Post: #1

This is an article from Animus Empire from Mark Derian. He's an upcoming psychologist who I believe has built a solid framework for human psychology (emphasis for men). I find his podcasts and his articles very helpful for men to manage emotions.

I find his articles full of ugly truths we try to avoid.

Here is his most recent article:

Quote:The Practical Guide to Defense Mechanisms

The concrete signs we’re fleeing instead of fighting.

***

Defense mechanisms are psychological phenomena created by the unconscious to block us from emotional pain. Except pain is the foundation of growth, so by numbing the pain, defense mechanisms ensure arrested development. Therefore, it’s vital to recognize our defenses before we can look at and accept the pain they’re defending us against. No one wants to be the tragedy of a man who’s so out of touch that he doesn’t even get that he doesn’t get it.

But when we look up defense mechanisms we get a slew of highfalutin terms like regression, reaction formation, and displacement. It would be helpful, therefore, to identify how defenses appear in the real world. Let’s leave the fancy terminology for the academes who try to make psychology sound more complicated than it is.

Here are concrete signs we’re fleeing instead of fighting.

Apathy: Behind the affect of not caring lies avoided anxiety. We only construct a dispassionate persona to distance ourselves from threats we perceive in the environment.

Fatigue: No man younger than 46 ever has a physical reason for fatigue. Rather, it’s a defense against the dread of not doing what we know we need to do. We’re on the wrong path, a Formula One car on a dirt track, so we may as well feel tired if we’re only going to work against ourselves.

Back pain: Unless there’s a physical reason for the pain—and there almost never is—it’s the body’s passive aggressive way of telling us to avoid anxiety by getting hooked on opioids.

Boozing: One of the most difficult parts of my job is getting guys to see their partying and fun are ways of acting out. No problem in ripping through a booze cruise every so often, but if the bar is part of the routine, then it’s the adult version of thumb sucking.

Porn: Similar to booze, but most guys intuitively get it’s a distraction from loneliness.

Identity politics: Latching our identity onto the tribe is a shortcut to developing a sense of self by forgoing all that pesky suffering and failure.

Life hacking: This goes for all magic bullet solutions. Navigating the messiness of life requires us to dig deep and get honest, not simply arrange power cords with paper clips.

Religion and atheism: Developing a belief structure, or lack thereof, is an important part of our personal development. But we can become too committed to a worldview—even in the face of contradictory evidence—which is a sure sign we’re distracting ourselves.

Dressing down: If we don’t feel like an adult by not wearing adult clothes, then we won’t look at our situation as if we were an adult. Besides, an inherent distrust accumulates in society when a man is seen wearing a hoodie on a Wednesday afternoon.

Fidget spinners: Stillness is often our guide to the pain.

Crossfit: Crying takes on many forms, one of them is doing 35 clean and jerks in a row.

Charity: The subtext of fundraisers is, “I must not be a bad person if I’m donating this money.” Harvey Weinstein is the harbinger. When the Hollywood pedophile rings are exposed (*dons tinfoil hat*), take note that the most aggressive diddlers are the most aggressive do-gooders.

Fixing society: When we forget that reality is the ultimate arbiter, not our arguments, we risk using the problems of society as a distraction from our own problems.

Blaming women: Men are the conduit through which women contact reality. If we’re a hot mess of deflection, then women have no protection except that of feminism.

Graduate school: It’s a scary world out there, but instead of facing it by developing a craft we hide away in fancy buildings to put letters next to our name. This is especially true for business school.

Drug abuse: This includes social media abuse, which is defined as checking Twitter more than three times per week, Instagram more than once per week, and being on Facebook.

Watching Seinfeld reruns: Laughing at the misfortunes of others feels good so we conclude we’re making a bigger deal out of our issues than we are. This way, we’re justified in not facing them all while feeling quite satisfied with ourselves.

Apologizing: We treat apologies like handshakes—something we do to socialize with our fellow men. Give yourself three apologies a year for when you really screw up and leave it at that. Otherwise, the only thing we’re truly sorry about is our inability to confront reality.

Choosing sides: To be part of something larger than ourselves is to be less a part of ourselves.

Stoicism: Disconnecting from emotions and so reality never sounded so smart.

