The Belief Structure of A New Man

#1

A part of my heart lies deep within the core of nofap. I hope to appear now and again to write simple thoughts, when they pass by. I haven’t written to you sweet soldiers in some time so I had to say hello.

I hope your wars are going good. I’m sure all is the same since the Final Conclusions of Nofap will not change. The axioms are surely the same, all of you are fighting the good fight and your mantra is repetitive yet potent. “I am a new man today,” is the warcry. “Never again.” Good for you, we’ve all gotta start somewhere.

Sure enough I’ve made it 932 days; shucks, a part of me wanted to say 1,000. Soon enough.

Let’s get to the point. You are all boys stepping up a masculine staircase in an attempt to reach manhood. Manhood, of course, is the meaning you so desperately seek. For if you had made it to the top and reached the pinnacle of manliness this PMO thing wouldn’t be an issue. You would become your own hero and save the world, get the girl and defeat your demons for all time. To be fair, I don’t think this has changed or will change. I think the struggle, the fight, the ideology of self-mastery is a good one and I am glad to see you in the thick of it. I’m even glad you might have gotten shot a few times. Pain is good for ya.

Maybe you will see one day what I saw 932 days ago. That ladder of masculinity you’re climbing isn’t a ladder at all, it’s an elevator. You don’t really have a choice or say in the matter—soon enough you will be an adult and at the top of manhood. People will then expect you to act like one. That’s right, one day you won’t really have a choice. You will be thrown into the wild and have more responsibility then you ever imagined thrust upon your shoulders and nothing but a “good luck” to back you up. It’s sink or swim in the world of adults and I sure hope you get your shit together before that elevator reaches the top floor.

It’s your body that grows up without your mind. That physical form of yours is aging as you read this and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. But what stays behind is your mind. What doesn’t evolve with the body is that brain up in your skull, it can only grow and evolve if you wish it. The mind needs training, it needs nourishment in the form of righteous books of great men; it needs plenty of sleep and good nourishing food; it needs a push every now and then to break past its own safety programs. Your mind needs you.

You are a much greater force of expression than your body or mind can ever be. Within that physical form of yours is a great power that can move the forces of the world around you, it has willpower in one hand and virtue in the other. You are soul, and soul completes the body/mind complex. You move them both with willpower, you even willingly hurt yourself with toxic living.

Everything’s ok. Your soul has an intelligence that evolves just like the body’s elevator, moving everything along in the background of life. The trouble is your time is limited and there is much to experience. There’s so much to do and you are stuck in a child’s game. On the mission of evolution into an adult you tripped up and didn’t move on as planned. You’re free to stay back as long as you want, but real freedom awaits.

Real freedom is mastering your instincts so you’re not at the whim of the body or mind. Real freedom commands the body and mind, fulfilling your maturation as a fully functioning human in society. So, get your damn act together. Clean your room, speak up and learn a thing or two about the country you live in. Find out how your state came to be and make a difference for once. Stop being so selfish.

We all share this incredible space, there’s infinite variety and your mind can expand to the furthest reaches of the known universe—there’s time too. There’s so much time in a day if you stay focused, so much can be achieved. But you are stuck still looking at naked humans, just like a child in a man’s body. Grow up.

And I don’t mean that pejoratively. I really mean it in the best way possible: grow up, evolve a little and look up at the sky with a fresh perspective. Try not judging others, see your own faults first and don’t get out of shape—fit body/fit mind. Go outside and breathe for once.

The choice is yours and one day it will hit you like a brick wall. Either you prepare now and train, or arrive at your destination unprepared. You might look a little foolish when you get there, but mostly you will just look sad and people might have a little pity before they move on. A child in man’s body is not worth someone else’s’ time. No one is going to clean up after you. Shape up, man.

I’m with you though, in spirit these days, and all the soldiers here like @fabflop still holding on to the support rope. I can’t believe he can see the same story day after day and not be crushed under the weakness. But perhaps he’s a better man than I. Anyway, stay strong and get moving before you can’t. I know you can do it because I am just like you, except with me I decided to get back up once I tripped. I just got up and kept evolving. Join me.

