Love or Fear, You Can't Have Both, You Won't Get Either
An invariable question posed during a job interview is the one about the "team player." Are you a team player? How do you feel about being on a team? You realize that your actions will affect the team, don't you? After the employment, there are team-building exercises, there are team leaders barking orders, there are friendly team competitions, and there are team organizers who keep the teams in order. Jobs nowadays are simply teeming with teams. Get excited! Come on, we're a team, we're excited! Let's get out there and push that merchandise and make this the best fiscal year our company's ever had, huh? Guys? Why aren't you excited?
The reason it's so hard to get excited at team events is that the employee is being reminded that he is no longer the master of his destiny. He forfeited that title when he signed his W4. His sense of identity has been surrendered to simpering bureaucrats who will gladly throttle it until it falls silent.
Not long ago, I hosted a small soiree at my place with some workmates of mine. We chatted, we sang, we drank lots of wine. Perhaps too much, as my friends left quite a mess behind them. When I awoke the following morning, I surveyed the damage and decided that I would have to miss work so I could clean my home before the vermin set in. Upon hearing this, my manager phoned me multiple times, leaving messages that it was imperative that I call him. I was busy washing my carpet, so I refused to drop what I was doing just to talk to him. When I finally did call him back, he explained that none of the people I'd had over the previous night showed up to work either. He told me that he was very disappointed in me because so much of the team called in due to my gathering. He asked me what I felt about that. My honest opinion would have involved the term "rat's ass," but out of sensitivity I told him that I wasn't sure what to feel, and then I asked if he could provide a suggestion. He threatened my job after that. Disgusted, I hung up the phone. The manager has since transferred to some backwater to throw his flabby, tattooed weight around in, while I quit and moved to a more profitable position.
This sad little manager, pompous and laughable though he was, nevertheless impressed me. He helped me to realize just how small and powerless the men of this era really are. Like that picture-perfect caricature of authority, Michael Scott from The Office, today's men are desperate, petty creatures who rationalize their weakness by pushing their responsibilities on others, hiding pain and truth behind raucous humor and foul language, and using abstract paperwork to trick others into a sense of inferiority. It's the same as the "team" idea. It's about fooling you into thinking you're smaller than someone who's just as small as you. It's ageless, alpha male behavior, only diluted, demoralized, and soft.
The only true alphas in this world are the ones no one can see or touch. There are lots of fakers out there; lots of men who want you to think they are the big fish, but the vehemence they argue with exposes them. Small men who are ashamed of their lot are always the ones who will fight and fight and fight to prove they are special, even if proof is lacking, and all they can attain is the maintenance of a fantasy. Like a free Middle East.
So it's no great shock to me that women these days are shunning men as we know traditionally know them, and concentrating instead on scrawny, scraggly, mop-topped waifs such as Justin Timberlake and John Krasinki. Women nowadays don't look for barrel-chests, they want flat abs. They don't want savage, they want svelte. They don't want macho, they want metro. They want men to be more like they are. They want women.
My puissant town is full of these hideous, wrinkly, overly tan women with long, greasy-looking hair and sagging flaps of flesh, but you know what? They all have great nails. Their fingers are crested with cute little flowers, their toes are ribbed with pink and purple stripes. Now although there are men who enjoy looking at women's toes, most women are revolted by that idea. So who are these women trying to impress?
EACH OTHER.
Men don't care about jewelry. Men don't care about braids. Men don't care about brand name fashion. Women buy those things to outdo each other in battles of grace, femininity, and cash flow. Women want to feel assured that they are prettier, stronger, and richer than the other females in their clans. Women are turning into men. In an ideal world, women would find mates who share their fascination with conquering others of their own sex, and yet who are invulnerable to the battle themselves. This is why women get on with gay men so well.
But all the other men are angry, conservative beasts who aren't about to change, so they continue to pound their heads against the stone wall as hard as they can, hoarding what little power and influence they can reach, until they exhaust themselves and burn out to tiny piles of broken hopes, with naught of their bodies left but crooked mouths so they may continue pouring forth rationalizations for their failures.
It seems that we are all on the path to ruin. Where, o where, then, is the true will to power?
