Disclaimer—This is much, much longer than I expected. But it's a worthwhile read, something you shouldn't skip over.

Preface

This will be different from most of the posts you’re used to seeing on here. The reason why I wrote this is because I’m seeing tons of men going about the whole journey wrong. I understand that fucking girls might be the main goal here, but most men here are also searching for something else. Searching for how to reclaim their own individuality and masculinity.

Many people seem lost, confused, and ultimately unsure of their purpose. The path to worldly success isn’t actually very difficult. Set goals, follow them, and achieve them. But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that most guys these days don’t even know who they are. They have no idea where they’re going, who they want to be, and what they want out of life. And as a result, they find sex unfulfilling. They become depressive and resentful. They become suicidal.

What I hope to accomplish through this is to offer men a sense of direction in their life. After all, it is up to each individual man to discover his own true self and purpose. But there are universal truths that each man can take to heart and use in his own journey towards self-transcendence.

A man must stop looking externally for motivation, purpose, and fulfillment. He must look inwardly to discover who he truly is.

He must be able to affirm life in all of its glory and ugliness, pushing onwards against all odds and defying any circumstances or doubters in his path. That is the only way for man to achieve greatness.

Our current generation is among the first forced to delve deep within ourselves to determine the meaning and purpose of our individual existences. We are each venturing into territory no man has ever ventured before.

I wish you all the best of luck and hope that I will be able to spark something deep within your minds. A spark that will fuel the necessary transformation from mere man to heroic man.

And that will make all the difference.

Introduction

Life is fucking hard. But I didn’t need to tell you that, did I?

In the world we live in today, the full problem of human existence has reared its ugly head. No holds barred. And the individual, the man, is at the wrong end of this paradigm shift.

In a world supposedly devoid of meaning or purpose with inevitable suffering, man must somehow stand against the tide and declare the affirmation of his own heroic existence.

Every man bears the burden of existence and is responsible for his own life. Man must answer for his own existence at every turn.

A man must become his own hero. The heroic man—the man who accepts the suffering inherent in human existence and ascends endlessly towards self-overcoming. The heroic man—one who embraces his own will to power and conquers all obstacles and human limitations in his path.

But before we begin, I need to give you a brief pseudo-history lesson on human existence.

Ancient History and the Middle Ages - A Simpler Life (200,000 BC - 1500s AD)

For millennia before your time, life was simpler. No technology, no TVs, no media, no cell phones, no online communication, no medical care, no mass politics, no nothing. It was just you isolated in your little town or community, unaware about anything happening in the rest of the world. No fucking CNN, no social media websites, no news alerts, no long-distance communication, no phones, no computers. You get the idea.

And you believed in God. Everyone did. Your religious beliefs were what carried you through the day. All doubts were silenced by God. You went to church, and you’re instantly absolved of all of your sins. You feared death, but you had the afterlife. No matter how much you suffered in this world, there was something after death. You had heaven. Life was meaningful.

As long as you made enough to feed your family, you were good. Maybe your neighbor was higher class than you, but what did it matter? You were born into this family, and that was all that mattered. Social mobility was non-existent. All you cared about was whether your neighbor was going to steal your fucking sheep. Then you were fucked.

Outside of your menial, insignificant, isolated, boring day-to-day life, the craziest thing that happened to you was watching a man get hanged in the public square. Or maybe you heard six-month-late news that a political revolution had begun in the ever-so-distant capital of your country. Or you traveled by wagon for ten fucking days to a nearby city to visit your fucking relatives.

There wasn’t much to worry about. Maybe you got nicer fucking candles, bought ten more pigs, expanded your farm, or fought with some natives. But that was about it.

But what did you know? What did you care? You looked up into the sky and you saw the light of God staring back at you. Rain came down as a holy blessing. All goodness in the world came from your answered prayers.

Life was simple. And meaningful. You never had to question anything. You had no doubts. Everything was all planned out for you. There was no need for an individual purpose. You had religion.

Consider that for a second.

For essentially all of human history, we lived extremely simple lives. The mass majority of all humans to have ever walked upon this Earth have had one-dimensional lives no more complex than that of a farmer, a peasant, or a soldier.

Early Modern Era (1500s - Late 1900s) - Growing Doubt

Early in the 1500s, the Renaissance hits Europe. Everything changes. Mankind rapidly grows in cultural self-awareness and begins focusing on the individual. We begin asking the real questions—What is man? What is man’s place in the universe? What is man’s purpose?

We also discover the planets and peer out deep into space, learning that man isn’t the center of the universe. There is a vast, unknown, unexplored and infinite expanse of space beyond us. We’re just a tiny fucking dot in comparison.

