How To Dude

What is a man?

There’s been a great deal of discussion recently on men.

I, being one myself, probably do get an increased amount of “males: explained” content, but it seems like the conversation has been particularly amplified so far this year.

For the last 5 years, the internet was asking “what is a woman?”, and not just Matt Walsh, but across the board. Being that I am in fact, not a woman, I found that it was fairly difficult and unnecessary to participate in that particular conversation without getting yelled at by someone. Now that the switch has flipped, I’d love a chance to discuss this topic with what I think is a moderately unique perspective.

I won’t claim that these thoughts haven’t been thunk by anyone else, or these words haven’t been written already, but if you’re deeply ingrained in the state run “legacy” media, this may be fresh intel for you.

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For centuries now, philosophers, thinkers, writers, and everyday people have explored the idea of manhood, and manliness in general. For most of history, pretty much up until the last 60 years, the idea of a “Man” was quite settled, right up until the early 60s. Psychedelics likely played a major part in that great re-wiring, for better or worse.

A Man was, for the most part, a male human possessing the XY genetic makeup, and the accompanying hardware. Men were expected to lead the family, lead the tribe, lead the village, lead the city, lead the state, and so on and so forth. A Man would not be considered to be a “real man” if he wasn’t able to provide a means of survival for his family, or defend them from other, ill-intentioned men.

Critics of traditional male values are likely reading this thinking “ackchualy!” and pointing at Ancient Greece, where it’s well known (and often cited) that homosexuality was common. There are plenty of jokes about the Greeks not discovering that you could, in fact, have sex with a woman, until they were too old to do so with anyone at all… That was probably the first example of a “different kind of man” being widely accepted in what was a modern, progressive culture at that time. The Spartans believed you should “love your battle-brother as no one else could”, in order to defend him, and expect him to cover you in return during battle. The lesser known fact is that they really did… love… each other in the trenches and tents after the sun went down. Idea was, you’re much more likely to take a spear for the person you’re sleeping with than anyone else. They hijacked the part of the male psyche that causes gorilla strength to appear when your wife/children are in danger, and it resulted in an entire civilization of bisexual, nearly indestructible warriors.

The Greeks were different, in the sense that they really did value the mind just as much as the physique. There was nothing more respectable than a man who was f’kn shredded, but could also politely discuss philosophy and current political events. The “warrior-scholar” mentality was the epitome of “strong men create good times”.

Nowadays, in our polarizing world, the global media works to train people to pick sides on everything. They don’t want the polite, intense discussion that comes from strong minds and bodies engaging with each other. They do their best to sell the story that lifting weights, eating well, and taking care of your body is “right wing”, or some related nonsense. You’re either a fascist gym bro, or an academic, progressive, feminist man. An enemy, or an ally.

I’m here to tell you that it’s all nonsense!

Strong men are powerful in both mind and body. They protect, defend, create, and sacrifice constantly for their family and friends. They think about the world, and form intelligent, historically informed opinions about current events, then act on those assumptions in their own lives. A strong man provides what he can for his family and friends, regardless of whether he’s tired, beaten, sad, or disrespected. It doesn’t matter.

Sadly, the idea of a strong man has been demonized for the last few decades. It makes me sad to see people who bought it, and find themselves being pulled away from the path of health and strength. Hell, I fell for it for a while. It’s tough to avoid when you’re young, impressionable, and have Internet access…

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The concept of “toxic masculinity” tricked a lot of smart folks. The people pushing it targeted women first. They looked for girls and women who had sadly been dishonored, taken advantage of by bad actors, and told them that “all men are like that deep down, some just hide it better than others”. Fear is a powerful motivator. Once enough women bought the lie, it was simple enough to pull in weaker men, and convince them that they were actually monsters who needed to preemptively atone for their assumed sins by confessing, and denouncing the rest of their species.

The worst, and most unforgivable part of the whole thing is that it provided an alibi for the actual bad actors. It gave them cover if they needed to disappear. A weak, sad little asshole that wanted to take advantage of someone just had to proclaim himself a “feminist”, or a “victim”, and all of a sudden he was on the “good side”, and free from scrutiny.

I don’t write this to disparage feminism, at least in the truest sense of the term. It seems to me that when this particular wave of the feminist movement first started (3rd wave, I think?), it was simply about reaching equality between the sexes. Equal reward for equal work. That’s an honorable fight in my book, despite the nightmarish horror show that new age feminism has morphed into… It also feels like it’s quite an easy discussion between any pair of reasonable people.

So this whole thing basically led to an enormous amount of normal dudes fearing for their lives, if they dare to attempt to flirt with a woman in public. Gone are the days of funny pickup lines, creative jokes, and public acts of bravery to get someone’s attention. In the name of the holy Safe Space, we killed dating.

