The Futility Of Good Works Without Help

Riding the desperate rage of the neon tiger into the field of hope

I’ve been working on about six different writing pieces throughout the last couple of months, and none of them are coming together. The phrases are clunky, the ideas are unclear, and the sections do not fit together; and I haven’t even started trying to make appropriate diagrams or art. I am experiencing a sense of futility; I am unable to produce the works I need, to sculpt both the world and myself, and it’s difficult to face this enormous wall that I’m up against.

I’ve furthermore landed no coaching clients recently, and I keep hitting internal roadblocks as I build out my website. I’m angry at myself for failing so continuously as a writer and an entrepreneur. I’m angry because I’m still quite broke and I’m not getting laid. I’m angry, too, for a bunch of other reasons that would take thousands of words to express.

One thing that I’m struggling with, probably above all else, is to contend with a catalog of interests and identities that appear to be in a never-ending state of disunity. I’m not aiming for superficial harmony, because there is harmony even in dissonance, and complete coherence is fascism. However, I am aiming for ease, and ease is nowhere to be found.

Given all that nonsense, instead of descending into masturbatory despair, I’m going to do the opposite and focus on a bunch of great things I have going for me. In particular, I feel a strong need to give praise to all the people who propping me up right now, even in small ways.

If there’s anything that I deeply desire at this moment, it is to be around people, environments, and natural ecologies that understand the contours of the integrative process I’m wrestling with – without me needing to make it completely, explicitly legible. The type of person that I want around me, and that I want to read this, is someone who has a minimum viable curiosity across the stack of things pulling at my heart and spirit.

In that sense, to paraphrase something one of my friends, Barbara, said to me once, “I’m building a team!”, and it’s sincerely going quite well.

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Exercising Self-Defense

There are a lot of ways to begin the praise parade, and it’s impossible to choose a precise entry point because none of what I’m talking about is linear. However, I think a good place to start is with my friend, SelfDefenseKing.

There are many ways that SDK shows me love, including: talking to me on the phone for three hours when I’m drunk; sending me ridiculous 4chan memes about depression; and letting me bleed all sorts of black emotions onto him without judgment.

By far, one of the most meaningful experiences for me was a visit I paid him in Texas. SDK eased me into the universe of firearms; spending a full day at the range with him was a blast. We also went on hikes, ate delicious pizza in Austin, and played ridiculous card games.

The thing that matters to me the most is how well SDK took care of me. It’s one thing for some guy to teach another cool rifle tricks; it’s another thing altogether for him to have shown me a genuine sense of hospitality across the board: putting me up in a fancy hotel, cracking jokes on the porch of a coffee shop, and driving my car down I-35 when I needed a nap. These actions build trust.

This same type of hospitality is what got me back into martial arts. My parents enrolled me in Tae Kwon Do pretty early on, and I hated it. I dreaded going to the dojo, I dreaded sparring, and I dreaded going to competitions. By the time I turned 13, I was this close to getting my black belt, but instead of seeing it through (like my dear older brother), I quit as soon as I could.

That’s why when I decided to start jiu-jitsu last year, I was wracked with anxiety. The first day I showed up, I made friends with this cop who spent a lot of time showing me grappling basics. The next few times, he drove me to class. To make up for his hospitality, he spent plenty of time choking me out on the mat, but – hey – a novice has got to get picked on a little.

As it turns out, I was already good friends with Jiu-Jitsu Cop’s dad. His dad gave me some tomato plants to grow and I had helped his dad install some ceiling trim. Jiu-Jitsu Cop also told me about a private sheriff’s range where I can set up my own targets and practice whenever I have time.

These examples of hospitality have further compounded. A guy on my church’s security team has offered to walk me through basic IDPA training drills on his 10-acre property. I’ve found a solid MMA and kickboxing team to train with, and our teacher – reminiscent of a younger, chiller Dwayne Johnson – is excellent. I can’t do much more to convince you that Southern hospitality is real and it is a precious commodity.

Metabolic Eudaemonia

Somewhere around puberty, I became a metabolic disaster. I don’t know if it was the bullying, the hypothyroidism that went undiagnosed for a decade, or the body dysmorphia that came about while swimming competitively.

I’m not interested in mapping out a definitive causality, but what I do know is beginning around that time, there were multiple episodes of similar nature where my actions were reduced to essentially two choices:

1. Either, starve myself for multiple days and endure the physical pain of my intestinal gears grinding to a halt and my musculatures crumpling under self-digestion; or

2. Try to force some food – any food – down my throat and cope with a type of self-loathing bordering on cutting, that probably only the most vagrant drug addicts can relate to.

Even today, when I’ve mostly broken the spell of pseudo-anorexia, what gives me the most grief is realizing how I limited myself from finding the help I needed. I had this basic belief that “eating disorders belong to young girls who spend too much time online,” which is not altogether wrong, but is pridefully incomplete.

The truth is that in the year-of-our-lord two-thousand-and-twenty-four, there are still negligible resources that genuinely help young men navigate metabolic dysfunction and body dysmorphia. Instead, the medical industry wants to pour SSRIs down your throat, and trans you if that doesn’t work. I’m going to be one of the people who fix this civilizational nightmare, which is a strong motivation to continue raising my bioenergetics.

