There is a darkness that rests in the soul of man. It is the rage of man that allows him to go to war, to kill others in the name of justice, or even for something much less than that. His rage allows him to keep absolute focus on killing the enemy and winning the war. This is a tremendous power that is unused in most men.
Within us is the power to do any and all work, build anything, create anything and amass tremendous wealth. This rage is a limitless energy just waiting to be tapped. It exists in all men. Most use it for evil. Most use it to destroy, but this power can be used to build, if you learn to channel it properly. You must learn to draw strength from rage.
The weak man carelessly expresses his rage.
This is the anger the Bible tells us to “put away”. There is no benefit to mindlessly expressing our emotions, especially our rage. That is a massive waste of a tremendous source of energy. Correctly channeling these emotions is what leads to victory.
The difference in rage that is mindlessly expressed and that which is carefully controlled is the same difference between a massive wildfire, and a propane blowtorch. One is uncontrolled and destroys, the other is highly concentrated, controlled, and is used to build. We must use our rage to build something spectacular. We must use this rage to be a man, not a weak beta with a temper.
Mantra
This rage is a tool. Redirect it. Use it.
Application
First recognize the biochemistry within you. This energy is a byproduct of testosterone. Most men’s rage is testosterone combined with poor self-control. Practice is the best tool when it comes to anything like redirection of emotions.
The easiest way to learn how to redirect raging energy is to start by redirecting it towards something physical, usually physical training (which you should be doing anyway). This is especially helpful if you are prone to anger. When something makes you angry, you must notice it immediately, bottle it, and then hold it until you get to the gym. Then unleash that anger in conjunction with the physical expression, you will feel a change in your biochemistry, and you will actually have built something instead of destroying something.
Then move on to other facets in your life and redirect the energy there. Convert raging energy to fearlessness. Whenever you feel fear towards something, conjure your rage and aggression and make it overpower your fear.
Wage war on mediocrity in your studies or the workplace. Use rage to outwork every other person at your job. Channel it to power through fatigue and tiredness during your studies. Use it as a tool to build the life you want.
You have seen men who cannot control themselves. They lose their temper like children; they are a disgrace to what we call masculine. There is no honor in losing control of anything, much less our own selves. All we can truly control is ourselves. We control the way we respond to the way others act.
There is plenty in life that we can control, and there is plenty that we cannot. Of those things that are under our control, we have an obligation to be masters of them. Our emotions don’t rule us, we rule our emotions. Boys are carried away by emotion. Men command themselves at all times.
To control oneself is to have mastery over the body and the mind. To relinquish control of all outside events, recognizing that they are beyond our ability to affect, is the mark of a man. There is a stoic principle that states one should not worry about anything that one is not directly controlling. If you are not controlling it, why worry about it?
Mantra
If I can’t control it, I don’t stress about it.
Application
Dozens of events happen everyday that are outside of our ability to command. How coworkers act, how people will drive, what the law of entropy will bring about.
Practice not worrying about the smallest things first. If you can master controlling stress, controlling yourself in small endeavors, you can command yourself in large ones. If bad drivers really get under your skin, practice being aware that you are not in control of the situation.
Road rage is an opportunity for personal improvement. When you feel yourself getting angry when driving, become aware of it. Then just build on that awareness. Say to yourself, “Men do not lose command of themselves because of small annoyances”. Do not expect overnight results. You have spent years being angry on the road, you are not going to improve yourself in one day of effort.
If you are not in command of an event, do not let it bother you. Tell yourself that it is not bothering you. Thoughts eventually become reality. Action becomes habit. Build your character and strength through thought.
Failure is a surefire way to generate growth both of character and skill.
“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Psalm 73:26
At some point you come face to face with failure. Whether it manifests as a character flaw that affects your work or a sin does not matter. As a man, failing is difficult because of the massive egos we usually carry around. But failing is inevitable.
We should not be discouraged by failing, instead it should excite us. Because within that failure are the exact coordinates for where we need to go in order to improve. Failure is a performance evaluation for our character that lets us know precisely where we are insufficient. Failure points its bony fingers in the direction of improvement. Our failures show us that our study strategies or work ethic need improvement. Sexual failings tells us that our self-control needs refinement.
The weak men are discouraged. Boys wallow in their weakness and flaws like liberals. Weak men ignore their flaws and pretend they don’t exist like conservatives. Both cases are the result of a lack of masculinity.
Masculinity takes ownership of that failure. It claims every ounce of failure as its own. Masculinity takes full responsibility for the insufficiency it possesses. Ignore the weak, frail ego that pervades the Church and take ownership of your life. Have some ownership for your failures, and use them as a tool to improve.
No growth is possible without failure.
When I fail, I only grow.
