your own public persona.
- Facing your desires and fears, and discussing them with select others when appropriate.*
- Handling your significant relationships with kindness, tact, and sincerity.
- Maintaining a vital network of friends and career associates.
- Taking the time to study (e.g. the Bible, work related topics, finances, personal issues), and being well informed of issues that are important to you.
- Setting boundaries and enforcing them.
Self-Knowledge
- Nuances of your personality.
- What creates joy or disgust in you.
- What makes you angry or elated.
- What motivates you and/or makes you passionate.
- Your communication style and choice of words that suits you best.
- Your deal-breakers.
- Your desires.
- Your expectations.
- Your fears.
- Your habits.
- Your likes and dislikes.
- Your limitations.
- Your values.
Self-Respect
- Being able to play a role in order to fit in with a larger group (such as a family unit, a workforce, etc.) while still retaining an individual sense of self.
- Developing a field of accomplishments, increasing responsibilities and privileges, and growing a sphere of influence.
- Knowing your limits as to what you are able to do or accept, and handling the issue tactfully without being irresponsible or looking like an @ss.
- Having the wits to be able to put your thoughts and feelings into accurate and easily understandable words at appropriate times.
- Expressing your vulnerabilities and needs with dignity to those who are trustworthy. (Men are strongly encouraged to confide in other men, and NOT women.)*
- Knowing how to handle confrontations with others such to attain win-win outcomes.
Applications
I’ve found certain lifestyle habits can greatly enhance success in life, the owning of self, and the process of maturing.
- Choose friends wisely. Choose friends who recognize your identity and appreciate who you are, what you do, and what you bring. Also, make the effort to develop friendships with people who fit into your life purpose and others you want to emulate.
- Avoid toxic people. This means don’t be a beta orbiter who allows attention seeking but insincere women to siphon off his time and resources, leaving him with nothing to show for it but blue-balled angst and frustration.
- Manage a time schedule to maximize efficiency and productivity.
- Settle into a regular routine.
- Increase your sense of security and reduce unexpected and time wasting variations by making habits of things.
- Prepare things in advance, to save more time and effort later.
- Make a “To Do” list, and/or set out a half-finished task to be completed first thing early the next morning when your mind is sleepy and dull. This will help kick start your day. This also includes laying out your clothes the night before, and preparing your tools, bags, books, and other equipment at the end of the day, the day before the work is to be done.
- Limit your wardrobe to a specific style of clothes that best accentuate your personality and express your work/career aspirations.**
- Reduce your travel time and stress by living close to your place of occupation.
- Reduce or eliminate habits that are distracting, enervating, dissipating, or that waste time and/or money. These habits might include things like watching TV or movies, playing video games, excessive drinking, viewing p0rn, masturbating, etc.
- Take time to rest and worship.
Readers may add to these lists as they see fit.
* The primary purpose for talking about feelings and personal matters is not for catharsis, but to achieve self-understanding and work those issues out. An adage I use to describe this process is “Name it to change it.”&
** For me personally, I look best in either very formal, or very casual attire. I do not look good in semi-formal, current fashion, or “Ivy League/Polo Club” clothing. So when I go to work, I dress to the hilt – ties, belts, patent leather shoes… When I’m not at work, I dress down — shorts, athletic shirts, etc. As a comparison, my father was a carpenter, so he always wore plaid flannel shirts and brown leather shoes… with authority and style!
Related
- Σ Frame: Redefining Manhood as Boyish Immaturity (2021-06-14)
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Σ Frame 
I realize this is more of a spiritual maturity post, not a “get girls” post but I gotta get this out.
I was working in a closed area surrounded by cubicles of millennial males. Probably ages 25-30 I’d guess. They did much more talking than actual work. The main conversations were about video games with an extensive discussion of the details of guns that you can use in these games and how they use them. They also discussed details of the latest marvel comics movies and a debate about the Aliens film franchise.
I keep seeing guys my age wearing e.g. G.I. Joe and Captain America T-shirts. One of my best friends from high school (married with kids) has become an obsessive toy collector and toy/comic show attendee. I’ve already mentioned a couple of 60+ year old guys with the anime fetish thing.
I totally get a guy who’s given up on women and gone MGTOW. Sure, do what makes you happy. I get the nostalgia of childhood and returning to a time before you discovered girls and all the issues they cause. But these guys I was around yesterday – they’re not out of the game yet. I kept thinking, “You guys couldn’t get laid in a morgue.” And they weren’t all spastic, asthma-inhaler dorks. There was a young black man, normal looking, among them. Have these 25 year old guys given up already?
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Men respond to incentives, and one of the biggest of those incentives throughout most of human history, an incentive that has been a primary motivator for cultivating a strong sense of maturity, focus, and purpose, has been the attraction of women for the purpose of marriage and family formation.
We are now living in an age, arguably for the first time in human history, where a man’s primary incentive for self-development, self-improvement, and maturity is not only absent, but essentially being taken away from him. Worse still, all of its loud posturing to the contrary notwithstanding, contemporary society mocks and denegrates the idea of masculine self-development and maturity, considering it another form of “toxic masculinity.”
In short, men not only have no real motivation for emotional and personal maturity, but every reason to avoid it. Some men have it within themselves, due to their innate personality types, to pursue a course of self-improvement for its own sake. Many (most?) others don’t, seeing no value in expending the time and effort if the world not only doesn’t expect it of them, but punishes them for it.
Your young colleagues very likely won’t be your colleagues for many years longer. Odds are that, as the stress of the working world increases, particularly as the overall socioeconomic collapse intensifies and accelerates, they’ll realize that there’s no point in “toughing it out.” Without families to worry about, and thus no reason to sacrifice themselves for the wellbeing of others, they’ll justifiably decide “f*** this s***!” and radically minimalize their lives to spent more time and energy on the Capesh!t fantasy world that makes life in this misandric, dystopian world bearable. No point in being a mature man when it does nothing but draw the contempt of those around you. No more abused draught horse!
Any honest assessment of the society in which these young men have grown up makes it impossible to not understand why they’ve turned out the way they have. Indeed, one can even make the case that a society starved of emotionally stable, grounded, mature young men has earned the “reward” it deserves.
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Yeah, I guess I had considered that Feeriker. I was going to phrase it like: “There’s no good women to man up for”, but you did a better job.
Part of my instincts say: “Dudes, so many of you are doing this manboy thing that a few of you who can escape this would find the chicks easy pickins’.”
It’s also hard to separate this from my desire to see my sons, who aren’t much younger than these men, to marry and have kids. Yeah, for my own selfish reasons. Anyway, not trying to bust on the young men too hard – they get enough of that from the culture.
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I think that it goes beyond there being no women worth the effort to man up, it’s also that there are no peers or mentors to model.
Also, does anyone else loathe “preacher voice”?
Can anyone who’s been to seminary tell me if there are classes that teach it?
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Somehow I believe this is better than drunkenness through using Alcohol as medication.
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Haven’t been around the Millennial dudes out in the work world that you have Cameron, however in the educational world where I have run into a handful, I’ve noticed a couple things. One, they have few resources; some still live with their parents and off their parents. While the females their age have been chasing the feminist life script and are starting to ‘switch lanes’ as Jack describes it, aka jumping off the carousel and settling down, the males 25-30, on the other hand, still seem to be in a ‘quasi-adolescent’ stage. They do not appear to me to be ready full-time adulting, let alone women (except for hook-ups). Heck, even some of the thirty something males I’ve run into fit this description.
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These young men are engineers and well paid. I have known at least one that seems to accept he’ll be an incel and is planning on retiring around 40 after stashing away a lot of money.
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Many millennial men, and even a small % of genz have given up on women. It’s a smart choice.
Guys being interested in stuff from their childhood is nothing new. Think of rc planes/boats, cars, tools, etc for gen x and cars/birdwatching/ being lame for boomers. You just notice the difference because it’s different hobbies.
