It's hard to remain upbeat.

Good old Francis over here has written a short piece on how we should avoid the mainstream media and sensationalism. Go and read it. After you have done just that, there's a small quote by him:

"There is much good in the world. Yes, the women of today aren't as good as your grannys (they were hardly saints either though) generation. Yes, if you're under 35, your ass has been handed to you on a platter by a generation of bumbling dopes. All the exhibilation in the world is one hundred percent justified. Yes, we're heading into a dark, smelly shitstorm. Yes, I'm a cynical cunt and this blog will more than likely be host to many a post in this vein. But, there is much good in this world ken. The Lord of the Rings still remains the best story on good and evil ever written. The bit where that goofy looking hirsute motherfucker goes to the small fellah after the small fellah goes "I wish the ring never came to me goofy looking motherfucker" and the goofy looking motherfucker replies "so do all who live through such times" and it's really inspiring ken."

There is still much good in the world - no one is going to argue with that. My grandmother once pointed out to me that it's a good thing that evil still makes the news, because if it's still newsworthy and sensationalistic that means it's still considered out of the norm. We should be more concerned, she pointed out, when small acts of neighborliness and charity are met with commendation and surprise.

Why, isn't that true.


I just realised: in two or three months I'll be getting my degree, and then it's out with my ass into the real world. Sure, it's not as if I have a useless degree (chemical engineering), but the prospects are hardly looking good for anyone going out into the Singaporean manufacturing sector. The economy aside, things are being made even worse by the current back-and-forth over foreigners in HR supposedly reserving jobs for their own people and rejecting locals for positions out of hand.

Sure, I've worked before - in McJobs and SerfWays at fast food places, and those aren't real jobs. I don't consider my stint in the navy as a job, because I didn't apply for it and it was thrust onto me. There's a certain feeling of trepidation that's there, of stepping out and into the soul-crushing, stupid environment choked by HR that folks in the manosphere call the corporate workplace. No, there really aren't many small-scale start-ups that call for the dedicated services of a chemical engineer, thanks to the capital costs.

If I could do it all over again, perhaps I would've gone and studied to be a plumber, an electrician, a welder, something to work with my hands. Right now, I'm looking into jobs with titles like "manufacturing engineer", which promise me some time down on the plant floor with the operators. There's an old joke that engineers and their calculations on paper are always at loggerheads with operators and their practical experience (as well as they fact that they're the ones who have to fix the damn things when they fail).

A tad too late for regrets now, though. Play the hand I picked out and all.

It's hard to be upbeat about the future.

Women are, men become. It's in the nature of masculinity that we desire to change or shape the world about us, and that goes doubly so for young men. It's why men hate feeling helpless and impotent, hate the feeling of having their hands tied. It's one thing to do your best at enjoying the decline, and another to actually do just that. Looking on the bright side of life is much easier said than done, and actually takes conscious effort. Perhaps one would like to call it ruthless honesty, youthful exuberance, ideological motivation or even crusaderism (it does feel that way at times), but it's hard to turn a blind eye or say "I can do nothing, so I shouldn't bother" to the ills of the world, or even "I have to accept what I can't change". Because if there is no current way to change the world, if the world is too heavy to be a burden for your hands, then it is demanded by your desire that you find a large enough lever to lift the damned thing.

This is why I came up with and am continuing to refine the temperance Koan; the ultimate goal of the temperance Koan is to experience the internal pain created by dissonance and unfulfilled desire, and let it pass through oneself much in the same way Koanic's "faith of a mustard seed" does the same for emotional and physical pain from an external source. A struggle between "ought" and "will", between burning desire and cold logic.

The Old Man In The Cave opens his posts with small parables involving two characters: Goldsmith, who represents the younger reactionary driven by desire, and the Old Man himself, representing the older reactionary who has seen it all and is willing to dispense more logical advice.

One day, Goldsmith came to me, trembling with visceral frustration.

"Old Man!" he hissed. "The time is now! I must move against these lower men, I must crush them!"

But from the other side of the door, I cried out. "Hold! Stay your warlike hand! Be patient and observe!"

"Foolish Old Man!" Goldsmith shouted, nearly hysterical. "Another womanly pacifist who fears action!"

But I responded in an even voice. "Reprimand me not, for you know very well that I am not a pacifist, but a man of perpetual war. Take this lesson from a veteran of many battles. If you kill your enemy in social war, you create a martyr. Allow him to commit suicide and you have achieved victory."

This paradigm is most observable in the relationship between young men in their early twenties, and the wiser folks in their fifties and up. While those like me, Nationalist Pony and Viking Man rant and rail and vibrate in place, expending our energies because they must be released even if it does no good, older people like Mr. Powell who've seen it all go back into their homes and batten the hatches.

We want to work hard, and it's a crushing sensation when one realises that your hard work is the equivalent of digging ditches with a spoon - ultimately pointless and unable to move you further towards your goals. Logic dictates that we keep on digging anyway, and put away our pay so that when the ditch collapses we can make a quick escape from the camp; that is the sensible thing to do. But what is our desire? To throw away the spoon altogether, and perhaps flay the taskmaster. And while the demands of desire are outlandish and irrational at times, holding them in for a long time with no end in sight causes incredible amounts of suffering.