Mastering the Art of Indifference.

"Passion is a wonderful if your organization and your colleagues care about you.  BUT it is recipe for self-destruction if you are trapped in a job with a demeaning boss, or worse yet, knee-deep in an workplace where asshole poisoning runs rampant"
~ Bob Sutton, organizational psychologist, Stanford professor, and author of  The No Asshole Rule and Good Boss, Bad Boss (September, 2010)
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When I cannot successfully avoid interacting with a woman, I call upon the art of indifference to see me through that interaction safely and easily.  I find that my increasing capacity for indifference towards women has a converse effect on the amount of energy I spend on avoidance.  Where once I would consciously seek out check-out lane at a grocerty store (for example) sans female clerk.  Now, I just see clerk.

  Occassionally, something done or said will jerk me out of this blissful gender blindness, but I still have indifference to rely on.  Female clerks will occassionally find it appropriate and necessary to express their personal feelings about the products I happen to be purchasing.  Sometimes to simply be rude, sometimes to be rude/flirtation, and sometimes it's clear that it's training video small talk - in other words, the clerk has been instructed by his/her employer to engage in small talk.  I regard any of these with the same indifference.  These are the only "provocative" interactions (meaning anything beyond what is required to complete the transaction) that I have, personally, experienced in my life, but having practiced and then I encounter a novel interaction, my response will be the same. 

For whatever reason (and I'm disinterested in the reason) there is sometimes a desire to elicit some kind of reaction or response, I presume, but maybe not - it matters not.  I simply don't react or respond. I don't understand the motivation beyond this "above and beyond" behavior, and I'm genuinely disinterested in understanding it.  Why?  Because there is nothing of value to be gained from encouraging or perpetuating the "above and beyond" interaction.  My purpose is to buy groceries as quickly and as efficiently as possible, so that I can go on with my life.  Anything that impedes, complicates or slows that activity is frankly annoying.  So, I understand (I think), the annoyance an attractive person might experience as a result of being hit on, on a daily basis, while trying to work out at a gym.  But the answer to this problem is still indifference.  Any kind of positive or negative reaction beyond genuine indifference will only serve to provide the provocateur with his/her "reaction".

By now you're probably thinking, "Dude, you're just buying groceries.  What's the big fucking deal?"  And your right, it's no big deal, but I use the scenario for illustrative purposes - because Indifference must be practiced in order to be effective.  If I can deal with a check-out clerk who is rude, nosey, or flirtatious, I can use the same tools to deal with a predatory, manipulative, deceitful woman in other venues, where the stakes are higher - like in the work place.  

So this brings me to the introductory quote I included.  The author is concerned with strategies of enduring and surviving toxic work place environments.  But the "organization" can easily be expanded to include "society at large".  So, If a man finds himself in a society that cares about him, I image "passion" could be "wonderful".  I don't know for sure, I've never lived a society like that, but I can clearly see how "passion" is a "recipe for self-destruction" in a society that views men as mere utilities and that views masculinity and Maleness as harmful to that society - in other words "Toxic" for men.  The solution, according to this Stanford Professor, is emotional detachment and indifference - and I agree. The parallels between working in a toxic work environment and living in a toxic society, are undeniable, and I plan to explore those parallels and strategies further.

When I see or encounter a woman I don't know, no emotion is evoked - only indifference. There is no protective impulse, no gentleness, no sense of kinship. I see woman as a separate species - not greater or less than myself, just alien. I can detect her impulses, motivations and her desires, but I do not share them.  They are completely alien to me - even those women I care about.  I know them, I understand them, sometimes I'm even amused by their company, but there can be no meaningful connection, because women aren't wired for that - not with men. 

For women, everything is a transaction.  There is no loyalty for the sake of loyalty, no honor, no trust.  There is no refuge to be found in a woman.  I detect more empathy, more kinship, more simpatico from a dog - and that's okay. The problem arises when a man expects otherwise, or tricks himself into believing otherwise.