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They may appear that way to much older adults, simply because of the age difference. But what we don’t know is how each of us appeared to much older adults when we were in the 25-30 age range. It’s possible that we too may have appeared to be quasi-adolescent, unless we were told otherwise.
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Could be. I was a dad to multiple kids by then.
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Jack – “The Appearance of Power: How Masculinity is Expressed Through Aesthetics” by Tanner Guzy is a short read and explains why flannel and leather worked well for your father and why suits and ties are what fits you best. Short version is that your father is what Guzy classifies as the rugged archetype and you are what he calls the refined archetype. My guess is that your father feels comfortable in clothing that reflects his life of working with his hands and because of this you get a sense of calm confidence from him when he dresses in a manner that reflects his life. The same principle applies to you, but with a different archetype the clothing that best conveys your masculinity varies from your father’s.
The book is a fascinating read that appears to scratch the surface of aesthetic non-verbal communication. Even the cursory dive into the topic provides enough information for most men to better consider what they are communicating to others and what styles they’d feel naturally comfortable in.
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Accountability
Rate yourself on an accountability scale of 1-10.
Look at your life situation. How much money do you have? What kind of job? Education? Kinds of friends, and other relationships. Where do you live? You get the idea.
10 = Looking back you can perfectly account for all the decisions that got you here.
1 = you blame everyone and everything under the sun for your situation.
Hint. There is no perfect 10. We have all been effected by the decisions of others, or even just luck.
But if you find anything in your life that you don’t like, you will not be able to fix them if you are low on that scale.
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Regarding the commentary. I don’t have a lot of time, but wanted to weigh in on this.
I’m seeing the same things among younger men. Lack of ambition and drive. Aimless, purposeless. In any profession, you need to get good at it, you need to put in time and hours, and you need to work hard. If you don’t get good at it, you won’t stay around.
What I am finding among millennials and younger is not that they can’t do the work (though there are a growing number who cannot). They just don’t want to. They don’t want to work hard, they don’t want to spend time, and they don’t want to put in hours. The men are honest about this – they don’t want to put in the kind of time and effort that used to be required, and was required of me. When you get all the way down to it with most of them, they will tell you they saw their fathers (men like me) work hard and get stressed out, lose out on time from home, etc.; and they don’t want to do that. They don’t want to work that hard. They figure they will get married, maybe someday. But they also are counting on being married to women who will work full time, like they do (allegedly). They are counting on marriage to women who will support them financially if it gets right down to it. Or, they’ll stay unmarried and work only as much as they have to to support themselves. They don’t seem to care either way.
The young women are not honest about this, so much. They also aren’t very good workers. The young women claim to want to work hard, and then they don’t. They claim to want to be “company workers” and “team players”, and then aren’t. They don’t work well with others – there is NOTHING that pisses off an experienced admin assistant with 25 years experience than some snot nosed 27 year old girl fresh out of law school who thinks she’s the sh!t because she has a law license, ordering that secretary around like she knows what the f she’s talking about when she doesn’t. More than once I have had to tell younger female lawyers to stand the F down and to listen to their assistants.
They aren’t very good at their jobs. Sorry, but they aren’t. They don’t work hard. They don’t give us good work product. Every piece of work product I get even from experienced women lawyers is inferior and unusable without substantial rewrites and additional work. They have to be told what to do. They don’t think on their own. They don’t analyze or problem solve. They lack character. They don’t learn from experience, mistakes, or failure – they make the same errors over and over again. They don’t take responsibility. When they F up they don’t own it – they blame everyone else. It’s the bosses’ fault. It’s another lawyer’s fault. It’s a secretary’s fault. It’s the opposing counsel’s fault. It’s the court’s fault. It’s the client’s fault. (No. It’s YOUR fault. YOU F’d it up.) They don’t own their sh!t. They don’t grow and develop professionally.
At least the men are honest about the fact that they don’t want to work that hard and don’t care. The young women claim they want to work hard and then don’t. They claim they know what they’re doing but they don’t. They claim they want me to teach and help them, and then resist and refuse instruction and help.
I can’t blame the young men for throwing up their hands and going “F it – I’m gonna do a 9 to 5 and then go level up on Call of Duty.”
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If they bust their @sses they might get a marriage that includes the possibility of sex over the expected shelf life of 5 years.
My last job, which was 25+ years ago was at a golf course. Worked in the shop, hung out and talked golf with the customers and golf pros, got to play for free after my shift, snuck beer from the snack bar. Not a bad deal.
If I didn’t think I had prospects for a happy marriage and kids I would have stayed there. Men don’t need much material stuff to be happy.
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You last worked 25 years ago?? Must be nice…. I started working full time 28 years ago and haven’t gotten a break since.
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Strictly speaking, I started raping you taxpayers 25 years ago as a government contractor. At least I’m honest about being a rapist.
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I really think the attitude of most men is…
I’m just doing my thing here, taking life as it comes. If I get married, great , it’ll be fun, and she’ll support me and I’ll support her and we’ll support each other. If I don’t, I guess that’d be OK too, and I’ll just keep doing my thing. I mean, first, before marriage, I have to meet a girl I’m having sex with and who I want to keep having sex with.
To get married I have to be at a place where I I’d rather marry her than her break up with me and have sex with others; and me have to go out and start over again. I guess I’ll know it when I get to that place.
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A few comments:
Companies these days don’t do merit pay. Wages are stagnant. A young professional working in any large organization (public or private sector) is going to have a super low wage compared to their parents, no increases, benefit cuts while health insurance premiums go up, etc. combine that with the fact that the white collar workforce is gutting itself, all while universally adopting policies that are anti male. In short, men have no future in professions they trained for, and know they will be capped out. It’s delusional to expect men to try under those circumstances. It would be wasted effort.
As per marriage, the days of a stay at home wife are over. The only ones that will continue to exist will be on extremes of the economic spectrum: poor and a status symbol for men in their 40s.
As per your comment on female workers: they are all hr nightmares. They watch tv on their phones during work, are on FaceTime all day, try to sabotage men who actually work over time, etc. I would never hire one for anything.
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Companies don’t pay more than the minimum necessary cost of living increases because they understand that most people value stability and security over money. If you want to make more money, you need to switch companies.
You get your money coming through the door.
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What sucks is when they offer you benefits packages that get slashed later.
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We are a generation apart yet have the same opinion as to the nature of the legal realm.
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Wow! Just wow. I’ve been retired for six years now. The last few years I could see it beginning to happen, but not to the degree you described it Deti, and those who commented on your post. Back when I had about ten years to go until retirement, 2005 or so, the Millennials I had as interns (18-22 yrs old–college) and student hires (16-17–high school) actually did a good job as administrators–good typing and computer skills, creative with computer graphics, that kind of thing. However, when I did the math in my head, those kids would be 32-38 years old now. Has it fallen that far off in that short a period of time? Holy smokes, what you all describe sounds to me like, well this came to mind, “How do you all get anything accomplished at work? Do you rely totally on the middle age and older people to get it done?”
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@deti THIS is the female state for many women . . . and not just in business. This was the Red Pill for me seven years ago -to realize that there is NO accountability for my wife outside of my own frame. Thus, my handle.
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Fashion sense. I always dressed well. Not “trendy” but well. My clothing has always been high higher quality. I always had good clothing in high school and college. Gap, Banana Republic, J Crew, LL Bean and department store stuff from Jordon Marsh, Filenes and Macy’s. Part of the reason why I wanted to work when I was younger so I COULD buy more clothing. At Gap back then they gave you three full outfits to wear to work on the floor. I was not attractive…. but I was TALL and I looked good in the clothing on the shop floor (I can still fold a dress shirt perfectly in my sleep to this day). I don’t wear logos, which makes it very hard now for some clothing because EVERY item today has a LOGO somewhere on it. I switched to Persol sunglasses because there was no LOGO or bling on them anywhere.
