The Vinegar Tasters

I see posts around here from all the different stages of red pill acceptance. There are a lot of anger posts, where the author points out how terrible women can be, there are a lot of depressive posts, where the author sees no way to become a better man, and there are lots of posts from guys who’ve unplugged. These posts are the ones that give grains of insight into obtaining mastery over our lives, and help us realise that the red pill truth is not so bad. Sure, it’s a shock to the system, and granted, it can have a bitter flavour going down. But when you open your eyes to the world around you, with a fresh lens, it’s hard not to feel a sense of happiness and contentment with your new found perspective.

The key to my sense of happiness and well-being was to accept things as they are. There were many attachments and desires I used to cling to. I had ideas about how the world should work, how my life could be, and about a mythical unicorn’s role in my life. But as I let go of these attachments to fantasy I found a far more significant contentment with the life I was actually living. Not only that, but I became much more aware of the real possibilities in my life. Because I had been so attached to what I wanted, I was too blind to see what was in front of me- what life actually is. More than any physical or social improvement in my life, this change in perspective made me a better man.

The best thing is that this perspective shift is available to any person at any time. To explain what I mean, I’d like to share an allegory of the Three Vinegar Tasters.

This excerpt comes from the Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff:

Let's imagine that we have walked down a narrow street in a large Chinese city and have found a small shop that sells scrolls painted in the classic manner. We go inside and ask to be shown something allegorical - something humorous, perhaps, but with some sort of Timeless Meaning. The shopkeeper smiles. "I have just the thing," he tells us. "A copy of The Vinegar Tasters!" He leads us to a large table and unrolls the scroll, placing it down for us to examine. "Excuse me - I must attend to something for a moment," he says, and goes into the back of the shop, leaving us alone with the paint- ing.

We see three men standing around a vat of vinegar. Each has dipped his finger into the vinegar and has tasted it. The expression on each man's face shows his individual reaction. Since the painting is allegorical, we are to understand that these are no ordinary vinegar tasters, but are instead representatives of the "Three Teachings" of China, and that the vinegar they are sampling represents the Es- sence of Life. The three masters are K'ung Fu-tse (Confucius), Buddha, and Lao-tse, author of the oldest existing book of Taoism. The first has a sour look on his face, the second wears a bitter expression, but the third man is smiling.

To K'ung Fu-tse (kung FOOdsuh), life seemed rather sour. He believed that the present was out of step with the past, and that the government of man on earth was out of harmony with the Way of Heaven, the government of the universe. Therefore, he emphasized reverence for the Ancestors, as well as for the ancient rituals and ceremonies in which the emperor, as the Son of Heaven, acted as intermediary between limitless heaven and limited earth. Under Confucianism, the use of precisely measured court music, prescribed steps, actions, and phrases all added up to an extremely complex system of rituals, each used for a particular purpose at a particular time. A saying was recorded about K'ung Fu-tse: "If the mat was not straight, the Master would not sit." This ought to give an indication of the extent to which things were carried out under Confucianism.

To Buddha, the second figure in the painting, life on earth was bitter, filled with attachments and desires that led to suffering. The world was seen as a setter of traps, a generator of illusions, a revolving wheel of pain for all creatures. In order to find peace, the Buddhist considered it necessary to transcend "the world of dust" and reach Nirvana, literally a state of "no wind." Although the essentially optimistic attitude of the Chinese altered Buddhism considerably after it was brought in from its native India, the devout Buddhist often saw the way to Nirvana interrupted all the same by the bitter wind of everyday existence.

To Lao-tse (LAOdsuh), the harmony that naturally existed between heaven and earth from the very beginning could be found by anyone at any time, but not by following the rules of the Confucianists. As he stated in his Tao Te Ching (DAO DEH JEENG), the "Tao Virtue Book," earth was in essence a reflection of heaven, run by the same laws - not by the laws of men. These laws affected not only the spinning of distant planets, but the activities of the birds in the forest and the fish in the sea. According to Lao-tse, the more man interfered with the natural balance produced and governed by the universal laws, the further away the harmony retreated into the distance. The more forcing, the more trouble. Whether heavy or light, wet or dry, fast or slow, everything had its own nature already within it, which could not be violated without causing difficulties. When abstract and arbitrary rules were imposed from the outside, struggle was inevitable. Only then did life become sour.