To that end, a ridiculous amount of credit goes to Bree Greenberg for validating my ongoing nutritional discombobulation, not just on the biological level, but on the deepest existential level – and for showing me how none of what I’ve inherited, including the self-hatred, is my fault. The first time I truly internalized this, I wept like I’d never wept before, because I experienced genuine empowerment within my physicality.

More credit goes to invaluable Anon Peater Bro™ T3Uncoupled for giving me practical tools to improve my thyroid function by leaps and bounds.

T3Uncoupled

is one of those guys who radiates compassion. With his respectful guidance, I’ve been low-dosing T3 directly in addition to my T4 prescription, and it has been working wonders.

Lastly, I want to give a shot out to Kush Sharma, and a nod to his kickass unconventional healthcare startup. I was exposed to Ayurveda in childhood, and while it seemed to be a cool mystical theoretical model, I never took it seriously. I’ll admit, in my mind, the term ‘Ayurveda’ still codes similarly to ‘Homeopathy’ or ‘Chinese Herbal Medicine’; so, it’s a bit of a trip for me to willingly sign up for something that could end up being a giant placebo. But, in that vein, I say, “go forth and placebo until improvement.”

I’ve only had one conversation with Kush, and the gift he gave me was to assuage me I’m not committing sacrilege that earns me a spot in hell. Recently, I’ve been cooking with bone broth, and I’ve found both the taste and the energetic effects alluring. I plan to continue this dietary experiment, and possibly expand it; his encouragement to continue on this path is indispensable.

I had relatively little trouble discussing my sexuality with my parents. I had a little bit more trouble telling them I bought a handgun. I had a lot of trouble telling them I was planning to quit my cushy, corporate IT sinecure. I have no idea how I’m even going to try to bring up the topic of consuming animal flesh with them.

(I find it comical that in many of my social milieus, it is far more kosher to be a literal faggot than it is to expose oneself as a non-vegetarian)

Psychedelic Hindu Animism

I would have never connected with Bree nor Kush, if not for my friends Yatharth and Pranab, respectively.

Pranab was patient enough to let me blather on for an hour about my ketamine and MDMA journeys. These journeys were awesome not only because they healed the fractured relationship I had with my parents (well, I guess, I did that, but you know what I mean), but also because Krishna showed up, proving that the Mahabharata is real.

Sometimes it’s hard to feel connected to one’s ancestral heritage when one is born and brought up in an environment infused with Protestant cultural norms. Finding friends with whom to discuss esoteric Tamil poetry, or the strange angelic deities that animate all of creation, helps remind me of where I come from.

The real value that Pranab has provided, though, is to convince me that it may be fairly worthwhile to Jhanagoon myself. This is not an easy feat because there are few things that I despise more than Internet Buddhism.

(That he also lives in Texas now gives me two reasons to go back there!)

Every time I see some random account with a neon tiger or melty pencil blobface as their profile picture talking about kundalini or yoga nidra, I want to grab them by the throat and rip their voicebox out; a better strategy to convince me to join their side involves teaching me aggression-yelling meditation, not loving-kindness.

(Did I mention how much anger I have inside of me waiting to get out?)

I harbor this animosity partly because Western Coastal Buddhism™ especially places far too much emphasis on systematization, proceduralism, and empiricism; it leaves practically no room for the imaginal, the mythopoetic, or the archetypal. But, if I’m being more honest, it’s because I’m staunchly loyal to the faith I grew up in, and it frustrates me that its bastardized step-child created by a spoiled prince has taken root far more effectively in America.

Of course, when one does enough concentration and/or awareness and/or contemplative practice, one must grudgingly admit that The Gautama’s teachings are spot on: the best way to amplify an energy is to resist it. Therefore, because the universe enjoys inflicting this cruel irony on its beings, it is not a coincidence that the aforementioned woman who has all but cured my disordered eating problems is a Theravādan master: bringing us back to

Yatharth

, who seems to have become a lynchpin in my life’s general outgrowth and flowering.

I don’t even know how to describe the interactions I have with Yatharth. One time he told me he ordered about $100 worth of pomegranate juice from Amazon and I couldn’t stop laughing. Another time, I was in a group call with him, and he was just sitting on the floor shirtless with a machete.

One afternoon while I was wiring a house, he called me and I told him that there are seven different churches within a one-mile radius of where I live, and that I’m convinced none of them believe in the same Jesus. He said: “Yeah, but it’s cool that you get to learn about all of them.”

Nazarene Dixie Localism

Indeed, if one of my biggest spiritual mentors right now is a meditative master, then another one is the lead pastor of my Church: a man who consistently displays phenomenal character, intellect, and humility. I don’t have a great answer as to what compelled me to join a church, but now that it has been almost three years since I attended my first sermon, I will testify that it is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I also don’t know what compelled me to ask my pastor to engage in one-on-one discipleship with me, but I’m pleased that I did, I’m ecstatic he agreed, and I’m nourished by how well it’s going.

