There have been a number of posts on this subreddit in the last few weeks relating to victims and victimhood (e.g. this and this). Those threads raised a number of interesting points about TRP views on victimhood, and reaffirmed that a core principle of TRP is a rejection of the modern pandemic of "victim mentality.” However, I think they also raised, unintentionally, a key point about why that principle is a central tenet … that it is not simply about a rejection of a socio-political viewpoint, or feminism, or the like … but rather runs much, much deeper:

It is a principle for how we live our lives, how we love, and how we fail. Whether it be women, our career, or our other passions in life, these three things define a man.

 

User /u/IllimitableMan once said “Women are fickle, they are a crap foundation to build your success upon" (here). /u/Archwinger reiterated that “respect is earned”. Love and failure are intimately intertwined.

I can tell you stories, stories of a boy that was once me … a shadow in the cold night left in the aftermath of woman’s long gone glow. It wasn’t that I did not know how to love, or even what love was … no, it was that I did not know how to fail. I was old enough to be a man, but I did not know how to be a man.

I can also tell you what happened after that. A 180 degree turn. Who once was the shadow became the shadow-maker … cold-hearted, emotionless, I could play the game with the best of them. I learned the tricks, spoke smooth words. Women seemed to respond. My notch count rising. I was untouchable by the tides or storms, and for a time I felt better.

But the wall I put between myself and lovers was as much a wall between myself and life. A void. Something was still amiss. I thought myself a rock, but really I simply avoided failure. The wall was my crutch. In short, I was still of a victim mindset, just in an entirely different way.

 

And this brings me to Pook.

One of the hardest things I faced in swallowing the Red Pill was the feeling that I was somehow “killing my dreams”. Blue Pill dreams perhaps, but dreams nonetheless. And what is a man without dreams? Without ideas? Without aspirations? He is nothing more than a shell of a man.

If we replace those dreams with other dreams, better dreams, more realistic dreams, does that mean we have progressed? Are we different from who we were before? Or are we just a reflection replaced by another? A reflection shimmering upon the water’s surface. Have we truly changed what lies beneath?

Pook once said that you must "unite your dream and day". For a long time after I went down the TRP road, I didn’t quite understand what he meant, beyond some superficial sense. I understood the need to self-improve, to be the prize and that lifting was key … who you are inside is reflected on the outside. And surely, if I put my nose to the grindstone, if I worked hard, if I changed the way I appeared on the outside, then that must reflect who I was on the inside. It goes both ways, right? Or does it?

The life of a Man is not to be coddled and guided. A man is not born, he is made. He must fail, he must be broken, he must be resurrected. He must live out his imagination, fearlessly. You see many here in the depths of throes over women, or a breakup, or whatever, questioning what they did wrong. Or full of anger, or spite. But these are the trials and tribulations that define the path. The necessary part of being a man. It is not our perfection or our shiny new muscles or clothes, but our willingness to fail, to take risk. And moreover, how we respond to such failure.

 

My past dreams were really the dreams of another, defined by the perfection others demanded, or that I thought women wanted. Or as Pook said your fellow nobles, all ambitious with dagger eyes, will try to place themselves on this throne of your world, to get you to live in their world. They will crown themselves with your dreams.

When I let go of my old dreams, I wasn’t letting go of my own, but those of others. That is not the life of a Man. A man must live fearlessly, full of designs upon the world. He must fail, for a man who never fails never truly pushed the boundaries. Embrace failure, it is the platform upon which greatness stands. A sword must be forged in fire … be the sword.

I no longer dream of perfection, but I still dream. I dream of the struggle.

The impediment to action advances action. That which is in the way becomes the way. - Marcus Aurelius