Against ‘The Herd,’ The Loneliness of Change
A man that believes in his cause and works his own plan as a top-priority above and beyond anything else – there is nothing more powerful in the entire Universe. How many times do you get down on yourself, blame yourself and sink into depression or addiction? Depression, avoidance and addiction I now recognize as forms of resistance, as explained wonderfully in Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art. Living your own life and doing your own creative work that is meaningful to you, according to Pressfield, will bring alongside it a kind of internal war. It is difficult to follow the Tortoise’s Path, and plod slowly along on your new career, or that business idea, or the DJ set that you’re working on, or your guitar practice, or your Dominance Hierarchy Dating scheme, or anything else when it just looks like a bunch of repetitive work and a series of tiny, incremental improvements.
You will often find yourself alone, feeling like the only one who believes in your cause. The end-result may seem far-fetched or way out of reach, and yet you are to push yourself and keep obeying your schedule, all with the hopes that it will pay off one day. To put another thorn in your side, you cannot expect anybody to have any appreciation for The Process. Women don’t respect hopeful entrepreneurs until they’ve made their first million. People don’t respect authors until their first well-regarded book is published. Women don’t fuck yoga instructors in-training, they only want to fuck their yoga instructor.
“The Herd” loves a winner, but they have no respect for the process of producing any of the excellent things that they admire so much. This is what differentiates a producer from a consumer, or better said, a leader from a follower. I remember being around kids in high school who would mock “computer nerds” and make fun of any kid that was too technical or “too smart.” Now I bet all of these mockers enjoy their cell phones, smartwatches and dozens of other products made by the “nerds” they so mocked. Who do they think invented those products?! That’s right, it’s a lot of highly intelligent people who put a neck-breaking amount of thought and hard work into them.
The entirety of this book could be summarized as a real-world interpretation of the Hero’s Journey, because that’s what manhood really is. Manhood is about facing your fears and doing things on your own because you feel and know that it is the right thing to do for your own growth and self-development. Thus, staying at your mommy’s house because it “helps you save money” or “makes you feel safe” is not masculine. When you give in to the siren’s call of “safety,” just know that you are sacrificing your manhood in order to get it. Manhood hasn’t got a price – it is priceless.
When you move out on your own or leave your nagging wife that you are no longer attracted to, those are acts of manhood. We’ve all known men who are too scared or refuse to take “the leap.” You can spot them from across the room: the always seem so deflated and powerless. We even have conventions in our language to describe such men. We say, “he has no balls,” or “she cut his balls off.” We use the metaphors of castration to accurately describe what has happened to these men on a symbolic, psycho-spiritual level.
Manhood is about sticking up for yourself and embracing your capacity for violence, which is your Jungian shadow or dark side. Men who deny that this force or capacity exists within them are repressing themselves and can never fully operate as men. When you stick up for yourself and draw boundaries, you are engaging in masculine activity. When you learn how to defend yourself with your bare hands and/or with weapons, you are embracing your shadow. You will be a more controlled, peaceful and capable man if you do so.
Manhood is about establishing your own value within social groups and developing your skills within those groups so that you become an Alpha, or tribal leader. Men understand that success with women is not inherited, nor is it a “right.” Rather, it is earned through action – the slow and ongoing process of skill development and discipline that leads results and superior qualities over other men. Being a social reject or “loner” is not masculine because it enables you to only compare yourself with yourself in the absence of any dominance hierarchies or feedback from other men or from women.
Yes, there are periods of isolation and loneliness, and these need to be used to reinvest in yourself in order to produce long-term results. I am working on a DJ set right now for a series of events that I want to host, it is my way of “owning my own dominance hierarchy,” as Jordan Peterson suggests. Do any fans of these events encourage me or give me a pat on the back while I’m working on my DJ sets? No. I need to believe in my cause and believe in myself. I need to stay true to the vision and keep plodding away at it one day at a time.
Men sacrifice the things they want to do in life because other people have expectations of them. If your wife or girlfriend won’t give you the time or space to do your own thing, they don’t care about you at all. Sure, you need to balance it out and give other people the time and attention they deserve as well. If you don’t do that, you’re living an unbalanced life and can’t expect to have many meaningful relationships. Obsessing over your work is a form of lazy narcissism, it is for people who refuse to prioritize or lead a balanced life. But, if your wife can’t give you thirty minutes a day to do your meditation work, or to write that book you always wanted to write, you might want to rethink your relationship.
We live in a time of extreme social change. I wish our time was kinder to men and the notion of masculinity as a whole, but in fact we are living in an era of heightened toxicity for men. Nobody seems to know just what men are for. “The only good man is an effeminate man,” the leftists will say. Perhaps society is too comfortable and too decadent for men to thrive as we are meant to. We are meant to run, hunt and fish for a living. We are built to fight wars and defend our homes and our tribes. Now we’re lazy, lacking in any meaningful danger, and are seen by others as tax-slaves to siphon resources from or worse. As the social justice warriors claim, we’re to blame for anything and everything, despite the fact that it is men who conquered, tamed and formed the world that these spoiled brats now live in and enjoy.
No, a man should not be a slave to his work, or his wife, or his civilization. As a man your independence, your need for autonomous thought and action, must be respected. So many men surrender this fundamental right. They go along to get along because they are afraid to lose everything in a divorce or to move away from home. Manhood is not about the absence of fear, but rather it is about facing your fears head-on, and in doing so, watching your fears fade away. “Is this happiness what I was so afraid of?” You become stronger by doing this, and that is what manhood is all about.
I sincerely hope that this book encouraged you to make big leaps and brave changes in your life. I know that the path isn’t easy, but what would be the point if it was? Only you can know and have respect for yourself and what you’ve been through. This book should act as a primer for you. It outlines the basic things that men have in common, meaning that you will need to implement the tools given to you in this book in order to feel like a man and live a masculine life.
Best Wishes,
Devin Stone