Boredom: The human experience is the greatest experience in the history of the universe as far as we know. Maybe it’s not good enough, or maybe getting involved is too painful.

Of course, this is only how we cut ourselves off from emotions. It’s important to manage emotions as well. Good thing there’s a way to do this without making us feel like a girl, and there’s even a way to do it that makes us strong (link to his Man's Guide to Psychology). Psychological health may not guarantee fame and fortune, but it at least puts us in the top 20 percent of males, which tends to stave off the tragedy.

Post: #2

Bookmarked.

Post: #3

^^^I clicked on the link and I'm going to just leave that tab open. I'm guilty of at least 2/3 of these things. There are times when each is justified, but this article helps me to see I have a lot of things to get under better control in my life. My whole freakin lifestyle looks like defense mechanisms. At least I'm over 46 so I have some excuses!

Post: #4

Does anyone else see the irony?

Post: #5

(12-28-2017 10:15 PM)kurtybro Wrote:  Does anyone else see the irony?

You mean the part about fidgit spinners?

Post: #6

This looks to me like the typical psycho-trash where the author looks to cast as controversial a net as wide as possible in order to shock the maximum number of people into subscribing to his newsletter.

Behold:

Quote:Religion and atheism: Developing a belief structure, or lack thereof, is an important part of our personal development. But we can become too committed to a worldview—even in the face of contradictory evidence—which is a sure sign we’re distracting ourselves.

This is high school level psychoanalysis.

Post: #7

listicles themselves should be on this list.

They encourage people to receive wisdom as dogma rather than think for themselves.

Post: #8

It became trolly once he hit "watching seinfeld reruns," "religion" and "stoicism." Stoicism is not about disconnecting from reality. IT's the opposite, actually. Nor is it about completely denying emotions. Also, if he really thinks religion is just people doubling down on nonsense, then he's not taking the questions posed by religions seriously enough.

This guy is clowning around.

Post: #9

What a bizarre list. He tries to say everything all at once, but ends up saying nothing at all.

Post: #10

I see the irony for sure. I'm just glad there's a guy thinking like he does in psychology, when most psychologists are women with the female-oriented solution of reducing emotional turmoil.

Red pilled men (like this guy) know that, while emotional regulation is important, it's also important to utilize emotions for action.

I may be unique here, but I benefited greatly from psychological counseling when I was going through a divorce and popping the red pill. And I could have used a good dose of the stuff he prescribes.

If someone asked me about figuring out their shit, I'd say read this forum. But if they really need more serious help, or they have some strange issue with anyone having to do with pickup or whatever, I'd say go talk to a psychologist who understands what this forum is all about.

Another forum member and I were texting about this: It's very similar to Pressfield's The War of Art (which I also think is a must read, maybe even every day). Pressfield talks about Resistance, which is not all that different than Anxiety.

Post: #11

(12-29-2017 09:14 AM)heavy Wrote:  I see the irony for sure. I'm just glad there's a guy thinking like he does in psychology, when most psychologists are women with the female-oriented solution of reducing emotional turmoil.

But, is he a psychologist?

Post: #12

Any person could read this and think a portion of it applies to their lives, then proclaim this dude a genius...

Likes French Fries: Probably Irish. Loves potatoes. Hates that they're French.

Wants a Ferrari: Dude has no dick or likes really fast luxury cars.

Has a Dog: Guy likes dogs.


What the hell?

Post: #13

Good gravy I didn't realize the hate on this forum. I just figured this guy has some really good resources at his site. I think he's built a really solid framework for human psychology.

But I'm not gonna defend good resources. Tends to diminish their value.

Edit: That's unfair, I did know about the hate on this forum. I usually call it harsh criticism. It's why I like the forum.

Post: #14

(12-29-2017 09:57 AM)heavy Wrote:  Good gravy I didn't realize the hate on this forum. I just figured this guy has some really good resources at his site. I think he's built a really solid framework for human psychology.

But I'm not gonna defend good resources. Tends to diminish their value.

Edit: That's unfair, I did know about the hate on this forum. I usually call it harsh criticism. It's why I like the forum.

Dang... I hope you weren't referring to my comment; I was just being silly.

But, honestly, I can relate with everything he said without "falling into" any certain category.

There seems to be a lot of these intellectuals arising lately that are just making astute observations of something that already exists.

