Masculinity Mondays: 21

 

Image shows a person with short, bleached hair, wearing a brown blazer, holding a burning playing card between their fingers

Magic, masculinity, and life in general all share a common requirement; you need to have a single, clear, specific focus that you direct your attention, energy, and efforts at.  Not "towards", but at.  Directly at, with fixed attention.

In magic, the purpose of a wand, staff, or athame is not to create energy for a spell or working, but to serve as a physical reminder for the magician to remain in mental contact with their point of focus.

Warriors follow orders - the direction of their focus is chosen for them.
Magicians have to identify their own focus.
While a warrior has the whole field of battle to consider, a magician has to reduce everything they could do, and want, to a single focus.

That reducing down of desire and ambition can be the work of a lifetime.

You may not believe, or have any interest in, magic - but you still need to do the work of applying the principle of singularity of focus to the process of becoming a man. You have to decide what kind of man you want to be, what kind of life you want to have, in a way that can be expressed in a single sentence, and focus all your effort on that intent.

Once you've made the decision of what the focus of your life and your masculinity will be, everything and everyone you engage with should contribute towards enhancing that focus - from the people you surround yourself with to the media you consume, through the opportunities you pursue, everything you bring into your circle should serve the role of a crystal in an occult working; to amplify and add to the energies that are flowing towards your focus.

The kind of masculinity I want to inhabit is encapsulated by the expression - the concept, the focus - scholar sage; a man who lives with intelligent wisdom, but doesn't rest on the laurels of either intelligence or wisdom, but is rather committed to lifelong learning.

The kind of life I want to create is encapsulated as legacy - I want to leave a path that others can follow, to a place worth the journey.

In order to achieve those intentions, the things I bring into my circle are time, space, and quiet to recharge, so that I'm able to think creatively, people who can offer genuine challenge without aggression, who can exchange ideas without any of us feeling intimidated by each other's inspiration, and who can help with things my disabilities make difficult for me.

SMOULDER Sundays: 2: Ongoing Usefulness

 

SMOULDER is the sustainable, accessible alternative to FIRE.   SMOULDERing is particularly relevant for folks in the UK at the moment, where the House of Lords (the "unelected" chamber of "basically privileged old white men!" as all persuasions of media, social and otherwise, never stop harping on about) try, for the second time, to block a plan from the House of Commons (the people whose privilege mostly gets ignored, because "WE decide who gets to be there!" - discussions on shortlists, access to politics as a career, are for another time) that would allow the government to basically grab peoples' private pensions if the government felt that "the economy needed an emergency bailout, and other funds were insufficient or not available."  (Basically "if we need to bribe our already rich mates, we're going to use your money to do it, okay?)

A reminder on what SMOULDER is:

SIMPLE MINDSET, ONGOING USEFULNESS, LIFE DIRECTION: EMPLOYED RESTFULNESS.

Last week, we looked at the Simple Mindset aspect of SMOULDER.

Today, we'll explore what Ongoing Usefulness could look like.

Ongoing Usefulness

SMOULDER is about a lifelong, genuine, intuitive balance between paid work and restfulness, with restfulness coming equally from restorative activity and replenishing non-activity. (We'll look at those concepts in a future blog.)

Within that context, Ongoing Usefulness is about identifying the skills you would be happy to employ for a paycheque for the rest of your life, and from which you could earn enough to have a lifestyle that satisfied you, and was genuinely stable, whilst deliberately not working full time.  That typically means you're looking to identify either skills that you can charge a strong day rate for (and that people will pay a strong day rate for) or skills that are seen as an equivalent exchange for the higher-cost necessities of life, such as housing and food, so that you are able to afford to work part-time in a wider range of jobs.

What might some of those skills be?

Strong Day Rate Ongoing Usefulness Skills:
. Consultancy in an area of professional specialty

. Heritage construction skills (you won't be getting last minute "can you do it tomorrow for £20?" calls, you'll be working with dedicated, experienced teams, and the work is planned.)
. Project management 

. Professional mentorship
. Style consultancy, both for individuals and brands
. Location scouting - both for film locations and off-market purchase possibilities.

Equivalent Exchange Skills
. DIY, especially trades (plumbing, electrics, bricklaying, etc)
. Organisation
. Cooking 
. Gardening

. Business development
. Nursing/care

These are not intended to be exhaustive lists, but the spark to get you looking and thinking in the right direction in your own life.

A key aspect of Ongoing Usefulness in SMOULDER is that it has to be a mutual position; yes, you will be being useful to people who are paying you, but the way you work has to have Ongoing Usefulness for you and your rich life, too.

For example, I have been a carer, initially as a child; my rich life does not include providing even supportive/companionship care for someone other than my spouse, even if that work came with the ability to live in a very comfortable and well-placed house, and regularly meet influential people; therefore, I would not be looking to build my experience of being a carer into the Ongoing Usefulness skill of highly experienced professional caring expertise, because it doesn't add to the kind of life I want to enjoy.

Someone else may be fully done with interacting with senior executives and "hopping on" Teams calls, and therefore consultancy or business development are not skills which serve their rich life.