Natural Disaster 

War/Conscription

 

Natural Disaster

No one is immune to this - nature is the great equalizer here.  Some are more vulnerable to the aftermath and that vulnerability is directly proportionate to one's socio-economic status.  A tornado levels your home.  Your ability to fight your homeowners/renters insurance company is directly proportionate to your ability to employ a lawyer.  You may indeed be able to afford homeowner's insurance and thereby mitigate your loss, but you may not be able to afford a lawyer to fight for a fair or even sufficient settlement.  When you need your insurance company, gender doesn't matter - they will Delay, Deny, Devalue - this is industry wide and there are no exceptions.  Like all insurance - homeowner's insurance is a racket, but there is no alternative unless you are (again) fabulously wealthy.  You take your chances.  There is no meaningful government regulation of this industry - they are just another salivating, greedy head on the banking hydra. Honestly, if one had the resources, he would be much better off carrying insurance until he had saved enough of an emergency fund to pay for the complete demolition and removal of his ruined home and then rebuild an entirely new house.  This of course is a rare and difficult thing to achieve, so we have "the insurance industry". 

Here are some tips for property owners:  Don't own beach or river front property.  Don't live in a major metropolitan area.  If you can afford it - install a sprinkler system.  Have your entire heating/AC  system inspected regularly and have your wiring inspected and updated. Install a surveillance/alarm system that you can monitor from your laptop or phone. Look into home automation.  Fence in your property. Install external solar lighting every where.  Keep up your property - no matter what your neighborhood is, or is becoming.  Do your best to break up the pattern of when you are home and when you leave as often as possible.  Be seen on your property as much as possible.  Learn to view your property as a burglar would and address any weak spots.  Make nice with your neighbors, just not too nice.  I have a neighbor who I don't particularly like, but I have established an understanding that I watch his property and he watches my property - we have each other's numbers. Once again, the bear and the faster than the slowest camper rule applies here.

A home is not an asset if you live in it.  The ability to take on debt (i.e. a 2nd or 3rd mortgage) is not an asset.  Later in life, since you have no one to inherit your wealth - why not look into a reverse mortgage.  Make your home suitable for your retirement now, while you have the strength, energy and income to do the work yourself.

I sometimes think that if you can afford to perpetually rent - perhaps that is best, especially if you are not wealthy.

War/Conscription

I am (at present) a male citizen of the United States which means that when I turned 18, I was legally compelled to register for selective service - which means that my government has the ability to suspend my freedom and autonomy for the purpose of war, to essentially make me a military slave, subject to a violent death, or to commit mass murder, upon command.  Rest assured, I will not willingly or peacefully accept military conscription if called upon to do so, except - perhaps - in the case of physical invasion of the continental United States, and even then I will have to give it some great consideration, and only then when women are also conscripted into front line combat positions in which their lives are at equal risk, and not unless they are subject to the equal expectation and deplorable condition of killing.  More likely, I will simply flee the country, or evade conscription.   If evasion leads me to incarceration, slave labor - so be it.  I won't kill at anyone's command - certainly not for a corrupt, neo-feudalistic/privatized system of government that masquerades as a representative republic.

I refuse to willingly give up my life for a nation that views men as mere utilities, that refuses to recognize the humanity of the male human species.  There's simply no incentive for marriage or martyrdom for men.  I will actively seek to find a way to prophet from any circumstance - including war, in a manner similar to those who would send me, unwilling, to war.  I will defend and preserve myself, on my behalf, at any cost.  I strongly recommend you do the same.  

There is no one else, in this world, who will preserve you.  A MGTOW must embrace and learn to celebrate this one truth above all others.  Autonomy means complete and utter independence - it also means no extraneous dependents. Today, tax is the price I pay to be left the fuck alone, and when that is no longer sufficient - it's time to drop out completely. 

Catastrophic Litigation/Prosecution  
& The Divorce and Family Court Industry/Racket

The Four Horsemen of Autonomy's Apocalypse.  
Part 3 of 4

 

Stay out of trouble MGTOW.  Don't cheat people, don't steal from people. Moreover, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's."  You are already a serf, whether you want to believe that or not, matters not.  You are subject to laws that are increasingly dictated by an elite and private and/or special interest(s).  

