The Resistance

n this episode of the M3 BearCast, host Malcolm Travers delves into the theme of resistance inspired by 'The War of Art,' exploring its connection to writer's block and personal growth. Travers shares his experiences and insights on overcoming fear to pursue meaningful pursuits, and discusses interactions with neurodivergent individuals in personal and professional environments. The episode also examines the dynamics of narcissism in friendships and how they can both hinder and foster personal development. Travers uncovers the complex relationships between existential thoughts, societal norms, and personal identity, especially within the context of LGBTQ+ discussions. Tune in for thoughtful reflections on mental health, societal expectations, and the paths to self-discovery.

Transcript

  📍  Welcome to the M3 BearCast. My name is Malcolm Travers. In this episode, I'm going to be talking about a few personal development topics that center around the idea of resistance. Now, this idea comes from the war of art, and it is basically the driving force behind writer's block. And the resistance is basically the thing that you are afraid to do.

It's probably the thing that you most need to do. And you're afraid to do it because it matters so much to you that you're afraid of fucking it up. And in a sense, by resisting the urge to make it, you are saving yourself the humiliation of messing up an idea. Bringing it into the world in a imperfect way.

And of course, if anyone has tried anything in their life, you know that there's nothing that you do that's perfect. Perfection is a ideal that isn't real. And so whatever form that this idea takes in the real world is going to be better than this amorphous idea that you have in your head. Although the reverse seems true, right?

So in your head, it's perfect because it's not real. Once it's real, it, all of its imperfections show itself. But what the idea of the resistance is, is that in order for you to really work with the idea, it has to be brought up, it has to be dealt with, it has to be thought of, it has to be worked on. And typically, once you start working on it, you can see how you can improve it.

Whatever the imperfections are. And some of the things that I have come to realize is that we have to make peace with that imperfection. That part of the point of resistance is to cause growth, right? Like the fear is the point, right? The fear isn't to be given into the fear is supposed to heighten the experience of doing hard things, doing meaningful things, means that you're going to be afraid to do them.

So let me talk about some of those, ideas in real life in my personal experience. So one of the things that I'm facing on the podcast, I just had a three part series with GH about dating and middle aged gay scene. And, This was something that was brought to me by Greg. He co hosts the live streams with me on Wednesday and Monday.

And, most of my interactions with guests happen to be through Greg. This, he's the type of person who is not limited in interacting with people, right? He's able to talk to people. No problem. It's just part of his personality, part of his career. I, on the other hand, come to people, hat in hand, very meek, very, unsure of myself and unable to really deal with my own self worth, right?

I come to people thinking that I am asking a favor of someone when really I'm offering an opportunity to be on the show, to express their ideas. And I noticed as I was going through getting topics for the live stream what is my concept of my show, of my podcast, of my work, and what really matters to me?

And I think for myself, it is the confluence of mental health, scientific evidence based medicine, and more woo woo spiritual practices. that can be distilled into usable tools that can be used that don't require supernatural belief systems. Although we have to recognize that the reason people get into those sort of woowoo religious or even new age cult like behaviors is because there are tools there that people use to deal with problems that may be mental health professionals can't always deal with.

and So some of the content that I run into, I don't think anyone is really exploring those topics outside of themselves. They tend to be talking about their own struggles in life. Say, for instance, someone who is ADHD or in some way neurodivergent dealing with problems at work. For instance, there's a TikTok meme that's going around on, on the interwebs right now about Greeting people in third places.

If you're like a barista or, a customer service person at the register and people complaining about poor service and people getting on the Internet saying that they don't feel like they get paid enough to interact with people or other people saying that maybe some of us are neurodivergent.

And find it very difficult to interact with people. And, there's a lot of back and forth between people who, want better customer service and others who feel like this is not really a part of their job. And there was someone who themselves was neurodivergent and was just talking about, his struggles at getting better at customer service.

Because the fact is, it's part of the job. And if someone is disabled in this way, unable to really read people's social cues, and make appropriate comments to people as they come and go, what they need are some sort of guidelines and rules of the road to make that part of their job a little more palatable, right?

