This is interesting. I started to think about guilt and shame. About apologies. To apologize to a friend, it is to show that you still believe in mutual errors. You've done something wrong, and you show guilt to your friend. Because you wish to believe in mutual faith in the future. To not apologize, for the same lack of deed, it is to show that you have no duty to fulfill to the friend.
Shame is the very close to the former thing. If you show that you've not done wrong, but that you are the error, then you show shame to your friend. Because you wish to be something else than what you are, in your mutual set of beliefs. To be shameless, it is to show that you're right, you are the person you should be, despite someone else's accusation.
Your Substack has become a fine complement to your website. With this post, you have given willing men a mirror and actionable direction should they desire correction, with the help of strong determination.
Thanks for reading. “The path” really did used to work materially, hard as that is for Zs to grasp. But I can see the value to others in having had to function off it out of necessity as the music stops. Schizoid perspective being a Gen X blessing.
The goal is just to put some thinking and observation down in a way that is easily adapted to individual circumstance. Laying things out in a take what you want way that doesn't need acknowledgment or engagement sidesteps my historically polarizing personality. And I have to experiment with platforms - people still aren’t intuitive. The feedback is appreciated.
The younger generations don't grasp at times just how equality, homogeneity, and non-physical socializing has crippled society and made all human interactions much, much more difficult. Gen X and Gen Y didn't get the full blast of that, but MIL and Z certainly did.
Tools as the ones you presented can only help, even though it might be a small cadre who can pick it up and run with it at first.
Can not claim to be of the “younger generation” but it was not till middle age that I began to see the “crippling effect” of growing up in an increasingly socialist society. A fish doesn’t know what water is. Living abroad undoubtedly helped shift my perspective.
Lots to ponder, as usual, once I (think I) have understood, on 2nd or 3rd reading of course (1st, I just look at the pretty pictures and squirrel them away).
"Many dislike trash culture but don’t know how to chart a course to the good, beautiful, and true. The internet gives access to people and patterns otherwise totally unavailable, including direct engagement. For many, it’s their first exposure to actual high status characters. Frustrated Bravos and Deltas can find wagons to hitch to. Far larger quality communities can build organically than possible in real life. And real life communities can network and augment. All magical unless the friction between high and low status patterns → envy and animus."
Neatly graphs the triumphs and drama of Owen Benjamin's Beartaria community.
I have had very little interaction with high status people, either the rich or the genuine Alphas. Not seeking opportunities to interact, or actively avoiding them, was a serious error, unrecognized until recently. I therefore value the opportunity to interact thru the Internet. The jury's still out on whether this can lead to actual behavioural change; meantime, much food for self-reflection.
A lot of people misread confident, assertive behavior as mean because of media preconditioning. It’s not. It’s to challenge and bring each other up. I remember telling my best friend about a disastrous life turn. He thought for a moment & said “that’s terrible. What did you do?” Just enough sympathy to care, but the real interest is how I beat it. Share the triumph, not wallow in defeat. It takes time to get used to. And it distances you from a lot of others.
I can’t say if you need behavioral change IRL. On the internet you seem fine. Eccentric, but that’s most of SG. You’re consistent & that reads as basically honest, with the natural subtle changes that come with contextual familiarity. No one worth your time minds that.
Unexpected. Thanks. Feel a want rather than a need, especially as online exposure to high achievers shows me the limits of my own expectations, and open me to larger, more interesting, possibilities.
I don’t know it that well so grain of salt, but I think the Beartaria project and drama is pretty much that. High status doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes. It’s whether you can assess mistakes through a big picture context with a lot of moving parts. Or obsess over your irrational desires and never reconsider, grow, or evolve. Change is natural. It’s if it’s rational and organic.
This is interesting. I started to think about guilt and shame. About apologies. To apologize to a friend, it is to show that you still believe in mutual errors. You've done something wrong, and you show guilt to your friend. Because you wish to believe in mutual faith in the future. To not apologize, for the same lack of deed, it is to show that you have no duty to fulfill to the friend.
