So a number of events conspired to coalesce a certain perspective of life that I think it’s important for any member of the male species to become aware of. 1
The things were:
- The main sewage line got blocked late last night. This morning I called a plumber and he heed and hawed and maybe his way to me just doing things myself. Removed the toilet bowl, and with he help of the wife drained the crappy water and mopped it up as it flowed on the tiled bathroom floor, then rammed a mop down the tube to unclog the stoppage and then with the help of the 5 year old and some shouting “on” and “off” used the garden hose to flush out the line fully. It was a messy, smelly, disgusting job, but I had to do it. After I showered and disinfected myself and the bathroom was sterilised I contemplated some spreadsheets, sent a few emails, and pondered life.
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I came across this text in my feed and it resonated:
I’ve never trusted men who have an aversion and disgust for the crass and the inelegant. The same kind of man who can’t enjoy the obscene (dark humour) the low culture (hip hop) or the crass (swearing) is a treacherous man, because he has no stomach for ugly – he is a weak man, because rather than transmute the ugly into beauty, he patently rejects it.
He does not recognise dark humour as the transmutation of pain into joy, because he gets offended. He does not recognise hip hop as a productive and artistic way to channel aggression and the atavistic will to power, because he views it as uncultured, and he doesn’t even tolerate cussing, because he wants too badly to be immaculate – his sense of hygiene is skewed in that it is not merely righteous, but pretentious. He thinks he is above ugliness, when in truth a man who never embraces ugliness is incapable of being beautiful.
He rejects some of the most fundamental tenets of the masculine spirit in that we become ugly for a greater good, and cannot be great without trips to hell – and that going on such trips is often messy. He, in his hubris, thinks he is above it all and therefore need not dirty his hands – that he is better than the men who engage in and like all these things, when really he is just a brat of the highest order. A snob.
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Talking with a friend, and relating the quality and issue this post is about, he made the following comment regarding a couple of people we know and are on friendly terms with and generally would consider to be “on our side”, nevertheless, his comment was devastatingly accurate:
I long concluded that the morality of people like [Mr. X-redacted] (and [Mr. Y-redacted}) is their own caricatured vision of “great men” – as a result, theirs is the statues of virtue, but not the real, living thing.
And that, in essence is the truth.
Of course the internet is filled with copy pasta navy Seals and Sigmas hanging upside down from helicopters wielding twin colt .45s, but even in real life, the performative nature of snobby intellectuals that pontificate about [ insert almost infinite topics here, no matter how “good”, “true”, and “beautiful”, right-wing (of the “good” kind) and so on ] is divorced from reality.
I have seen this most starkly in the karate dojo I trained in for years in South Africa, so I will use it as an example, because the extremes are always useful to paint a framework for those not au fait with the concept in much detail.
Here are a couple of examples:
One guy, outside of the dojo was almost a throwback to the early hippy stages of the boomer era, a gentle soul, a musician, perennially broke, already in his 40s, humble as can be, truly a nice guy in every aspect you can think of, even if, like me, hippies tend to generally rate somewhere below fish-bait. But on the dojo floor… the man was a very honourable fighter, but hard as nails. A tough guy to fight. You weren’t going to have an easy go with him even if you were better than him technically, he would fight you good and hard, man-to-man, back out of nothing. and as soon as “Yame!” was called and he would smile and pat you on the shoulder and thank you for the match.
Another guy, who did not last very long, was a wealthy “captain of industry type”. He had the hot trophy wife on his arm when he first came to watch the class to see if the dojo was “traditional” enough for him (read hardcore). Impeccably dressed and all respectful and honourable and presenting like an elite kind of guy. But… on the dojo floor… he was fucking SCARED. he panicked, he was nervous, his whole facade of being a man’s man crumbled to dust.
I learnt to seize men up based on that intrinsic internal sense of themselves they really had, instead of the one they wanted the world to see. And while I was certainly distracted more than a couple of times by an alluring, sexy, exotic woman or three, and perhaps 2 chose poorly, I hardly ever made a mistake in judging a man on this basis.
And even ignoring the internet keyboard warriors, the reality is that there are men who sure may have achieved a few things, or maybe even a great many things, but in REALITY, when it comes down to the actual foxhole of life, their performance falls FAR, FAR short of their imagined sense of self.
Now, it’s not necessary for you to have leopard crawled through no mans land to take out a few sentries guarding an enemy bunker before you perform a heroic act of selfless violence for the greater benefit of mankind. There are men utterly unsuited to such an endeavour who will nevertheless try to do it when fate puts them in such a precarious position, and there are men who trained for decades to BE that guy who will fail spectacularly when even just the hint of that reality presents itself before them.
So what I am describing is not a critique of some training or lack of skill etc. What I am describing is the utterly DELUSIONAL self-image so many men have.
I have written several books and each is dear to me in different ways, The Face on Mars , perhaps, one day, might be recognised as the first time someone really put the whole ancient astronaut theory together with everything else in a cogent way that fits, and I am almost certain is right in broad terms. Reclaiming the Catholic Church and Believe correct a bunch of lies and half-truths about Catholicism in an irrefutable manner and helped many people return to the real Catholicism as well spark intents in others that will have repercussions I can’t possibly predict but that may well change the world in a very meaningful way. But it is probably the Systema book that is the most personal of all. And which, at an individual level, probably tells you more about me and my views than anything else I wrote. And it is there that I tell you the most important thing a man (but anyone really) needs to do above all:
Know (for) Yourself
Which has a double meaning. Know yourself above all, and then also know (figure out) things for/by yourself too. It is the only way a man can really test himself and improve over time.
