Men of the Future
Note from the author: This essay makes no policy proposal argument and should not be read in light of current events.
20 Rules for Healthy Masculinity: A Guide for Young Men in the Age of Social Media
“Where am I when I’m not in reality or in my imagination? Here’s my new pact: it must be sunny at night and snowy in August. Great things end. Small things endure. Society must become united again instead of so disjointed. Just look at nature and you’ll see that life is simple. We must go back to where we were, to the point where we took the wrong turn. We must return to the fundamental principles of life without polluting the water. What kind of world is this if a madman tells you you must be ashamed of yourselves!”
— Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Nostalghia’ (1983)
For the vast majority of human history, masculinity was never a matter of debate. Countless wars have been fought by masculine men who would then be free to redefine the purpose of Man, but rarely the definition of masculinity. To the extent that a victor was able to redefine it, it was through his own people’s interpretation of his character. If you were promiscuous as a king, then your people could adopt a lustful understanding of masculinity.
A similar logic plays out in the great works of literature. In Homer’s epic The Iliad, the rivalry between Achilles and Hector can be seen as a direct or subconscious attempt to depict the archetypal masculine man. However, at no point do the characters argue about the subject itself; instead, it is through their actions—and ultimately, direct conflict—that the answer emerges. Most notably, neither of the characters led factions interested in proving the other wrong.
This is true of literature as well as history. The only way to redefine masculinity was to let masculinity compete. So why hasn’t the increasingly crowded online manosphere yet managed to crown a victor, given years of competition between its members?
We tend to think of online rivalries between men as competition, but male competition on social media is near impossible. As I pointed out in “No Honor Among Mutuals”, in which I look at how the nature of social media and its incentives are preventing character development among young men:
Because online confrontations lack the threat of physical violence, they cannot be “masculine”. In the realm of the virtual, the only way to escalate a confrontation is to engage in forms of essentially feminine violence: emotional bullying, innuendo, gossip, and group exclusion. This is why all online spaces eventually tend to manifest an anti-masculine dynamic.
The crisis of masculinity isn’t a direct result of social media. We are all aware of and recognize feminism as a major contributor to the problem, courtesy of the thousands of essays, books, YouTube videos, TikTok videos, podcast episodes, conferences, Twitter debates, podcast debates, and YouTube debates, all trying to nail the problem.
But what if that’s the problem?
The idea that an online debate can get us any closer to determining what makes a masculine man would be to assume that Dana White could direct the sequel to Pride and Prejudice. This doesn’t mean debate cannot involve two masculine men, but that no steps towards establishing a “reasonable” definition of masculinity can be accomplished in an environment that removes fundamental prerequisites for masculine competition.
The “Change My Mind” discussion format popular on US college campuses is counterintuitive to this effect. Conservatives often view it as an example of a civilized society. But the format is only civilized to the extent that it does not respond to real-life incentives. When the host sits down, he does so as a social media personality. Similarly, his opponent is looking for his 5 minutes of fame. The reason the discussion never devolves into a physical confrontation has little to do with mutual respect and more to do with the fact that the environment in which the confrontation is taking place is technically online. Consider how often the contenders mock each other: what’s civilized about two men berating each other for half an hour?
This is not an argument in favor of violence (that one will come later), nor for physical strength being the central element of healthy masculinity. If anything, it’s the opposite: verbal confrontations between men in the real world carry the risk of devolving into a physical confrontation. Hence, the incentive in real life is to find common ground. But online is the other way around, with no apparent repercussions:
If someone disagrees with you [on the timeline], you could try to de-escalate or talk in private, but that’s not how to farm engagement. The incentive is always to escalate—and not only to escalate, but to seek out disagreements in the first place.
The natural process of character development through inspiration is thus overshadowed by an algorithm that rewards toxic feminine behavior in an inverted hierarchy, where genuine masculine competition is made nearly impossible, and the lessons from competition are lost in translation.
Society’s obsession with Reason (or at least Reasonable society’s obsession with Reason) also prevents us from defining masculinity.
