I think it’s quite likely that certain men have a very two dimensional understanding of women. I know the same could be said the other way around. But even the most in-depth observations that I’ve heard men have of women, I know they’re not quite there, that they don’t quite get it. But that’s really just fine, dudes. Let women be a bit mysterious, damn. Let us commune with the moon and we’ll get right back to ya.
You’ve got a nice set of brass ovaries, wading into all that. I almost wrote “big balls” but then also realised that balls are quite sensitive and you could flick them to send them off crying in pain. A uterus, on the other hand, well, it takes a bit of a pounding and it gives birth and all that, and is still a nice, warm, cozy thing. I can’t believe I’m writing all this on a public forum. See what you bring out of people, Tereza? 😅
Hahaha! I think we need more uterus jokes in the world. Men have SO many pet names for their privates. A fine set of ivory ovaries. A uteroctopus. My dance crew also gave each other lewd names during the lockdowns. Gina merely changed the pronunciation of hers. One of them has written a book on Pilates for Better Sex. They're a VERY bad influence.
It took me 60 yrs to learn how to tell dirty jokes and curse like a sailor. I feel like I'm in that pack of middle school girls who still play on the monkey bars and could care less what the boys think.
I worked in construction for a decade in my youth and the mouth on me was pretty bad… it’s taken me years to unlearn and bite my tongue in polite company. But I’ve always enjoyed dirty jokes. I think I’d make a good addition to your middle school monkey bars.
My youngest just got her first office job at a big law firm. I got her a mug that said, "Prove them fucking wrong" to help her curb her tongue and just give a knowing nod. Sometimes you have to go underground.
oddly enough the opposite may be true regarding the 2 dimensional perception by men of women. and i'm not saying the perception is correct!!! an odd anecdotal experiment may confirm some aspect of Jung's idea of the anima being very clearly seen by most men. in the 1970s(?) jane robers, of the seth books, held weekly meetings with group of seekers. seth would sometimes contribute. in one of those he suggested that as an experiment it might be fun for the people to come the following meeting dressed as the opposite sex. the men all took elaborate care to be as detailed as possible. (trans?) the women, on the other hand, had flat completely two dimensional characterisations of men - weird lumberjack things, etc.
as mentioned elsewhere, a really good look at (some of) the 'differences' between the sexes can be found in Jung's interesting and still relevant essay 'marriage as a psychological relationship.' https://youtu.be/tNjIwOgLXGs and also his and his wife's look at anima and animus.
I wonder if women went with caricatures of men because women dress like men all the time, whereas men can never dress like women. It's like women having male names but once names become women's, they can never go back.
perhaps. that does miss the actual event, though, when the women dressed up with oversized boots, poorly done beards, the lumberjack shirt coat. so... possible. it certainly did not have that feel to it in the reading of it and the fascinating discussion that followed the experience. although i wasn't there.
It is easier to “caricature” a woman, tbf. There are so many accessories, not to mention make up. There’s a flamboyancy to women, perhaps left over from generations of education on how to act in polite society. So there’s more of a “performance” to it. As a tomboyish woman, I’ve had to put that on when wearing something fancy because my demeanour didn’t otherwise match. I wouldn’t say I was doing it subconsciously, in fact, it was fairly easy to do with a little awareness. But if I had to act like a man, I would most likely behave like a little less of my normal self.
My femininity came out strong when I became a mom. It all kind of depends on your level of hormones, maybe? Perhaps it’s one aspect of the transgenderism conversation that could lean into the science more is that we do have different hormonal levels and therefore our masculinity and femininity is a balance between how we feel and how we present ourselves. And I’m in no way condoning medical interventions. Just saying that it isn’t as black and white as the polarisation would have us believe.
hola, va. thank you for this interesting and thought provoking angle. isn't amazing how subtle and nuanced all these 'label narratives' turn out to be with a closer look? love it.
It is easier to “caricature” a woman, tbf. There are so many accessories, not to mention make up. There’s a flamboyancy to women, perhaps left over from generations of education on how to act in polite society. So there’s more of a “performance” to it. As a tomboyish woman, I’ve had to put that on when wearing something fancy because my demeanour didn’t otherwise match. I wouldn’t say I was doing it subconsciously, in fact, it was fairly easy to do with a little awareness. But if I had to act like a man, I would most likely behave like a little less of my normal self.
My femininity came out strong when I became a mom. It all kind of depends on your level of hormones, maybe? Perhaps it’s one aspect of the transgenderism conversation that could lean into the science more is that we do have different hormonal levels and therefore our masculinity and femininity is a balance between how we feel and how we present ourselves. And I’m in no way condoning medical interventions. Just saying that it isn’t as black and white as the polarisation would have us believe.
My views on this whole thing just keep evolving. I'm less concerned with how we got to this us-vs-them place than how we move past it. Your ideas on tonic masculinity and femininity are such a wonderful place to start that process, Tereza. (And I want to know the name of the dance class you take -- holy s***, sign me up for THAT teacher training... 😂)
OMG you MUST go with me when I lure you and your husband out to visit my garaj mahal! It's called Worldanz but your Improvidance is something I want to do.
Thank you for the kind words on my ideas as a place to start moving past the us-vs-them. It's been a curious thing to me. I feel like I'm saying true masculinity is constructive and protective and, from some of the best examples of that, I'm getting pushback that it's really 'domineering, superior, aggressive and violent" but women are the ones who are toxic. So I either need to agree with them that masculinity is inherently toxic, which I don't, or be seen as trying to dominate men by telling them what masculinity is. How did we get here? It's still a puzzle to me.
My wife raises the same point about balls every chance she gets, though mixes the metaphor a bit and compares their wimpy sensitivity to the p***y, which also “takes a pounding.” “Brass” is really key to making the compliment work in the male context.
Just before you wrote “I have no idea what egalitarian ratchet effect, Whig history and globohomo mean” I was thinking to myself “I have no idea what egalitarian ratchet effect, Whig history and globohomo mean”.
Great video! It’s baffling to me how women get the blame for men’s shortcomings. Men are being neutered by much more than just some feminist ideology (I’d day Hollywood, pharma, the food supply all play a big part).
Relationships have always been messy. We have no way of telling whether they were better in the past when women were more subservient. Perhaps the relationships were more unhappy but divorce/freedom from bondage was not an option.
I have been hard on myself lately because I’ve allowed myself to feel that being single is my fault due to my “toxic femininity”. Your video today talked me off a ledge. I should be proud that I had the courage to leave the abusive relationships. I don’t think it would have helped anyone if I had rolled over and pretended that I actually like being beaten.
Oh no, I'm so sorry you've had that self-doubt. From the first time you commented on my thread, you stood out as such a warm and balanced person. I always look forward to your thoughts as a true kindred spirit. There's not a shred of 'toxic femininity' in you, if I even knew what that was.
Something is seriously broken in relationships. I don't really know what it is or how to fix it. I would never have believed how prevalent physically abusive men were until I feel like it's everywhere I turn that women have escaped.
I really wish for you friends who make lewd jokes while dancing all out. It's our matrix that's going to be our sanctuary.
yes. something is seriously broken. and it isn't just abusive men. pretty much everywhere i turn i see people struggling from broken mothers or wives as often if not more often, as than with broken men. (where's steve kirsch to do a survey that will prove that there is a pretty even distribution of broken people across the sexes, even if they express the brokenness differently.)
i think that from day-to-day we will see more from this or that side of the family dynamic being the locus of the brokenness because i suspect it is pretty evenly distributed. perhaps that locus is itself a bit of a false flag, keeping us spinning around to see who to blame?
as you have observed often, the system is about breaking people regardless of sex. and the system is designed for its own continuation of the story that one 'side' points to the other. in the last week i've had serious discussions with people, 3 men one woman, who all have struggled with what can only be described as brutal mothers (2) and a brutal wife (1). and 1 man with a mother-father dynamic that was jointly brutal.
i've mentioned it before, i think and i'll mention it again. darrell hammond, the snl star who suffered severe mental health that had him frequently hospitalised. the 11th psychiatrist began the path to health when he said 'you had a narcisstic mother.' what is interesting is that when i did a bit of poking around i looked at about 6 or 8 reviews of the move he made, called 'cracked up', and none mentioned either the word 'mother' or the word 'narcissism' as the root cause of his craziness.
here's a trailer to the movie, Cracked Up, which also skips the words 'narcissism' and the word 'mother': https://youtu.be/fK_WmHUqvvk
and here are two women whose jobs are to help people, mostly women, who suffered from spousal narcissistic abuse. amongst other things they discuss the significant presence of narcissism (25% of the population by an official estimate, although they think it is higher than that.) you may find it interesting to consider that very likely narcissists aren't born and are made.
"The Collective Denial of Evil and its Impact on Psychiatric Treatment - Sheri Heller"
Guy, you're my window into this world. First, your experience is the most extreme of anyone I know. Second, you've delved very personally and vulnerably into analyzing it. Third, you're connected to and read people like Jasun and Jordan, who are spokesmen for these ideas I'm disputing, that the answer is a rejection of the mother. And fourth, you keep reading and talking to me even though we disagree.
The problem I have with labels like narcissist is that the buck stops there. How did these mothers become 'narcissists'? They were just born that way. Maybe we should have psychological testing that certifies if someone is fit to be a mother, and either take her children away or sterilize her preemptively. These people can never change, Ramani says so and, as I told Steve, her videos are being shoved down my feed every time I open YT, so she must be right.
It isn't whether men or women are more broken but whether the role of mothering has been discarded by a system designed by and for men. I thought denise described that well in the quote I posted. She goes into more detail in the full comment: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-anti-matri-male/comment/53102714. She goes into circumcision as the first betrayal by the mother of the son, from which she believes the trust is never fully recovered. Guy, I know you've written about this.
For the Substack manosphere, they are very much divided in their belief in God but universal in their belief in evil. Evil means that good people just need to identify them and protect ourselves against them. We don't need to bother with why people develop the way they do.
I was writing this morning that the quickest way to get someone to agree with you is to tell them they're better than others. That's what the belief in evil is so popular along, imo, with certain authors with large followings. If you challenge people's ideas of their superiority, they fall off in droves ;-)
your comment had me laughing in several directions at the same time! why wouldn’t i read you? i am not particularly interested in echo chamber talk. omg, that would be kind of, actually(?) narcissistic! why are you still reading me, if your (false) perception is that we (fundamentally?) disagree? i certainly don’t ‘disagree’ with you. i’m not sure i understand what you mean by that ‘label’, as i come to think more deeply about it. how could we not disagree, in the sense that you have your ideas and experience and that is important in myriad of ways. and i have my own. and that the important thing, you often cite, is the to be able to argue which gives our beings the opportunity to explore more deeply the broad expanse of existence. so… puzzled.
your comment about peterson and horsley also had me laughing because it seems to me you have misread them pretty significantly. both of them are saying that the system is broken. perhaps they might disagree with the broad sweep i read in the short snippet of denise that tearing down patriarchy will fix the problem. it won’t. (i didn’t look at her more closely to see if i misunderstood her point.) it won’t because the structure itself is not the root of the problem. recently i listened to celia farber’s excellent comment where she has come to that realisation too. in her talk with tessa lena she said paraphrased: i’ve been fighting against the people and their systems and their reasons and reasoning behind medical and social malfeasance since i learned during aids that that was a manufactured death-scam. if only the right people were found guilty or the right people were in place or we fixed the system. now i realise that attacking or changing the structure or system is a false flag because it is the energy of consciousness that will create the real change. it is the energy of consciousness that manifests the system.’ i recommend this talk very much: 'degradation as content: conversation with celia farber: this was a rich conversation, i hope you enjoy it as much as i did!' mar 24, 2024
will patriarchy as it exists on some peterson ideal of christianity exist when we have significantly changed consciousness? nope, so we are aligned there. and horsley is in the process of exploring that and i don’t think he has a fixed destination or end point yet as he looks at the seemingly obvious ‘benefits’ of the christian thought that having put the individual and individual experience as having the most important value — which is also the main focus of thought peterson attributes so christianity. imo.
and i laughed at your quick dismissal of labels as if that is the end of the story. i laughed in part because you are a label-freak of the highest order, with frequent references to the need to properly define our labels in order to be able to properly communicate and that you label your self as dogmatic to the dogmatic label of equality and the rights of each of us to have an opinion. why would the ‘label’ narcissism’ stop conversation? one thing that stops verbal conversation is to un-label things, such as what is happening with ‘holocaust’, a word that is becoming unspeakable for fear of being cancelled. without the ‘label’ in our world language there isn’t a discussion! the other is to mistake the label for truth, a truth trap that stops questioning. that is happening in the fragmentation of the mfm, as the some get caught by the truth-trap of a particular label.
have i ever said that narcissism is the end of the story? nope. and in my writing that experience echoes the experience of hammond, and others that i know including myself, that once the accurate description, the truth of the situation had been labeled, that became the path to freedom. to properly label something is to open doors to understanding that goes beyond labels.
the truth-trap comes in when we fixate on that discovery as permanent truth. when we ignore the challenge that everything is in flux, always. that is when doors close, spiritual by-passing kicks in and, and with it refusal to take personal responsibility and to look around for someone or something to blame and/or complain about. or to turn into a hero.
also, my understanding of narcissism continues to grow/change. why? because i am open to the limitations of my have truth-trapped myself with any label. i once thought narcissists were most likely born. i no longer believe that. i once thought narcissists were ‘incurable’. and despite a long list of cited experts saying that, i now no longer believe that. and, by synchronicity today i came to this interesting discussion on the so-called ‘cosmic origins’ of narcissism. i’m still digesting this, because elkhaldy made several interesting connections and points that aren’t easy for me to dismiss. (likely i will explore this more fully later.) the conversation continues, for me, and so i find it interesting that you see it as closing a door and i the opposite by being a beginning of exploration and conversation. you may find this interesting: “spiritual roots of narcissism (the fallen) by the alchemist - sarah elkhaldy https://youtu.be/oo65q5cur8w
and in another very odd synchronicity i went looking for meadow devor’s book on healing our relationship with money because of the video you linked to earthstar academy’s “clear money wounds, poverty curses, spells & implants”. when i went to youtube for devor i discovered that she has been focused on the practical guides and tools to spot and navigate the narcissist in our world.
