This is a guest post by Kid Strangelove. Kid originally published this article at his own blog, but he deleted the site a while ago so he could focus on other projects. He asked me if I’d be willing to re-post some of his articles on my blog and I said yes.
Last weekend, I had a good friend come to visit me. Let’s call him Tony: I’ll probably slip up and say his real name somewhere below, but I’ll try not to. Tony has a pretty hard life: it’s hard for him to find employment in his field (he is a teacher), he lived in a depressing Rust Belt city for a long time, he’s overweight, he comes from an incredibly conservative (and sometimes violent family), the works. Tony is a pretty depressing guy.
In fact, a friend of mine suggested that Tony might be suffering from clinical depression: no matter what happened, he always managed to put a negative spin on anything that happened to him. For example, on that particular Saturday, I pulled two girls to our friends’ table at the bar we were hanging out at, went to the bathroom, came back and they were gone. He told me, “Sorry man. They said they went to the bathroom, but they probably just ditched us after they got one look at my sorry ass. My fault, man.” They were back minutes later. Turns out, they had gone to the bathroom. Problem solved.
Whenever Tony is around, I always find myself to be the opposite of him: energetic, optimistic, and in high spirits. My goal is to show him a good time for the few days that he’s around me and that life is worth living. We had a bit of a breakthrough when he saw a painting on loan at the Whitney Museum that he wanted to see for years. He was ecstatic. He found his muse and he couldn’t stop talking about it for hours.
Clik here to view.
On loan to the Whitney Museum until September.
And then, just like that, his elation faded away. When he was away from his muse, he slowly reverted to his old attitude. But at least we had a breakthrough.
***
The story does not end here. Rather, it fragments. Flash back to this Tuesday. I had finished everything I had to do that day, I’d worked out, and I’d eaten, so I decided to go on a walk by the East River to have a moment alone with my thoughts. I did not like what I heard. I was becoming like Tony.
Every thought I had was spinning into a negative one. “It’s too hot, it’s too loud, there’s nothing to do, there’s nothing to do if you’re trying to abstain from alcohol, these girls are gross, the ratio is horrible, these girls sound annoying, am I really on the only block in NYC without a Duane Reade, my wrist hurts (probably my only legit gripe that night, since I hurt myself deadlifting that evening), whine whine whine, bitch bitch bitch.”
And I couldn’t stop these thoughts: it was as if I was primed to spit them out. It didn’t matter that my business partner and I are working on a side project that is weeks away from launch, it didn’t matter that I met some really cool girls over the weekend, it didn’t even matter that a giant group of my friends came out to celebrate my birthday and showed me a tremendous amount of love: none of it mattered. I just could not shake that feeling.
So I did what I always do: try to distract myself with some media.
And then it hit me: the media are enablers. Especially the manosphere.
Here are some of the articles you’ve probably read or seen as of late:
- Look at this blue-pilled fag destroying his life. Let’s laugh at him!
- LOL, feminism.
- LOL, women and men are different, amirite?
- I’m a winner, you’re a loser, hahaha!
- Fat people are fat!
- I fucked a HB9 because I’m a winner with game! Swag, swag, whoop!
Considering I also like to read non-mainstream political coverage because the mainstream media is hot garbage, you can also add:
- Jews are ruining the world.
- Muslims are ruining the world.
- Black people are ruining the world.
- Every government official is listening in on everything you are doing.
To sum up all the media I consume: “Life sucks. Deal with it or kill yourself.”
While I cherish the information that I get from these sites, the cycle has to stop now.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Even though this Yoda quote is taken from the one Star Wars movie that I am required to hate as a hardcore Star Wars geek, he was right.
Those negative feelings consume you. They are as strong as a drug. And they need to be combated.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
So what do you do? Make a list of things that make you happy as fuck. They can be anything. Here is a sample of mine:
- The above GIF.
- The musical stylings of Lil’ B. A variety of different music in general available at my disposal.
- Pro wrestling. Yes, I love pro wrestling. I love the drama, I love the swerves, I love the cheese.
- The Joe Rogan Experience (seriously, best podcast ever).
That’s only a small sample, but I make sure I have access to at least one of these things at all times. Note that I didn’t mention any drugs and alcohol, because those are only temporary solutions that don’t address the core of your negative feelings (although they do mask them, in many cases really well).
So smile, get out there and enjoy the world. It’s not so bad out there.
Read Next: How the Fake News Media is Poisoning Your Mind
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