Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
This is something I've been mulling over for a while: if you aren't lucky and fairly determined, as a man - maybe as a human being - you need to decide where you want the ambulances and the tragedy if you want a relationship.
This is a stage that many people pass through at one point or another, and it is admirable to have strong enough personal or religious convictions to attempt it. Maybe that means being stoically resigned to being sexually assaulted or raped because you're a somewhat awkward but physically attractive mildly autistic 17-year-old girl who wants to experience life and have a family someday. In that model, you accept that you are going to need to kiss some frogs to find your prince. And you have an immune deficiency, so you genuinely make your peace with the fact that those frog kisses are likely to lead you to a couple of hospital stays that hopefully don't give you permanent damage. Maybe it means accepting that your girlfriend might stab you because you stuck it in crazy to get whatever wisdom comes from sex or relationships; maybe it means being maimed at 48 by your wife and the mother of your three children and winding up nearly dying, losing a limb, and spending three weeks in the local ICU.
I think that this is admirable and respectable, that in ages past men and women endured similar dangers in order to be worthy, and that war for men and childbirth for women have been how these tragedies played out until very recently.
What's your take on this?
Go see a therapist and get your mind off of these rails: you have the kind of fixation on an idea that is actually rather common among online autists, only instead of falling into something traditional like trains or gender ideology, you've locked onto this particular idea which will end in its own unique flavor of train wreck.
Registering the prediction now: conditional on you even completing this insane quest, it's not going to make you any more attractive to women. Why? Because you've only doing it to attract women, and that inauthenticity reeks. This is why @screye bangs on about his self-delusion practice to enter female-dominated hobbies, and why men with an honest-to-God mission are attractive: because they are complete in themselves, and aren't forever seeking approval.
LOL - you're talking about the Hock, right? I also think that the Hock is cool as hell; I've written before about using it for college admissions and my reasoning behind why I like the aesthetic of the Hock, even if as a practical matter it is both insane and idiotic. I believe that the Hock provideth, either through victory or death, and that everyone chooses their own Hock - or abstains from Hocking.
If the Hock wouldn't make me any more attractive to women, I'll be honest - I'd be less excited about it, but I'd still think it was cool as hell. It's the culmination of what was basically a years-long thought experiment and a set of personal beliefs about suffering and ordeals building character, especially if voluntarily done.
If some deity came down from the Heavens and told me that no one would ever be interested in me...I'd be sad. I don't know whether I'd go on the Hock or not in that case. Leaning no - but maybe I'd do some kind of lesser Hock in Montana or something, IDK. Hockism as a homebrew philosophy is personally compelling to me.
Ask the ACN discord about the Hock; you'll hear a lot about it.
Besides. "Skookum, the First Hockmaxxer" has a nice ring to it to my ears even if it is also dumb as all hell and unlikely to work. I'd at least be the first fool to try "chucking yourself and some survival gear and food and shit into the Alaskan wilderness in winter and walking out" as a solution to romantic woes, which is at the very least some novel foolishness instead of garden-variety dumb shit. You've said it yourself...that I am likely to wind up in a unique flavor of train wreck.
My post history is partly an experiment log and partly something for posterity, especially if I don't survive the Hock.
Some things can be done as well as others; I know I'm three parts Chris McCandless and one part Don Quixote, but I've heard tales that native Alaskans respected Chris McCandless. I respect the guy: he was starving but functional until he got got by a relatively obscure poison and was fatally weakened by lathyrism. It was the potato seeds that did him in! He had the strength to live and die by the courage of his personal convictions, just like I would if I set out on the Hock.
So when are you going to go Hock yourself?
February 13th, 2024.
Why not exactly on Valentine’s Day
The plan is to arrive in Fairbanks on the 11th and then reach the jumping off point for the Hock on the 12th or 13th.
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My take is that tragedy is an inescapable part of life. Wallowing in tragedy isn't. Stop wallowing buddy.
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Same take as the last several times -- get drunk, and/or go to a rave or something. Get the fuck out of your skin, and don't whine about how you just can't do these things.
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Where is your standard of worthiness coming from? Could two people pair up live decently happy lives with children and be unworthy of doing that in your view?
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oh, just forget it, skook. Stay alone forever, and make zero effort. More than one way to skin a cat.