https://www.youtube.com/@meadowdevor. and i also like earthstar and i found your label ‘woo-woo’ to be inappropriate. i didn’t find her to be significantly woo-woo at all.
how did some african woman start and continue the practice of circumcising their daughters? why did the nurses in the german hospitals leading up to the holocaust hold the children who were being euthanised by doctors? why did convid doctors and nurses put people into ventilators and filled them with opiates knowing that that was a deadly protocol? in a way your question is … well. meaningless. it by-passes the challenge, which is to heal the moment, deal with the moment. i could say that the actions of creating a schismogenetic society began with the absolute narcissism that began the roman catholic church. or, as elkhaldy argues, was/is an accidental outcome of a spirital energy being made manifest in dense material. (or is an energetically required shadow of (egoistically) serving others.) or from the alien elohim who demanded human blood sacrifice. or… pointless.
guatama pointed out in his not widely disseminated or, imo, understood teachings that cosmic and/or other origin seeking is a waste of time. and he included the near never-ending story or reincarnation with that. the question, the task, the act of supreme personal responsibility is ‘how do i reduce the suffering now?’ now i enjoy the puzzle of origins as much as anyone, and i’m enjoying the theatre of competing and overlapping storylines with different protagonists and enemies weaving in and out of the various scenes and acts. virus/novirus; venom; lab-leak; 5g; dews; etc. graphene; sv40; all spiritual by-pass if it does not come down to ‘what can i do now to reduce suffering?’
the first step, as just about every credible source says and my expanding experience is confirming, begins with ‘heal thy self’ in order to stop projecting your shadow. most yogic traditions basically argue that all suffering begins with projection which heals when we begin to withdraw that with vidya, proper seeing. to do the shadow work needed to stop projecting is the courage to be fully responsible for my presence in this life.
and, personally, i like how our language usage clues us in to how much we are not taking responsibility and projecting: ‘blame/complain’, ‘have to’, ‘should’, ‘deserved/undeserved’ ‘always’ ‘never’ are clue words that i can see/hear in myself and others that are pointing to (unconscious) bully-world stockholm syndrome and an abdication of personal responsibility with the associated projection on to another or thing as some kind of source — hero/villain — to a greater or lesser extent.
lol! another laugh because the ‘long’ essay i am with is looking at ‘superiority’ in great detail. in particular as it applies to ‘reason’. and that keeps getting delayed by these kind of ‘side-line’ investigations. thank you for your comment there and here! so important, fun, and energising to look more deeply at my own place here as a patriarchal white male (another label), who may or may not be an adult man (another label) in a philosophically challenging substack (another label) that is part of the subset of the mfm world (another label).
life really does have a wicked sense of humour. thank you!
Oh I will just say too, that denise didn't talk about tearing down the patriarchy, she talked about developing a new currency, which is the same solution I talk about.
I was quoting per Xi, "As marta says, she is very woo-woo but she likes her." I was glad marta gave that qualification because it helped me not dismiss her, which I might have otherwise. To tell marta that her comment is inappropriate is ... inappropriate.
And you do realize that everytime you say you're laughing, you're laughing at me and how wrong I am. I disagree with people, including yourself, and tell them why. I don't say I'm right and they're wrong, I just present my logic and argument. You tell me I'm wrong and it makes you laugh that I got things so wrong. You present my wrongness as a fact, not an opinion. I have a hard time with that.
thank you for the clarification about denise and marta. i'll see if my intuition takes me there.
and thank you for sharing your experience of my mirth. i am sorry.
i have no ability to be factual and so from that perspective my laughing or not is actually not all that important, beyond it being how my body-self did respond. i am sorry that that made you uncomfortable. all i have is my opinion, and that is likely to be as wrong as right and subject to change. it has changed a lot about just about everything and so i consider them tentative. and yet, it is all i have. i don't have the facts to know your wrongness as absolute. we are, i understand, sharing opinions, narratives, experiences. and so... well, that is my opinion.
thank you for telling me your feelings. i respect that a great deal.
I don't think we fundamentally disagree. There's a difference, I think, in clearly defining ideas and the terms used to express them and labeling people. It says, "This is who this person is," not just how they behave or what they say. It fixes them in place. I try to be conscious of not doing that.
When John Carter calls women hoes or thots or traps or obese HR goblins, he's labeling who they are. My only adjectives for John are complimentary. I'm critical of his behavior in labeling women, not who he is.
I wouldn't label myself dogmatic. I have one dogma that I'm no better than anyone else. It's not who I am, it's what I choose to believe. I would guess the vast majority of people have many beliefs they won't raise to question, but they're not conscious of them as beliefs--the 'holocaust' for instance.
But I don't want to distract you from your 2-week overdue post, even if it is a self-imposed deadline ;-)
Just a quick observation from mandatory attendance at one too many academic assembly meetings here in Japan: One person's painstakingly parsed definition is another's flippantly end-of-discussion label.
As a more-or-less marginalized observer of the social dynamics at play, even among academics ... no, especially among academics ... both the limits and potential of language and logic are all too often subconsciously relegated to a secondary role. Those academic assembly meetings were more often than not a somewhat ritualized pretense of problem solving. The most important decisions had already been made behind the scenes ... "nemawashi" in Japanese (I think Guy's partner can verify this).
Among the tactics employed at those meetings, the person who decides what is a definition to be further expanded on, or flips the coin over to a dismissive label, is the one with higher status in the group ... and woe be unto any who fail at "kuki wo yomu" (reading the room for status cues and general sentiment).
A blunt version of the ethics of Schopenhauer or Hobbes is playing out ... might makes right. Or "the golden rule" perverted into whoever controls the purse strings (gold), makes the rules. Sighing, because this dove-tails with "All wars are banker's wars." I am not saying this is the default morality for humanity — but it may be the default for a small but salient subset.
Now changing tack to shed more light on this with studies in primatology (I like Frans de Waal for this). Although troops of chimpanzees and bonobos appear to have their population restricted to their equivalence of Dunbar's number (obviously one genetic predisposition which defines their species), how does one account for which individuals come to dominate the troop? Those individuals exhibit complex behavior some might label as "alphas", and others might call "bullies" — but just as size of the troop is genetically constrained, I am guessing the pecking order is similarly genetically constrained, and trauma, an epiphenomenon. (Thinking Charlie Brown vs. Lucy Van Pelt here. 😂).
I guess a lot depends on how appropriate those other social primates are for extrapolating insights into human behavior. Meh, for some humans, I suppose "snakes in suits" will do.
and yes, the 'labels' as you put them above have helped me understand a bit more some of my own thought-habits. that form of labelling is what i've categorised as a manifestation of projection. i hadn't thought of it as 'labelling'. thank you for helping me see that overlap. it isn't 100% the same, and so the distinction is a good one for me.
thank you for correcting me about you having a dogma versus being dogmatic. subtle and important distinction. (although i still question the value of 'having' a dogma at all.)
lol! yes. my self-imposed deadline. i've been following my ps-rap muscle testing process. at this time my body is fine with the pace of this essay. and with my forays into these high quality discussions.
Thanks for the links! Now that you mention narcissistic mothers I’m thinking that maybe my own has had a role in my relationship struggles… I’ll see where your links take me in this.
You’re correct that the “false flag locus” keeps us blaming others. It’s difficult to take responsibility for our situation yet not blame ourselves.
the challenge is to see that is broken with equanimity and stoic dispassion. it is from vidya, seeing what is true, that we have the power to change. the hammond experience epitomises that: 40+ years of mental derrangment begins to heal with the 'aha! now i know what the truth is'.
good luck with the discovery. narcissistic parents — regardless of sex — are a tough tough thing. i've included these links in my reply to tereza that you may also find helpful: “spiritual roots of narcissism (the fallen) by the alchemist - sarah elkhaldy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO65Q5cuR8w
sidenote: many argue the importance of 'forgiveness'. alice miller in her excellent book, 'the body never lies: the lingering effects of hurtful parenting' makes a strong case that 'forced' forgiveness will show up in the body as early death. i've come to understand that the being responsible for this now is actually a more important step and for those who can/do honestly forgive are not fully healed until the step of personal responsibility is taken. and that for those who cannot forgive, taking personal responsibility eventually results in the healing that makes forgiveness unnecessary.
i've writtn about my experiences in my substack. if curious, you can see my letters to my dead mother beginning with:
Great, thank you! I will definitely be checking out your substack (I’ve been meaning to each time Tereza mentions you).
This sounds to me like “when the student is ready the teacher appears”. Thank you for presenting me with all this information/advice. I’m getting emotional just typing this response. I’m a little scared to start this healing journey but I am ready.
if it wasn't a little scary to begin, it would most likely be a sign that the student isn't quite ready to begin! it is wonderful you are ready! so... your journey is yours, and at the same time, you are not alone.
be kind, patient, and resilient. your body and your spirit are naturally moving towards optimal health at all times. the effort is to get our blocked energy patterns and habits out of the way.
all the best with what is changing, with peace, respect, love and gratitude.
Hi Guy. Still have not had the time to go back to an earlier thread where we were discussing pathological narcissism and other related cluster B traits. I suspect we will never be able to tease the nature from nurture or epigenetics, but over the past couple of weeks, I have listened to a couple of interesting podcasts, including the March 30 post by Tess Lawrie, where the guest specialist implies that we all go through trauma at one time or another. I tend to agree. But what I had not connected recently is that although some are damaged by trauma, some of us emerge to Post-Traumatic-Growth. When I look back on my life's defining moments, they emerged at the point of trauma. As an educator, I would not wish such trauma on anybody, yet I don't think I could have become the person I have without those close-to-the-edge moments.
This raises the interesting thought-experiment of imagining subjecting a range of people to a standardized measurement of trauma. I realize there are an infinite number of variables and ethical problems, hence "thought experiment" ... but I can't help but to imagine the same amount of trauma damaging some people, and showing a path forward for others.
I think this is where the likes of Dr. Ramani is coming from when they say that pathological narcissism is an inherited temperament that no amount of counseling can treat. We simply have to know how to identify the behavior and avoid it, or develop a skill-set of counter-measures. Her recent interview seemed to jive with my career-ending encounters here in Japan ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTkKXDvSJvo&t=31s
That being said, I agree there are systemic factors as well. I vaguely remember a quote by (I think) Ben Franklin saying that marriage places a man's fate (should be updated to include women) in a hostage situation. Japan ranks among the lowest countries in the world for Women's rights, and marriage is still more structured to put men in the breadwinner capacity and women as master of the house and child raising. Japan Inc. puts a lot of pressure on a man to marry, I think because it places the breadwinner in a hostage situation. Any refusal to comply to the hierarchy, no matter how immoral, can result in an end to one's career ... and therefore disaster for the family. "Jaku niku kyoshoku" (dog-eat-dog) is often used to describe the soft white underbelly of superficial harmony over here. That is why I so much depend on a few friends and the local community.
the trauma-growth 'thing'! yes. for one person, the birth trauma is so bad that suicide happens before 20. for that person's sibling, it leads to spiritual enlightenment and the transformation of human civilisation. why?
each are unique! jung wrestled with this problem too because he puzzled why similar situations within a family, even for identical twins, leads to complete unique outcomes. one of the great mysteries.
and for me, and people i have met who have taken responsibility for their spiritual growth, the trauma events become the blessing that allows for greater/deeper vision of both the human experience and the spiritual birth that comes out from that experience. that even has its 'story' in the shamanic worlds, where the shaman wannabes would undergo some kind of traumatic often life and death experience-event, before they could be understood and seen as true shamans.
in a way, the ace (adverse child events) study provides an indirect measure of that. my sisters and i are pretty high up on the scale; two of us are doing deep healing work, one superficial and struggles with body pain, and the other was in denial and is a complete zombie and possible. the youngest became a substance addict and is working on her recovery with the help of aa.
regarding the intractability of healing from being a narcissistic. as i mentioned in my long reply to tereza's comment above, i'm no longer fully convinced that that is the absolute case. healing from it is very unusual, for sure, because it will take the rare combination of a narcissistic willing to change and meeting someone skilled (empathic?) enough to help that change. you may find this interesting:
yoshiko, my partner, has also been talking about some of the 'dirty' underbelly 'secrets' of japanese polite culture. recently she fully understood that, statistically, not absolutely, all japanese men are actually frightened boys. she told me about how every corner in a city in japan has a 'mother' bar for men to be served by women who take on the persona of their mothers for them! have you seen these?
I tried to view the video, but found it had been deleted. I hear you about the boy-man thing here in Japan. Maybe a little less now than a few years ago ... but yeah, it is definitely a thing, one version being this ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbivore_men
Just a broad-stroke guess, but I am thinking this is directly correlated with the degree of authoritarianism that begins in Jr. High (juken-senso exam wars), and does not end until retirement. A few self-entitled or well-connected sociopathic "alphas" tend to define the institutions over here, but also guessing Japan expresses just a particularly extreme form of collective human nature.
By the way, try as I may ... I posted a sub-sub-sub comment into a thread between you and Tereza about "labeling", and now I can't find it. But I did save my comment for further expansion, maybe into a post or essay for later. With a bit of editing, here it is, for what it's worth ...
Cheers Guy!
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Hi Tereza and Guy.
Great thread you two have going here.
Just a quick observation from mandatory attendance at one too many academic assembly meetings here in Japan: One person's painstakingly parsed definition is another's flippantly end-of-discussion label.
As a more-or-less marginalized observer of the social dynamics at play, even among academics ... no, especially among academics ... both the limits and potential of language and logic are all too often subconsciously relegated to a secondary role. Those mandatory meetings were more often than not a somewhat ritualized pretense of problem solving (otherwise they would not have been mandatory). The most important decisions had already been made behind the scenes ... "nemawashi" in Japanese (I think Yoshiko can verify this).
Among the many covert tactics of compliance employed at those meetings, the person who decides what is a definition to be further expanded on, or flips the coin over to a dismissive label, is the one with higher status in the group ... and woe be unto any who fail at "kuki wo yomu" (reading the room for status cues and general sentiment).
