I Will Not Die

When I started this blog, I started it because I am a passionate man with ambitions in life that go beyond my de facto destiny. By “de facto” destiny, I mean the most natural course that my origins would have taken me on. Poverty-stricken children with peculiar, sometimes even abusive fathers, with no abundantly nurturing childhoods do not generally become leading academics. Instead, they become (if they’re lucky) normal working people whose only aim is to improve upon the house they came from. Fortunately, I discovered my love for intellectual things with perhaps just enough time to change course and take a completely alternate route.

But you know what? Ever since I came to grips with all of that, I kept looking around me for allies. Nothing. The more I looked, the more my looking became folly. Now don’t get me wrong, I have a few great friends with whom I enjoy spending time with, but even still, I’ve always struggled to find support for what I want to do. Also, in the process of seeking support for my own aims, I’ve always had a deep desire to hold an outstretched hand to those similar to me so that they too might have something firm to grab onto.

One of the most clear-headed comments on this blog came from Alan, who summarized the main utility of this blog by saying openly, the obvious: that the Internet itself enables people like us to meet each other, when this would never have been possible in any other time in human history. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that since he wrote it. In the end, I think that all the time I’ve spent over the years looking for ambitious people like myself would not have been in vain, if I had always been doing it on the web. So what does the web allow us to do? Namely, it helps us all find friends we wouldn’t have found otherwise.

So here’s to allies!:

Friends give advice

Now matter how creative we may be, we cannot always imagine every angle. But when many people talk about things, or even just input small ideas, they often provide information that we did not previously have access to. As interest in the forum accelerates, I expect it to become a playground rich with ideas. Also, there are limitations to the amount of experience each one individual can have. We can only live one life at a time. But with friends involved, we can extend our experience using someone else’s.

Friends give you the nod, when the rest of the world gives you the frown

Perfect example: I’m trying to escape…my promising career…? What do you think people say when I tell them that? Almost everyone I know is pretty unsupportive about the notion. Instead, I should just do like everyone else and be happy with it. The concept of trying to do so much more, because I feel I am capable, is often lost on them. But when you have the right friends, friends I hope you can find here, you’ll find people who want you to go as far as you possibly can.

Your concerns become their concerns

Call it an extension of your family. When you have the right kinds of friends, here’s the litmus test: do they have a vested interest in your success? Do they really want you to win? Keep coming by this site, because I want you to win.

Dereck :: Jun.25.2008 :: Success :: 5 Comments »

I’m a big proponent of using history as a tool to shed light on the modern. If we use that tool when we look at men, at manliness, what we find is the startling answer to the question “what’s missing?” Humans evolved over a period of several million years and have been close to their present state for the last several hundred thousand. But humans in fully social settings (cities) have been around for a mere few thousand years. Much of what has always composed our lives is simply no longer applicable.

The troop master

For the vast majority of our existence, men were the paternal masters of their respective small groups of people, whether they were families, tribes or collective bands of hunters. Men have always been somewhat major players in the events they participated in. Now a man is just another ant on the crowded ant hill. Even in modern families now, men often don’t have the kind of unilateral power they’ve always enjoyed. But before all the women come here to roast me alive, bear in mind that I think men and women sharing the decision making at the family level is a good thing. (Just ask my wife. Her name is General). Men have far less “authority” or “command” over their immediate surroundings than they did even just thousands of years ago.

The hunter within

Also, for most of this time, men have always participated in hunting. We can imagine that a primary daily activity was hunting animals for food. Hours could have been spent every day chasing and running down game. That active, concerted, daily effort would come to be a primary identifier for men–it would come to define manliness. Nowadays, most men are lucky if they can squeeze in even a few hours a week working out, let alone hunt, something for which there is no longer any practical purpose.

Men are warriors

In addition to the hunting, we can imagine how outright war itself would come to evolve as a major component of men’s lives. This is why every time someone in the news brings up the draft, most men act outwardly concerned, but in almost all of them, a secret flame is lit. A draft would give them the excuse they need to go to war that they can’t give themselves under normal circumstances. Nowadays, only a small fraction of men wage war–and considering the devastating effects of war, it doesn’t make any sense to just go off warring for the sake of manliness alone.

So in the modern era, men are stripped of almost all of the many things that made them men. Of course, sex is an obvious one, but men still have about as much access to that as they always have. But what are some ways men can augment their lives so they can satisfy their manly origins? Lots of us sit behind computer screens all day after commuting to work in our little cars. Obviously men should workout as much as possible. Weightlifting is my preferred activity, but biking, swimming or martial arts seem like good ideas too. Before, in our early days, there was always some kind of fight to be had. Now though, our encounters with the world around us are relatively calm. Danger? Not so much. (Well maybe if you live in Southside Chicago). There’s just no damn good fight to go fight. Men can become passive, pent up time bombs who carry their “fights” around with them wherever they go. It’s one of the reasons I like to frame much of what I write about using war vocabulary. It inspires us to turn our attention toward our goals with our most naturally ingrained birth right. We were born to kick some ass.

So when identifying your goals and dreams and the problems in between you and them, let the man from within come out full force and engage your life actions with a warrior’s mindset. You’ll do fine–you were made that way.

Dereck :: Jun.23.2008 :: Perspectives :: 10 Comments »

There are thousands, possibly millions, of people who work day in and day out and see no hope in a future that they want but believe they cannot have. As they grind away at some job, they often reminisce about some “other” life, some “other” place that they would like to go, but all the many circumstances around them remind them that the other life they think about is just not for them, that it belongs to their nostalgic inventions behind their closed eyes and no where else. But I don’t believe that’s how things ought to be. And if we are the masters of our own individual “oughts” then we should be able to disgrace our circumstances and prove them wrong by summoning our courage and our abilities and using them both to go where everything around us tells us that we can’t.

What is cubicle trench warfare?

Cubicle trench warfare is what I hope will become an informal group of people who aspire to free themselves from their workaday positions so they can enjoy much better, more enjoyable things in life. Care to join me? Most people go to work, plug away, go home, sleep and then go back to work. But what if we insert into that routine a very dirty little secret? A secret that even during all the mundane tasks that we must do, people engaged in cubicle trench warfare will harbor a completely separate set of tasks, all of which represent a furtive labor to escape.

In other words, engaging in cubicle trench warfare represents all the things you do, whether while at work or not, that will help lead you to the exit. Whether they be extending your education, developing your skills, working part-time on a small business idea, replacing your income, you name it.

Ideally, if we can get enough people involved taking active steps to free themselves, we can engage in some revealing discussions. Ultimately I see the home for this idea in the forum, where a community of people can talk about different ways they are engaged in our secret little individual wars.

Dereck :: Jun.23.2008 :: Work :: 8 Comments »