The day I posted this, I ran five miles as training for the Hock.
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My take is that though 'tough talk' is in vogue these days, the usual bromides of 'just self improve' or 'don't be a pussy' or whatever are not necessarily a spur to change. They may, in fact, serve as a defense against change. And I suspect that the change you are defending against is actually getting a girlfriend, and you use these horrible events like your friend getting stabbed or your own feels of unworthiness to avoid doing it. And of course, it is not hard to find unpleasant people on the internet who will join in on this. It's human nature to seek to identify others as inferior, and to hate them for it. I guess I understand this kind of behavior because I engage in it myself. It's easier to tell myself that I'm lazy, small, weak, unattractive and disgusting than it is for me to go out and talk to other men. And I sometimes seek out negative reinforcement on the internet, which is never in short supply in places like Reddit.
I don't really have a solution. But I don't really believe that tragedy and ambulances are inevitable features of having a relationship.
Been reading The Last Psychiatrist lately, by chance?
No, but his work lives rent free in my head.
Regardless, the logic is simple. Skookum comes here, moans, gets moaned at. Why does he do it? Because he wants it, on some level or another. Or because, on some level, he feels he deserves it. There are many possible angles. But as someone who has also strapped himself into a rollercoaster to deal with my lack of desire or drive or accomplishment or whatever, I sort of get it, and I personally find the 'sort yourself out, mate' routine to be totally pointless. Having others scold me for being small and weak and lazy didn't resolve my feelings of inferiority, it made them worse... and yet even knowing that's true, I still want it, I still seek it out. As Dostoevsky said, men can be as fond of suffering as they are of well-being.
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My take is that posting the same thing over and over is annoying and borders on egregiously obnoxious.
Look man, I believe you really feel these things and you're unhappy. But this place isn't a therapy group, and while people are usually pretty willing to offer advice and feedback when someone posts about their personal struggles, when someone whines about the exact same thing over and over again, using exactly the same examples and verbiage, it becomes self-indulgent and a bit selfish. Your exercises in self-pity are beginning to look like some sort of shame kink in which you're making us all unwilling participants.
I'm loathe to invoke the single issue posting rule and ban you, or tell you you're just not allowed to talk about this anymore. But find some other things to talk about, and if you are going to post about the despair of being unlaid, stop reposting essentially the same thing over and over.
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I asked a girl out on Saturday, and she said yes. I have a girlfriend now. I met her at a local meeting of baseball fans about three months ago; we started hanging out one-on-one at the end of August. We got to know each other and things developed organically. Last night we went to Ikea, and then came home and played with my cat. It was wonderful.
To be honest, "lucky and fairly determined" may be exactly right. I'd been single for three years prior to this. There were about five girls I tried to make something happen with in the meantime, and it didn't work out - I either got a first date that didn't lead anywhere, or they turned me down outright.
The determination part comes in in two areas: one, you have to be determined enough to keep going. It definitely hurt when one girl that I'd crushed on for probably six or eight months rejected me in the spring. But you have to have a thick hide, and you have to decide to bounce back and try again.
Furthermore: you have to be determined to keep examining yourself and working on your shortcomings. Like: my celebrity lookalike is probably Mike Myers (Austin Powers). I'm a funny-looking dude. But I have to find a way to be appealing to women anyway. I try to do that by being a joy to be around. I laugh an smile a lot. I try to find the good in everything. I can be a reliable and capable problem-solver when I need to. I think there are many archetypes you could utilize in making yourself "someone others want to be with," but you have to follow through on one of them enough that you yourself start to believe in it. I genuinely self-believe that I can make any interaction with someone end with them thinking, "That was a blast, I hope I can see him again." But I wasn't born like that. I had to cause myself to be that person.
The luck part is definitely in A.) Meeting a real option and B.) Getting the genetic lottery outcomes that give you a chance. With A.), as many Mottizens have noted, meeting people is hard. It's work. You have to grind and go to all the stuff you may not want to go to. Somebody recently posted about how you need to self-delude yourself into enjoying some things, and that's right on. With B.), yeah, I got lucky in many ways, to be an eligible partner at all. I don't have Down syndrome. I'm a normal height. I have a nice build that's enabled me to create an acceptable physique. I try not to take those things for granted.
