Masculinity: Part 2 - Cultivating Desirable Masculine Qualities
Understanding the Essence of Masculinity & How to Cultivate It
This is the second part of an ongoing series. Start by reading this if you haven’t already:
In Part 1 of the series, we explored the archetypes of masculinity and femininity, including the unattractive dimension of the “wounded masculine”. Before tackling the “how to” question, let’s look at yet another aspect of masculinity: The Dark Masculine.
The Allure of Dark Masculine Energy
Not to be confused with toxic or wounded masculinity, dark masculine energy refers to the primal instincts that exists in all of us (including women) to use our innate power to satisfy our desires. In the sexual context, it is the instinct that allows us to vigorously ravage a lover like we mean it, and the source of our ability for inflicting erotic pain.
Most well-socialised people find it difficult to intentionally cause harm to someone else. This is likely because from an early age we teach children to suppress violent instincts and submit to the leadership of their elders and bureaucracies. This in turn may lead to the development of an over-abundance of empathy. Any man who has experienced a sense of discomfort or confusion when a lover asks them to be rougher during sex has encountered this phenomenon.
The effects of this imbalance are relatively benign within the context of civilised society. Nevertheless it does tend to weaken the polarisation of sexual attraction, and can lead to dire consequences when the rules of society fail and we must confront actual physical violence.
As with any form of power, dark masculine energy is innately neither good nor bad. Applied correctly it fuels growth, fulfilment, and sexual attraction. Rather than suppressing it, we should harness and guide this force towards constructive purposes. A man who accepts and embraces his dark masculine energy in a healthy fashion learns to apply it to controlling himself - his urges, emotions, and actions - allowing him to achieve his own greatness. He brings this energy into his sexual relationships, amplifying the polarisation and expanding his sexual repertoire beyond soft romantic love-making to primal ravaging and shameless exploration of his and his partners’ kinks and fetishes.
We will specifically explore the cultivation of Dark Masculine Energy later in this series.
How to Cultivate Attractive Masculine Qualities
Whether you seek to overcome toxic or wounded masculine traits, or simply to nurture and amplify your existing masculinity, it is important to strive for a healthy balance between masculine and feminine energies. Remember that most women desire a partner who has the presence and capabilities of archetypal masculinity, but they also demand an appropriate balance of typically feminine qualities to be able to carry your weight in the relationship. E.g. if considering a family, you need to be capable of caring for and nurturing your children, not just protecting and providing for them.
This section focuses specifically on developing the masculine qualities that men tend to suppress or otherwise neglect. It will take time to fully integrate these qualities, possibly the rest of your life. Remember the key word is “integrate”. You do not want to completely displace your gentler qualities, but rather complement them by deliberately nurturing masculine energy.
Nobody is Coming to Save You
Fully recognising the gravity of this statement is the first step towards developing the mindset of masculinity. Once you mature from the protection of your parents in adolescence to independence in manhood, you must assume complete responsibility for the rest of your life.
There will be times when the burden of life’s setbacks and torments feel insurmountable, times of heartbreak and disappointment, times of injury, illness, and convalescence. These are the moments when we are at the greatest risk of succumbing to the temptation to rage about the unfairness of life and wallow in the misery of victimhood.
You will recall from the previous chapter that this attitude reflects the “wounded masculine”. It is deeply unattractive, and allowing it to persist will alienate you from everyone, with the possible exception of other victims who see you as a source of validation of their own perpetual victimhood.
It’s time to get real. Any notion you may have that life should be fair and that if you’re a good person you’ll only experience good things in return is naive and misguided. Whilst it’s largely true that the world reflects your attitude back at you, it is also true that chaos and violence are always lurking just beneath the thin veneer of society. Nature itself is just as terrible as it is beautiful. Storms, tsunamis, earthquakes, droughts, floods, eruptions and heatwaves injure, displace, and leave millions of people destitute regardless of their good deeds or kind natures. The animal kingdom is much the same: the powerful devour the weak without mercy or compassion. Civilisation is an unwritten social contract to obey laws that attempt to enforce order and safety despite the surrounding chaos. The fragility of civil society is evident in how quickly the rule of law gives way to the worst elements of human greed and selfishness in the face of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.
Expectations of fairness in life originate from a diet of mass- and social media fantasy, consumed in the artificial surroundings of modern society. It is worth venturing beyond the safety of civilisation and back into nature from time to time to remind yourself of your place in the universe, and that nature, just like the rest of the world cares nothing for you or your troubles.
It’s time to decide: do you want to be a victim, or will you play an active role in manifesting your own destiny?
Simon Mack
Become the Leader of Your Own Life
Leadership begins by exercising control over yourself: developing self-discipline and applying it to improving your circumstances through constant growth and progress.
Let’s take a moment to consider the direction in which you will lead your life. This is important - you are going to invest significant time, effort and attention in this mission, and it will likely change the course of the next chapter of your life. Take the time to find clarity about what you really want to achieve. Vague goals like “lasting happiness” are only the beginning - you need to consider what you’re willing to commit to achieve these outcomes, and how you will structure your life to facilitate this.
Think about the experiences you want to invite into your life, and the qualities that you want to develop.