A blunt version of the ethics of Schopenhauer or Hobbes appears to be playing out ... "might makes right". Or "the golden rule" perverted into "whoever controls the purse strings (gold), makes the rules". Sighing, because this dove-tails with "All wars are banker's wars." I am not saying this is the default morality for humanity — but it may be the default for a small but salient subset. Again, that raises the question of how much does genetic predisposition play into the cluster B / dark tetrad mind set?
Changing tack to shed more light on this with studies in primatology (I like Frans de Waal for this), although troops of chimpanzees and bonobos appear to have their population size restricted to their equivalence of Dunbar's number (obviously one genetic predisposition which defines their species), how does one account for which individuals come to dominate the troop?
Those individuals exhibit complex behavior that, depending on context, can be written off with either the labels of "alphas" or "bullies". But just as size of the troop is genetically constrained, I am guessing the pecking order is similarly genetically constrained, and trauma, an epiphenomenon (or distal effect).
In another over simplified cartoon world, Charlie Brown's nemesis, Lucy van Pelt comes to mind. Whereas Charlie, as a victim, may benefit from therapy ... I am wondering what kind of therapy it would take to change Lucy, and draw a blank. I keep coming back to the same conclusion that despite the danger of the fundamental attribution fallacy, the comic strip is world famous (still a big impact here in Japan) because Charles Shultz's characters seem to capture something universal about temperamentally pre-determined types of people.
I guess a lot depends on how appropriate a comic strip can be (or those other social primates) for extrapolating insights into human behavior. Meh, for some humans, I suppose "snakes in suits" will do.
Cheers Tereza and Guy!
ps. ... Here is another well thought-out podcast. Although she is less professionally credentialed than Ramani, I think she does a pretty good job of defining some troubling temperaments ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXRlAedQVPk
Thanks for that definition of "nemawashi", Steve. I often experienced that working to change the school system, before I realized how futile that was. I'm going to save your comment on a draft article called The Master's Tools. Defining can be done for the toxic purpose of dominance or the tonic purpose of communicating. In the first, it's pretending to be the authority and limit the parameters of the possible within that frame. In the second, it's defining what that word means when I'm using it, so that we get to the root of our question.
An argument is pointless if the only difference is the words that symbolize different things for each of you. A true and productive argument is two people trying to get to the truth of a question.
Wow. That video disappeared so quickly and has me wondering why. I will pursue that with sarah elkhardy because it is an important one that brings a challenging and door opening look at face of narcissism (taking from blindness) and its face on the opposite side of the coin, generosity (giving with seeing).
The school system likely is a key part of the 'program' although i suspect it begins at a very young age in way that helps set the stage for the school programming to be successful. yoshiko has some fascinating hints of this in her life. so, anecdotal only from a very limited sample of the population.
alphas and bullies is talked about by peterson when he notes that the bully alpha of the chimpanzee troop has been torn to shreds when alpha does not include the wisdom to be tactful.
re brown and lucy.
this goes to the huge role that patterns (samskaras) play in our activities. again, this is part of my essay-in-process. the therapy will show itself when charlie is willing to see what is there versus what he wants to be there. i like your inclusion of this comic strip into the discussion and likely i'll look at it more deeply. the therapy arrives when the pattern of behaviour proves so destructive that is becomes a choice between life or death, for most people. and many of those will choose death of body, because the fear of death of self as patterned behaviour encapsulated in self-referencing narratives, is more scary.
great comment. thank you.
now to get some energy work done before returning to writing. all the best.
Relationships have always been messy. We have no way of telling whether they were better in the past when women were more subservient.
In the natural order of things there are/were roles that each gender played in successful relations. That has been lost in the cultural revolution. That is not to say a man's role is more important; they were/are supposed to compliment one another. There cannot be two 'leaders' in relations. Thew divine plan for male /female relations has, seemingly, been forever lost.
For you I am glad that you were courageous to leave. I cannot understand men who feel a need to hurt women; physically or emotionally. For myself; women are a great gift from God and, before a great many of them degraded themselves I used to to think that they were the more 'evolved', if you will of the species. That they used to; through their virtue and nurturing; lift men up to a higher plane of existence.
ts, I was with you all the way up to "before a great many of them degraded themselves." If something is a sociological trend, that didn't exist before, you can't blame it on a decline in the general characters of women. Presumably, the characters of women have been consistent through the ages. What changed? We're still living in an economic and religious patriarchy so however women are adapting to survive in that framework is a reaction and not a cause. When women 'degrade' themselves, I'm assuming this means sexually. How is that not ultimately because of how men are?
Not because of how men are but because they (and not all, obviously) thought that they could live and conduct themselves like a lot of men and not get the reputation but, unfortunately that isn't the case. Wrong though it is, it will continue to be the case. Sociological trends have changed for the worse and that has been pandered to by media and it's minions. Women were led to believe that they needed to put aside the norms of the past and seek themselves first. The genders were meant to compliment one another and that sin't to say that one's role is better or more important but the male/female dynamic has lost that whole balance. A lot of women came to believe that being a housewife or mother was a second rate occupation; that they could do so much more but the truth of the matter is that there is NO vocation as high as that of being a mother but, here again, I am of a mindset long gone by.
I am a single man well on in years and at this point in time and in my life it is a moot point to begin with. Thank you for the exchange.
Yes my middle daughter spent years trying to be 'one of the guys.' Her esophagus has never recovered from the hot Cheetos and ghost pepper chicken wing dares. Seriously.
In the previous episode, I talked about the competitive mortgage going up to two incomes so women have no choice to prioritize being a mother. I was barely able to get away with that because I happened to buy a house before I met my future husband. Now, unless you're the kind of predator Taraban describes to nab a man who makes double the income or more, women are forced to do both. What's your solution to that?
I understand the economics of things have changed and for the worse. Perhaps there are no solutions. It is a blessing, in this day and age, to be single and not be participating in the whole relationship "game' as it were.
Oh sorry, ts, I got lost in the thread and thought I was responding to Charles on the virgin thing! He was the one who said that brides should be virgins so they won't get diseases that affect their fertility. Sorry to be holding you to be consistent with his point!
My whole book, How to Dismantle an Empire, is on my solution to that. I have many episodes on my economic model but maybe this one is a snapshot: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/caretology.
Decoy is an idiot. Our so-called culture, twisted and distorted as it is - creates idiocy. I don't have the patience you have, to engage on all this.
We've all been born into a traumatizing and divisive slave-system where distrust and systemic hatred of the opposite sex was part of the terrain.
It's not natural. It's been manufactured - like pretty much everything else. What hope do we have but to deepen into who we really are as human beings, beings of love?
A massive reorientation and realignment that includes a simple 'No' to the agenda behind this current iteration of the world, on its way out.
Thanks for saying what I couldn't without being a hypocrite, as our friend Antila Belist (anti-labelist) would say. You said that beautifully about the slave system and systemic hatred of the opposite sex. It's not natural.
To reiterate what I put in my last post, there is a 3 factor balance for healthy relationships according to Dr Paul Brenner, author of Buddha in the Waiting Room.
This is not found in the book, but Dr Brenner used to do "Men's group discussions on Relationships." My father attended several of them; he relayed the following concept:
Man seeks to find Joy; in a Woman he finds Wonder
Man seeks to find Support; in a Woman he finds Nurture
Man seeks to find Commitment; in a Woman he finds Loyalty,
***Intimacy comes from all three.
Woman seeks to find Commitment; in a Man she finds Security
Woman seeks to find Nurture; in a Man she finds Family
Woman seeks to find Joy; In a Man she finds Commitment
I am not sure if I have it completely correct, I searched everywhere for the Dr Brenner Relationship Triangle but can't seem to find it.
It amuses me that people make the general assumption that women were historically the subservient ones in relationships/marriages. Not in my family. Both my grandmothers ruled the roost and one of them never did a day of paid work in her life either (she also had a boyfriend in London at one point). My mother pretty well did everything she wanted to do whether my dad liked it or not. My great aunt lived with my grandmother because she simply didn't want to stay with her husband. I have no examples of subservient women in my life. Even my Mother in Law is a force to be reckoned with. It's her way or the highway.
Agreed, Claire. So funny. None of my daughters have a shred of subservience but I will say the oldest, married one has a lot of wisdom and forbearance in letting her husband learn from his mistakes. As my sister-in-law says, "Don't be a dreamkiller, dreams die on their own." <grin>
What you said here is so fitting Tereza, there's not much for me to add. Relationships between Masculine and Feminine forces are a beautiful balance.
At the core of healthy relationships that are romantic there is friendship, at the core of friendship there is availability and acceptance without expectations.
There was an author on relationships; Dr. Paul Brenner who used to have discussions on the "balanced male" interaction with their female partner. He used a triangular diagram that illustrated how there are three primary "character aspects" to the both sexes that naturally compliment each other.
When it comes to sex, it should not be the primary focus of the experience; it is something that is shared, not expected.
My oldest did crew her freshman year in college. Maybe that was why, when she had her June birthday party, three guys she'd had crushes on and been spurned by suddenly changed their minds ;-) She chose well with James and they always know the anniversary of their first date as a week after her birthday.
Oh and I forgot to mention saucy wenches in my list. Although we're all salty wenches by the end ...
Wow, Tereza, you are on fire, and I love it! Well done, and thank you, and whew!
I feel honored to be included in the quotes, and that you shared the link from Xi about Womb Wealth. I want to rewatch that video now.
I was such an angry feminist in my 20s, and have gotten away from it as I've aged, and as I've come more into my own agency in my life in the last few years, in my late 40s. But wow, your case is compelling that we need to build the world from a centered, grounded, loving, balanced place.
You say we need to do it for our daughters....and may I throw in our sons as well? My son is big hearted and compassionate and sensitive - and competitive and loves business and money already as an 8 year old. He fascinates me. And I want him to grow into his healthiest possible person, unsquashed and untainted by these distortions.
Those men in your article - Decoy 9/11! Taraban! YIKES!!!! How do these men survive with such attitudes? Do some women find this attractive? I like to think of it as the world's healing pains - as we are hopefully moving towards more health, the sickness has to come to the surface, so it can be healed. May these men find healing, because certainly, it cannot be pleasant to have such vitriol and hatred inside them.
Thank you so much, marta, and for giving me those fine quotes and links. I watched the one of Xi on her website so far because I wanted to get an introduction. She has such a lovely demeanor to her and, yes she's selling a program, but she still feels very genuine and seems to offer a lot of very practical business advice along with the woo-woo.
I loved how she took the princess concept and said, this means being of service to a nation. And talking about getting in touch with your inner king and inner masculine--I think that's very important. She also has a great take on the hierogamus (can't find the right spelling) that I'd just learned about from Guy and seems to be popping up everywhere. I'm eager to listen to her others and get more into her vocabulary and mindset.
I was thinking of your son when I wrote that ;-) Yes, raising strong and sensitive boys into an economy where they can express the constructive masculine, that's the goal. You can't free women without freeing men.
My daughter had an interesting question about these men. She wondered about their relationships with their mothers. She said you only get one chance at unconditional love, and if you don't get it then, you take it out on every woman who comes after. Intriguing thought.
to your daughter. not always. for me the 'taking it out' was in the form of extreme co-dependency that was effectively fawning and enabling my partners own traumas and narcissistic tendencies.
at 18 shortly before i left home with the woman to whom i gave my virginity and then about 30 years of fawning co-dependency, i believed that the only way i was going to have sex — the single most important think in life i was taught by my mother — was with my sisters or via rape. hmmm. totally insane.
that 'lack of motherly' love has been a work in process ever since. why i didn't do either? who knows. and the work continues to be about being personally responsible, seeing where i'm spiritually by-passing, and relaxing into the life that is joy and love. fascinating stuff.
Thanks for the high praise ... and humbled at the better analysis of Taraban than I first guesstimated. I now fully agree with your assessment of the moral decadence of his purely transactional description of male-female relationships. And I can't recall anything he said that I've always tried to circle in on ... positive, transformative relationships. That being said, his machiavellian descriptions do appear to be the default "is" (rather than the "should") for far too many here in the Far East as well as the West. Can see his approach as a sure fire recipe for eventual tragic consequences.
Still trying to transcend my own Anna Karenina Principle / unique tragedy (the deep dive into my life under comments to your last post took the wind out of me), some interesting and therapeutic news ... copy-pasted from a message I had sent to a buddy earlier this morning Japan time:
"Just yesterday, I was at a local community center where I teach a fairly advanced English student listening skills which challenge even myself. But afterwards, I sat in on a meeting led by a charming Japanese lady who is an experienced psychiatric counselor. Although she also has a job in that field, she spends a lot of volunteer time going to local community centers or coffee shops, creating opportunities to help mothers who have kids with emotional / mental disabilities or disorders ... and provides them access to specialists and resources beyond her capabilities.
We had a fascinating discussion ranging from the moral limits of exceeding Dunbar's number (and why I can't trust any institution now), empathy as the ground for human morality (maybe synonymous), and the salience of dark-tetrad / Cluster B personality types on building and gaming institutions — only so they can use those human resources as disposable cattle ...
I asked her if she would be interested in an interview about her work, her values, and some of the same things we talked about ... and she enthusiastically agreed. So if things go as planned, I will start a new series (maybe a new substack under a different pseudonym) of interviewing positive movers and shakers at the community level here in Japan, embedding the recorded interview in the substack, and then have another embedded audio of a translation of the interview."
It is going to take a while for me to even follow up comments to your last post, much less links to this one. You have a head is powered by a fuel injected, turbo-charged engine. I'm still pedaling as fast as I can. 😅
Cheers Tereza
p.s Soft White Underbelly has some other interviews well worth watching, but as we both know, life is short and time, an important currency. That link to the short video of Michelle "Mike" Ng's "Farewell Funeral" was a haunting reminder of impending mortality.
I love the idea of that interview series! She sounds like a really interesting woman.
I don't know a single woman, among my acquaintances over the years or my daughters' friends group, who's ever been like the Taraban predator. I've had the misfortune to work for some sociopaths like the men he describes.
Do women manipulate men? Absolutely. denise is right that women think long term and are always setting up the best chance of their children's success and happiness.
Oh I did watch the video of 'Mike' Ng and you're so right, it was very, very moving.