Stories play an essential role in shaping character, particularly in children. We tell stories to kids long before their prefrontal cortex is fully developed because, while they can’t yet wrestle with ideas, they can already grasp archetypes. A 7-year-old boy waving a sword in the backyard doesn’t understand the virtue of honor (i.e., he cannot make an argument for it), but he can still enact the role of a knight, the same way a daughter can’t articulate motherhood but can still play ‘house’.
Neither is ‘copying’ adults, however; to copy would be just to repeat words or mirror body language. What children do is a lot more sophisticated: they extract qualities such as bravery and care from observing adults or fictional characters without being taught how to do so, and begin incorporating them and even enacting them before understanding their value—in other words, before seeing a ‘reason’ to. This process continues well into adulthood and remains true for adults long after our brains are capable of reasoning.
This is where social media comes into play to screw everything up.
Few 12-year-olds today are given a sword to wave in their backyard. Instead, they can easily enter an online community of like-minded fans. When they do, they’re thrust into an environment that completely reverses the learning process. “10 Reasons Why Iron Man is stronger than Captain America.” The introduction of Reason into the subconscious process of character development trumps character development because intellect is tricky. Consider how intellectuals often assume that “objectivity” is the sole metric for evaluating morality, while rarely living up to it. It can be challenging to think critically, even when one is very self-aware. In other words, the likelihood that children can understand virtue and morality on YouTube more effectively than on their own is very low.
By the time a young man becomes interested in learning about manliness online, he becomes subject to influencers incentivized to accrue more followers. And what better way to lead the debate on masculinity than to point towards oneself? Young men’s natural capacity to extract and integrate archetypal representations of manliness is impeded by the influencers’ tendencies to point towards themselves, and themselves only, as role models. By doing so, the archetypal abstraction process in the listener is blocked, replaced by the collective “culture war” mindset of influencer culture.
The introduction of academics and intellectuals into the competition only exacerbates the situation. Conservative institutions have published countless symposiums over the past decade in an attempt to define masculinity. But the authors are typically middle-aged family men with academic backgrounds (no offense), and they are operating under the same incentives as the influencers. Thus, they tend to look down on masculinity gurus and resort to basic masculine qualities such as fatherhood or rationality. Once again: pointing towards themselves.
Lastly, once factions of young men are created online, they become subject to the same incentives as the influencers who initially drew them in. It’s not about learning anymore; it’s about competing with a different group to rise higher within the cult’s ranks. The natural process of character development through inspiration is thus overshadowed by an algorithm that rewards toxic feminine behavior in an inverted hierarchy, where genuine masculine competition is made nearly impossible, and the lessons from competition are lost in translation.
Ultimately, this is how you get the online manosphere: a movement led by self-obsessed influencers with legions of adolescent men fighting against each other like teenage girls in an attempt to define what makes a man, constantly looked down on an ecosystem of academics who wouldn’t defend their ideas against a drunk teenager, made even worse by the introduction of even more self-obsessed women (and gays) into the discussion—not to mention the wonderful contribution of gender-studies professors—all taking place in a reverse-engineered environment trumping character development.
Ever wondered why the longer we debate the crisis of masculinity, the deeper the crisis? Perhaps the reason is that reason doesn’t work. Who’s gonna win between @Achilles and @Hector? Neither, because Achilles and Hector didn’t have Twitter followings.
***
“True strength lies not in the arm but in the soul.’
— Yamamoto Tsunetomo
1. Practice phone calls over texting.
Men don’t like the word ‘vulnerability’ because it has become synonymous with being ‘emotional’, when it’s really all about being real: knowing who you are and being comfortable with it. Text-communication apps are the most effective anti-vulnerability tool ever devised. It is nearly impossible to be 100% vulnerable online, as by the time you’re done texting, the initial emotion your body language would have revealed in real life has been replaced by your desire to project an ideal version of yourself. One way to reverse this habit is to practice phone calls over texting, without giving your friends notice. Hint: A non-masculine person is unlikely to be comfortable with it. Think twice before becoming friends with them. They’re either insecure or manipulative, or both. Anything you want to communicate is faster via phone than via text, so if they pretend to be too busy every time, they’re lying. (They could also be shy, in which case, it’s only cute if it’s a girl. Or just hate phone calls?) Additionally, if you need to text, don’t use emojis. They’re silly and rarely convey your real reaction. Over time, you’ll forget how to be genuine. Ex: When’s the last time you used “lol” and were actually laughing out loud?