To Lao-tse, the world was not a setter of traps but a teacher of valuable lessons. Its lessons needed to be learned, just as its laws needed to be followed; then all would go well. Rather than turn away from "the world of dust," Lao-tse advised others to "join the dust of the world." What he saw operating behind everything in heaven and earth he called Tao (DAO), "the Way." A basic principle of Lao-tse's teaching was that this Way of the Universe could not be adequately described in words, and that it would be insulting both to its unlimited power and to the intelligent human mind to attempt to do so. Still, its nature could be understood, and those who cared the most about it, and the life from which it was inseparable, understood it best.

In the painting, why is Lao-tse smiling? After all, that vinegar that represents life must certainly have an unpleasant taste, as the expressions on the faces of the other two men indicate. But, through working in harmony with life's circumstances, Taoist understanding changes what others may perceive as negative into something positive. From the Taoist point of view, sourness and bitterness come from the interfering and unappreciative mind. Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet. That is the message of The Vinegar Tasters.

"Sweet? You mean like honey?" asked Pooh.

"Well, maybe not that sweet," I said. "That would be overdoing it a bit."

The allegory above gives a story about three perspectives on life, and while they relate to ancient Chinese thought, you can understand them through the red pill lens. Imagine that these men represent three men learning about the nature of life, love, women, or whatever. Confucius has a sour expression on his face. He might represent a Blue Pill man, someone in the denial phase, or a beta who holds a specific fantasy about true love.

This man believes that women today are out of step with the way women should be. He has reverence for the way women allegedly used to behave and harbours fantasies about the traditional family structure, with himself at the head of the family as the breadwinner, and a submissive wife and loving children. To achieve this end, he learns meticulous game through the acquisition of pick up lines, stacks, negs, and tries to court women using precisely measured steps and routines. With every rejection or failed relationship he grows more sour, believing women to be the source of all his problems. He doubles down on his efforts though, because he believes that doing the right things at the right times will eventually land him his mythical unicorn and he will fulfil the fantasy living in his mind.

The second man in the painting has a bitter expression. He represents MGTOW. The Men who GTOW see women as trap setters and view their courting behaviour as mere unconvincing illusions designed to secure a man into an LTR in order to extract resources from him. This man believes that all of his attachments and desires are the source of his unhappiness and, since women today are so damaged and rotten, he wouldn’t invest his time and effort into them anyway. MGTOW seek Nirvana by ridding themselves of their attachments to women and society and attempt to reach a state of pure independence. These men can find a woman to use for their sexual needs if they so desire, but ultimately there’s little interest in the pursuit of women or relationships.

The third man in the painting is smiling. This is your Red Pill aware man, a man who has reached the Acceptance stage. Why is he smiling? Doesn’t he know that life is hard? That as a man you are judged solely by what you can do for the world, that women will try to extract resources from you, bosses will work your ass to the bone, that true love doesn’t exist and unicorns are a fantasy? Doesn’t this smiling idiot realise that most women aren’t marriage material, that they can’t love you unconditionally, that marriage often means sexlessness and divorce is male-rape?

Yes. He understands that this is simply how the world works, and who is he to dictate how the world should work? He knows all of this and more. The enlightened man understands courtship between the sexes has always had risks and hazards. That women have different priorities than he does. Why would that make him upset, or angry? He has the unique position in life to choose his life’s path, to select his sexual partners, and can easily navigate the pitfalls and hazards of inter sexual relationships because he sees what’s actually there. He doesn’t cling to fantasies of a patriarchal marriage, or believe in unicorns. He sees that women, and bosses, and family and friends, are all teachers of valuable lessons from which he can learn much about the nature of life, and love, and work, and all manner of things.

The Red Pill aware man appreciates the teachings of all influences in his life and is happy to receive them. They bring him joy and contentment. He basks in the ephemeral nature of feminine emotion, and revels in the character-building difficulty of hard work. Why should any of these teachings make him sad? Why angry? The world is simply how it is. Nothing more, nothing less.

The man in the acceptance stage doesn’t try to interfere with life’s natural ebbs and flows. It is not the nature of life or women to bring unhappiness or pain. Pain and unhappiness come from forcing life or women to be something they aren’t. The more forcing, the more trouble. Everything in life has its own tendency, and when working in harmony with this tendency, life is sweet. The hypergamy of females works in this man’s favour. The emotional currents of femininity are complemented by his stoic masculinity. Women will come and women will go, just as will hard times, good times, times of plenty and times of drought.

The Red Pill man is smiling because he understands the nature of life and women. After all, life embraced brings about tremendously beautiful experiences.