In my previous essay, I talked about how modernity’s definition of the alpha male deters it from its evolutionary definition. And how modernity provides a new archetype called the Sigma male, which is a self-satisfactory escape to keep modern men sedated in their miserable lives.
In this one, let’s talk about the self-improvement rut and how it keeps men away from identifying their true problems and staring them in the face.
Also, this essay quotes Fight Club, and Tyler Durden is the man!
Self-Improvement is Masturbation
And speaking of masturbation, let’s start with No-Fap.
It started with a noble intention, like all movements do. Men were wasting their lives watching porn, and an entire industry was set up to encash that. But what has it become now? Another self-improvement pill you are fed with the promise that it will solve the miseries that arise from you not staring your problems in the face?
Go to YouTube right now. Look for any No-Fap timeline video. It will start with how the first week will be a tsunami of urges, but you will somehow fight through. By day 8, though, your self-esteem will grow. When you see a cute girl next, you cannot stop yourself from going up to her and chatting her up. By the end of 2 weeks, you will grow balls of steel. And by the one month mark, you will become irresistible to women. Almost as if they can smell the retention on you.
And that, right there, is your trap. They will tell you if you relapse even once, you will lose all of these benefits overnight.
And you do not want to lose those benefits, do you? You cannot afford to lose the attention from women that you haven’t yet gotten. The attention that self-improvement promised you.
The Problem
In Prakhar ke Pravachan’s interpretation of Fight Club, Prakhar talks about how change is inevitable. How the cost of negotiating with change is pain, meaning – if you want things to change in your favour, the cost is pain, a certain kind of pain you most likely already know.
If you do not choose your pain and follow it to its logical conclusion, things will start rotting to a point where it will be unbearably hurtful, and that pain will not even be of your choosing. And that’s when you will be the most susceptible to escapism.
My problem with self-improvement is that it presents escapism as the solution.
Meditate every day, and your life will change.
Read every day, and your life will change.
It often uses the words ‘your goals’ to make it sound personalized. It will ask you to trust the process and tell you wondrous things are waiting on the other side when there is no other side. And it will secretly hope that you lose track on the way, so it can shrug off all the accountability and tell you to try harder the next time.
And that is why, when Tyler Durden says self-improvement is masturbation, I listen.
Quit fapping, fight your urges, and your life will change.
Well, it isn’t fapping, and they aren’t urges.
They are needs – sex and love, as primitive needs as food. Evolutionarily, they have given men the drive to go out and fight the world and win the love of women in the process. Porn tried to kill that drive of yours, sure, but what better has self-improvement done?
Convince you that if you only ignored, suppressed or fought your needs hard enough if only you channelled that energy into –
getting the most amazing body possible,
getting enormous wealth and status,
and attitude stinking enough to ask what colour is your Bugatti,
you will become the ultimate alpha, and women will flock to you to love you?
Bulshit!
Do not get me wrong here – a fit body, wealth and status (and Bugatti) are all very important, but wanting the love of a woman is the wrong motivation to chase them. And maybe you will get some attention. Maybe some women will come after you, but think about it. They got attracted by the you built around your physique, money, or status. Is it fair to expect them to love you for your personality, your soul?
And that’s your problem, staring in your face – you don’t know how to!
And you know the answer. If you want the love of a woman, you have to start by talking to one. You have to understand them and learn the dance of seduction. And then follow that dance till it turns into love. It won’t be rosy – you will be rejected, bluffed, and heartbroken more times than one, but hey, at least you will have chosen that pain.
So the next time you are sipping your coffee in a cafe and see someone interesting, get up and go talk to them. Your feet will freeze, your mind will list every reason why you should not, and every fibre of your being will be discomforted. Do it anyway because that’s the pain you want to follow to its logical conclusion.
Not the alpha-escapism bullshit modernity is feeding you.
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