In my case, consultancy is the Ongoing Usefulness skill I plan to develop, because I like meeting purpose-driven people, I enjoy solving problems, and business as a concept is continually interesting to me. I can also charge a strong-but-commonly-accepted day rate, and live the life I want working 2-3 days per week at that rate; my ideal would be 2 days per week, as that is most manageable with my disabilities and health challenges, but I've never felt work to be an intrusion into my life, so occassionally increasing to 3 days per week is acceptable to me.

If you are not currently working in a role which develops at least one Ongoing Usefulness skill, I'd recommend beginning a focused job search for a role which does offer that development;  I am happy to offer a free two-hour session identifying your most relevent Ongoing Usefulness skills, and outlining how to pursue a focused job search, with the option of following on with a paid tailored support plan (which is entirely optional - you're more than welcome to just take the free support session). To sign up, drop me an email at theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com

If you know your current job is building your Ongoing Usefulness skillset - fantastic! Keep doing what you're doing, and keep an eye out for opportunities, both paid and unpaid, which can add to that skillset.  Again, I can offer a free two-hour session to identify what you should be looking for, and build both a progression and tail-off plan centred around your rich life SMOULDER concept - just email theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com

SMOULDER Sundays: 1: Simple Mindset

 

Image shows a smouldering volcano

Recently, I posted about why FIRE isn't necessarily the best financial focus.  In that piece, I introduced a sustainable, lower-paced replacement for FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early), SMOULDER (Simple Mindset, Ongoing Usefulness, Life Direction: Employed Restfulness.)

Following on from that, I decided to do a series alongside the main Masculinity Mondays focus of this blog, going into a bit more detail about SMOULDER, what it could look like, how to make it work, rather than risk it being a glorified form of un- or underemployment, how to respond to the finance bros (of all genders - hi, Chelsea Fagan) when they go on about FIRE from your SMOULDER position.   As the title of this piece suggests, those will be weekly, landing on Sundays, under the title SMOULDER Sundays.

The most obvious start is to explore the core concepts of SMOULDER the way the attitude itself demands; slowly, over time, never knowingly overloading.

So, let's start with the first concept: SIMPLE MINDEST

Simple doesn't have to mean basic.  That's part of why FIRE isn't sustainable for many people - FIRE demands that life be reduced to its absolute bare, essential-for-survival basic minimum, so you can "maximise your investment potential", sock away as much as possible in a high yield savings account, store up 98% of what you have now for some very vague and entirely unguaranteed future.

FIRE demands basic.

SMOULDER embraces simplicity.

A simple mindset is one which is focused on a small but relevant number of things, and a small but relevant number of ways to achieve those things.

Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich asks his guests what their "rich life" looks like; what do you genuinely imagine yourself doing, if money were no object, that would consistently make you feel happy, satisfied, and as though your life was complete, and rewarding for you?  That's actually a pretty good place to start for SMOULDER, too.

I'll start with myself, because I'm here, and I know my answers - please do feel free to reach out by email to theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com with your answers, as I'd love to have a wider field of exploration for SMOULDER. 

My "rich life" would be one in which I worked 2-3 days a week, and had a chauffeur (I'm legally blind, and being banned from driving because of that is one of the few things that frustrates me).

I would have physical space around me, and the ability to commit my free time to both active rest - which for me is walking, hiking, bodyboarding, shopping for antiques, and creative endeavours - and to true rest; both genuinely "doing nothing", and doing very low-level activities, in my case, reading (or, increasingly, thanks to my sight loss, listening to audio books).
My home would be a bungalow,  with a reasonable size garden, which itself would be split between a hardscaped rock-and-alpine designed space, and grass for chickens.

Once you have your rich life - which should be no more than one paragraph; remember, we're keeping it simple! A good focus is to ask what you would be doing, how you would be living, and where you would be living, with "where" covering location and/or type of property - look at ways you can achieve elements of that now.

Taking my own case again: 
I want to be working 2-3 days per week, but to feel comfortable at that level: my current freelance contract is 3 days per week, but at a very low rate of pay. It's also due to end in December of this year, which is causing me significant anxiety - and anxiety is not part of my rich life.  So, I need to work now on bringing in more contracts; ideally two full day commitments that will be a more or less ongoing concern, and maybe 2-4 lower commitment gigs which between them could fill a third day, and which, while short-term in nature, can be consistently replaced with similar gigs.  Initially, that's going to mean working more than the 2-3 days I want to be working in my rich life, in order to make the connections and create the awareness that will bring those kinds of contracts in. That's okay, as long as I recognise that those 4-6 commitments are enough.  

To maintain SMOULDER principles even while I can't necessarily fully live my rich life, I need to refine my focus, and target my approach - less is more. Who do I really want to work with? Where are my skills the strongest match? What single new skill would it be both most relevant, and most aligned to my personal values and my rich life, for me to learn?

I want to have a chauffeur. I definitely am not in a position to afford that, but I can be open to considering whether a taxi might be the best way to get where I need or want to be, rather than my options being walking, or travelling by bus or train.

