Members Only Post #179 – What Sanctions Can Teach Us About Masculinity & Self-Development

I’m not someone that pays much attention to the news or world events unless they directly effect me. I don’t say this in a callous way, it’s not that I don’t care about what happens in places other than my backyard. It’s just that there’s only so much time in a day and I have a lot to do and let the news skew my vision of events and fill my mind with negativity is not something I want to spend too much time on.

Regardless not too long the West, which essentially means the U.S. and its followers have hit the Russian Federation with sanctions. Now Again I’m not political so I don’t know what exactly they were but I was able to get the gist of some of it from the general babble going around. And something stood out to me, especially in regards to major corporations and their protestations of the Russian Federation.

We’ll look at three in general. From what I understand the following are all banned in Russia either because of Russian officials or because of the parent company choosing to do so. But anyways porn, Facebook, and McDonalds have all been banned in Russia from what I hear. And I hear much lamenting in the West about how it didn’t have to be this way and how bad this will be for the Russian people.

But here’s my take.

How To Give Your Country A Renaissance

When we look at things that are destroying modern first world populations we can look at a very short list of things that are doing the vast majority of damage to the average person. We have drugs and alcohol at the top of that list. But beyond that there’s porn, social media, and fast food. Getting rid of porn, social media, and fast food seems like one of the most effective ways that I can think of to strengthen a country, not weaken it.

Meaning that if the West really wanted to punish Russia they flood it with McDonalds, modern music, pornography, and connect everyone into dating apps and social media. Much like they’ve done in the West. That’s how you destroy and weaken a country. I just found it hilarious that they were using such tools to “punish” a country. Shows you just one more facet of how upside down our world is.

Now obviously things have expanded beyond there and this isn’t a political essay, rather just pointing out the absurdity of one small part of this.  Look at your own life. Taking out porn, social media, and crappy food is like self-development 101. So essentially the West is giving the entire Russian Federation half of The Primer and saying it’s too punish them.

How To Give Yourself A Renaissance

Start by sanctioning porn, social media, and fast food from your life. That’ll be one hell of a start. Then turn off the news, that’ll be a great follow up. Learn to think and see things for yourself. Read books, exercise, spend time in nature, but I’m sounding like a broken record. If you want to the master key to all of this, this is the best way that I can sum up having success.

Look at what the majority of people, the masses, are doing and believing.

Do the opposite.

That right there is about the single best success advice that you can ever get. Remember that the majority doesn’t mean right, it means majority, that’s it. Are remember that most people are stupid. The path the truth is narrow and the path to destruction is wide. Few walk the path to truth but many walk the path to destruction. So if you find yourself in the ranks of the masses then you already know that something’s wrong.

Get Outside Of The Bubble

Speaking of news most people today, despite the connectedness of things, live in a tiny little bubble. Only seeing and listening to the echoes of that bubble. It’s ironic because though we have access to more information than ever, we use less of it than ever before. Get out of the bubble. Drop the news, go into nature, read old books, and breathe deeply. Those are things that’ll never lead you wrong.

Learn to think critically and think outside the box. But hey cutting out fast food, porn, and social media is a great place to start for your journey to living a healthy, productive, and happy life. One where you life to your fullest as a man and accomplish the things that you were put on this earth to accomplish.

Best Wishes,

-Charles Sledge