Silas Nyanchwani: Memo No. 58 From the National Welfare Desk of Men-BEYOND THE RED PILL

Memo No. 58 From the National Welfare Desk of Men
BEYOND THE RED PILL: RETHINKING MGTOW
{A bit long and personal, this is subject to debate and I welcome all manner of friendly and educative opinions in the comment section.}
If you have ever been served a proper Ph.D in Character Development from the Institute of Women, one of those that send you to Square 1, you lose your head, shed a few kilos, and you feel like sh*t, you know that feeling of resentment you have towards women in the aftermath.
If at the time of the heartbreak you stumble upon the Red pill content and you start consuming it, you may end up down a rabbit hole that you may never emerge from. It is like when you are suffering and you stumble upon those prosperity preachers who mention all your problems (unemployment, a life of debt, disease, marital issues, lack of companion), they talk about these things in such a charismatic way, you think it is God who has sent them to talk to you directly. You can be sucked in easily. Yet, scratch the surface and the façade is always there.

After watching hours upon hours of the red pill stuff, I have concluded that, while the intent is good most of the time, it becomes counterproductive. It has heaped so much pressure on men to be ‘more men’ than some of the men can be.
That is why, especially in the West and among certain demographics, men want to perform and prove their masculinity; I see in the comment sections, men want larger pipes, some want beards, some want to perform better in bed, some want to be super rich, some want to prove how good, clever, intelligent, and how uncaring they are towards women and such. This outward showmanship of masculinity and bravado can help but up to a point.

I am lucky to have read Kenya’s greatest columnist in my late teens and early 20s, and this shaped my outlook of masculine stuff. I realised from the master himself that, you can no more perform how to be a man, than you can force a car that is not a four-wheel in a muddy patch of the road.

I will never discredit the men who churn content in the manosphere. They have that opened the eyes of men. Mine as well. I respect them, I have learn a lot from them, will still do. But one must have a spirit of discernment to know when to stop and adopt realistic standards about life.

My best friend told me the beauty of the red pill is that it holds the mirror back to women. It is men, asking back an equivalent of what women normally ask from or in men. And therein lurks the danger of the red pill.

When the knowledge gained from the red pill is not deployed well in one’s life, we end up with a situation of men overdoing and underdoing stuff, to prove a point. What you need to know is that you are enough already as you are. Do you sometimes meet these incredibly beautiful women who ruin everything by either overdressing or underdressing, or applying too much makeup? That is what consuming too much media without questioning it does to you. You are always insecure about something, and you want to compensate.
Here is the thing guys. And this is my personal take, and divergent opinion is allowed.

To me, the red pill is a stage of enlightenment upon which you decide what road to take. It is the Saul to Paul moment. It is when your eyes are opened to stuff like hypergamy in the modern capitalist sense, female solipsism, Briffault’s Law, the history of intergender relationships, the ‘disposability’ of the male gender in the social dynamics of relationships (I put the word disposable in quotes because I don’t think that men are disposable, but I digress). There is a lot to learn from the red pill, that typically most men don’t know until they encounter these things head-on.

For instance, a man who married in his 20s, and is still happily married 20 years later, with little to no possibility of divorce may never understand what hypergamy is in his lifetime, like a man who loses his wife when he loses his job. The same way a woman who has never been cheated on will never understand how hypergamy and polygamy are conjoined.

Some men get away with their blissful ignorance and some have to contend with the harsh reality of this terrain called life.
If by any chance, you became red-pilled after a harsh encounter with women, down the line, you have to take stock on how much of the red pill you can take, and when do you stop and move on.

Mark Manson in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*uck, talks of this Japanese army general who got stuck in the forest in the Philippines chasing American enemies during the Second World War. Then he got stuck there, cut off from the world, never trusting anyone and he spent 30 years in the forest, never believing that the war had ended. It is not until the mid-70s that he was traced down, only to go back to find the Japanese society so vastly changed, he wondered why he fought so hard to defend the Emperor and the Japanese culture that had been decimated by Western capitalism.

The same thing can happen to us. Sometimes, we get stuck in something that cuts us off from the world and we don’t even know it.
So, for me, the red pill is a moment of enlightenment and beyond it, the much-maligned MGTOW can be redefined in various ways. Presently, it is seen from the lens of the demographic of men who denigrate women, and others like incels whose numbers may grow locally, as the economy grinds some men into oblivion.

But from the word jump, I never championed this class within that space. I understand their misgivings, but I always pray that they can outgrow them. There are other red-pilled men who have distanced themselves from MGTOW for their own reasons.

But here is how I look at it. If as men, we are to go our own way, we should go for our own sake as opposed to proving a point to women. You can actually marry, date women, sleep with women and still be a man on your own mission. I know so many married men who can be described as MGTOW on account of the fact that they ruthlessly focus on their goals and spare the necessary time for the family. These men can never be distracted by their women or any woman, and they know their boundaries.

To me, healthy MGTOW is first of all accepting the things we can never change about either gender. Secondly, you can choose to game the system or to choose your battles wisely. I like the latter, because you are firmly in control, and you only cut your coat according to your cloth.

Masculinity to me is not what you wear on the outside. It is what is on the inside. It is good to display all the macho stuff; walk upright, show your beard, use your car key to impress, talk with bass, be aggressive. But all these don’t matter if on the inside you are aching, hurting, and weak. As you work on the outside, work as twice for the man inside you. I talk about this in one of the memos “How to Cultivate your Inner strength” in the Book of memos.

More to the point. Some of the most outwardly masculine people out here are the biggest coward who suffers the worst insecurities, trust you me. And some of the men we deride and dismiss sometimes pack more courage and inwardly are more strong than your average macho poseur.
The great Wole Soyinka, when dismissing Leopold Senghor and Aime Cesaire’s idea of negritude, he told them, “a tiger does not proclaim its tigritude, it pounces.”

So, to me, my aim will never be to have the longest beard (it can grow like the one Moses had and I like it), or to be super rich (I like money, no doubt), or to sleep with the most number of young women (which man has no such fantasies) or to rule the world (well, I wish I can, like Nas and Lauryn Hill).

Every day, I want to cultivate an inner man who is at peace and content. A man who makes calculated choices that my old self will enjoy and not regret. A man who can be comfortable living in Mukuru kwa Njenga as he will be comfortable in Muthaiga. A man who will be least concerned about what other people think about him as long what I am doing is right by God and man. A man who seeks and engages women who he can work with the least friction. Naturally, I have avoided aggressive people and anyone who does not guarantee me a peaceful afternoon to enjoy some W. Somerset Maugham, with my beer.

Choose the man you want to be. Know, half the time, the world does not care much about the displays of your machoness. And if you don’t feel good about yourself on the inside, you can be given the whole world, and you will never be satisfied.
Ask Trump.

(To be continued in another book/forum)
Here is to a thoughtful weekend, and I am still hawking the book.