I can also focus on building genuine local friendships with people who have both a car, and the availability to offer lifts in the evenings, or at weekends. I don't mind covering fuel and parking, and friendships are a valuable asset in and of themselves.  I'm an introvert, and also have social anxiety (the two don't automatically go together, and social anxiety is something that should be worked on, and which I am working on in my case), so building friendships is very challenging for me - especially as I also have a bad habit of taking instant and intense dislikes to people (of a wide range of types), often for no actual reason - I suspect that's my brain trying to validate and justify my social anxiety, so is something else to work on not doing.

I want to have space around me. Right now, in terms of my housing, that's not possible - I own my house outright (which only occurred because my father died, and left me a share of his life insurance - I'd honestly rather he was still here), and, although it's literally identified on property sites as "the smallest of the range of property types" on my street, and the street is not the best for space or quiet, I am not going to be able to afford to move. Selling the house wouldn't help - I wouldn't be able to qualify for rent, I'm not a priority for council housing, so I'd end up both in a single room in a shared house - ie, with even less space - and having to rehome my pets, and sell most of my books to make that work, both of which would detract from my rich life.

However, I can spend time in outdoor space throughout the week - we have both a park and a beach in a relatively short walk from my house - and in the "space" of hotels once every other month or so.

I already spend my free time the way I would in my rich life, so that's not something I need to address, other than continuing the work I've already started on accepting that full rest is essential to building the work I want to be doing to a level where I do not have anxiety about it going away. If I don't engage in both active rest and full, genuine rest, I can neither think creatively and proactively, nor summon the required energy to translate thoughts to positive actions. That's not going to get me a rich life, so I need to become okay with "doing nothing" as part of rest.

I cannot afford a bungalow right now, and, while I have had chickens here in the past, who were healthy, happy, and laying regularly, the last of them passed away shortly before I got my youngest dog - who absolutely hates birds, meaning having chickens in his life time is a no-go - the chickens would not survive, the dog would be stressed, it wouldn't be the right thing to do.  However, the element of my rich life I can bring in now is to create hardscaped impact - maybe not as fully and intricately as I'd like, but I can make a start.  My back yard literally is a yard - a 12ft x 10ft stretch of concrete. Keeping the chickens healthy and happy required a lot of work, with hay, straw, forage, and grasses brought out every day to them, a lot of mulch and straw for underfoot, which meant a lot of regular cleaning.  Keeping plants alive is also a significant challenge - but I can look for quality artificial plants. I could entirely hardscape a small area of interest (because I also have to accept that the dogs will charge through the yard at full pelt, and that we need to have space for a clothes line to dry laundry.)

Simple is focusing down on your rich life, and identifying the echoes and elements you can live now, whatever your financial circumstances.

Mindset is the ability to remain focused on the ways you can both live elements of your rich life now, and build towards the rich life you want - in my case, for example, the discipline to commit more time than I'd want to be working in my rich life to finding the level and types of consultancy work and freelance contracts in the immediate future that will make my rich life future possible.

If you're interested in one-to-one coaching and mentoring for SMOULDER, please reach out - email theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com with the subject line SMOULDER.

One-to-one coaching and mentorship costs £50 for six, one-hour sessions, or just £20 for a one-off session.  I'm also looking to set up group sessions, which would be £10 per person on a monthly pay as you go basis, so if you'd like to join the waiting list for those, again, just drop me an email, theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com   

Next week, we'll be looking at ONGOING USEFULNESS - so, be sure to check in, and consider emailing your own situation across - it might get covered on the blog, and you'll always receive a full, free, tailored response for how you can SMOULDER (so for being brave enough to send an email, you're essentially getting a free one-to-one coaching session...what's not to like about that?)

Why You Might Want to Fire FIRE

 

Image shows wood burning intensly in a backgarden firepit

FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early.

For a long time, FIRE was seen as a "finance bro" thing. Part, initially, of masculine ambition, and, more recently, of toxic masculinity.   However, within the past month, Chelsea Fagan of The Financial Diet has put out a blog talking about her path to FIRE, which will almost certainly result in something that's been damned as "toxic masculinity" being claimed by women as "necessary feminine preparedness", or something of that ilk.

Much of my mid-late twenties, and almost all of my thirties, was lost first to a frantic "how the heck can I get into a job that will pay me enough to achieve FIRE?", and then to resentment, frustration, anger, and despair that I was never going to make it.

I turned 30 when the UK yanked up the last drawbridge for the majority of its citizens who didn't already have a path to financial success to acquire it, with Brexit making it harder to access opportunities in Europe from the UK, mutual benefit schemes disappearing, and EU businesses, which tend to be better at being productive than the UK, whilst simultaneously being better at giving their employees a decent life than America.  At the same time, America saw the first round of Donald Trump, in his "warming up to wreck the United States as a concept" phase.  That felt like 90% of doors to FIRE slamming before I'd even been able to get within sight of the corridors those doors were located on.  I angrily raged at the uselessness of the UK, the gatekeeping and "we don't care what you are capable, no one here went to school with you" attitudes, the way the entire country basically acts like the worst kind of village when it comes to enabling people to succeed, the bullshit of an education system that, every five to ten years, completely tears everything up, meaning that, just because of when you happened to be born, and thus when you were compelled to go to school, you can face a reality where you're just as capable and competent as you've ever been, but you no longer have a widely-accepted way to prove that, because, wow, look, we don't give a shit about those qualifications any more, your generation benefitted from grade-inflation, actually, education itself is a pointless waste of time, and who the hell do you think you are talking about this academic shit? You're a waste of space, because academic people can't fucking do anything in the real world! You're gonna end up dying homeless in the streets, because that's what academic snobs like you fucking deserve!  And if you're already in the workplace when those attitude changes happen, you won't even know about it until you try to level up.