I was and will always be Mod, so my style is particular…. as I have aged, I must be much more careful. Usually at work, the dark slacks wool blend, white shirt, retro-skinny early sixties vintage tie. At home I wear usually an crisp, optic white tee, khakis. Jeans, I do wear, but rarely. The only thing a older man “can” get away with fashion wise that is current are sunglasses, or belt for the most part. I do wear Doc Marten’s still when I am casual. When dancing is it still “1964” style.
Though I don’t like most of the fashions (even the more dressier stuff) today. Was at Nordstroms a few weeks back. Kind of ugly, overdone, and very tacky.
Most women don’t care what a man is wearing for the most part I have noticed. If a man can dress decently enough she doesn’t think he needs “fixing” and thus a bit more interest is lost…. that goes out the door of he is deemed good looking though (as it always is).
As for the rest…… well, if you are unattractive and have to accept this, you come off as arrogant, and if you don’t, you have “no self esteem”. So the lower SMV guys still can’t really win here.
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I saved up for factory reject Levis Jeans in HS, name brand sneakers but bought my shirts at KMart. Brand name wasn’t as evident with shirts.
If you wore off brand jeans or sneakers the black kids referred to them as “bo-bo” and teased you mercilessly.
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IDK Jason, I disagree with you a bit.
I think we’ve all seen older men trying to wear the same fashion outfits as young men in their 20s, and it looks ridiculous. The best example I can think of were the huge embroidered pockets on fashion jeans back around 2010 and the Ed Hardy t-shirts.
Just no.
I figure that there are two ways to go about dressing. You can wear the same clothes and style regardless of current fashion. Ties get wider or narrower? Doesn’t matter to you. Waist height on jeans changes? Doesn’t matter, you’re a 501s for life guy.
The other option is to adopt elements of current style. So, if short shorts are all the rage, trying to run around in Ranger panties isn’t going to work for most men, but maybe you don’t need Bermuda shorts that come all the way down to the knee.
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@Deti and Lexet:
You’re scaring me with your comments on female lawyers. My female immigration attorney of seven years appears to have recently decided that she wants to treat her law practice as a hobby. Either she’s lost interest in practicing law for whatever reason(s), or the level of effort I now need out of her is way beyond her abilities and she’s paralyzed by her own incompetence. Either way, I sense disaster ahead if I continue to retain her, but finding a new lawyer at this stage of the game is going to be messy and costly. I’m also not optimistic about finding anyone significantly better. Lessons learned …
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I recommend marrying a female lawyer that way you get to f__k a lawyer rather than getting f__ked by a lawyer.
That was so inappropriate of me.
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Honestly, I can’t imagine a bigger idiot than a non-lawyer man who marries a female lawyer. That’s just BEGGING for trouble.
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NOOOOOOO
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I work in a GenX office for the most part….. a couple of Millennials. They are okay….. they expect LUNCH to be provided for them, and when we do go out (company lunch) they for some reason ALWAYS get to choose where we go. Usually a place that is more “image” then actual good food. I had to sit on the floor in an “authentic” kebob type of place a few weeks back. Food was okay, but have had MUCH better in some greasy, unglamorous place (in Glendale).
One used the “Okay Boomer” phrase with me my first week. I firmly put a stop to that. Corrected him. Stated that I am not a Baby Boomer. He didn’t apologize (they never do). “Oh, you look much older than you are, so I just thought you were one…”
The ones I work with, and have met are ALL Progressives. All of them. They love Bernie Sanders. “So, if you use roads… guess what! You believe in Socialism.”
I tried to explain once to one years ago that when I was in college, in Vermont…. Bernie Sanders was my local Congressman, I mentioned his slavish support of Bill Clinton back then. The reply? “Bill Clinton is a Socialist, so of course he supported him!” You just can’t say anything to them. They’ll tell you how smart they are, how amazing they are, intelligent they are, how creative they are, and how they are the “up and coming generation” (at FORTY???? can we take the kid-gloves off now PLEASE!!!)
With GenX we were told “go outside and play.” With this generation everything is a d*mned negotiation with them. They are never and were never told “No!”
Not excusing my age group either. The overt irony and sarcasm isn’t funny anymore. It hasn’t been since 9-11. We are so small compared to all the rest of the generations, we have zero impact, we need to stop whining about this….. We will be expected to NOT get Social Security and swallow it… or a VERY reduced amount compared to what we paid in as a whole generation. We came of age with our twenties for MOST of us bookended by two Bush Administrations and the Clinton Years in between.
Our generation COULD have stopped this PC nonsense in its tracks when we were in college, especially those of us who went to the Liberal Arts colleges / universities. We did nothing. We were more concerned with BS-ing each other, getting drunk or saying, “when they get out in the real world….” Well, the Real World came, and the PC crew took it over. We’re really screwed now. We did nothing back then. We’re paying for it now. Badly.
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Did you explain to them that Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are basically the same guy except Clinton was more conservative on homosexual issues and Trump threw out some anti abortion stuff to get the evangelical vote?
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It was pointless. With this crowd…anyone with a “D” for political affiliation is: saintly, cares, wants everyone to be equal, loves everybody, wants everything to be fair.
They could be sending people to Work Camps and just about all would justify it instead of being labeled as a member from “other side”
Millennials are “partiests” meaning they will vote ‘d” even if the party killed their own mother.
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That reminds me of my grandfather. He was a life long Democrat because the Republicans were the party of the rich, and the Democrats the party of the working man. My sister tried to talk to him about abortion etc. She might as well have been talking to the wall.
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I grew up in poverty, and I’m still below the official poverty line where I live. I never cared about it either way. I wore what I could get, but somehow never lacked for dates in school or college, when I wanted them. I still managed to get an education because it was virtually free at the time, and came away in the end at 3.75 (out of 4) GPA. I’ve worked a string of jobs that paid the bills and had nothing to do with my one and only ambition in life: gospel ministry. I seldom ever got paid for the ministry, but it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.
So I wear whatever I like, and don’t even own a tie. A lot of my stuff comes from Walmart or thrift stores. I’ve always been a nonconformist, and still am. If people want to see something better, then they aren’t the people I’m trying to reach. I don’t hate the middle-class, but it’s not my culture. Oddly, I’ve had a tendency to reach people of every type, just never very many at one time. I’ve preached to large evangelical audiences without struggling, and got good reactions, but that’s still not my scene. I’m called to reach the oddballs. I have retired from regular work, but I’ll never retire from the ministry. The Lord supplies my every need; people give me stuff I could never afford.
So while I like this post, Jack, I’m not really the audience for it. Only a few items apply to someone like me. Still, most of the world needs to read what you wrote. Good job.
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Yeah I shop at thrift stores mostly. Just bought a pair of shoes and repaired them. $5.00 instead of $50.00.
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I bought a pair of Florsheim wingtips in 1994. Black. $350.00. I still have them. They still look great, and are broken in where I can still stand in them for hours at a time. I also took excellent care of them too. I got every penny out of them, and they still have much life. Also. Classic style that never goes out of style.
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I was on CalTrain commuting to work from San Francisco to San Jose. I caught the 5:30 AM train, threw my headsets on (Eric Burdon / Animals… Best of) and fell asleep. I awoke as the train was rolling into San Jose Diridon Station. There was quite a stir. Everybody was talking. A few people were crying.
WTF? I took off my headsets while the song “Sky Pilot” was playing. (Sky Pilot was by “Eric Burdon and the Animals” (1968). Radio edit, short version. Why do I remember that?) I didn’t know what was happening. The conductor came on the PA, explaining that the USA was currently under a massive terror attack….. something about the World Trade Center……. When we arrived at the station, we were told we would not be able or allowed to leave until clearance was given.