Anyway dude. You always make me want to respond to you because you bring up "being worthy." I don't even know what that means. I've never been to war, or hiked more than 10 miles in temperate landscapes. My moral history is extremely dubious. I am truly, truly just some asshole. I'm not even hot, you're probably better-looking than me. But human beings want to be with each other! If you can try and be someone that other people want to be with, why couldn't it be you? Have you ever considered what you can do to make someone happy? Not everyone is out for what they can get - not everyone chooses defect! I promise you that. There really are girls who want to choose cooperate.
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As another man who doesn't have the best go at dating in the recent past.
The hock isn't climbing the Alps. I can tell you that. The hock is talking to a hundred girls and getting rejected by 99. Sometimes 100. Then trying 100 more.
Do that and you will get infinitely more out of it than "the hock". Talk to girls in the grocery, the streets, at work, everywhere. It doesn't matter if it feels off or weird, or whatever, that's the point.
The point isn't to get a number or anything, but to rather just lose the inhibition to simply ask, such that when you really need it, you will have it.
Don't be a pussy and start with easy targets like other guys. Just dive in. Trust me it will feel like absolute shit up until its over. Then you will realize you are better off having done it than not.
Eh...it can't be as bad as dealing with things like chronic pain, or going to war, or making it through selection for the Green Berets - and I know people who've done all of the above.
It's interesting that the guys I knew that went to war were doing well with girls...even when they were literally at death's door from alcoholism-induced liver failure. I think that it's being able to exert immense levels of willpower and learning to be graceful and effective when your life is in danger.
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Women appear more psychologically threatening than physical adversity, hence the procrastination and post-Hock rationalisation.
Mountains are static and predictable.
What a pun. Good show.
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Oh you!
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This looks like a verbatim copy and paste of a post before.
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My take is that your mind is stuck in some kind of bizarre loop and I'm not sure what might help you get out of it. Touch grass? Get blackout drunk to reset your brain? Start boxing?
The Hock provideth.
Your hope is that it'll make you manly. My hope is that it'll remove the railroad spike from your the part of your head that should tell you to stop and consider what you're even talking about.
That said, good luck. I wish you a nice trip, if truly you go.
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Skookum doing Skookum things.
But I'm going to salvage this as an antidote to what I believe to be layer nineteen recursion trolling.
"The pain of regret is far greater than the pain of rejection." I may have messed up the exact wording here, but this is a common old-school PUA / red (but not black) pill / modern male self-improvement scene saying. It's aimed at the early stage guys who still get so worked up about a woman turning down a request for a number, an invitation to a date, or even just an engagement in conversation. The slogan implores young single guys to go up to their paramour, give it a shot, and take the rejection with grace if it occurs. You'll spend a lot more time being in pain thinking "what if!" as opposed to the sharp but short pain of "Oh, no thanks."
I think it's not only useful advice within and without a dating context, I'd say it's close to necessary for the progression of stable dating norms. I've written before on here about how things as innocuous / innocent as High School dances (at least as they were up until maybe the 2010s) are really models for acceptable social interaction and dress rehearsals for unsupervised courtship. Asking a girl or guy (sadie hawkins style) to a dance is a very binary yes/no situation without any ambiguity and you, the asker, are socially pressured to accept the response. Maybe you pair it with some pre-messaging and try to get a feel for what the likely outcome is, but you still abide by that final outcome. Now, in your mid 20s, you can pattern match well enough that when you're chatting with someone at a bar, you can read the mood well enough to see a yes or no coming. Maybe you think there's a shot worth taking and escalate to a firm yes/no inquiry. "Take you out for a drink sometime?" A little heartache is the risk, but everyone goes home, sometimes together.
The loss of these progressively more ambiguous, complex, and unsupervised rituals is, I think, part (though far from the whole or even primary) cause of some of the hyperventilation over ambiguous sexual encounters in the popular mind. In the infamous Aziz Ansari piece, the author's primary contention was that Ansari should've sensed her discomfort and terminated the encounter. (Nevermind that this was after she had willingly performed oral sex on him. Hmmm, maybe she likes me?) Leaving that particular case, mixed messaging and hypoagency aside, there is something to the idea that both parties in a romantic situation ought to have some ability and experience with gauging mood / human emotion / etc. Normal caveats apply to issues with autism, drunkenness, sociopathy.
