Initiation: What Makes You A Man?
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- Опубліковано 17 січ 2022
- Why do men of all kinds say (or do) the most insane things for validation? Why do so many men abuse their power? Why are there so few decent male role models?
My guess? A lack of initiation. But what exactly is "initiation"? How does it work? This week, a deep dive into the what, how, why, and consequences of initiation for men.
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This was great. I get uncomfortable thinking about it. I'm back in my hometown trying to figure out my next step at 30. Life hasn't gone the way I wanted and I don't feel proud of myself.
Half a year has passed since your comment... How did your life change? Have you worked on anything?
I'm 35 years old and I've long wondered whats wrong with me. I lost my Dad at 6 years old and everything you're saying makes so much sense. I'm terrible at relationships because I don't know how to be a man and lead a woman. I operate from the shadow self more often than not. The best way I can describe it is that I feel like a little insecure boy trapped in a grown man's body. Thank you so much for sharing this. This was incredibly profound and cathartic 🙏
I had a great father, but still I can relate to your words... Leading another woman is tough and you will not learn it automatically by having a great dad... I think it needs practice, trial and error, constant work on yourself...
I just want to encourage you, not to settle with your current situation because you feel like you have to be that way because of your father... Keep going, practice leading yourself, then practice leading others, you got this 🔥
I’ve had 2 marriages and led completely in my first- my current marriage is the opposite and my wife is a control freak and everyday is a power struggle about every single thing. Some women are much more resistant to being led by their man when they’ve been independent and raising children alone before.
Speak more about the powerlessness, and how to move from anxiety about bringing your holistic self, into relaxed masculinty, integrity, and not being afraid of stepping ou tmore.
Whoa - @22:00 when you said we're unconsciously creating initiation rites for ourselves by manufacturing hardships, that hit home. This explains a lot of destructive behaviour of mine, thank you for this profound insight. - Lorne
This is important work, brother. I hope you continue this fight. Young men need these.
It's unfortunate this is not the dominat message in the "manosphere". It's become so polarized, young men are cajoled to take a victim mentality by these so-called mentors pointing out everything that's wrong with women instead of helping young men look inward to truly unlock their potential. I'm thankful for channels like yours that try to keep the balance.
About facing criticism from everyone, quote from an essay "The Panopticon Prism: All Facts Serve a Narrative":
> The trouble with lenses is that they compound almost as well as money. Bayesian Inference (translation: updating your worldview in either direction as each additional point of evidence is added) is pretty damn cool, and I’m all about building a coherent rational understanding of reality. But **each additional point of evidence is always interpreted and understood in the context of your pre-existing worldview - your lens. Very small deviations in foundational-level lenses - whether they come from Culture, Upbringing, Lived Experience, Family, Early Relationships, Schooling, Religion, or even Language itself - can influence how all subsequent data points are perceived.**
> The idea that the same fact/study/experience/observation/presentation/book/movie/song/essay can rationally be understood by reasonable people to provide Bayesian evidence in support of both their pre-existing worldview and ours is terrifying: always, we hope, the saner and more intelligent people in the audience can be convinced once we show them our Facts, capital-F. Always, **unfortunately, those Facts are Filtered through 10-80 years worth of prior Facts, each colored by a prior Lens.** It’d be easier to just show them the whole stack of Compound Lenses than any single Fact, but how to do that without making them watch your whole life in VR?
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> **If The Medium is the Message, what’s the message of the Social Medium? One answer: action, or more specifically, engagement.** In contrast to the passive or subliminal advertising world of Mad Men, the modern consumer is an active participant in their own productization. Our actions tell businesses exactly what to show us to win our ~~likes~~ ~~upvotes~~ ~~retweets~~ dollars, and most of my friends & people plugged into Silicon Valley prefer it this way.
> **Now my homepages at Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and UA-cam are dominated by the Narratives which have resonated most strongly across the largest number of shared Compound Lenses. Lowest Common Denominator Narratives, applied to the entire internet. There are no small gated communities because there are no gates strong enough to keep the Internet at bay, no privacy, even your group chat messages get shared and reblogged and viewed in the most inciting context, rewarding the share-er with the most precious social currency: attention.**
> **The Social Medium demands action, engagement, proactive consumption (it’s like production except someone else gets paid),** and then surfaces your action back to Skynet The Algorithm to see if it can induce even more engagement in others because that’s the metric that matters. **“The algorithm itself incites to deeds of engagement.”** I think Homer said that one.
> **Of course, Real Life for actual humans is a series of Iterated Games, which means all of us who participate in the Social Medium are aware that we might, at any moment, be put on blast by the entire fucking world, viewed only in the context of whichever Narrative put us on that Global Stage by “virtue” of giving us the greatest penetration through the largest number of Compound Lenses.**
> **This process - taking the personal and repeatedly making it global, which then forces the personal to conform to the global** - might be a metaphor for that stuff I mentioned earlier: “As Technology and Politics continue to Democratize Power in America-” **The upside is that each of us gets more power** (thanks for reading, follow me on Twitter!), the downside is that nowhere is safe because each of us is surrounded by more power than any individual has held since Truman (hyperbole). **The downside is the power’s ubiquity makes us feel more constrained, not less, and the only protection is to conform or to not act at all.**
> This is what Kanye West meant in that crazy interview when he said “we’re all living in a simulation”: **we’re all constantly calculating in our minds how our actions will be perceived, judged, and responded to by everyone around us, and we modify our actions to avoid pain.**
> **The Social Medium makes that Global: implicitly threatening to put everyone around us, all the time. Simulate that!**
> **That’s the Panopticon Prism. Inaction as a result of self-regulation based on simulated models of everyone else’s competing Narratives and the potential outcomes of falling under the focus of society’s Lowest Common Denominator Compound Lenses. 24/7, 52/76.**
> As redditor /u/DinoInNameOnly put it: **Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People. Of course it is - all the sane folks self-regulated.**
> Back in 2016, human meme Ken Bone earned a backlash for the contents of his Reddit history, which was ridiculous-if tepid politics and softcore preggo porn are the worst of your vices you deserve to be sainted-but raises the question, **could any of our chat logs take the heat? Doubtful. The circles of hell have been built deep over the past fifty years,** the list of sins writ in blurred legalese. I’m not worried about Black Mirror histrionics, but rather about **how this plays out in the micro, with millennials paralyzed by the pointlessness of pursuing any action that wilts under scrutiny, which is all of them, how dare you be happy when 10,000 children are sold into sexual slavery each year? “actually, i’m not happy. i have anxiety.” Well, whatever works.**
I feel I'm going through this right now... Your video was really helpful Connor, thank you!
Oh, I love this. Take a man to a point of powerlessness. So he can be initiated. Men can be humbled by it.
Glad to see your back. Great talk!
Thanks, appreciate it. Have some good stuff on the way! Anything you want covered?
This is an absolutely great video, and I fully agree with what's being presented here! We do lack strong guiding father figures that teach us about self-worth and how to face rejection, and how to make our way in the world. Initiation would've really helped me learn a lot of life's lessons a lot sooner and with a lot more guidance.
Great video, thanks!
This video is great. Thank you for this advice.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Is it possible to have a self or personal initiation without a tribe?..
Like a set of challenges you can give your self
Talk more about becoming a Totally Integrated Man!
I’ve been feeling this one a lot lately
A true martyrdom (not the self-serving, self chosen) one is the opposite of victimhood. It is the standing for something right, decent, and above oneself despite the punishment of society.
Heavy words bro
Connor what can the average older man that never experienced this initiation do to jumpstart- too late for boot camp