Desiring To Bite
Hey friends,
I hope you beautiful people are doing well. :)
This weekends event:
Metagame Mastermind w/ Daniel Kazandjian.Every Saturday @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Freestyling Through a Pandemic w/ Tyson Wagner. Every Saturday @ 8:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Stoic Breath w/ Steve Beattie.Every Sunday @ 10:00 AM ET. RSVP here.
The Good, the True, and the Beautiful w/ Jared Janes. Every Sunday @ 12:30 PM ET. RSVP here.
Mediation Campfire w/ Jason Snyder and Jared Janes. Every Sunday @ 3:30 PM ET. RSVP here.
Oxytocin Party w/ Raya Sun. Every Sunday @ 8:00 PM ET. RSVP here: May 3rd. RSVP here.
***
May 1, 2020
It was fun being Peterson’s client, and especially experiencing the underlying alpha male dynamics. He has a penetrating stare, and I am not shy in that area either. I can usually hold eye contact with the best of them, but, out of respect for my elder, I always broke eye contact first.
One time, there was an unspoken intensity in the air between the two of us and we stopped talking and just stared at each other. I had a strong desire to look away, but I recall saying fuck it, I am not backing down. It was on, and we were looking at each other for quite some time, until he broke eye contact.
I did the “Big Five” personality test with him, and it turned out, despite my social veneer of being good natured, I scored extremely low in agreeableness. He did on the spot theorizing and said that I may have been exposed to high testosterone levels in the womb. This does map onto my experience.
I remember when I was around four years old, a kid much older than me was picking on me in the neighbourhood. I went psycho and bit him. I would not let go, and he could not get me off him. He cried, ran to his mom, with the gift of my teeth marks on display. I am not afraid to bite. I secretly enjoy it.
When I was chatting with Jordan Hall in London last year, in his hotel room, about things the Blue Church would not approve of, I told him that sometimes, when I feel like another man is fucking with me, I want to rip out his throat with my teeth. Yeah, probably some creepy alpha male posturing was going on there, but he understood, a lot of men do, and it is somewhat true.
A part of me is a bad man. A part of me desires to dominate for its own sake. This part wants to be that bloodthirsty alpha male, with his big swinging dick, knocking all his competitors out of the way. That H. L. Mencken quotation comes to mind: Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.
I am not that smart or knowledgeable. I did terribly at school. Barely passed. Partly because I never paid attention and never listened. In retrospect, I was probably waiting to listen in the right way, but the story that haunted me for most of my adult life was that I never lived up to my academic, hence intellectual, potential.
Given my historical intellectual insecurities, an anger and jealousy formed towards those who appeared to have reached their intellectual potential. I am not insecure anymore, and I am no longer angry or jealous, and this seems to have been transmuted into a certain embodied thumos. I have a hard time being around people who feel to me like disembodied males, who are egoically attached to the products of their minds. I have a desire to bring them back to their bodies. But I do not want to dominate for its own sake. That is deeply unwise, and it would be playing the old game.
Now I know what Cool Hand Luke knew: Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand. If you come from a place of radical unknowningness, with a healthy amount of embodied thumos, and if you're no slouch in the reasoning department, then it will be hard to mess with you in the philosophical arena. Epistemic cowboys, especially when they come from a loving place, can be very tricky, in the right way.
I am starting to really enjoy the divine feminine. I am falling for her, along with all the women and men who are feminine. I am especially falling in love with my inner queen. I am falling in love with the divine masculine as well, along with my inner king. And not just the virtuous stuff, but the bad stuff too. I am falling in love with my desire to bite.
***
Gift Economy / The Stoa currently operates through a gift economy. We are offering the Stoa as a gift, for people to freely use during these troubled times. If you are inspired to provide a gift to The Stoa, email thestoa at protonmail dot com. Your gift can take the form of money, support, services or ideas. If you wish to gift money, you can do so here or here for ongoing gifts.