I’ve noticed most of the Boomers, and Greatest Generation people I’ve met have fun, ridiculous stories of how they met their spouse. They smile as they recall how they did or said something absurdly silly and embarrassing, while their soon-to-be wife found it charming (that they’d have the balls to make a fool of themselves in public for her entertainment), and decided to take a chance on them. You’ll notice that Millennials have nothing of the sort. Most of my generation met through dating apps, or in a crowded bar playing exceptionally shitty pop-rap-country music.

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The destruction of the modern male psyche actually made the world far more dangerous for everyone. I’m sure the statistics don’t exactly back my theory up, due to the militarization of law enforcement, but hear me out…

100 years ago, if a guy picked on a woman in public, he was likely to get shot or kneecapped by the nearest gentleman. Nowadays, the only things holding back the weirdos, the subversives, and the pedophiles are the Law (our justice system is questionable, at very best), and the threat of “cancellation” through social media. The growth of Cancel Culture also had the little added consequence of destroying the entire courtship process, and teasing societal collapse. Those pesky falling birth rates!

Men and women need to be able to connect with each other organically, flirt, and have fun! Without these things, someone’s chance of finding love becomes… depressingly bad. There are entire internet communities of “incels” (men who are involuntarily celibate), frustrated at their inability to get a nice “normal” woman to even look their way. The longer an incel remains so, the weirder and worse they’ll get. Without a family to care for and defend, men get BAD over time. We simply need it, or we go nuts. I’ve seen the metaphor for 21th century dating being compared to sprinting towards the last helicopter out of Vietnam. Believe it or not, people are a lot nicer and more easy going if they’re getting laid regularly….

Now, the incel issue definitely isn’t purely the “fault” of women, it’s a much deeper, darker problem worthy of a few notes.

We sacrificed male self respect, and physical health at the altar of profits. We pushed them fattening, endocrine disrupting, estrogen promoting cereal mush loaded with poisonous chemicals. We sold them pharmaceutical products that disrupt hormone production, and ruined their testosterone. We told them they were inherently evil and had nothing worth being confident in. So, now we have hordes of overweight, depressed, porn addicted dudes that have no direction and no inspiration. They’ve given up, and accepted their lonely fate. Unhappy and unfulfilled men are also unproductive, and potentially dangerous.

Basically, we’ve got a perfect storm of issues adding up to a social crisis, with more potential issues on the way if we don’t change course.

So, how do we get out of it?

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Men are actually quite simple, and are very different from women. I’ll refrain as much as I can from trying to describe how women work, as I (again) am not a woman, or an expert in any way.

Men have 2 modes: on, off. 100%, 0%. That’s gonna sound real silly to any non-male readers. Let me explain.

For us, we’re happy sprinting, and we’re happy sleeping, but generally unhappy with everything in between. Managing the “in-between” zones is a drag, and costs us energy. In a world where you’re expected to be about 35-50% “on” at all times, but no more(!), men struggle. We want to track, stalk, and kill the elk, haul it back to the village, then take a nap while we wait for someone to clean and cook it for dinner.

Seeing things through this new lens, most of the issues we’re dealing with in our post-modern world start to make clear sense.

Wife wants to have a low energy, rambling conversation with you about your day while you try and rest on the couch? Of course it feels annoying! The male brain is confused, it thinks it should be in off mode, recharging for tomorrow’s hunt, but it keeps having to switch itself on and off, on and off, just to mumble “yes dear” a few times and try not to annoy her. I understand most women do this out of love and affection, they want to engage with their spouse and share things with them, but this is exactly why it annoys most men. It literally hurts them, and costs energy. It’s very sad to see, and I want to make sure we don’t blame women for this type of action, it isn’t malicious.

Anotha one.

Young men are terrified of 9-5 jobs for exactly this reason. They subconsciously know it will require that same 35-50ish% work that exhausts the brain, drains them of their passions, and feels exactly like torture. They would literally prefer intense manual labor in many instances, as that allows for their 100/0% work brains to be in a more natural state. If a standard 8 hour office day consisted of 4 hardcore, intense work “sprints”, separated out by 4 “rest” hours during which they could nap, exercise, play video games, or just generally stare into the void, men would probably have far greater productivity across the board.

Anotha one!!

Men love lifting weights because it allows them to push to that 100% effort threshold for what is probably the only time that day. After they finish, shower, and change, the brain feels that it’s completed its sprint, and can comfortably shift into rest mode. OR, if you’re a morning workout person, you’re now already in sprint mode, and continue your day in peak form.

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As you can see, we’re fairly simple creatures!

I think we should work to structure our economy and workforce around these few basic assumptions, and watch as productivity and happiness soars. By setting our men up for success, we’re moving towards the path of happier, healthier families, which in turn will lead to better communities.

Happy communities lead to beautiful cities, which creates a wonderful country, and an example for the rest of the world to follow. Dudes rock, let’s give them the opportunity to prove it.