Is Atlas Shrugging?

This is a message in three related parts.

Part 1: Atlas Shrugged

Many years ago, a great mentor of mine (John) suggested that I read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. He is by far the most red pilled person I have ever met - he just knew things. So I almost always took his advice and I got the book.

Shrugged is a beast of a book; it is a long, dense, tough read. For those who haven’t read it, it is a fictional story of a man named Henry Reardon and a woman Dagny Taggart. In short, they are hard working, individualists, who believe in hard work, reason, and moral correctness. Throughout the story, various government and collectivist types do their best to screw everything up. which they do, and ultimately the system collapses. I will leave the rest to you to read so as to avoid any real spoilers.

But what ultimately causes the systems collapse?

Good men walk away.

Part 2: Just STOP.

My ex wife, who passed away a few years ago, and I were in many ways the ideal couple. We loved each other, and got along really well. We were together for 20 years and married for 15 of them. We ultimately got divorced, which is a story for another time, but this part of our story is still interesting to me after all these years.

For most of our relationship, we followed traditional roles. She was the wife, and I the husband. She cooked, and I helped do the dishes. I fixed things, and she took care of the babies. We shared many of the household chores because we had a large house and a lot of family around, so there was always a lot to do.

One night, at around 10:00 PM, I sat down on the end of my bed and just collapsed from exhaustion. I was wiped out in a way that bordered on burnout. It had been a long day, at the end of a long week, after a long month. I had just spent the past few hours playing with kids and picking up after them. But also picking up after my wife and her mom. They are clutter-oriented people. They both liked to see half of their belongings on display at all times. So they did not see clutter - they saw a "lived in" sort of comfortable vibe, This irked me to no end, so I would follow behind them and pick up a dish towel on a chair and put it on a towel bar. Pick up a shoe, move this, tuck that, replace that. Not obsessively, but it was slow and relaxed and continuous.

This night it wore me down to a husk.

When we settled down for the night, I mentioned this to her and she looked shocked. Her response was something like “You hardly do ANYTHING around the house. What are you even talking about!” That statement was a game changer. I cannot express how powerfully this hit me at the moment. It rived me in my spot - I almost felt ill and I am NOT the type to get that way. There is more to this because we were also starting to drift apart around this time, so it had a sort of compound effect.

So here I was quite KILLING myself slowly; stressed out and on the border of burnout from a challenging career, late hours, little babies, managing the family finances, and countless other responsibilities - on top of cleaning up after grown adults!

And this was her response!

At the moment, I let it go. I just sat there with my jaw on the floor trying hard to not let my shock show. The next day I woke up and headed out to work. I played with the kids for a bit, kisses and hugs all around and left. When I got home I played with the kids, took care of a few things and let everything else go. No dishes, no cleaning. Nothing.

At this point it is fair to call me passive aggressive. And perhaps that is right. But I maintain that I did not have a drop of passive aggressive intentions. I was not trying to get even, or DO anything. I just stopped doing any of the house work. I shrugged it off.

That next night I went to bed, and both of us seemed a bit happier! WTF! Was I delusional all this time? So I promised myself I would do this for one month to see how long it would take her to notice. Keep in mind, that I still changed babies, still helped clean off the table after dinner, helped the kids clean up rooms, etc. But all the ‘Extra’ stuff was on hiatus.

A month passed. And nothing. She did not complain or mention it in any way. My stress level went down, and things felt a little more relaxed in the house. It was odd. The one downside is that the house looked like shit. I cannot stand a messy home, which is why I did all that to begin with.

So one day about 6 weeks later, she asked if I would help her clean up the living room. I said sure, but I only picked up two things and walked out. Later she asked me if everything was okay, and I said hell yes! She mentioned how I didn't help as much as she expected. I then asked her “Babe, do you notice anything different about the house this past few weeks?” “No” she said. “So you don’t notice how much work I was doing or how messy it is this month?” “No. Not really. I mean no more or less than ever before. Why?” Then I told her about the month hiatus. She literally shook her head and said “I didn’t notice any difference”

That moment took me some time to process. But there it was. The extra effort I gave, which was considerable, was not only not noticed, the negative effects were not even felt.

The relevant lesson (one of several from that particular incident) was twofold: Sometimes the best thing to do is to just let go of the work and the worry - just stop.

Sometimes when you think you are helping, you are actually hurting.

Let that sit there for a few.

Part 3: Walking Away

Brandon Straka is the founder of the #walkaway movement. I saw his original video when it first came out about two years ago. Since then, his impact has been incredible. He has reached millions of people, and changed countless minds. I have seen many people on Facebook sharing their own #walkaway stories. He is also taking a lot of flak and has endured countless attacks. Watch the video and poke around. This is a bigger thing than you are led to believe. Decide for yourself.

In short, his simple message is this: Just walk away.

Conclusion

Over the past quarter century in the US, in countless ways, men have been GTOW, Walking Away, setting it down, and Shrugging . This has gained big momentum in this past decade, as this loose collection of “movements” have reached critical mass. It is felt in the many realms of life, including politics, race relations, housing, the job market, government, higher education, marriage and family, and the dating scene to name several.

The consequences are all around us, and they have gone from glaring and urgent, to a full blown societal meltdown.

Interestingly, Japan is ahead of us in this regard. Men there collectively shrugged about 15 years ago EN MASSSE. And all they got for it was nasty nicknames which I will not repeat here. They don’t care either way. Women and most media outlets still decry the rapid and alarming decline in the birth rate, and they still write articles like "Where are all the good men?"

When my wife put me in the position – when I put MYSELF in the position in which, the more I did in my marriage the worse things got, the only reasonable thing to do was to stop. I had quite literally tried everything else. In other words, no matter what I did, I lost. So I just stopped.

These days, we are being told that if we engage in race-based discussions, even if we make supportive comments towards of black people, we are racist. (This very thing happened to me this week on one of our subs) We are also told that if we do nothing, then we are also racist. In other words, no matter what we do, we lose. So I decided to stop.

In the dating scene, when men try, women reject and adopt unrealistic expectations because of an abundance of attention. When men back off, we are misogynist incel man children who are afraid of commitment. In other words, no matter what we do, we lose. So I decided to stop.

When society (or anyone for that matter) gives you several options, and the most obvious, reasonable, sane, fair, and just choice is to do nothing; then why choose any other option?

Tl;RD

When you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t – then don’t. At least this way, all you get is being called bad names. Engaging can sometimes cost you your life and freedom.

Good luck men.

Oh, and read Atlas Shrugged. I won’t lie, it’s a tough read. But well worth it.

Edit: Cleaned up a few things and added formatting for clarity.