I turned 34 two months and change after the first lockdown. As a shielding household, my 35th birthday was also a lockdown birthday.

I came out of lockdown fixated on building a career - I was aware that the "early" part of FIRE, for me, would no longer be between 45-50, but maybe I could get there by 55?

Yeah...if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, as the saying goes.  35-38 basically got destroyed by finding out I was going blind. (I have 4 separate, formally diagnosed sight loss conditions. All of them degenerative. None of them able to be addressed by the NHS. The sight I currently have left is 40% of the centre field of my left visual field. Nothing else. And I'll likely use that in the next 10-15yrs.)

If I'm honest, I don't remember much of the past decade. Genuinely. I remember the big, international things. I remember sitting in that hospital room, hearing that I was going blind, and there was basically nothing they could do about any of the reasons I was going blind.

It's only been in the past year, eighteen months that I've really come back to myself.  

I couldn't tell you where I'd been in that time, but I brought back a changed mindset.

At first, it was just a quiet acceptance that, not only would FIRE probably never happen for me, retirement was very unlikely. I wouldn't be able to work long enough to meet the qualifying threshold for the State pension, alongside my history of jobs being ended by schizophrenia, public transport logistics, and company take overs that saw mine and others' jobs no longer exist.  I couldn't see a future where I'd earn enough to contribute sufficiently for a private pension to be a reliable source of income. Not being able to drive, and with the UK government increasingly insisting that the only ID they'd ever accept was a driving licence (which I'm not legally allowed to hold) or a passport 

(which I genuinely can't find anyone I can feel confident I won't lose the best part of £100 when the application gets rejected to countersign for me - I did a low stakes "trial run" with someone who would be eligible to countersign a passport application doing so for a CitizenCard - I lost £17 because "your referee was unable to be contacted on their workplace landline number" - yeah, that's because they work in social fucking services; they're probably never anywhere near a landline phone, especially when you fuckwits are just like "yeah, we won't give a time that we'll call, because you're probably some lying scumbag immigrant who doesn't deserve recognised ID for this wonderful nation!"  I can't afford to lose almost £100 on a passport application. So I don't have a passport, either), as the only ID they'll "accept as evidence of British citizenship and Right to Work", getting any job was becoming an increasingly tenuous proposition.

(Seriously...I don't believe any of the shit the tabloid and socials scumbags post about "immigrants" - because I know how fucking ridiculous the UK government is about preventing people from, essentially, giving up the majority of their short time on earth so they can afford to pay taxes.)

In the past couple of months, literally, I've come to realise I'm done with FIRE. I no longer resent the fact that it won't happen. I'm not angry or depressed about the barriers that are going to keep me from FIRE - and I actually no longer have any interest in FIRE as a concept.  

I'm firing FIRE.

FIRE forces a focus on "do it shit, just do it fast."   I prefer doing it with excellence, and I'm increasingly comfortable with that excellence being the work of a lifetime.  I have never turned in work that was "85% done, but shipped" - I finish at 100%, usually ahead of deadline, rarely even slightly over budget. To me, that should be deserving of a place at any table. 

FIRE reduces life beyond a point that holds meaning to me.  I already live very simply, not "because it's what I gotta do to have the life I want", but because this is the life I want, for the most part. I've never had expensive tastes - and I don't say that as some kind of moral superiority thing; that would require that I had once had expensive tastes, but "taught myself better" - those tastes just never showed up for me.   

I find a lot to interest me in affordable UK holidays - the internet allows me to learn more about countries and cultures further away; I don't need to travel.
I'm not particularly interested in food and drink, and I'm not really a fan of restaurants.
While I would love to be living in a bungalow with a bit of a garden, or at least be able to afford to fix my roof, which insurance refuses to pay out for, and reliably be able to afford to hire tradespeople to fix smaller irks around the house properly, rather than me sticking the DIY equivalent of a cheap sticking plaster over it, wrapping it in duct tape, and hoping for the best, I'm mostly at peace with the fact that these things won't happen until tradespeople can cope with the idea that they absolutely know how to price 80% of jobs off the top of their heads, so could just put that up on a basic website/blog/Facebook page, so those of us whose insurers find a way to nope out can figure out how long we're going to need to save for, I'm okay where I am.  My fixes work, they're just short-term, and they do not look pretty.  We're walking distance to the town centre, a train station that connects to the main line, and buses to pretty much anywhere you might want to go within 10-20miles.  

