Thursday, December 13, 2018

Your Destiny with Maslow and PTSD Awaits


The Marathon

To be blunt, I am successful.

I am not rich any any means, but I will spend a higher percentage of my life being free compared to 99% of the people in the world, even rich people.  I answer to no one.  I have no debts.  I have complete and utter freedom.  I wake up when I want.  I eat what I want.  I ride my motorcycle wherever I want.  And I make my money however I want.  And when the seconds are tallied up at the end of my life, I will have spent a higher percentage of my life doing what I wanted even compared to Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and certainly Steve Jobs.  Because time is all the matters.  Money is a close, yet at the same time, distance second.  And the person who wins at life is the man who spent the highest percent of his life free.  Not who has the most money.

But this success was not sudden.  It was not as if I inherited the lottery or found out I was related to the Daytons and had a trust fund.  It was the result of long term planning, frugality, minimalism, and fiscal discipline.  It was decades in the making, and even though it took decades, the end result was a rare achievement most humans never experience.  But whereas my path to this "successful life" was a long road, much like a marathon the part where you attain success was rather immediate.  Almost a blink of an eye.  And so very much like a marathon where 99.999% of it is the struggle and toil of running, and .0001% is "POOF you pass the finish line," so too is success in life.  But unlike a marathon that has an ending, life continues on well past the finish line.

And that's when the monsters, nightmares, and demons really come out.

Blasting Through Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Most Red Pill men today face an interesting dichotomy.

On one hand you are almost guaranteed to be (or have been) brought up in a dysfunctional, if not outright hostile environment.  A broken home, a single mom, a deadbeat dad, poverty, drugs, and/or the prison euphemistically called "Public School."  And this says nothing about the lies and propaganda beaten into your skull by 17 years of K-college education, not to mention the blatant lies from the media, government, and society.  And these lies are about everything important in life.  Dating, career, marriage, politics, economics, family, philosophy, and education.  And because they're lies about everything in life, it prevents you from even being marginally successful at life.  At BEST you come out a brainwashed leftist from college with a worthless degree and $75,000 worth of crippling student loans.  At WORSE you are a young black man whose mom is using your social security number to open up credit cards and will disown you if you go to college because she will collect less Section 8 housing money (true story).  The point is upon entering the real world you are incredibly disadvantaged to succeed because of the lies you've been fed.  And this disadvantage is so great, its debatable whether it's your crippled finances that makes it worse, or the mental insanity you endure when the lies you've been told prevent you from making any progress or success in the real world.

On the other hand, never have men (and women) had such easy access to truth and reality.  In the pre-internet days if you were brainwashed it was nearly impossible to figure out you were.  Soviet and Red Chinese citizens actually believed America was the enemy and they were free.  Baby Boomer men actually believed women wanted sensitive 90's men and Baby Boomer women to be treated like men.  And young Gen Xer's were convinced we were all going to die because of the Amazon rainforests or the ozone hole.  But now with the internet you at least have access to different opinions, theories, and philosophies.  You have access to people who offer explanations WHY you're not finding a job, why you're not finding women, and why you're not having success.  Certainly, many of these theories hurt, but AT LEAST it's not propaganda and lies that keep you down.  And AT LEAST it offers a solution to your problems.  Alas, while you may be brainwashed into failing at life, the red pill truths you can get on the internet freely and immediately make recovering from the aforementioned lies and propaganda easy (if you decided to take said red pills).

Now when you take these two variables:

1.  Generations who have never been so lied-to, propagandized, and thus disadvantaged, and
2.  An easily accessible, direct, and blunt solution to their problems via the internet

you get a rapid, almost lightning speed recovery (for anybody bold enough to take and embrace the red pill).  This is great in that you are not left to wander, aimlessly, confused and insane, ultimately wasting your life.  You know what reality is.  You know what the truth is. You have a clear roadmap and path to success.  But the speed at which you recover is so rapid it actually can cause damage much like a SCUBA diver surfacing too quickly or even Truman Burbank realizing he's merely part of The Truman Show.

This is going to (if not already has) happen to thousands, if not millions of young men (and some women) today.  You were lied to about nearly everything in life.  You were a miserable failure at it in all regards.  But once you get on track, once you see the Matrix for what it is, you can excel and succeed in it.  Soon you're changing your degree to something employable.  Next you're working a real job and a side gig to pay off your debts.  Then you're dabbling in entrepreneurship to make yourself independently employed. And before you know it you're sitting on a house where your renters are paying your mortgage.  It may take 5, even 10 years, but the speed at which you are going is literally blasting through all of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs that most normal people don't ever do in an 80 year life expectancy.  You're no longer living in the ghetto where it's unsafe and you don't know where your next meal is coming from.  You're no longer striving, working some late night job to help lower your tuition costs.  You're not slaving away at two jobs to pay down your debts.  And even soon enough you're not even answering to a boss as your contract business is doing very well.  And with enough work, effort, dedication and sacrifice, soon you "make it."  You  make it past the Maslowian "finish line" to "self actualization."  You no longer have to worry about food, clothing, shelter or money.  You can FINALLY relax and enjoy life for what it was meant to be.

