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You always knew there ought to be a name for it - the state of mind suffered only by men, related to women and or work... and not be fully living.
I have a word to coin. One that's likely been in your life at some point, if only for a day, or a week, or a month. It blocked your ability to meet women, but not to be out and about socially. It thwarted your sense of pride in your work, but not enough to prevent you from getting out of bed every morning to take the bus to that office cubicle.
Its DEPRESCULINITY - an interesting word, isnt it?
You already know what it means I suspect. If you are a man, you have very likely felt it at some point of your life, if even for an hour or a day or a week.
As the name might imply, it has something to do with depression, and also something to do with masculinity, which is of course of interest to men. It is a situation specific to men and which only men would find themselves in.
This is not a newsletter or a site for actual healthcare. Its about discussing issues that are important to men. In kind, leaving aside clinical diagnoses, Im sure there was a time in your life that you just felt bad about yourself, about how your life is going, you wish there had been more for you, and you maybe didnt even have the words for what you were experiencing.
It didnt feel like something you felt the desire to go get checked it just felt blah, like you could still go to work, socialize or have friendships, but there was just a gnawing sensation that something was missing for you.
At times in the past newsletters and even the Mature Masculine Power Program I have talked about Joseph Campbells heros journey, and how a feature of that model of growing the life of a man has periods in it he called The Wasteland.
The Wasteland
These times were challenging, where the hero doubts himself, is on the losing end of his quest, and is very uncertain about what to do to overcome the setback, or how things will turn out.
If youve ever wondered about this and what to call it, chances are you were suffering from a hit to both your self-esteem felt sad or angry or fearful and ALSO felt a hit to your very sense of masculinity itself. Your identity as a man who feels solidly on his own two feet.
Thats what Im calling DEPRESCULINITY, and theres no medicine for it (because its about your specific social and career challenges, not a clinical set of symptoms.)
Theres no routine advice about it that applies to everyone in a cookie-cutter way (it does not apply to women.)
DEPRESCULINITY needs to be recognized for what it is something that happens in the actual narrative story of your life, and which one could say takes specific masculine skills and competence male life lessons with which to overcome it.
These are the type of skills and lessons that a father might deliver.
Like the material in the Mature Masculine Power Program, it has to do with initiation into being a man, and with your sense of mastering those skills socially, vocationally, and personally that one could say are specific to men only.
Lets look a little more closely at whats at work, and whats at stake in this situation we are calling, Depresculinity
Depression
Depression is quite well-known of course in terms of what causes it, cures it, or at least tries to, but that's not what we are talking about here. For that, go to a local professional. Instead, we are talking about a vague sense that something isn't quite working for you, that you feel like you could be more vigorous, vital, and excited about who you are, and that feeling you sense to be something only men in the same shoes share with you.
If you looked to your emotions, you might feel a bit sad, and perhaps also just abit worried or concerned, but not enough so as to feel that you need to take off work - there are bills to pay after all. Not enough that you stop socializing or talking to friends - they actually make you feel quite a bit better, at least when you are around them in person.
This experience of sadness and of worry or fear are looked at in great detail in the Anger Map and Anxiety Map of the MindOS Mastery Program.
In there, you find that it's self-esteem we are talking about - what I define as both a sense of well-being, and of confidence in equal measures. Yet you know well that walking around with poor self-esteem is not necessarily something that can get labelled an out-and-out DEPRESSION.
It's not THAT severe a problem emotionally, but you just sense that it DOES impact your life, your performance, both in terms of women and work.
And that's where what I call the "Equation of Masculinity" walks in...
Masculinity
Masculinity is a word you have certainly heard, and always kind of knew what it meant, at least in general. A kind of energy, or vitality, but also something to do with your sense of identity as a man. You know that it is a good thing for a man to have, and feels terrible when diminished, or otherwise "cut off from" being available in you at the ready.
We actually try to go far more into PRECISELY defining it, breaking it into its working parts, showing how they interconnect and support the other components of it, and revolutionize the power and effectiveness of your life - in the Mature Masculine Power Program.
However you have defined the word in the past, or if you've never bothered, it has something to do with this equation:
Masculinity = Skill With Women + Progress on a Career Mission
There it is, right from the MMP training program.
There is a LOT built into this equation even though it looks like a simple thing. I said, "simple," not "simplistic."
When you have learned something new about women, or appealed to them more than before, it feels pretty good, doesn't it? You might even say it feels GREAT. In fact, it's beyond great - it feels like being completely alive, completely passionate about life - much like falling in love.
Likewise, when you make progress in your career - something major, like a raise, a new job more attuned to who you are, or even something minor and subtle (a bigger office, a title just a bit more like what you always wanted to grow up to be when you were a boy, it feels good, right?
No, beyond good. It's great! No, it feels like "really living," like being ALIVE, feeling passionate about life itself. It's good to be alive.
It turns out that all the things we know as masculine are also built in here - a sense of leadership and territory, an ambition to WIN in competition, a need to be on a team all striving for the same goal. They are here too.