As we rolled in……. all platforms jammed with people. I got off and tried to find co-workers from IBM so we could meet up and figure out what we were to do. PA announcements in the station telling us to remain calm. Then “All IBM employees are to report to their respective shuttles outside.” We were quickly searched by San Jose Police as we left………
I was in shock… can’t remember what I felt….. I remember the headline on the newspaper that morning, “HP to purchase Compaq computer company”, or something like that…..
On the shuttle to IBM, we finally arrived, we were searched before we entered the plant / campus. I reported to work. My admin said, with tears in her eyes, “Jay… you’re mother called. Please call her.”
I didn’t.
Our manager came and said, “You are to backup all files, secure all systems… You then are dismissed until we call you back to work. It may be a few days….. Go home and hug your kids. Dismissed.”
From right there… any principles or scruples I had left….. disappeared from my life until the end of the decade. It was September 11, 2001. I had just turned 31 a few months before.
Everything Jack mentioned in this post….. I never had, or what I did have was destroyed on that day. Twenty years on, I am still not even half-way to getting most of these things back.
Don’t be me. Read this post and live it. The work needed to regain them may never return………
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Inre 9/11, my sincerest hope would be that the nation, having since learned what REALLY happened on that day and who was REALLY responsible for that day’s events would never by fooled again by a redux. Unfortunately, if the last year and a half has taught us anything, it’s that the majority of the American people are avid bills-of-goods buyers who are afraid of their own shadows and who have memories shorter than those of dead Alzheimer’s patients. The 20 years since 9/11/01 have been the slow death of my faith in or tolerance of humanity.
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I recall some conservative woman on Fox News saying something (paraphrasing) “Men are going to be appreciated, respected… We’re on the cusp of a new era… Why? All those firefighters, rescue personnel, police running up into the WTC… putting their own lives at risk. We women will remember this. The bravery! The purpose in life. The benefit from this terrible disaster will be a return to values, respect for men, marriage….. the good to our society that will come out of this will be amazing!”
Its WAY worse now.
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I’m sorry for being dense but what about that day did that to you?
I was in Huntsville, Alabama in model and simulation training. I had brought my wife and young son. After it happened we drove to the North Carolina mountains and had a mini vacation. I guess that sounds callous and un patriotic- I should have been mourning I guess.
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It just seemed to be the crux point in my life……I had a pretty good job / career. I lived in San Francisco. I wish I could put a finger on it and say “oh, it was just this, and when they did this, and then this happened”
But I can’t.
I just remember getting very…..very numb after that. I just felt betrayed….on so many levels. It was made political immediately in Calfornia. “Bush should have, they did this because of Bush…” while on the other side “Nuke them!”
Neither side would accept that policies, rules, and everything else was not going to bring back the WTC nor those lives lost. I was angry that my government couldn’t protect us. A few weeks later I suddenly got very despondent when I learned over 75 fellow IBMers died deep down in the basement levels working on the servers / mainframes that ran many of the buildings operations. It could have been me. Most were about my age.
Combine this with already that I was single, dateless…….most people had something to go home to…to cling to, to bvelieve in (children). I didn’t have that. Hell….I didn’t really have any friends. I knew after that day my days were numbered at IBM as I upped my cocaine intake, upped the drinking…..anything to blot out any reality from that situation and my own.
There was that period for a month or so after…….that acasual eye contact with a stranger on those fo-soaked streets in San Francisco…….you both knew what you were thinking “something just terrible had happened” it was surreal.
I fell into just a very bad depression, lost my mother shortly after……and I did stop the drinking and drugs a few years later….but that veil of sadness didn’t even begin to lift until the end of that decade.
Jack’s post here is excellent. Now, will EVERY man be able to meet all of this? Well…maybe a few of the more arrogant types will claim that they do or will. But for reality….most won’t…but even with that, its a good template to start at for a man to figure out what he has or doesn’t….or what he can least grow upon.
Perhaps if I had a few more of these things prior to 9-11…perhaps I would have been able to weather it better. Who knows? I still don’t have 95% of things on this list, but the areas I exceed at here do hold me up now better than what I had on September 10, 2001 for sure 😉
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I think I can understand LastMod. It’s like a traumatic experience that wakes you up and makes you see life differently.
I’m no stranger to this kind of experience.
I was working as an airframe engineer on a naval base located on the east coast during 9/11. That morning everybody went outside to attend an awards ceremony. When we went back in the building afterwards we saw the news. Everyone was bewildered and frantic at the same time. Some people were shouting and running down the hallways as fast as they could. Some people went outside to look for aircraft and smoke. Some people got in their cars and went home. Other people were just sitting at their desks staring into space. Nobody knew what to do with themselves. A little while later we got the news that the Pentagon was hit. Then we seriously thought we were next.
That’s what stress, fear, and total confusion looks like.
For the next few days only military personnel we’re allowed on the base, no civilians. After a couple weeks they allowed civilians to come back to work. Every morning the guards did a full inspection on each and every car. There were five guards on each car at a time — 3 to do the inspection and two standing on each side of the car bearing arms. All passengers had to step out and get a pat down. They confiscated stuff. They had mirrors to look underneath the frame. They had dogs sniffing under the seats and in the trunks. They even had geiger counters (radioactive detectors)! Each car took 5-10 minutes and it took 2 hours to get through the gate each morning.
Over the following month, I had a crisis of belief, probably similar to what LastMod experienced.
One day they brought us a warhead to be dismantled. I walked in the lab to see the technician banging on the nosecone with a hammer, trying to get it apart. Unnerving is an understatement. I joked with him, “I hope you know what you’re doing…?” Buy he wasn’t amused. He gave me an annoyed look, held the hammer out to me and said, “Do you want to do this job?”
That question went down deep. I asked myself, “Yeah… Do I really want to spend the rest of my life in this place, always at risk of a catastrophe or an attack… working with these coffee chugging, beard stroking stooges who argue about which 401K fund is best, while making weapons of warfare? Or is there something more to life? Is there something else that I should be doing with myself?”
After 2 months I resigned. After two years of soul searching, I came to Taiwan. After I was here a couple years, I never wanted to go back. I didn’t even want to go back into engineering, but some friends here convinced me to do so. Now I’m a professor, married, children, own a house…
There IS more to life!
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By the middle of 2003 I was in a stupor. All I did was work (and no passion, zero heart, and my performance was “passable” but I could tell on managements end, they were getting their ducks in a row to “ask” me to leave or fire me), drink, drug…. and the general routine (showering, shaving, keeping up appearances, keeping apt neat).
I remember one Saturday afternoon I awoke…… after work on Friday night… went out and got obliviated, had no idea how I got home, but there I was! I was covered in my own puke. Probably a few hundred bucks worth of cocaine spilled on to the floor next to my bed…… and the radio was on (I always left the stereo on in those days quietly… needed white-noise to sleep). The country-feel song “Have You Forgotten” was playing, a reflection about the 9-11 attack. I started to weep as I lay there. Thinking about a gazillion tons falling on IBMers like myself who just got up and went to work at the WTC. Weeping over how everyone just so quickly “got back to normal”, and then rage…..
Disgusted with myself….. on everything. I got a hammer and smashed the stereo receiver. I was now bawling….. and collapsed in anger, frustration, self-hatred, and everything that life had become….. dark times.
There was still much darkness ahead of me… leaving (cough) “being asked to resign at IBM” a few months later. Bartending. Drugs and drink still out of control….. but evil times. How I wish for a “do over”, and how I wish I am the person I am now back then. Things could have been so different for me.
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I don’t know what to say – pretty awful.
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I then was bartending at a pretty swinging hot-stop in San Francisco (Harry Denton’s Starlight, atop the Sir Francis Drake Hotel). I can’t even remember how I exactly got the job. I was a bartender during grad school at a fast paced college aged bar / nightclub.
There were some fun times working there for sure, and some of the situations and stories were downright hilarious…. caused a smirk and laugh at times. Those could be for another time…… but I will say my drug and alcohol intake cranked up harder. It was like throwing high octane gasoline on an already out of control fire.
