The bottom line is no one is going to force you to really do anything in our society now.

You want to not do shit and live in a chilled out state literally your whole life, never really having to critically think and spending 8 hrs a day working, 8 sleeping, and 8 playing video games and smoking weed? You can do that and no one will stop you. No one will give a shit, no one will give you a rite of passage.

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

This is how life is now - growing up is not a necessity. It's opt-in, not opt-out. The choice to remain a child and be a "Peter Pan" used to take a conscious decision to be a manchild, but now it's the default and by and large, you will not be shamed.

Most men require evolutionary pressure to succeed. In the absence of this pressure, we get nihilistic bitch boys who don't want to do anything, because doing something productive is not inherently better than NOT doing said thing and sitting on your ass in the grand scheme of the universe. It's true. How do we deal with the fact that after you become rich, fuck 1000 bitches, accomplish your dreams, etc etc, you die and no one gives any more of a shit than if you just played Fortnite and jerked off and worked a min wage job until your ass got gentrified out of your own apartment?

No one is going to give you any answers or make you care, no one is going to compel you to do anything. In 2 years you can be the exact same person doing the exact same things as you are doing now, and as long as you work just hard enough to feed yourself, you can even live a life of relative comfort.

Make 24k a year in a non-expensive city, you can have a roof, a shitty car note, netflix and games, weed, porn, etc. Your needs are met. You won't have spare cash to do anything, but you survive, and you stay entertained. You stay happy enough.

The only rites of passage are the ones you make for yourself, and the only thing that will ever make you better than what you have to be is ambition.

This is why I think masculinity always circles back to ambition. Why did Alexander want to conquer the world? To stamp his DNA across civilizations. He had ambition - why did Arnold want to be Governor when he was rich as fuck and famous already? Ambition. Men have ambition, this is what drives us, and we as a society tend to criticize and mock those with ambition. But if you don't have ambition, what's the point, just kill yourself already. If you don't want to do something great or conquer some challenge or aspire to reach some level of expertise or status or knowledge, then life is empty.

Bottom line is we can't run around fighting people and joining the military or killing lions or getting circumcized by a rusty knife at 13 to experience a "rite of passage". There's no pack of elders here, baby boomers have checked out, they are gone. Your parents want you to settle down, pump out a kid, and they probably still think success is the rolex you buy on retirement after working at the same company for 40 years.

You just need to have ambition, and I don't really know if it's nature or nurture, I don't even really know if everyone can have it. It's just something that is in your veins, you have to want it. I wanted pussy so bad that I went out probably over 1000 times in 4 years to college parties, clubs, bars, parks, malls, anywhere to talk to girls back in the day. Now I want different things, better things. But that was all an expression of ambition - I wanted the thing that was absolutely at the time the hardest, most challenging, more frightening thing to me. It wasn't a great war, but it was something.

I see so many people on here who want pussy or they want money, but do you really? Really? Do you want it badly enough to stop with the fucking "hey man everything is OK in moderation, I don't need to be extremist. STFU about Elon Musk dude, I don't have to work as hard as Elon Musk" bullshit? Probably not.

It doesn't matter really what your ambition is for. You have to grow it, cultivate it. It's all you'll ever really have in life, and if you grow it chasing girls or chasing sick gains or money or anything that's only a part of success, you will still benefit and you will be able to refocus that ambition. Getting pussy doesn't make you great, being 200+ lbs under 10% bf doesn't make you great. Becoming the type of man capable of doing those things... is a start though. The ambition required for most of you to get there is something real. Cultivate that and then pour all of that ambition towards achieving something more important.

A true rite of passage includes separation, transition, and re-incorporation.

We live in a world where community doesn't really exist like it used to. We need to create our own rites of passages for ourselves because nobody is going to hold our hands and walk us through the process of becoming a man. We need to go off on our own and see what it's like to be a man on his own: the pain and the existential angst and rage and the frustration along with the joy and bliss and lightness. We need to learn how to suffer alone, survive on little. We need to know what it's like to die or feel the fear of death. We need to know how deep our emotions run and how they've been suppressed and repressed for our entire lives. We need to see who we are beyond our conditioning, outside of what society wants us to be.

The re-incorporation is probably the most difficult part nowadays because there's no community to re-incorporate into. Society wants men to fit the status quo. Society doesn't want strong men who live according to their own values. Society doesn't want men who live frugally, don't marry, and don't consume. This forum is a great place to feel at least somewhat connected to other men who have been through or are going through the same process of leaving their boyhood behind and becoming real men.