There's five corner shops within a maximum five minute walk in any direction, and a good variety of food delivery options. 

The hospital is a 20minute bus ride away. 

The vets is just 10mins down the road. 

It's 20minutes walk one way to a sprawling, restful park, which goes down to a promenade along the part of the coastline which has been lost to coastal erosion, so there's no beach any more, and 20minutes walk the other way to a sand-and-pebble beach.  

There's a cool pet shop whose birds and reptiles I visit regularly just four streets away.

I don't care about designer clothing or flash jewellery.  

Probably the only things I actually spend money on are my pets - which I don't have any interest in buying more of for the next few years - and my Lowestoft porcelain collection, which I'm not exactly obsessive about.

I spend reasonably on food - I don't consider £250 a month for two people to be "expensive", by any means, and that gets me the type of food my body works best on (high protein), accommodates my wife's needs (high carb), and allows us to enjoy a range of food, with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.

I don't want to reduce my lifestyle further for a future I may not have. My Dad died at 62. My grandmother died at 63. I have a second cousin who died by suicide in her late 30s, and another second cousin who died at 59.   And that's the problem with FIRE; it tells you that if you "live hard" for 25-30 years, you'll be able to have everything you want for the rest of your life, without any guarantee that there will be a "rest of your life" past those 25-30 years; I've had two friends die before they turned 20, both in accidents. I've had two other friends die in their mid-twenties, in active combat.  The future is never promised.

You've seen one half of my genetics - relatively early death.
The other half has people making it to 90+, in one case almost 107.

I don't know if I'm planning for another 20yrs, or another 40-50yrs.  That logistical anomaly makes FIRE literally impossible, because of the wide variable of just how many years you need to ensure you have a cushy life for.

So, what comes after FIRE?

SMOULDER.
Simple Mindset, Ongoing Usefulness, Life Direction: Employed Restfulness.

Simple Mindset: What's the "rich life" you can live now?
For example, in my case, since I'll never be able to drive, my rich life would be having a chauffeur. The element of that rich life I can live now is being okay with spending money on a taxi if it will reduce my stress or anxiety.  While I'm happy to walk during the daytime (I'm completely night blind, so night strolls aren't accessible or safe for me), or hop on a bus (I'll travel 2hrs+ by bus if I need to), I know I don't cope well with quick transitions, rushing, or unfamiliar places - so, sometimes, taking a taxi resolves those issues.  And, since we only have independent cab firms operating in our area, it helps someone else make their living, too.

Ongoing Usefulness: What work can you reasonably see yourself able to do until the very end of your natural life, or the point of severe mental impairment?
For me, that's writing and consultancy.  I have a natural ability to touch type, and I'm learning to be okay with speech-to-text (which, in turn, is learning to be okay with understanding my vocal quality!), I'm comfortable using text-to-speech for editing (I hear errors easier than I can see them, these days), and there will always be someone who, whether for kinship or pay, I can ask to proofread things for me, so even when I lose my sight entirely, if that does happen, I can still produce written work.   Consultancy on a freelance basis allows me to structure the work in a way that works for me; for me, that's "facilitative consultancy", or "supporting people to discover the answers for themselves."

Life Direction: Employed Restfulness

Essentially, true work/life balance. Where relaxation is a genuine rest from work, and work is a genuine rest from relaxation.  It's working at a pace and in a way that means you're neither bored nor burned out.  (This is something I'm still working on - I need to get better at appreciating that relaxation is work, and is essential in order to work effectively.)


If you want someone to coach you into a SMOULDER that works for you, reach out - theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com 

Masculinity Mondays: 20

 

I woke up earlier this morning, around 4am, in a full on panic attack. Not "frightened by a bad dream" (I hadn't been dreaming, or at least I didn't have any memory of dreaming).  Not "spooked awake by a noise" (I have previously slept through the tent I was in being ripped up by a storm, and being carried to a friend's caravan... I don't wake to sudden noises...meaning anyone who breaks in is going to have to deal with my suddenly-woken-wife... which will make them regret every one of their life choices).

I had been deeply asleep, and then I wasn't. I was awake, and physically shaking, feeling nauseous, heart racing, on the verge of tears.

The whole experience lasted almost an hour, and I still, three hours after I was finally calm enough to go back to sleep, couldn't tell you what it was about.

And I think that's the key to why social media believes "men don't have emotions!" or, when people are trying to pretend they're not femme-centric arseholes, that "men have much less complex emotions than women, because testosterone." (Which is a huge motivating factor behind cis women demanding testosterone injections as part of menopause treatment...and getting them, at a time when governments around the world are doing everything possible to prevent trans men accessing testosterone, because "it's completely unproven for female biology! It's dangerous! YOU CAN'T CHANGE YOUR BIOLOGICAL REALITY!!!" - women have swallowed whole the idea that "testosterone stops the overwhelm of female emotions", and, because menopause, as a biological upheaval, is very emotional, they want to feel calm and in control again - because who doesn't?)

