It is not flatlant. It is not a democracy. It is not egalitarian. There are winners and losers, there is hierarchy, there is complacency and there is fail. Not everything is equal and not everything is an equally good option.
Being happy is a rare accomplishment. You don’t get it from voting correctly, or having the correct opinions, or having the correct morals, or even having the correct attitude. It is an earned accomplishment that relies on a multitude of accomplishments working in synergy.
I’m one of many fans of Laidnyc’s writing, and am often in agreement with him. Another brother from another mother.
On his latest post about the importance of love I left this comment:
We’re on the same page. It’s as if we are writing the same page.
Yup, a life without oxytocin is a life of fail. Deliberately choosing a life without pair bonding is giving up on life. Yes, that’s saying it strongly, and I’m completely aware how much it pisses people off to hear it. But it’s true. Oxytocin is directly related to meaning – oxytocin is why you feel warm when your child comes across ants on the sidewalk for the first time and looks up at you in wonder and question. Oxytocin is why you wake up and go to sleep warm beside your loved one. Oxytocin gives you reason to be.
A life devoted to dopamine rushes is a life devoted to failing life. Dopamine is great and essential to the good life, but you can’t have a meaningful life that feels rich and warm without oxytocin.
Random Xpat Rantings 
This is a pertinent topic that I think even Rational Male is starting have to address. And I personally think it is key because I am both living it and at the same time researching the Biochemical nature of relationships. I have about 10 links up right now in tabs on my browser. nd the Goldmine in all of this SBN.com, the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology . And these links address the four way relationship in the brain of oxytocin, prolactin, dopamine and the kingpins in all of this Testosterone and Cortisol. Now what is amazing to me is when you get off into this treasure chest of info on this topic and you start seeing the dates on this stuff, often 10 years old, and I wonder why this shit is not more public. This is key stuff and important to know, to have out in the public domain as part and parcel of the discussion of “gender”. Here is one example right here:
Longitudinal evidence that fatherhood decreases
testosterone in human males
Lee T. Gettler, Thomas W. McDade, Alan B. Feranil, and Christopher W. Kuzawa
Department of Anthropology, and
Cells to Society, Center on Social Disparities and Health, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston,IL 60208; and
Office of Population Studies Foundation, University of San Carlos, Cebu City 6000, Philippines
Edited by A. E. Storey, Department of Psychology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NF, Canada, and accepted by the Editorial Board July 28,
2011 (received for review May 10, 2011)
In species in which males care for young, testosterone (T) is often
high during mating periods but then declines to allow for
caregiving of resulting offspring. This model may apply to human
males, but past human studies of T and fatherhood have been
cross-sectional, making it unclear whether fatherhood suppresses
T or if men with lower T are more likely to become fathers. Here,
we use a large representative study in the Philippines (n= 624) to
show that among single nonfathers at baseline (2005) (21.5±0.3 y),
men with high waking T were more likely to become partnered
fathers by the time of follow-up 4.5 y later (P<0.05). Men who
became partnered fathers then experienced large declines in wak-
ing (median:−26%) and evening (median:−34%) T, which were
significantly greater than declines in single nonfathers (P<0.001).
Consistent with the hypothesis that child interaction suppresses T,
fathers reporting 3 h or more of daily childcare had lower T at
follow-up compared with fathers not involved in care (P<0.05).
Using longitudinal data, these findings show that T and reproduc-
tive strategy have bidirectional relationships in human males, with
high T predicting subsequent mating success but then declining
rapidly after men become fathers. Our findings suggest that T
mediates tradeoffs between mating and parenting in humans, as
seen in other species in which fathers care for young. They also
highlight one likely explanation for previously observed health
disparities between partnered fathers and single men.
OK, so doesn't that sort of explain some stuff. My prior research had shown to me that Testosterone is key in attraction. I think it THE Key. In animals it is how males signal "fitness" to females, that it displays a highly devoloped immune system to be able to carry High Cost signals like plumage, size, color, and have the physical constitution to maintain those signals in the face of the parasite of load that face all species. And I believe that it is key in explaining female attraction. Studies show that when ovulating the traits that women find attractive, over looks, over money, over social position are Muscles, Confrontational and Arrogant behavior, and Unfaithfulness, all which go exactly against the grain of what is called the Sexual Selection Strategy where those women select "good" men as mates because they have such a high investment in reproduction and they seek a good partner.
So the this Biochemistry says that Fatherhood can turn you into a beta male. But it need not.
—-
Baby cries and nurturance affect testosterone in men
Sari M. van Anders, Richard M. Tolman, Brenda L. Volling
ABSTRACT
Testosterone (T) is generally theorized within a trade-off framework that contrasts parenting and low T withcompetitive challenges and high T. Paradoxically, baby cues increase T, prompting questions of whether T or itsbehavioral expression has been mischaracterized. We tested 55 men using a novel interactive infant doll para-digm, and results supported our hypotheses: We showed for the first time that baby cries do decrease T inmen, but only when coupled with nurturant responses. In contrast, baby cries uncoupled from nurturant responses increased T.These findings highlight the need to partition infantcues andin teractions in to nurturant versus competitive-related contexts to more accurately conceptualize T, as per the Steroid/Peptide Theory of SocialBonds. This experiment also supports the utility of this paradigm for studying effects of infan tinteractions on hormonal responses,which may provide criticali nsights into ameliorating the darker sides of caregiving(e.g.anger,frustration, violence) and enhancing the positive sides (e.g. intimacy, nurturance, reward).