Shame is the very close to the former thing. If you show that you've not done wrong, but that you are the error, then you show shame to your friend. Because you wish to be something else than what you are, in your mutual set of beliefs. To be shameless, it is to show that you're right, you are the person you should be, despite someone else's accusation.
Your Substack has become a fine complement to your website. With this post, you have given willing men a mirror and actionable direction should they desire correction, with the help of strong determination.
Thank you!
Thanks for reading. “The path” really did used to work materially, hard as that is for Zs to grasp. But I can see the value to others in having had to function off it out of necessity as the music stops. Schizoid perspective being a Gen X blessing.
The goal is just to put some thinking and observation down in a way that is easily adapted to individual circumstance. Laying things out in a take what you want way that doesn't need acknowledgment or engagement sidesteps my historically polarizing personality. And I have to experiment with platforms - people still aren’t intuitive. The feedback is appreciated.
The younger generations don't grasp at times just how equality, homogeneity, and non-physical socializing has crippled society and made all human interactions much, much more difficult. Gen X and Gen Y didn't get the full blast of that, but MIL and Z certainly did.
Tools as the ones you presented can only help, even though it might be a small cadre who can pick it up and run with it at first.
Can not claim to be of the “younger generation” but it was not till middle age that I began to see the “crippling effect” of growing up in an increasingly socialist society. A fish doesn’t know what water is. Living abroad undoubtedly helped shift my perspective.
So much GOLD here. Thank you.
"the proper alignment between high self-worth and high character"
Said alignment leads to the remarkable phenomenon known as "personal magnetism."
It really is just honesty all the way down. It seems literally insane how hard a lot of people will try to hamster around that.
"It really is just honesty all the way down." And I'd add, clarity - the ability (and desire) to see things as they are.
The jealousy portrait looking like a gray alien is one of those strange things.
Just have to accept and move along.
Lots to ponder, as usual, once I (think I) have understood, on 2nd or 3rd reading of course (1st, I just look at the pretty pictures and squirrel them away).
"Many dislike trash culture but don’t know how to chart a course to the good, beautiful, and true. The internet gives access to people and patterns otherwise totally unavailable, including direct engagement. For many, it’s their first exposure to actual high status characters. Frustrated Bravos and Deltas can find wagons to hitch to. Far larger quality communities can build organically than possible in real life. And real life communities can network and augment. All magical unless the friction between high and low status patterns → envy and animus."
Neatly graphs the triumphs and drama of Owen Benjamin's Beartaria community.
I have had very little interaction with high status people, either the rich or the genuine Alphas. Not seeking opportunities to interact, or actively avoiding them, was a serious error, unrecognized until recently. I therefore value the opportunity to interact thru the Internet. The jury's still out on whether this can lead to actual behavioural change; meantime, much food for self-reflection.
A lot of people misread confident, assertive behavior as mean because of media preconditioning. It’s not. It’s to challenge and bring each other up. I remember telling my best friend about a disastrous life turn. He thought for a moment & said “that’s terrible. What did you do?” Just enough sympathy to care, but the real interest is how I beat it. Share the triumph, not wallow in defeat. It takes time to get used to. And it distances you from a lot of others.
I can’t say if you need behavioral change IRL. On the internet you seem fine. Eccentric, but that’s most of SG. You’re consistent & that reads as basically honest, with the natural subtle changes that come with contextual familiarity. No one worth your time minds that.
Unexpected. Thanks. Feel a want rather than a need, especially as online exposure to high achievers shows me the limits of my own expectations, and open me to larger, more interesting, possibilities.
I don’t know it that well so grain of salt, but I think the Beartaria project and drama is pretty much that. High status doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes. It’s whether you can assess mistakes through a big picture context with a lot of moving parts. Or obsess over your irrational desires and never reconsider, grow, or evolve. Change is natural. It’s if it’s rational and organic.