Lacking Purpose Leads to Obsessing About Women

When you have nothing really going on in your life, Jung would say that you as a man will turn to vices. And one of the vices that you're going to turn towards is women. And I remember being 18, 19, 20 years old, 22, 23 years old, and I didn't feel like I had a lot going on. I was working construction. I was pretty miserable for the most part. I didn't really know who I was or what I was going to do. I barely graduated high school. You know, I had to go back and repeat English and biology in order to graduate. And I didn't really have a track. I didn't really have a path in my life. And when I looked out at the world, all I could see were jobs that I wasn't really interested in and jobs that I wasn't really qualified for. And so I kind of felt like I was screwed. And because of that, I didn't really have any direction. I didn't really have any meaning. I didn't really have any purpose. And so I ended up working construction. And I remember working my very first gig out of high school. First, I delivered water and I sold some vacuums and I did some side gigs and it was absolutely terrible. But in the vacuum, just to play a little pun on words there, in the vacuum of having some type of mission, some type of focus, some type of aim and direction that I was trying to walk my life towards, something that I was trying to move towards that would contribute something hopefully back to the world, to other people, something that brought meaning into my life, I became largely fixated on women. And I see this happening with men all the time. When you don't have something that you are trying to build towards or grow towards, what ends up happening is that women become a fixation. And it's a different type of fantasy. And if Jung was in this conversation, and I've studied Jung for well over a decade, he probably would have said something like, We become obsessed with the unconscious, because for Jung, the unconscious was the feminine, especially within us as men. And so the unconscious contents that exist inside of you, all of the unknown emotions and unknown experiences and the unconscious memories and desires and fears and shadows and insecurities, all of those things represent this kind of inner feminine and what Jung called as the anima. And what I see happening for so many men in the world today is that in the absence of some type of direction, some type of purpose or meaning in their life, they have become fixated on women, either individually or more so as a collective. I see a lot of young men who are obsessed with seeing women in a certain way, so much so that they don't oftentimes see the woman that they are with or the women that they are dating, or having a date with, and women become this kind of collective meme to them. And this happens because you live in a kind of fantasy where getting a woman, getting a relationship, getting women's attention becomes your primary purpose. It becomes the only game that your mind tricks you into playing. And in some ways, what Jung would've said is that it's your unconscious mind trying to bring you on a journey. It's your unconscious mind, your anima, and for Jung, anima was the feminine. It's your unconscious mind trying to bring you on some type of an excursion where you step out of the confines of who you currently are right now, and that you have the chance to start to define some type of meaning, some type of function, some type of purpose in your life, that your life is for something. And in the absence of your life being meaningful or meaning-filled, in the absence of your life having some type of drive or purpose, what many men turn to is making a relationship their purpose, making a woman their purpose. And this becomes antithetical to the health and the vitality of the relationship. Men want a function outside of the relationship. Even if you look at the great romances of literature, And mythology, the men that are in those stories, they always embark on some type of an adventure, some type of a mission, some type of a building that is completely separate, has nothing to do with their relationship. And it is a kind of soul's calling that's pulling the masculine out into the world to build something, to discover who he is outside of the feminine. And this is a kind of core masculine drive, a core masculine component that has been written about throughout the millennia, right? Throughout most cultures, throughout pretty much every single myth. When you look at the masculine in mythology and in story, the Odyssey is a very good example of this. What ends up happening is that men end up needing to go out into the world to explore, to adventure, to create, to build, to battle, to become. And when that doesn't happen, you end up collapsing into a kind of shell of who you could be. And I fear that for a lot of young men in today's world, they look out at the world, they look out at society, and I see it in my YouTube comments, I see it in my social media comments, And they see a world vacant of meaning, a world devoid of purpose, a world that is so fraught with meaninglessness that the urge and desire that exists inside of them to go out and to penetrate or to pierce the world and to do something and to create meaning, to find something meaningful, seems almost pointless. And I see a lot of men, a lot of young men and a lot of men in general that See that as a pointless endeavor. And so what they turn to is, well, maybe if I can just find some type of satisfaction in a relationship, in my marriage with a woman, then maybe, maybe I can have some type of salvation and happiness. But this is a trap, you know, cue the Star Wars, it's a trap meme, because you can't ever find