I recently read a post, uploaded by RageAgainstTDL, where he discusses MGTOW.
The first time I found the MGTOW community was in 2016, long before I knew what an "incel" was, and before I admitted to myself that I was one. In any case, one of the main talking points of that community is the concept of internal validation; not looking to women or society for a sense of intrinsic validation.
It was empowering at first, but then I noticed numerous videos posted by influential by MGTOW, such as Stardusk (Thinking Ape), and Spetsnaz, a psychotherapist from Auckland, New Zealand. Apparently, in lieu of all the chest-beating, some honest MGTOW's lamented to the aforementioned content makers in private that they had lost a sense of motivation after taking the so-called red pill. Some had walked away from lucrative jobs, ended relationships, and give up educational pursuits because they realized, in the interim, that the only reasons they had said pursuits was to elevate their social - and therefore sexual - status. To be aware that you're dreaming will cause you to wake, and so many of these men found themselves without a sense of purpose.
In fact, one of Stardusk's contemporaries - who he had once described as his best friend - had killed himself over a sense of hopelessness. He was raised in a Christian Fundamentalist household, but later became an atheist, but could not cope with the feeling of what Lovecraft described as "cosmic horror", the fear of an indifferent universe.
To quote The Dark Knight Returns, "I see a reflection..."
I recently abandoned my goal of studying Norwegian and Danish. My original goal was to follow in Stardusk's footsteps tentatively, with hopes of achieving a polyglot status and translate my favorite authors, who's majority of writings would be unavailable to me due to the language barrier. Lesya Ukrainka, the Ukranian poet and playwright was further down on my list, but I wanted to learn Norsk and Danish to translate the works of my favorite philosopher, Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899-1990). Second on my list was the late Herman Tønnessen, who's essay "Happiness Is For the Pigs" moved me greatly into the philosophical direction I'm in now.
The advantages of Norwegian - and nearly all Scandinavian languages, save Finnish - is the overwhelming mutual intelligibility with English, and Danish (Zapffe used many Danish loan words in his writings, since the Danes ruled Norway from 1537-1814. However, I've since lost motivation, and I've decided to abandon the project.
I look around at the world, and it all just seems meaningless to engage in. When I was younger, I went through that phase of wanting to change the world. I dabbled in political ideas, lending an ear to every talking head with a so-called "great idea" on how to make society better, but all they were is just a shill for whatever mainstream party they want to convince others to vote for. Case in point, I just see society's rise and fall as a cyclical process that is beyond man's ability to control or prevent. Nor do I pretend that human beings have said control, and I've accepted that life is just a set of biological reactions that human beings are fortunate enough to be cognizant of, but unable to take direct action onto.
And so, nowadays, I just go through the motions: work, going back home, and not doing much in between. I have a very low IQ, and I have no discernible talents or aptitudes. Many people grow up realizing they have a certain gift in a certain area, but I never found such a gift or talent. Most of the projects I've undergone ended up in either failure, or I just didn't have the ability to see them through. Thus, I've wrestled with this sense of having no real sense of direction, like the crew in Cowboy Bebop.
Maybe this is just me looking for yet another cope, trying to justify my own existence to myself (making myself useful until my permanent annihilation, so to speak). I remember a quote by @MayorOfKekville, the guy who inspired me to join this forum, said "It's either cope or the rope". I don't know if he coined that term, or if it's an Incel axiom, but I think that's what I'm really looking for in the grand scheme of things. I plan on reading a book called "Man's Search for Meaning", written by Holocaust Survivor Viktor Frankl. I don't expect it to be of any use, but maybe it will point me in the right direction. Then again, the secret to happiness is low expectations, so maybe not...
So all that said, where do you find your sense of purpose? Or how would you go about finding one?