There's no reason to draw the attention of those who truly have the power of life or death over you.  There is no justification for criminal behavior until the day you find yourself in a situation where you are faced with the choice of "break the law" or "perish". In every nation of the world there are men who find themselves in this situation, to a greater or lesser extent. By "perish" I mean to die, literally - no more, no less.  

Criminal behavior, theft, fraud, murder, violence - cannot be justified by anything short of actual death.  "I'm going to lose my house" doesn't justify it; "I'm going to prison" doesn't justify it;  "The rest of my life is going to suck" doesn't justify it; revenge certainly doesn't justify it - ever. Don't throw people under the bus, but stop going out of your way to help women.  They don't need your help, and you are putting yourself at an unreasonable risk by doing so.

"and what if there are no damsels in distress
what if I knew that and I called your bluff?
don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down
whether or not you ever show up"

~ Ani Defranco

Don't risk the only autonomy you will ever have with stupidity, predatory behavior or loose ethics.  Don't risk the only autonomy left to you for some airy notion of chivalry, disposability or self sacrifice.  You know right from wrong. Don't like the rules you are subject too?  Fine.  Support those causes that reflect your views, but don't allow yourself to get lumped into other neatly packed agendas or political ideologies.  Remember that Mr. Smith can't get to Washington, and if he did - he couldn't be Mr. Smith for very long.  

It's not difficult to avoid being a fucking criminal in the United States - no you're not going to get rich by playing by the rules.  But there are more valuable forms of wealth - beyond money.  Great financial wealth can be  a prison unto itself.  But Autonomy is priceless.  If wealth aids you in your quest for autonomy, then it's worth pursuing.  Wealth for love or the approval of women is a travesty.   Think long and hard about the source of your desire for wealth. Is it for you, or is it for access to/approval by women? And how does that access and approval benefit you? Recall any dreams of wealth you may have had and note the people you see around you in those dreams.  Think of owning your own luxury yacht.  Now picture yourself alone on that yacht.  Does the yacht still appeal to you, or does it seem a bit wasteful and decadent?

You are not immune to false accusation, conviction or wrongful imprisonment.  The more "resources" you have the more valuable a target you become - to the family court industry and to women, who are hypergamous by nature.  If you have financial wealth (real or potential), you would do well not to flaunt it.

The best way to mitigate legal risk is to not engage in risky behavior.  Dating is risky behavior.  Being alone in a room with a woman is risky behavior.  Co-habitating with a woman is risky behavior.  Making love to a woman is risky behavior.  In every case, you are making yourself vulnerable to an entire gender that has proven time and time again that it regards and values  you as a mere utility, a simple means to a selfish end - a gender that will always put self-interest above yours - even when she means you no active harm.  This is gynocentrism, and it is universal.  There are no exceptions.  A woman might delay her own self-interest when it serves her purpose, but she will always come back around to what is best for her.  Men must evolve to do the same - that evolution is long overdue.  

There is no longer any honor in sacrifice for men.  Stop it. Marriage is walking into a Casino, putting your entire future earnings and any previous savings on a single spin of the roulette wheel. Even if you win, you will lose.

When you lose, you will lose in spectacular fashion.  There is an entire industry built upon divorce and it is known in the U.S. as "Family Law" - it is an openly corrupt and discriminatory system of crony judges and lawyers who operate under the institution of state sanctioned marriage.  It is an active and readily apparent example of cynical privatization and profiteering in the guise of "justice".  The actual well being of families, women, "child's best interest" and men are of, at best, a secondary concern to the revenue stream that is generated by divorce a multi-billion dollar/year industry.

https://www.facebook.com/divorce.corp/photos/a.490631507717574.1073741828.432710383509687/517598701687521/?type=1

The courts openly discriminate against men, again and again, in child custody disputes, and this discrimination is systematic and culturally engrained/embedded.

http://www.michbar.org/journal/article.cfm?articleID=329&volumeID=22

(NOTE: these are lazy, cursory sources.  I strongly encouraged you to visit A Voice for Men or visit the sidebar at Reddits r/mensrights for ample and completely non-controversial evidence of what I'm writing about here.  I reserve the right to post better links here in the future, as with all of these posts, I frequently tweak them overtime.  The "fact " is that the facts are so depressing and disheartening, that I simply don't feel like revisiting them in detail at this time.  To be honest, the subject of this "part" is so depressing that It took me over a week to work up enough fortitude to attend to it. 