I did get to go to some pretty exclusive after-work parties around SF during this time….. the nightclubs would close….. and where do all the hip bartenders go to party until almost noon the next day??? Professional secret 🙂 Some professional DJ’s, famous ones, I saw perform in these types of places. Met a few famous people at this time (Hollywood types, famous musicians…. a famous director too!), I really can’t remember too much though. By this point I was a full-blown addict. I just wanted to stay blasted on cocaine, and/or constantly buzzed from alcohol. I calculate during this time I blew between 40-60K up my nose. I am lucky, I suppose, to still be walking around upright. I was crying deeply inside. So hurt. Façade up though. Smiles at work….. laugher after work, though not genuine… desperate. Hoping someone or something out there would help me. I would violently shake if I didn’t have cocaine in my system, or alcohol. I was like a man with Parkinson’s if I wasn’t on my fix. Coming off this was violent, putrid and disgusting…. I will NEVER go through that again. A promise I have kept.
When men don’t have some sort of keel or both hands on the wheel….. or no purpose left…… no rudder, no one to say to you “no”, things can and will fall apart quickly. The party ended when I was fired (drinking on the job), stock all sold, rent due, parents not speaking to me, no friends, nothing really left, and a dealer I owed a few thousand to.
I implore you, in someone’s life….. a friend, a son, a best buddy, a parent… as someone is going off the rails like this to honestly say something and try to at least make them aware. You won’t be able to fix…… but if I had this, I might have got some help sooner. I might have applied the brakes sooner…. I might have not wasted so much TIME.
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You ok bud?
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There’s something else that should be here, especially for men. It may be the sum total of self esteem or self respect or both.
Know your worth and value. Expect reciprocation from others.
Scott has said it elsewhere and I think it’s correct: Men are brought up to believe that no matter what they do or what they make of themselves, they’re worthless, especially to women and other people. Men continue to believe this even after they prove themselves worthy: Of employment, acceptance into a group, friendship, etc. Many men continue to accept substandard treatment from others even while those same people expect superior treatment from those men. Those men give a lot more than they get.
Men need to start understanding what they’re worth and what value they bring to relationships and to others. They need to take stock of who they are, what they bring, and what they built. They need to expect and demand that others reciprocate with like value. They need to expect from others the same high standards they expect of themselves. They need to remove from their lives other people who cannot or will not reciprocate. If a woman can’t or won’t reciprocate, can’t or won’t give him what he wants and needs, then to the curb she goes.
Stop apologizing. Remove the word “sorry” from your vocabulary. You do not owe anyone any apologies for wanting what you want and needing what you need, and for expecting others in your life to give those things to you.
Know your worth and value. Expect reciprocation from others.
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I agree with you Deti about knowing and asserting your value. In your general interactions with others, including men.
How do men assert their value wrt women when women have the tendency to divide men into breed stock or draft stock and most men can’t be both?
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Number one way a man asserts his value with anyone is to insist on being given/paid what he knows he’s worth, or walk away. You do that with your employers, your acquaintances, your friends, your coworkers, your dates, your sex partners, your serious girlfriends, and your wife/ves.
This is where “my way or the highway” comes from, and it works. We’re doing it the way I want, or one of us is hitting the bricks. Just that simple.
You have to make good on this once you assert it. Because if you don’t, and if you capitulate and compromise, the other person will know you don’t really mean it, and they’ll know they can treat you however they want.
This is why divorce laws have been continually altered to be so punitive toward men. This is why divorce thumbscrews are so tight on men. The only real defense a man has to an intolerable marriage is to leave it. That can’t be countenanced, so they’ve made it so a married man with kids can’t leave. Either he stays, or he leaves — but either way, he pays. The average man can’t pay if he leaves — he’ll be living in his car for a year and he’ll never see his kids again. Divorce laws are so punitive the only way a man can say “F__k this sh!t! I’m out!” is to empty his pockets and pay for the next 10 years of his life.
Yes, if it’s a short marriage with no kids, you can leave easily. But most married men are fathers, and that makes it very difficult. A few married men are primary breadwinners, and THOSE are the men who really take it up the back door on the way out, if they leave.
The way you assert your value to a woman if you’re just dating? First time, warning. Second offense, you’re done, no do-overs. (By that standard, Mrs. Deti would never have become Mrs. Deti. But, it is what it is.) You just make it clear you have no tolerance for BS and if it gets flipped your way, you’re done.
Women who aren’t giving you what you want and need get NOTHING from you. No time. No attention. No money. No resources. No labor. NOTHING.
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Since women now have CHOICE and value CHOICE they shouldn’t get anything beyond the exact monetary wealth they brought to the table and should be responsible for 50% of the cost of raising the children. It doesn’t matter if they CHOSE to stay home and let him be breadwinner because this was the CHOICE CHOICE CHOICE they demanded so loudly and with CHOICE comes agency and responsibility. Now if we want to go back to marriage 1.0 that’s a whole different thing.
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Cameron – This is a good question with built in assumptions.
The question assumes that women can divide men and that men have no say in the matter. The issue with this is simply that men can stop this by understanding their value.
Take the following hypothetical and I’ll give it a Southern bent since we’re in adjoining Southern states. You have a late model, low mileage, spotless, lifted, F250 diesel with a wheel and tire package that you are willing to sell or trade. You are offered another vehicle for a straight trade. The vehicle is a 1985 Chevy Caprice station wagon and it is the nice one with the faux wood paneling on the side. The guy talks your Ford down, says that it is only a work truck and that the 85 Chevy is an iconic family vehicle that will attract women in droves. It really does not matter what the guy says to disparage your truck’s worth and try to make you think the Chevy is more valuable. You are going to deny that trade every time because the value exists outside of what the other guy says and no one is writing country songs about going off-roading in an 85 Caprice wagon.
The man acts by recognizing value and setting boundaries for what he will accept for himself utilizing the concept of “no“. The same thing is true with women who would seek to classify men as good for provision only. No, I won’t tolerate your treatment. No, I will not marry a desperate early 30’s woman. No, we’re not dating anymore. No, we’re not exclusive. No, I won’t keep people around me that don’t add to my life. All of these no statements stem from understanding your own value and rejecting bad deals. If the deal is bad you should walk away.
A couple of posts back Scott wrote a statement that exemplifies this concept. His sentiment was that if anything ever happened to Mychael he’d be swimming in pu$$y if he wanted to be. Value. Women can only try to convince you of yours but if you understand your own, they won’t be able to.
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Cameron:
RPA:
This is a good point. A woman can evaluate a particular man any way she wants. That man doesn’t have to accept that evaluation. He can walk away.
If she says, “He’s a draft horse, good for little else”? Then he can always reply, “Nope, the deal you’re offering isn’t attractive to me. I’m out.” He can always hold out for the women who view him as more than that.
Or if a woman once evaluated him as breed stock but now she’s trying to shoehorn him into draft stock (like most women do when they’ve “got” the man they “wanted”)? He can say, “You don’t get to treat me that way. You don’t get to start worsening your treatment of me just because we’re ‘exclusive’ now or we’re serious now. If anything, you need to step up your game.”
She can think whatever she wants. He can accept that, or not.
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Remember that this is how women tend to view men. It’s NOT how men should think of themselves or other men. That would be the same as buying into the feminine frame. That is the assumption that RPA mentioned. As soon as you admit her frame, you’ve already folded.
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Do you mean: “It’s NOT how men should think of themselves or other men”?
[Jack: Typo corrected. Thanks!]
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Well it’s not just being exclusive. It’s being married. It seems the only tool some men have is to threaten nuclear war like you did.
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Jack,
I know we’ve discussed this before and I probably am forgetting your answer. But I don’t see how you can avoid her frame. They choose you. They have to say yes. It seems to me if you don’t accept their frame the only thing you can do is not play.