The reality is that men have the same range of emotions as women - we just don't fixate on things we can't immediately explain.  Women are very comfortable with posting videos to TikTok and Instagram micro-analysing the vaguest of experiences and feelings, and assigning them unprovable meaning.  If a woman doesn't know why she had a particular experience? That's often a reason to take to social media, or gather a friendship group - to bring it to the group, to find out if other people have had similar experience, and use consensus-seeking to ascribe meaning.  

Men, in contrast, will talk about something we understand (which, unfortunately, means we talk confidently, and, especially in the hellscape of social media, get accused of arrogance, of "believing you know everything about everything, just because you're a man!" of "invalidating the experiences and interpretations of non-men"... no...I just happen to understand this thing. I'm open to you bringing a different understanding - as long as you're able to do that without claiming that, because your understanding or interpretation is different, mine is wrong.)

Rather than the current fixation of "men need to talk about their feelings more", I feel the truth is "women need to talk about things less" - there's already far more content than anyone could ever pay attention to. The majority of online traffic is now bots. The more videos you post, the more likely some overpaid techbro will create an AI alter with your image and voice, without your consent.  The more people know about your inner world, the more comprehensively they can poison every well you might ever want to go to.

You can just say "had a weird experience. Not sure what that was about. Isn't being human a trip?" and move on. You can - and probably should - do your personal processing, around feelings, identity, beliefs - in private.  If you're whining about AI, but you're feeding the machine by refusing to let go of the belief that the only possible way you, personally, can make literally the money I need to pay my bills! is to constantly post videos of every experience or thought you ever have, because "the attention economy, tho! No ethical existence under capitalism!" - you need to prepare for the future you claim to want.

I want a future where people talk about ideas.  A future where people do discuss feelings and experiences, but only when those have the depth of at least the possibility of interpretation.

I want a future where people can cope with their own company. Where they can handle being bored. Where they do not need to shop every second of their lives. Where they are able to say "You know, I have enough clothes/books/knickknack tat."  Where they can conceive of occupying themselves for the whole of their lives without "well, I'll have kids, so I won't have to worry about me for literally years!"

That's why I'm not even interested in doing videos as a "hobby", much less a focused income pursuit - constant talking, AI having more inputs, isn't part of the future I want, so it's not part of the present I create.

Inhabiting a Magician archetype is about wonder - but wonder about things that have enough shape to them to be explored.  Rather than fixate on "why did I wake up in a panic attack at 4am?", I'd rather explore the cognitive dissonance of femme-supremacy that smugly yawps about "women and women's skills are going to be what gets you through the apocalypse, not your bullshit alpha male survivalism, because the people who'll survive the apocalypse will be the people who know how to sew and knit, because there won't just be clothes!" - okay, so, there won't be clothes, but there absolutely will be fabric.  There will be ready-prepared yarn, cotton, etc...  Honestly, if I survive the apocalypse long enough for the clothes I can carry in a lightly packed rucksack to disintegrate, and beyond the point where there are abandoned warehouses to loot? Being naked is probably not going to be a concern I, or others around me, have any more.  Yes, that will trigger my dysphoria, but my brain will be fully occupied with actual, real challenges, which means if it registers the dysphoria at all, it will be in the same way I registered this morning's panic attack - "Huh. Dunno what that was about. Anyway, moving on."

Absolutely, knowing how to replace a button, or make small repairs, is a very good skill. But believing that there won't be clothes, but there will be ready-to-use fabric, yarn, and cotton, is absolutely toxic femininity, just as believing that you'll totally be able to bring down a wildebeest on your own, with just a hand-crafted spear, is toxic masculinity.

I can fish. I can safely forage. I can gut and skin rabbits and deer. I know how to kill and pluck birds like chickens and pheasants, which are relatively easy to catch.  I can cook food which was alive half an hour ago safely.  

I can also re-stitch a hem, sew on a button, and mend small tears in clothes.

The future is neither feminine nor masculine; the future is flexibly competent. The future belongs to those who don't gender core life skills.

Masculinity Mondays: 19

 

Today's post is very late - actually just into Tuesday morning. The past three days have been a lot busier than usual, and not entirely in a positive way.   I still feel somewhat unsettled.

Recently, I have come to have some feelings about the rise of trans men with a strong internet presence who have very recently started presenting themselves in feminine clothing, and talking much more frequently than previously about "being non-binary."

I use the quotation marks not because I dispute the existence of non-binary as a valid concept; I have several friends, whom I met and know in the physical world, who are non-binary. Their energy verifies their assertion of their identity. They are non-binary, whatever that truly means - I respect the concept without fully understanding it, the same way as I respect the concept of quantum physics without fully understanding it.   In the case of people I have only encountered online, and whom I initially encountered as people stating they were binary trans men, I use the quotation marks because I feel that "non-binary" isn't their gender - it is an obligation.   They are told that masculinity is unacceptable. If they want to gain traction, they have to be other than "male", because male is irrelevant and unacceptable in the online world.

I only see this obligation with online AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth) people who claim a non-binary identity, both trans men, and those who present in a very cis-normative way, but claim they are either non-binary, or, increasingly, "trans masc", those handy contemporary versions of "I'm not like the other girls!" that are accepted while the latter is derided as "un-femininst."

