Holding myself and other men to high standards - 2026-03-24

• Log per day - 2026
• 2026-03-24

Super interesting things afoot right now.

I’m currently so sick of people, dude. It currently sucks living in community because there are people and they keep talking to me. (It’s not that bad, I’m having fun with it. E.g., I attended Circling last night and just stretched/lay on the floor the entire time).

A clear instigator: I recently had a very special connection with a woman who I very much want to date. At one point, I said we should probably talk about our personal red flags (a la the School of Life “tell them how you’re crazy, on a first date” thing, thanks Alain), and one think I named was: I currently have <£10k in the bank, and no income.

And this made total sense¹ when I was single and had no intention to date anyone (I live in Blackpool for god’s sake, I figured dating’d be out of the question for years).

And now it’s like, holy shit, I want to date this person seriously. I want to be her boyfriend. This changes things a lot!

Hence, my mind has been doing a kind of ridiculousness audit, as I explored a bit in Possible topics for my Saturn return, 2026-03-23 yesterday.

I hold myself and other men to high standards (and we’re failing)

This has led to interesting tension IRL, where a male friend has pointed out how much kinder I am to woman than men.

The way I’m currently experiencing it is this: I really like to be “in my masculine”. I really want to be a provider. If I’m with a woman who I care about, I want to look after her. If I’m with a man who I’m modelling as “not living up to my standards”, then I’m disagreeable and irritable.²

How are these men (including myself) failing?

• They’re missing key bits of life foundation (e.g. a reliable income)
• They’re lost in their bad philosophy, their bullshit (they are clueless, or fundamentally deluded, e.g. perhaps they believe they’re really close to figuring it all out when in fact they are as confused as they ever were, perhaps even more because they have deluded themselves into thinking they know things (that is, Socratic “Double Ignorance”))
• They’re lacking wisdom, including the wisdom and humility to get help from mentors, “More Knowledgable Others”
• They are too ego-led to take on feedback
• They get nerd-sniped, focus on the wrong things, fritter away time on frivolous stuff rather than putting out the very obvious fires (e.g., their lack of income)
• They don’t realise how much they bullshit themselves. Despite their plans failing a million times, they naively believe that this time will be different, but can’t support this in any way. (The whole “doing the same thing every time and expecting different results” thing)
• They are bad at thinking. They say things without thinking. They have poor epistemics
• They believe themselves to be wise. Despite being ruled by their inner critic, they go on long speeches about the profundity of self-love
• They lack agency
• They surround themselves with others in the same position as them, the same amount of power and agency, rather than trying to climb up to the next level
• They waste enormous amounts of time. They get sucked into things that they wouldn’t have endorsed if they had planned ahead

Why am I kinder to women?

• It’d be easy to invoke some very valid psychology stuff here. “Daddy issues” → I do not have an emotional relationship with my dad, and I have no brothers, so my heart is much more closed to men. “Mummy issues”: my mum was a caring presence to me as a child, I feel much safer around women than men (see also my grandma vs grandad). Also, life with a girlfriend → I had a lovely girlfriend from 15 to 26, the most meaningful relationship of my life. None of these feel like pathologising myself, more an honest look at what seeds were planted to make my preference landscape involve a much stronger preference for women than men. Not to mention being heterosexual and enjoying the presence of attractive women.
• But apart from the psychologising, I do just like the thing of: I want to be a provider. Having a girlfriend brings out the best in me.
• I do think that there’s a big way in which I pedestalise women. A mentor guessed that maybe I haven’t integrated much of my anima, my feminine, and as such, women feel like “water in a desert” to me, the ability to bask in a source of energy that I don’t have access to on my own. This feels largely true to me. I find that feminine women are so different from me that I don’t judge them in the way that I judge men. I don’t see them as failing, I see them as inherently valuable. And of course, it’d be great to see all people this way! But I don’t want to turn this into a “should”, into Tanha. This is where I am right now.

I’m so tired (of bullshit, of tanha)

• I’ve felt especially averse to being around people in community the last few days because it feels like I’m currently hyper-sensitive to bad thinking, bullshit, and tanha
  • 
• People who are Socratically doubly ignorance but “sharing their wisdom to others”, people who are almost always talking from the agenda, the “warrant” of “I need to fix myself”, etc
• No more! Please!

What happens next?

1. I want to change my inner circle so that I’m surrounded by chanda-led, wise people.
   • First step → make an “ideal Dunbar chart”, showing who I should spend energy on
2. I want to increase my agency.
   • First step → make monthly income.
     • Why this? There are lots of ways to increase my agency (e.g., start working in a really great team, set up a business, etc). But I think I’m at the point where I do need some money coming in, as I don’t want to lose the chance to date this woman
   • And, enact the inner circle of wise people, More Knowledgable Others
3. Focus on what matters.
   • First step → map out all the stuff I claim that I have on my plate, see how it’s far too much, ruthlessly cull, and say “no” to things by default going forwards (e.g., the “negotiable” of INVEST)
   • I spent the weekend getting to clarity re: this, via the whiteboard that lives behind my desk, moving from instant messengers to email, deleting bullshit tasks, etc:
   • 

Footnotes

1. In my head, at least. Looking at it now, it does seem pretty silly ↩

2. The astrology thing here is that women who I am wholeheartedly excited about experience my Leo sun, and men who frustrate me experience my Scorpio rising (and then, the disclaimer → I’ve gotten into astrology, 2026-03-19 (disclaimer)) ↩