But there is a problem.

You've had your nose to the grind for so long, you didn't see what was on the other side of self-actualization.  You never thought to look ahead to think what would happen at the end of the marathon.  You've been stuck in the lower stages of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, your only dream was to survive and merely get out of them.  You never contemplated what was on the "other side."  YOu always assumed that it was going to be a utopia.  A "haven" where the pilgrims or some adventurers in a movie would reach their "final destination" and all would be well.  But like many of those movies, upon arriving at their final destination, they find out it either doesn't exist, is in fact a hell, or is a dystopian nightmare, and thus the real challenge begins.

The Demons Come Out to Play

The first thing you will notice is how few people make it past this metaphorical finish line.  Yes, thousands, perhaps millions of men in our lifetimes will take the red pill, leave poverty, gain success, but it will be a small, precious percentage.  Most of the people you will have in your life will still be stuck on the propaganda hamster wheel of life.  They will think they need a big, fancy McMansion with a big fancy McMortgage.  They will need luxury items that will only put them into debt further.  They will need advanced degrees, only making it impossible for them to ever retire.  And thus they will forever be wage slaves incapable of joining you or ever operating at your level.

The second thing you'll notice is most of them will still be stuck in the matrix, being true believers in the propaganda they've been sold.  Education is freedom.  It's more important to have a luxury SUV than raise your own kids.  Your career is what defines you.  And perhaps the cherry on the brainwashing-sundae is "you're all intelligent, independent-minded people."  This will provide you VERY few genuine colleagues who can even keep up with you intellectually.  There will be very few minds you'll be able to appreciate and enjoy.  And while every one around you is mocking you for buying cheap, used cars, or being a stick in the mud, they'll wonder how you paid your house off at 40 and how you can afford to ride out to Alaska at the drop of a hat.

Third, you will be lonely.  While you have actually made it to this nirvana, the population is almost always zero.  And this can mean you're by yourself adventuring about, living your life, or surrounded by people, but having absolutely zero intellectual interest in them because they're sheep. You will attend company Christmas parties where worker drones drone on about their careers, mindless things, or how their children are going to go to an overpriced college for a worthless degree.  Your truly amazing adventure of how you undid your brainwashing, took the red pill, and achieved success becoming a truly free individual will bore them, perhaps even make them think you're a braggart, when in reality you are by far the most interesting person at that table.  And do not even bother telling people about your journey because they simply aren't interested.  They will say "that's nice" and move on to other more mundane and pop-culture topics, perhaps the latest sportsball game or what the latest Hollywood harlot tweeted.

Finally, you will have what I would consider a very watered down version of PTSD.  I don't like ascribing PTSD to people who did NOT fight in war or suffer a truly traumatic event.  But being poor for most of your youth, being brought up in a broken home, being perpetually under debt, wasting 17 years on an education that doesn't pay, and living a life founded in lies does inevitably take a psychological toll because it's a constant state of stress.  You won't notice at first because you'll be too busy plodding one foot in front of the other to win this marathon of life, but once your financial, security, and biological needs are met, your brain will actually have the time to get out of "emergency crisis mode" and look back.  And your only question will simply be "why?"  "Why did older people lie to us about our education?"  "Why did politicians tell us to love the state and socialism more than the individual and family?"  "Why did we get programmed to value our careers more than the love of life our any theoretical children we might have?" "Why did they do this to us?"  It is at this point you will realize just how much (if not all) of your youth was wasted towards tragic or at least futile ends.  It will further depress you when you realize just how much society feeds off of its young.  And remember, only a very small percentage of people will be capable of seeing this for what it is.  You will be alone with these constant reminders, like a mythical Cassandra that nobody is going to believe or listen to.

But Never Go Back

You may be tempted to go back and join the herd.  To live an ignorantly blissful life.  But this isn't The Matrix where you can be plugged back in.  Once you took that galvanizing trek to figure out the real world for what it is, and then make that arduous journey to succeed in that new real world, you cannot undo the process.  You will always see how people are screwing up.  You will always understand why people are not happy.  You will always understand why you will have so few peers.  You will not ever be able to tolerate the tedium of normal people talking ever again.  You will not be able to work in a corporate career, vainly hoping for some sort of comradery.  And you are not going to be able to go back to college to find intellectual stimulation.  The only thing that will do it, is the presence and company of equally independent-minded people who went on their own journey.  These people are precious and few.  So hold onto them when they come across your life.
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13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Yes. Started my own business at 51 after working in the corporate world my entire life. Many hours of hard work and risk, but I kept all of the profits/losses and now am able to retire at 58. I wish that I had done it in my 20's.