Being supportive of genuine feminism - the idea that women are equal to men because they are human beings, as men are human beings, however they present, whatever they pursue as occupation, however they behave, whatever they want for themselves - and that women, like men, are free to make whatever choices they feel best for themselves; having children or not, pursuing a career or prioritising a family, being concerned with fashion and appearance, or being focused on education and professional success - is, online, for those who are not minded to agree with the likes of JK Rowling and Andrew Tate, at least, not enough; you can't just be genuinely, sustainably feminist; you must be feminine. Especially if you're claiming to have transitioned to a male role - which, otherwise, is unconscionable, because "masculinity is inherently toxic!"

But trans men defaulting to the negation of their male gender, and agreeing with the internet, and with Queer Leftism that they are "non-binary" - and therefore "acceptable as masculine-presenting people" - are harming men, and thus becoming the enemy within; if everyone agrees that, because they're a good man, a man who supports women, they're "non-binary", cis men are actively prevented from being good men.  Binary trans men are actively prevented from being allowed to inhabit their gender naturally and fully, without harassment from others.  The insistence that a masculine male identity cannot be a positive identity means that those who are masculine men will default to a position that they must dismiss women, must see women as lesser - less competent, less deserving - because to do otherwise means they can't be masculine men.

The non-binary people I know personally, including some people I only know online, are non-binary. Their energy confirms their identity. Even when they are presenting in clothing which society does nt consider the clothing of people with their assigned sex, they look right.  They are wearing their clothes; their clothes are another layer of their personality, added depth and texture.

The people I'm speaking of here, the people who "suddenly announce" a non-binary identity, particularly trans men who suddenly start presenting in female clothing, are being worn by their clothes; the clothing drowns out the personality. The clothing becomes the focus, in a way that anyone who is genuinely involved in fashion will tell you is always wrong.  Clothing should be informed by a person's inherent personality, not simply by what someone feels they should be wearing - it's why people who follow designer trends often look awkward in the trends - the clothes are wearing them, because their personality isn't informing their choice.

As someone who was very masculine even before I realised I was trans - before I even knew trans was something one could be - and who is a masculine, binary trans man, I feel angry.  Because the Left are supposed to judge on actions; their whole claim is that they aren't prejudiced - prejudice meaning to "pre-judge", based solely on appearance; yet they consistently judge men on appearance.  If you don't present a feminised masculinity, if you don't assert a "non-binary" identity as a man, then you're toxic, evil, the reason everything is as bad as it is.  They'll criticise you, claiming that, because people like Tate, Trump, Musk, et al are binary cis men, anyone who is, or identifies with, binary cis maleness is literally exactly like those men.  You can't not be like them if you claim a masculine, binary maleness - the future is feminine, after all!  And you want to be part of the future, don't you?

I'm going to be part of the future, for as long as my life continues.
In the real world, the offline world, men are as nuanced and complex as women. Most of them are genuinely decent - often more so than many women, because those men will accept that they don't understand women, while women will often derisively announce that they "know exactly what men are about!", whilst getting men completely wrong.
Men are going to be part of the future - and part of the reason that online spaces have rapidly become unsafe and unproductive is because women refuse to accept that, and are behaving in the toxic ways they place on masculinity to actively prevent men from living their gender, the gender they genuinely and sincerely feel themselves to be.

If, as the loud, Queer Leftist brigade claim, "gender is a construct!" - why does someone immediately become "non-binary" because they're a man who wears makeup, or a woman who exclusively takes an aggressively dominant role sexually?  Why are those things a negation of a binary gender, if gender doesn't really exist?  Why does an AMAB (Assigned Male At Birth) person stop being accepted as non-binary if they never wear feminine clothing, or don't shave their facial hair?

Non-binary does not, and should not, mean "beyond criticism."  It isn't "an acceptable man!" or "not like the other girls!"  From the people I've met who are non-binary, non-binary is a genuine liminality, a space of genuine body neutrality - because the body is mostly irrelevant, and therefore accepted by default, as irrelevant things are.  We change the interiors of our houses, sometimes we add or remove parts of the structure of those houses, but we don't pay attention to the fact that those houses are structures - the structure is essentially irrelevant, and therefore we inhabit housing around the fact that it is a structure of some kind.  That's how gender should be - something we inhabit our lives around, something we decorate how we like, without changing the fact that we inhabit a gender, just as we decorate our houses without changing the fact that we live in a structure.  

Magic isn't always about transformation. Sometimes, the greatest magic is the power of existing as you truly are.

I am a masculine man.
If it were possible to simply take a pill to become the gender you are? I wouldn't hesitate to take a pill to fully become a cis man.

I was raised by a masculine cis man who taught me that women are human, and, whether they are focused on being housewives and mothers, or on pursuing high-level careers, or seek to combine both, they are deserving of respect and support.  Who did housework, who cooked, who handled DIY, who fixed vehicles.

I have friends who are masculine cis men who are loving husbands and active parents, who see women as people and as equals, whether they are attracted to them or not.

I have worked with gentle, intelligent cis men.