P.S. Of course, the ultimate goal is always to meet people in real life.
2. Never judge a man based on his political opinions.
Your political stances say little about your character and worth, as establishing a person’s morality from politics depends on their motivations. You can have two individuals with the same political opinions but with two completely different characters; do you love your country, or do you just hate the Left? Furthermore, as mentioned above, the more a person is inclined to think for a living, the more they can delude themselves into believing they are superior to others. This is not always the case, as thinking about questions involving morality obviously helps and is necessary to become a better person. But pay attention to how a person behaves. If he preaches “understanding” but spends his days criticizing everything and everyone, he’s likely motivated by envy or pride or both, rather than care. Character always trumps ideology, and until you have taken on significant responsibilities, such as starting a family, a business, or practicing what you preach in general, all you really have are opinions. Having a consistent set of ‘takes’ online can be a useful exercise, but nothing more than that if untested.
3. Stop reading self-help books.
Self-help can help, but it’s usually cheating. This varies depending on the book, but self-help often prescribes reverse psychology techniques rather than genuine character-building. The pick-up artist industry is the perfect example. Pick-up artists are generally incapable of charming a woman. All they learn, and then teach, is how to trick a woman into thinking she’s charmed via a set of premeditated rituals, such as the use of specific words and body language (pickup artists are the most confident, insecure people you’ll ever meet). Self-help books, in general, often operate under the same philosophy: they are less about learning to be vulnerable and more about convincing yourself and others that you are happy (happiness should be eliminated from your vocabulary; meaning, and joy that comes from meaning, is what you want). There are exceptions to this, but this is usually the rule in the self-help world: the “self” parts stand for ‘selfish’. Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung is not just a better alternative: he’s the antithesis of the self-help industry.
4. Learn to throw (and take) a punch.
This is less about learning to fight and more about testing yourself, as well as learning to develop mutual respect. The biggest character lessons you’ll ever learn as a young man will come as a result of a physical confrontation. You won’t be able to establish reasonable boundaries between yourself and another person until you’ve been in one, and you will always fail to be respected. This isn’t Tyler Durden philosophy (although Tyler Durden is undoubtedly a great antidote to the internet creature), it’s just 101 advice for boys. No man who has never been punched before will ever truly respect another man. I say this as someone who has lost most of the fights I’ve gotten into. Each taught me something very valuable, and in most cases, made me a better person, bringing me closer to my rival instead of further antagonizing them. The mutual respect comes from realizing where the boundaries are rather than from determining who’s physically superior, so it doesn’t work if you’re looking to start a fight (though I suppose it can be fun). It’s all about learning to stand up for yourself when the opportunity presents itself. Playing sports helps, as physical confrontation is par for the course.
5. Never order a Cosmopolitan.
As the bartender in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed puts it: “What, do you got your period?” Ordering a drink should be a manly exercise, too, no different than working out at the gym. Juicy, summer drinks are for women. Negronis are instead harder to get to the bottom of, and they mostly taste like shit. This is why I drink them—because even La Dolce Vita for a man needs a touch of bitterness to be enjoyable. Any Martini cocktail is better than a Long Island. They are also excellent digestives, whereas spirit mixers and refreshing drinks are for people who want to get drunk without experiencing pain. Also, please, never use a straw, especially for Negronis. And don’t order Vespers unless you’re a handsome British secret service agent with a supermodel waiting for you in your hotel room upstairs, okay? L-A-R-P.
P.S. This is also one of the central tenets of Christian Futurism (full manifesto coming soon).
P.P.S. You’re not taking this one too literally, are you?
6. Only buy furniture if you have a girlfriend.
Furniture in your apartment has the purpose of making your everyday environment more pleasing and comfortable for other people, not for yourself. If you don’t have a girlfriend, there’s no purpose in buying furniture. Just get a couple of chairs, a table, and a bed. It’s all you need. (No sofa, either.) The only acceptable exception is if you’re a genuine interior design enthusiast and use your furniture as a creative or aesthetic exercise. I know a few men who do. Or, if you work remotely, in which case you should definitely afford yourself a cocktail table for the single malt Scotch. But more than that? Gay. If your friends are regularly coming to visit you, they can sit on the floor. If you’re mum does, you can sit on the floor. Simple as that. (Also, not TV, of course). If you have books in your apartment, hide them from view when recording a podcast. They are for you, and no one believes you’ve actually read them anyway.