Returning to "The pain of regret is far greater than the pain of rejection," a massive pillar of old-school PUA was learning from even the worst of encounters. It's actually basic hypothesis testing and iterative development. The more times you do something, the more information and patterns you have on which to base your decision making. If you want to get good at talking to girls, go talk to a lot of girls about anything you want. More importantly for society; this will probably mean that all parties involved start to become far more aware of the intentions, feelings, and boundaries of all other parties involved. Part of me gets really nervous thinking about some PMC marriages I've seen where I know the wife is the first person the husband had sex with. Does he have any ability to understand subtle communication? Does she feel like she has to be 10/10 overt at all times to prevent misunderstandings? How many of their sexual encounters end with a raised-voice "No!" from her that is genuinely surprising and unexpected to him?
I'm not calling for all young men to be Don Juans or young women to be ultra-flirt coquettes. In fact, I'm calling for a lot more social pressure (read: shame) and additionally a lot more social interaction practice.
If you fail to provide models of adulthood and pro-social behavior, don't be surprised when you're dealing with anti-social children in 25 year old bodies with 25 year old hormones, 25 year old rights (alcohol, drugs, firearms) and a creeping chaos in society. Yet this is now close to the norm, and I say that because of the far less dramatic but far more insidious ways it has manifested itself. "You can be anything you want when you grow up!" Cool, thanks, but what is something good to shoot for? Is fireman better or worse than lawyer, or boy-robot who can turn into a jet? Please just give me a shove in the right direction. "Never let anyone say you can't do something!" That cop said I can't shit right here in front of the Apple Store. Am I being oppressed? "You're perfect just the way you are!" Good, because I wasn't planning on showering today anyway.
I mean, hell: I think that people should freely choose to endure hardship and misery - up to and including death - rather than be awkward. Basically: the ideal man would sincerely prefer, in the absence of any compulsion, to be dead rather than have done his utmost to have become graceful. Something vaguely akin to the Spartans' conception of military honor, basically shaming a guy who was absent under orders from the Battle of Thermopylae into committing suicide-by-Persian, or the Samurai's conception of bushido, applied to social grace and to a lesser extent physical fitness, conscientiousness, and general life skills. And yes - if someone is not doing their utmost, occasionally they may need to follow the fate of Admiral Byng. But only occasionally, and even then I don't like the State participating in it that much. If some awkward guy gets killed for being awkward around a volatile bully and the bully gets a slap on the wrist, however...I think that is a good thing if it happens very rarely.
It is entirely reasonable to expect our young people to prefer being dead to failing to do their utmost to become fit, graceful, productive members of society, and I also think that in this country it is necessary for a lazy person to be killed from time to time to encourage the others. Better yet is that they freely choose to embark on a course of action that will make them graceful or dead. Although - again - I think that this should be very rare indeed; Byng was the only admiral executed by the Brits.
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I think you're wildly misinformed and ignorant.
You need to work on yourself until you're attractive to women. Get into a long-term committed, monogamous relationship with a woman who can stand being in the same room as you. Your mindset will improve.
Separately, I don't say this to many people, but you would benefit from advice from the pickup artist community. There's a lot to be said against that community, but the one thing PUAs get massively, overwhelmingly right is internal-vs-external locus of control. In the same sense that "the customer is always right", women are right about their preferences, and if you don't meet that standard, that's a you-problem, not a them-problem, or a society-problem. Those communities will have better, specific advice for your circumstances. This forum is not equipped to help you.
I come here for intellectual discussion, not [gestures wildly at all your writing] whatever self-indulgent pity party this is.
For that - as I am - I need to decide where I want the ambulances, more or less; I hope that this can happen without doing things that are considered predatory such as trawling homeless shelters for girlfriends. That being said - and it's gross and nasty as hell, as well as at best morally murky - maybe relationships for the unattractive are just straight up hell and fucking suck, and part of the whole point is being able to bear the opprobrium of society AND whatever shit your girlfriend is slinging. For what it's worth, I know guys that have been attacked by knife wielding girlfriends; one of whom nearly died to blood loss. This is reasonable to expect from people, in my opinion: who cares if you die to blood loss at age 29 because your crazy girlfriend stabbed you, you've been in a relationship and she probably goes to jail or some shit, meaning that your betters are better off and you serve as an example and warning to others.