True vision comes from experiencing and overcoming pain. We have to put ourselves in situations where true vision can arise. For a lot of us on this sub, we need to

1. practice approaching women
2. hone our killer instinct (learn how to compete/fight)

Both help each other. Someone asked me on another thread, "how do I develop my killer instinct? It doesn't come natural to me." I replied, "Do something that makes you fight and compete. Do something that makes you feel like a hunter, a predator looking for its kill." The killer instinct doesn't come overnight if you've never been a competitor/warrior type. It has to be developed and brought out of oneself. Nobody can teach you to be a killer. You have to want to learn how to kill. This doesn't mean you actually have to kill, but that you are capable of the violence necessary to survive (physically, financially) if your life depended on it. This is what makes girls wetter than you could ever imagine.

intro

Boys are lost, searching for their vision, their manhood, searching for their place in the world. They search for purpose. I know this because boys have asked me for it. It's not hard to find, but it's hard not to fear. Many boys make up a place because it's guaranteed they can get there, that it’s safe, and it is what their ego wants of them. I use the word boy and the word guy with a purpose. They are placeholders for a males delayed adolescence.

A boys adolescence is his innocence, a guys adolescence is his impotence.

A man walks over to his place in the world and plops himself down in its center. He then dares the world to remove him. A guy waits for an invitation, a map, and an escort. Instinctively, he knows where he’s supposed to go, but since no one has offered it to him, it’s not valuable to a guy. After all, why would you want to go there, if no one else will tell you how great it is? This place is the pursuit of sex and violence. It's the place where men just fit, it's our Valhalla. No invitation is required.

I was invited to speak last year. The topic was about men relationships, and unfucking themselves. I was not there to offer an invitation to that place. I was not there to give a vision, a rite of passage, or any mancertification. I explicitly said this, and could not have been less persuasive if I were talking to the wall. The only questions people asked involved their vision, their rite, their certification exam. What checklist exists that could prove I am a man? I gave very dismissive, very flippant responses:

"Go knife a deer and eat it's stillbeating heart."

I was speaking earlier on the concept of DEER (defend, explain, excuse rationalize), so it received a muffled response. Not funny enough for laughter, but clever enough for a chuckle. Guys still bring it up, and I've since given it enough thought to put my words onto paper. We used to be handed an invitation for that place. The invitations were signed Queen and country, noblesse oblige, the strong family patriarch, the American dream, your man card, or the salt of the earth. Insert any of the phrases you see from advertisements for beard oils, assault rifles, and half-ton trucks. They drop it on you, like the load of gravel into the back end of the all new 3500.

Our strong arm isn't needed anymore. We have robots to do the heavy lifting, we have computers to do all the intellectual labour. We have instant dinners delivered daily to your door, dishwashers to free up a woman's time to pursue her own fortunes in business. We used to be Atlas, holding his world on his shoulders, broadening them to handle the load. those days are over. We aren't needed anymore. So what's left? Where is our place?

Sex and violence are the only two non-fungible measures of a man. They aren't as tough as they used to be, so you have no excuses not to meet them. They are the place you should be, or at least not avoid.

This is agreeable. You’re right that men are good for sex and violence, but I would argue that these are only particular. There is a general term that corresponds to each of these.

For sex it is creation. It is a creative act to perform sex because, before contraceptives, it’s purpose is to impregnate a woman and have a child.

For violence it is destruction. Violence is used against things to destroy them. There are many kinds of violence aside from the physical.

In a broader sense man’s as you say “non-fungible” assets are his creative and destructive powers. This manifests in many ways through being. Being is existence in action. Beings in action are always either creating, destroying, being created, or being destroyed - or some combination of those things. So be doing these things we are fulfilling our potentials, self actualizing.

It takes a long time and deep self reflection for someone to form value judgments they can legitimately claim as their own. This process usually involves a deep emotional journey that results in a fundamental change in being. Without these judgments, as /u/GayLubeOil seems to suggest, people deteriorate and end up suffering because they have no self realized reason to create or destroy. They simply exist without purpose, or if they have managed to define some sort of purpose, it is usually narrow and unfulfilling.

Therefore, it is important that we should ask questions about value judgments. Because these seem to be what guide us in living the good life. With reagrds to what you wrote about sex and violence, it is important to understand in what way we can value these things.

In other words, when is it worth it to have sex? When is it worth it to be violent?

I cannot say definitively that I have the answers to this question. But I do believe that the value judgments surrounding these things have to do with love. And that is what I do nowadays. I have sex when I am in love and I fight for the things I love. But of course, talking about love opens an entirely different can of worms...

Anyways. Thanks for sharing your writing. It was nice to read and the discussions here are good as well. Peace.

Alot of men talk about qualities that maketh man such as being a good father, being compassionate, being humble and virtuous (whatever that means), etc. These qualities do not make any sense for a man in the modren world. These qualities arose among the warrior caste in ages past - these qualities were backed up by the threat of violence. Everyone knew, that this guy right here demonstrating compassion is capable of great violence if crossed, this guy has toppled kingdoms and for fear of his rightful arrogance consuming him - he seeks to be humble compared to what he could be. Being a "good father" was important because the warrior could die at any moment so he must pass on his knowlege to his son. Hardworking was a quality that allowed the man to survive in battle - a lazy warrior would die and this could lead everyone else to ruin. All these qualities no longer makes sense and just make men look weak.