I’ve never been a big fan of theology. I place much more faith in orthopraxy than any giant metaphysical propositional commitment. Thus, it is providential that this church has shown me what a real community looks like and how it operates. This body of individuals, of which I’m a fledgling member, informs me about the proper ways not just to conduct particular relationships, but to conduct Relationship itself – in a way that no previous body has thus far.

If there’s anything worth being indoctrinated into, it’s an outlook of fundamental relationality: a way of being that reveals my unbreakable connectedness to everything around me and the inherent beauty in that connectedness. I’ve been blessed to abide by this relationality in increasingly enlivening ways over the last three years. I’ve already mentioned some of these ways in the context of contact sports and marksmanship, but there are plenty more:

• I volunteered with a construction ministry for six months doing random carpentry and electrical jobs, until I got hired as a construction supervisor and spent the next year building homes for my neighbors who had lost their houses in a devastating flood.

• I learned how to make kombucha from the lady in charge of my local Emergency Management Agency (EMA). I’ve sold some of this kombucha at my local farmer’s market and also bartered with it for other goods.

• I signed up to complete a few landscaping jobs for my friends. Through word of mouth, this converted into freelancing for six months on a homestead in my county. During that time, I chopped two tons of wood with a hydraulic press, assembled a deer fence, and laid the groundwork for a long-term vegetable permaculture.

• I’ve learned to drive a tractor and a stick-shift truck, the latter of which is a non-negotiable masculine rite of passage, from a Catholic couple one town over who needs help raising and harvesting their chickens humanely.

As I lay this out, I notice that this increasing relational mastery has fruited into increasing kinesthetic mastery: for instance, I’m undoubtedly a better carpenter and grappler than I’ve ever been. With this kinesthetic mastery, arrives a stronger sense of embodied security. Understandably, I’ve spent fifteen years either trying to run away from my body or else treat it as a technical problem to be solved.

I now see a new horizon opening up that is unbelievably liberating: that I can safely inhabit my body; I can appreciate this body as both an inextricable part of who I am and a powerful, personal vehicle with which to perform a pivotal amount of good for the world.

Artistry and Articulation

Of course, the kinesthetic body is not the only vehicle for expression I’ve been cultivating. I’ve also been honing my literary body.

Two people I must give credit to for pushing me to stick with this project are

Joshua Chamberlain Maroney

and

Redbeard

. Both of these gentlemen have helped me in all kinds of ways ranging from editing my work directly, to helping me adjust my underlying approach to writing, to improving the epistemological frameworks that undergird my communication models, to simply urging me to hang on – because there are better days ahead and I have an important role to play in them. I ought also to thank

TribesRising

, who has told me explicitly that my writing has a positive impact, and why.

Moreover, I find it only fitting that Redbeard told me he met his wife through his Google Blogger account many years ago, and I recently went on a date with a handsome South Indian fellow that I met through Substack.

Comments from an article I posted on suicidal ideation

I’m still struggling with building out my body of work, and I need a lot more encouragement and help in this area. I’m stoked that this piece will be a part of it and I’m assured that it will get me closer to finding that help and encouragement, whether internally or externally.

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Helping Each Other To Goodness

When I volunteer at the animal shelter, there are plenty of cute puppies, but the one who has stolen my heart is a little one-year-old doofus, hilariously named “Chicken Nugget.” I’ve taken Chicken Nugget for many walks in the past few weeks, and I’ve glimpsed a gentleness within him that comes out only in the rarest moments.

Yesterday, I participated in an adoption event where my little Nugget was put into a cage far too small for him, and in an area with overwhelming foot traffic. Within the first hour, I could tell he was deteriorating. He couldn’t handle the noise and confinement. He started lashing out in ways I’ve never seen him do before, even to me. After two hours, I couldn’t let my heart break into any more pieces.

Against protocol, I took Nugget out of his cage, and let him sit with me in the open, on a leash, farther away from the crowd. I hugged him until I could sense the angst dissolving from his 50-pound body. Sometime later, a young woman came and asked if she could hold his leash. Immediately, he began to nuzzle his chest and belly against her. In the next few minutes, her friend showed up and started giving him toys to play with. After another many minutes, another one of her friends showed up and started jogging around him. Before long, Nugget was prancing around with a wild look of joy on his face.

The truth is we all have parts of our being that need to be touched by others in different ways. Some people unlock latches of our confinement, some others hold us until our fear dissipates, various others give us the soft rubs we need in our vulnerabilities, different others let us enjoy playing with cool toys, and still others come alongside when we’re finally ready to run.

My mistake for too long was to think only one person could do all of these things, or that I was in charge of deciding who should do what, when, and how. I am the only one who can walk my path toward goodness, but I can’t possibly do it alone, nor under my exclusive terms. I can spend time sharing about where I’ve been touched by goodness and where I hope to be in the future. I think by sharing, you can start to tell me where you need me to go with you, too.

With enough love in the right order, in the right places, from the right allies, even the injured become majestic.

Chicken Nugget

And I don't want a never-ending life
I just want to be alive
While I'm here

And I don't want to see another night
Lost inside a lonely life
While I'm here

– Spirits, The Strumbellas