In the 1600s, the Reformation brings a newfound freedom of thought to religious culture. The indoctrination and enslavement towards religious beliefs gradually fades away.

In the 1800s, change begins to accelerate. The Industrial Revolution begins. We discover electricity. The Golden Age of Invention begins. Humans gradually move away from rural areas to developing industrial and urban centers.

By the late 1900s, skyscrapers tower over great metropolitan centers, scientific and intellectual advancement is rapidly accelerating, and man is moving towards a technology-oriented existence.

In just four centuries, two hundred millennia of human history have been irreversibly changed. Complexity has exponentially increased. And humans are suffering more than ever.

The Modern Era (Late 1900s - Present)

All of you were born here.

Computers are invented, communication networks flourish rapidly, the Internet is developed, and technological advancement advancements skyrockets. The world is completely interconnected. Mass group politics rises through the incredibly rapid spread of technological communication. Practically every member of civilized society is plugged into a global network of online data sharing and communication, forever revolutionizing human existence.

Capitalism reaches its peak around the world as global economies grow through a craze of increased technological capability.

And yet life has never been more difficult. God and religion have been slowly dying in Western civilization over the past few centuries. The world is becoming an increasingly complex beast, impossible to keep up with. Man begins to lack a higher spiritual or existential purpose. Modern secular culture has lost all sense of a transcendent meaning or purpose.

Man is thrown from nothingness into an utterly inextricable world with a duality of infinite complexity and simplicity. And he must deal with the understanding of his own ephemeral existence as the world only progresses to become a more confusing, frightening place.

A man realizes that he is fundamentally alone, stranded in a hopeless and meaningless world, left to face the gaping abyss of the unknown without escape.

An Existential Shit-Show

You might say you’ve been blessed to be born in this era.

I don’t disagree.

But life in this world has never reached a greater level of complexity or meaninglessness than today. We are out our own wit’s end, constantly striving towards greatness in a seemingly endless world of suffering.

And what’s human life now? It’s a fucking shit-show.

Most people can’t even wake up on fucking time, for god’s sakes. A billion fucking years of evolution led to you and you can’t even resist slapping “snooze.” We’re too sick, we’re too tired, we’re too weak. We constantly worry about what complete strangers will think of us. We are addicted to drugs, porn, and video games. We don’t eat right, get fat, and die of heart disease. We have no self-awareness. We’re sleep-deprived, hungry, and broke. We’re afraid of death. We waste hours of precious time on our devices. We mindlessly binge-watch TV shows we don’t even care about. We have existential crises. We make fake friends. We fall into depression and anxiety. We read pathetic self-help books that don’t do shit. We succumb to failure in resignation. We lead ultimately meaningless lives. We don’t live up to our own potential. We’re too ugly. We’re too short. We’re too unconfident. We aren’t educated enough. We had incompetent parents to prepare us for the harsh reality of the world. We grow old, frail, and weak. We frequently get sick. We hate our partners. We have violent wars. We have extreme political divide. We commit suicide. We regret the past, despise the present, and worry about the future.

Sometimes I wonder how we get through it all.

Life is a constant struggle between two paradigms—one in adamant belief in the meaninglessness of life and the ultimately futility of one’s effort towards any endeavors, and the other in unrelenting courage and bravery towards achieving one’s own individual purpose and destiny. One is pessimistic, depressing, and causes existentially anxiety, and the other is life-affirming, motivating, and triumphant.

You ask yourself, is the world simply a vast, indifferent beast of unfathomable complexity and meaninglessness? Or is my existence a chance for me to impose my own will upon the world and determine the true essence of my unique, inscrutable soul?

Should I commit suicide and free myself from this life of endless suffering? Or should I charge onwards with a newfound sense of purpose and meaning despite the struggles I must inevitably face?

What is the solution? How do you face forward and fight onwards if there is no light at the end of the battlefield?

A Man and his Mission

In the present day, every man must have a mission.

You need a mission—not some cliche “passion,” not some fun “hobby,” not making “a million dollars,” or any other superficial materialistic goal. A real fucking mission.

“Neither riches nor honors nor erudition can lift the individual out of the profound depression he feels at the valuelessness of his existence, and how the striving after these valued things acquires meaning only through an exalted and transfiguring overall goal: to acquire power so as to aid the evolution of the Physis and to be for a while the corrector of its follies and ineptitudes.”

You need a real mission.

Every man needs a mission. A meaning within himself. A dogged determination to become victorious against all odds. A triumphant life-affirming declaration of his own individualistic purpose.

Every man must find a worthwhile purpose for himself which renders irrelevant the inevitable suffering of life. Every man must discover the essence of his own identity and pursue it with unrelenting passion.