Thanks for the good fodder for a disagreeable woman like me!
LOL ... maybe think about renaming your stack "Mary-Mary-Miss Contrary".
Oh ... I forgot to mention that hilariously funny description of your dance class .... somewhat connected to a movie I saw earlier today ... "Poor Things" ... an X-Rated, Victorian England / Steam Punk, female Frankenstein coming of age flic. Emma Stone deservedly won an Oscar for her role. Highly recommended.
wow! this had me wondering if decoy had pulled an april fool's day post. it was so incredibly over-the-top that i frequently thought he was lampooning the situation. i even laughed at how outrageous and possible even inhuman was the sentiment expressed in your citation. by your comment and the seriousness of the tone, i have inferred that you have taken it seriously. i wasn't interested in reading his full post. and i didn't watch the other guy, taraban, after listening to your overview and reading steve's comment. what i read between the lines of both your comments reminded me of some bizarre incel initiated pseudo-masculine psychology i read a few years ago that was a poorly constructed mask of true victim-language twisted to rationalise victimising another as a 'good' way to get (check) mated. hmmmm.
doesn't anybody read, anymore? i think that one of the most interesting and still valuable looks at the male-female relationship dynamic is Jung's essay 'Marriage as a Psychological Relationship.' (full audio here: https://youtu.be/tNjIwOgLXGs) and, omg! it respects both sexes, doesn't need to pretend they are the same, and suggests that ultimately a goal of a relationship is to move towards individuation for both people which is a difficult and troublesome path that requires negotiating shadow projections and withdrawals, the difficulty of psychological typology in language and understanding, and that there is a difference in how men and women interact with the world, themselves and each other. wow! radical stuff. another interesting book is 'anima and animus' by emma jung and marie-louise von franz: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75547.Animus_and_Anima
and here is a video talking about those concepts: "Anima and Animus - Eternal Partners from the Unconscious". https://youtu.be/IW4GzhdVr-w
p.s.:, tereza. my next post, still in process, has gone deep into the problem of 'reason' and 'superstition'. (hmmm. a form of anima and animus projection? lol! hadn't thought about that until now. i'll think some more.) this deep dive was initiated by your comment on my last essay and so you play a significant role in my look at those ideas as, in a significant way, being equivalent distractions to understanding as the word 'woke'. this has become a pretty deep shadow investigation within myself that has now gone on for 3 weeks, 2 weeks past my usual drop-dead date. (it is getting long! maybe i'll split it.) and i do talk a bit about your comment, just to let you know.
Wow, I had to go back and check the date, just in case. But it was posted on April 5th, on the heels of my last episode, where he'd voiced the same sentiments without the anecdotes. Here is another quote, "When I first started I noticed something about "feminism" and "the manosphere." There were two groups of people complaining about "the sexual marketplace" - young men, and older women. You know who was not complaining about the sexual marketplace? Young women and older men."
Then he tells a story about hanging out with divorcees in their 40's and 50's when he was in his 30's, and then bringing his 21 yr old 'co-ed' girlfriend over. So I think that's some source of his vitriol. I did remember though, when I first checked out Decoy's stack, he had another with his fiction on it, that did tend to violent porn. He's a mystery to me but one I'm done with.
Thanks for the links and the three-week deep dive initiated by my last comment. And I meant to say that your remark was interesting that the speaker was saying narcissists might be made not born. From the beginning of her talk, with its focus on evil, that didn't seem to be the case but I haven't watched much of it yet.
sorry about the confusion. it is *my* observation that narcissists are likely made not born. i don't remember what these people think - likely born.
as to her use of the word 'evil'. if you can get past that, think of evil in this context as behaviour that by design is used to limit, hurt and/or destroy another. she is, imo, loosely using 'evil' in this way and, imo, inappropriately. the other information they talk about is important because it goes to the 'brass tacks' (i almost wrote 'balls') of the widespread place of narcissists in society, the denial of it everywhere, and some of the consequences of both the behaviour and its denial.
I am sorry he feels so threatened by divorced women.
What a sad sack.
This guy is very concerned about what an "old washed up hag" is going to do
to his sex life or some other man's sex life.
Sounds like a good understanding of failure from a firsthand perspective.
AH! The bourbon with bitters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Oh, you coined tonic masculinity? I like that one.
When I heard it I thought, "oh, that's perfect."
I didn't realize you coined it.
Did you get that creative idea energy from the lifeblood you slurped from some nearby, unsuspecting young man?
HO PRACTICE! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Hyper Sexual Tribal Shit!
HAAAAAAAAAAAha
"He admonishes men that their wives should be virgins yet also winks that 30+ women are horndogs, totally DtF. "
Oh man , you are so cute and wonderful. You had me laughing my rear end off through this whole thing.
I look up to you if I ever have to deal with a weirdo. HAhaha. Wow. You are an inspiration.
I am not divorced, but I am 50, so I am going to get out there and destroy some relationships. I mean, why not? There are so many already teetering on the edge.
May as well give them that extra push and then steal their energy and transform it into something useful.
I was laughing so hard I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep from squealing, even though I was alone in the house. Oh my dear, you're the reason I do everything. You are just like my dance teacher, who everyone wants to tell their funniest jokes, because you know she'll get it.
It was really fun telling her about my wicked witch skit. Can't wait to tell her about you pushing those relationships off a cliff and stealing their alchemical energy! Today I was going to accuse her of being extra outrageous to give me more material, but it really wasn't out of character.
I've glanced out your new AI and I'm eager to dig in. Ready for our next collab.
Yes, the tonic masculinity is a funny story. Here's the start of it before the boys took it:
"Unsuspecting", yes. I initially said "unexpecting", I edited it to make it correct.
Oh well :) I was just reacting in the moment. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was just getting worse and worse.
Your delivery is too much :) I will check out the links you shared between gardening this week. I am saying NO to everything and getting some work done. If I need a little extra energy for that, I can just siphon it from some nearby relationship, like you do. *wipes blood off face.
I mean, there is just nothing left for women to do after their 30s.
.........................Let me roll my eyes *holds imaginary eyeballs in hands on the right side of my body, lifts them in an arc over my head and brings them to rest on the left side of my body. I rolled them SO HARD.
Sometime I'd like to tap your videographer knowledge on how to film people and disguise their identity. I know you remember my series on my neighbor whose kids were kidnapped by the dad with the complicity of the Solano Court. I met with the advocate who's been documenting the corruption and gave her the case file I'd prepared. She said there are women who'd like to tell their stories but they still have kids in the system, where the court could retaliate. She'd like to put together a sort of documentary. We talked about filming their hands and changing their voices. Anyway, just thought I'd put it out there for you to noodle on.
I'm not sure I know about that story/series but yes, I can definitely help with that, there are many ways to obscure the identity of a person in a video. I did something similar for a video where people's faces and voices had to be hidden. Call me (you have my number)!
Sorry for the late musical donation...life happened for a few days back yonder. They're only together for the rare special occasion these days, but this was my 2nd fave Austin band while they were an ongoing enterprise. (1st Fave Austin band is whoever's onstage with the lead guitarist here, who was John Mayall's lead guitarist before health forced him into retirement.) So, without any further ado... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq9-sax6qlU
Sorry for the absence of brass instruments...Carolyn is a multi-instrumentalist, but this is the only song on which I've seen her play trumpet...maybe she did it on occasion with Sis Deville, but I saw SD three times back in the day and never heard a toot, just a lotta twang.
I was recently listening to a discussion and reading by Ba'al Busters of the Oera Linda book (might first deep dive). It talks about the high social status of women as leaders and wise counsellors in ancient Germanic [pagan] societies.
• Oera Linda Book Ep. II: Nobleman and the Sorcerer - Ba'al Busters
There is a strong emphasis on the exalted position of the [folk]mother and of the maidens
see 2:30:00 – the laws established for the government of the citadels, starting with
1. Whenever a citadel is built, the lamp belonging to it must be lighted at the original lamp in Texland, and that con only be done by the mother.
-----
I just now came across this essay by Aidan MacMillan who is a remarkable writer with a clearly deep level of scholarship on the topic of his own ancestry. He writes some amazing book reviews
• Berserkers and Folkmothers - in-depth look at pagan practices - AIDAN MACMILLAN
“The Oera Linda Book speaks of a society wherein virgin women were given high social status based on their ability to remain calm while directing certain elements of society towards harmony with nature. They memorized the laws and the lore of the tribe so that future generations would have good teachers; they assisted Kings and Captains during wartime (as mentioned by Tacitus); they were spiritual leaders who embodied the best of what women could offer; they were magical sorceresses and stewards of living goddesses; they were virginity and motherhood wrapped into one indivisible whole.
[…]
Women have a powerful place in human society, and their highest form is similar to that of a King, who is like a father. Indeed, their highest form is that of a Queen, who is like a mother. Just as men can achieve royalty and nobility of spirit, so too can women.
[…]
Let us bring back the balance and harmony of the proto-Indo-Europeans, the first Aryans, and let us teach our young men the frenzy of women, and let us teach our young women the stoic nature of men.”
This is so interesting. I love that last quote about teaching young men the frenzy of women and young women the stoicism of men. It fits with the video I just did on The Horus Gamos and women getting in touch with their inner masculine. I still have a lot of work to go on the Substack, since I adlibbed it, so maybe I can fit this in. Thanks so much, Julius!
Joy, did that happen to be you who recently watched my episode on Vaping & Snake Venom? I noticed that is a specialty of your research. It came up in my 'recently watched' and since it's an older one, I wondered.
I think that was me. Interesting to learn all about the role of venoms in this mess. Can you link me so I can make sure I did catch it? Thank you for the work you're doing!
Yes, I still think there's an important clue in the venoms. I've talked to two people this week who've recovered from two-week long illnesses, neither one testing positive. One said it was as sick as she's been since she was three years old. My landscaper said that for 3-4 days he thought he might die. The hospital told him it was something bacterial and gave him antibiotics. It just seemed strange to me.
Thanks. So much good stuff! I had missed it, and am glad you checked with me and gave me the link.
My husband (unvaccinated) was getting blood clots every time he got on an airplane. We assumed shedding. We would treat and he would recover. Last time however, it got NASTY, and it wasn't coming under control until after we added nicotine patches to the routine, which was something we hadn't tried before. It might also have been that we started Methylene Blue as well though. Tough when you get desperate and add more than one thing at a time, and then cannot be sure which one made the big difference.
I am so blown away each day by what's happening, (extermination) and that so many of us are speaking about these types of things. Just 10 years ago all of this was so far beyond comprehension, and now we're witnessing it in real time.
I have been thinking that I should stock up on nicotine patches. And methylene blue. In the end, the scientific experiment isn't as critical as getting better when it's your loved one. Thanks, Joy.
We need to keep the most promising things in our arsenal! Have you seen much from Dr. Bryan Ardis? I STRONGLY recommend watching ALL of his interviews that you can get your hands on. I open a new one thinking I've heard everything this guy has to say, but then I always get several incredible new gold nuggets in each. He did a thing with Stew Peters called "The Antidote" most excellent introduction. They've known venoms would be a major method of depopulation decades ago. Hence, the demonization of nicotine, the lies, just like with anything that kills parasites.
We're dealing with highly communicable micro parasites that have been engineered to produce venom peptides. The vaccines included the mRNA so that our cells would manufacture venoms.
here in mexico by synchronicity i came to buy organic tobacco leaves and from that make an infusion. a bit of a story there. omg, tobacco is a **powerful** plant.
you may find this interesting. I saw it after my experience with the infusion.
I think it’s quite likely that certain men have a very two dimensional understanding of women. I know the same could be said the other way around. But even the most in-depth observations that I’ve heard men have of women, I know they’re not quite there, that they don’t quite get it. But that’s really just fine, dudes. Let women be a bit mysterious, damn. Let us commune with the moon and we’ll get right back to ya.
You’ve got a nice set of brass ovaries, wading into all that. I almost wrote “big balls” but then also realised that balls are quite sensitive and you could flick them to send them off crying in pain. A uterus, on the other hand, well, it takes a bit of a pounding and it gives birth and all that, and is still a nice, warm, cozy thing. I can’t believe I’m writing all this on a public forum. See what you bring out of people, Tereza? 😅
Hahaha! I think we need more uterus jokes in the world. Men have SO many pet names for their privates. A fine set of ivory ovaries. A uteroctopus. My dance crew also gave each other lewd names during the lockdowns. Gina merely changed the pronunciation of hers. One of them has written a book on Pilates for Better Sex. They're a VERY bad influence.
A bad influence on whom? 😂 sounds like a great party!
It took me 60 yrs to learn how to tell dirty jokes and curse like a sailor. I feel like I'm in that pack of middle school girls who still play on the monkey bars and could care less what the boys think.
I worked in construction for a decade in my youth and the mouth on me was pretty bad… it’s taken me years to unlearn and bite my tongue in polite company. But I’ve always enjoyed dirty jokes. I think I’d make a good addition to your middle school monkey bars.
My youngest just got her first office job at a big law firm. I got her a mug that said, "Prove them fucking wrong" to help her curb her tongue and just give a knowing nod. Sometimes you have to go underground.
The perfect mug for a new job at a law firm doesn’t exi———
lol!
love it.
oddly enough the opposite may be true regarding the 2 dimensional perception by men of women. and i'm not saying the perception is correct!!! an odd anecdotal experiment may confirm some aspect of Jung's idea of the anima being very clearly seen by most men. in the 1970s(?) jane robers, of the seth books, held weekly meetings with group of seekers. seth would sometimes contribute. in one of those he suggested that as an experiment it might be fun for the people to come the following meeting dressed as the opposite sex. the men all took elaborate care to be as detailed as possible. (trans?) the women, on the other hand, had flat completely two dimensional characterisations of men - weird lumberjack things, etc.
as mentioned elsewhere, a really good look at (some of) the 'differences' between the sexes can be found in Jung's interesting and still relevant essay 'marriage as a psychological relationship.' https://youtu.be/tNjIwOgLXGs and also his and his wife's look at anima and animus.