Now, because I have always had this mindset, that is, to test things in REALITY, not just in theory, I have always been fairly good at estimating my own ability to do X. and in general terms, my ability to do X is well above the average. In great part simply because I have tested myself pretty much to my limits in a variety of fields over the decades, which in time makes you better able to asses the types of risks and dangers you are used to navigating.
As a general rule, I tend to find most other men are weak, lazy and rarely capable of keeping up with me, however, I also learnt to see and respect men who will outlast me at some skill they are vastly better than me at. My body at 56 can’t recover like it did at 26 or even 36 or 46. But I can still do more than most men my age by a decent margin. I am not deluded about any of my skills, and even less so in what my reactions might be in various extreme situations, because in essence, I have already been through several extreme situations, and my responses even then were to my satisfaction and as I want to react to such things. Having children and a wife I love, makes any such situation even easier to be sure about.
But as the Illimitable Man put it, if a man is so unwilling, unable, or utterly disgusted by the raw aspects of life, well, he’s not going to be much use in any kind of emergency.
In a bad accident, you may need to get covered in blood, shout at people who otherwise remain stuck in shock, maybe even smack them out of it, act quickly, precisely and effectively. All while keeping your head about you and keep observing and acting consciously, efficiently and quickly.
In a violent situation it is generally the same. Keep your head, and react as required. If I should need to protect the life of a loved one, you can pretty much guarantee that whatever or whoever is threatening it is going to have a very bad and almost certainly, final day. That’s not hyperbole. That’s not delusional thinking. That’s the experience of coming face to face with situations and people who wanted to kill me and reacting properly. And that was way back when all I was “guarding” was my own sense of justice, personal honour or basic “fuck you” to whoever and whatever was against me in that moment. Today, I hardly care at all about my own sense of self or “pride” if you want, beyond that which is required to simply continue looking in the mirror in the morning.
On the other hand, if I needed to debone some would-be pedophile that eyed one of my kids, the resulting butchering would make Dexter flinch but I wouldn’t bat an eyelid even if the spatter was phenomenal.
These would be “warriors” that would never even dream of trying to unclog a shit-stuck pipe, butcher a pedo, or swear like a sailor once in a while, and who look at anyone who does as if they were “beneath them”, are really just NPCs in disguise. They may be the “king” in the adventure you are living, if you are an actual PC, but they are still just a background character. And from time to time, over the years and more so in my younger days, I have enjoyed —when they presumptuously stepped out of their line in an impolite way— exposing their true nature. The human equivalent of suddenly baring your teeth and growling at them, so they know they are about a second away from having the vicious dog rip their poodle-neck out if they don’t immediately go belly up, whine and apologise in a couple or three languages.
It’s quite a spectacle when it happens publicly. People freeze in any distance that could be perceived as being within the “active” radius. Men’s adrenaline kicks in, so does women’s. Generally in polite society most people freeze. In less polite societies, you might get suddenly confronted, attacked, or in some cases, you might see a couple of men just sit back and get ready to enjoy the show they expect is about to unfold before them.
If as a man you’re not capable, willing, and able —when the situation calls for it— (and NOT when it does NOT call for it) 3 to throw every polite and civilised aspect of life out the window and revert to a bone-shard wielding neanderthal, ready to disembowel, bite the jugular of, and crush the skull of everyone that stands in your way, then, you sir, whatever your possible contributions to civilisation, are clearly not one of the forgers. The tip of the spear. the ones that act as the snowplow for those who will follow. And that’s fine. It is a rare breed, after all. But please ; don’t delude yourself you are. Stay in your lane, support, follow, by all means, stand beside us in all things. Many more men will make loyal friends in the trenches that will not abandon you than there are men willing to lead from within those trenches and bring the war to the enemy. And there is nothing wrong with being such a man. In fact, they are very much needed. But the internet seems to have caused a whole great many people to delude themselves into thinking they are more than they really are when it all comes crashing down around their ears.
So, if you’re a silver-spoon-fed Daddy’s boy, or a naturally timid (scared) man, that’s fine, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. I’ll never be a great farmer, or a champion snowboarder, or many other things either.
But stop fooling yourself.
Take honest stock. And then act accordingly.
Yes, yes, I know, Professor Cipolla, etc. but one or two readers MIGHT benefit… It’s a pretty exclusive club that follows my shadow banned blogs around the internet.
As in perhaps the sun will rise in the East, water is wet, and that turd-looking deposit on the sidewalk is not chocolate, kind of “perhaps”.
And be able to distinguish between the two with clarity, on the basis of your deep-faith, deep-self-knowledge, and deep sense of ethics, mercy, and humility. But also, on the basis of the full and righteous anger sometimes required to achieve —as best as we mortals can— the divine aspect of Justice.
This post was originally published on my Substack. Link here
