Mastodawn

MillardPhillmore 6h ago

Humphrey Archer

As an almost 70 year old man, I have some advice for young men.

Please boost this if you think it will help

1. Your voice doesn't need to be heard. In fact, realizing that you don’t HAVE to have an opinion on everything and voice opinions or ideas in meetings or social gatherings, is amazingly liberating. You can actually just shut up, and relieve yourself of all that effort and stress. Let Bob utter his embarrassingly dumb idea, let Shirley have a say. You can just let it be for the most part

Humphrey Archer 11h ago

2. Sissyphus was a stupid allegory.

Doing something useless, and especially for which you get no praise, is not as soul destroying as people would have you believe. If you like rolling a rock up a hill and having it roll back down, it's actually huge fucking fun if you just embrace the irony and the fun of rolling a rock, building up a sweat, and then letting that sucker go tumbling down.

Corollary: you don't actually need praise. Just enjoy what you do, and try to do it well

Humphrey Archer 11h ago

3. Sex is far less important than the media, buddies, influencers, and society would have you believe. It's also a fucking time trap. Especially when you are young, your body and society scream at you to want to be in rut all the damn time. It's exhausting. It also steals time and energy from windsurfing, riding a motorcycle, making curry, and brewing beer - which are all more fun, cost less, and don't involve all the fuss and bother.

Make friends with more women, just bc they are interesting

Humphrey Archer 11h ago

4. Most "Heroes" are just selfish and insecure arseholes. Write down 10 guys who are supposeldly big heroes, and then actually research them. Eight of them will turn out to be total shitheads - greedy, selfish, and pompous fucknuts, and also mostly sex pests

Ergo. Stop looking for heroes, and immediately be suspicious of anyone who claims to be or who other people say is a big hero. This counts for almost exactly 100% of online influencers. They are 100% flogging you scams and grifts and lying

Humphrey Archer 11h ago

5. Physical strength is overrated. The dude with the six-pack, massive biceps, and thickest neck, is still a thin-skinned animal without fangs, scales, stinger, or horns, who couldn't even outrun a crocodile, let alone any of the big cats. An ape half his body mass is more than twice as strong.

Humans are half blind, half deaf, weaklings, and the weediest person wielding a stone-age spear, can put the biggest muscleman in the grave with minimal fuss.

The weakest woman can squeeze a trigger

Humphrey Archer 11h ago

6. The "rugged individualist" loner myth, is just that. Hardly anything gets done by individuals. Even the most individual creative occupations, like painters, sculptors, poets, inventors, writers, hardly EVER do their stuff in isolation. Even the grumpiest fucker, like Newton, collaborated, and ALL the big discoveries and inventions involved a lot of collaboration and exchanges of ideas

Next time some guy wants to sell you on the idea on lonerdom, know for sure it's a scam. It's always a scam

Humphrey Archer 10h ago

7. The "Alpha Male" schtick is a leaky bag of bullshit on stilts. There is no science behind this, it doesn't survive a scrutiny, and the guys who claim the title are always insecure, overcompensating, grifters. Allways.

It is also obviously bullshit. You can't possibly be top dog in everything, and the more you are top dog in anything, the narrower that specialty will be, and the shorter the time before someone better comes along. All that trumpeting actually tells you he's an insecure numpty

Humphrey Archer 10h ago

8. Trying to BE an "alpha" is an exhausting, fruitless, time suck. People who actually are leaders are typically stressed, exhausted, and miserable, and find out that their actual power is very narrow and always comes at a steep price. Rather just be a comfortable and useful "beta". In fact, be a fucking delta and use the spare time to be useful and do things YOU enjoy. Let other overzealous morons bash their lives apart on the crags of merciless fortune

Rather learn to juggle, whistle, or cook

Humphrey Archer 10h ago

9. There are no exclusively "masculine" jobs or pastimes, and you will enjoy life far more if you give that whole story the middle finger.

If you like Barbie Dolls, cooking, or knitting, fucking go for it. Don't let some narrow-minded and insecure scold put you off your thing. Do your thing, mix with others who do thing, and help the less skilled do thing. If you sucked at thing but enjoyed it, master small slices of it, and show others how you did that and how you fuck up. You can be that guy

Humphrey Archer 10h ago

10. You don’t have to "leave a mark", "go down in history", and you sure as shit won't "put a ding in the universe". Just be a person, live your life being as helpful as you can, and enjoy what you can of the journey. 100% of those remembered by history weren't much like the history, and everyone is much more Ozymandius than King Arthur

The universe is one fucking huge and weird place, and a million Steve Jobs holding hands in a chain would neither be noticeable to the universe, nor interesting