I wonder if women went with caricatures of men because women dress like men all the time, whereas men can never dress like women. It's like women having male names but once names become women's, they can never go back.
perhaps. that does miss the actual event, though, when the women dressed up with oversized boots, poorly done beards, the lumberjack shirt coat. so... possible. it certainly did not have that feel to it in the reading of it and the fascinating discussion that followed the experience. although i wasn't there.
It is easier to “caricature” a woman, tbf. There are so many accessories, not to mention make up. There’s a flamboyancy to women, perhaps left over from generations of education on how to act in polite society. So there’s more of a “performance” to it. As a tomboyish woman, I’ve had to put that on when wearing something fancy because my demeanour didn’t otherwise match. I wouldn’t say I was doing it subconsciously, in fact, it was fairly easy to do with a little awareness. But if I had to act like a man, I would most likely behave like a little less of my normal self.
My femininity came out strong when I became a mom. It all kind of depends on your level of hormones, maybe? Perhaps it’s one aspect of the transgenderism conversation that could lean into the science more is that we do have different hormonal levels and therefore our masculinity and femininity is a balance between how we feel and how we present ourselves. And I’m in no way condoning medical interventions. Just saying that it isn’t as black and white as the polarisation would have us believe.
hola, va. thank you for this interesting and thought provoking angle. isn't amazing how subtle and nuanced all these 'label narratives' turn out to be with a closer look? love it.
muchas gracias
I’m so glad to be able to have nuanced conversations on this platform. 🙏
It is easier to “caricature” a woman, tbf. There are so many accessories, not to mention make up. There’s a flamboyancy to women, perhaps left over from generations of education on how to act in polite society. So there’s more of a “performance” to it. As a tomboyish woman, I’ve had to put that on when wearing something fancy because my demeanour didn’t otherwise match. I wouldn’t say I was doing it subconsciously, in fact, it was fairly easy to do with a little awareness. But if I had to act like a man, I would most likely behave like a little less of my normal self.
My femininity came out strong when I became a mom. It all kind of depends on your level of hormones, maybe? Perhaps it’s one aspect of the transgenderism conversation that could lean into the science more is that we do have different hormonal levels and therefore our masculinity and femininity is a balance between how we feel and how we present ourselves. And I’m in no way condoning medical interventions. Just saying that it isn’t as black and white as the polarisation would have us believe.
My views on this whole thing just keep evolving. I'm less concerned with how we got to this us-vs-them place than how we move past it. Your ideas on tonic masculinity and femininity are such a wonderful place to start that process, Tereza. (And I want to know the name of the dance class you take -- holy s***, sign me up for THAT teacher training... 😂)
OMG you MUST go with me when I lure you and your husband out to visit my garaj mahal! It's called Worldanz but your Improvidance is something I want to do.
Thank you for the kind words on my ideas as a place to start moving past the us-vs-them. It's been a curious thing to me. I feel like I'm saying true masculinity is constructive and protective and, from some of the best examples of that, I'm getting pushback that it's really 'domineering, superior, aggressive and violent" but women are the ones who are toxic. So I either need to agree with them that masculinity is inherently toxic, which I don't, or be seen as trying to dominate men by telling them what masculinity is. How did we get here? It's still a puzzle to me.
Yeah, you're in a no-win situation on that one. Perhaps it's not either-or? Perhaps there's a third way, oh Third Paradigm goddess?
HAHAHA! Didn't mean to do caps but spirit had a mind of its own.
My wife raises the same point about balls every chance she gets, though mixes the metaphor a bit and compares their wimpy sensitivity to the p***y, which also “takes a pounding.” “Brass” is really key to making the compliment work in the male context.
Thanks for picking up on that subtlety. 🫡
brass as in cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey?
Just before you wrote “I have no idea what egalitarian ratchet effect, Whig history and globohomo mean” I was thinking to myself “I have no idea what egalitarian ratchet effect, Whig history and globohomo mean”.
Right? Total mumbo-jumbo. When there are so many clear and evident things on which to dissent!
Ell oh ell.
Great video! It’s baffling to me how women get the blame for men’s shortcomings. Men are being neutered by much more than just some feminist ideology (I’d day Hollywood, pharma, the food supply all play a big part).
Relationships have always been messy. We have no way of telling whether they were better in the past when women were more subservient. Perhaps the relationships were more unhappy but divorce/freedom from bondage was not an option.
I have been hard on myself lately because I’ve allowed myself to feel that being single is my fault due to my “toxic femininity”. Your video today talked me off a ledge. I should be proud that I had the courage to leave the abusive relationships. I don’t think it would have helped anyone if I had rolled over and pretended that I actually like being beaten.
Oh no, I'm so sorry you've had that self-doubt. From the first time you commented on my thread, you stood out as such a warm and balanced person. I always look forward to your thoughts as a true kindred spirit. There's not a shred of 'toxic femininity' in you, if I even knew what that was.
Something is seriously broken in relationships. I don't really know what it is or how to fix it. I would never have believed how prevalent physically abusive men were until I feel like it's everywhere I turn that women have escaped.
I really wish for you friends who make lewd jokes while dancing all out. It's our matrix that's going to be our sanctuary.
yes. something is seriously broken. and it isn't just abusive men. pretty much everywhere i turn i see people struggling from broken mothers or wives as often if not more often, as than with broken men. (where's steve kirsch to do a survey that will prove that there is a pretty even distribution of broken people across the sexes, even if they express the brokenness differently.)
i think that from day-to-day we will see more from this or that side of the family dynamic being the locus of the brokenness because i suspect it is pretty evenly distributed. perhaps that locus is itself a bit of a false flag, keeping us spinning around to see who to blame?
as you have observed often, the system is about breaking people regardless of sex. and the system is designed for its own continuation of the story that one 'side' points to the other. in the last week i've had serious discussions with people, 3 men one woman, who all have struggled with what can only be described as brutal mothers (2) and a brutal wife (1). and 1 man with a mother-father dynamic that was jointly brutal.
i've mentioned it before, i think and i'll mention it again. darrell hammond, the snl star who suffered severe mental health that had him frequently hospitalised. the 11th psychiatrist began the path to health when he said 'you had a narcisstic mother.' what is interesting is that when i did a bit of poking around i looked at about 6 or 8 reviews of the move he made, called 'cracked up', and none mentioned either the word 'mother' or the word 'narcissism' as the root cause of his craziness.
here's a trailer to the movie, Cracked Up, which also skips the words 'narcissism' and the word 'mother': https://youtu.be/fK_WmHUqvvk
and here are two women whose jobs are to help people, mostly women, who suffered from spousal narcissistic abuse. amongst other things they discuss the significant presence of narcissism (25% of the population by an official estimate, although they think it is higher than that.) you may find it interesting to consider that very likely narcissists aren't born and are made.
"The Collective Denial of Evil and its Impact on Psychiatric Treatment - Sheri Heller"
https://youtu.be/pPVSSWV1_pE
i came to this after attending a narcissism recovery series organised by a woman who suffered the abuse of a narcissistic mother.
Guy, you're my window into this world. First, your experience is the most extreme of anyone I know. Second, you've delved very personally and vulnerably into analyzing it. Third, you're connected to and read people like Jasun and Jordan, who are spokesmen for these ideas I'm disputing, that the answer is a rejection of the mother. And fourth, you keep reading and talking to me even though we disagree.
The problem I have with labels like narcissist is that the buck stops there. How did these mothers become 'narcissists'? They were just born that way. Maybe we should have psychological testing that certifies if someone is fit to be a mother, and either take her children away or sterilize her preemptively. These people can never change, Ramani says so and, as I told Steve, her videos are being shoved down my feed every time I open YT, so she must be right.
It isn't whether men or women are more broken but whether the role of mothering has been discarded by a system designed by and for men. I thought denise described that well in the quote I posted. She goes into more detail in the full comment: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-anti-matri-male/comment/53102714. She goes into circumcision as the first betrayal by the mother of the son, from which she believes the trust is never fully recovered. Guy, I know you've written about this.
For the Substack manosphere, they are very much divided in their belief in God but universal in their belief in evil. Evil means that good people just need to identify them and protect ourselves against them. We don't need to bother with why people develop the way they do.
I was writing this morning that the quickest way to get someone to agree with you is to tell them they're better than others. That's what the belief in evil is so popular along, imo, with certain authors with large followings. If you challenge people's ideas of their superiority, they fall off in droves ;-)
hola, tereza.
your comment had me laughing in several directions at the same time! why wouldn’t i read you? i am not particularly interested in echo chamber talk. omg, that would be kind of, actually(?) narcissistic! why are you still reading me, if your (false) perception is that we (fundamentally?) disagree? i certainly don’t ‘disagree’ with you. i’m not sure i understand what you mean by that ‘label’, as i come to think more deeply about it. how could we not disagree, in the sense that you have your ideas and experience and that is important in myriad of ways. and i have my own. and that the important thing, you often cite, is the to be able to argue which gives our beings the opportunity to explore more deeply the broad expanse of existence. so… puzzled.
your comment about peterson and horsley also had me laughing because it seems to me you have misread them pretty significantly. both of them are saying that the system is broken. perhaps they might disagree with the broad sweep i read in the short snippet of denise that tearing down patriarchy will fix the problem. it won’t. (i didn’t look at her more closely to see if i misunderstood her point.) it won’t because the structure itself is not the root of the problem. recently i listened to celia farber’s excellent comment where she has come to that realisation too. in her talk with tessa lena she said paraphrased: i’ve been fighting against the people and their systems and their reasons and reasoning behind medical and social malfeasance since i learned during aids that that was a manufactured death-scam. if only the right people were found guilty or the right people were in place or we fixed the system. now i realise that attacking or changing the structure or system is a false flag because it is the energy of consciousness that will create the real change. it is the energy of consciousness that manifests the system.’ i recommend this talk very much: 'degradation as content: conversation with celia farber: this was a rich conversation, i hope you enjoy it as much as i did!' mar 24, 2024
https://tessa.substack.com/p/degradation-as-content-celia-farbe
will patriarchy as it exists on some peterson ideal of christianity exist when we have significantly changed consciousness? nope, so we are aligned there. and horsley is in the process of exploring that and i don’t think he has a fixed destination or end point yet as he looks at the seemingly obvious ‘benefits’ of the christian thought that having put the individual and individual experience as having the most important value — which is also the main focus of thought peterson attributes so christianity. imo.
and i laughed at your quick dismissal of labels as if that is the end of the story. i laughed in part because you are a label-freak of the highest order, with frequent references to the need to properly define our labels in order to be able to properly communicate and that you label your self as dogmatic to the dogmatic label of equality and the rights of each of us to have an opinion. why would the ‘label’ narcissism’ stop conversation? one thing that stops verbal conversation is to un-label things, such as what is happening with ‘holocaust’, a word that is becoming unspeakable for fear of being cancelled. without the ‘label’ in our world language there isn’t a discussion! the other is to mistake the label for truth, a truth trap that stops questioning. that is happening in the fragmentation of the mfm, as the some get caught by the truth-trap of a particular label.
have i ever said that narcissism is the end of the story? nope. and in my writing that experience echoes the experience of hammond, and others that i know including myself, that once the accurate description, the truth of the situation had been labeled, that became the path to freedom. to properly label something is to open doors to understanding that goes beyond labels.
the truth-trap comes in when we fixate on that discovery as permanent truth. when we ignore the challenge that everything is in flux, always. that is when doors close, spiritual by-passing kicks in and, and with it refusal to take personal responsibility and to look around for someone or something to blame and/or complain about. or to turn into a hero.
also, my understanding of narcissism continues to grow/change. why? because i am open to the limitations of my have truth-trapped myself with any label. i once thought narcissists were most likely born. i no longer believe that. i once thought narcissists were ‘incurable’. and despite a long list of cited experts saying that, i now no longer believe that. and, by synchronicity today i came to this interesting discussion on the so-called ‘cosmic origins’ of narcissism. i’m still digesting this, because elkhaldy made several interesting connections and points that aren’t easy for me to dismiss. (likely i will explore this more fully later.) the conversation continues, for me, and so i find it interesting that you see it as closing a door and i the opposite by being a beginning of exploration and conversation. you may find this interesting: “spiritual roots of narcissism (the fallen) by the alchemist - sarah elkhaldy https://youtu.be/oo65q5cur8w
and in another very odd synchronicity i went looking for meadow devor’s book on healing our relationship with money because of the video you linked to earthstar academy’s “clear money wounds, poverty curses, spells & implants”. when i went to youtube for devor i discovered that she has been focused on the practical guides and tools to spot and navigate the narcissist in our world.
https://www.youtube.com/@meadowdevor. and i also like earthstar and i found your label ‘woo-woo’ to be inappropriate. i didn’t find her to be significantly woo-woo at all.
how did some african woman start and continue the practice of circumcising their daughters? why did the nurses in the german hospitals leading up to the holocaust hold the children who were being euthanised by doctors? why did convid doctors and nurses put people into ventilators and filled them with opiates knowing that that was a deadly protocol? in a way your question is … well. meaningless. it by-passes the challenge, which is to heal the moment, deal with the moment. i could say that the actions of creating a schismogenetic society began with the absolute narcissism that began the roman catholic church. or, as elkhaldy argues, was/is an accidental outcome of a spirital energy being made manifest in dense material. (or is an energetically required shadow of (egoistically) serving others.) or from the alien elohim who demanded human blood sacrifice. or… pointless.
guatama pointed out in his not widely disseminated or, imo, understood teachings that cosmic and/or other origin seeking is a waste of time. and he included the near never-ending story or reincarnation with that. the question, the task, the act of supreme personal responsibility is ‘how do i reduce the suffering now?’ now i enjoy the puzzle of origins as much as anyone, and i’m enjoying the theatre of competing and overlapping storylines with different protagonists and enemies weaving in and out of the various scenes and acts. virus/novirus; venom; lab-leak; 5g; dews; etc. graphene; sv40; all spiritual by-pass if it does not come down to ‘what can i do now to reduce suffering?’
the first step, as just about every credible source says and my expanding experience is confirming, begins with ‘heal thy self’ in order to stop projecting your shadow. most yogic traditions basically argue that all suffering begins with projection which heals when we begin to withdraw that with vidya, proper seeing. to do the shadow work needed to stop projecting is the courage to be fully responsible for my presence in this life.
and, personally, i like how our language usage clues us in to how much we are not taking responsibility and projecting: ‘blame/complain’, ‘have to’, ‘should’, ‘deserved/undeserved’ ‘always’ ‘never’ are clue words that i can see/hear in myself and others that are pointing to (unconscious) bully-world stockholm syndrome and an abdication of personal responsibility with the associated projection on to another or thing as some kind of source — hero/villain — to a greater or lesser extent.
lol! another laugh because the ‘long’ essay i am with is looking at ‘superiority’ in great detail. in particular as it applies to ‘reason’. and that keeps getting delayed by these kind of ‘side-line’ investigations. thank you for your comment there and here! so important, fun, and energising to look more deeply at my own place here as a patriarchal white male (another label), who may or may not be an adult man (another label) in a philosophically challenging substack (another label) that is part of the subset of the mfm world (another label).
life really does have a wicked sense of humour. thank you!
