King, warrior, magician, lover
WIDELY HERALDED, JUNGIAN INTRODUCTION TO THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF A MATURE, AUTHENTIC, AND REVITALIZED MASCULINITY. "The author take on the difficult task of separating man from boy by excavating 'psychological facts' from
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- If you enjoy it, I would recommend picking through a lot of the classic Self Help books. They were popular for a reason! Wayne Dyer is a good read, Tony Robbins books are usually great (whatever you think of the author), even the much maligned Seven Habits is a really great book. There's even some pretty decent male-oriented stuff out there, like Iron John, Fire in the Belly, and "King, Warrior, Magician, Lover". Pyscho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz even inspired a Dali painting.
- Christopher Lasch in Culture of Narcissism:
> Our growing dependence on technologies no one seems to understand or control has given rise to feelings of powerlessness and victimization. We find it more and more difficult to achieve a sense of continuity, permanence, or connection with the world around us. Relationships with others are notably fragile; goods are made to be used up and discarded; reality is experienced as an unstable environment of flickering images. Everything conspires to encourage escapist solutions to the psychological problems of dependence, separation, and individuation, and to discourage the moral realism that makes it possible for human beings to come to terms with existential constraints on their power and freedom.
I do believe that our materialist reductionist culture has neglected the mystical, spiritual nature of human existence to our own detriment, and re-engaging with those factors that no one can take from you is a powerful way to weather a new kind of storm.
I don't think you can just decide to become spiritual though. Opening up to the long neglected forces within yourself and the world is a delicate and vulnerable motion. You're not really searching for "faith" in this arrangement, you're looking for surrender. It's wu-wei, or kenosis, or equanimity, or whatever you want to call it.
Feel free to email me, I've gone on quite a journey myself over the past couple years spiritually, and as a tech person would love to share. Here's a general list of moving works or ideas that have opened me up over the past couple years:
- Singing lessons: I never expected it, but singing opened me wide open. I'd find myself crying during songs I love, feeling a whole different appreciation for life and beauty through my voice.
- James Hillman: Hillman (I think) coined the term "soulmaking," (special shoutout for Burbea's Soulmaking Dharma too: https://hermesamara.org/teachings/soulmaking-dharma) and sees the symptoms and the hurt as expressions of the soul, as parts to be discovered and expressed.
- King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: about the male archetypes that make up the generative male https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91781.King_Warrior_Magic...
- Jacob Needleman's "Money and the Meaning of Life"
- I also wrote about my experiences with meditation and explorations into esoteric Christianity after burning out on many years of westernized meditation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46919809
- HN and tech spheres can tend to have more people (especially male) who struggle with socialising with others and romance on top of every other part of the human condition. To that end, I recommend (in order):
Robert Glover - No More Mr. Nice Guy Mark Manson - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Mark Manson - Models
For those looking into reading into masculinity (to understand yourself or other masculine people:
David Deida - The Way of the Superior Man Moore & Gillette - King, Warrior, Magician, Lover Zan Perrion- The Alabaster Girl
Disclaimer: Some of these books I recommend are not going to be based on much research and science, or delve into more abstract forms of thought and draw inspiration from other sources (e.g. Eastern). Nevertheless I believe they are useful frameworks of thought that can provide value, and it's good to engage more "mythical" ideas at times.
- The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho.
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Moore and Gillette
The lean startup
Paul Graham how to start a startup
Mark Hyman Ultimate Mind Solution
Tribal Leadership
Wheel of Time
Think and Grow Rich
Superior Man David Deida
The Fountain Head
Eckhart Tolle New Earth
50th Law
Good to Great
Jed Mckenna
Earl Nightengale
Long Walk to Freedom
Outliers
Good to Great
Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz (Self-image)
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey(Being awesome)
Wealth of Nations
Wayne Dyer The Tao
System of the World
Origin of Species
Brave new world
Thank you economy
Crush it
Built to Last
Who Moved my Cheese
Stillness Speak Eckhert Tolle
Mastery George Leonard
Steve Jobs Biography
The Last Lecture
Steve Pavlina Books
Iacocca
Striking Thoughts Bruce Lee
Carlos Castaneda
Ghost in the Wires
Richest Man in Babylon
Way of the Superior Man
Losing My Virginity
Think and Grow Rich
Delivering Happiness
- > A lot of this can be interpreted as a way to shun yourself from the world and not face reality. But can't anyone do that with anything helpful?
There are lots of texts on rising above worldly pleasures, and some are very good. I'm a particular fan of Ekhart Tolle's work, and I enjoyed the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying... The Tao of Pooh, and the Te of Piglet got me through a difficult adolescence.
As with any idea, though, simplifying it too far tends to lose important subtleties. The mental austerity mentioned in the original post is likely to strike a resonant chord with many men who wished they had better self-control, and who wished they were acting with more general agency in their life. Men are complete suckers for certain ideals of manhood, certain archetypes that are well presented. If this is something that interests you, I can strongly recommend the books Iron John by Robert Bly, King Warrior Magician Lover by Robert Moore, and the excellent Way of The Superior Man by David Deida.
I find this quote by Alan Watts particularly poignant, and perhaps an antidote to the original post:
"We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4)
- Good reading to become a mature (ie not just childish) anti-authoritarian: "Prometheus Rising" by Robert Anton Wilson and "No more Mr Nice Guy" by Robert Glover. I would also throw in "King, Warrior, Magician, Lover" by Robert Moore, and maybe an occasional dose of LessWrong.com (helps to know of cognitive bias pitfalls if one wants to dance to one's own tune). Rand, Aurelius, Thoreau, Emerson and Nietzsche might be cool too, for the philosophically inclined (what they all have in common is the belief in defining your own values, not just following others blindly).
Of course, the way I see it, being anti-authoritarian is just a corollary effect of being a mature, competent, self-validated man who is following his own purpose in life. Of course such a man is going to have trouble with those who want to foist their value-systems on him through threats, psychological manipulation, or subterfuge.