——
So the big issue which research into Paternal Parenting is that there is so little of it compared to the quantity of Maternal Parenting and part of the reason is that the typical reseach animal, rats and mice, are not part of the 8% of mammals that have paternal investment in offspring. And furthermore, the aspects of research necessary, brain evaluation in non-intrusive manners, and hemodynamics to measure endocrine levels are just coming of ages today.
So my question is "Is all this part of this giant cultural and biological scam to fuck over men and drag them into parenthood all at the behest and purpose of the Feminine Imperative or is that nature of how men should live?"
And I believe that is gist of this post, A life without Oxytocin is a fail. Is living alone, avoiding women something that is truly going to make men happy?
When you begin to delve into Neuroscience, Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Pscyhology, you begin to get this picture that everything involved in social and reproductive "environment/gene expression" is there because it fucking worked.
And in my own personal life I have the same question, To be (in a relationship)…. Or NOT to be (in a relatioship). OK, so it is no secret that I am in new relationship. And for four years prior I was in this sort of "Monkdom" all based on my own Americanized version of the "Buddhist" concept of "nothingness".
And it sort of goes like this "Happiness is merely not being unhappy. If you are not unhappy then, algebraically, then you are happy with some "proof"
Unhappy = NOT Happy
Happy = NOT unhappy
Happy= NOT (NOT HAPPY)
So then I constructed a manner of living with the base Buddhist precept that "Life is suffering. You suffer because of your desires and attachments. You can cease your suffering be ending your desires and attachments. You can end your suffering by following the Eight Fold Path of "right" behavior." So then lo and behold, by chopping out the shit that made me unhappy, then I attained a remarkable of level of contentment.
And key to all of this was Staying Away From The Female Type Person. And I mean chopping them out at every possible way and avoid activities that would bring me in contact with them. I mean taking it to an extreme level. It used to piss me off how women would saunter along in the aisles of grocery stores, reading cans of food like the deepest meaning of life was written there, blocking the whole aisle with that big giant ass and that basket in combination creating an impassable barrier. Then they would doddle and mutz around at the checkout counter, actually being surprised that when the cashier had finished scanning the shit, the stupid array of crap that they had cobbled together in the basket, that lo and behold, they actually would need to pay. So I would fume when she dug around in her purse through all the nonsense that was essential to drag around the world in that purse and finally pull out her wallet and then be stupefied by that complex card reader thingy like she had never seen the thing before. So I found this amazing contentment by going in the middle of the night when they were not there.
And I took it unilaterally across all aspects of my life. If there were going be women there then I wasn't going to be there. And I saw two proper paths that were paths men could take, Game or MGTOW. If you could Game then you literally take that from women that was the only thing you could get from women that could not be gotten somewhere else. If you could not Game then you were best avoiding women.
So here the world is condemning me for going into this monkdom, this hermit experience, of no possessions, no financial goals, staying alone, entertaining myself. But I was content in a way I have never been content before. After 50 years of struggle I just let it all go. And I achieved a keen sense of contentment. And in my prior writing in the Manosphere, that was what I kinda sorta tried to convey.
Once you have been pretty close to the top of heap in work, in material gain, in family life, and then you see how miserable you can be, then when you cut all of that out, and all that anger fades away with time, there is this sense of contentment to be gained. It is like the old saying "When you stop heading yourself in the head with a hammer, it feels really good." And there is also that old Hee Haw joke where the patient would say to the old common sense country doctor, "Doctor, it hurts when I do this" and the old Doc would hit the patient over the head with an inflatable oversized hammer and say "Well then stop doing it".
And this all became fundamental to my Red Pill precepts. "Nothing" will make you happy. "Something" will make you unhappy. We often speak in Red Pill of the "Man with Options". But the truth is "All men have options" even if that option is "Nothing". That when you were standing in front of even the most attractive woman you will ever see, that if you view her as the epitome of "Something" and that "Something" has the greatest possibility of all things to make you unhappy, and you are aware of the real and actual costs that she will impose on you, on your contentment, on your "happiness", then you can get an overall sense of ease in dealing with her because her rejection of you, if you are so lucky, is probably the biggest favor she will ever do you. If she says "Fuck off Creep." then you really should say "Thank you so much" because you just dodged a massive bullet.