7. Dress well as a form of respect.
Don’t dress up for vanity or ambition. Dressing up should be a humbling exercise. If you’re going to get a drink at the Ritz Hotel, dress well, but do it as a form of respect to the great men of the past (I say “of the past,” because genuinely aristocratic people are hard to come across today.) ” Fake it until you make it” is also cheating because you’re not learning to be classy or aristocratic, you’re only mirroring the habits, rituals, and behaviors of your favorite TV series. Reflect on the environment you’re in, and observe people who are comfortable in it, much like a child abstracts virtues from watching or reading about fictional characters. Fake it until you make it is how we get online right-wing accounts acting like they are James Bond but struggling to go a day without tweeting the N Word. My name is Bond, James Bond, n*****. Also, please, learn to talk like normal people in real life. Wordcels are entertaining online, not so much on a Friday night. Sometimes a man just wants to watch the football game! (With all the love in the world to my wordcel friends.)
Sean Connery as 007.
8. Learn to cry in private.
If you find yourself often crying without any control over it, it just means you’re emotionally unstable (it’s of course normal if you’re going through something, or you’ve lost someone—not judging). Learning to cry is the opposite. Focusing on meaningful memories involving family members, even if painful or especially if painful, is a great way to experience tears of joy. Tears of joy are nothing like tears of sadness. They will make you more appreciative of life and more capable of handling future emotional challenges. It’s essential to do this in private or with your loved ones because these are special moments between you and God. (At the same time, don’t judge someone like Jordan Peterson for crying in interviews until a million young men have walked up to you and told you you changed their lives. This should be a rule of its own.)
TL:DR: become the shoulder people can cry on, not the other way around.
9. Stop trying to be funny all the time.
There’s a reason why comedians never make the Top 10 list of most attractive professions for men to women. Trying to be funny all the time usually hides either deep-seated insecurities or an unwillingness to take life seriously, i.e., taking on responsibilities such as being a provider and protector. There are exceptions to this; men can have a talent for making people laugh, yet be very serious behind the scenes. A good sense of humor is also a sign of healthy masculinity, but a constant need to be seen as a man with one is not. Use humor with a purpose, not as a tool to avoid vulnerability or climb social hierarchies (men who do that are very annoying). This is also why meme culture is largely negative for young men: 1) There’s no class in mocking other human beings. 2) THERE’S NO CLASS IN MOCKING OTHER HUMAN BEINGS. 3) What do you consider sacred? Tell me about that.
P.S. Do you admire Erik Prince and consider him a role model for masculinity? Please find me a meme he posted since he got on X.
Blackwater founder Erik D. Prince.
10. Take responsibility for a friend’s pain.
This is not about making you feel better about yourself, but to learn your limits. Genuinely helping someone means taking responsibility for his (or her) failures, whether personal or professional. If cheering a friend up cheers you up, you’re not sacrificing anything. This is why giving money to homeless people is a meaningless act. Aside from the fact that many homeless people stay homeless because people provide them with cash for sandwiches, the act is not genuine charity because it does not involve giving up more than you’d bother picking up from underneath a car on a rainy day. The same logic applies to friends. If a friend is depressed, see if you can look at him like his parents do, i.e., “it’s my fault,” and then make genuine sacrifices to help him. This will teach you how hard it is to improve someone’s life, and you’ll have a real reason to feel good about yourself if you succeed. (Try your best, and you will.)