You are right about the PTSD - working with the NPC's in the corporate world does leave a mark on you that may never fully go away.

What do I do in my retirement? Currently reading the "Great Books of the Western World" and riding my motorcycle. I figure that will keep me busy for the next three years or so. After that, who knows? I do know that I will not be showing up and filing TPS reports for some jackass. Keep up the good writing. Anon

captain cryptic said...

Indeed.....

D said...

Nice work on this article Aaron. Our CEO is a big fan of yours and sent me this link to your article.

'Reality' Doug said...

AKA 'Bad times make hard men.' I have yet to make money. You make it sound so easy. You have functional people skills, i.e. marketing skills, very poised in front of video camera. To earn money is to plug in somehow. Normies smell out my alien mind. I can't feel herd camaraderie. My free advice (lol) is pursue power exclusively until can cross finish line, and never eschew power with trivial cost of ownership. No sideline safety eventually. Personal health mental, physical, and financial always comes first, with some allowance for same of biological children.

Mike said...

Right on! My wife will finish her Web Dev degree next year, and I'm now working as a DBA. Our goal is to be completely out of debt and maybe working from home within 5 years. Then we start buying rental properties. Thanks for all you do, Cappy!

leeholsen said...

second. we lost some staff recently and I getta pick up the slack for who knows who long and am now a slave to the job; it's depressing and now having knowledge that a gained from places like this; should I be able to escape this at some point; I'm not going back; I don't care if kate upton says she'll have reguloar sex if I give up 60 hours a week working; it's not worth the trade.

Anonymous said...

Cappy you read my mind.

About four years ago I found you and Rollo. I was always a minimalist having gone thru near bankruptsy when my first was born. I worked my way up to director in a government organization. Married for 30 years since I was 24. My wife only ever wanted to be a wife and mother. Went thru the year from hell five years ago. It was just after the last kid left. We looked at each other and said now what. We split up for a while.
Both swallowed red pills like tic tacs. She even agrees with Rollo. "Your an asshole" is a compliment here.

Sold our big farmhouse, scaled down to a small rented cottage in the woods outside town. When I got downsized at 54 she just said "ok I will follow whatever you need to do.". Was able to cash my pension and had a years severance.

So there I am. Costs of maybe 2k a month, earning 5k in severence. 400k in investments from my pension. 180k in cash from selling the farm. 7 acres to play on, a dog and five horses.

Great. For three months. Then bored out of my fucking goard.
So more red pills. Became a farm hand cause I like horses. Did carpentry there fixing the barn. Then the pony princess mothers need work done on mcmansions. So became a handyman at 50 an hour (outside work only and body cam, im not stupid) the walking talking half millionaire hunky handyman.

But lost so many friuends cause the red pills are unswallowable at their age and I cant put up with the bullshit seeing them suffer. Wife lost more. " make him a sammich? Why?" Her " Because while yoiu are divorced me and him are building our retirement cottage together."

The lonliness and at times boredom is hard. But then the freedom calls.

My house is small, but is big enough for we.
My needs are few so my purse is small.

But most of all, I do as I please
For me.

Mgtowhorseman
Frequent visitor over at Spawnyspace

Keep dispensing the pills Cappy.

P.s. the video on the skills for a tradesman...show up, dont drink, etc? Classic. Send it to the kids monthly!

Alt London said...

Bravo, Cappy.

After getting out from under debt, normie-employment and a socially-imposed compulsion to impress hot chicks, I found myself asking "okay, now what?"

If I'm honest, I'm still not sure what the answer is, but going back to the herd has never entered my head.

Steffen said...

If you need something else to do with your self-actualized self, it might be interesting to go out shooting sometime.

The wife would even appreciate dancing instruction, if you don't mind showing uncoordinated Midwesterners how it's supposed to be done.

But that's only if you don't mind hanging out with relative normies trying to hack it at mi vida circa 1950. Best of luck, from Koop.

Aphron said...

I think a lot of what is being written is true. I think the push towards education uber alles has forced people into roles for which they are ill suited. For me, education raised me out of lower-middle class. However, I chose a profession that pays well.

As a Gen Xer, I think the Millenials and definitely Gen Zyklon are luckier than us. The information is out there and readily available. Heck, I grew up with only 3 channels to watch on TV. Information was much more controlled. Nowadays, those that still made bad decisions without doing their due diligence reap the whirlwind.

I do think there is a reckoning a comin'. A combination of huge national debt, destroyed families, stagnant wages, expansion of the welfare state, etc. is creating the perfect storm of something really terrible coming. It cannot be sustained.

Anonymous said...

It's lonely at the top, but the view is better.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Cap. I needed to read that today. You hit the nail on the head.