Rollo writes a mandatory piece and I will simply add a related note here in that I think suicide is an under-addressed topic here in the Manosphere. Additionally, I believe it is a genuine threat. Manosphere readers are predisposed more than most to commit suicide, so allow me this dark and macabre lesson to help prevent it.
First, let me start off by saying that pretty much every male friend I have is NOT as happy as he was 5-6 years ago. And the reason for this universal "less-happiness" is simply economic. The economy sucks, and men have been disproportionately affected by this.
Bad economic times coinciding with higher rates of depression and suicide is nothing new, and certainly explains why most of the men in your life (as well as women) are down. But there are some other factors here that explain why I believe men are more depressed, BEYOND what a bad economy should warrant, namely political
Second, not to get political, there is really no future for this country.
People often accuse me of being a pessimist, a party pooper, and a downer.
I'm none of the above.
I'm an economist and a realist who doesn't swallow BS like "hope and change" and doesn't vote for spectacularly incompetent men because they have nice pecks. I instead spend HUNDREDS of hours every year pouring over data, charts, statistics and numbers. I want facts, I want data. I want reality. I have more economic knowledge in a milligram of my ear wax that the entire democratic voting population does in all of their brains as they blow $6 every morning on Starbucks and never ponder how the electricity stays on or what happens when the sewers don't work because "Don't Trust the B in Apt 23" is on.
Therefore when I say something like, "the country has no future" infinitely-less-informed people's reaction should not be a dismissive,
"he's just a pessimist."
Their reaction should be
"OH SH!T! How bad is it?"
Or, to analogize it another way, imagine I just came up from the bowels of the Titanic, all greasy and wet, blood running from my forehead, with a huge plumbing wrench in my hand as well as a panicked look on my face and said,
"We're going to sink!"
And you all laugh, pat me on the head, and then re-direct you attention back to your Gibsons.
Yeah, that's what it feels like.
Regardless, I'm not the only one paying attention to projections, forecasts and data. Most other men in the Manosphere are too. Maybe they're not the SAEG (TM) economist I am, but they know enough that 100% debt to GDP is "bad." They know what a trillion dollars is, and they know spending $1 trillion more than what we take in is "bad." And because they have this knowledge and are not blissfully ignorant like the galactically ignorant morons that put a fraud like Barack Obama in charge, they are further depressed because they know what's coming. Economic stagnation at best, collapse if worse. Regardless, no future.
Third, you throw in the whole feminism ruining women thing and taking away men's primary biological drive, but we've beat that horse to death. I merely wanted to include it.
In the end, you put all this together you can see why a lot of them are depressed, a lot of them are down, and a lot of them may conclude suicide is the answer because there really isn't much to live for.
It would normally be at this point in the article I say,
"Don't do it! There's so much to live for,"
but I can't. My response is much more somber. Not that I'm FOR suicide, but rather the reasons I'm going to give you to live are not pie in the sky fluffy bunnies type reasons people normally give suicidal people to live, but the stone cold real world reasons you should live.
First, "There's so much to live for" in today's economic environment is an outright lie. You have had your economic future taken away from you. You've have your financial future taken away from you. Your career taken away from you. Your family (likely) taken away from you. Your whole life has been taken away from you. WORSE STILL if you were led to believe this was the greatest country and you could do anything, the heights from which you crashed down from were much higher and much more painful upon landing.
So if you're to the point you're kicking around suicide, chances are you REALLY DO have nothing to live for. I believe you.
But (and here's the kicker) you have no compelling reason to die either.
Say life is really bad. Really, really bad. You have no reason to live.
Well join the club.
You're certianly not alone. It's not like there aren't 100 million American adult males who aren't in your same situation. Just because you don't have anything to live for BASED ON TRADITIONAL DEFINITIONS OF WHAT YOU SHOULD LIVE FOR doesn't mean there isn't stuff you can't do.
So you don't have a career. That's just more free time.
So you don't have a family. That's just more disposable income, freetime and a zero percent chance of getting divorced..
So the country is going down the toilet. Collect a welfare check with no guilt and while you still can.