the depth of meaning and purpose in a relationship. If you try and make a woman the meaning in your life or the purpose and the function of your life, she will inevitably and eventually resent you for it. It doesn't mean that you can't share a spectacular kind of love. It doesn't mean that you can't deeply have a reverence for her and the relationship and have an admiration for who she is and really bask in the joy. And the peace of the relationship, if you're so lucky to find such a thing. It just means that the relationship itself and her as an individual cannot be your primary purpose or the primary source of meaning in your life. There must be something else outside of that. And for us as men, this really is a driving force. In life. And when I was a young man, I fell into this trap. I made women my epicenter. I made them the sort of penultimate aim that I was trying to move towards, the North Star that I was trying to move towards, because I had been convinced that if I could just get a woman's attention, if I could just get a woman's validation, if I could just get a woman's love, that then maybe I would be enough, maybe life would have some type of meaning, maybe I would have some type of joy. But it never came, it never happened. And I was in some amazing, wonderful relationships. And as I started to go through the, the movement of going towards a mission in my life, trying to locate where meaning existed— and I did all kinds of things, I studied philosophy, I studied theology and religion. I went to music school. I performed in arts and sang and traveled the world. And I tried sales jobs and worked for tech companies. And I did all of these things to try and get a sense of what is meaningful to me, what actually matters to me as a man, and what am I willing to give my life force to that in return I'm gaining some type of meaning from, that there's a kind of nourishment that happens. And for me, meaning is a reciprocal relationship. Purpose is a reciprocal relationship. I do something to produce something, to build something, to go out into the world, to have an experience and an adventure. And what I receive in return is meaning and purpose and function. And I think it saddens me that for so many men in today's culture, they look out at the world and all they see is a bleak future where maybe climate change or AI is going to collapse the whole thing, and so why even bother? And I think if men of the past had taken that stance and had just collapsed into a kind of, uh, fuck it, why bother, we probably wouldn't be here today. And all it takes is for good men to sit down and not say anything, to not move towards a life in a world, or to make an attempt, maybe Herculean, maybe Sisyphus in nature, that you continue to push the boulder up the hill over and over again, trying to find some sense of meaning until something shifts, until you finally find a sliver, a glimpse of What is meaningful to you? And usually that purpose and that meaning comes in being of contribution to someone else. You know, this is written across religions, it's written across mythology, it's written across stories that meaning has something to do, that purpose has something to do with being of contribution to something or someone that you genuinely care about, that you genuinely give a shit about. And it's using skills and talents that you genuinely enjoy using, that you get some type of intrinsic reward from inherently and internally. And when we don't move towards those things, right? I'm going to contribute to something and someone or someone that I genuinely give a shit about. It's meaningful to me. It matters. Right? It helps me understand that there's a mattering in the world, and I'm gonna use talents and skills and gifts that I have towards that. And if I am missing some talents or skills or gifts, I'm going to go and develop that capacity. And in developing that capacity, your life again starts to take on some type of meaning. This is— I went and trained for years, right? After my music degree, after I went and performed, it always felt like it was missing something. You know, the business was drama-fueled and filled. The people were full of drama. I didn't really feel like I fit in with that. But more importantly was that I didn't have the quality of impact that I really genuinely wanted to have. And I wasn't contributing to people in a way that felt direct enough to me. And when I started to train with my very first mentor, Bernard, and I started to learn about Jungian psychology and study about the shadow, and he started to work with me and I got to work on myself and work with other people, I was like, this is it. Here it is. Here's this meeting where I'm contributing to something and someone that really matters to me. I'm developing a skillset that's helping me to have that contribution. I'm proud of the skillset. The work I'm doing matters to me. The skills I'm using matter to me. And as I started to do that, this inverse, this sort of like strange effect started to happen where as I developed more purpose, my addictions to pornography, to women and sex all started to wane. They all held less charge on me. And I think that for many men in today's world, it's not that they're a porn addict or they have some, you know, obviously some men have sexual compulsions that are very challenging to deal with. Mm-hmm. I'm not negating any of that. But from what I've seen, the more purpose and meaning that you have in life, the less prone you are to being completely captured by an addiction, to be completely captured by a type of fantasy and illusion that sells you this false notion that a woman will somehow fulfill you to such a degree and depth that she will become your purpose