Here are some common male desires to provide some inspiration:
Find a lasting, deeply fulfilling relationship based on authentic attraction
Live a joyful life
Enjoy an abundance of mind-blowing sex
Enjoy a genuine sense of personal power and agency in all aspects of life
Achieve and maintain peak physical health and fitness
Develop a rich social life filled with meaningful and authentic friendships
Develop a strong sense of self-worth based on meaningful achievement
Maintain confidence and emotional balance despite setbacks at work or in relationships
Now consider what needs to change in your life in order to achieve these outcomes. Focus on things you have the power to control, or at least to influence. Since you are already filling 100% of your available time, you’ll need to trade off the things you’re going to do more against things that are not serving your purpose. List everything out in two columns: the things to do more (or start), and the things to do less (or stop). Organise the items in each column in descending order of priority. We only have finite time and attention, so we’ll need to prioritise our focus and tackle just a few changes at a time.
The final part of this process is to set some SMART goals against the top five priorities in each column. These goals will help you measure your progress, and hold yourself to account against your commitment to improving your life.
Specific: what exactly are you going to count?
Measurable: how will you measure it? Time, frequency, quantity?
Achievable: start with a small improvement. Once you achieve this goal, you can revise it to increase the challenge.
Relevant: how well do these goals help you achieve your personal priorities?
Time-bound: goals without a deadline are merely dreams.
An example of SMART goals for exercising more might be:
“Do three sessions of aerobic or load-bearing exercise of at least 15 minutes each every week.”
If you’re starting from no exercise, this would be a reasonable challenge. It’s specific yet flexible, and measured in terms of the number and duration of sessions, achievable because it’s a small commitment, relevant to your desire to exercise more, and time bound in that they have to happen each week. Once you are achieving this goal consistently every week, you can increase the challenge according to your preference: increase the number of sessions, the duration, or both.
Tip: developing new habits from scratch is very difficult. Luckily there is a “hack” for fast-tracking the formation of new habits. You simply find an existing habit that you can stack the new habit on top of. For example: let’s say you want to start drinking more water. You already make a coffee first thing every morning, so place a glass on top of the coffee machine. When you go to make your coffee tomorrow, you’ll see the glass and it will remind you to get a glass of water. Put the glass back on top of the machine when you’re finished, and the cues will be set for tomorrow morning. Pretty soon, you’ll find yourself automatically going for a glass of water while your coffee brews each morning.
Consider this strategy when setting frequency goals for your SMART objectives: e.g. if I already have coffee every morning, it’s easy to drink 1 more glass of water every day just by this habit-stacking approach.
Responsibility - You’re Already Taking It!
If you’ve followed the previous instructions, you’re already well on your way in this regard. Taking responsibility for your own life is a key part of becoming a leader, exercising your power to control your impulses and cravings.
Set yourself a reminder each week to review your progress against your SMART goals. You can cut yourself some slack for the first couple of weeks while you find the right level of challenge to set, but after that you need to start holding yourself accountable. Did you meet your objectives? Congratulations! Take a moment to feel proud of your achievement, and then push yourself further by raising the bar on that outcome for next week, or selecting a new priority if you feel you’ve achieved mastery of that one.
Did you miss an objective? Think about why you missed it: was it entirely due to factors completely beyond your control (e.g. you suffered an injury), or did you just fail to prioritise your time and attention accordingly? If you “ran out of time”, consider if you still had time to do things that were not aligned with your purpose… did you waste time? What will you change to ensure you reach the goal next week? You might lower the challenge to make it more achievable, or you might give it more priority in your daily routine to ensure it gets done. Did you forget? Try to create a natural reminder, e.g. put the TV remote next to your weight set or under your gym bag so that you can’t reflexively flop down in front of the TV without being prompted to do your exercise.
If you find after a few weeks that you’re still having difficulty holding yourself to account, you need to find an “accountability buddy”. This can be anyone who is willing to listen to your goals and check in with you each week to ensure you’re meeting them, and challenge you when you fall short against your objectives.
If the only responsibility you carry is to yourself, it’s all too easy to dodge it from time to time when distractions arise. You should therefore also assume some responsibility towards other people. This might be a job, volunteering, or anything else that creates an obligation to show up on a regular basis and honour a commitment for which other people will hold you to account. This is a way of forcing yourself to develop self-discipline and a sense of duty, which others will begin to recognise in you as dependability and honour.
Summary of Lessons of Part 2
It may not be intuitively obvious how these lessons relate to the qualities of masculinity, so let’s summarise what you’ve achieved.
By accepting that you’re alone and bear sole responsibility for the quality of your own life and that the universe has no law that says life should be fair, you are starting to build the warrior mindset of self-reliance and indomitable will.
By taking a deliberate approach to leading your life, you are building a sense of purpose and priorities, and taking responsibility for meeting your own needs by setting and pursuing your personal goals.
By assuming responsibility, you are exercising your power of self-discipline, self-control. This builds the attractive qualities of constancy and reliability.
Preview of Part 3
In Part 3 of this series we will continue to discover ways of cultivating masculinity, exploring concepts such as compliments and praise, appreciating emotions, and learning how to let go of the emotions that do not serve us.