11. Find out all your parents’ flaws.
No matter how much of a role model your father is to you, he’s not perfect. Discover why, and learn to appreciate him also when he’s showcasing his flaws. The same goes for any person you admire. This is the most essential part of growing up. Your ideal should be Christ, period—he should be your North Star and no one else. Everyone else is a sinner, and your job is to love them regardless. Becoming aware of every single one of your parents’ flaws marks your official transition into adulthood. You will learn to view no one as a God (looking to someone as a God can be unconscious), and understand how fragile the world is. There are no “adults” once you become an adult, and Trump isn’t going to fix everything. Nor will Elon Musk. This will make you more tolerant of other people’s flaws, more appreciative, and, as a consequence, more respectful of them. Musk is not like you because he posts memes. He’s a once-in-a-generation man, and you’re (probably) not. Any form of idolatry is an act of disrespect towards the idol, as you’re not paying tribute to who they really are but instead using them to fill a void in yourself (or lower your ambitions). The proper reaction to a hero dying is to get to work on outdoing his achievements.
Asking for the strength to fix yourself is a prayer that will always be answered. The toughest part? You have to first recognize and accept that you’re the problem.
12. Practice your inner feminine.
Every man, no matter how masculine, has an inner feminine. This is not the same as being feminine. It only means being in touch with it as a larger effort to appreciate all sides of life. I do this a lot with Beauty. Love of Beauty is not necessarily associated with female traits (I discuss what Beauty with a Capital B is at length in IM7: The Culture Stone). Still, appreciation for beauty in life generally is—much like being more interested in fiction over non-fiction. For instance, I like searching for great representations of motherhood in art, as well as in everyday life—and listening to Celine Dion. This makes me more appreciative of women and will make me more appreciative of my wife’s role when I get married. Also, doing this will make you feel comfortable hanging out with women your age and in general. Making friends with women will never come across as natural as with men until you understand why they think differently. Hint: it has to do with the fact that they’re biologically different and play a distinct role in society (duh).
13. Praise qualities unlike yours in other men.
This is vital. If not, you’re just another masculinity guru online. Example: A man doesn’t have to know combat to be a warrior. With that said, I have no problem recognizing that being a warrior also means being equipped to survive in war. It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be able to survive in one; it just means I don’t feel the need to hide that element on this list for fear of being seen as “incomplete.” I remember when I was a kid, men fighting dragons with swords was what I admired. Just because I learned to slay a dragon in my head (no joke) doesn’t make me Leonidas I, and it won’t stop me from praising Spartans—as Spartans should learn to honor someone like Gandhi (arguably the most dangerous man of the 20th century) for his exceptional warrior-disciplined mindset. Recognizing qualities in men that differ from you will help keep your ego in check and foster genuine ambition. If you’re an artist, this is absolutely essential. Every great story ever told dealt with archetypes, and you’re not an archetype.
14. Find out what you love, not what you hate.
Platforms like X train us to figure out what we hate, so it’s essential to constantly remind ourselves of what we find beautiful, meaningful, dear, and so on, and to practice it in the real world. This could be as simple as leaving your phone at home and taking regular walks in nature or having breakfast at your favorite diner. Buy a camera and learn to take pictures (taking good pictures today is easy—think of it as capturing a moment, not about promoting an image of yourself). Do that and you’ll soon start ‘noticing’ things: people, buildings, birds, etc. You will remember (or learn for the first time) what it’s like to be in the moment, “with not a cellphone in sight.” There’s a reason the meme is popular. People used actually to live like this. Practicing what you love will make you more motivated to fight what you hate. It will also make you even angrier when you get back online. For now, you not only hate that which threatens what you love, but also that which does not know what it loves. How do you control that anger? Simple: leave your phone at home and take a walk to your favorite diner.
Remember: no war has ever been won by an army that didn’t already have a place they called home. And before you sell an idea, figure out what you wouldn’t sell in life and would die for before you sell it.
15. Never try to make people feel sorry for you.
This is not the same as hiding your pain. There will come a time in your life when suffering will find you (heartbreaks in your 20s don’t count). When it does, consider asking for help if you need someone to talk to. If you’d rather make it on your own even then, that’s fine, as long as you’re not doing it out of pride or shame. What you should never try to do is actively try to make people feel sorry for you for attention. 1) Because it’s just wrong. 2) Because it’s not going to help you, either. Find someone who only shows you compassion to the extent that he’s willing to give you good, honest advice. The best friends you’ll ever make will tell you to get your shit together when you start whining, not those who pat you on the back and tell you that “it’s all going to be OK” (“time fixes everything” is dumb. Doing something while you have time does). You’ll instinctively dislike them, but they’re trying to help you, so listen to them and keep them close. (At the same time, Full Metal Jacket is just a movie, guys, so take it easy if you find yourself on the other end!)