“Nobody can build the bridge for you to walk across the river of life, no one but you yourself alone. There are, to be sure, countless paths and bridges and demi-gods which would carry you across this river; but only at the cost of yourself; you would pawn yourself and lose. There is in the world only one way, on which nobody can go, except you: where does it lead? Do not ask, go along with it.”

You may not be able to articulate this mission. Spoken word and language are inferior to the manifestations of the heroic existential ideals of every man.

But you will know it to exist. You may see it in flashes throughout your life, in peak experiences and plateau experiences as described by Maslow, and through a deeper knowledge within yourself. But one thing is undebatable—it exists.

“Why does [the heroic man] desire the opposite—to be aware precisely of life, that is to say to suffer from life—so strongly? Because he realizes that he is in danger of being cheated out of himself, and that a kind of agreement exists to kidnap him out of his own cave. Then he bestirs himself, pricks up his ears, and resolves: "I will remain my own!" It is a dreadful resolve; only gradually does he grasp that fact. For now he will have to descend into the depths of existence with a string of curious questions on his lips: why do I live? what lesson have I to learn from life? how do I become what I am and why do I suffer from being what I am?”

It is from this spring of eternal curiosity and self-transcendence that man pushes onwards through all obstacles, fear, and suffering towards his own destiny.

Material comforts, other people, your job, career, car, clothing, bank account… all superficial. All irrelevant. They are simply external manifestations of your inner genius. The moment you direct yourself towards any external goal, you immediately cheat yourself out of your own individual destiny. A destiny that only you can discern.

In fact, once you are able to fully understand and embrace your true self and your true mission, these things will come naturally. Girls, money, a great career, great relationships—whatever you desire. You get the idea. But these are secondary to what you must achieve for yourself.

Discovering One’s Mission

How do you find your own mission?

“Let the youthful soul look back on life with the question: what have you truly loved up to now, what has elevated your soul, what has mastered it and at the same time delighted it?

Place these venerated objects before you in a row, and perhaps they will yield for you, through their nature and their sequence, a law, the fundamental law of your true self. Compare these objects, see how one complements, expands, surpasses, transfigures another, how they form a stepladder upon which you have climbed up to yourself as you are now; for your true nature lies, not hidden deep within you, but immeasurably high above you, or at least above that which you normally take to be yourself.”

The first thing you must do is become self-aware. If you have no self-awareness, you must get to know yourself. Meditate. Just sit still, in silence. No music, no computer, no phone. Just think. We’re all too caught up in our devices and the busy world around us to take the time necessary to go within and determine who we truly are.

Start journaling. Write your thoughts down. You’ll get better at understanding your inner voices over time. Whenever you have a moment of inspiration, just jot down what you’re thinking. This goes a long way—far more than you could possibly understand now.

If you need moments of clarity, go for walks alone at midnight. Go watch the romantic sunset. Go camping or go hiking, and sit alone under the stars. Travel alone to a foreign country.

Do what you must to achieve inner clarity. Find out who you truly are. Discover the incredible unknown hiding behind your thoughts.

It’s going to feel weird. You’re going to realize that not all of the voices in your head are you. You’re going to realize that you don’t know who you actually are. This is where the journey fundamentally begins.

When you begin to ask yourself the real questions and conduct a deep, introspective inquiry of your own individual existence, problems begin to unravel. And new ones form. But that’s the magic of it all.

As you continue to ascend the pyramid of human existence, you will achieve new heights of understanding and achievement that have hitherto been invisible to you. You will be amazed at the discovery of new revelations which previously you had no idea existed. You will discover new truths about your own existence which have an untold significance greater than you could possibly imagine.

The Enslavement of Man

But uncovering one’s true self is no easy task. Simply beginning the task of finding one’s true mission is something the majority of men will never quite accomplish.

“In his heart every man knows quite well that, being unique, he will be in the world only once and that there will be no second chance for his oneness to coalesce from the strangely variegated assortment that he is: he knows it but hides it like a bad conscience—why? From fear of his neighbor, who demands conformity and cloaks himself with it. But what is it that forces the individual to fear his neighbor, to think and act like a member of a herd, and to have no joy in himself? Modesty, perhaps, in a few rare cases. For the majority it is idleness, inertia, in short that propensity for laziness of which the traveler spoke. He is right: men are even lazier than they are fearful, and fear most of all the burdensome nuisance of absolute honesty and nakedness.” - Nietzsche

You’re likely bottled up and restricted in speech and action by the opinions of others. You care about others’ judgments, others’ beliefs, and others’ actions. You want to fit in with them. You want to feel like you’re part of the “group.” But what are you really doing? You’re becoming a slave to those around you—nothing more than a rag in the wind, floating about without true purpose.