It's just that "winning" a game of checkers, or "owning" your half of a shared bathroom as a roommate, or being on a knitting "team" don't carry anywhere near as "OOMPH" as "winning" a new job, or "winning over" the woman you have liked for months, "owning" your first house or the business you run, or being out with other single friends meeting women, or a sports team that just won the regional community hockey championship.
Now THOSE get you feeling ALIVE and full of passion for life.
Clearly, the variables in the equation matter - those specific variables. While competition, territory, rank, teamwork, and leadership are all part of being a man, what they are applied to makes all the difference in terms of feeling what we mean by this word, "passion."
Passionless
What does it mean to feel the opposite flavor of this word, "passion?"
If you re-read the section above, you'll see that it is one in the same as feeling not only a bit "less than alive," but less MASCULINE, or in touch with and in command of "masculinity."
And that is what I mean by Depresculinity - feeling less alive as a man, less vital, less passionate for life as you know or wish you could be.
Certainly the word, "passion" has pertained to the area of romance, and everything you could ever want to know about romance, romantic passion, attraction, dating, courtship, relationships, marriage and the minds of women are spoken to in the men's training course called the Omega Male Program.
Yet notice how the word, "passion" is also about the experience of just being alive, vitality itself - which is to say more than just "surviving" or "getting by." It's about "being the man," being the best you can be, or headed in that direction.
Fathers Help Sons Feel Alive
For many men, there is a connection to their fathers here, to mentorship with them, to learning skills and competence from them (or not), and ultimately a sense of the passion of "aliveness" in the activities you have chosen as your vocation (just as your father once had to do, and his father, and his father...)
You get a sense of belonging to a heritage in this way as a man - through your career choice and the involvement (or not) of your father and a whole lineage of men, in that
When you are cut off from that heritage, that lineage, that ancestral "team" in the way we have been today, there is an ennui, a loss of passion, and by extension, a diminished access to the masculinity that you want in your being.
In past times, there were initiation rituals for example which memorialized this "passing of the torch" to you, all of which we address in the Mature Masculine Power Program.
See these subtle things - a reduction of self-esteem, which may not be out and out clinical depression, yet is nevertheless NOT HAPPY - and a reduction in your access, cultivation, and strengthening of your own level of masculinity... a CUT-DOWN of it occurring in the areas of WOMEN and or WORK...
...And you have a recipe for the felt sense of Depresculinity.
Something to Start Doing About It
One of the most common problems in personal growth is that you have a sense that something's wrong, you know ought to or wish you could DO something about it, but when it got right down to the matter, you really didn't know
WHAT was wrong, or therefore HOW to do something to fix it.
It would take labelling the thing in order to know what to even call it, and then breaking it down into its parts to actually DO something about it.
Regardless, if you were to look at a period of your life, either right now, or from the past, when you didnt feel so good about how things were going, you could take a try at learning something new here:
You were not in a situation where you couldnt manage to go to work, or socialize, or spend time with friends (for that, its good to get local, professional help), but instead it was just rather a feeling that things were not so great, and you just knew there was something more for you. You just werent sure what it was
In Depresculinity, theres a vague sense of not feeling as vital as you could, and perhaps you didnt know where to start.
Start with these and if you havent already, youll find them in a combo of the MindOS Mastery Program , Omega Male, and
Mature Masculine Power Program:
1. Well-being: There are needs not met in life, and you feel hungry in a way. You want more of your needs met. Define what they are.
2. Confidence: There are fears you have, and you havent addressed or faced them head-on. Define what they are.
3. Skill with Women: There are skills to build here, whether in approaching women for dates, communicating effectively, knowing what the right kind of woman is for you, or perhaps youre even in a relationship and dont feel like the man in it. Define these.
4. Progress on Career Mission: There are challenges you havent managed to rise to, obstacles to overcome, bars to reach, or victories to win. You sense that there are skills and resources to build to be more fit to make that happen. Define these.
PART II
If you dont have the time, then you dont have to do this. At least youve achieved clarity on WHAT causes the "Depresculinity" feeling - this not-so-good experience.
Yet if you do have the time to do this, and it's not a rush, try these four:
1. Assertiveness to get a need or two met maybe more sleep or exercise, make a friend, or get some work done youve been putting off.
2. Courage to face a fear, even if you start with a small one, like smiling more at people, or speaking up in public, or disagreeing with someone of minor impact on your life.
3. A trial run at trying a skill or two with women you think you lack, and even if it doesnt go well, you know that you cared enough to try and learned something from it.
4. An action in your career that you know will move things even a little bit forward to your career goals a study course, a phone call, some paperwork youve been delaying.
You will have made an actual move in the four known causes of Depresculinity that I identify, and Id be willing to bet you feel at least a measurable bit better, and in a lasting way.
Rinse, repeat. And at a pace and degree you can handle.
Numbers one and two above are fully covered in the Anger Map and Anxiety Map of the MindOS Mastery Course .
Number three is covered like an avalanche in the Omega Male Program.
And both three and four are covered by the Mature Masculine Power Program.
And to master every detail of this hidden male-only depression called Depresculinity, be sure to attend a live event or get the disc course called Depresculinity .