#2

Your words inspire me to the core. & I completely understand not being able to be on conqueredself day after day seeing the sad story or even nofap in general. Every PMO wasn’t caused by a damn trigger it’s caused by a lack of responsibility & lack of ambition. It’s sad to see people saying “I’m gonna conquer this addiction forever! This time is different.” two weeks later: “I relapsed guys but! It was different this time.” then they post about how they fell again feeding themselves more BS. I’ve done that to myself enough times to know it goes nowhere. I hope to reach the level in which your at. Discipline is key, to reach maturity. Many times I’ve called motivation highs discipline yet lately I’m realizing what it truly means. It’s a code that even in the darkest hour you follow to the ends of the earth. Motivation is reason to continue, discipline is what happens when you’re on the brink of collapse, you have no reason to continue yet, you push even harder than before because you said you were going to. You’ve taught me a lot @SolidStance and for that I couldn’t be more grateful. If you ever have any words of wisdom to share feel free, your a great soldier.

#3

Let’s keep the conversation going.

You are spot on when you say lack of responsibility and ambition. All of this is a much larger epidemic of young men losing their meaning in life due to a societal overthrow of masculinity. Men no longer have to be men and nor does the media, the far-left wing and feminists, want men to be masculine. Boys remain in their own childish shell and have no role models to look up to, they have no one they aspire to be.

I will differ on the motivation/discipline doctrine and explain why:

There are 5 steps to any process, designed by Dr. Mike Israetel.

  1. Inspiration
  2. Motivation
  3. Discipline
  4. Habits
  5. Passion

We can’t just rely on any one of these processes for success, and passion isn’t guaranteed. So we use steps 1-4 in order to get by. Most people aren’t disciplined and passionate 24/7—and that expectation is not realistic. We need habits to get us by when discipline is low and we need motivation/inspiration to spark our interest and remind us why we do what we do. Eventually, if we are able to develop habits that lead to passion, joy will well up from within and guide the rest of our journey—that’s how we get the joy out of life and in what we are doing.

Mike Israetel compares all this to a boat that rises and falls against a dock of our goals—getting off the boat and back onto the dock being the main goal.

Our inspiration and motivation signals are like the waxing and waning of the tide, getting us near the dock in moments of high tide and simply stepping off the boat. But the tide isn’t always high and it will recede eventually, so we need some discipline to get us closer to our goals. Discipline is like a type of ladder that is solid enough to get us passed the gap where inspiration/motivation used to be. We cannot rely on high tide to get off the boat.

Sometimes the ladder we built and the habits made by discipline won’t always work, so we make better equipment (stronger habits) when discipline is ineffective, getting us to the dock without high tide (inspiration/motivation) and poor/old equipment, or old discipline. The key here is remember that discipline is finite. Eventually we get exhausted from pushing all the time and need a mental or physical break. Habits keep us going when discipline wanes, which it will.

The goal is finally achieved when passion takes root and we develop a system of getting to the dock with a machine, a type of elevator that gets us off the boat each and every time. Once the machine of passion is set in place we can repeatedly get on and off the boat and to our goals no matter what—especially when we’ve been there before and gain experience.

Time and time again we use the entire range of tools to our advantage knowing that our mind and body can’t always get to our goals using any single modality all the time. One tool builds on another as we go through life, but they always remain available when we need them. We aren’t machines but organic life forms that wax and wane with emotional tugs of war. We aren’t perfect but should strive always for progress. Getting off the boat and onto the dock will then one day be as simple as putting one foot in front of the other.

#4

Hmm that 5 step model makes sense.

An idea from Napeoleon Hill is that the subconscious mind is effected by thoughts with strong fillings being attached to them. I suppose inspiration is the first stepping stone to that. Explaining why success stories early on in giving up PMO can be so effective as it gives a standard that your subconscious mind holds onto that it wants to be like.

Then from inspiration (the thing that made you yearn the journey) you acquire motivation. This will help push through the first few weeks sometimes even months. Also it’s likely this spike of motivation due to the inspiration will allow you to pair getting rid of this bad habit with the added bonus of adding good habits.