The solution is not to kill yourself. The solution is to
1. Forgive yourself and realize it is not your fault you don't have a future or life didn't turn out the way you hoped it would
2. Change your mentality from what you "want" to what you "can get." ie-realize the environment has changed and adapt to it mentally and physically (becuase you have no other choice).
3. Live the rest of your days doing that while you have the opportunity to do it and make the best of it.
Second, at least change your environment before you try to commit suicide. Go overseas, live overseas, do something. Changing your environment will at least get you out of the environment where you thought it was hopeless. Usually when people contemplate suicide it means they think it isn't worth living HERE in THIS PARTICULAR ENVIRONMENT. So the least you can do before you off yourself is give a try at another life. Stop paying your mortgage, amass as much money as you can, and leave.
Besides, what's the worst that can happen? They "repossess" your house? Your wife leaves you? Your credit tanks and you can't find another job? You were just considering suicide a couple minutes ago.
Third, there is so much to do and see on this planet. My fossil hunting, mountain climbing, motorcycling, writing, ballroom dancing, tornado chasing is not by accident. Like most men, I too was at the precipice one time of suicide. Nothing serious, but the thought did enter my mind and my mind said, "well before we go, we gotta do all this stuff then" and boom, my life became much more interesting. I abandoned my career and women as my primary motivators in life and pursued fun. It was almost as if experiencing enough pain to think about suicide was a benefit because it put things in context and made me not just change my life for the better, but change my life so it fit into reality.
You too may as well go and do what you want. Go to Italy, get into race car driving, eat ice cream, breed wiener dogs, whatever you want to do. Because once you pull that trigger, it's not like you can go back and decide to start taking hang-gliding up as a hobby.
Fourth, following along the same lines that suicide results in the worst option - death, that leaves you with pretty much EVERY option available on the table. What I mean by this is things you wouldn't do if you knew you were going to live and suffer the consequences are NOW viable options. Namely, criminal. I am NOT ADVOCATING THIS, but philosophically merely pointing it out. Specifically, since finances are one of the primary reasons for suicide, why not rob a bank and see if you can get away with it? The alternative was death, so what the hey (though I wouldn't rob a bank because there actually isn't a lot of money there. I'd recommend starting up a "green company" and getting a government loan as you pay yourself $2.5 million per year in salary with no intention of it being profitable. It's totally legal, but it's still theft sanctioned by democrats, environmentalists and Obama cronies. Make sure to throw a couple thousand towards Barack's campaign.)
So in short, yes, I know times are tough. Yes I know some of you literally, veritably, actually have NO REAL reason to live. But that is because you are genetically and socially programmed to view a very small handful of things as "reasons to live" - work, family, career all of which are under assault, if not, completely destroyed by now in the US. You haven't opened your eyes wide enough to look and see there are other reasons. Additionally, what else you got to do? You in a rush to die? Why not chill out and hang out with the living? Explore the world a little bit. Collect a government check. Adapt and abuse the socialism that's been shoved down your throat. Avail yourself of all the freebies socailists have voted in. Accept the fact you can't get what you want, but can take what you can get. Besides, as I said before, you can't come back. So you might as well make the best of a decaying society here while you're here simply because you have no other choice.
Children are being raised by single mothers, teens go into thousands of dollars of debt for education, adults are losing their jobs, pre-retirees are losing their savings from no interest income/bubble crashes, retirees are losing out due to inflation and SS being broke soon, men are screwed with no hope of having a family, good career, solid family (came from broken home), expected to pay for everything in this narcissistic world. Man, even i cant find motivation in this world and I even understand everything that is going on...depressing
ReplyDeleteThis is the stuff that the liberals fear to talk about here in the UK. This guy went on a rampage using a van / truck. They might claim to be able to crack down on guns, but vehicles? I never saw it compared to a gun rampage, but it looks similar in intention to me - murder.
ReplyDeleteA 31-year-old man has appeared in court charged with murder and attempted murder following a series of hit-and-runs in Cardiff.
Karina Menzies, 31, died after she was hit by a van on a fire station forecourt in Ely.
Matthew Tvrdon, of no fixed abode, faces a total of 19 charges.