16. Learn to pray for a burden.
Most people don’t find proof of God in their lives because they never learn to ask for it. I have no problem whatsoever in saying that I don’t “believe” God exists. Like Jung famously said, “I know He does.” God having worked miracles in your life doesn’t count in this context. You’ll never get to the same conclusion unless you pray for the strength to walk through the valley of darkness, and mean it. Ask for a burden, and you shall receive. Ask to fight the evil inside of you, and help will come. Ask for favors, or for “someone” to show up in your life and fix you? God is generous, so it might work, and I hope it does for you—but I guarantee you: asking for the strength to fix yourself on your own is a prayer that will always be answered. The toughest part of it all? You have to first recognize and accept that you’re the problem, and that the way to solve it is to suffer more before the sun eventually rises.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
17. Find Evil inside of you before you fight it in others.
This is the significant weakness of our time, and one of the main things that social media prevents. At no point in human history have young people been as incapable of self-reflection as today. Unless you’re a veteran, chances are that you are completely unaware that during a zombie apocalypse, you’d be the first to close the door on your mutual. You have not found the coward, the murderer, and the concentration prison guard within you. This makes you a great “poster,” but it also makes you weak and extremely dangerous for society (not to mention unequipped to fight evil in the world). This is why young men need to take regular breaks from social media: a significant reason for the current Culture War climate is that we haven’t learned the proper lessons of the 20th century. Finding evil within you will be the most brutal fight of your life, but the reward will be huge. You will look at no one as worthy enough to be your enemy. This is how Solzhenitsyn took down the Soviet Union; he stopped memeing the adversary and he found it inside. (Yes, that’s how powerful that kind of tweet can be.)
P.S. This doesn’t mean that political involvement is unnecessary, online or off.
18. Practice turning the other cheek.
Turning the other cheek is the most painful exercise you’ll ever practice. You will always fail to do this, but it shouldn’t stop you from trying. Here’s why you’ll always fail: 1) You have to first encounter someone weaker than you and who is being unfair to you (i.e., you’re actually in the right). 2) You need to feel really tempted to escalate the confrontation (if you’re scared of escalating, it doesn’t count). 3) You have to try to see the best in him while he’s being unfair to you. 4) You have to be willing to take the hits without letting him know you’re refusal to fight back is also an act of defiance (“You’re not powerful enough to be my enemy”). 5) You have to walk out of the confrontation without letting him know that you won, not even with the tiniest of satisfied looks on your face. 6) You need to feel no resentment towards God for asking you to do this. Fail to tick any of these boxes, and at best you’d have succeeded in some form of “niceness,” or at worst some passive aggressiveness. Most people who think they are turning the other cheek are really just prioritizing their own comfort over confronting the issue—being “nice” in a nutshell—or worse, “harmless”, someone who thinks they are good because they fear any confrontation. (Good luck with the latter during a zombie apocalypse.)
P.S. Forgiveness is a powerful act, too, but it shouldn’t be confused with turning the other cheek.
19. Fear God with all your heart.
God loves you in ways you can’t and will never comprehend—100% true. But true ambition and respect will never come from being aware of that. God has expectations of us, and He will strike us dead if we disobey. Think of Him as Thunder, an executioner as far as you’re concerned, who has the right to send you burning and screaming into the lake of fire for eternity. Get to the point where you genuinely recognize His right to do so, not just to others, but to you right now, no matter how good a Christian you think you are. This is not a Summa Theologica mental exercise. It goes like this: “If Christ comes back with a sword tomorrow, I could turn out to be on the wrong half, and that would be fair and just.” This will be the foundation of your respect, as well as your ambition. It will take many years, and you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself for not having reached this point (it took me 34 years, and I will take immense pleasure in seeing any young man beating me at this game). It will also be hard to remind yourself and accept this once you understand it. Nonetheless, keep in mind (and I say this with all the love in the world to my fellow men): until you get there, you’re just a faggot.
***
“Step one, you say, ‘We need to talk’
He walks, you say, ‘Sit down, it’s just a talk’
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came.”