More relevant links on  Sandman's youtube channel, linked here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5TtfM5c0dw&list=UUeCV-XNeZIoHiCGfNYCLh9Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l0dVsrAODQ&list=UUeCV-XNeZIoHiCGfNYCLh9Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI9CL9JxTsc&list=UUeCV-XNeZIoHiCGfNYCLh9Q


Men who are increasingly faced with crippling child support, wage garnishments and alimony will increasingly fall behind and become subject to incarceration and slavery under the system of the privatized prison industrial complex - an industry that only increases unemployment for men.  Yes we are talking about modern day debtor's prison.

All of this can easily be avoided by simply adopting the MGTOW lifestyle. Don't get married. Don't get anyone pregnant. Got it? Do that for yourself, at least.


So.  You're not a criminal.  You're not a "husband", or "father", or a "baby's daddy", an unwitting sperm donor.  You're not a falsely accused rapist, because you won't even ride alone in an elevator with another woman.  You should follow rape hysteria proponents advice to the fucking T.  Cross the fucking street to avoid walking past a lone woman at night.  Avoid intoxicated women like nuclear waste.  Don't make eye contact.  Don't speak unless spoken to, and only then when others are present and it's absolutely necessary - otherwise avoid it as much as possible.  Here's the kicker - You're still not completely without risk, but you have mitigated your risk enormously.  And the "Bear" and "Slowest camper" analogy is applicable here.  Your not likely to be falsely accused of rape, or sexual harrassment, or stalking, if the person who would accuse you doesn't know you exist.  That's not a terribly difficult state of being to achieve, as an unattached, anonymous and cautious man.  

However, you still might gain unwanted attention - particularly if you are "autonomous".  I was stalked by a crazy young woman in college who became infatuated with me over a fucking poem I wrote in a poetry workshop.  It was a student reviewed workshop - students read each other's work and wrote responses/critiques.  I'd never spoken to this psycho and by the end of the semester she had proclaimed her love for me, written in response/critique of a sestina.  The next semester, she had somehow managed to take every class I was in.  I later concluded that she had gained that information from my own faculty advisor, but I was too timid to confront her (my faculty advisor) about it (either that or she had a network of fucking spies watching me, and to this day I'm not sure which explanation is more creepy).  Imagine if a male - circa 2001 - had done the same thing. I would have been expelled at least, in jail at worst.


Thankfully I lived off campus when this was happening, and I literally spent my last year parking in off campus parking lots and walking to the library and labs under the cover of darkness to avoid bumping into her outside of class.  There was no avoiding her in between classes because she simply followed me to the next class, and it made me so uncomfortable and angry that I eventually snapped, and outright lied to her, explaining that I was a closeted gay, and that she was causing a great deal of jealousy and suspicion in my "off campus" middle-aged boyfriend by emailing me and calling me and following me around all the time.  By then, I think she was relieved to have an excuse that didn't involve me outright rejecting (or reporting) her crazy, ginger, stalker ass.  Even so, she tried contacting me five years after graduation on facebook because I made the foolish mistake of making it publicly known where I had attended college.  I haven't had a facebook account since.  Imagine what lengths she might have gone to get even with me for rejecting her, if she felt it was perfectly acceptable to seek and attain my class schedule?  She would not be the last bullet I dodged, but I'm ashamed to recount how many times I tempted fate in my twenties with regard to women.


I hear alot of talk among fellow MGTOWs about how "unreasonable" it is to expect a guy in his twenties to avoid dating and sex with women altogether.  I understand the thinking, but I cannot begin to express how utterly lucky I was to have avoided the  minefield I waltzed through in my twenties, completely oblivious to the dangers.  I don't personally know of a single man, who I grew up with or went to school, who managed to arrive at age 30, unscathed.  I honestly can't say whether or not I would have even considered my own advice when I was in my twenties, but I do know that I was already beginning to question the inequities and hypocrisy I was observing.  I think that I would have benefited enormously from  being exposed to the concept of MGTOW and the red pill at that time.  If I can offer that opportunity to just one young man, this will all seem worthwhile.