Application
Don’t be discouraged by failing, instead use it. The best thing about failing is it gives you the blueprint for improvement. Failure is part of the recipe for success. All you have to do is avoid the ego trauma of the weak beta male, and turn that weakness and failure into strength and success.
To properly use failure, you first have to set clear parameters for both success and failure. You must clearly define the standards of success. Only by doing this will you know when you have failed.
Without standards, we have no way to evaluate our performance. When we cannot evaluate our performance, we cannot know when we have failed. If we cannot know when we fail, we will not know when we need to improve. When we don’t know if we need to improve, we will remain stagnant.
Accept the reality that you are insufficient in many areas.
This can be done by writing down who you want to be and comparing it to who you are now. Doing this shows us that we have much work to do. But it also shows us a path to success. A man must first decide who he wants to be before he can begin working on becoming that ideal. “Those in athletic pursuit first chose the sport they want, and then do the work” ~ Epictetus. (Read it for Free here)
Be willing to fail. Do not let fear of failing prevent you from taking action. Failure is a surefire path to growth and learning. And it comes at a fraction of the cost of a modern college education. Endure the pain of change.
The next time you fail, try to rush to being thankful for it. You just learned a lesson you will never forget. That alone makes failure a better teacher than any egg-head in a classroom.
KEY: No one who sinks hours of his life into rest and comfort feels rested or comforted. When was the last time you felt rested or comforted by a Netflix binge?
Comfort is the enemy of progress.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
Comfort tells you that where you currently are is “good enough”.
Only the weak use the phrase “good enough”. Comfort is deception. Comfort is the weakness of Man telling him that he has no need to work. We should not seek comfort, for it provides no growth of character. It provides no increase to the strength of the mind, it only breaks man down, weakening him and his foundation.
We typically seek comfort after a long day as a respite from what we think is the brutality of the world. Are we as men too weak to face up to the day? Are we children, that we should be driven about by emotion? Or are we Men who are able to bear the whole world on our shoulders?
Comfort is for the weak, do not chase after it. Not only is comfort for the weak, but it is an illusion.
KEY: No one who sinks hours of his life into rest and comfort feels rested or comforted.
When was the last time you felt rested or comforted by a Netflix binge? Does watching football for six hours on Saturday make you feel better in the long run? Or are these just temporary fixes to the immediate problems in your life. You come out of these “comforts” feeling worse than before, groggy, and like you wasted a chunk of your life. This comfort seeking mechanism is a disgrace to mankind.
Learn to make your work the thing that comforts you. The Spartan Christian needs no rest.
Mantra
My work is my comfort.
Application
Get a productive hobby. This is the best way to combine genuine rest with the type of productivity that actually improves your life instead of wasting it. Get a musical instrument and learn to play it. Buy some tools and build furniture. Get some weights and train your mind and body simultaneously.
Physical training is one of the best options you have. It provides you a break from your work while also giving you the benefits of a sharper mind and fitter physical body. There are ways to rest and recover without going into a vegetative state. Find those ways and make them happen.
Because the modern, civilized world is so peaceful and safe, people do not appreciate an aggressive, masculine man anymore. There is no need, generally speaking, for men to protect women and children against violence from other men. Were there this need, people would be able to regularly see and appreciate the value of masculine aggression when it is used for the good of society.
What the Church has Taught Men
For some time now, the Church has taught men that masculine aggression is to be avoided at all costs and that pacifism is a virtue. Because for some reason aggression is equivalent to violence in the minds of these individuals. People fear that if their sons grow up and manifest aggression, they will end up in gangs, crime or domestic warfare. This highlights a fundamental problem in the thinking of most Christian people – a misunderstanding of the proper, valuable uses of aggression.
Because the modern, civilized world is so peaceful and safe, people do not appreciate an aggressive, masculine man anymore. There is no need, generally speaking, for men to protect women and children against violence from other men. Were there this need, people would be able to regularly see and appreciate the value of masculine aggression when it is used for the good of society. This is what people have forgotten: masculine aggression tempered with wisdom benefits society, it does not damage it. Instead pacifism has been promoted as the key to being religious.
Instead of promoting this masculine aggression, however, the Church has chosen to preach against it. This is extremely damaging to men as it has made them weak, effeminate and fearful, unable to defend themselves or others.
Aggression is preached as “evil”. Pacifism is preached as “good”.
Idiotic views of government and punishment are caused by the suppression of appropriate aggression.
The use of violence in self-defense situations has been replaced with “turn the other cheek“.
The result is that men are not only unable to resist violence and evil, but are unwilling to do so as well. Men do not even have the capacity to protect their families. Most Christian men would forgive a man for raping his wife while he is still raping her – that is the extreme to which “live peaceably with all men” has been taken, and it is an inappropriate extreme.