And yes - I know many people whose non-binaryness I have no doubts whatsoever about, who are non-binary, in the same way I am a man. Experiences, in both cases, which fit like old, softened leather, moulded to personalities, rather than being the personality.

Masculinity Mondays: 18

 

As part of my progression into the Magician archetype, I have come to understand the need to incorporate my class history into my journey, because my experience of class is, at its heart, the experience of magic.

I am working class - but rural working class.  That has meant, as the UK, and the world, urbanises, that I have become classless - not in the way that allows social mobility, but in the way that precludes any real progress at all.  I have to make this transition from Warrior to Magician successfully, because disability means I can no longer effectively fight, and my experience of classlessness means I have no access to community support, and the social capital that lends.

Working class, as defined by urbanised experience, is, as a recent exchange on Instagram revealed, and as my own current situation in a fundamentally working class street in a working class town confirms, defined by "drama",  "people being loud in public",  "chaos",   "dysfunction"  and "avoidable errors of judgement."

Rural working classness, however, is the very opposite of that.  It is a quiet carefulness - carefulness with people as well as things.  There is drama, but it's the quiet drama of gossip, not the loud drama of declarations and accusations.   In the rural working class, we don't scream in peoples' faces, damage their property, or physically assault them - we quietly observe that they "don't always behave how you'd think people should in their situation."   We hold meetings they're not invited to, greet their applications to join committees with polite derision.  I know all this because it happened to me and my family - because we hadn't always lived in the village, or even the county. Because my mother had "notions" - her own father's condemnation of her,  and the perfect description of a woman who, though firmly working class, endeavoured to present herself and her family as otherwise.  I still feel resentment that the village I had to leave when I would have preferred to stay treated a peer who was a criminal and drug addict better than I was treated, because his family were a proper village family; they were established, they had history that my family would never have.  He was given a council bungalow; I was told it was "improper" for me to even enquire about a one-bedroom house with a small garden, because "gardens are for families."  I didn't even have the words to describe being trans fully at that point, I certainly didn't know it would be possible for me to physically transition - but everyone in that village, everyone around me, recognised I was not going to be someone who had a family - because the working class, especially the rural working class, consider "family" to exclusively mean "children." (Another reason for my family to be politely excluded - I am an only child. There were only two other only children in my village when I was growing up, and their families were equally viewed as "not really part of things here."  In the urban working class, this fixation on children, plural, has resulted in an attitude that it doesn't matter how many children you can afford to support - you have as many as you can, because your children buy your place in community...being someone who has never wanted children, and will certainly never have them, I've heard both the slamming and the locking of enough gates against me because my family is my wife, and the close friends I have particular regard for, and a sense of duty towards.)

I stand adrift from British class - I come from generations of people who lived in working poverty, with occasional dips into absolute poverty.  My education has been something I have had to pursue informally, ad-hoc, and entirely without support.  I was raised to believe that you "have to work hard to get what you want" - but without any kind of map as to how that effort should be directed, which has resulted in me wasting over two decades working to the point of exhaustion at the wrong things, never getting ahead, but rather running full-tilt into dead end after dead end.   The men in my family worked in factories - but factory hours no longer fit with bus routes.  I can't see well enough to work at the speed a modern factory line demands.  I'm completely night blind, and factory work means shift work. And the factories are closing rapidly in any case.  My competence at administration and organisation has previously got me into middle class businesses - but I've never been allowed to progress beyond the entry-level, minimum wage levels in those businesses.  Increasingly, the shift to "female focus" - meaning indirect communication, extensive consensus-seeking (ie, endless meetings), rather than decisive, action-focused leadership, and the rise of AI and automation, means those roles are declining, and the attitude is that my "energy" is not appropriate any more.

Working class energy is, at its heart, masculine energy, even when it's held by very feminine women. It's the energy of getting things done, rather than talking about getting them done.  It's the energy of "use the resources you can see", rather than identify the exactly right and proper components.  It's the energy of "me first" rather than "there is no 'I' in 'team'".  It's the energy of survival.   And the Western world is being deafened by people who point to dysfunctional men who should be in prison, away from decent society, and howl that "masculine energy is toxic! We can't allow it in our businesses!"  Middle class people can and do have very masculine attitudes, but they also have the means to be chameleons - to spend time learning to disguise and dissemble. To immerse themselves in other identities. To buy the right clothes, the right cars, the right club memberships. Houses in the right areas. The right holidays. The right hobbies.  They can feign the acceptable energy, whilst holding another energy in reserve, ready to switch back seamlessly as and when society shifts.

Working class people survive because of our masculine energy and focus. Because we need to survive, we can only afford space for that one energy, regardless of our gender and gender expression.  We have to stand ready to be violent, because we are not able to afford to simply move away from violence in the way middle class people can.

We become the indecent people who do violence at the command of decent people whose designs and desires demand violence, but who refuse to dirty their hands.  And no army is ever fully trusted by those who employ them.

"Working class" is being increasingly discussed - but, like "trans", the reality of what it means to be working class, rather than merely "identify as" working class, is being ignored, in favour of including everyone who "feels that the term resonates for them."