Oh I will just say too, that denise didn't talk about tearing down the patriarchy, she talked about developing a new currency, which is the same solution I talk about.
I was quoting per Xi, "As marta says, she is very woo-woo but she likes her." I was glad marta gave that qualification because it helped me not dismiss her, which I might have otherwise. To tell marta that her comment is inappropriate is ... inappropriate.
And you do realize that everytime you say you're laughing, you're laughing at me and how wrong I am. I disagree with people, including yourself, and tell them why. I don't say I'm right and they're wrong, I just present my logic and argument. You tell me I'm wrong and it makes you laugh that I got things so wrong. You present my wrongness as a fact, not an opinion. I have a hard time with that.
thank you for the clarification about denise and marta. i'll see if my intuition takes me there.
and thank you for sharing your experience of my mirth. i am sorry.
i have no ability to be factual and so from that perspective my laughing or not is actually not all that important, beyond it being how my body-self did respond. i am sorry that that made you uncomfortable. all i have is my opinion, and that is likely to be as wrong as right and subject to change. it has changed a lot about just about everything and so i consider them tentative. and yet, it is all i have. i don't have the facts to know your wrongness as absolute. we are, i understand, sharing opinions, narratives, experiences. and so... well, that is my opinion.
thank you for telling me your feelings. i respect that a great deal.
I don't think we fundamentally disagree. There's a difference, I think, in clearly defining ideas and the terms used to express them and labeling people. It says, "This is who this person is," not just how they behave or what they say. It fixes them in place. I try to be conscious of not doing that.
When John Carter calls women hoes or thots or traps or obese HR goblins, he's labeling who they are. My only adjectives for John are complimentary. I'm critical of his behavior in labeling women, not who he is.
I wouldn't label myself dogmatic. I have one dogma that I'm no better than anyone else. It's not who I am, it's what I choose to believe. I would guess the vast majority of people have many beliefs they won't raise to question, but they're not conscious of them as beliefs--the 'holocaust' for instance.
But I don't want to distract you from your 2-week overdue post, even if it is a self-imposed deadline ;-)
Hi Tereza and Guy.
Great thread you two have going here.
Just a quick observation from mandatory attendance at one too many academic assembly meetings here in Japan: One person's painstakingly parsed definition is another's flippantly end-of-discussion label.
As a more-or-less marginalized observer of the social dynamics at play, even among academics ... no, especially among academics ... both the limits and potential of language and logic are all too often subconsciously relegated to a secondary role. Those academic assembly meetings were more often than not a somewhat ritualized pretense of problem solving. The most important decisions had already been made behind the scenes ... "nemawashi" in Japanese (I think Guy's partner can verify this).
Among the tactics employed at those meetings, the person who decides what is a definition to be further expanded on, or flips the coin over to a dismissive label, is the one with higher status in the group ... and woe be unto any who fail at "kuki wo yomu" (reading the room for status cues and general sentiment).
A blunt version of the ethics of Schopenhauer or Hobbes is playing out ... might makes right. Or "the golden rule" perverted into whoever controls the purse strings (gold), makes the rules. Sighing, because this dove-tails with "All wars are banker's wars." I am not saying this is the default morality for humanity — but it may be the default for a small but salient subset.
Now changing tack to shed more light on this with studies in primatology (I like Frans de Waal for this). Although troops of chimpanzees and bonobos appear to have their population restricted to their equivalence of Dunbar's number (obviously one genetic predisposition which defines their species), how does one account for which individuals come to dominate the troop? Those individuals exhibit complex behavior some might label as "alphas", and others might call "bullies" — but just as size of the troop is genetically constrained, I am guessing the pecking order is similarly genetically constrained, and trauma, an epiphenomenon. (Thinking Charlie Brown vs. Lucy Van Pelt here. 😂).
I guess a lot depends on how appropriate those other social primates are for extrapolating insights into human behavior. Meh, for some humans, I suppose "snakes in suits" will do.
Cheers Tereza and Guy!
excellente.
and yes, the 'labels' as you put them above have helped me understand a bit more some of my own thought-habits. that form of labelling is what i've categorised as a manifestation of projection. i hadn't thought of it as 'labelling'. thank you for helping me see that overlap. it isn't 100% the same, and so the distinction is a good one for me.
thank you for correcting me about you having a dogma versus being dogmatic. subtle and important distinction. (although i still question the value of 'having' a dogma at all.)
lol! yes. my self-imposed deadline. i've been following my ps-rap muscle testing process. at this time my body is fine with the pace of this essay. and with my forays into these high quality discussions.
otra vez, muchas gracias.
Thanks for the links! Now that you mention narcissistic mothers I’m thinking that maybe my own has had a role in my relationship struggles… I’ll see where your links take me in this.
You’re correct that the “false flag locus” keeps us blaming others. It’s difficult to take responsibility for our situation yet not blame ourselves.
yes.
the challenge is to see that is broken with equanimity and stoic dispassion. it is from vidya, seeing what is true, that we have the power to change. the hammond experience epitomises that: 40+ years of mental derrangment begins to heal with the 'aha! now i know what the truth is'.
good luck with the discovery. narcissistic parents — regardless of sex — are a tough tough thing. i've included these links in my reply to tereza that you may also find helpful: “spiritual roots of narcissism (the fallen) by the alchemist - sarah elkhaldy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO65Q5cuR8w
[edited with corrected url]
and
practical guides and tools to spot and navigate the narcissist in our world by meadow devor https://www.youtube.com/@meadowdevor.
sidenote: many argue the importance of 'forgiveness'. alice miller in her excellent book, 'the body never lies: the lingering effects of hurtful parenting' makes a strong case that 'forced' forgiveness will show up in the body as early death. i've come to understand that the being responsible for this now is actually a more important step and for those who can/do honestly forgive are not fully healed until the step of personal responsibility is taken. and that for those who cannot forgive, taking personal responsibility eventually results in the healing that makes forgiveness unnecessary.
i've writtn about my experiences in my substack. if curious, you can see my letters to my dead mother beginning with:
'Dear Terry: Epistle #1 to A Dead Mother: Who Were You? Asks One Version of A Chronic Nose-Picking Son' https://gduperreault.substack.com/p/dear-terry-epistle-1-to-a-dead-mother.
that is followed by the more a second epistle with some of the more challenging aspects of our 'relationship.'
all the best on your healing path.
Great, thank you! I will definitely be checking out your substack (I’ve been meaning to each time Tereza mentions you).
This sounds to me like “when the student is ready the teacher appears”. Thank you for presenting me with all this information/advice. I’m getting emotional just typing this response. I’m a little scared to start this healing journey but I am ready.
welcome to your path!
if it wasn't a little scary to begin, it would most likely be a sign that the student isn't quite ready to begin! it is wonderful you are ready! so... your journey is yours, and at the same time, you are not alone.
be kind, patient, and resilient. your body and your spirit are naturally moving towards optimal health at all times. the effort is to get our blocked energy patterns and habits out of the way.
all the best with what is changing, with peace, respect, love and gratitude.
and thank you for subscribing! all the best.
Hi Guy. Still have not had the time to go back to an earlier thread where we were discussing pathological narcissism and other related cluster B traits. I suspect we will never be able to tease the nature from nurture or epigenetics, but over the past couple of weeks, I have listened to a couple of interesting podcasts, including the March 30 post by Tess Lawrie, where the guest specialist implies that we all go through trauma at one time or another. I tend to agree. But what I had not connected recently is that although some are damaged by trauma, some of us emerge to Post-Traumatic-Growth. When I look back on my life's defining moments, they emerged at the point of trauma. As an educator, I would not wish such trauma on anybody, yet I don't think I could have become the person I have without those close-to-the-edge moments.
This raises the interesting thought-experiment of imagining subjecting a range of people to a standardized measurement of trauma. I realize there are an infinite number of variables and ethical problems, hence "thought experiment" ... but I can't help but to imagine the same amount of trauma damaging some people, and showing a path forward for others.
I think this is where the likes of Dr. Ramani is coming from when they say that pathological narcissism is an inherited temperament that no amount of counseling can treat. We simply have to know how to identify the behavior and avoid it, or develop a skill-set of counter-measures. Her recent interview seemed to jive with my career-ending encounters here in Japan ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTkKXDvSJvo&t=31s
That being said, I agree there are systemic factors as well. I vaguely remember a quote by (I think) Ben Franklin saying that marriage places a man's fate (should be updated to include women) in a hostage situation. Japan ranks among the lowest countries in the world for Women's rights, and marriage is still more structured to put men in the breadwinner capacity and women as master of the house and child raising. Japan Inc. puts a lot of pressure on a man to marry, I think because it places the breadwinner in a hostage situation. Any refusal to comply to the hierarchy, no matter how immoral, can result in an end to one's career ... and therefore disaster for the family. "Jaku niku kyoshoku" (dog-eat-dog) is often used to describe the soft white underbelly of superficial harmony over here. That is why I so much depend on a few friends and the local community.
Cheers Guy
hola, steve. great to see your comment.
the trauma-growth 'thing'! yes. for one person, the birth trauma is so bad that suicide happens before 20. for that person's sibling, it leads to spiritual enlightenment and the transformation of human civilisation. why?
each are unique! jung wrestled with this problem too because he puzzled why similar situations within a family, even for identical twins, leads to complete unique outcomes. one of the great mysteries.
and for me, and people i have met who have taken responsibility for their spiritual growth, the trauma events become the blessing that allows for greater/deeper vision of both the human experience and the spiritual birth that comes out from that experience. that even has its 'story' in the shamanic worlds, where the shaman wannabes would undergo some kind of traumatic often life and death experience-event, before they could be understood and seen as true shamans.
in a way, the ace (adverse child events) study provides an indirect measure of that. my sisters and i are pretty high up on the scale; two of us are doing deep healing work, one superficial and struggles with body pain, and the other was in denial and is a complete zombie and possible. the youngest became a substance addict and is working on her recovery with the help of aa.
regarding the intractability of healing from being a narcissistic. as i mentioned in my long reply to tereza's comment above, i'm no longer fully convinced that that is the absolute case. healing from it is very unusual, for sure, because it will take the rare combination of a narcissistic willing to change and meeting someone skilled (empathic?) enough to help that change. you may find this interesting:
“spiritual roots of narcissism (the fallen) by the alchemist - sarah elkhaldy" https://youtu.be/oo65q5cur8w
yoshiko, my partner, has also been talking about some of the 'dirty' underbelly 'secrets' of japanese polite culture. recently she fully understood that, statistically, not absolutely, all japanese men are actually frightened boys. she told me about how every corner in a city in japan has a 'mother' bar for men to be served by women who take on the persona of their mothers for them! have you seen these?
Hi Guy!
I tried to view the video, but found it had been deleted. I hear you about the boy-man thing here in Japan. Maybe a little less now than a few years ago ... but yeah, it is definitely a thing, one version being this ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbivore_men
Just a broad-stroke guess, but I am thinking this is directly correlated with the degree of authoritarianism that begins in Jr. High (juken-senso exam wars), and does not end until retirement. A few self-entitled or well-connected sociopathic "alphas" tend to define the institutions over here, but also guessing Japan expresses just a particularly extreme form of collective human nature.
By the way, try as I may ... I posted a sub-sub-sub comment into a thread between you and Tereza about "labeling", and now I can't find it. But I did save my comment for further expansion, maybe into a post or essay for later. With a bit of editing, here it is, for what it's worth ...
Cheers Guy!
——————
Hi Tereza and Guy.
Great thread you two have going here.
Just a quick observation from mandatory attendance at one too many academic assembly meetings here in Japan: One person's painstakingly parsed definition is another's flippantly end-of-discussion label.
As a more-or-less marginalized observer of the social dynamics at play, even among academics ... no, especially among academics ... both the limits and potential of language and logic are all too often subconsciously relegated to a secondary role. Those mandatory meetings were more often than not a somewhat ritualized pretense of problem solving (otherwise they would not have been mandatory). The most important decisions had already been made behind the scenes ... "nemawashi" in Japanese (I think Yoshiko can verify this).
Among the many covert tactics of compliance employed at those meetings, the person who decides what is a definition to be further expanded on, or flips the coin over to a dismissive label, is the one with higher status in the group ... and woe be unto any who fail at "kuki wo yomu" (reading the room for status cues and general sentiment).
A blunt version of the ethics of Schopenhauer or Hobbes appears to be playing out ... "might makes right". Or "the golden rule" perverted into "whoever controls the purse strings (gold), makes the rules". Sighing, because this dove-tails with "All wars are banker's wars." I am not saying this is the default morality for humanity — but it may be the default for a small but salient subset. Again, that raises the question of how much does genetic predisposition play into the cluster B / dark tetrad mind set?
Changing tack to shed more light on this with studies in primatology (I like Frans de Waal for this), although troops of chimpanzees and bonobos appear to have their population size restricted to their equivalence of Dunbar's number (obviously one genetic predisposition which defines their species), how does one account for which individuals come to dominate the troop?
Those individuals exhibit complex behavior that, depending on context, can be written off with either the labels of "alphas" or "bullies". But just as size of the troop is genetically constrained, I am guessing the pecking order is similarly genetically constrained, and trauma, an epiphenomenon (or distal effect).