Catastrophic Illness

The Four Horsemen of Autonomy's Apocalypse.  
Part 2 of 4

You are going to get sick and die, and there's nothing you can do about it.  The only power you have is the power to, maybe, prolong the inevitable.  As a MGTOW, your physical and mental health should be your absolute first priority - no exceptions.  You cannot live autonomously if your health prevents you from living autonomously.  As a MGTOW, you have a greater than average ability to take care of yourself, to control what you do and do not put into your body.  You have a greater than average ability to avoid toxic people, situations and interactions.


If you have addictions, overcome them.  You cannot be autonomous if you are enslaved by substances or behaviors anymore than you can be autonomous if you are enslaved by people. This should be your first priority and you will have not wasted your energy if you have spent decades overcoming your addictions and accomplished nothing else. Dependency is your worst adversary - overcome this and nothing will be too difficult for you.  Your decision to go your own way means that you are breaking your addiction to women and to the role society would chain you.  Why would you settle for yet another prison?  Don't consume poison.  Believe me, you have already had more than your fair share.

As a child, you ate what you were given to eat - and there is a very good chance that much of it was fried, processed, corn syrup soaked shit.  If you were born in the 60s or 70s, there is a very good chance that you breathed second hand cigarete smoke on a daily basis - well into the 80s and 90s.  If you live in an urban area, the air you breath, the water you drink - contains the carcinogenic bi-products of industrial waste and air pollution.  If you live in a rural/agricultural area, you are exposed to cancer causing herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and petroleum based/carcinogenic fertilizers to a greater or lesser extent throughout the year, in your water and air.  You can't and you won't escape it. But as an adult, who is autonomous, you can, and should, educate yourself about the shit you put into your body and act accordingly.  Obviously the safest food you can eat is the food that you yourself grow.

Get in shape and stay in shape.  This is your second priority after defeating your addictions.  You will have not wasted your energy if you have spent decades getting into shape and maintaining a healthy weight.  This, like addiction, may very well be a lifelong struggle.  It's a worthwhile struggle.  if you sit at a desk all day, learn to stand.  Sitting on your ass will kill you - it will sap your life away.  Purchase or make a standing desk.  At 30, I built my own standing work station in three hours using parts from a broken computer desk.  Before that I was suffering from a debilitating slipped cervical disc - the pain was so bad, I actually considered suicide. I felt like I was ninety-years-old.  It literally took me months to get my spine back into working order with the help of exercise (yoga and tai chi), a couple of spine adjustments and an inversion table - I will spend the rest of my life working to avoid that kind of chronic pain.  All from sitting 8 - 10 hours per day. Never again. It actually effected every aspect of my health, even my digestion.  I have no doubt that if I hadn't made the changes, I would have been dead by now.

Practice moderation in all things - including work.  Get enough sleep, but not too much. Exercise, but not recklessly.  Listen to your entire body.  Learn to experience self denial as pleasure - especially if you have a weakness for over indulgence, but always - in moderation.  Balance is health.  I know that sounds "new agey", but there is no shortage of science or precedent to back it up.

Seek to manage your stress.  The fact that you are a MGTOW, means that you have already eliminated a huge source of stress.  Relationships with women had been the greatest and most harmful source of stress in my life until the day I lay that ridiculous burden down.  The burden was tremendous and grossly inflated, and I literally felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off of me the day I shed that burden.  I was angry for a long time by the sheer absurdity of carrying that terrible weight.  It was as if someone suddenly walked up to me and said, "you know those sand bags that you've had strapped to your shoulders since you were child - well, you do realize that you don't have to carry that shit, right?"  It was infuriating, embarrassing and euphoric simultaneously.  Overtime, and in short order, it became just euphoric.  I think too many MGTOWs waste their time seeking an explanation for their former burden, and to a lesser extent continue to carry it by obsessing over the "why".  For me, the anger and embarrassment, it fades leaving ever increasing room for celebration and euphoria.  The awakening is a gift. It causes me to pity the "simps", the "blue pillers", but I feel more pity for my fellow MGTOW, who are awake, but still too angry about the grand deception to truly celebrate and enjoy their autonomy for the gift it truly is.  Yes 2, 3, 4 or (god forbid) more decades is a horrible amount of time to be living a lie - but to me, it would seem to be all the more reason to get to the business of living as a happy and autonomous man as quickly as possible.