— The Fray, How To Save a Life
“I don’t think there’s ever been a generation that wouldn’t have crucified Christ.” I saw someone posting this on X the day I reactivated my account. I had to take a break from social media on 9/10, 2025. My first reaction, as the editor of a right-wing publication, was to ask myself if I had any responsibility for what was happening. I knew the answer was “no,” but it didn’t stop me from asking. Call it a selfish exercise if you will, but I find it incredibly useful. When something goes wrong around me, I always find it worth considering that it may be my fault. Forcing myself to think about how I have caused a problem at least makes me wiser the next time it needs to be prevented.
I’m not sure I’ve done it right this time, however. I began writing my self-reflection on 9/11, but before I knew it, I was casting myself as the subject of the article, as if the pain was mine and the reader was supposed to feel sorry for my sense of guilt—in this case, over misjudging a man. Do you see how this is affecting me? I’ve seen plenty of this going around the following day, which eventually prompted me to discard that article for this essay.
Something else I’ve been reflecting on was Matthew 8:22: Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead. Can the modern mind understand it? Death is God’s plan, too, no exceptions; and no one should come before Christ, not even our own families. I pledged then that I would smile, dance, and recite poetry at my father’s funeral. Also, I’ll try my best not to shed a single tear of sadness over him. I’d do the same for my wife if our kids die. I will be the shoulder she can cry on, and I will not seek one to cry on anywhere but in joy.
I also reflected on what it would be like to have a Great Death. I find the ultimate beauty in this idea: to enter a higher realm knowing I’ve stayed true to my beliefs and that no bullet will ever kill my spirit. I don’t know if I’ll find the strength to pray for my assassin while he’s about to pull the trigger, but I like to think I’ll at least be able to smile before he does. I sometimes find myself praying for the opportunity.
Lastly: “Don’t marry your high school sweetheart (yet).” I removed this rule last night, on September 21st, 2025. Over the years, I’ve come to disagree with conservatives who advise men to get married young. It’s not that I believe it’s terrible advice, but it always struck me as unambitious. I also don’t appreciate how Christians who started a family in their 20s often look down on single men in their 30s with a promiscuous past. (If you never had a shot with the prettiest girl at the club, can you really say you have resisted temptation?)
At the same time, they have a point: I remember when I lost my virginity. I was 19 years old, spending a summer in Greece. Growing up in a Catholic family in Italy, I was always told the same, and I wanted to wait for the right person. But once the fun began, it was too hard. I hadn’t rejected the idea of settling down young—I was trying; I just suddenly realized I could settle up. And that’s when the game started. Just how “up” could I have settled?
I wrote extensively in The Culture Stone about how bad things got after completely losing it eight years ago this month, when I was 26. An “accident,” if such a word can even be used to describe it, forced me to reinvent myself—to die and be reborn. Eventually, I managed. I now have no regrets in life and feel nothing but gratitude for everything that happened to me. What I discovered when I finally took full responsibility, and after chasing the Enemy all the way to the bottom, was far greater than anything I had ever imagined.
I’m not really sure I changed my mind about the rule above. I was going to tell you how not settling down too quickly can help you become a better person; how the right person, granted she believes in you, can help you do that, and a few other things. Perhaps I still will one day, but not today.
Today, all you need to know is that I lost my virginity in Greece when I was 19, and that that’s as much as I can remember about it, or about any girl after that. All you need to know is that last night millions of people around the world remembered a man who’s gone, but whose spirit still lives in the eyes of two children, the heart of a woman, and the soul of a country. I reflected on many things in the past couple of weeks, but this one got to me.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a generation that wouldn’t have crucified Christ.”
That is true, and what I learned from 9/10 was that I need to count myself among the current generation. In the end, Christ died like a madman in everyone’s eyes except for a handful of people, and I’m not so sure I’d be able to pick him over a “notorious prisoner.” So I will continue to fear the Lord and pray for a burden, until the final challenge, as a young man once overcame it—alone, in the desert, asking for more pain, because he knew he could bear it.
“Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life.”
20. Pray, sing, and smile in the face of evil.
For the Return of the King. And in memory of Charlie Kirk: Father, Husband, and Believer.