This is part of why I am going on the Hock on February 13, 2024, in the Alaskan wilderness somewhere north of the Arctic Circle: because I sincerely believe that this is a kind of preparation for a kind of struggle that is considered idiotic and stupid by the standards of my society. Also, the Hock will expose me to life and death struggle, which I think makes men more attractive. It is also going to make me more used to enduring pain, misery, privation, fear, cold, and hunger for no good reason. That's valuable when you wake up in the ICU thirteen days after being very nearly killed by your crazy girlfriend, one leg laying useless and crippled for life, rasping out statements about how you loved her and it was worth it.
Dulce et decorum est, boyos.
No, it does not. It makes you impressive to men, in some respect, but the fact that it’s completely pointless just makes them think you are stupid.
Son, when I was a young lad, my grandfather as he was wont to do sat me down at his feet while watching a documentary on natural disasters and gave snippets to be reflected on as life advice. Only this time instead of using anecdotes from the life of Hitler- this was in the days before the history channel transitioned to full time alien content, you see- he told me of arctic wildlife, that the polar bear hunts for walrus by barging into the herd and going straight for the one it wants, and that this attitude would be relevant to me later on. As he had learned to enjoy accounting, it is worth listening to him speak about attitude.
Imitate polar bears in your dating life in ways other than wandering about in northern Alaska in February, is my point. You are probably less likely to get stabbed this way than you are to be gored by a musk ox in ‘the hock’. You might want to try being normal(which certainly sounds like it would entail being like 50% more aggressive and 50% less neurotic than you currently are) because the grizzly man Schtick won’t fix your problems- ordinary problems require ordinary solutions. Like just asking a girl out, consequences be damned. You’re a grad student, you must know at least a few in person.
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Last Christmas I watched the film Wild (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_(2014_film)) with my family, based on the memoir of the same name (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_(memoir)) by Cheryl Strayed. The film concerns Strayed's successful attempt to hike 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, solo. I didn't like the film for many reasons: its narrative structure (hiking interspersed with flashbacks) was monotonous; the dialogue was overwritten and stagey; the performances were of greatly varying quality; and what little CGI it used was unconvincing and distracting.
But the biggest reason I didn't like it was because I really disliked the protagonist. The death of Strayed's mother caused her to spiral into a deep depression, which she coped with by using heroin and having unprotected sex with strange men, despite being married. After one of these illicit trysts she gets pregnant, she decides to terminate the pregnancy, her husband (finally!) realises he's had enough and divorces her. At this point she realises she's hit rock bottom, prompting her to embark on her hike as a therapeutic exercise (explaining to an exasperated friend: "I'm going to walk myself back to the person my mother thought I was!").
And I just found her motivation and conception of herself so grandiose and narcissistic - the idea that her personal problems are of such profound import that the only way she can address them is by walking 1,100 miles, alone - that I couldn't stand her. Even when she correctly recognises that she's a piece of shit, she still thinks she's a piece of shit in a rather grand, exceptional way - a Mary Sue who's a villain is still a Mary Sue. Like, if you've (finally!) realised that it's wrong to cheat on your husband with strange men (and grief over your mother's death does absolutely nothing to exculpate you) - sure, you absolutely could try to address this by hiking 1,100 miles alone with little to no expertise, and potentially endangering other people who may have to come looking for you if you injure yourself.
Or you could, I dunno, not cheat on your husband, you stupid bitch.