Get your check-ups, your screenings, but don't yield your own capacity for critical thought to doctors.  Doctors are not gods.  Modern health care is not infallible.  Right now, we live in the pharmacentric drugs-are-king era of medicine.  Most people with chronic illnesses are over medicated due to an over reliance and preferance given to specialists, who frequently and systematically cannot see the forest for the trees, and do a terrible job of collaborating with the myriad other specialists with coordinating treatment.  I have observed this first hand with my own parents.  Real damage occurs when the "do no harm" all too frequently gets set aside for "this is the industry standard drug that gets prescribed for this problem" in isolation of the myriad of other problems and affected systems as a result.  People get specialized and drugged to death every day, and in 100 years we'll be shaking our heads at the pharmacentric era of medicine with the same disdain we currently reserve for lobotomists and blood letters, I promise you.  With that in mind I say avail yourself of modern medicine, but educate yourself and advocate for yourself. If you wake up one day and find yourself wondering if you should really be taking all these fucking prescribed pills, you probably are over medicated, and you need to advocate for yourself.  Your doctors are every bit as vulnerable to blind, unquestioning indoctrination and arrogance as they ever have been, and in countries like the United States, where "health" is an "industry", you can damn well bet that "do no harm" will lose out everytime to the capitalistic mantra "more is better".

All of this has a two-fold purpose.  The first is to improve your quality of life.  The second is to prolong that quality for as long as possible - because you will diminish.  You will decline.  You will get sick and die, and there's nothing you can do about it.  You will probably end your life under the care of strange and careless women and men.  This is true, regardless of whether or not you have lived under the blue pill illusion, or the red pill awareness. I don't believe that marriage, family, or "legacy" will provide any more comfort in your final days (see my "Aren't You Affraid of Dying Alone") entry. If you're still not convinced, I strongly recommend you spend a few months volunteering at your local "assisted living (dying) center", or get to know a hospice worker well enough to learn what he/she really thinks about the business of death and dying.  Perhaps it was once comforting, when the old died in familiar surroundings, in their own beds, in the homes of their adult children and grandchildren, who looked after them in their waning years, but that relationship was systematically eradicated long ago.  Now most of us will die alone, in the company of strangers.  I say, live autonomously for as long as possible and enjoy every second of it - then check out on your own terms, and fight like hell for the right to do it.

In summary, you should mitigate your risk of illness with a healthy lifestyle, and you should prepare financially for health problems.  In the United States, that means health insurance or "obamacare" if you can avail yourself of it.  They are both rackets, and they are both designed primarily to benefit and subsidize the health insurance/care industry, but HSAs are a pipe dream, unless you are fabulously wealthy.  You are at the health insurance/care industry's mercy regardless, and there is no fighting the system, unless (and I'm deadly serious) you are prepared to just go off in the woods and recycle yourself back into nature.  In either case, I strongly advise you to develop some tolerance for pain and physical discomfort and to avoid using or accepting opiates as much as possible.  Save those for the end of your life, when they will do you the most good.

Survival and Mitigation  Part 1 of 4

 

Catastrophic Unemployment/Loss of income
Catastrophic Illness
Catastrophic Litigation/Prosecution
Natural Disaster/War/Conscription

I want to address risk and mitigation as it relates to MGTOW.  Just one of these has the very real potential to set you upon a trajectory toward complete ruination.  Two of these simultaneously, or in short order, will likely set you upon an unrecoverable trajectory of complete ruination.  Three or more of these will almost certainly destroy the vast majority of men. Some of these risks can be mitigated to various extents; some cannot.  You should mitigate as much risk as possible in order to maintain and ensure your autonomy.

