“No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.” (Ernest Hemingway)

Safe spaces. Safe spaces online, on the internet. Safe spaces at school or in the public discourse. Safe spaces for various minorities, for the extremes of thought and behavior, for the unusual, the alien and the weird, for what today’s politically-correct ideologies believe to be at risk of being threatened. Safe transportation, safe environment, safe neighborhood, safe food… a “safe” life through all its possible sides and manifestations… Is aiming to safety in all aspects of life a truly good idea? Ponder a bit: what should be safe from what I mentioned above and what should not be so much?

Suppose you have a child or you already have one or several. What is the best alternative: to create a safe environment for you kid or to prepare the child for any possible life situations so that the child can efficiently fend for him/herself… or be able to wisely manage any situation? Are you raising your kid as a predator who can take advantage of any opportunity or can stand bullying or, if needed, a fight? Or are you raising your child as a victim who requires increasingly safer spaces so as to be able to thrive or… survive? Take some time to ponder on these two alternatives: which one is preferable?

I actually hyperbolized the extremes so as to make them more visible. Life is better lived when there is a decent balance between safety and challenge (the first paragraph). Also, between the entrepreneurial spirit and the protection of society (the second paragraph). But I increasingly see a tendency to favor safety in the Western society, and this means an unbalance that is going to cost us a lot in the future. And that future is approaching fast, so I feel compelled to write about this subject – a divisive subject nevertheless…

At personal level, but especially at the collective level, there is a delicate balance between the masculine and the feminine archetypal principles. We mix mostly unconsciously the two principles in our daily life. For instance, sometimes we fight (in a physical way, for a job, for the heart of the loved one, for a project – a typical masculine attitude), other times we negotiate, we use strategy, empathy, patience or compromise (typical feminine attitudes). A masculine attitude was necessary to build the Western society: nature had to be conquered and “put to work”. The colonial powers have intelligently exploited the vulnerabilities of other peoples, when they didn’t use outright force to conquer and defeat. In the last two great World Wars, the West didn’t hesitate to throw the atomic bomb, and probably anything at hand, so as to crush resistance. The Western civilization has a deeply violent nature and for quite a long time since the end of the World War II – a long time of peace – we forgot who we are and what we are truly capable of when it comes to violence and to our masculine side. For this reasons there are, periodically, reminders about the Holocaust and Auschwitz, about Vietnam veterans, about various massacres: we ought not to forget what we’re capable of, as “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it”. Why doomed? Because the masculine principle always lurks beneath the conscious level, always eager to express itself.

A long time of peace and a certain forgetfulness about our masculine inner nature has led to a general feeling during the last years that “the world has an itch and badly needs to be scratched”. As you can see, wars erupt constantly in various corners of the world, just like earthquakes or volcanoes aiming to release tension or pressure. It used to happen mostly in Africa when it suddenly erupted in Ukraine, then in Gaza, which are geographically closer to the Western world. These two wars came as a “surprise”, as war close to home was unimaginable. At the same time, using a myriad of regulations and a heavy bureaucracy, the European Union – mainly – but other actors as well, are trying to regulate and control our lives in the name of safety, while pretending not to see that illegal migrants are pouring uncontrolled in the Western society from all directions, bringing their violent lifestyle with them. You might say that they’re not violent, but if you think for a moment, you must acknowledge that all they ever knew is violence in various forms as a routine, so it is unlikely that the majority can be “reeducated” late in their adult life (although there must be a lot of them who are just happy to live in peace and no longer experience war and abuse, if only they could do it without radicalizing). So, in conclusion, not only we have a masculine principle that has been suppressed for a long time, but we also have a feminine principle that has become highly active, aiming to provide “safety” by means of reeducation, control, but also… force, coercion & oppressiveness, while putting on a progressive and liberal façade or mask.

Why do this? Because the feminine can be corrupted into behaving like the masculine. But while the masculine is genuine, direct and natural, “it feels right”, the feminine acting like the masculine (in psychological terms, “the feminine eaten by its animus”) becomes, in its dark and shadowy form, a force that devours, suffocates and manipulates the “public discourse” in order to defame and defeat without “shooting a single bullet”. Creating “safe spaces” where they shouldn’t exist is part of this strategy of the archetypal “dark mother”. It is “tough love”, if you know what I mean…

“Where are our men?” This is a question on many lips. Our men dress like women, play video/online games where they shoot and kill with virtual weapons some virtual opponents, “discover” their “true female nature” (which was there all the time but, hey, it’s trendy to do so, in search for attention, admiration and followers, which is a typical feminine behavior by the way!), engage in pornographic binges because they lack the courage or the skills or the drive to go get a real woman, or they are “stay at home” fathers doing kitchen work and raising kids while their female partners busy themselves with their “stellar” careers and exhibit their feminist instincts. And the examples can continue. And I’m not saying that it’s bad to do all these things; I’m only pointing out that we are doing more of this and we are renegotiating our roles (which is an interesting challenge) but also diminishing our masculine side in society as a whole (which, in my opinion, is a bad thing, as it creates unbalance). Try to say something about being a normal man with typical male behavior and you risk being labeled as having a “toxic masculinity”. Toxic to whom? Toxic to the dark feminine spirit that has captured the West…

Most of us have our basic needs satisfied. You can read this on a computer, tablet or mobile device, so you can afford one. You probably don’t die of hunger and you have some sort of shelter, rented or not, but you definitely sleep somewhere. The society functions acceptably, you have a wide range of free services and also access to the universal knowledge of the world through the internet, mostly free of charge. Life has become easy. T o o … e a s y … In fact, you are less motivated to learn or do something new, especially now when the artificial intelligence is taking over everything that can be possible done, and it’s becoming increasingly proficient. You are unnoticeably forced into a regression, into a child-like or infantilized state, into a larval state (from larvae, the initial state of a butterfly… you know… analogy clearly intended). You no longer read, train, work hard as you used to work, because technology is doing a lot for you or in your place, you don’t travel a lot because you can see those places directly on your screen and, anyway, “it’s not safe”, your children are “processed” by the “System” into future “emasculated” individuals, possibly very confused about their identity… I guess you know what I’m saying… Everything is “so damn easy”, life is “too easy”, “too safe”, “too robot-like”, too lacking meaning, purpose and… lacking risks worth taking… As a result, some of you engage in risky behavior that is “still” legally permitted, that is “still” unregulated… for now… You all know what I’m talking about… You are trying to escape the dull life, the controlled life, the risk-free life, the repetitive & boring but comfortable existence… You seek adventure, sometimes in the wrong places, with wrong people or wrong substances… You’re trying to escape…

Escape what or from whom?

Escape the Dark Mother, the one that feeds on you.

Escape her suffocating animus-consumed embrace.

Escape… Safety.

Despite having a comfortable life, this world of today “has an itch”. Despite “safe spaces” of any kind being frantically deployed, we seek an adventurous and meaningful way of life. Individual or collective adventures, such as a new World War perhaps?… We are born this way, with “both” our feminine but also masculine side, regardless of our biological or mental gender. We don’t want, instinctively, to remain in our “comfort zone” of safety. And as the quote at the beginning of the article says, we do not only grow old but we also grow careful, more prone to a well thought-of behavior but also more fearful to engage in any new behavior at all.

My question to you is this: Did you grow old? How old are you?