Sure you don’t have to play with any one of them or with any of them. That’s the cost of not accepting their frame, right?
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RPA described it pretty well, but I’ll spell out the options you are seeing in more detail.
Situation 1 — Her frame is the locus: You adapt to her frame, humble yourself to her, woo her, attempt to make her “happy”… This is the essence of Complementarianism, Equahluty stuff, etc.
Option 1 — She is pleased with your efforts and accepts your free gifts and attention. You might get sex and a semblance of companionship in return.
Option 2 — She is displeased and responds to your efforts with more demands, conflagrations, sh!t tests, gas lighting, etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
— Notice that whether you end up with Option 1 or 2 is not within your control. The herd mentality, chad coworkers, changing economic situations, etc. can always throw a monkey wrench into her machinations at any time.
— Also notice that the PUA industry plays into her frame, but attempts to balance it with a brief expose of Situation 2 and applies some insights to psychology and human nature to increase the chances of getting Option 1 or 3. Here it should be noted that sex is the milestone of achievement, not whether it is Situation 1 or 2.
Situation 2 — Your frame is the locus: You follow your own purpose/calling in life, and focus on filling in those areas described in this post.
Option 3 — You find a woman who adapts to your frame. Sex is much more probable. There will be problems and difficulties for sure, but since you have control over your own frame and she’s willing to work within that, you’re able to handle them.
Situation 3 — You change from her frame being the locus to your frame being the locus.
Option 4 — You already have a woman from Option 1, but after a time, it changes to Option 2. This is unacceptable to you, so you go for Option 3. After a period of adjustment, she finds the new situation is better and things go well.
Option 5 — You already have a woman from Option 1, but after a time, it changes to Option 2. This is unacceptable to you, so you go for Option 3. She finds the new situation doesn’t fulfill her ego needs, or is “misogynistic” or whatever, and goes ballistic. So then you have to pull out the nuclear reactor, as Deti and RPA described.
There are several other options, like divorce, polygyny, or return to Option 2 and tough it out, and so on, but since this is a Christian site, and due to the length, I won’t get into those here.
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Cameron,
You assertion of the binary choice of accept her frame or don’t play is false. There is a third option that is highly dependent on what the woman actually says ‘yes’ to.
1– I love you more than life itself. You complete me. Will you be my bride?
2– This is my vision for my life. I believe you are the right person to make it easier for me to realize it. Do you think you can be that person? (completely implying that you’ll find another if she says no.)
1– Blue pill beta (former version of me) 100% supplication and in her frame.
2– Masculinity in action. Your frame. Just like Christ is the pearl of great price to the church, you are the pearl of great price to her. She will alter her plans for you and if she does not you are walking from a bad deal. This is how you exert your frame. It takes a vision of what you want, planning and action, lots of action.
Take 2 is so rare these days that I would submit there are more women around that are like the Women’s Auxiliary than there are men with the attitude exemplified in option 2. This circles back to knowing your value as a man and being judicious with the giving of yourself. There is the old saying, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” in reference to the CC riders of the world. The metaphor altered to be from the heifer’s perspective is, “Why give up the milk when the farmer gives me grain and grass for free?” Don’t be the farmer giving feed to heifers that won’t improve your farm.
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If you create your own frame, you’ll find a woman who is willing to step into it and alter her plans and get with your program.
Now. You can do that the easy way and create your own frame and life, and invite a woman into it. She can decorate inside the frame and make a picture in there; but she doesn’t get to take apart the frame.
Or, you can do it the hard way, which is what Red Pill Apostle and I did and are doing. You can step into a woman’s frame, go into failure, then create your own frame with a woman already in the picture, and tell said woman,
“I reject your frame. Here’s the new frame I made. This is the only one available. We are not using your frame anymore. Well, you can, but I will not, and if you choose yours, it will be on your dime, your time, and somewhere else. This is the frame. Either get in, or get out. Make a decision, and make it now.”
See how much easier it is to do the first one? The only drawback is that it takes time to find a woman who is willing to get into your frame from the get go.
The absolute number one reason this doesn’t work is men coming at relationships and women from a scarcity mentality. Taking the first one who comes along. Deciding to get married because she wants to, or she has decided it’s time. Succumbing to her pressing you to get married with her whines of “I wanna get married. When are we gonna get married? If we’re not getting married then I want to go have sex with other men… (er…) We should date other people.” That’s a woman’s frame: She sets the time table, she decides when this and that happens, she decides what the relationship should look like. THAT is what gets so many of us men into women’s frames.
No. NO NO NO.
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This is the most succinct explanation of “game” and “frame” I’ve read. This is simple, universally applicable in relationships, and a biblical mentality for RP men to carry around in their back pocket. It requires her to assume her biblical role — a help meet and heartfelt submission (in everything). If she can’t move her heart to that disposition, then she is contentious.
As a side note: I’m less inclined to think we have to “create” our own frame. I think all men innately have their own frame. Some just have to dig deep down through all the BP BS to find it. And maybe that’s just my own situation. I opened my eyes too late and have been playing catch-up for too long. I’ve always pushed back on my wife’s BS — never tolerated it from day one. Unfortunately, it never got us to where I had hoped. What clouded my confidence for taking more deliberate action was the Blue Pill BS from churchians that I bought into for 23 years. Now I know what I wish I had known 33 years ago. It’s mine to own.
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Deti,
Using words was my early mistake in the reframing process. I would, in my own way, say similar things to what Deti wrote. What has been much much more successful recently is acting without talking. There is no rationalizing, explaining or the like. I do what I feel is best for my family and what I want. The majority of the time nowadays, “talking” involves Mrs. Apostle suggesting a way she thinks might be a better means of carrying out my directive. Men are made for action in fulfilling God’s command to subdue the earth, that is those parts put under our authority include the Mrs. The closer we act to that directive from our creator the better it will go.
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This frame stuff sounds complicated, I’m a simple guy. It sounds to me like the best advice is that you have value to the right woman so sit back and make her come to you. Make her show her desire for you and to fit into your frame. If this doesn’t happen you’re meant to be single.
Well I did this basically. After simping on a girl in HS and it not working out my wife came to me. She abandoned her plans for art school and followed me to college to be with me and support my education/plan. It all worked out for me.
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Deti – Correctly understanding your value as a man is so important. Specifically for me, and I realize this could be different for other men, Rollo’s SMV graph is what began my journey of expecting a certain level of behavior from Mrs. Apostle. It was as simple as noting that she was well past her prime of what men desire in women and I was still in my prime of what women want from men. I added a little self improvement physically, began adjusting my attitude and the gap in value grew even larger. Once you realize the truth then you can begin to shed some of behaviors built on the lie that it is your job to keep her happy and start becoming comfortable exhibiting masculine behaviors.
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I heard it put this way once:
Why does a guy who’s a NASA F’king engineer see himself as having less worth than a 19 year old woman who has done nothing with her live except smoke enough cigarettes and snort enough coke to look good in a mini-skirt?
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Good one!
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Another thing. My wife once in a while will note that “men ask women” (to marry). She doesn’t mention it wrt our relationship but it feels like an indirect statement on us.
In reality, my wife nagged me to propose. Not that I didn’t want to be with her. But men proposing is just the formal custom. I keep thinking she states it this way (“men ask us”) to gain a moral advantage. But really it sounds like they’re trying to gain a frame advantage/inversion in the relationship.
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And it seems to me that establishing the frame and resisting any attempts to invert it keeps her hypergamy satisfied and is more likely to lead to both partners being happy. The woman does need to feel sufficiently valued to feel loved just not at the expense of frame inversion. It’s a balancing act.
Make yourself the best you can be, make them come to you and make sure you maintain frame while still finding ways to make the woman feel loved.