And whatever tools that they use, whether it's like a list of, if this, then that sort of interaction, or almost maybe gamifying it for some people. Making it a game. Seeing like, how many times can they say hello to someone in a single day. Or just artificially manufacturing a smile.

Even though they don't really want to. And, how, it's a muscle that you work and you build with. I like hearing about people's struggles like that, and I want to invite some of those people on. First of all, I guess one of the barriers might be actually interacting with those who are neurodivergent and or ADHD.

It may be a struggle for me, myself, to, manage some of those interactions, personally making it more difficult. But, I think it really is just an internal thing, right? Feeling like I am asking something of them that maybe they don't want to do. Or, thinking less of my own project, and recognizing no, it's just actually important.

And I feel their voices are ones that are important to me and I would like to share them on my podcast. I'll give you another example of being neurodivergent and dating. And, this person was trying to figure out how to set up dates because he would, start messaging with somebody either through an app.

I think in this case it was Tinder, they'd be messaging back and forth for weeks, maybe four weeks before he would ask them out on a date. And, under his understanding, he thought that, if you start a conversation with someone, someone would ask you out. And he found himself in this doom loop of people just messaging back and forth and nobody initiating a date.

And what I found interesting about his content was that this is a problem I think even neurotypical people have, right? But it's made more severe by the fact that one of the people involved in this interaction has difficulty reading. body language and cues and really mind reading the way that most people do, just intuitively understand.

And so I feel like people who are neurodivergent in this way really shine a light on some of the idiosyncrasies of dating behavior, of workplace, Behavior of certain expectations that we have of each other when other when people can't meet those expectations, it really does, illustrate like how complex human interactions are.

Now, I am not on the spectrum and all I have my own mental health problems with emotional regulation and, anxiety and depression and even mania. And those are different, but at the same time, like it is a, it is a struggle sometimes to explain that to people, especially in a dating scenario of what that really means. And and I think part of doing the podcast has to deal with, figuring out those. Rules for myself, rules of the road for myself based in fact in, in science, but in tools that, people outside of science and medicine have been using.

And so I definitely would like to delve into some of those as well. So I'm going to take a quick break. I'm going to get back on one of the topics that that I think might illustrate this. Mhm.

 Hi, this is Malcolm Travers and welcome to the M3 BearCast. In this episode, I want to talk about some ideas surrounding existentialism and nihilism. The idea that nothing matters and existentialism being that maybe the only thing that matters is our own existence. And one of the things that brought this up had to do with some videos that I have been watching on TikTok and I wanted to bring them up on the live stream.

And one of my fears about bringing it up is that I think unless you have had some somewhat of a, unless you've had something like an existential crisis, these aren't really things that you want to think about. Part of what it means to have an existential crisis is to start deconstructing some of the ideas and frameworks for meaning that society, your family, and your community has provided you.

I think we all have ready made ideas that are easily acceptable because all the people around us are accepting those ideas and that allows us to fit in and communicate and to have shared meaning and to really build a life. But at some point we recognize that these don't necessarily fit what we ultimately believe in.

The most obvious case of this has, has to do with religion. And a lot of the beliefs and customs that go along with religion. One of the things that comes up in our live streams a lot of times has to do with, men who are romantically attracted to other men in a society or a community that doesn't even believe that people can just naturally be attracted to other men.

They believe that these are sinful desires, that they are temptations, that they are to be overcome. There's a sexual orientation called homosexuality. And so if you are attracted to men, that means that you just have to try harder, pray harder. 

 So we had a conversation on our live stream about DL men and their beliefs about homosexuality and how it was an idea implanted in them from the church, right? For a lot of them. And they may also willingly ignore information that would suggest that there are things like homosexuality, like there are sexual orientations outside of being straight.

