“Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.”
— Aristotle
It is the natural instinct of a person to seek the extreme opposite to the one that hurt them, not realising they’re trading one set of harms for another by giving up the obvious for the insidious. They trade vices of excess for vices of insufficiency and vice versa, when the remedy and thus desirable end point is in the middle.
Take for example a person born to strict religious parents, such a person often rebels by becoming an ardent anti-theist, before arriving at a point where they realise religion isn’t entirely bad, and is in fact beneficial in many ways – they don’t replicate the zeal and strictness of their parents, but they no longer ridicule it and reject it as completely worthless because they are no longer blinded by the trauma of their upbringing in regards to it. They begun by inhabiting a vice of excess as imposed by their parents (religious teachings taken to a puritanical and tyrannical extent), compensated with a vice of deficiency (rejected all religion as completely useless and ridiculous) and ended up at the golden mean: realising religion can be beneficial and is often wiser than we are in areas which we are inexperienced, whilst also realising the importance of thinking for one’s self.
Another common example is when a young, wholesome naive person falls in love, only to lose that love and become heartbroken. Often they overcompensate by believing the opposite sex is evil, and in doing so become wicked themselves – believing they have free license to mistreat members of the opposite sex because they blame the whole sex for what one member of that sex put them through, only to later realise they are not evil, but far more flawed and imperfect than their previous innocence conceived. So the vice of insufficiency in innocence was to not accurately assess whilst not possessing the means to protect yourself, and the vice of excess was to write off and mistreat an entire sex because one member of that sex hurt you – the golden mean is understanding the opposite sex better so you can manage them better, and be more mindful in your dealings with them.
As such, everything should be in moderation, including moderation, because excess like deprivation in spurts can yield gain. Fasting is good, but starvation is not. Working an 18 hour day can lead to a lot of progress, but trying to sustain that long-term will wreck 99.9% of humans.
Everything is always trying to balance itself, either by pitting one extreme against the other to create balance through cancellation, or through a concurrent blend of duality intertwining complementarily despite their contradictory natures. Stability itself lies in concurrent duality, within stable paradox. So if you have to employ excess in any particular scenario to achieve something, you will have to balance it later with deprivation.
A simple, mundane and widely relatable example of this I can give is drinking alcohol.
If you use alcohol (or any drug for that matter) as a performance enhancer within a given context to overclock your capabilities, you will have a comedown of sorts later on (the hangover) – and so the price of increased ability at one point is decreased ability at another.
We see the inverse of this with fasting. If you fast for cognitive benefits, you’ll be much more energetic and quick minded while fasted, but become sluggish when you eat a big meal to break your fast. The price of increased ability through deprivation was decreased ability through excess. Everything must be offset to balance out – this is why there are no free lunches in life, and everything has a price. Not knowing the price and being unable to see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there – it just means the costs are hidden and you don’t know what you’re really getting yourself into.
Going back to the psychological and away from the homeostatic biological, a person who took a lot of risks in life that didn’t pay off will more often than not become risk averse rather than risk calculative.
They go from excess to insufficiency rather than efficiency. They overcompensate, and in doing so trade one inefficiency and mode of failure for another, incorrectly believing the more novel mode of inefficiency to be superior.
The solution to any problem is only a counter extreme, when you seek temporary relief from a prevailing one. Such a solution isn’t sustainable practice, but will at least break the pattern. For example, most incels would get laid if they did a steroid cycle and went on a cocaine bender (eg: Zyzz) – but of course doing endless steroid and cocaine gets you an early death (Zyzz died in a hot tub in Thailand in his early 20’s for living precisely that lifestyle) – what goes up, must come down.
The point however is this: memories retained from novel experiences enjoyed in periods of unsustainable biohacking will allow for a form of personal growth that being stuck in the same mediocre patterns of behaviour for a long time wouldn’t. Think of it like hormesis, a small dose of poison which confers benefit. Some men just need to know what victory tastes like to provide them with a personal frame of reference for wanting to strive and sustainably achieve their goals. Never having known what victory tastes like, and always having lived your life as a loser that never got to enjoy some of life’s finer moments is a miserable metaphysical prison. Knowing what it’s like to be a winner, even if only temporarily, can give the spiritual impetus necessary to more sustainably work towards greatness that was once tasted.