In another over simplified cartoon world, Charlie Brown's nemesis, Lucy van Pelt comes to mind. Whereas Charlie, as a victim, may benefit from therapy ... I am wondering what kind of therapy it would take to change Lucy, and draw a blank. I keep coming back to the same conclusion that despite the danger of the fundamental attribution fallacy, the comic strip is world famous (still a big impact here in Japan) because Charles Shultz's characters seem to capture something universal about temperamentally pre-determined types of people.
I guess a lot depends on how appropriate a comic strip can be (or those other social primates) for extrapolating insights into human behavior. Meh, for some humans, I suppose "snakes in suits" will do.
Cheers Tereza and Guy!
ps. ... Here is another well thought-out podcast. Although she is less professionally credentialed than Ramani, I think she does a pretty good job of defining some troubling temperaments ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXRlAedQVPk
Thanks for that definition of "nemawashi", Steve. I often experienced that working to change the school system, before I realized how futile that was. I'm going to save your comment on a draft article called The Master's Tools. Defining can be done for the toxic purpose of dominance or the tonic purpose of communicating. In the first, it's pretending to be the authority and limit the parameters of the possible within that frame. In the second, it's defining what that word means when I'm using it, so that we get to the root of our question.
An argument is pointless if the only difference is the words that symbolize different things for each of you. A true and productive argument is two people trying to get to the truth of a question.
Wow. That video disappeared so quickly and has me wondering why. I will pursue that with sarah elkhardy because it is an important one that brings a challenging and door opening look at face of narcissism (taking from blindness) and its face on the opposite side of the coin, generosity (giving with seeing).
The school system likely is a key part of the 'program' although i suspect it begins at a very young age in way that helps set the stage for the school programming to be successful. yoshiko has some fascinating hints of this in her life. so, anecdotal only from a very limited sample of the population.
alphas and bullies is talked about by peterson when he notes that the bully alpha of the chimpanzee troop has been torn to shreds when alpha does not include the wisdom to be tactful.
re brown and lucy.
this goes to the huge role that patterns (samskaras) play in our activities. again, this is part of my essay-in-process. the therapy will show itself when charlie is willing to see what is there versus what he wants to be there. i like your inclusion of this comic strip into the discussion and likely i'll look at it more deeply. the therapy arrives when the pattern of behaviour proves so destructive that is becomes a choice between life or death, for most people. and many of those will choose death of body, because the fear of death of self as patterned behaviour encapsulated in self-referencing narratives, is more scary.
great comment. thank you.
now to get some energy work done before returning to writing. all the best.
the link didn't work when i retried it.
i went looking for the video again, after asking sarah elkhaldy (the alchemist) for it. and it has magically returned. hmmmm. maybe a different url.
so: "Spiritual Roots of Narcissism (The Fallen)" by The Alchemist - Sarah Elkhaldy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO65Q5cuR8w
hopefully that works.
all the best.
Relationships have always been messy. We have no way of telling whether they were better in the past when women were more subservient.
In the natural order of things there are/were roles that each gender played in successful relations. That has been lost in the cultural revolution. That is not to say a man's role is more important; they were/are supposed to compliment one another. There cannot be two 'leaders' in relations. Thew divine plan for male /female relations has, seemingly, been forever lost.
For you I am glad that you were courageous to leave. I cannot understand men who feel a need to hurt women; physically or emotionally. For myself; women are a great gift from God and, before a great many of them degraded themselves I used to to think that they were the more 'evolved', if you will of the species. That they used to; through their virtue and nurturing; lift men up to a higher plane of existence.
ts, I was with you all the way up to "before a great many of them degraded themselves." If something is a sociological trend, that didn't exist before, you can't blame it on a decline in the general characters of women. Presumably, the characters of women have been consistent through the ages. What changed? We're still living in an economic and religious patriarchy so however women are adapting to survive in that framework is a reaction and not a cause. When women 'degrade' themselves, I'm assuming this means sexually. How is that not ultimately because of how men are?
Not because of how men are but because they (and not all, obviously) thought that they could live and conduct themselves like a lot of men and not get the reputation but, unfortunately that isn't the case. Wrong though it is, it will continue to be the case. Sociological trends have changed for the worse and that has been pandered to by media and it's minions. Women were led to believe that they needed to put aside the norms of the past and seek themselves first. The genders were meant to compliment one another and that sin't to say that one's role is better or more important but the male/female dynamic has lost that whole balance. A lot of women came to believe that being a housewife or mother was a second rate occupation; that they could do so much more but the truth of the matter is that there is NO vocation as high as that of being a mother but, here again, I am of a mindset long gone by.
I am a single man well on in years and at this point in time and in my life it is a moot point to begin with. Thank you for the exchange.
Yes my middle daughter spent years trying to be 'one of the guys.' Her esophagus has never recovered from the hot Cheetos and ghost pepper chicken wing dares. Seriously.
In the previous episode, I talked about the competitive mortgage going up to two incomes so women have no choice to prioritize being a mother. I was barely able to get away with that because I happened to buy a house before I met my future husband. Now, unless you're the kind of predator Taraban describes to nab a man who makes double the income or more, women are forced to do both. What's your solution to that?
What's your solution to that?
I understand the economics of things have changed and for the worse. Perhaps there are no solutions. It is a blessing, in this day and age, to be single and not be participating in the whole relationship "game' as it were.
Oh sorry, ts, I got lost in the thread and thought I was responding to Charles on the virgin thing! He was the one who said that brides should be virgins so they won't get diseases that affect their fertility. Sorry to be holding you to be consistent with his point!
My whole book, How to Dismantle an Empire, is on my solution to that. I have many episodes on my economic model but maybe this one is a snapshot: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/caretology.
Decoy is an idiot. Our so-called culture, twisted and distorted as it is - creates idiocy. I don't have the patience you have, to engage on all this.
We've all been born into a traumatizing and divisive slave-system where distrust and systemic hatred of the opposite sex was part of the terrain.
It's not natural. It's been manufactured - like pretty much everything else. What hope do we have but to deepen into who we really are as human beings, beings of love?
A massive reorientation and realignment that includes a simple 'No' to the agenda behind this current iteration of the world, on its way out.
Best.
Thanks for saying what I couldn't without being a hypocrite, as our friend Antila Belist (anti-labelist) would say. You said that beautifully about the slave system and systemic hatred of the opposite sex. It's not natural.
To reiterate what I put in my last post, there is a 3 factor balance for healthy relationships according to Dr Paul Brenner, author of Buddha in the Waiting Room.
This is not found in the book, but Dr Brenner used to do "Men's group discussions on Relationships." My father attended several of them; he relayed the following concept:
Man seeks to find Joy; in a Woman he finds Wonder
Man seeks to find Support; in a Woman he finds Nurture
Man seeks to find Commitment; in a Woman he finds Loyalty,
***Intimacy comes from all three.
Woman seeks to find Commitment; in a Man she finds Security
Woman seeks to find Nurture; in a Man she finds Family
Woman seeks to find Joy; In a Man she finds Commitment
I am not sure if I have it completely correct, I searched everywhere for the Dr Brenner Relationship Triangle but can't seem to find it.
I love that relationship triangle! If you do come up with a link, post it please. Very intriguing.
interesting!
for some reason this brought to mind another shorter version of this:
no trust, no respect, no relationship.
It amuses me that people make the general assumption that women were historically the subservient ones in relationships/marriages. Not in my family. Both my grandmothers ruled the roost and one of them never did a day of paid work in her life either (she also had a boyfriend in London at one point). My mother pretty well did everything she wanted to do whether my dad liked it or not. My great aunt lived with my grandmother because she simply didn't want to stay with her husband. I have no examples of subservient women in my life. Even my Mother in Law is a force to be reckoned with. It's her way or the highway.
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
Agreed, Claire. So funny. None of my daughters have a shred of subservience but I will say the oldest, married one has a lot of wisdom and forbearance in letting her husband learn from his mistakes. As my sister-in-law says, "Don't be a dreamkiller, dreams die on their own." <grin>
What you said here is so fitting Tereza, there's not much for me to add. Relationships between Masculine and Feminine forces are a beautiful balance.
At the core of healthy relationships that are romantic there is friendship, at the core of friendship there is availability and acceptance without expectations.
There was an author on relationships; Dr. Paul Brenner who used to have discussions on the "balanced male" interaction with their female partner. He used a triangular diagram that illustrated how there are three primary "character aspects" to the both sexes that naturally compliment each other.
When it comes to sex, it should not be the primary focus of the experience; it is something that is shared, not expected.
I'd respond in more depth but I need to get ready for ho practice ;-) My fellow tramps and strumpets await!
😄 Ah, there's the highlight of the day.
I'm taking my daughter to her rowing race she does on the bay. Fun stuff.
My oldest did crew her freshman year in college. Maybe that was why, when she had her June birthday party, three guys she'd had crushes on and been spurned by suddenly changed their minds ;-) She chose well with James and they always know the anniversary of their first date as a week after her birthday.
Oh and I forgot to mention saucy wenches in my list. Although we're all salty wenches by the end ...
Wow, Tereza, you are on fire, and I love it! Well done, and thank you, and whew!
I feel honored to be included in the quotes, and that you shared the link from Xi about Womb Wealth. I want to rewatch that video now.
I was such an angry feminist in my 20s, and have gotten away from it as I've aged, and as I've come more into my own agency in my life in the last few years, in my late 40s. But wow, your case is compelling that we need to build the world from a centered, grounded, loving, balanced place.
You say we need to do it for our daughters....and may I throw in our sons as well? My son is big hearted and compassionate and sensitive - and competitive and loves business and money already as an 8 year old. He fascinates me. And I want him to grow into his healthiest possible person, unsquashed and untainted by these distortions.
Those men in your article - Decoy 9/11! Taraban! YIKES!!!! How do these men survive with such attitudes? Do some women find this attractive? I like to think of it as the world's healing pains - as we are hopefully moving towards more health, the sickness has to come to the surface, so it can be healed. May these men find healing, because certainly, it cannot be pleasant to have such vitriol and hatred inside them.
Blessings to you and your courage!
Thank you so much, marta, and for giving me those fine quotes and links. I watched the one of Xi on her website so far because I wanted to get an introduction. She has such a lovely demeanor to her and, yes she's selling a program, but she still feels very genuine and seems to offer a lot of very practical business advice along with the woo-woo.
I loved how she took the princess concept and said, this means being of service to a nation. And talking about getting in touch with your inner king and inner masculine--I think that's very important. She also has a great take on the hierogamus (can't find the right spelling) that I'd just learned about from Guy and seems to be popping up everywhere. I'm eager to listen to her others and get more into her vocabulary and mindset.
I was thinking of your son when I wrote that ;-) Yes, raising strong and sensitive boys into an economy where they can express the constructive masculine, that's the goal. You can't free women without freeing men.
My daughter had an interesting question about these men. She wondered about their relationships with their mothers. She said you only get one chance at unconditional love, and if you don't get it then, you take it out on every woman who comes after. Intriguing thought.
to your daughter. not always. for me the 'taking it out' was in the form of extreme co-dependency that was effectively fawning and enabling my partners own traumas and narcissistic tendencies.
at 18 shortly before i left home with the woman to whom i gave my virginity and then about 30 years of fawning co-dependency, i believed that the only way i was going to have sex — the single most important think in life i was taught by my mother — was with my sisters or via rape. hmmm. totally insane.
that 'lack of motherly' love has been a work in process ever since. why i didn't do either? who knows. and the work continues to be about being personally responsible, seeing where i'm spiritually by-passing, and relaxing into the life that is joy and love. fascinating stuff.
Yes, I thought of you with her comment and whether it fit.
Hi Tereza!
Thanks for the high praise ... and humbled at the better analysis of Taraban than I first guesstimated. I now fully agree with your assessment of the moral decadence of his purely transactional description of male-female relationships. And I can't recall anything he said that I've always tried to circle in on ... positive, transformative relationships. That being said, his machiavellian descriptions do appear to be the default "is" (rather than the "should") for far too many here in the Far East as well as the West. Can see his approach as a sure fire recipe for eventual tragic consequences.
Still trying to transcend my own Anna Karenina Principle / unique tragedy (the deep dive into my life under comments to your last post took the wind out of me), some interesting and therapeutic news ... copy-pasted from a message I had sent to a buddy earlier this morning Japan time:
"Just yesterday, I was at a local community center where I teach a fairly advanced English student listening skills which challenge even myself. But afterwards, I sat in on a meeting led by a charming Japanese lady who is an experienced psychiatric counselor. Although she also has a job in that field, she spends a lot of volunteer time going to local community centers or coffee shops, creating opportunities to help mothers who have kids with emotional / mental disabilities or disorders ... and provides them access to specialists and resources beyond her capabilities.
We had a fascinating discussion ranging from the moral limits of exceeding Dunbar's number (and why I can't trust any institution now), empathy as the ground for human morality (maybe synonymous), and the salience of dark-tetrad / Cluster B personality types on building and gaming institutions — only so they can use those human resources as disposable cattle ...
I asked her if she would be interested in an interview about her work, her values, and some of the same things we talked about ... and she enthusiastically agreed. So if things go as planned, I will start a new series (maybe a new substack under a different pseudonym) of interviewing positive movers and shakers at the community level here in Japan, embedding the recorded interview in the substack, and then have another embedded audio of a translation of the interview."
It is going to take a while for me to even follow up comments to your last post, much less links to this one. You have a head is powered by a fuel injected, turbo-charged engine. I'm still pedaling as fast as I can. 😅
Cheers Tereza
p.s Soft White Underbelly has some other interviews well worth watching, but as we both know, life is short and time, an important currency. That link to the short video of Michelle "Mike" Ng's "Farewell Funeral" was a haunting reminder of impending mortality.
I love the idea of that interview series! She sounds like a really interesting woman.
I don't know a single woman, among my acquaintances over the years or my daughters' friends group, who's ever been like the Taraban predator. I've had the misfortune to work for some sociopaths like the men he describes.
Do women manipulate men? Absolutely. denise is right that women think long term and are always setting up the best chance of their children's success and happiness.
Oh I did watch the video of 'Mike' Ng and you're so right, it was very, very moving.
Thanks for the good fodder for a disagreeable woman like me!
