Escape And the Art of Self-Interest

through the years and the tears
under black cloud skies
seems the lower that I go
is where my true heart lies
and when I'm stuck in the thick of it
there's no need to roam
some think of me as fried but it's a choice all my own

I've been called a dinosaur relic
stuck in the twilight zone
but stickin' in the sub-basement
keeps me lit to the bone
like the bats hanging dormant
in their nocturnal fleet
I'm still around underground
gettin' my peace without sleep

"Sub-Basement" ---Pentagram


I admit I was rather depressed today. Not to the extremes that people in the throes of serious depression experience, or seasonal affective disorder even though I care little for the bitter cold Northern Indiana is engulfed in. I wanted to go out, and do the things I wanted to normally do; practice mixed martial arts training and either lean heavy on striking or grappling depending on my mood. No dice; our training is temporarily on hiatus. I have little debt, but the past two months I spent way too much, money which I should have stowed away. I may have even stopped at a Thai restaurant that I have skimmed over for months; my desire to curtail my spending make me skirt mid-town and go home to raid my cabinets instead.

But there's still my personal outlets. Our team is re-locating and the price for training is still the same, no contracts. My debt so low, my credit card bill just under---gasp---eighty bucks. My world, despite hiccups and hurdles, is absent of the travails that others seem what to punish themselves with, in the roundabout search for the dead American dream they still insist on exhuming.

It stinks. And I refuse to live the life of a rat race that ends in heart failure and dismay.

A good friend of mine felt similar around the holidays. He found himself still rather alienated in his own family, who parrot the same things every time they congregate. To them, perhaps avid interest in RPG video gaming and other pursuits would be deemed fruitless, or simply a matter of not being grown up.

Our gynocentric culture demands men to be real men. What does that mean?

If anything, it's a code word, a shaming tactic to push men into going against their own instincts of self-preservation and engage in sacrifice at their expense. It's often due to unscrupulous figures in our life; whether it be a hypocritical politician that would never put his or her self on the line for a political cause, or a skank that is ever unhappy and a financial and emotional vampire on her mate, who was duped as a youth to treat women with chivalry and deference, all the time being blamed for what's primarily wrong in a relationship; you're damned if you do, if you damned if you don't.

Solace, that ever-elusive quality ultimately comes from within. If anything, the only definition of a real man is one that makes decisions for himself, and lives with both the good and the bad. Feminism will not solve that problem for us. Our government is unreliable and bullying filled with would-be aristocrats, and provides illusionary comfort at best to placate the masses, often at social ills they urged on themselves. We can try to find fulfillment in a loyal mate; the nature of post-modern woman is fickle and self-absorbed, and often quite unhealthy for men despite cries that marriage enable men to live longer---the studies of which are sponsored by organizations with an agenda; "Get married, and everything will be more blissful."

Yeah, right.

If serenity means removing oneself from the feminized madness, that churning maelstrom of anti-male bias and the burden to emasculate his own integrity and masculinity, so be it. One may choose to be a semi-hermit and indulge in activities that are escapist to our society that's deemed inane, if a man makes that conscious choice and decides it enriches him. Another becomes extroverted and uses his personal powers to better his life and others. The next employs his position and authority to fight against unjust and unlawful policies. And so on, and so forth.

As men, we are castigated for being single and bachelorhood, despite the benefits attached to being single. The real trick is to be okay with yourself, and being in that state. And if we must surround ourselves with others, make them mentors and proteges that nurture and encourage us. We've read all the lies and shaming barbs designed to get men to commit. Despite what feminists might think, many, if not most, men have a basic drive for honor and integrity. When their sense of these traits and the actualization of them yields painful lessons and the scorn, men eschew the twisted norms that work against them and re-learn to be on their own side.

With women, they are generally terrified of rejection (hence the lack of asking most men out unless they are certain of a good reaction), and although the verbal and online assault against men is seemingly endless, deep down they are also afraid of being alone, hate the idea they are not desirable for a relationship, and don't carve the brave paths men do when striking out on lonely and uncertain ventures. They will blame men for not wanting them after we refuse to jump in the precarious fire again and again with them, but we are learning. We are learning that the women that decry, "We don't need a man" is usually bullocks, and that we responded on our terms and survived without them in kind---even when society dubs as losers and nobodies without female approval. We are learning that if the hedonistic and feminist-minded will not be lawful and honorable with us, we will reject them as they have countlessly rejected us . . . and move on. When men are considered nothing more than tools and walking ATMs ripe for exploitation all under the banner of social obligation and the ersatz ideal of being a "real man," the only thing we really are obliged to do is be true to ourselves above all else.