The Cup and The Castle

The Cup and The Castle

If you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable - Meditations

I don’t know what it is. Maybe my awakening in some way has me seeing it this way all of a sudden, but the posts coming in have me thinking that many don’t really and truly understand how Frame, Stoicism, and how it relates to their journey. Of course this topic has been gone over many times but I think I have a different enough perceptive to give it this brief treatise. Understand that I am just talking about it from a position of Stoicism. Frame is really just a MRP term for it...and it is so much more as well. I am just going to tackle it from a purely Stoic point of view.

I want to point out that this in no way disrupts Red Pill theory but this brings a very Stoic view to the process of unplugging. If anything the idea is that it adds to.

So Stoicism is really glossed over. Here it is in a nutshell from the Urban Dictionary.

Someone who does not give a shit about the stupid things in this world that most people care so much about. Stoics do have emotions, but only for the things in this world that really matter. They are the most real people alive.

Group of kids are sitting on a porch. Stoic walks by. Kid – ‘Hey man, yur a fuckin faggot and you suck cock!’ Stoic – ‘Good for you.’ Stoic Keeps going.

To be clear, I am not just talking about adopting this as a way of getting more/better sex. This is your attitude about everything. As has been said before you have to almost reject this goal of sex, not the idea of it, not the desire to have it...but reject it as a specific dedicated goal. Sex should be like breathing. Something you do not something you work for. Sex is meaningless, it is ephemeral. Besides as I see it we can't even begin to talk about dealing with these things until you have handled the emotional outrage in you.

Better/more sex is an outcome but it is one of many.

I will attempt to talk about it in two concepts. The Cup and Castle.

The Castle

Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

This concept is not so new. It's rather old in fact, but it's entirely relevant to what you need. You have to erect one in your mind. Brick by brick. It is no accident that this metaphor is used a lot. Most guys come in thinking they have to defend their castle once they have it. They stand out on their moat, naked, angry, sword in hand screaming to world BACK OFF!! MY HOUSE! But who are they yelling at?

Instead the castle is where you sally out from. It's where you go to relax and gather strength and then if you are besieged you weather it until your strength is gathered and you can strike out. From here you are sheltered from emotional turmoil, and I don’t just mean from the world outside I also mean from your own emotion storms. Allow them to beat upon the walls while you watch intently. Don’t linger on the why of the emotion but allow to wash against the walls and then recede away. How you do this up to you.

Lift more (outside your schedule), find other guys, retreat to a private room to engage in some hobby or other recreational activity. I sometimes will even just sit and stare at a wall. Most often though my martial arts training provides this well being. getting lost in the kata, studying weapons. Nothing locks your attention more then dealing with a device that is designed to kill and maim...and it doesn't care whom.

Even still you have to find a source of strength, a place you can retreat to in your mind. MRP will say that you don’t deal with her emotional out pouring. And it’s correct. You don’t engage it. Here’s another perspective….who can deal with it? How can anyone possibly feel all that at once and make sense of it!? You can’t. clearly she can’t because she’s venting it all over the place. That’s why, as men, you have to put it in a box and shut it down. It distracts you and pulls you off course. Go into the castle and let the storm rage outside.

You have to come to grips with the fact that there is no comfort in the conventional sense for you. Your comfort, your emotional well being is really up to you. You retreat to your castle, you exist there. Nothing else matters. From here you can then demonstrate to your wife or friends, boss, co-workers, family, that you are a man that cannot be rattled. Using the negativity you can show objectivity, rationality, and generosity.

You just have to make the decision to do it.

My dad smoked like a chimney. When he was 55 the doctor told him he had to stop. It was bad for him and would effect his health. My dad "Ok. I'm done." I remember the doc chuckling and telling him it wasn't that easy. My dad said "Yeah. It is."

15 years he never smoked again.

Make the decision. Flip the switch.

Here's the real danger. You become an emotionaless robot. You have no concern, nor feeling. You exist in your castle and look at the world. Don't live there. Don't exist there. Remember you are a man of the world, in it but not a part of it. Everyone else is a part of your world.

The Cup

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

I pride myself on having a high pain threshold. Yet as much as I want it to be a super power it really isn’t. It is more like I have a deeper cup then most people. Eventually that cup will fill up. I have had it fill up many times. I see men, women, and emotions in the same way.

Having emotions is just fine. We aren’t Vulcans. It’s perfectly ok to have emotions and feel things. Being ruled by them is not ok. Howling at the moon, stomping around, even pouting or pretending that you are suffering the slings and arrows of life….you’re just being a petulant child. An angry, naked, petulant child. When I first started reading and studying I often wondered why the big meanies were being this way. Let the guy get it off his chest for crying out loud…and then…it hit me. Because the poor mook will keep at it. At some point it has to stop.

So why are you suffering? Why are you just dealing with it, slogging through life? This means your cup has filled up. Which is fine…it happens but you are not dealing with it correctly. Men have a deeper cup then women, some men have deeper then others. Yet that cup will fill up. How you empty the cup is really up to you. When my pain threshold fills up it means it's time to do something. See a doctor, treat what is happening. What do some guys do when their emotional cup fills up? They keep at it. They keep slogging along. What needs to happen is that they need to take action. The cup filling up is your signal. Something isn’t working and action is required.

Stoicism, requires action. This is why it's not studied much, because it is a simple philosophy geared towards action. It's also why it's the most uncomfortable of philosophies. By comparison, Zen, is a meditative, deep thought kind of philosophy. To illustrate a Stoic marital artist.

STUDENT: I am not getting it master.

MASTER: Did you watch the the trees in the wind?

STUDENT: Yes, Master.

MASTER: Did you watch the birds fly and the water move?

STUDENT: Yes, Master.

MASTER: That's your problem. You're looking at stupid shit and not practicing.

It's the reason why most people today don't study Stoicism unless they are already in the throes of some great misfortune. It's simple, it's easy and doesn't require great deep thinking...though it will lead you there. Our biological bodies are built for pressure, stress….our bodies were not made for relaxation. If you study something of biology you will know that stress, work, and action make organisms grow. Putting your head down and hoping for the best won’t. Hope isn’t a method. You are literally paralyzingly yourself with these thoughts, allowing this emotional context take you over. It's anger any ways. Whether you are yelling or moping it's anger...inside or outside. Anger is anger.

So somewhere along the way when you feel like all is lost that's when your instincts are saying something more is required. I don't know what that is. You do, but you have to work that out within the construct that is MRP. All MRP can tell you: Get up. Get moving.

Don't let you cup over flow. Keep moving. Do something.