@buridansridge I stopped reading Atlas Shrugged halfway thru cause it’s straight up 1200 pages. Then I came across a motif later that reminded me I owe it to Ayn Rand to finish it
Every adaptation of a book into a movie is but a period piece and that is all it can ever be, but the receptive nostalgia of youth or the cultural zeitgeist it captures or other emotional coloring make us think otherwise.
Having no option but to be that guy is something you must force into yourself, even if dire circumstances hit, it's always one of the highest communications of strength, wisdom and self control in my estimation. If you believe in the formality of your own success then surely when the chips are down is when you relish because your mind is like "Even if this did happen and it did fuck me over, I'm still me so im obviously going to triumph because I'm just that guy" and then you just crack on charging forwards with that G energy, absolutely imperative to keep your momentum and stay light no matter the war at your hands, being off your best form ain't gunna help you get out the situation either so lock the fuck in energetically and make moves, time waits for no man🥂
The problem with westerners is they don't ask WHY a man behaved in an undesirable way, they just immediately condemn him, and treat the event as if it occurred in a vacuum with zero investigation as to the root cause or chain sequence that built up to and led to his behaviour. There is zero background investigation if such an investigation would paint him in a better light. Nope. He just randomly decided one day to be an absolute asshole for no reason.
I am sure there are a minority of men who do actually do spontaneous vile shit, yes, but I am also sure a lot of men have good reasons for behaving in ways you deemed thoughtless or hurtful, and you never got to the bottom of it to try and empathise with the guy because your immediate reaction was to punish him rather than try to understand him - because understanding him, likely, would mean implicating yourself - and we could not possibly do that now, could we?
For women who behave poorly, we do the opposite. We look for any and every reason that it could possibly not be her fault. How did he make her feel? Did he neglect her? Had he considered her beforehand? Did he let her know in advance? Did he know she doesn't like that and still do it anyway?
But you never ask those questions in reverse. When a man misbehaves, you don't try to mitigate or identify his pain or anything, you just call the guy a piece of shit and be done with it.
I am not trying to stoke the flames of gender division, because lord knows it is polarised enough. But I do disdain injustice.
So here it is:
You either decide you're never going to investigate either side, and treat all bad behaviour as if it occurs isolated in a vacuum and never try to "make excuses" for anyone (aka find out why the fuck they are behaving like that - basic investigatory work), or you decide before jumping to conclusions you will try to understand why a person behaved in an undesirable way, rather than just reflexively condemn anyone who behaves in ways you disapprove of.
I have died 1,000 deaths and by God if it is required, I shall die 1,000 more. There is no agony I cannot endure, no betrayal that can destroy, nor ugliness that can corrupt nor rob me of my light, and so with God as my witness, I swear to him I shall become the man I was always meant to be.
If I am cast out of the heavens, as I fall into the fiery pits of hell with memories of paradise indelibly engraved upon my soul, I shall forever gaze upward at my rightful home, and by tooth and claw with every ounce of strength in my being, I shall painstakingly drag myself inch by inch to return to my rightful place, and know what I once tasted - I will find my way home.
I will return to where I belong, and the way the journey back changes me will by its very training ensure my worthiness.
And so I will pursue it with all that I am, relentlessly, ruthlessly, tirelessly, for nothing but death himself can stop me, and when he comes for me if my task is incomplete and I am thus yet unready, I shall wrestle him until he yields - I will bend even death to the fulfilment of my purpose, for I know precisely who I am and what I must do.
I am incorruptible, impenetrable - immortal - and so I shall stay aligned with truth and beauty, because without them I am nothing, and to become nothing is irrevocable, for it is to die that one last time - to know the final death.
People who go down conspiracy rabbit holes love to hear how right they are. They surround themselves w/people who all affirm what they’re saying - again and again.
Evidence won’t help you. It’s an emotional, religious thing. It feels good to them. You have to let them go.
@SovereignIM Impeccable timing. Instincts spot on. Zero hesitation despite second thoughts on its centrifugal force my physics teacher said was fake.
Furthermore insulting, if I never bother to utilize the full arsenal of my resourcefulness to ask
I’ve never trusted men who have an aversion to and disgust for the crass and the inelegant. The same kind of man who can’t enjoy the obscene (dark humour), low culture (hip-hop), or the crass (swearing) is a treacherous man, because he has no stomach for the 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 - that we become ugly for a greater good, that we cannot be great without trips to hell, and that going on such trips is violently 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 enjoy such things, when really he is just a brat of the highest order. A snob.