“There is no more unpleasant and barren a creature in this world than the man who has evaded his genius and who now looks askance left and right, squinting behind him and all about. In the end, one cannot grasp such a man, since he is completely exterior, without core, a tattered, painted sack of clothes, a ragtag ghost that cannot provoke even fear and certainly not sympathy.” - Nietzsche

How can you escape this unconscious enslavement of your mind and soul?

“Human beings who do not want to belong to the mass need only to stop being comfortable; follow their conscience, which cries out: 'Be yourself! All that you are now doing, thinking, and desiring is not really yourself.'" - Nietzsche

Become free. Stop trying to fit in. Don’t join the mindless herd.

The Heroic Man

What man do you know today who has a fierceness of spirit and soul which transcends everything he must face in the inevitable suffering of life?

What man do you know who pursues a purpose within himself that transcends his own individuality and yet is only a product of himself?

What man do you know who affirms the great existential suffering in life and trudges onwards through thick and thin to achieve his own unique purpose?

What man do you know who has decided for himself that his life will be the ultimate unraveling and pursuit of his true self and the discovery of his ultimate destiny?

The hero knows that “The beast that bears you fastest to perfection is suffering.” He speaks the truth unapologetically, does not satisfy himself with delusions, and does what is necessary to achieve his eternal mission.

He must “feel his heart open and a fierce desire arise within him to be such a [hero], that is to say, strangely composed about himself and his own welfare, in his knowledge full of blazing, consuming fire and far removed from the cold and contemptible neutrality of the so-called scientific man, exalted high above all sullen and ill-humored reflection, always offering himself as the first sacrifice to perceived truth and permeated with the awareness of what sufferings must spring from his truthfulness.”

Although the hero who has discovered his mission may be abhorred by the herd and by society at large, he knows that his own way must be fulfilled. Even if others are hurt and demeaned through his acts of truth and pure will, nothing can stand in the way of his path.

“He will have to be an enemy to those he loves and to the institutions which have produced him; he may not spare men or things, even though he suffers when they suffer; he will be misunderstood and for long thought an ally of powers he abhors; however much he may strive after justice he is bound, according to the human limitations of his insight, to be unjust.”

The hero understands that he must fully accept the inherent suffering of existence and transcend earthly meaning.

"A happy life is impossible: the highest that man can attain is a heroic one. He leads it who, in whatever shape or form, struggles against great difficulties for something that is to the benefit of all and in the end is victorious, but who is ill-rewarded for it or not rewarded at all. Then, when he has done, he is turned to stone, like the prince in Gozzi's Re corvo, but stands in a noble posture and with generous gestures. He is remembered and is celebrated as a hero; his will, mortified a whole life long by effort and labor, ill success and the world's ingratitude, is extinguished in Nirvana.”

He refuses to remain as useless as a puppet, thrown around carelessly by the winds of day-to-day existence and becoming nothing more than a plaything of his whims and surroundings.

“This eternal becoming is a lying puppet-play in beholding which man forgets himself, the actual distraction which disperses the individual to the four winds, the endless stupid game which the great child, time, plays before us and with us. That heroism of truthfulness consists in one day ceasing to be the toy it plays with.”

The hero takes the reins of his existence and charges onward, not allowing himself to be passively controlled by externalities. He actively seeks to achieve self-mastery and embraces his own inner drive towards individual greatness.

“But for him who seeks untruth in everything and voluntarily allies himself with unhappiness a miracle of disappointment of a different sort has perhaps been prepared: something inexpressible of which happiness and truth are only idolatrous counterfeits approaches him, the earth loses its gravity, the events and powers of the earth become dreamlike, transfiguration spreads itself about him as on summer evenings. To him who sees these things it is as though he were just beginning to awaken and what is playing about him is only the clouds of a vanishing dream. These too will at some time be wafted away: then it will be day.”

The heroic man has no fear. He has no doubts. He has no worry. He seeks the truths in his own existence without apology and without hesitation. As he continues to dispel the lies and conditioning which have confounded his own soul into confusion and cloudiness, he begins to have momentary glimpses of clarity. Glimpses of a paradisal existence. One in which he is at the center of himself, at the center of the world, and has achieved full understanding of all he has yet encountered. For no man has seen all.

The man dispels all false notions, destroys all harmful vices, conquers his suffering, and eliminates all fear. He completely masters himself in all of his capacity for help and harm. He himself is capable of all evil, and yet himself is a true force of good since he actively chooses not to use it.

The hero is a man at the pinnacle of his own existence. He reaches the zenith of his journey and yet continues to ascend higher as the path to self-transcendence sees no end.

What a man can be, he must be. He is only given one chance—one opportunity—to conquer his own existence.

Every man must be his own hero. And that is the path to true greatness.

Quotes taken from Nietzsche’s Schopenhauer as Educator.