This is most evident with more progressive Churches. When was the last time you saw an aggressive, masculine man attend “Yoga for Jesus“?
This is also readily apparent in pacifist denominations such as the Baptist or Methodist Churches. If this applies to you, I would encourage you not to take this statement personally, but take a good look around your Church and ask yourself, “Are there any truly masculine men here?” I tend to notice that most Baptists come out of the womb docile and tame. I have never met an aggressive Baptist. If you are a Baptist, you have the responsibility to make yourself more aggressive, unless you are too busy being offended by this paragraph to see its importance.
What Spartans Believe – Masculine Aggression is highly appropriate.
Even a casual student of Biblical history is aware of the commands of God to utterly destroy various peoples. The book of Joshua outlines many of these conquests and battles. God commands MEN to utterly destroy these peoples because they are evil – many of them burn their own children alive as sacrifices to their gods. Most would agree that this single crime is punishable by death, and therefore is the justification for the obliteration of their infanticide-based society.
In order to destroy these infant murdering societies, men would have to employ extreme aggression. Men would be required to kill other men in hand-to-hand combat. The psychological burden of warfare on the mind’s men had to be extraordinary. For these men to override their immediate fears of battle, they had no choice but to use aggression. To engage in pacifism would have meant turning a blind eye to the evils of those countries.
Men cannot kill other men without aggression combined with the will to kill.
Through the properly channeled use of aggression, many of those evil societies were destroyed. Even to this day the same principles still apply. The evils of Germany were subdued by the applied bravery, training and AGGRESSIVE MENTALITY of brave Allied forces. Appropriately applied aggression saves the world during war, and contributes to the progress of society during peace.
How We Must Correct the Damage done by Weak Christian Men.
The aggression muscle of Christian men has expectedly gone flabby due to lack of use and training, but it can just as well be restored through training. Men have a responsibility to encourage their natural aggression and use it for the benefit of society. Here are a few basic applications of Masculine Aggression:
Aggression is to be Internal and Concentrated at the Weakness of Self.
Grace is not going to fix your personal problems. Grace will not take away your addiction to cocaine or pornography. God’s Grace will not allow you to overcome the weaknesses of your character. Grace covers your sin, it does not magically cure you of your sinful behavior. Each of your problems must be overcome by the proper application of masculine aggression. No problems were ever solved by pacifism.
When you become angry at your own shortcomings, you fuel yourself to destroy those shortcomings. You must hate evil and strike it with a mighty slaughter. Just as Paul hated his shortcomings (Romans 7:13-22) you must as well. You will find that simply learning to encourage feelings of anger and disgust towards your shortcomings can give you the energy you need to improve. I never advise chronically using anger for every little tiny detail of your life, at some point you need to be able to use discipline to behave properly. But until you get to that level, anger is a great burst of strength and power that can be used to destroy immediate temptation and weakness. Pacifism never destroyed anything.
Aggression is to be Targeted at Evil.
If you come in contact with evil, there are multiple ways to use aggression to overpower it. Never suppress aggression, instead learn to channel it.
Target aggression at your sin as mentioned before.
Aim aggression at the Devil, despise what he offers you, curse the immediate enjoyment of his “gifts”.
Despise the actions of evildoers, but do not despise the individuals themselves.
Hate your own cravings to do what is wrong.
Hate your intellectual, physical and emotional poverty.
Use aggression in real, physical warfare to destroy evil.
Aggression is to be Harnessed for the Improvement of Self and Society.
You are no longer allowed to be satisfied with where you currently are in your personal, physical and mental development. You are not satisfied with the development of those around you and of society as a whole.
It is vital that you harness this dissatisfaction and your aggression to build a better life for yourself and for others.
Use aggression to train your physical body. This must be done daily and it a critical component of properly channeled aggression. Physical training is the easiest place to learn the basic procedure for how to channel aggression into an endeavor.
Use aggression in politics, if you dare. Overpower evil and attack it with violence.
Attack your bookshelf, wage war on ignorance.
Use aggression to override any discomfort you have with talking to others, disciplining your children or working in the marketplace.
The damage that weak men in the Church have done to the new generation of men by promoting pacifism can be undone, but it will be very difficult. Until men have something real and tangible to fight against, the majority of them will not change their ways and voluntarily become strong. But you are different, you have read to this point so you must already desire strength and personal power. Use your God-given masculine aggression to create the life, mentality and character that you want to have.
Addendum: Soon to be introduced to the site will be the AGGRESSIVE STUDY SERIES, which is a Scripture memorization list that will provide you with Words that are very aggressive. As a man you need to be able to know why it is important to be aggressive, the value it provides, how you can use aggression to better your life and how to defend your aggressive position with Scripture. Men cannot argue against scripture without arguing against God.