And they may willingly disbelieve those things, but, And the reason that they disbelieve those things is because they are embedded within a community that encouraged them to do that, right? And so there are these outside forces that act upon their belief systems. And oftentimes conversations that we have about denigrating DLMN needs to acknowledge the fact that not everyone was brought up in the same community and not everyone has been given the, not everyone has been given the same opportunity.

to shake off those old beliefs. And so I think ironically, one of the benefits of being a homosexual, someone who is queer, someone who has a different orientation or gender identity is the idea that at some point you are going to rub up against the societal norms and you're going to have to think about, some of these cultural implications placed upon you.

identity and normative beliefs about sexuality and gender. And once you start questioning one course, once you start questioning a core aspect of identity such as that, I think it actually invites you to question other things about society and about what is normal, what is, the default mode, and so that might actually lead you down. A road of deconstruction and maybe even take you all the way to nihilism. Now, I think there is a danger once you reach a true sense of nihilism, the idea that absolutely nothing matters. That if you believe that making it in the world, economic, economic prosperity, having all the toys. Being able to feel like you're better than someone else because of all the things that you have, the access to privileges. Once you have some of these things, recognizing that they don't really mean anything because there's more. There's always going to be more.

And striving after accolades from people who you don't know, who you don't share values with, who you're deriving this sense of identity. validation from people who maybe you really don't want their validation anymore. And maybe there are these ideas of, of what is true and not true beyond just, religious beliefs, but just the efficacy of work or the primacy of the United States in global politics, or I don't know any other sort of shared identities we have about The way things ought to be and recognizing that there is no ought to be.

There is just the way things are and we put our own meaning on top of it. Getting down into that and recognizing that outside of the minds of conscious beings, there is no such thing as meaning that anytime that you observe something, you are by definition observing it from a subjective point of view.

And that's where the meaning comes from. The consciousness of the observer recognizing outside of that consciousness, there's nothing can feel like there really is nothing. The thing is though, if you take it another step further, you recognize that consciousness itself is the meaning, right?

That because you cannot observe or experience or do anything outside of the experience of a conscious being, then that is the thing that matters most. the experience of that conscious being and you can recognize that you need to care for the consciousnesses of other people and even animals. Any sort of being that could potentially have a consciousness and experience pain and joy and suffering, recognizing that that literally is the most important thing because that's all there is really at the end of the day, the experience of being.

And then you can actually start thinking about from my own consciousness. What is most important to me? What makes my conscious experience the most pleasurable, the most meaningful, the most striving? Cause it's not always the sort of hedonistic getting exactly what you want when you want.

There's also the need to strive and to suffer in some pursuit of a goal. And that, that pursuit of that goal doesn't necessarily have to be something someone else told you you need to do. For some, it might just be, sports or adventures or travel or, writing artistic pursuits finding novel experiences, consoling and, and protecting other people.

Raising a family, all these sorts of things can be at your core, the most fulfilling type of experience that you want to have for yourself. But you might not be able to find that until you shake off what other people are trying to tell you is the most important thing. And I think ironically, rubbing up against that That friction between what other people want for you or what they expect of you, while initially horrible, a horrible experience to have to recognize that you don't fit in to what your community is telling you, you ought to care about can ultimately be a blessing if it doesn't break you.

You know that if you have enough fortitude, enough ego left after you reach a nihilistic existential crisis, that you can now rebuild your meaning, your self sense of self in pursuit of your own values. And I think, I don't know if existential crisis comes once in your life because I think you can have them over again because, even as I recognize that you have to rebuild your life based on this, this existential crisis, you realize like maybe, Once you have rebuilt your life and, decided what values matter most to you, some other people's values may end up in those constructions that you make after that crisis.

And so I don't think it's necessarily a one and done. We may have multiple crisis in our life, crisis ease, recognizing that even some of the things that we may pursue May then be revealed to us to be bullshit again, and that process of tearing down and rebuilding is not a, a single, entity.

It's just, I think once you've done it once, you have a blueprint for doing it again and it's not as scary and it is not as it is not as inviting to stay. In that cognitive dissonance and to stay with something that you know is bullshit. That you can find something more and you can go out and, and, and find it.

So I hope that helps. I know that this topic is going to be one difficult to bring up. I'm recording this on Wednesday, October 2nd, and, I plan on bringing it up with the live stream tonight. If you enjoy this kind of content, please join me on the live streams. You can search for Male Media Mind on YouTube.

My lives are currently every Saturday. My live stream is currently every Wednesday at 7 p. m. Eastern where I like to think through some really heavy topics and then sometimes just have some fun. So come join us, drop a line in the chat as we discuss these live. And again, thank you for listening to the M3 BearCast.

