I Did Not Know Myself

Because I am still not clear on what is going on myself, this post is unapologetically scattered and written more in a stream-of-consciousness style than with any particular strategy.  Enjoy the mess.

The past two weeks have been riddled with emotional upheaval.  I wrote recently about my search for a Torvaldsland Experience, my quest to become a Gorean Man.   The search hasn’t been an idle one, and a short while ago I came across a little piece of work called No More Mr. Nice Guy, by Robert A. Glover.  Listening to the audiobook has been like traversing an emotional mine field; I was thrown into a hall-of-mirrors maelstrom as I came to see myself, my soul, my persona, my psyche, my personal id, ego, and superego in raw and painful new ways.

Listening to the audiobook had a profound effect on me.  Like someone peering into a long forgotten, musty old attic, the journey uncovered things in my soul that I had no idea were there, but were immediately recognizable once they were brought into the light of day.

In various places throughout the Gorean chronicles, John Norman laments the negative and corrosive effects that society’s effeminate training of men has had on individuals and on society as a whole.  In No More Mr. Nice Guy, Dr. Robert Glover (completely unaware of anything to do with Gor, I’m sure) delves briefly into this trend, explaining concisely what aspects of society have contributed to the change in how boys are brought up to be men.

More importantly, Dr. Robert Glover explains the impact of self-deception and self-destruction this trend has had on the masculine psyche and ultimately, how to move beyond the destructive training.

I have heard a lot of people talk about how a master is not made, he is born.  I have always felt that this wasn’t accurate, that almost all men are masculine by nature.  I have always felt that, in general, every man has a masculine soul, and that if he found a way to uncover and encourage it, he could realize that mastery of his own life.  But the whole process of gaining that mastery was quite nebulous.  This work has clarified quite a bit of the process for me.

This book did not show me what it is to be a man.  As I was digging through my frustration with that fact, I came to realize that this is a good thing.  Each man is an individual, with unique characteristics and qualities.  What it did explain is what man is not.  Once I have removed everything from me that man is not, everything that is holding me back from being a man, I am left with the freedom to be myself.  To be the man that I am.  For I am a Man.

When I was a boy, I was a Mr. Nice Guy poster child.  I did not know myself.  By the time I discovered Gor 15 years ago, I had made some steps forward out of the illusion that being a Nice Guy was a good thing.  But I was still mostly blind.

My first contact with the brusque men of the #Silk&Steel channel on DALnet resonated strongly within me.  For the first time in my life, I felt the raw edge of confident masculinity.  I wanted to be like these men.  I wanted to be with these men.  So I started hanging around the place, learning what it meant to be a man.  I have continued that roller-coaster journey with varying degrees of intensity since then.

With the soul-stirring discoveries I’ve made as I’ve experienced No More Mr. Nice Guy, I have decided it’s finally time to step away from Gor and the whole master/slave dynamic.  Gor has a very particular flavor of masculinity; my understanding of my own nature is critical enough to me that I want my discoveries to be unbiased by artificially constructed paradigms.  And as close as the Gorean philosophy may be to human nature, it remains an artificially constructed paradigm.

I want to find my true self.  Once I really find myself, I may be back.  There may be a place for Gor in my life at that time.  Then again, there may not.  Until then, farewell.

Penned by

Jennen