Stop Being A Pussy

Face danger: A message for modern men

Wanaka, Central Otago, New Zealand

“Danger absolves one of the need to deal with a hundred quotidian problems or to make a thousand little choices, each one unimportant. Danger simplifies existence and therefore - again when chosen, not imposed - comes as a relief from many anxieties.”

Theodore Dalrymple

THE CENTRAL OTAGO REGION in New Zealand has few matches around the world. Issuing a statement of apollonian dominance, the claws of young peaks tear through lush rolling farmland, while glacial lakes in their pristine perfection, reflect this aggression in reverse. The result is the binding of natural forms, masculine and feminine, a harmony more real and deep than any that could be manifested by human hands.

The harmony in opposites comes in more ways than one, however. In this picture comes a comfort to my soul I can barely describe: Here is an ideal of beauty - surely it was created, but not by man. But this comfort can only exist, I believe, with the realisation that ascending these apollonian peaks, crossing these perfect lakes, means confronting directly your own mortality. The central Otago region is not only one of the most beautiful regions in New Zealand, it is also one of the most dangerous.

As the centre for adventure tourism in our country, central Otago attracts all those who largely through intuition realise the modern world has alienated us from our natural selection environment. Whatever it is in their life, they believe something wrong, something unbalanced, like a spinning top that never spins.

They undertake, through their volition, a journey to a fundamental spiritualism. By seeing death at a distance, they can almost articulate to themselves what it means to be alive, the nature of it, the concept of consciousness and also, its manner of obfuscating and manipulating the base reality of forms and desires that usually exist beneath our awareness when we are sitting at desks looking at screens.

Of course, the attraction of danger to an individual varies. Some are more willing than others, yet, in all beings, physical and psychological risk is necessary. Absolutely necessary. It is so necessary, I believe, that a central reason for reckless self-sabotage is because the opportunities for healthy and adaptive danger seeking are no longer available: We live in a world dominated by the words ‘safety’ and ‘secure’.

I have talked in the past of my addiction to drugs in my adolescence. Traditional models of Western medicine might explain my behavioural failings by the chemical interaction of the drug with my brain, that of dependence; or, taking the psychological and genetic route, may say I have a predisposition toward drug and alcohol addiction because it runs in my family. These things are true. Yet always overlooked (I mean always) is the concept of how drugs functioned in my life. What they meant to me. The identity they established for me.

Young men are boisterous. They need to express the tendency toward violence and competition in healthy and adaptive ways. When those ways are removed, when military service or merely playing a competitive sport is no longer compulsory, it is not as if men are going to change suddenly in their nature. They are going to seek other avenues of adventure. Those that satisfy their desire for meaning via the route of risk. And sometimes, this is through drug-taking.

How drug-taking operates within a group of men is the same as it operates when doing any other activity or adventure. There is a shared journey. Of pushing oneself to the limit of their fear - and their ability (tolerance). There is competition. Of who can handle the most, go the furthest, or do a particular kind of drug. And, as men who exist in competitive and friendly hierarchies know, wherever one is placed up or down is no matter to their membership of said group - only that they maintain loyalty and take part. When a man does something he does not want to do, but does it anyway - he gains respect in the eyes of his peers.

No longer is he living for himself. He is living for other men. He is no longer a part; he is one.

When he becomes one, an identity forms. He is suddenly in relation to other men, and is placed within the hierarchy. Some friend groups in men exist only around one activity - like playing a sport - but most have many overlapping hierarchies where respect can be garnered for individuals. One guy may be poor at this but great at that.

The problem is the nature of said activity. Drug-taking, in its modern form, where it assumes the ‘activity’ or ‘event’ role in men’s lives, is a maladaptive substitute for adaptive danger seeking. It is so effective because there is real danger. Anyone who has pushed themselves in a drug taking manner knows on the psychic horizon is insanity - true insanity where your life may be destroyed forever. You do truly face death, but it is distorted, horrific, terrifying. Instead of being guided by God to develop oneself and become powerful, you are being guided by the Devil, encouraged to indulge and become one of his agents.

In this way, the nature of the danger is different when undertaking something adaptive versus maladaptive. This is what some women do not understand. Not every risky venture that men undertake is the same; some are qualitatively different, although they both contain danger. What I would say to a woman who desires a man who is powerful and who can provide, is to become aware of the differences between these two types of danger. A man who is willing to compete with other men in a dangerous sport is not the same as a man who is willing to compete with other men in a dangerous drug-fueled party. One of these activities will grow formidability, the other resentment.

And it was resentment that grew in me after my years of addiction - that compared to some others I know was nowhere near as bad as it could have been. My inherent danger and thrill seeking in my youth, that lead me to play several dangerous sports, like rugby, cricket, and one we will shortly get to, skiing, had been satisfied by a maladaptive substitute - that while giving me deep meaning and identity among my group of friends, had started to destroy my soul. I had become but a shadow of my talented younger self and it was hate I felt.

Moving towns was a liberty upon my dependence. From the urban, fast-moving world of University, among the popular and the party-goers, I was now positively assaulted by the aforementioned beauty of central Otago. A natural skier, who’s abilities had dwindled in my drug-taking years, I had decided with the guidance of my parents to become a ski-instructor. In my training, and in my now ten seasons of work, I was reminded of what it meant to be alive. The danger of skiing utterly reoriented my life. What was real and what wasn’t was now clear. And all the little issues didn’t matter.

And I did break myself. I shattered my patella bone into multiple pieces, ruining a contract I had in mainland China; I broke my wrist in Canada (but continued skiing two days later with a cast); dislocated both knees several times to the point my ligaments are so elastic it is very hard for me to snap them; was told in Japan upon being seen after an x-ray for a minor injury that almost a decade earlier in my training season I had broken my collar bone - the reason I did not seek help when I was in pain was because my Dad told me to stop being a pussy.

And you know what? That is the advice we need more in our society: “Stop being a pussy.”

Voluntarily undertake risky activities to understand the nature of danger. Continually face fear and you will understand that fear is only a perception; that fear is the false belief that you will not return renewed and more powerful even in failure. When you turn fear into excitement - excitement at who you will become and things you will be able to do - you will become formidable indeed. People around will ask ‘how does he do that?’ And you know how - because you decided to not be a pussy.

And you need not only face danger in the physical sense; it need not be a physical activity (though I strongly suggest you do something physically dangerous). It can be in some skill or situation where in your failure you will be humiliated. Or shunned. Or ostracised. Common in society today is the fear of speaking the truth. In is my opinion that the most cowardly of men are those that lie because they are afraid of what people will think of them.

But it must be said, if you are too reckless in your adventure your doom will consume you. Like anything else, your exposure to danger needs to be correlated with your skill in the activity that brings you that danger. If you forgo this warning, then you are committing the irony the Devil wants of you: He wants to desire too much, to go too far, to have it all. And in this way, you can turn something that is adaptive into something that is maladaptive. Here I am talking about the free-climbers who die; the sportsmen who do not retire; and class idiot who is truly an idiot.

Face danger my friend, and you will continually be reborn.

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Chur, and have a good day and night,

The Delinquent Academic

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