It is in the abandonment of ambition. It is in contentment with the present, and with the self. It is in the appreciation of one's capabilities, minute though they might be. It is in the understanding that all achievement is judged, and eventually forgotten, by other men, and thus it matters little. Power is in being grateful no matter what your lot is, how much money you have, or what women love you. If you attain that acceptance, there are none who can topple you.
The reason it's so hard to get excited at team events is that the employee is being reminded that he is no longer the master of his destiny. He forfeited that title when he signed his W4. His sense of identity has been surrendered to simpering bureaucrats who will gladly throttle it until it falls silent.
Not long ago, I hosted a small soiree at my place with some workmates of mine. We chatted, we sang, we drank lots of wine. Perhaps too much, as my friends left quite a mess behind them. When I awoke the following morning, I surveyed the damage and decided that I would have to miss work so I could clean my home before the vermin set in. Upon hearing this, my manager phoned me multiple times, leaving messages that it was imperative that I call him. I was busy washing my carpet, so I refused to drop what I was doing just to talk to him. When I finally did call him back, he explained that none of the people I'd had over the previous night showed up to work either. He told me that he was very disappointed in me because so much of the team called in due to my gathering. He asked me what I felt about that. My honest opinion would have involved the term "rat's ass," but out of sensitivity I told him that I wasn't sure what to feel, and then I asked if he could provide a suggestion. He threatened my job after that. Disgusted, I hung up the phone. The manager has since transferred to some backwater to throw his flabby, tattooed weight around in, while I quit and moved to a more profitable position.
This sad little manager, pompous and laughable though he was, nevertheless impressed me. He helped me to realize just how small and powerless the men of this era really are. Like that picture-perfect caricature of authority, Michael Scott from The Office, today's men are desperate, petty creatures who rationalize their weakness by pushing their responsibilities on others, hiding pain and truth behind raucous humor and foul language, and using abstract paperwork to trick others into a sense of inferiority. It's the same as the "team" idea. It's about fooling you into thinking you're smaller than someone who's just as small as you. It's ageless, alpha male behavior, only diluted, demoralized, and soft.
The only true alphas in this world are the ones no one can see or touch. There are lots of fakers out there; lots of men who want you to think they are the big fish, but the vehemence they argue with exposes them. Small men who are ashamed of their lot are always the ones who will fight and fight and fight to prove they are special, even if proof is lacking, and all they can attain is the maintenance of a fantasy. Like a free Middle East.
So it's no great shock to me that women these days are shunning men as we know traditionally know them, and concentrating instead on scrawny, scraggly, mop-topped waifs such as Justin Timberlake and John Krasinki. Women nowadays don't look for barrel-chests, they want flat abs. They don't want savage, they want svelte. They don't want macho, they want metro. They want men to be more like they are. They want women.
My puissant town is full of these hideous, wrinkly, overly tan women with long, greasy-looking hair and sagging flaps of flesh, but you know what? They all have great nails. Their fingers are crested with cute little flowers, their toes are ribbed with pink and purple stripes. Now although there are men who enjoy looking at women's toes, most women are revolted by that idea. So who are these women trying to impress?
EACH OTHER.
Men don't care about jewelry. Men don't care about braids. Men don't care about brand name fashion. Women buy those things to outdo each other in battles of grace, femininity, and cash flow. Women want to feel assured that they are prettier, stronger, and richer than the other females in their clans. Women are turning into men. In an ideal world, women would find mates who share their fascination with conquering others of their own sex, and yet who are invulnerable to the battle themselves. This is why women get on with gay men so well.
But all the other men are angry, conservative beasts who aren't about to change, so they continue to pound their heads against the stone wall as hard as they can, hoarding what little power and influence they can reach, until they exhaust themselves and burn out to tiny piles of broken hopes, with naught of their bodies left but crooked mouths so they may continue pouring forth rationalizations for their failures.
It seems that we are all on the path to ruin. Where, o where, then, is the true will to power?
It is in the abandonment of ambition. It is in contentment with the present, and with the self. It is in the appreciation of one's capabilities, minute though they might be. It is in the understanding that all achievement is judged, and eventually forgotten, by other men, and thus it matters little. Power is in being grateful no matter what your lot is, how much money you have, or what women love you. If you attain that acceptance, there are none who can topple you.
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