Humphrey Archer 10h ago

11. On the whole, women have had a raw deal for the entire history of the species, and the reason you aren't getting as much physical attention or getting a great job or a nice house is not their fault. Be nice to women without expecting to be compensated for it. They have more than enough shit on their plate, so be understanding and helpful, and try not to get in the way or make things worse for them

Make more women friends, you might be surpised at how nice that is

Also, women aren't a prize

Humphrey Archer 6h ago

12. Consider a great many patently foolish and ludicrously risky things. I'm not saying DO them, because that would mostly be foolish, but CONSIDER them. Consider joining the SAS, being a supermodel, driving a formula-1 racing car, competing in the Isle of Mann TT, being a Michelin Star chef. Think through what it would take, would be like, and what it would likely cost in blood and money

Explore them, deeply feel them, and for the most part, thank fuck you won't ever do them. Learn about you

Humphrey Archer 6h ago

If you have enjoyed or found these useful, maybe consider reading my short stories or books, and consider leaving a review.

About half of my shorts are available for free at Physician's Weekly, my eBooks are on Kobo, and my paperbacks are orderable at most any bookseller. My novels are mostly about endearingly psychopathic girls.

First read the free chapters, though.

My fiction is as pithy, but has far more murder and amusingly fatal accidents

Just Tom... 🐁1h ago

@screwturn
Days away from my 77th birthday, I can only welcome your analysis. Human beings are, like bees and ants, a necessarily social species. None of us would survive long on our own. And the image of the male hunterer/female gatherer is a myth. "Make friends with women" is sterling advice. Thank you for your thread. Now I'm going back to my porridge and watching the red squirrel from my window before setting off to drive a hundred miles. To visit an excellent friend. Yes, a woman!

@screwturn at nearing 77, yes to all of this

❄️SnowyIn🇨🇦❄️9h ago

I'm impressed with your thread. ... and thank you! 🫶

oldguycrusty 9h ago

I am an old guy too, but I think I am going to download this thread - print it out in 100pt fonts, and put it up on my walls..

The condensed wisdom of the universe, right here. Thank you

@screwturn Modern world. Archeology has been showing that women were warriors, etc.

Humphrey Archer 7h ago

@CStamp very few, very seldom, and vastly counterweighted by millenia of servitude and mistreatment

@screwturn @CStamp look up the recent archeological news on DNA testing of samurai. If I remember correctly: half the samurai were women.

If research focusses on known stuff almost always assumptions/known facts change 🤓

ThreeDollarBill 8h ago

@screwturn can't agree with you about sex, it's been one of the best things about my life, but everything else, yeah.

olliestudio45 6h ago

@3DBill @screwturn

+ 1 and same also for 'playing with oneself'

@screwturn @janeishly My grandmother taught me to crochet. In the USA, these things are often done in rural areas during the looong Winters. If burly farmers can enjoy stitchwork, anyone can.

I used to carry my mother's old, unused purses around. They were perfect for carrying my toys and other small bits in, especially on vacations.

These things are all learned behaviors. What's the modern phrase? "Don't start no trouble; won't be no trouble." Teach your children better.

John Abbe (aka Slow)9h ago

@screwturn "People who actually are leaders are typically stressed, exhausted, and miserable, and find out that their actual power is very narrow and always comes at a steep price."

In autocratic systems, yes.

In healthy, leaderful groups, leaders care for themselves, better or at least know where they aren't & are working on it it 🤣. They get leadership includes being real about capacity (including their own), and try to adjust what they say and what they do so they match.

And lead together.

Ariaflame 50m ago

@slowenough @screwturn Difference between leaders and rulers?

Mike Fraser 7h ago

@screwturn Most real leaders don't say a goddam thing. They act a certain way and you instinctively follow. While the alpha male posers are barking, real leaders are getting stuff done usually by lifting people up around them.

ARGVMI~1.PIF 4h ago

Agreed. Humans didn't grow to 8 billion in number and spread to every single continent on Earth by always going it alone. They did it in groups. Big groups.

Consider, for example, what we did to the smallpox virus. That was an effort made by our ENTIRE SPECIES to wipe out an age-old threat.

We are the humans. Resistance is futile.

ARGVMI~1.PIF 4h ago

Most of the human body's alleged flaws are actually misunderstood trade-offs.

* We are weak for our height, but only because we're ridiculously tall for our weight.

* Our eyes work poorly at night, but their color fidelity is top-notch. Animals trying to blend into the scenery often won't fool humans.

* We can't outrun a deer, but we can keep chasing it long after it has passed out from heat exhaustion. Our skin isn't made for stopping claws; it's made for heat efficiency.