Real Social Scientists present you with a profound theory of perspective or, better yet, things to come.

To accurately predict "past behavior" doesn't really mean much--it's in the past.
I understand that he is trying to explain past behavior and, in a sense, maybe make a prediction, but I read the entire article and I didn't get that vibe. It was more like: look at my observations and how precise I am with my vocabulary.

It is, however, an interesting presumption about the flee over fight reaction, but I'd submit that very, very few people have the "fight" gene. Most people would rather avoid confrontation for any and all the reasons mentioned in the reading.

The grand majority of the human population are just not fighters, regardless of whatever excuse they want to use.

Post: #15

I've benefitted from psychological counseling. It's probably one of the reasons I managed to finish college, but I still think this list is bullshit. The back pain one pinged my radar hard. It sounds deep on its face but it's mumbo-jumbo designed to sound intelligent while saying bullshit. I can do that too. it's pithy cocktail party bullshit.

Cigars: you smoke them because you hate yourself and want to end your shitty, shallow life sooner rather than later.

Game and RVF: you do this to hide from the fact that you're just a shitty guy that no woman will love! stop blaming women and start worshipping at the altar of femininity.

Not paying your taxes: You want the long hard dick of the law up in your anus as punishment for the anal expulsive way you have lived your life.



My favorites:

Back pain = your body's passive-aggressive way of telling you that you should get hooked on opioids?

Interesting. I didn't know my body could tell me to get hooked on drugs that I don't do.

Sounds like total malarky, sorry.

Doing 30 clean and jerks = crying? Again, Malarky. After doing 30 reps of any exercise I think the last thing you'd be doing is crying. Something tells me this guy has never squatted for reps and felt the euphoria you feel when you excel at some difficult physical task you set out for yourself.

Fatigue = does this guy ever even lift or work? If you're leaving the gym and not feeling a little tired, then you're fucking around. If you don't have a day or two a week where you get home and wanna kiss your pillow the second you walk through the door, then you're fucking around.

Grad school = avoidance of reality? Stretching. I know many men (many on this forum) who went to grad school and now have far better career paths laid out for them.

Choosing sides = being less true to yourself? Unless you're a pansy and people are forcing you to pick sides, how does this work?

This list has gotta be a troll-listicle.

Post: #16

Fortis - have a box of Cubans waiting to be smoked, give me a shout when you are back. We can validate ourselves by smoking expensive cigars and sipping fine scotch, surrounded by cute single girls.

Post: #17

(12-29-2017 11:08 AM)Vaun Wrote:  Fortis - have a box of Cubans waiting to be smoked, give me a shout when you are back. We can validate ourselves by smoking expensive cigars and sipping fine scotch, surrounded by cute single girls.

This summer gonna be lit. Literally.

Post: #18

I see myself using several of the defense mechanisms on this list. The fatigue bit spoke to me in particular. Then add in the booze and the excessive amount of attention I pay to the current state of society, and I can see that I need to be focused a lot more directly on taking care of my immediate situation, rather than distracting myself with things that don't help improve my immediate situation.

That's what I got from it, and I found this very useful. My immediate situation is reasonably good, but I don't have my shit locked down the way I should. I am coasting though a lot of situations where I should have things dialed up to the next level. Pushing some of the items from this list aside is part of what I need to do to get there. I can clearly see how my hamster has me wasting my time on bullshit to avoid the effort needed to get things handled the way they should be.

Post: #19

Begs the question, what can one do that would not be termed a defense mechanism. The author has basically lumped all of life's activities. I mean, entrepreneurship can be termed a coping mechanism to salaried employment. But same can be said if one fancies salaried employment to entrepreneurship. Yet if a man chooses none of the two options and sits idle, he is fleeing hardwork.

Bottoming could be that to be human, any kind of human, is to constantly unintentionally make use of defense mechanism; it's like breathing.

Post: #20

When I see some guy digging the foundations of his house by hand, splitting firewood with a maul when it's thirty below out, slinging 80 lb pavers on a masonry crew for fourteen hours straight, or running bags of shingles up and down a turkey barn roof on a day so hot and humid that you get a permanent case of swamp ass, the first thing that comes to mind is that he's a psychologist because only they know what hard work is.