Be humble? Why? Most men have not reached any significant heights where excessive arrogance can ruin their fortunes. Most men don't have any achievements under their name at all. Humbleness makes them look weak and fearful. Modern man needs more arrogance.

Compassion? Its easy to show compassion when you yourself are at the bottom and you are a threat to nobody. It just makes a guy look weak - effete. Trying showing restraint when you have overwhelming power, when you have defeated a man and his life lies in your hands. Showing restraint and "compassion" is impressive then for it demonstrates a refinement in character. Modern man needs to be crueler for otherwise he is no better than a woman - probably worse. A woman is true to her nature, but a man closer to a woman than a man is neither man nor women. He has no substance, he cannot take a stand for anything, he has no Will and therefore he cannot be respected.

Want to become a man? Abandon those qualities I mentioned above - become capable of cruelty, become arrogant. But for these things to be possible, one needs to be strong too. Become like Wolf Larsson from "The Sea Wolf" - a giant brute of man, capable of great cruelty and nobility, of great mirth and despair, of impulsive action and deep, introspective thought.

And so this leads me to the title of this piece, the two cores of modern masculinity, sex and violence. It is too much at this point to demand any "man" demonstrates the tactical virtues of strength, courage, mastery and honor. So sex and violence have to do as the furst step. A man who is incapable of violence cannot get sex for he is physically and mentally weak, he is effeminate, he is worse than a woman for he cannot take a stand and tell the world who he is.

I've always been the branch that women swung to when they were in relationships.

This has landed me on the business end of more than one enraged beta's anger.

The last relationship I've ever been in had the girl swinging to this muscled Filipino. She had cheated on her boyfriend with me previously so this wasn't new behavior. He was a classic orbiter, so I had grown complacent- a little too much beer, pizza, video games, and porn because in my mind I had "made it." My mind had told me that this girl was a suitable partner to settle down with and to hang up my lecherous ways. I became a beta-slub.

When she finally cheated on me with the Filipino after I had tanked my SMV, I remember being invited to a party by a mutual "friend" that my ex and her new boyfriend were also attending.

"Is black_m0ngoose here!?" My ex frantically/drunkenly asked my good friend who was also attending.

The new boyfriend came up and said-

"If Black_m0ngoose shows up, I'm gonna beat his ass. He better not show up!"

I remember being retold that conversation over the phone by my good friend a short while later.

I was angry.

I also was afraid.

I was afraid because I was unsure of myself. My lizard-brain knew that in a fight I'd most likely be out-matched by sheer strength alone.

If you are a man, you are meant to fight and die to hold onto your identity.

Throughout life, both men and women will measure you up through subconscious cues that you give off- does this guy carry himself like he can fight or not?

If you can't fight, you're pretty much done as a man. The decline has an end, and the end will be ugly. Its just as you said, sex and violence will become the new currency.

Make it so that when a man puts his hands on you- it becomes the biggest mistake of their life.

Either you or the guy you're facing down is going to walk away feeling like less of a man. Make sure the odds are stacked in your favor, and that the other guy is walking away feeling like a bitch.

Frame will sometimes necessitate that you reinforce your boundaries physically. That's simply the nature of the game that men play. Your behavior will change if you can't handle yourself. Every breath, every step you make, will give off your weakness when the chips are down.

Hah, about time! About two years ago I sat down with a notebook and asked myself what is it exactly that makes a man and the answer did come to be exactly this: fighting and fucking.

Within the next month my workout regimen had changed from lifting exclusively to include some MMA, survival training, and hiking with a heavy rucksack. Also, I read some books on Tantric sex however there was no discernible improvement in my sexual performance (wouldn't recommend the latter, it's useless).

The capacity for violence is necessary.

After that its the ability to not HAVE to resort to violence.

As in Choose not to. Not "avoid".

and thats why I don't give a shit what you drive or what you can do in a cage.

If you have never been hit in anger, you have no idea what its all about.

Maybe i'm just retarded but this was hard to read. Much of the time I couldn't pick out the point you were trying to make much of the time before you eagerly jumped off to another equally esoteric metaphor. There was a lack of flow. Just my feedback.

So, here we are thinking what is our value to society (and for women) while on the other hand one of the TRP principles seems to be having your "mission".

Is this even a relevant question in terms of TRP?

Interesting topic tho but I can't be bothered in my personal life.

So many golden comments. I keeping this one in the files.

slick TLP quote. Good post. I think you misunderstood TLP's article, though.