in life, that you won't need anything else outside of the relationship to find meaning, right? That's the false trap that the unconscious and the feminine can play in us. Jung had this— This is where I'm going to end off on this conversation because I I think I've probably gone down this rabbit hole enough. Jung had this fascinating concept that I've wanted to get into more called anima possession. Anima possession. And it's a little bit complicated, but the basis of it is that a man will become possessed by his unconscious, by his own feminine nature, by his anima, and he will begin to act in accordance with that anima. He'll begin to act more unconscious. He will begin to become more emotional. He will begin to be more at the whim of his emotions. And really, it's a kind of— he becomes a kind of servant to the feminine inside of him, which is dictating him all the time, dictating him, telling him what to do and where to go and how to feel. And I think that in our culture, there's this very polarized force that started to happen within the masculine psyche and within the masculine culture, within men, which is that there's a whole slew of men who have become anima-possessed. They have become a kind of walking embodiment of doing everything that they possibly can, shaping themselves into this type of chameleon to just try and get a morsel, an ounce of a woman's attention, to try and ensure that the feminine's anger never comes towards them, that they never disappoint a woman, that they never upset a woman. And you could call this the nice guy, you could call this a whole bunch of things, people-pleasing men, but at the core of it, it's really this culturally anima-possessed form of the masculine that lives to try and satisfy the feminine, that his, his only existence is to try and get a woman's praise and validation, to try and get her attention. And I understand this because that was me for a long time. When I was a young man, my— basically the only thing that I lived for, that I existed for, was trying to get a woman's attention and her validation and her praise and to try and get laid and all of that other— that's what I existed for. I didn't have meaning or purpose That led to my existence for anything else. So the clash is a whole bunch of men that are enema possessed. They are just living to try and appease women. They are living to try and get women's attention. They are living to try and never upset the feminine or face the feminine's disappointment or wrath. And on the other side are men who have, for lack of a better term, they have severed the head of the feminine within their own psyche. They are so disconnected from any type of feminine nature. They're completely disconnected from empathy or compassion or humanity or understanding. And they've moved into this very oppositional place that looks at the man who is anima-possessed with a type of disgust, and oftentimes looks at the feminine and anything constituted with the feminine With disgust. And so there's these 2 huge poles that really have formed within the modern man's— within the modern masculine psyche. One is completely enamored with and addicted to the feminine, and it's become possessed by the feminine. And the other one is just living in complete opposition, wants really nothing to do with it, is very hostile towards anything that's constituted as feminine. And has moved into this place of being disembodied with their own feminine nature, with any type of quality, with any type of characteristic or trait that could possibly be construed as the feminine. And Jung would say that this is the rejection of the feminine. This is the type of death of the feminine within. And when that happens, a man becomes cold, he becomes distant, he becomes ineffective. Yeah. And really, neither one of them allow for you to live with purpose and meaning. If you are anima possessed and you live for the feminine, or you think that women are somehow inherently bad or dangerous or harmful or can never be trusted, right? And, or you look at your own, you're not able to be compassionate or empathetic towards yourself or anybody else. That will inevitably block you from living with a type of purpose and meaning within your life, because you will be disconnected from something fundamentally valuable and important for you. So to end this all off, what do we do? Well, I'm not too sure if I have the clearest answer for you about that, but it certainly might have something to do with starting to define and describe what your own journey is. What your own odyssey is meant to be, the path that you are meant to walk, to move out into the world and to try and find a sense of purpose and meaning that is outside of women, and that is not despite women. I think this is a very important demarcation and distinction. Many men will try and find a sense of purpose and meaning in women, And if that doesn't work or something has happened, then it's, I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna find this despite women, to spite women, to show women I don't need you, as a kind of like middle finger to women. And that just doesn't work. It's a very challenging thing, but maybe it is the challenge that you need. Maybe what it is that you need to reconcile with and reckon with is where you are on that spectrum. where you find yourself on that spectrum and to start to reconcile with the truth that that's where you actually are, living your life in opposition of the feminine, in opposition of women, or living your life for women entirely. All right, thank you so much for tuning in. Connor Beaton signing off. Don't forget to man it forward. Leave your thoughts and comments in the comment section below. Till next week, goodbye.