I concur! (Don’t dis me for that! 😬)
LOL ... maybe think about renaming your stack "Mary-Mary-Miss Contrary".
Oh ... I forgot to mention that hilariously funny description of your dance class .... somewhat connected to a movie I saw earlier today ... "Poor Things" ... an X-Rated, Victorian England / Steam Punk, female Frankenstein coming of age flic. Emma Stone deservedly won an Oscar for her role. Highly recommended.
Love the renaming suggestion and the movie recommendation! Thanks, Steve.
wow! this had me wondering if decoy had pulled an april fool's day post. it was so incredibly over-the-top that i frequently thought he was lampooning the situation. i even laughed at how outrageous and possible even inhuman was the sentiment expressed in your citation. by your comment and the seriousness of the tone, i have inferred that you have taken it seriously. i wasn't interested in reading his full post. and i didn't watch the other guy, taraban, after listening to your overview and reading steve's comment. what i read between the lines of both your comments reminded me of some bizarre incel initiated pseudo-masculine psychology i read a few years ago that was a poorly constructed mask of true victim-language twisted to rationalise victimising another as a 'good' way to get (check) mated. hmmmm.
doesn't anybody read, anymore? i think that one of the most interesting and still valuable looks at the male-female relationship dynamic is Jung's essay 'Marriage as a Psychological Relationship.' (full audio here: https://youtu.be/tNjIwOgLXGs) and, omg! it respects both sexes, doesn't need to pretend they are the same, and suggests that ultimately a goal of a relationship is to move towards individuation for both people which is a difficult and troublesome path that requires negotiating shadow projections and withdrawals, the difficulty of psychological typology in language and understanding, and that there is a difference in how men and women interact with the world, themselves and each other. wow! radical stuff. another interesting book is 'anima and animus' by emma jung and marie-louise von franz: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75547.Animus_and_Anima
and here is a video talking about those concepts: "Anima and Animus - Eternal Partners from the Unconscious". https://youtu.be/IW4GzhdVr-w
p.s.:, tereza. my next post, still in process, has gone deep into the problem of 'reason' and 'superstition'. (hmmm. a form of anima and animus projection? lol! hadn't thought about that until now. i'll think some more.) this deep dive was initiated by your comment on my last essay and so you play a significant role in my look at those ideas as, in a significant way, being equivalent distractions to understanding as the word 'woke'. this has become a pretty deep shadow investigation within myself that has now gone on for 3 weeks, 2 weeks past my usual drop-dead date. (it is getting long! maybe i'll split it.) and i do talk a bit about your comment, just to let you know.
Wow, I had to go back and check the date, just in case. But it was posted on April 5th, on the heels of my last episode, where he'd voiced the same sentiments without the anecdotes. Here is another quote, "When I first started I noticed something about "feminism" and "the manosphere." There were two groups of people complaining about "the sexual marketplace" - young men, and older women. You know who was not complaining about the sexual marketplace? Young women and older men."
Then he tells a story about hanging out with divorcees in their 40's and 50's when he was in his 30's, and then bringing his 21 yr old 'co-ed' girlfriend over. So I think that's some source of his vitriol. I did remember though, when I first checked out Decoy's stack, he had another with his fiction on it, that did tend to violent porn. He's a mystery to me but one I'm done with.
Thanks for the links and the three-week deep dive initiated by my last comment. And I meant to say that your remark was interesting that the speaker was saying narcissists might be made not born. From the beginning of her talk, with its focus on evil, that didn't seem to be the case but I haven't watched much of it yet.
yes.
sorry about the confusion. it is *my* observation that narcissists are likely made not born. i don't remember what these people think - likely born.
as to her use of the word 'evil'. if you can get past that, think of evil in this context as behaviour that by design is used to limit, hurt and/or destroy another. she is, imo, loosely using 'evil' in this way and, imo, inappropriately. the other information they talk about is important because it goes to the 'brass tacks' (i almost wrote 'balls') of the widespread place of narcissists in society, the denial of it everywhere, and some of the consequences of both the behaviour and its denial.
HOE lee SHeety MANG!
That guy was RIDICLOUS Beyond all understanding. Hahaha.
HAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Wow.
YOU are an amazing and beautiful woman and I love watching you read with such poise. You are truly hilarious.
"such women"
"nasty old hags"
"bitter sexless old hags" Where are the "wise elder women"
How would he even recognize one?
Poor Impotent Fool. (that's PIF)
"Old bitter divorcees" ruin everyone else's relationships.
Way to own your crap, crazy dude.
I am sorry he feels so threatened by divorced women.
What a sad sack.
This guy is very concerned about what an "old washed up hag" is going to do
to his sex life or some other man's sex life.
Sounds like a good understanding of failure from a firsthand perspective.
AH! The bourbon with bitters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Oh, you coined tonic masculinity? I like that one.
When I heard it I thought, "oh, that's perfect."
I didn't realize you coined it.
Did you get that creative idea energy from the lifeblood you slurped from some nearby, unsuspecting young man?
HO PRACTICE! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Hyper Sexual Tribal Shit!
HAAAAAAAAAAAha
"He admonishes men that their wives should be virgins yet also winks that 30+ women are horndogs, totally DtF. "
Oh man , you are so cute and wonderful. You had me laughing my rear end off through this whole thing.
I look up to you if I ever have to deal with a weirdo. HAhaha. Wow. You are an inspiration.
I am not divorced, but I am 50, so I am going to get out there and destroy some relationships. I mean, why not? There are so many already teetering on the edge.
May as well give them that extra push and then steal their energy and transform it into something useful.
Ah, alchemy.
Tralalalala......
I was laughing so hard I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep from squealing, even though I was alone in the house. Oh my dear, you're the reason I do everything. You are just like my dance teacher, who everyone wants to tell their funniest jokes, because you know she'll get it.
It was really fun telling her about my wicked witch skit. Can't wait to tell her about you pushing those relationships off a cliff and stealing their alchemical energy! Today I was going to accuse her of being extra outrageous to give me more material, but it really wasn't out of character.
I've glanced out your new AI and I'm eager to dig in. Ready for our next collab.
Yes, the tonic masculinity is a funny story. Here's the start of it before the boys took it:
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/tonic-masculinity-and-feminine-wiles
Then: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/tonic-masculinity-and-the-mad-hatter
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/men-and-women-and-the-tonic-tilt on John Carter
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-sacred-masculine on William and
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-tonic-gnostic on Luc Koch.
Then things went south: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-twisting-of-tonic-masculinity and https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/toxic-masculinity-by-any-other-name
Enjoy if you have time! Inbetween slurping the lifeblood of some unsuspecting young man ;-)
"Unsuspecting", yes. I initially said "unexpecting", I edited it to make it correct.
Oh well :) I was just reacting in the moment. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was just getting worse and worse.
Your delivery is too much :) I will check out the links you shared between gardening this week. I am saying NO to everything and getting some work done. If I need a little extra energy for that, I can just siphon it from some nearby relationship, like you do. *wipes blood off face.
I mean, there is just nothing left for women to do after their 30s.
.........................Let me roll my eyes *holds imaginary eyeballs in hands on the right side of my body, lifts them in an arc over my head and brings them to rest on the left side of my body. I rolled them SO HARD.
I still can't figure out why me directly quoting specific men saying very ugly things about women is seen as an attack on men. *sigh
This was a fun one to make.
Forge ahead, dancing beauty.
Build Back Bitters! I needed a tonic such as this ✨🙏🏾💕
Double-like! Triple-like! That needs to be a brand ;-)
I shall design it milady. ✨
Sometime I'd like to tap your videographer knowledge on how to film people and disguise their identity. I know you remember my series on my neighbor whose kids were kidnapped by the dad with the complicity of the Solano Court. I met with the advocate who's been documenting the corruption and gave her the case file I'd prepared. She said there are women who'd like to tell their stories but they still have kids in the system, where the court could retaliate. She'd like to put together a sort of documentary. We talked about filming their hands and changing their voices. Anyway, just thought I'd put it out there for you to noodle on.
I'm not sure I know about that story/series but yes, I can definitely help with that, there are many ways to obscure the identity of a person in a video. I did something similar for a video where people's faces and voices had to be hidden. Call me (you have my number)!
Sorry for the late musical donation...life happened for a few days back yonder. They're only together for the rare special occasion these days, but this was my 2nd fave Austin band while they were an ongoing enterprise. (1st Fave Austin band is whoever's onstage with the lead guitarist here, who was John Mayall's lead guitarist before health forced him into retirement.) So, without any further ado... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq9-sax6qlU
Very appropriate!
Sorry for the absence of brass instruments...Carolyn is a multi-instrumentalist, but this is the only song on which I've seen her play trumpet...maybe she did it on occasion with Sis Deville, but I saw SD three times back in the day and never heard a toot, just a lotta twang.
Shorter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9jC6BYwuz0
Longer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezyfr1CEwiM
I was recently listening to a discussion and reading by Ba'al Busters of the Oera Linda book (might first deep dive). It talks about the high social status of women as leaders and wise counsellors in ancient Germanic [pagan] societies.
• Oera Linda Book Ep. II: Nobleman and the Sorcerer - Ba'al Busters
The reading starts at 1:59:35
https://rumble.com/v4mjxrb-oera-linda-book-ep.-ii-nobleman-and-the-sorcerer.html
PDF:
https://frya.angelfire.com/Oera_Linda_Book.pdf
There is a strong emphasis on the exalted position of the [folk]mother and of the maidens
see 2:30:00 – the laws established for the government of the citadels, starting with
1. Whenever a citadel is built, the lamp belonging to it must be lighted at the original lamp in Texland, and that con only be done by the mother.
-----
I just now came across this essay by Aidan MacMillan who is a remarkable writer with a clearly deep level of scholarship on the topic of his own ancestry. He writes some amazing book reviews
• Berserkers and Folkmothers - in-depth look at pagan practices - AIDAN MACMILLAN
https://aidanmacmillan.substack.com/p/berserkers-and-folkmothers
Aidan writes:
“The Oera Linda Book speaks of a society wherein virgin women were given high social status based on their ability to remain calm while directing certain elements of society towards harmony with nature. They memorized the laws and the lore of the tribe so that future generations would have good teachers; they assisted Kings and Captains during wartime (as mentioned by Tacitus); they were spiritual leaders who embodied the best of what women could offer; they were magical sorceresses and stewards of living goddesses; they were virginity and motherhood wrapped into one indivisible whole.
[…]
Women have a powerful place in human society, and their highest form is similar to that of a King, who is like a father. Indeed, their highest form is that of a Queen, who is like a mother. Just as men can achieve royalty and nobility of spirit, so too can women.
[…]
Let us bring back the balance and harmony of the proto-Indo-Europeans, the first Aryans, and let us teach our young men the frenzy of women, and let us teach our young women the stoic nature of men.”
Ba'al Busters! What an excellent name.
This is so interesting. I love that last quote about teaching young men the frenzy of women and young women the stoicism of men. It fits with the video I just did on The Horus Gamos and women getting in touch with their inner masculine. I still have a lot of work to go on the Substack, since I adlibbed it, so maybe I can fit this in. Thanks so much, Julius!
Not touching this one. 🥰
Wow. Seriously. Wow.
Joy, did that happen to be you who recently watched my episode on Vaping & Snake Venom? I noticed that is a specialty of your research. It came up in my 'recently watched' and since it's an older one, I wondered.
I think that was me. Interesting to learn all about the role of venoms in this mess. Can you link me so I can make sure I did catch it? Thank you for the work you're doing!
Here's the Substack on it so it has the text and video: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/vaping-and-snake-venom
And this is the one prior on What a Smoke, one of Malone's contracts related to vaping: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/what-a-smoke-and-wombat-holes.
Yes, I still think there's an important clue in the venoms. I've talked to two people this week who've recovered from two-week long illnesses, neither one testing positive. One said it was as sick as she's been since she was three years old. My landscaper said that for 3-4 days he thought he might die. The hospital told him it was something bacterial and gave him antibiotics. It just seemed strange to me.
Thanks. So much good stuff! I had missed it, and am glad you checked with me and gave me the link.
My husband (unvaccinated) was getting blood clots every time he got on an airplane. We assumed shedding. We would treat and he would recover. Last time however, it got NASTY, and it wasn't coming under control until after we added nicotine patches to the routine, which was something we hadn't tried before. It might also have been that we started Methylene Blue as well though. Tough when you get desperate and add more than one thing at a time, and then cannot be sure which one made the big difference.
I am so blown away each day by what's happening, (extermination) and that so many of us are speaking about these types of things. Just 10 years ago all of this was so far beyond comprehension, and now we're witnessing it in real time.
Godspeed,
Joy
I have been thinking that I should stock up on nicotine patches. And methylene blue. In the end, the scientific experiment isn't as critical as getting better when it's your loved one. Thanks, Joy.
We need to keep the most promising things in our arsenal! Have you seen much from Dr. Bryan Ardis? I STRONGLY recommend watching ALL of his interviews that you can get your hands on. I open a new one thinking I've heard everything this guy has to say, but then I always get several incredible new gold nuggets in each. He did a thing with Stew Peters called "The Antidote" most excellent introduction. They've known venoms would be a major method of depopulation decades ago. Hence, the demonization of nicotine, the lies, just like with anything that kills parasites.
We're dealing with highly communicable micro parasites that have been engineered to produce venom peptides. The vaccines included the mRNA so that our cells would manufacture venoms.
here in mexico by synchronicity i came to buy organic tobacco leaves and from that make an infusion. a bit of a story there. omg, tobacco is a **powerful** plant.
you may find this interesting. I saw it after my experience with the infusion.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2020.594591/full
(and i'm working on putting together a 10 day healing retreat that will for one or two days include tobacco as medicine.)
I'd also saved an article on hallucinogenic tobacco for a future article: https://bioneers.org/plant-teachers-ayahuasca-tobacco-and-the-pursuit-of-knowledge-jeremy-narby-ze0z2111/. It might interest you.
Right ON!!!
Ah. you know about the nicotine.
how is your husband now?
MUCH better!!! Majority of the relief was almost instant. He gets better each day.
give nicotine a try, gum or patch. very little risk, low cost, and anecdotally when appropriate fast and complete reversal of the problem.