Most of us go through our lives quietly toiling away at doing the right thing, not expecting or receiving any special praise for doing so. When we realise we've fucked up, we quietly toil away at trying to put things right. Most of us have the self-awareness to recognise that our personal problems are not huge, all-encompassing things which require extraordinary, dramatic efforts to rectify; for most people, their personal problems are ordinary and mundane, and can (must) be resolved or managed with ordinary, mundane graft. Cheryl Strayed can't even claim that the root of her personal problems is a traumatic event outside the realm of normal human experience (like being raped or horribly maimed; even having a miscarriage or a cot death would have been more sympathetic) - the death of one's mother is deeply upsetting, but unfortunately, it's something that the vast majority of people in the world will go through at one time or another. If everyone dealt with the death of their mother by abandoning their duties and embarking on a hike for three months - why, the Pacific Crest Trail would be clogged with people denser than Times Square and society would collapse. Strayed dealt with the grief over her mother's death by i) ruining her husband's life; ii) conceiving a child and then aborting it; iii) going on a long hike; iv) writing a book about her experience which made her millions (and she still had the nerve to complain that the film adaptation wasn't nominated for Best Picture and accusing the Academy of sexism). Most people take a few weeks off work and deal with their bereavement privately, with dignity. "But you don't understand, I had a really close bond with my mother!" - well, so did the Hispanic binman who collects your rubbish, Cheryl, who can't afford to take three months off work, because he has to put food on the table for his (un-aborted) children and (un-cuckqueaned) wife. It's the height of narcissism and self-absorption, perhaps even clinically significant delusions of grandeur.
I imagine you can guess where I'm going with this. You've been talking about this "hock" thing for at least a few weeks. You seem to expect us to be impressed by your plan to do this - well, I'm no more impressed by hearing about people's plans to complete punishing physical ordeals than I am by hearing about the idea someone has for a novel: the execution is the thing. ("Oh my God, you're thinking about running a marathon?! That's amazing! You're so disciplined and dedicated for thinking about doing one! And here I am actually running one like a sucker!") But more than anything I just find your motivation for doing it contemptible in exactly the same way as Strayed. You think you're the first guy in history to ever feel lonely or romantically frustrated? You think the only way you can deal with your personal problems is to embark on some punishing attention-seeking voyage? In your circumstances, most people just practise their people skills, improve their diet, go to the gym and perhaps attend a therapist if applicable - and they (we) do so quietly, with dignity, without any expectation of praise or commendation.
If you're lonely and romantically frustrated, I'm sorry to hear that, I've been there and it sucks. But whining about it on a forum is not going to help you, especially not when you rubbish all of the well-meaning and practical advice offered in reply (all of which that I've seen is more sensible and likely to help the issue than "go to Alaska alone"). If you want to do your "hock" thing, go for it, but don't delude yourself into thinking that it will magically resolve all of your personal problems in one fell swoop - wherever you go, there you are. And for God's sake, stop telling us about how you're going to do it and expecting us to be impressed in advance by your resolve and determination. Prepare for it in your own time, complete it, then you can feel proud of your accomplishment, and perhaps even write a postmortem about what you got out of the experience.
Counterargument: if every lonely individual chucked themselves in the Alaskan wilderness - leaving instructions to not look for the body or attempt rescue - there would be a lot more determined people in the world and a lot less lonely people. Yeah, it's nuts. Yes, it's dumb as hell; the risible idiocy fundamental to the Hock is, in my opinion, part of the whole fucking point of the Hock.
I don't even know how to talk to you. It's like you're not even reading anything anyone is saying to you, just using their responses as opportunities to whine and pontificate.
The pontification is an ad Hock commentary for posterity if I don't make it. Could just be the writings of a dumb jackass, but whatever. Am probably going to write a blog about this whole hock crap. I have been training and preparing in good faith for this journey.
Congratulations on your epic roast making the Quality Contributions list, though.
I would greatly appreciate if you would stop being a dumb jackass for five minutes and respond to my sincere request of a couple of days ago. Feel free to respond in DM if you're embarrassed.
Thank you, although it was intended as well-meaning criticism borne of concern.
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I look forward to reading about your story in next-year's newspapers.
I gather that you are not terribly optimistic about my chances of surviving the Hock.
I'm sorry: that joke was in bad taste. I don't want you to die. But in all seriousness your odds are less than 100%. People have died doing this. Is that the point of your hock?
I think you're just rationalizing reasons to run away. The real Hock is trying to meet women and getting turned down seemingly-endlessly. It's torture, and I can understand why you'd flinch away from that prospect to construct elaborate fantasies that involve becoming a wilderness mountain man.
But please work on yourself. Find some resources for how to attract women. And please don't post about here until you've found yourself a good woman.
yeschad.jpg; the Hock is basically my homebrew substitute for war with far less potential for moral injury and far less potential to live as a horribly maimed cripple; the Hock provideth through victory or death. Like Everest or even K2: most people that attempt it either come back more or less in one piece, or not at all.Probably a good deal less torturous than a 100-mile solo ski journey through the Alaskan wilderness in temperatures that may be colder than 40 below zero, staring your own death in the face.
