In 2012, I asked my dad two questions that changed our relationship forever.

 This was the first time I saw my dad cry.

 In a single instant, over a decade of misunderstanding and pain was healed.

Atop a secluded mountain lived an old mystic

This mystic was a hermit as most tend to be, but knowledge of his whereabouts and the lives he's changed spread by word-of-mouth even to the other side of the world.

“I’m a Nice Guy. I’m not like those douchebag, toxically masculine guys. For that reason I deserve a good woman.”

If you’re a Nice Guy, you’ve probably said or thought this before. I sure have. I was your poster-child Nice Guy.

It makes sense that you have reasons for your cynicism. Perhaps you’ve experienced the deep heartbreak of betrayal. Perhaps you were treated in absolutely deplorable ways by women. Or maybe you’ve put your best foot forward only to find yourself friendzoned over and over.

One of the unacknowledged roots of "emotionally unavailable men" is the mother complex. He has perfect reason to feel afraid of intimacy, because at his most vulnerable moments as a boy it was consciously/unconsciously held hostage by his own mother - his first love.

One look out into the modern Western world and you will see a society possessed by the shadow feminine: groupthink, control via shame, and lack of boundaries are widespread. The antidote is reclaiming and embodying masculine principles of differentiation, disagreeability, and discernment.

Photo by Ricardo Moura on Unsplash.

We’ve gotten real good at articulating what is wrong. Do we even remember how to speak words that build up, inspire, and give life? I would argue that we do not, or that we have forgotten.

Photo by Miguel Henriques on Unsplash.