I'll catch you in the next episode. Peace. 

 All right, so I'm back. And for my second topic today, I want to talk about narcissism in friendships. I brought this up on Monday with Devon and Greg. It's part of our conversations over lunch. And it was a video by a creator that I'm going to play here because I think it's just the best way to introduce the topic.

And she typically does content based in relationships. And she talks about her own personal experience with a narcissistic ex husband. And, she is herself a mental health professional and is able to detail some of the toxic behavior that he engaged in in their relationship. It was almost abusive, not even almost, it was abusive.

 I'd like to break down the nine signs that you may have a friend that's a narcissist. And I want to warn you, the last one's a little up to face. Number one, every suggestion, every hangout, every activity you two do, it's always his idea. You might make a suggestion, but he reframes it so that it's more his plan than yours.

Sign number two, when you do try to speak up, he either dismisses it or he throws a jab in your direction, of course, all in fun, but he's not all that interested in what you have to say. unless it feeds his ego. Sign number three, and here's a tricky one, you feel like you're more when you're with him, even though deep down, that actually not true.

But the validation you get from this relationship really feels good in the moment. Sign number four, you crave his recognition. Even a throwaway compliment from him feels like a big win. At the end of the day, it's not real validation. It's just enough goodies from him to keep you chasing his approval.

Sign Line number five, he uses sarcasm to keep you in your place. It's those subtle backhanded jabs that make you question yourself just a little. Of course, he always says he's joking, but it cuts. Because there's a little bit of truth to what he's saying about how he feels about you. Sign number six, he's the classic one upper.

Whatever your strength is, he has to show you he's better, that he's faster, he's stronger. Whether it's work, fitness, or relationship, he's always the one to remind you that he can outdo you at any time. Sign number seven bragging is his favorite pastime and it's just not for fun He expects you to flatter him in return And so when you hear him boasting, you know the drill by number eight you get intense FOMO When you think of turning him down Even though maybe it's an activity you don't want to do, you can't quite let go of the opportunity of going because you feel like you're missing out.

He'd make sure to know that you did miss out if you didn't take advantage of that opportunity. And sign number nine, and here's the hardest one to admit. You keep yourself small so that he can shine. You actually dim your brightness, greatness, or whatever it is. This person always presents as the best in the room.

You help him stay in the spotlight because deep down, you want this relationship despite what this is costing you.  Did any of these hit close to home? And did I miss any? Drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

 The sort of behavior that she's speaking about in friendships is very insidious in the sense that it's not really abusive. And I'm going to place this right here and I'll talk about it on the other side.

So when I was bringing this up in the live stream, I brought up the idea that just because someone is narcissistic doesn't necessarily mean that they, meant to do you harm, right? The sort of behavior that she's outlining are to me very immature behavior. Someone who has, has a need for grandiosity.

I brought up the idea of, the high school pecking order. You had the jocks, you had the nerds, you had the different groups. And there were certain people who really needed to be on top of the social hierarchy. And there are a lot of movies that document this sort of behavior.

I've never been that person who wanted to be at the top of the heap. Not really. Maybe somewhere off in my imagination I thought I could be. But I do remember meeting a friend who reminded me of those people in high school as an adult. And he demonstrated a lot of the characteristics that she talks about in this video, one of which had to do with the fact that I felt somehow that I was honored to be in his presence almost, like, how would one of the cool kids want to hang out with me, and, maybe that was just my own, insecurities speaking up like feeling like I deserved to not be someone's friend, even though like I am clearly a handsome and interesting person.

But no, I just did not feel like I was on the same level as this person. And there was a lot of reasons for that. But I think at the end of the day, I was at a place in my life where I was small in my own self esteem, small in my own self concept. And this narcissistic friend actually worked for me, in a way.

Because, in many ways, he was boosting my self esteem pretty much every time we got together, right? He pretty much got to decide what we did. That suited me fine, because I didn't really know what to do. I felt like I was just following him around. Like a lost little duckling, and for that time in my life, that was appropriate.

