It's hard to imagine what it looks like to be further down the path after taking the pill. The idea that you can become outcome independent, un-angry, appreciate and even admire women again, a fun to be around stoic, and a generally excellent dude, can seem like a lifetime away.

A big part of accepting the pill means seeing your BP experience in negative relief. What can be hard to find is a positive definition of what a good RP life can look like, instead of just defining things as anti- whatever BP was. Some of the sidebar material gives this, like Way of the Superior Man, and much of it is based on some very old ideas.

The BP worldview is modern, (technically post-modern), and when it's all you've ever known it makes it easy to forget that the entire BP experience is a recent phenomenon. A quirk of late 20th century economics, politics, art, and technology. To me, it is a symptom of decline. When a society becomes so mannered and civilized that it can be administered just as well by women and beta or omega men as it can by its males, it becomes a fat, decadent prey animal for tribes of hungrier men. Arguably, the decline and fall of most empires can be recognized in the feminisation of people in leadership roles and the de-polarization of the sexes.

There is literally thousands of years of philosophy that has equipped men to live well that you just won't encounter without the guidance that usually comes only with an elite education.

Getting further down the path means being able to visualize it and having some understanding what "there" looks like. Reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations is a good start. The very idea of cultivating an "alpha" personality has been something men have pursued at least since Aristotle, when people talked about what it meant to live a noble life.

If you are wondering what a post-TRP life might look like, look at classical ideals of what it means to be noble, an aristocrat (not the hereditary kind), and a great man.

From Wikipedia:

Aristotle lists some typical characteristics of what we would describe as "alpha" today:

  • They do not take small risks, and are not devoted to risk taking, but they will take big risks, without regard for their life, because a worse life is worth less than a great life. Indeed they do few things, and are slow to start on things, unless there is great honor involved.

  • They do not esteem what is popularly esteemed, nor what others are good at. They take few things seriously, and are not anxious.

  • They gladly do favors but are ashamed to receive them, being apt to forget a favor from another, or to do a greater one in return. They are pleased to hear discussion about the favors they have done for others, but not about favors done for them.

  • They are apt to act more high handedly to a person of high station than a person of middle or low standing, which would be below them.

  • They are frank in expressing opinions and open about what they hate and love. Not to be so would be due to fear, or the esteem one has of other's opinions over your own.

  • They lead life as they choose and not as suits others, which would be slave-like.

  • They are not given to wonder, for nothing seems great to them.

  • Because they expect others to be lesser, and are not overly concerned with their praise, they are not apt to bear grudges, they are not apt to gossip, and they are not even interested in speaking ill of enemies, except to insult them.

  • They are not apt to complain about necessities or small matters, nor to ask for help, not wanting to imply that such things are important to them.

  • They tend to possess beautiful and useless things, rather than productive ones.

  • They tend to move slowly and speak with a deep steady voice, rather than being hasty or shrill which would be due to anxiety.

If there are any academic philosophers on TRP, it would be interesting to link up TRP concepts with some of their origins in history. The pursuit of an enlightened way to live is as old as philosophy, and TRP may be the most interesting manifestation of it in decades.