Once that occurs, on the battle ground for self improvement we will be motivated & inspired by the successful people in the group we look up to. We start taking cold showers, start decreasing time spent on media, & actually start living in the way nature intended. After awhile that spike from motivation wears off, through the routine you built while it was surging you’ve inadvertently been building discipline then you are faced with the though “Am I going to continue this? Because every bone in my body is telling me I don’t want too.” Discipline is the code which we natural develop (or have regress) based on what we’ve been doing in the periods of inspiration & motivation.

After we past the gates of discipline where we decided we were going to continue no matter the difficulty we reach habits. This almost nullifies the necessity for the first 2. Once this new routine becomes a habit it’s unlikely you’d need inspiration nor motivation as you’ve accepted it as normal life. Things that you accept as normal are just things you do. This also explains why some men go to PMO despite having religious objections towards it. Because it’s now normal it doesn’t take inspiration, motivation nor discipline because so many neurons are related to the task it would be harder not to do than to do. After a certain point same is true for fitness, cold showers, & eating clean.

Next after following the previous four you reach passion. Many believe this is something you’re born with. Though more often than not we become ‘passionate’ about what we repeatedly do. Mark Cuban has a beautiful blog post about why not to follow your passion, because you can be ‘passionate’ about many things, rather you should follow your EFFORT because it leads to passion. An example of this is me learning piano. I had no natural inclination towards the instrument however, with repeated practice, I became good, after I became good, I started to enjoy it making it into daily routine do to the inspiration & motivation from my progress which lead me to be disciplined about it, creating a habit I no longer have to think about. Passion in essence is the product of the previous four if it wouldn’t naturally be something you’re interested in.

Thing is none of these are constantly consistent in our life. I might be very disciplined in Art, Piano, Math, & Writing… But do to my lack of effort towards programming in these recent years I started to not enjoy it because I stopped looking at inspiration/motivation for that (Like I use to do religiously.) making me lose my passion towards it. Meaning passion is finite. What you engage in you become, & what you don’t looses any connection to you. Which is why I’ve been trying to give up the part of me that considers ‘nofap’ as part of my identity. As it indirectly engages with the side of me that did PMO & that enjoys that. Yet whatever I participate in naturally we start heavily engaging loving the ideas.

Another example would be me joining a Speech & Debate club, at first I was reluctant & shy as I’m an INTJ naturally introverted. Yet as I continued to practice yet again I became passionate do to inspiration, then the motivation, then the discipline to endure when no one was watching & I was practicing my speech for the 100th time & through that a habit was built which allowed me to become passionate about my speech. The examples are endless. Yet without those stepping stone & the effort which you achieve through discipline you can’t achieve anything great. & it’s important to note that your level in discipline in certain tasks can very. For example tell me to do a 10 page scientific research report & my lack of discipline would probably show compared to something I’m willing to do when no one but I & God are watching.

However one important note is your view on will power will determine how it operates. For example someone who believes in ego depletion will have less will power than those who believe it’s an infinite resource. It’s actually quite an interesting thing. We can placebo ourselves in either direction.

Also I share similar frustrations wit the Alt-Left & modern feminism. Just note that most people aren’t crazy enough to actually be that crazy. There just a very vocal minority. (no pun intended ;D) It’s just important to stand up for what’s right & show through your example what a man should be.

#5

Solid! Great stuff as always! I sit here filled with an inspiration from your written words. Inspiration without action is meaningless. I will take every opportunity I have and seize this day with an awakened mind grounded in the burning fire of my evolved masculinity and tempered with compassion and equanimity…

#6

The Path is never ending.

#7

Vision ! We need to foster a strong vision of what we want and what we want to be. Have pictures of what we want and want to be all around us : in our cell phones, on our refridgor and most importantly in our minds! Have this thought of our Evolved ,Awakened, Conscious,Realized Self be the last thing we think about at night and the first thing we think about when we wake up in the morning. Fortune favors the bold,so go hard or go home . This is the big leagues. It’s Nick Foles (the underdog) vs Tom Brady (The Goat.) Win your Superbowl , be the MVP and get the girl. Anything is possible. There are no boundaries or limitations other than your own mind. The clock is ticking. Make it happen !!!