Mr Tvrdon has also been charged with 13 counts of attempted murder, four counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and one charge of dangerous driving.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-20025413
Well, I'm happier than I was six years ago when my wife of sixteen years divorced me, took more than half of all we had, and still gets a third of my check for "child support." Why?
ReplyDeleteAs the children have grown they've come to see my side of things and I have much closer relationships with all three than I once did.
Now I have my own circle of friends (rather than hers) and my own social life. Many of these friends are single guys who got their first taste of the red pill from me. We have a lot of fun together.
I'm slowly but surely putting my finances back in order and shedding debt. In a few years I ought to be completely debt free.
And I'm un-encumbering my life with things that once dragged me down. For example, I live a very simple life on ten acres of rural land: no television, limited Internet, and only twenty minutes from everything I might need. Read "Walden" and you'll understand. And this particularly applies to relationships. I have relationships with girls on my terms now, not theirs.
And simply living and working in the USA puts me in the to 5% of incomes worldwide. I'm actually a 1%-er worldwide, 2%-er by USA standards. Even with a poor economy that's a pretty comfortable place to be.
I've been in the position several times where I felt like I had no hope or real motivation to live, especially when I went through that foreclosure in late 2010 and 2011. To get through that terrible period of my life, I channeled my energy constructively and positively towards honing my drawing skills, sketching tons of people in those Moleskine notebooks, and buying as much stuff on Dick Blick as I could. I also began watching a ton of classic films on Turner Classic Movies to get through this period and the combination of those things really helped me out big time.
ReplyDeleteNow that the house that I'm living under for rent is being sold and the possibility of moving elsewhere in the town I live in or even to another state is becoming inevitable, I find myself in a similar position, except I try to look at things in a more optimistic, long term perspective and view suffering as a way to develop and build endurance along with self directing my own education through blogs like these and the public library until I can start school. Accumulating wealth is a very gradual process and there are no shortcuts to achieving the so-called American "dream." Also, happiness, in the words of Michael Savage, is transient and fleeting and explains the harsh realities of life and how to deal with it. That clip on YouTube really shaped my thinking as well.
If any man in his late 20 or older feels depressed look up that hottie from HS on facebook. It's a ghastly good time.
ReplyDeleteWe're in hell might as well make the most of it. Good off and take full advantage of the system. It's all coming down why not have a laugh at it?
An able well skilled man could be way better off after the collapse than he is now. Women will need the support and protection of men again when there is no big daddy government and pointless corporate jobs to keep them in high heals. A man can hunt, fish, grow his own food if he has a small piece of land (or squat somewhere, there are plenty of places to do that at least here in Canada). If we have total economic and social collapse the survivors will go back to living like our ancestors did on the frontier, and I, and many here would thrive in that environment. And I know it's cliché, but life is a journey, not a destination. - minuteman
ReplyDeleteEighteen years ago, I was living in a two hundred square foot basement apartment with roaches in the worst part of town.
ReplyDeleteThe year before, my fiance of two years decided to get pregnant with someone else's baby and then I flunked out of school.
Underemployed working never forty hours a week for minimum wage and meagre tips.
Then my best friend killed himself.
Something I had considered myself.
Our other friends told me they always thought it would be me.
Well, funk you very much, friends.
Also, a wake up call.
So, I got my head out of my butt and got to work.
I've got one life, live it.
Working in the hospitality industry for so many years I figured that was my Plan B and I went for it.
Found my wife there.
Started a family there.
And got thrown under the bus one too many times there.
After my wife went back to work and started making more money than me I started having second thoughts about my career path.
Mainly because of that under the bus thing.
So, I got my head out of my butt and went back to school to finish what I'd started fifteen years earlier.
I've got one life to live.
And I'm living it.
Even after graduating, trying a new job in a new city, getting laid off and moving back, I'm still living my one life.
Married with children and now working a job I could not have considered possible back when I was feeling sorry for myself.
Life is not a straight line.
Don't give up.
I understand, this shit is crazy. The debt of the United States is rising to unprecedented – and unsustainable – levels. Under reasonable assumptions, the public debt of the U.S. is projected to grow to 91% of GDP by 2025, 149% in 2040 and 415% in 2080. No country can support debt at these levels without huge costs to its standard of living, at a minimum, and most likely a severe crisis.
