The 'Alpha Gene'

I guess as an inaugural post I should elaborate more on the purpose of this blog. This will be more of a personal diary. Public of course, and open to the world to see, that's just the kind of person I am. Less academia here, more raw feeling.

So, to start off this one, I discuss the ever elusive 'alpha gene' in the male population. The rest of the nerd/geek world knows of what I speak. There's some characteristic, genetic or otherwise (probably a meme actually), that gives some men the ability to draw and interest women, despite whatever their character is otherwise.

I definitely do not have it, and it hurts like hell to see women whisked away by that ineffable alpha-male quality. My principals dictate that I not behave as they do, it's too crude, manipulative and callous, yet it also works.

Then again, considering the patriarchal/hierarchical structure of the modern world, am I at all surprised? No, not really. It's highly frustrating to live in a world like this. Of all the many thousands of years that homo sapien sapien has been around, why did I have to be born into this era? I'm not suited for this machismo BS. IT's what everyone expects, and it's what everyone does. The men seem to (largely) fall in line with it, and the women seem to find it unquestioningly attractive. This leaves men like me, capable, intelligent, strong, out to dry.

There's really no escape from it. I live my life by my principles. Without that, my formidable intelligence would turn viscous. I don't underestimate it when I say that I'm capable of a great deal of evil. I have this wonderful gift, the gift of being clever, the gift of seeing how my actions affect things beyond myself, and how everyone's actions similarly ripple outward. I choose to use this for good, to let my ripples prove a positive force in this world by being principled, by being honest and open and just and compassionate. Even when I'm beaten down, even when I have everything I value taken from me by this harsh cruel world, I still stand up and continue to do good. I continue to help and continue to support and continue to give. I push myself beyond what most would consider reasonable, beyond what some consider even possible, to do this. I make myself weak to help others become strong. These are my principles, and I stand by them and believe in them, because through my actions more than myself can be strong. The sum of what I can give is much larger than what I can get, so I choose to give and give, because the net benefit outweighs anything else I could do with that capacity.

Yet it is exhausting, it is tiring, it is wearying. I teeter on a complete emotional collapse on a regular basis, even more so as time goes on and I suffer the slings of the modern world. In a cruel irony, the very thing that gives me this great gift of giving, the very reason that I am so capable of doing so, is exactly what denies me the ability to have my need(s) met. Work isn't something I value, and though my schooling is meaningful to me, it doesn't really amount to much in the grand scheme of things. Love, compassion, caring, respect, intimacy and sacrifice, the same things I give freely, are the things I value the most.

Imagine that, the very things I want for myself are the things I give away freely. That speaks of who I am, probably more than anything...

Yet, my selfless actions deny me access to those things, because I live in a world where the malicious and self-centered are the loved and respected. People like me are tools, used an exploited because we can be, because we are so principled. Our greatest strength, our principals, are our greatest weakness. We value not money, power, sexy women, fast cars, firm abs. The values of the modern material world are irrelevant to such as us, and in that being the case we are exploited for it, because we truly believe that by not valuing those things, by valuing each other and what we can give, that we can make the world a better place.

It's not sustainable, and eventually I will break. What that will mean, I'm not sure, I just hope I'll have been so expired by then that I can't do any harm with what power I will have left at that time, and maybe I'll have touched enough lives along the way in a good and helpful way that my net impact on the universe will have been good, and not ill.

Or so I can keep hoping, for if not, I can always be satisfied that I held out as long as I did against the impossible.

- Jason