I Think I Got My Nuts Back

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” — William G.T. Shedd

I was sitting in my dimly lit room, trapped in the corporate Microsoft Office-Teams Meeting-Excel vortex, when I thought—”I’m simply waiting to die.”

"Mom, I've got another 'fun idea.'"

Sighs… "are you moving to Thailand?" [My mom has clearly grown accustomed to my grand plans.]

"No... Bolivia. But first… Colombia, and a stop in Peru on the way to return to Huaraz. Remember, the place I sent all the photos of snow-capped mountains from two years ago? I gotta do the 10-day hike I skipped last time…it's haunting me.”

Her: 🤦‍♀️ “stay safe…”

Taking Back Our Agency

Me, last June:

Back to the dimly lit room and Microsoft-sponsored clusterfuck.

Another Teams meeting, another faked smile for the camera…

An anxious middle-aged woman, newly an empty-nester and surely seeking to fill the void of losing authority over her boys, barks commands at me. She’s my boss.

“Yes, master, yes,” I basically say, through gritted teeth.

“I need to get my agency back…” I told myself.

No… I needed to get my fucking balls back.

A week later, I promptly handed in my resignation. Outta there. 🛫 

Where to? I decided I’d be relocating to… new premises.

So I left. I started living again.

Me, since July:

• Eating the world’s best street tacos in Monterrey

• Ripping dirt-bikes along Mexico’s Oaxacan coast

• Obliging to invites to visit (and promptly disrobe at) the nude beaches of Canada

• Maneuvering through the sketchy, high-stabbage streets of Bogota

• Motorcycle trips through Colombian countryside

• A shit ton of suffering, enjoying, experiencing, and healing

• And the occasional love affair…

All solo, on my terms. As my brother Ross says, ”traveling the world and doing what the fuck you want.”

Make no mistake… it’s not a life of pure hedonism. Lots of hard work, business launching, failing, facing myself, and a whole lotta real shit…

Contrast that to a life of playing it safe, nodding along, and waiting for permission.

I think I got my agency back…

The Craving and Satiation of Adventure

I believe exploring frontiers is wired into man.

I’ve come to see adventure as a primal need, not different than hunger or thirst.

Functions the same—the longer one goes without it, the deeper sense of lack one feels.

The more one explores, the greater satiation one feels.

Like over-eating and skipping your next meal, I’ve had periods of too much adventure at times and wanted stability for many months to follow.

But following said months of routine, I needed to pop out again.

The Dismantling of Modern Men

What’s more, I’ve finally met some cats who share my mindset. And I ain’t going back.

My closest pa’tna takes it further than me:

• navigating all of Colombia solo on a motorbike

• living in Thailand

• Flipping investments in physical gold, businesses, etc.

• going anywhere (dude hangs out in Buenaventura, casually the capital of dismemberment entrenched in cartel warfare)

• and generally doing what the fuck he wants.

Good influence, or bad? Depends who ya ask.

In my view, much needed—a rare breed, these days.

Controversial statement:

These days, I seldom come across a man with his balls intact.

What do I mean?

95% of modern Western men are fearful, docile, and can only fantasize about freedom.

How do I know? I was once this man. I can thus see right through those 95%, immediately.

It’s the unfortunate truth of today’s world and what they’ve done to men.

What have they done to men?

To start, we’re socialized to be scared, play it safe, and seek approval.

We’re largely raised by women, who, despite the best intentions, cannot fill the vacant role of the father, the man, and the wisdom boys MUST receive from the community’s older men.

Backstory: Since the industrial revolution, almost all men have lacked positive male role models.

Whether it’s no dad, an aloof or emotionally unavailable dad, or just men in our environment, with unresolved trauma from their dads.

It extends to beyond the family—our society is void of rites of passages, community, and intergenerational wisdom.

Dad gets home from the office drained. He wants to numb out and switches on the TV while cracking open his first beer.

Where the father once embodied adventure, order, structure, and fearlessness, this character seems to have lost all of that.

The boy sees a lifeless zombie, not a father archetype. Dad is void of vitality, boundaries, life energy, boldness, integrity, and freedom.

We then grow up seeking to satiate our dire thirst for the father’s guidance with women’s approval, overemphasizing work, or vices—things that promise to quench the thirst.

But they don’t. They can’t. And they never will.

So, we men never “leave home” (psychologically), and stick around the mother’s warm, safe hearth.

This isn’t physical—Sure, there’s an epidemic of men who physically live at home (e.g., NEET). But, we may have moved out of our mother’s home years ago… and mentally, we’re still there.

Grown men biologically, but still boys psychologically.

“The hearth’s warmth, protection, and nourishment create an enormous gravitational pull. To remain by the hearth is to remain a child, literally and figuratively, and to foreswear ones potential as an adult.” — James Hollis

“Man must depart from security if he is to become himself”

This is a fact many men realize later than they’d like. Mid-life crises are cool, but quarter-life crises are better. Most, sadly, will go to the grave having not left home.

How’s This Related to Adventure?

Everything. Because adventure is the rite of passage that sparks the great rewiring.

To “move out, we must integrate our father complex and mother complex, or be governed by them under our awareness, for life.

[I just published an in-depth guide on integrating the father complex, with the mother’s sequel coming soon.]

This involves “leaving home” and the mother’s hearth, giving ourselves what our fathers never could, and stepping into our adventure.

My point is, these journeys of mine… they aren’t just physical. They are equally psychological.

My father never left home, psychologically speaking, even after establishing a career and owning a house.

He never escaped from this wounding, so I must.

He never went on his adventure or found his purpose. So I must.

He never dealt with the pain inflicted upon him by his father. So I must.

Every so often, like a dog seeing another dog, my ears perk up, and I smell the scent of freedom.

I meet my match.

Maybe it’s a fellow man with whom I can take trips, discuss investment strategies, and swap travel stories. He’s not a bot, and understands the need to break free.

Perhaps it’s a woman who thinks big and takes action, with a deep thirst for life. She isn’t confined the the societal scripts handed to her.

We’re intensely drawn to these free people. It’s the Tyler Duren allure from Fight Club, the ultimate embodiment of freedom, in contrast to The Narrator’s stifled state.

Out Here, There Is No Turning Back

The blessing and curse of living this lifestyle?

Once you taste the sweetness of freedom, there’s no going back to the bland chicken of status quo and dry rice of confinement.

The bird that escapes the cage and soars high over the mountain ain’t going back to the cage…

I meet many people who are grappling with the decision to pull the plug on the “normal” life…. Working 9-5, having a master, governed by fear, and succumbing to what society tells you you should be doing.

I say, “Just be ready to never be able to go back.”

Would I trade my life for my previous, confined one? No way in hell.

That’s despite losing countless friends, possessions, potential partners, and what society deems necessary milestones to be a successful adult.

You might think it’s a six-month experience, but it’s not. It’s just your test-drive of freedom before you have no choice but to buy.

To your growth and travels, good sires and madams,