EOTM: Healing Men - Going to the Valley*

( * In honor of Ayn Rand. )

1. Shoot your television.

Television is the most destructive force in the world today. By turning it on, you invite into your home and into your mind a conspiracy by some of the most brilliant minds in the world to undermine your sense of self-esteem and your ability to be happy. Advertising relies on 3 principles: fear, uncertainty, and doubt. This is referred to as the FUD factor. Advertising intentionally undermines these and ties the product being sold to solving the dilemmas of these universal human emotions. Television also contains the "Fundamental Lie of Media" which is that what you are seeing has any relationship to reality whatsoever, and particularly that it is a true and accurate representation of reality.

2. Rid yourself of guilt and shame.

Guilt is "I did something wrong." Shame is "I AM something wrong." The concept of "Original Sin" is a means of social control, and a very effective one. Children get infected with the virus of shame before they learn to walk, talk, or control their bowels. Many spend the rest of their lives trying to atone for something over which they had no absolutely no control. Of course, this means they waste all the time and energy which they might have used to change things over which they did have some control so the cycle feeds itself.

3. Reclaim your own moral authority.

Learn to rely on your own sense of ethics and internalized value system to judge the rightness or wrongness of anything you do. Before the 10 commandments was the law: Love is the law, love under will. Harm none, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Act in love, love of life, choose every action for the best of those affected; and you will live free from guilt and shame.

4. De-mythologize women and men.

Both have a light side and a dark side, just like duct tape. Women are NOT the "fairer" sex. Men are NOT universally violent, exploitive of abusive.

5. Decide what you really want.

Its your life. Everybody gets only one. Practice responsible stewardship of this great and mystical gift.

6. Educate yourself on the issues.

Don’t be suckered by lies: particularly feminist lies.

7. Don’t be afraid/unwilling to fight.

This is how men harm themselves most. Remember the bullies in grade school who would beat up kids and take their lunch money. Kids who challenged them sometimes got a bloody lip or a black eye, but then usually ended up keeping their lunch money. If you are dealing with someone who consistently refuses to fight fair, then -

8. Don’t be afraid to walk.

The power to leave is seriously underutilized. Remember the old country and western song "You can take this job and shove it." People who abuse their power are often abetted by simple voluntary submission to that power. Remember that all relationships except marriage and child-support are purely voluntary.

9. Hold women accountable.

Name it, demand they claim it, tame it. If you catch someone cheating, call her on it. If she refuses to own it, then walk.

10. Do not be fooled by the tyranny of the weak.

It is the most subtle form of power. The ultimate shell game of power. There are no sins of omission, only commission. Any phrase in the form of "I need you to … " Is a foul lie and designed to trigger the reflexive protect/provide male role. Some one may need human contact, or reassurance. Saying that they need you to call them every day is a control game masked by weakness. Leave these people to grow up or disintegrate on their own.

11. Do not fall for mix and match logic.

"So?", "So What?", and "What does that have to do with it?" will get you somewhere. Argument, defensiveness, or justification will not.

12. Demand your right to want what you want and participate in the definition of the relationship.

The female does NOT "make the rules." Any fool can make a rule, and only fools will mind it.

13. Practice civil disobedience in the face of the social demand that you bear all the responsibility and risk for initiation.

14. Look honestly at the power games you play and put them behind you.

15. Learn the law of the harvest.

16. Understand the entire secret of male power: Just do it.

Shut up and shovel the fuckin’ gravel.

17. Never trash a woman for free expression of her sexuality. Remove the word "slut" from your vocabulary.

18. Never tolerate being trashed for your sexuality.

You are alive because of sex, the person attempting to trash you is alive because of sex. People who trash sex are trashing life and in a very real way are part of the death worshipping cult which dominates the national consciousness today.

19. Learn to recognize man-hating. It is poisonous and all pervasive.

20. Reclaim your own self esteem by ridding yourself of attachment to its substitutes: ego and status.

These are socially based and very fragile and can be taken away from you in an instant. A deep understanding in the true inherent value of the self cannot.

21. Study the use of makeup and jewelry.

Do not consider a relationship with a woman who habitually wears either and particularly avoid women who habitually wear both.. Don’t spend much time with a woman who is afraid of her own face. Understand that lying about her face is just the tip of the iceberg: she will also lie about a great many other things.

22. Study the matriarchy of family and the educational system.

Most men as well as women grow up with men largely absent from their lives until they reach High School, by which time basic personality and social attitudes are completely entrenched. With the father emotionally or physically absent, mothers often engage in an unconscious form of "emotional incest" with their sons, asking them to fill the role in the mother’s life that the father failed to do. Thus young males start life with an emotional debt to pay off which was incurred by someone else. (Think about the biblical phrase "Visiting the sins of the fathers on the children unto the 3rd and 4th generation.) This is the emotional equivalent of the $27,000 of national debt which is the share that each child born today must pay off, with accumulated interest in his/her lifetime.

23. Do not allow yourself to be tricked into acting simply to prove something.

This is one of the most subtle and effective forms of manipulation. A denial of a wrong is not the same as an affirmation, even if if does move you in the same direction. Many people try to manipulate others by "accusing" them of the opposite way they want them to behave, so that the denial of the accusation will involve some action to prove that it is false. The prototype of the way men use this against men is "Whassmatta, are you chicken (afraid, a wimp, ...)?". The prototype of the way women use this against men is "Do you think I look fat?" or "I'm afraid you're going to leave me." A killer 1-2 combination is "Are you AFRAID to make a commitment?" Attempts to prove these accusations false are always more destructive than saying "Yes, and this is why...".

24. Spend time in the company of men.

Men’s groups, men’s work, men friends. And among women who do not hate maleness.