Mitigating the Risk of Catastrophic Unemployment/Loss of Income:

I. Develop a superior work ethic. Anyone can do this, all that is required is the will to do so.  Even if you find yourself lacking in talent you can, more often than not, overcome this with work ethic.  For most people a solid work ethic is a pre-requisite for any kind of "Talent" - certainly the development thereof.

Work ethic is more than "showing up" and "being on time".  Work ethic is the ability to discern what is expected of you (beyond, behind and perhaps beneath what is explicitly stated) and adapting to that requirement with conservation of effort and time. It may not advance your career, but it is a pre-requisite for advancement.  It is not a guarantee of stable employment, but it is a pre-requisite for job security. In other words, a good work ethic won't guarantee your autonomy, but it will certainly work against autonomy if you find your work ethic lacking.

II.  Don't Get Personal - EVER.  Maintain strict boundaries between your work and your non-work life.  Do not get involved in work place politics or conflicts, but do pay attention to them and use them to your advantage only when you are absolutely one-hundred percent certain of the outcome, and even then - think twice.  Never use them to diminish anyone else.  Only use them to your own advantage if there is no disadvantage to anyone else.  Do not participate in gossip or watercooler talk, but do pay attention.  I've covered maintianing workplace autonomy more thoroughly in the blog entry "Gleaming the Cubicle", but it bears repeating "Never, under any circumstances, even flirt with the notion of dating or having sex with anyone even remotely connected to your work". 

III.  Start saving enough money from the first day to cover your ass financially for the amount of time that it would take you to realistically find another suitable job plus six months. Only you can determine that by taking your specific economy, location and job into consideration. Err on the side of caution on this.  After you achieve that safety net, get out of debt as quickly as possible, then stay out of debt - if that takes a decade to accomplish, then do it - and then start another savings plan for the next most credible threat  (more on that later).

IV.  Don't get complacent.  Keep your resume dusted off and take a few minutes each week to see what employment opportunities are available.  Be friendly toward and be mindful of the potential network you develop with clients and outside associates, just don't go out drinking with it or take it to fucking bed - got it?  Keep yourself sharp and educated with regard to any innovations, new software/tools or trends in your field. Do this actively and don't rely entirely on trade shows or trade magazines/websites exclusively. If you use industry standard software A, and some competitor uses industry software B, you'd be well advised to know your way around B (C, D and E) too, even if your company never uses it. Most importantly, always learn new shit.  The ability to learn to use new tools/software/languages is a skill, like any other that can be developed and that can suffer from atrophy.  Keep your tools sharp.

If you get canned in the U.S., any unemployment "benefits" you might get likely won't be sufficient enough to carry you through to the next job - certainly not enough to cover the expense of job hunting.  You would be ill-advised to rely on that exclusively, so save accordingly.  You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you have to finance your employment search.  If you get a job offer while still employed - do not turn it down outright - that is a valuable contact and you should nurture that professional relationship indefinitely if possible.

One final and important point: If you are not self-employed - you should be at least toying with, if not actively seeking, the prospect of self-employment or freelance work.  If the opportunity for a freelance work project presents itself, do it.  Even if that freelance work has nothing to do with your current profession, even if it's a hobby - you should explore monetizing your interests, or gearing your interests toward something that could potentially serve as a realistic source of income.  If you can work for yourself and make enough money to support yourself doing so, you've essentially rendered the first horseman of your autonomy's apocalypse impotent.  That doesn't mean you're in the clear, but it does mean you have one helluva  leg up as a MGTOW.

Fiddle away, but don't covet the ruins.

The Zeitgeist of this decade is collapse.  Americans revel in the thought.  The zombie apocalypse is porn for the collective id.  Hope and optimism is passe' in the west, and you know it.  I have my own theories about why this is (and it has nothing to do with the "gender war", race or political affiliation - imagine that), but this goes far beyond the scope of my purposes here, so I'll leave it at that.

People are preparing for something earth shattering to happen, for whatever reason, in various ways, and no small amount of these people are men.  It might just be apocalypse porn, but if enough people buy into the fantasy, it has a very real potential to become self-fulfilled.