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Hey, Cam. Popped in to tell a story about a conversation I had today with one of my high school students, but before I do that, I’ll add that my husband didn’t really propose to me either in the normal manner. It was best described as a kind of caveman grabbed by the hair and “let’s go” after I, slightly perturbed at his lack of a traditional proposal, pretended I was ready to make the necessary adjustments to move on. Rather than call my bluff, he basically said, “Yeah right.” And I still never got an official proposal, yet I am 27 years married, so…
Anyway, I thought this might do your Catholic heart good. My young female student asked me why the Christian church across the board condemned birth control prior to 1930. The class has 6 girls in it, and only 2 guys. I always answer these types of questions by asking questions that help the kids answer their own query. My questions are leading questions, because I don’t believe in “letting kids make up their own minds”, but I ask questions nonetheless. Mind you, all of these kids come from Christian homes.
First question I asked: “What was the first command God gave to Adam and Eve prior to the fall?” Only one of the boys gave me the answer I was looking for: “Be fruitful and multiply”. As our discussion unfolded, I asked her a few more questions, designed to show her why birth control is unnatural: “When you have a headache, and you take an aspirin, what is it designed to do?” She answered, “To take away the pain.” I asked similarly pointed questions about other medical treatments. We arrived at the conclusion that medical treatments are designed and prescribed to fix something that is somehow broken or malfunctioning. I asked a final question: “When a doctor prescribes birth control, what physiological malfunction or disease is it supposed to fix?”
I had to tease it out of them, but I helped them to understand that birth control was the only medical treatment we discussed that was specifically designed to break a physiological system so that it doesn’t do what it was created to do, and not just any physiological system, the one with a direct line back to the first command God gave to the first man and woman of creation: “And that”, I told her, “Is why the church, writ large, regardless of denomination or sect, condemned birth control.”
I was careful to add that some denominations began to relax these prohibitions, and that they should be sure to talk to their parents to get a fuller picture of where they stand on the issue.
But I gave at least 6 teenage girls something to think about, including the fact that once a woman is pregnant, she has already exercised her reproductive rights. She has reproduced, and the baby’s body is not her body to exercise rights upon.
It’s an uphill battle to be sure, but with women across the specturm, I am doing my part to enlighten and hopefully impart truth. I believe in my heart that there are other women doing likewise.
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Elspeth,
My mom didn’t want us to get married. I was dragging my feet – my wife got all weepy/naggy about it. She didn’t imply she’d move on. Me being SIMP-ish/bluepill/beta, her doing so might have worked. She wanted to get married in Cancun right after she graduated high school. Very early in our relationship I said to her something like, “Don’t ever leave me.” SAM wouldn’t say something like this.
That’s excellent. Much better than I would have done answering the kids. I’m literally taking notes on this. I am surprised the young girl even knew that all Churches condemned birth control prior to 1930. Is that knowledge widespread in your Christian contacts?
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She didn’t know. I told them. Abortion is on the radar right now. Margaret Sanger came up, so I gave them a brief history lesson, and then she asked me the why behind the church’s stance prior to 1930.
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This isn’t age appropriate for Christian children but Sanger’s basic and consistent motivation was so women could be sluts without the consequences of sluttery.
Her other, more infamous motivation, didn’t come along until later, and while not perhaps not “faked”, was significantly opportunistic and exploitive of WASP anxieties about mass non-NW Euro Protestant immigration. And like Zmirak, I question the efficacy of the current Republican tactic to beat the Democrats at their own gain. And tactics matter if the goal is to save babies – ALL babies:
Read towards the end how Sanger’s tactics and rationale changed with the times.
https://www.takimag.com/article/sometimes_a_racist_always_a_slut/
You might want to consider an age/sex appropriate lesson about Sanger’s advocacy of sluttery.
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And oh, yes. We discussed the motivation to undermine Catholic theology and the parallel of U.S. immigration laws being crafted specifically to curb immigration from Catholic countries.
Sanger was quite slick. She actually held the Catholic church up as the scapegoat against freedom while ignoring -quite pruposefully- that there were just as many outcries and writings against birth control from Protestant ministers. She was smart.
Of course, her parents raised her with a particular vitriol for religion in general, but Catholicism in particular.
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Sounds like you’ve researched her quite thoroughly. You students are blessed.
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I gotta run, but before I go, I’ll tell you why I’ve researched her, and why I research a lot of stuff more thoroughly than seems reasonable to reach a conviction or conclusion.
I’m a big believer in seeds being an indicator of fruit. We all know that the Bible says it, and it’s not revolutionary or original.
However, I think we far too often dismiss things as benign because their current iteration seems benign. Anf by “benign”, I mean “well, it doesn’t offend my sensibilities”. When that is the case, we ignore the seed that was first planted that led to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing, until it reaches a point where it does offend our particular sensibilities.
For example, my friends often seem incredulous when I say that the transgender craze can be linked back pretty directly to the feminist movement, and that feminism wasn’t needed to combat sexual harrassment in the workplace. That men of character were perfectly able to handle that without a political movement that pit women against men. That’s just one example among many (economic, political, etc).
I believe that history does impact the present, that there are straight lines of cause and effect. I just don’t believe in the easy, pat answers approach. I suspect finding Thomas Sowell 26 or so years ago was the beginnning of my undoing, LOL.
Empiricism or bust. Not that feelings don’t matter. They do, on an interpersonal level. But when it comes to things that affect broad swaths of society as a whole, not knowing the nature of the seed that bore the fruit of the present day is the main reason we are in this mess. And by we I mean Christians.
Ideas have consequences, even if it takes 50 years before the full term birth of the conceived thought. Our generation has a stunning lack of imagination about where a single idea can lead when it is embraced (or even ignored) rather than forcefully condemned from the outset by those with eyes that can see.
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He didn’t actually say, “Yeah right”, as I recall, but that was his general response.
We did have a discussion about Sanger’s general attitude about sex, eugenics, etc. I told them she was a big proponent of women having the freedom to enjoy sex without the “bondage” of marriage.
At least 3 of the students are seniors in high school so it’s not as if they are too young to be told the truth. My job, of course, is to do that in a way consistent with Christian tone as well as values.
The class was one I was kind of loathe to take on because my classical education snobbiness naturally recoiled at the idea of a world history class that focused on the 20th century. However, as I read the text and considered the world in which we live, it became clear to me that this is probably exactly the class these kids need to take and from someone in my relatively unique position. The suffrage movement in Britian has been a touchstone of discussion as well.
The woman who retired and for whom I took over warned me that the high school students are pretty unengaging and uninterested for the most part. However, that has not been my experience at all. I have been asked my thoughts about imperialism, free speech, the woman’s vote, birth control, progressivism (Woodrow Wilson inspired this discussion), and a whole host of other things.
When they ask me what I think about a topic, I tell them. I remind them that this is a Christian school and that as Christians, we are NOT neutral.
I actually believe that they appreciate the candor and they appreciate that I don’t feign stoic impartiality on important issues.
I do think they would like it if I didn’t make them write as much.
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Okay guys, real world scenario I’m dealing with now. My wife’s first cousin that she’s close to just flew the coop to Cabo with a lover (Hispanic Chad), took all of us by surprise (I think, well my wife and I for sure): Wife is a 44 yr old female, married 22 years; she was once really good looking, now about 75-100 pounds overweight, but stacked which still draws attention from guys like Hispanic Chad; husband’s a good dude–trucker by vocation, she’s a successful realtor selling just built, new homes; two kids-females- one 21, the other 17 (just as an aside. 17 year old is drop-dead gorgeous, big time HS cheerleader–like in competitive cheering, trophies, you name it). Wife seems to live through daughter some, husband is beta, but not effeminate, masculine, in good shape, same age as his wife.
