Modern life has had all of the testosterone sucked out of it. Mankind is quick becoming amorphous and androgynous blobs without souls or meaning. The blood, sweat, spit, and vigor that once coursed through the race of men is slowing being dribbled away. The body grows fat and weak, the mind dull and soft, and the spirit listless and stifled. Man becomes nothing more than an inefficient machine or robot, a sort of insect without the beauty of being part of nature.
This is not the fate I want for you my reader. This is not a fate that I want for anyone, even my enemies. Every man should live with a fire in his heart and a strong spirit coursing through his veins. He should be able to feel the wind, feel his blood in his veins, and the majesty that this world has to offer for those with the guts and spirit for it. Those that bleed, fight, and strive valiantly.
Those that live as God intended them to live, away from the numbing vapors of the Satanic modern world. In the open places where a man can still breath and discharge his strength. Here I want to share ways to build the strength of your spirit (which is the most important thing) and join the great tradition of the noble barbarians. Much of my work is dedicated to this so I’m going to try to talk about some things that I haven’t before.
You should already understand the threat of the numbing agents as well as masculine habits to cultivate to increase this spirit, drive, and strength. Here I’m focusing on specific challenges to use to strengthen yourself and bolster this spirit that I talk of.
The First Challenge To Cultivate Your Inner Conan
God created nature to be struggled with, overcome, and enjoyed. A man will feel alive deep in the woods or high on the mountains struggling with the elements and creatures. Many societies as a rite of passage would have a boy go into the woods for a week having to return with a kill to prove they were a man. I think something along this lines is a great way to cultivate your own masculine energy and spirit. Consider it a vacation for your soul of sorts.
The first challenge is to spend a week in the woods/mountains/nature surviving with limited supplies. Obviously this is something that will require training and not something you can just do right off the bat. But it’s something to work up towards. The less tools you can bring and the more remote the place is the better this will be. Now this will also increase the danger so like I said before it is something you will have to build up to and do when your skills are ready.
Bring with you a backpack worth of stuff and survive with what you find out there. Brave the elements and challenge yourself. The more you can get to “man alone in woods with loincloth and hatchet” the better off you’ll be. But again this requires training and skills that take time and effort to acquire. So start building up these skills. Basic camping, survival, first aid, bushcraft, and what have you.
The Second Challenge To Cultivate Your Inner Conan
Violence has always been and always will be a part of being a man. This is the way God created man and what pleases him. Fighting in war or in structured combat has always been part of masculine culture. Like all great challenges this one will also require preparation, effort, training, and the development of skill. It’s not something that you can do right away and if you did try to do it right away could get hurt very badly, which is not what I want and not what the point of this is.
The second challenge is the enter and fight in an amateur fight. I don’t care if it’s a local boxing match, a grappling tournament, or a local MMA event. Just enter a scheduled amateur fight and compete in it. Get in/on the ring/mat/cage and fight. Doesn’t matter if you win (though obviously you should be fighting to win) just that you get in there and give it your all. Don’t be dumb about this and just enter some local contest with lenient promoters and get your ass kicked and potentially seriously hurt.
This isn’t about being “tough” in a stupid way. This is about developing skills and a spirit. Trust me training on its own will make you plenty “tough”. Only enter when you’re ready but do work your hardest to be ready as soon as possible. There is something unique about getting in a roped or caged off area and trading blows with another trained fighter. To feel the blood well up when you get cracked to see another man fall before your blows and so on and so forth. Very primal and very powerful stuff.
The Third Challenge To Cultivate Your Inner Conan
I’ve written a bit about the natural professions of man and how when man doesn’t live in accordance with them (among other principles) he starts to feel disconnected from himself and disconnected from his power. And his soul begins to fade as his fire burns out and leaves him hollow. But these challenges are all about preventing that from ever happening and making that fire a roaring blaze that’ll never be extinguished. Which brings us to the final challenge. One that involved the shedding of blood and the taking of a life.
Not another man’s blood of course as that is illegal pretty much everywhere. No rather that of an animal, but it must be done in a specific way (and no I’m not talking about animal sacrifice here). I’m talking about hunting. But not sitting in a treestand with a gun while drinking some beer and laying out feed fat ass redneck hunting. But rather real primal hunting. One that requires skill, stamina, and cunning. No guns, treestands, feed, or anything like that allowed.
You must use a bow (compound is fine but eventually want to use recurve) and you can use camouflage but that’s about it. You’ll likely have to do some stalking and positioning to get your kill and it’ll be up close and personal. You want to be closer than 30 yards generally. Obviously not something that is easy which is why it’s a challenge. If you want to go full primal and make this an extra challenge use a spear (never done it but it does interest me, anyone with experience feel free to chime in in the comments). As always use what you kill.
Cultivating Your Inner Conan
Depending on who are one or two of these may not be right for you which is fine. For example some of us are past fighting age and for some it might be hard to find a place to hunt with plentiful game and so on and so forth. My advice would be to choose one and start training for it, whatever that entails.
These should be enough to get you started in the right direction and are good skills to cultivate regardless. And remember it’s not so much about the skills and the strengthening and cultivation of the spirit. Yes these things will steel your body as well as your mind but it’s the spirit that is the biggest thing here.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it.
-Charles Sledge
