Itsadudething.com

I've hinted at my next web project for a few weeks now, but I've finally decided to move forward with it.

I've registered the domain itsadudething.com. The thrust of the site is simple - it's a blog and site for men who want to reclaim their masculinity.

Reading a myriad of books on masculinity and manhood, I've come to realize that at least in my life, my masculinity was looked down upon as something shameful. My mother and father both sent out messages during childhood that my manhood was undesirable - that my agency and inner "wild man" as Bly would put it ought to be tamed, muted and exorcised. 

Even society has forced men into a corner. Look at countless depictions of men on television and you'll see them as gormless boobs that don't know their arse from their elbow. Some of them are even rewarded for being clueless (the Ross and Rachel saga from Friends comes to mind.)

Men tell other men they are "whipped" by their women yet their pointed finger points straight back at them. Men are afraid of intimacy and dating because they conflate "respect" with "submission." Some men lead lives of quiet desperation sat in front of the television when they could be living a much more fulfilled life instead.

Men are born free yet everywhere they are in chains.

So working closely with some of my brothers we will write articles about our journey from the "nice guy" to the loving yet assertive integrated male. I also hope to get interviews with men from a variety of occupations to discuss men's issues also. I might make a little cash from it too!

I hope all you dudes (and sympathetic chicks) can join us!

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http://twitter.com/crushtor

Steps to an Integrity of Mind

During this social media moratorium* I've been doing a wealth of reading - mostly re-reading psychology books such as Drs. Ellis and Harper's A Guide to Rational Living (I started re-reading it yesterday and am almost finished - It's incredible what can be accomplished when you decide to walk away from a computer!) I'm also re-reading much of my "useful resource" library that can be accessed here.

In addition I'm getting out of the house more - just because!

The ability to silence one's chatter to allow one to think, challenge and pose new questions is severely hampered by the "Niagara of words" as Samuel I. Hayakawa once noted. Twitter and Facebook updates with a frequency that is twice or even three times as quick than the human nervous system could possibly parse and understand. If our abstraction processes are routinely incomplete then surely social media networks are passing around discrete packages of shortened information that are whittled down into something almost nonsensical (insofar we are unable to extract meaning from them via our senses.) So why is our mind being littered with tiny tracts and tidbits? Where is our mindfulness in this instance?

In my view, mindfulness is being conscious of your abstraction and subvocalization process - also known as metacognition or "thinking about thinking." You are most likely not reading this post aloud and thus subvocalizing the words. But how often do we sit back and think about what we are telling ourselves about the world?

Usually we are unaware of our own thoughts. These are powerful - they impact on our emotions and behaviors. If the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and researches of Count Korzybski are held to be valid, our reality is inferred and created by what we tell ourselves and how we derive meaning from the outside world. If we tell ourselves we are a "piece of shit" or unable to handle certain situations we feel we have been trapped in a cage built by our reactions to a largely self-constructed semantic environment.

It is true - we only have limited choice when considering the vastness of the cosmos and the immediate macrocosm that we see. Standing on the corner of the street we can choose what direction to travel and whether to peruse a shop, book a holiday or even chat up a girl we find attractive but causality remains. But there are some things we cannot prevent and other things we are completely incapable of. But that does not make life unlivable, harrowing or awful. We adapt to our environment as best as possible and carve out happiness within it.

The universe is indifferent but the way we choose to see it is up to us entirely. Even if one is a cognitive neuroscientist, a believer in the eight-circuit model of consciousness or a strict religionist or somewhere in between, we all choose to adapt to these methods of thinking - no one forces us. At the end of the day we are alone in how we conduct ourselves and how we perceive the outside world. Belief is the death of intelligence. Belief in the irrational is the death of one's agency and one's mental freedom.

Much like Marcus Aurelius says - Do you not possess reason? With reason doing its job, what else could you possibly want or need? It can feel like a struggle to become rational in an increasingly irrational world - but, at least in my opinion, it is one of the most worthwhile endeavors one can ever take.

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*I am aware that some of my non-social media activities on the web cause automated tweets to be sent, such as posting this blog or "loving" tracks on Last.fm, etc. This does not constitute a "breaking" of the moratorium according to my criterion.

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http://twitter.com/crushtor

The Summer of Tom

"My name is George. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents."

- George Costanza

Good evening, sports fans. I've gone on yet another social media moratorium until the 14th of January (that has now been extended to Formspring and Tumblr.) Why? Well I'll explain.

The last few days have really exposed some behaviors and feelings that I at least feel I need to work on. Getting "hit" by my grandmother's illness and covering up my feelings about how I handle the aftermath from relationships from myself (and consequently others), I feel has contributed to getting myself stuck in a negative groove to start 2011. I'm doing and saying things from a place of neediness and insecurity instead of strength and abundance. 

I feel good that I'm not starting from square one, but I still feel that some areas of my life need shoring up. Some things in life just can't be ideal, all the time. Shit takes work, yo.

I'm spending too much time at home since my employment situation is less than ideal. I'm working on my thesis (slowly) as well as articles for websites I write for. Of course this is unpaid work but work nonetheless. Using Twitter and Facebook is just an excuse to procrastinate and avoid work instead of taking up the challenge of producing good quality copy. If things don't pick up with self-employment, I'll be trying to temp at factories and warehouses instead. It's all about taking care of myself.

Of course taking care of myself means I'll be eating healthier and modifying my exercise regime to be progressively more challenging, preparing me for my belt grading in Sin Moo Hapkido.

Twitter and Facebook has also reinforced an attachment to outcome and keeping an even keel, people-pleasing and trying to appear interesting or intelligent. I sometimes feel like I'm tweeting exclusively just to get a positive response or to gain more followers. What's the point of that?

On the intimate and platonic relationship front, I need to almost start from scratch. Some have slipped considerably, others have had false-starts and many have been declared dead on arrival (for good reasons.) 2011 is a year in which I will re-evaluate who is in my life and who I let into it and why. I haven't taken stock of that for a long while and a social media moratorium is the perfect place to start. 

In the dating scene, I thought I was more "ready" than I'd let on to myself, but of course that was a misnomer. Looking for dates and relationships now after such a slender gap between now the end of a relationship probably isn't a good idea for myself and anyone else. So I've decided to go on a three-month dating and sex moratorium. 

That's right - no sex and no dates for three months.

It sounds a bit extreme - but I have put myself under such conditions before - namely the first half of 2010 (Six months! Can you believe it?) It was a fun and freewheeling time and I learned how to interact with the opposite sex on a flirty level without the added "rating" of one's performance with...well, performances of a horizontal kind. I could also bond with men and develop my masculinity that had been sorely missing in my life as an adolescent and young adult.

The last moratorium was a journey that required great willpower. Yet it built my inner strength so I could take care of myself and approach life in a positive fashion without fear or shame. Being able to say "no" also prepares one to have "no" said to them.

Preferences that become demands are almost never healthy and a moratorium, I feel, will restore that balance.

My blog will be more focused on these issues during the moratoriums (and yes, there will be several more!) and personal development stories as I really push and challenge myself to be the best man I can be - a small glimpse into a journey of a lifetime!

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Furthermore, a special project is in the works that will combine my talents and personal development, details of which will be revealed soon!

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http://twitter.com/crushtor