ARGVMI~1.PIF 4h ago

I guess the moral of this story is that it's silly to lament what you don't have while forgetting what you do have.

Humphrey Archer 4h ago

@argv_minus_one
This is true.

We have two physical advantages over most other animals

- heat tolerance
- ability to smell petrichor

But that's it.

We are thin skinned, musculatly weak, and slow, and fhe laughable muscle man trope is in stark contrast to how feeble we are.

Our secret sauce is complex collaboration, not physique.

ARGVMI~1.PIF 3h ago

Yeah, that too. We may have good color fidelity, but we don't have a monopoly on it. We don't even have a monopoly on high heat efficiency; most insects can keep moving longer than we can. But complex collaboration belongs to us and only a handful of other species.

Vincent Sparks 🔜 Furlingame 3h ago

@screwturn Physical strength for self-defense might be overrated, sure, but consider:

1. lifting heavy things
2. helping people with shit without getting tired
3. muscles are hot as fuck

Humphrey Archer 3h ago

@AVincentInSpace
None of that, although helping people is always good

With a winch, a jack, hydraulics, the weakest person easily lifts, bends, carries far more than any muscleman, and for longer. Having big muscles is not a thing a young man needs to or should regard as a step into some sort of ubermensch strata. If you desire to be all buff, by all means have at it, but what the body-maxing influencers are selling is bullcrap

Muscles are hotter in the minds of men than in the eyes of women

Vincent Sparks 🔜 Furlingame 3h ago

@screwturn let's just say it's not the eyes of women I'm interested in 😉

i definitely don't think it necessary for a healthy life, and i certainly don't dream of becoming a member of some elite or think that working out will get me anything besides a pretty reflection and the ability to lift stuff, but it's still worth it to me

I've also heard that healthy exercise in one's youth makes moving around easier to continue to do in one's old age

Humphrey Archer 3h ago

@AVincentInSpace

Then more power too you

DecaturNature 8h ago

@screwturn along those lines, most kings and emperors were miserable fools whose compulsive power seeking led to constant paranoia and violence, even towards their their immediate family (and regularly towards cousins).

Nullstring 🏴‍☠️4h ago

@screwturn im still comparatively a younger man and agree with the whole thread and want to add a corollary here: sex gets better later anyway and its not going anywhere

Kit Rhett Aultman 10h ago

@screwturn This is indeed the point of "The Myth Of Sisyphus" by Camus. Well done. 😊

Pilsnerd 3h ago

@screwturn my 12 year old self carrying a large block of curb up to the top of a parking garage to throw it off the side

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦1h ago

It's called lifting weights at the gym now. @screwturn

Luka Rubinjoni 7m ago

@screwturn Ok, Camus.

Flipper 🐬🏳️‍🌈9h ago

@screwturn The goal of every internet conversation should be to make sure that the other person has the last word.

I don't always manage it, but it's actually much more satisfying when I do.

Jack William Bell 9h ago

Also almost 70. Also learned the same lessons (mostly the hard way).

So I'm just dropping this to say, "Listen to this guy." I don't know him, but he's talking sense.

@screwturn this is pretty great

rick murnane 8h ago

@screwturn Thanks for this entire thread. 60+ here also, and I'm applauding every post.

Greem (Graeme. Not Graham!)8h ago

@screwturn Amen, brother.

Freedom of speech is not the same thing as demanding to be heard, and more people (young or old) should realise that.

𝐉𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐫 8h ago

@screwturn This really put point #1 in perspective for me.

lupus_blackfur 7h ago

@screwturn
@DaveMWilburn

As my Dad used to say:

"Better to keep your mouth shut and let folks think you might be an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

😁

AlisonW ♿🏳️‍🌈♾️6h ago

@screwturn
Nice thread. Hope they listen.
(69yo woman, 70 next Monday. WTF!)

Emelia/Emi 6h ago

@screwturn Hell, back before I was visibly [gestures vaguely at current self], I actually struggled to convince my coworkers that I didn't have an opinion occasionally, which means that there's at least partially pressure from people expecting that behavior. Learn to override and shut down those toxic expectations before they take hold.

(There were a whole bunch of times where my coworkers didn't appear to understand that "Can't form a a reasonable opinion with the amount of information available" was even an option. Back when I first started, they were asking for my opinion on topics and systems I knew nothing about, and didn't seem to believe that I truly didn't have any due to that lack of information)

Bygone12 3h ago

@screwturn I feel like you are preaching to the choir. I am a young man and I agree with you and I think any other young man that ended up on Mastodon would probably also agree with you.