Elaborate fantasies, my left foot. If all goes according to plan, I'll start the Hock at dawn on February 13, 2024. If you do not hear back from me by April 1, I have most likely died in the Alaskan wilderness; I will have left instructions for my next of kin and anyone that would search for or attempt to rescue me to NOT endanger themselves and expend resources by attempting to recover me, dead or alive. These writings are at least partially something that would explain or describe for posterity the thought processes of Skookum, the First Hockmaxxer, if he dies on his most excellent adventure. I know I'm maybe three parts Chris McCandless to one Don Quixote, but hey, what the hell...
Do I need to post proof that I am in possession of a one-way plane ticket to Fairbanks?
Yes. Tix or GTFO.
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Well, for posterity's sake: I'd love to talk this guy out of it, but my best effort was going to be something like "do you realize you're maybe three parts Chris McCandless and one part Don Quixote", and if that's a dud I really don't know where to go from here.
I still miss trhurler's comments.
Try ‘have you considered that actually trying to date women you know would be a big improvement on this incel Ted k knockoff schizo larping’
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Oh dear, the motte is going to be subjected to media scrutiny as part of the fallout.
I mean...several things need to happen.
I need to die on the Hock.
They need to connect my frozen corpse to the Motte.
There needs to be at least a small media circus around the dumbass that thought this was a good idea and that he could survive.
Some dumbass dies trying to climb a mountain or something without proper equipment, and it's basically local news.
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Fantasy doesn't mean you won't do it. It's just that you're getting all worked up about about a 7-week(?) trek in the woods and somehow that will define your personality. Spare me.
I don't know. I feel as if the process of training in earnest for the Hock is already paying dividends in the form of better and healthier habits. It's still early days yet, but I am working out more and being more organized, which is something I've often struggled with. I'm more conscientious, I think, and maybe slightly less neurotic, too. Seriously considering the prospect that you may be a frozen corpse in four months' time seems to have that effect.
On whether or not Hocks work: I have heard it said that if Hocks worked, Hocking would be normal; my counterargument is that Hocks work reasonably often, but they're expensive as hell in blood and treasure and so not usually worth it. For me...I feel deep down in my bones that if I survive this, I'll finally be average in terms of grit, determination, and willpower. Also, I might still be disgusting, unattractive, etc. after this, but one thing I won't be is a hypocrite. My father was a peacetime military officer, and he always told me that an officer should never ask his men to do something that he is not willing to do himself. If I'm asking someone to endure a bunch of pain and shit for a basically pointless reason - even if I do my very best, no matter how much lipstick you put on a hog it's still a hog - then I damn well ought to be able and willing to do the same.
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Will define?
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I am also still waiting for a picture that proves your irrecoverable unattractiveness.
While I'm solidly below average physically, I'm no Quasimodo. The unattractiveness isn't the kind that can be readily captured in still photos.
For an extreme example, consider Elliot Rodger. Was it his physical appearance that was the problem?
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I think that would be best.
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Hmmm, are you just saying that you need to "choose your pain", and also accept that trying to do things will sometimes turn out badly? Or something more specific to romance?
Both, I guess - and that if you are unattractive, whatever your gender: where do you want the ambulances? What kind of tragedy would you like to endure? Is it worth it to be married with three children if at age 47 your drug-addicted wife runs you over with a truck while on a PCP bender, nearly killing you and costing you your right arm? I think it is.
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Yes, you've made it repeatedly and tenaciously clear. Are you expecting a different response than the last few times you came to vent?
My take is that you still have no idea what you're talking about.
Is it at least novel, interesting, or cool?
Actually completing the Hock, as described, would be cool, or at least impressive.
Talking about your plans to complete it is not cool. It's actually pretty lame.
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No, not when you’ve added nothing from the last time.
No, it somehow manages to be both objectionable and pedestrian.
No, asserting “rape is totally valuable” is not cool. Neither is the rest, really.
Yeah no, rape is still evil as hell. So is damn near killing your husband after an argument or some shit. Freely accepting the risk of that is admirable, though.
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no
no
no
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