I realized later that I graduated from that sort of need to be mentored or, brought up, and I don't think there was any sort of animosity on either side. It took me a while to come to peace with what happened because I did feel like I did feel some sort of need to want to vilify him.

But I think over time, I started to recognize that, in his narcissism, he also tried to upgrade me, he tried to be that mentor for me and tried to mold me into his image, basically. And when I didn't really have much of a self identity, that was okay. It was, it was something that I didn't resist, right?

Later on, as I started to grow into my own identity, it wasn't acceptable. And one of the points I was trying to make in the live stream was that maybe he was the catalyst I needed to form my own identity in some ways. It wasn't like, I was doing much of, of that on my own. And sometimes you have to touch the stove to recognize when you've hit a boundary that is not working for you.

And, and even though a lot of his compliments were disingenuous, I recognize, in retrospect, they were based in some. Genuine observations, right? Even if he didn't have a genuine appreciation for a lot of the things that he said, they were based in reality. And, but there, there is that double edged sword, which is you can be mentored by the narcissist up to a point.

And that point is when you start to shine brighter than they. Once you have surpassed them in some way, they feel the need to cut you down and bring you back down to size. And that can be pretty nerve wracking for me. It wasn't as bad as I've seen it for other people. But I think at the day, when I think about narcissism and these sorts of relationships, it really does take two to tango, right?

It's the narcissist, and I believe some were called like the borderline personality, the one who morphs themselves to be with the narcissist, basically. And it's not about victim blaming either, right? Like in certain cases, like this woman detailed a relationship in which she truly was an abuse victim.

And it is not to say that she is the cause or the Or in any way to blame for being the subject of abuse. But there is something to be said about the fact that, the narcissist needs someone who is, not sure of themselves. There are, they have to be in some ways a, pliable piece of clay, basically.

If they're going to mold this person, try to. Manipulate them, you have to be a little soft, right? Like you, you have to be moldable in some way and that doesn't give the person the right to just manipulate you. But it does mean that if you survive it, if you grow out of the relationship, if you heal from any sort of abuse that comes from it, I think on the other end, you end up being a better person.

And That sort of realization almost gave me a sense of gratitude to this person, not because they did something good for me intentionally. You know what I mean? But unintentionally, were they were a catalyst for my own self growth. And so I think there's something in my mind that says we do ourselves harm.

When we don't acknowledge the good things from that toxic person in our lives, like once you truly have healed from it, once you have truly moved on, I think it's good to acknowledge the positive things. It definitely doesn't mean you want to go back there, right? And it also doesn't mean that you're going to allow someone else to take that role.

Hopefully that it's a lesson well learned, right? But at the same time it honors yourself. It honors your choices, right? In certain ways. Like I chose this person to be my friend because they had these positive qualities because I enjoyed the time that we spent together because, these were some of the things I needed at that time in my life.

And now I'm not that person and I, I don't have to hate them. And I don't have to hate myself for allowing them to manipulate me in that way. It is what it is. Sometimes it just is what it is that two people find each other. And, it's not always the most virtuous relationship, but it is the one you might have needed to grow out of.

All right, I'm going to move on to the next topic. 

   📍 And that will do it for this episode of the M3 BearCast. This was somewhat of a journey for me to get through an episode, a solo episode, I've been doing interviews for the past three episodes. And I've met quite a bit of resistance in my own life. Getting to the end of this episode was a little bit of an ordeal, but I am so happy that you made it here with me.

And if you are. Like this podcast, please become a patron of Mail Media Mind. Go to the patreon. com slash mail media mind. You'll get early access to a video version of this podcast, as well as after shows of our live streams throughout the week. We also have telegram groups. Some of them have spicy content.

Some are just us  fooling around before and after the shows. We also have a discord server, which we're trying to build up, but we're always trying to find new ways. To thank our patrons for supporting male media mind. Our content is a work of love and a little financial support goes a long way,  but if you can't afford the 5 a month to become a patron, obviously you can just support us by rating us, sharing us with a friend, putting us on social media, put it in someone's hand, tell them, listen,  this is a good podcast. 

And It's always appreciated. We will catch you in the next episode and thank you for listening.