I see and hear a lot of MGTOWs gleefully looking forward to a "fempocalypse" when they can smugly proclaim "I told you so".  Let's face it, it's a revenge fantasy.  I understand it - I've indulged in it myself.  I'm here to warn you against wasting your life by making that self-indulgent fantasy your one and only comfort and occupation.  You're not going to wake up one day to find yourself the vindicated MGTOW Mad Max. Your choice to go your own way can only be made tragic if you waste your entire life waiting for that day.  That day may very well come, but I promise you it won't look like you've imagined it, and if you're reading these words in 2014, you're certainly going to be too old or dead to take any satisfaction from it. 

If revenge is what moves you - get to the business of living well and being happy and content as soon as possible - there is no better revenge - there never will be.  If you've got some work to do to get there, get to work and take no small amount of satisfaction in knowing that your efforts are for your own purposes and benefit.  If "you" and "your own happiness" isn't enough motivation to get the job done, then you're not ready to go your own way - and like it or not, you've still got at least one foot in the blue pill world. 

It's a process, and you may very well lapse from time to time, but once you've peered beyond the blue pill veil and seen the world as it really is, there really is no going back.  What you do with the truth is up to you, but there's no denying it. There's also no changing "it".  You have no power to inflict epiphanies on the blue pill world.  You came to the red pill because the blue pill couldn't answer your question.  In fact, you couldn't even articulate your question in the blue pill universe - it doesn't provide for the alphabet, much less the lexicon.  You sensed or experienced something that was amiss and you sought and found answers (or validated those nagging suspicions) elsewhere - and that is how knowledge and truth are attained. That is the process of evolution, of growth.

Once you achieve an autonomous mind, an undistracted/undivided mind, the gravity of the blue pill universe cannot effect your trajectory.  Blue pill shame, judgement, criticism - these control mechanisms are moot.  So then what?

Are you kidding me?  You do whatever it is that excites and inspires you - and you take it as far as you want.  Figure it out, or remember, what that is - only you can know.  This world is a gift, full of infinite pursuits and opportunities for personal discovery and creativity. Go do something, go learn something, go master something.  Stop wasting your precious time on anger, on indulgent fantasies of vengeance. Stop measuring yourself with a broken and grossly insufficient ruler. Prepare yourself.  Master yourself.  Above all, enjoy yourself. and your autonomy, in this world.

You're not going to inherit the earth in the future.  You're not going to witness justice or equilibrium.  Your time is right now. You are your own justice, your own equilibrium.  Happiness and contentment are in your hands.  You have to get up off your ass to go your own way.  There is no compromise - do it now.

The Vice of State Sanctioned Marriage.

"It won't happen to me.  I'm not a jerk.  If I love her and treat her well, remain faithful, there's nothing to worry about.  She loves me.  She wouldn't lie to hurt me. She wouldn't deny our children their father.  She'd never lie to a judge.  She'd never use our children as bargaining chips.  She'd never bleed me completely dry or send an innocent man to prison.  She'd never use false allegations to extort money from me."

To any young man who reads this, I urge you to google the name Chris Mackney - or look for anyone else with a similar story.  HE won't be hard to find. I guarantee someone just like him lives within a mile radius of your living room.  Mackney killed himself, but before he did so, he left you a message, a message that his ex-wife and a  family court don't want you to read. Do it now before his final words - a cautionary tale, written with gut wrenching anguish and left for your benefit - are stricken from the face of the earth.  A man's final desperate words, any man's final words, are no longer his own, if he has made the mistake of entering into a state sanctioned marriage.  You have a right to your words.  Don't sign that away for anything.

You don't have to do this.  You don't have to risk falling into this pit.  No, it might  not happen to you, but could very well happen to you and there's nothing you can do to protect yourself from it once you've entered into that contract.  Why would you do it?  Why would you enter into a contract in which you have NO RIGHTS, a contract that is overseen by a system of law that has no interest in justice, or the greater good, but only money, and lots upon lots of it and it's all legal-like fella.  Don't be a fucking TOOL.  You don't need to add to this tragedy.  The keys to your own autonomy are in your hands, and all you have to do is say "no".