ReplyDeleteIve had fun with this budget simulator http://crfb.org/stabilizethedebt/
Even with all of the cuts needed the debt is still around 60% of GDP Crazy shit. Iam with the captain, Iam enjoy life on my terms.
I have always wondered why people who honestly believed economic collapse is inevitable would get depressed and feel no hope when there is clearly a HUGE opportunity to become rich.
ReplyDeleteI personally believe the worldwide depression would happen in 2015 give or take 1-3 years. (I rarely share this as i fit into the conspiracy theorist category amongst my friends already for my red pill beliefs).
If you believe a "double dip" recession or full out depression or even a world collapse then why not "eat shit" for a couple years and put $ into shorting the economy? Im currently trying to find the best way to do it and am on the fence about a stop loss in forex, "tying a know" on a momentum stock or if I am missing an even better way to profit somehow.
All this talk about red pill movement foreseeing the economic collapse and none smart enough to profit from it? Bunch of whiny bitches who lack innovative thinking if you ask me.
No one seems to understand when I say that if I knew I was going to die the next day, I would amputate, cook, and eat as much of my body as I could, just to see how it tasted. I mean, hey, what would I have to lose.
ReplyDelete"If any man in his late 20 or older feels depressed look up that hottie from HS on facebook. It's a ghastly good time."
Yeah holy crap what is up with that? I'm only 29 but I don't think there's a single girl from my high school class that I would still consider hot at this point.
After my first marriage hit a wall 12 years ago this was exactly the attitude I adopted (after sitting in the house by myself for weeks, of course). Swing for the fences and don't worry about the consequences- no matter the outcome it's better than being dead.
ReplyDeleteI managed to get it together, had more fun than humanly possible and even though my career has hit a f'ing wall over the last few years, I have a good girl that has stood with me for almost ten of them now.
Our collective version of 'shaking things up' will be us getting married in the coming year. Had we done this five+ years ago we'd probably still be paying for the wedding, upside down on a house or have another mouth to feed; I only need to look at my other married friends to validate that.
I'm looking forward to starting on the bottom, mostly debt free and without grand expectations. I feel like we've cleared out the cobwebs and are going to turn a new page with both feet firmly on the ground.
Lots of young men in China right now. They are crying out for English teachers still. Know of two guys.
ReplyDeleteOne teaches English out in the sticks, no other white people about, been there a few years, learning Chinese. Teaches school children but still manages to save $1000 a month! Think about it, spend 2 years in rural China, having an experience almost no Westerners have, then you've got $24k in your pocket, that's a few years of travelling in SEAsia right there.
Second guy teaches Business English part time which pays all his living expenses in Shanghai while bootstrapping a business.
Neither guy has a teaching qualification.
Worst case scenario: it's a year holiday, gives you time to think.
At the barest minimum, one big reason to live is to just be here to witness the economic and societal worldwide collapse to come! What is the Chinese blessing/curse? "May you live in interesting times." Indeed.
ReplyDeleteI hear your frustration in trying to wake people up - I quit Facebook a couple years ago because most people just don't really care. At all. I think for anyone who understands reality, we feel obligated to try to wake other people up, but at some point you have to realize you've done all you can, so sleep peacefully at night and enjoy the decline. I will feel zero guilt when I watch it all go down.
Cappy... On the general tenor of the piece... absolutely correct.
ReplyDeleteWhich is one reason why I have cameras, musical instruments, a car and no mortgage. I could live in a McMansion but I'd rather have a small house with my kids in it (Me. Solo. Dad).
While we are at it: NZ got hit hard with an earthquake a year ago. Knocked our deficit (looked it up with a son who is a cadet economist already) by 9 Billion or about 5% GDP. But we only owe 30% state plus same private GDP in debt.
You are in over your head and, trust me on this because I know people who have been waiting two years for the insurance companies to pay up... the state and federal governments will be left with the bill.
You may want to look at the NZ situation and extrapolate to the recent frankenstorm.