What else? Oh, not discreet about the affair, she posted FB pics, multiple shots, public displays of affection included. He’s devastated at his home with the girls. Her dumb ass mother lives four doors down, moved there about six months ago after working her dying old man over to give her 90% of the inheritance while her older sister got 10%. Real piece of work the mother is: divorced for many years, three kids all by same man (I think), good looking back in her day, real curvy, total slore–many dudes, even had them over when kids were little. I’m not sure where she stands, she’s liked all her daughter’s posts on FB, liked them with hearts, not the thumbs up emoji.
The good news: Wife has two older brothers, good dudes, blue pill, but masculine; and standing by their sister’s husband. I traded texts with one of them last night, he’s royally pissed at his sister. Both their wives are good women who I’m sure are also really pissed about this, if not shocked, assuming they knew nothing like my wife and I did. And he has his red pill dude in me in his corner, assuming he’ll allow me to help him.
I’m still working on getting more details, more context, but also respecting the two brothers who have front line responsibility. They all live around each other in the Dallas area, I on the other hand live in Georgia. My wife is up to her eyeballs as a middle school teacher and is dealing with some real crap at her school right now, gang activity being just one thing, and she comes home worn out and stressed out. When she found out about her cousin, she said she couldn’t handle it right now or it might put her over the edge. She did have a good cry over it, asked me to handle it for the time being until the school stuff cleared up.
Any suggestions for me? Or any insights for me? I mean, I’m glad I’m red pilled because when I heard all of this I was like, “This is like a Manosphere trope come to life inside my own d*mn family.”
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What’s there for you to handle?
The main thing you need to watch out for is to prevent this little drama from spreading into your home. Women cheating, leaving husbands, divorcing, etc. is like cancer. It starts small with one or two women, and then it metastasizes to other family members and friends.
You need to keep this little Peyton Place mess from spreading into your household. You keep Cheatin’ Cousin, Chaddo, and the rest of it as far away from your wife and kids as humanly possible. Why? Because you don’t want your wife looking at you and deciding she can cuck you with her own Chad. You make it clear that that’s not going to happen and that if she crosses that line, there will be NO coming back from it at all, ever. You must keep a firm hand on what is going on in your own home and not worry too much about what is going on elsewhere.
As for the husband that Cheatin’ Cousin has left, and the kids, well, give them whatever moral support you can. Do not try to fix it. Do not try to pump people for info. Do not let your wife get preoccupied with it, try to fix it, or try to get gossip about it. Make her stay away from it.
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Ditto. TX to GA is a comfortable geographical distance. Now Boomer needs to get a good handle on social media, email and phone communication to stop that junk from affecting his family.
Boomer – When God gave you headship over your family it is for instances like this. You protect your wife from her family member’s sin. You take the shots from from the TX contingency if they complain your wife is not doing whatever it is they want her to do about it. You explain to them that it’s not good for YOUR family when your wife deals with their drama and so you made the call. Be proactive about this.
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Good advice here, thanks!
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More good advice. Thanks!
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I appreciate the words that Jason and Jack wrote upthread about the effect that 9-11 had on them.
It is one of the most difficult passages in life – coming face to face with the reality that we are all just penciled in, and that any one of us can be erased at any moment. Probably the most consistent reaction to that revelation is then what’s the point of trying? Some folks find an answer to that question that allows them to pick up the pieces and get on with their life, even as they will never be the same unaware person again. Others never do find an answer.
If you look for it, you can find much written about this moment of revelation in a person’s life. Some of it in the form of scholarly papers. Others in the form of stories or novels.
It seems to be a first-world problem. Those raised in the third-world circumstances, where relatives get dragged off into the jungle on a fairly consistent basis by the lions and tigers and bears, learn at an early age that we are all just penciled in — even if they don’t know what a pencil is. And still they manage to get on with their lives. The third-world countries were never brainwashed to begin with by Disney fairy tales where all lived happily ever after. And so they don’t have quite the emotional trauma when they learn that grandma won’t be coming home for dinner because she was dinner for another.
There is a parallel here between the story of Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden and stories where folks learn we are all just penciled in. Being expelled from the Garden was a lesson in just being penciled in for Adam and Eve. That also was a point where Adam and/or Eve could have been excused for giving up and saying, “We’ve lost paradise; what is the point of going on, of trying?”
It occurred to me at an early age ** that this is the real point of the Adam and Eve story in the Bible, but I’ve never heard it taught in Sunday School. God can give us paradise, and God can give us the stoney ground outside of the Garden. We are expected to carry on in service to God in either case (which fits in with the admonition to study to excel, regardless of the circumstances, given in the main post). In Isaiah 45:6-7, God says, “…I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” (KJV) In Isaiah 46:10, God says, “My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” (NIV) And it matters very little to God whether we like it or not (that he will do with us, his creation, all that he pleases). He still expects us to carry on. Which is a different focus on the Adam and Eve story from the usual “What a piece Eve was, getting us all kicked out.”
Grief is a necessary part of processing loss of any kind, including the loss of innocence. I don’t mean to deny grieving its rightful place by anything I have said here.
** When I was 14 or so, a couple of boys from my school (12 or so) were bike-riding early on a beautiful Saturday morning through the main street of town. Being young and invincible, they decided to beat the train across the tracks that ran across the road in front of them. I, too, was riding my bike along the same route about 10 minutes after the two boys hit the main engine just behind the first set of wheels. Approaching the track crossing, I couldn’t understand why the train was stopped and there were so many adults milling about. It didn’t take long to learn what had happened. The two boys belonged to two of the most upstanding families in the community. Didn’t make no difference to God. It was a lesson for all of us that we are all just penciled in. And that we are expected to pick ourselves up and go on anyway, once we learn that lesson. I admit that I was too young and unknowing at 14 to have picked up on what had died behind the eyes of the moms and dads and siblings of the two families. I just saw them as getting on with life, albeit with one less mouth to feed, each. Age and experience has taught me to understand what I did not understand then.
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Stick to the NIV 1984:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/niv.2011.html
NIV 1984 aside from the few websites still holding on to it and a few people with hard-copies are all deceptively changed to the Feminist friendly Gender Neutral Language NIV 2011 contrary to the actual Word of God.
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Some really good comments here on this one. I never imagined that a discussion of maintaining frame would spill out of a post on maturity, but now that I think about it, maintaining frame is the lynchpin of the maturation process. Without it, life experiences that would otherwise contribute towards our maturation become a quandary of fits and false starts, and it doesn’t end so well.
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A question I’d like to ask is. If Chivalry and the Blue-pilled simpery is so toxic. Why was it allowed to fester for 8 centuries at the minimum. And if the modern events is designed to remove this toxic influence once and for all. Why now?
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Info, I think it is because in times past, people were isolated in small communities. Women had to choose men from their own community. They didn’t have their pick of chads from across the state. Mythos (e.g. chivalry and fairy tales like Lancelot) formed people’s life views. But now, we have the internet supplying an infinite amount of information and connecting people in distant cities. Worldwide traveling is easy. All this technology has made the world a smaller place and it has brought these issues to a head.
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God has a curious sense of timing. Even waiting 8 centuries before blogs like this. But even then I don’t know if it will be completely and totally purged.
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Jack – If you dig a little beyond what is now global interconnectivity, what you will find is the lack of means amongst the vast majority of the earth’s population to be connected. In what amounts to a mere blip in history, about 100 years, we have gone from a world where a majority of the population worked, actually toiled is a better word, just to feed themselves. The only people with the means to even consider the silly behaviors of chivalry were those with disposable income of any kind, which would have been a very small segment of the population.
Currently, in the west we have collective wealth to the point that our “poor” suffer from obesity and it’s related health issues. The majority of the population does not have fear regarding putting food on the table. The average person’s wealth relative to their ancestors is staggering when you simply compare the work necessary to just survive. It is this foundation of ease that gives people opportunity to contemplate and desire concepts of chivalry . Before this foundation existed we spent our time on more meaningful things like killing ourselves to provide so we did not watch our children starve to death.
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There is nothing like fire to purify our maturity . . .
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