OK, this is a bullshit "terrestrial" American idea of "Nothingness". In Buddhism there is higher concept of it. You have these mental concepts of the "self" and as you perceive experiences you process through this notion of the self. If you begin to contemplate consciousness, and as you get further and further into it, you can begin to understand the utter ridiculousness of the idea of this self. So the Buddha was able to train himself to point that he no longer perceived experiences a "the self" and that was the moment of Nirvana. And in all statues of the Buddha, he is in the position of mediation, in Nirvana, and there is smile of relief and contentment on his face. He has stopped "Hitting himself in the head with a hammer".
But then also, in the life of the Buddha, he had been born into a wealthy family and lived a life of excess and that didn't give contentment. So you rejected that and lived the life of a pauper monk relying on alms for survival and that path did not work either.
So he proposed what is called "The Middle Way", means of living that is somewhere in between those two extremes.
So we are sort of at this crossroads now where we have to decide on this notion of life where we cannot be Blue Pill because that is a true path to unhappiness for many of us. And the alternative is a true Red Pill life where you absolutely reject women in one way or another. They are either sexual objects that you manipulate for that end, or they are a destructive force to be avoided altogether. So then Kate proposes something called "Purple Pill", a relationship in which both people accept and are aware of Red Pill truths but try to construct a relationship with those truths in minds. Probability is not Destiny.
So the big question in my mind right now is the reality of Biochemistry. I think it seminal and fundamental to this question.
I smack in the middle of this moment when I can compare a life without stress, with neither dopamine nor oxytocin, of minimal cortisol, hence less depression with being in a relationship, of having oxytocin, yet having my body try to grab a hold of me the chemical tyranny of bonding with it resultant increase in Vasopressin and cortisol.
So right now at this very moment, I sitting in her living room, there is this great view of a Great Lake out the window, the top is lying in his bed. Yes, she is divorced and has a kid. But all of them seem to be doing well now that I am here, having this big male presence in the house. She seems more content, more protected, the kid seems to be doing better, her grades are up in school, the dog is more settled. So both she and the child are off doing their day and in 5 hours they all come back and the noise level picks up and there is this hassle that I do not have without them. But if I do the right thing then the three of them, her, the kid, the dog, all seem to prosper.
And I give something but I get something in a real biochemical sense.
So to me, this is the next great question we need to address. I admit that I lean towards saying No, fuck oxytocin, it is fucking scam to place shackles on you, that it acts part and parcel with the other chemicals to produce an addictive effect that can ultimately drag you off a cliff if you don't avoid it.
But my current experiences, my daily life right now, is saying there can be a middle path.
When you are sitting in the dentist chair, philosophy doesn’t ease the pain. The same goes for all the various types of happiness and contentment; they are not philosophical in nature.
Relief can bring a type of happiness. After a divorce I was very happy for about a year, due to the relief from being away from my monster.
But that relief is a different quality of happiness than that brought about by a synergy of various successes. Certainly during that year I was also sexually frustrated and at times lonely. Although it was a better year than previously, it was nothing close to a lifetime peak.
Relatively speaking it was not success at all. Lack of hell does not equate to positivity. Buddhist notions can really fuck a guy up. They are mostly wrong, you know. Especially if taken at a surface level. We know a lot more nowadays than was known in Buddha’s day. He didn’t know how to drive a car for one thing, and he also didn’t know much about the realities of psychology and evolutionary psychology or endocrinology or neuro-psychology. His world view was not only incomplete, it was downright inaccurate. I can see it working for low class beggars – they get a status boost and assurances of free food by becoming monks. But otherwise it’s a mindfuck in a lot of ways.
You can’t just wave a philosophical wand at happiness and consider the job done. There are gradations of it, and qualities of it.
Not being permanently in the dentist chair does not count as success.
The fatherhood lowering testosterone thing has been spoken of frequently for a while; on the science oriented sites such as newscientist.com as well as other in more mainstream media. In my experience it’s possible to have what I assume must be high oxytocin, while at the same time being high T. The balance is challenging, to be sure – it’s logistics and planning and life crafting, even more so than attitude.
yeah not resonating on the pair bonding chemical is a failure of the whole construct, where do you even begin to logic?
English many?
When I read laidinny’s post I thought, oh I wonder what xspat has to say about that, so I’m glad you commented. But can you elaborate more about oxytocin vs dopamine? I obviously have a lot to learn because that was totally over my head.
You make some good points, but I don’t agree that life is a game.
There’s no scoreboard. Nobody cares how much love you are blessed with, just as nobody counts how many girls you bed.
I think some men can have a full and rich life without having a real romantic relationship. They are a minority, but they exist and shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. By and large these men are religious and their relationship is with God.
As an Epicurean I don´t think buddha is the right path. I think Epicur is still unmatched imho when it comes to the art of happiness that is to go into the garden and there is no need to hassle. Life should not be so complicated. Live your life privately don´t go into politics and have some friends. Also don´t get used to drugs like oxytocion and testosteron because of the hedonic adaptation. Appreciate that what you have and masturbation is very satisfying.
Hedonic adaptation is overstated. It is possible to raise the happiness set point, and that’s been studied. Also circumstance makes a much bigger difference than is admitted.
Raising happiness is real. It’s rare, difficult, and real.
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