Excess has a time and function, but efficiency and sustainability through optimisation lies in moderation due to the goldilocks principle. So to conclude, realise combatting one extreme with another is often foolish and to be avoided, but in instances where it is useful and justifiable you should realise the new extreme is not a destination, but a transitionary phase along your personal journey to something much more stable, nuanced and wiser.
very inspirational
My one buddy’s moto was “everything all the time”.
His brothers was “total indulgence”.
They are both dead now.
My moto, “everything in moderation”.
I’m 65 and in great health mentally and physically with great memories of those two manic brothers.
c’est la vie
It’s similar to Buddha’s middle path. His concept was that the princely life was too easy, and the monk’s life was too harsh. He advised something in between i.e. the middle path.
You need to be capable of curb-stomping evil, and also unfathomable kindness. You need to be paradoxical. You need to be human, as well as a man of God.
A stable paradox, a civilized savage, an integrated shadow – there are many names for it.
To quote something I said on this topic on social media:
“You have to learn to hold the fire without burning your hands, or stated another way – to express darkness without becoming consumed by it. Just because something becomes a part of you, it does not mean it has to become all of you. Ground your ruthlessness in righteousness.”
This is often why doing the right thing feels strange. I walked away from a woman who disrespected me. I didn’t argue, didn’t discuss I just left.
She never chased or reached out so I retained my dignity but “feel” like I “lost” her. That’s because in the past when a woman disrespected me I would call her out, discuss it etc etc. This did not achieve positive results.
So I tried this. Having self respect and showing strength “feels” wrong but it’s the right thing. That’s also a paradox.
If she is too prideful to write her wrongs, then quite simply she is not only in the wrong, but wrong for you.
You didn’t lose her, you gave her up – and she didn’t try to change your mind about that despite knowing that she’d wronged you, so she values her pride more than she values you.
Leaving such a woman behind is for the best, and it seems you realise that despite your feelings not complementing that realisation.
Thanks I hope you’ll continue posting. There’s a real lack of true online red pill insights. A lot of that wisdom has been convoluted with “dating coaches”. Men need to understand the fundamentals to change the course of their lives not simply tactics to course correct some failed romance.
Great blog, IM! I was wondering what are your opinions and views regarding dating and marrying a single mother. For example, a 30 year old man begins to date a single mother, who is 29 years old; she divorced her abusive husband and takes care of a 3 year old daughter. Both the man and the single mother fall in love with each other. My question is: is it a good thing for a man to date and marry a 29 year old single mother? What are your sincere opinions and views on dating and marrying a single mother.
I will keep it brief and simple: this is a bad idea. I could never in good conscience recommend a man put himself into such a probabilistically unfavourable situation. Forming an attachment to the wrong type of woman will cost you dearly in both emotional and financial stability. But if a man reads this part of the internet and yet still engages in such behaviour, clearly no amount of reading will suffice to teach him sense. He will pay in suffering to appreciate the wisdom we share freely.
Thank you for the reply! I know this very good friend of mine, who is 30 years old, fell in love with a 29 year old woman who, unfortunately for her (“unfortunately” as in “made a terrible mistake with an idiot who got her pregnant”), has a 3 year old daughter and has been divorced from an abusive husband. She also fell in love with him, loves him very much and actually wants to stop to him for her entire life (which means she wants to settle with him and start a new family). I know it’s unnatural for a man to raise the child of another man, but this guy really loves her, but doesn’t really want to be a cuck. As he told me, he loves her, but can’t accept her daughter to be raised by him. She also loves him very much, messages him everyday, calls him, when they meet she cooks for him and is submissive to him. I mean she fits into the feminine frame and she’s actually very feminine. Her behaviour proves she’s wifey material and very feminine, but… yes, she has a 3 year old daughter, which sucks. I don’t know what to tell him. Any advice?