Let me tell you a story about myself.

As I have alluded to in many articles, I was not exactly a model student and teenager in my younger days. In fact I was something of a juvenile delinquent. Not a particularly charismatic one, as I completely failed to use my “bad boy” status to be a cool guy or pick up girls, but nonetheless I was a violent, brawling, antisocial little shit who didn’t seem destined for much of anything. Fighting was my wheelhouse and I fought all the time. Hardly a week went by where I didn’t get into a punch up with somebody at school

A curious thing happened each time I fought—and I mean unsanctioned fighting, not a sanctioned competition—whenever you fight, and I feel anybody who has been in my shoes will know this, you will notice a curious mental and physical process that goes on, every time.

When you’re in the “rough and tumble”, seeing the “red haze” in your eyes, feeling the adrenaline coursing through you and you feel the guy’s face breaking, it’s emotionally heady stuff. And afterwards, you feel on top of the world…for a very brief period of time, before you crash and feel miserable.

I call it “10 seconds of savage exultation and years of shame”. The immediate post-fight adrenaline rush feels amazing, like you’ve “leveled up” in the video game sense. You stand over your enemy; you’ve crushed him, seen him driven before you, and heard the lamentations of his women, so to speak. This is a biological phenomenon—men get huge testosterone blasts with victory.  It feels amazing to kick ass in the short term.

But then I always found that when the adrenaline wears off and civilization kicks in, you don’t feel good after that. You feel guilty, you focus on the eyes of fear they had as you pounded them, choked them, and (in some extreme cases) stabbed them. Call me soft if you will, but every time I looked down and see somebody else’s blood on your hands…it made me feel pretty shitty.

While I never outright vomited in disgust at my actions, I’ve come close to it at points. And for years afterwards, I was haunted by the brutality I had committed. Anyone who has been in this or similar situations will agree: it’s not easy to see a 12 year old’s eyes panicking as he frantically tries to suss out whether he’s about to breathe his last (because your hand is around his throat crushing his trachea…and no, I was pulled off by security guards before I could do any severe damage), or see your hands covered in a 13 year old’s blood (because you repeatedly stabbed him with a #2 Ticonderoga as he cowered in fear underneath you).

 Now, to be fair, I never instigated these fights: They were my bullies and they brought it on themselves. They fucked with me without knowing I’d have a, shall we say “John Rambo-esque” freakout, but I’d be lying if I said I still don’t feel guilty for it.

The fact I felt so guilty made no sense to 13 year old Larsen. I’ve also alluded to the fact that I was not the most socially adroit kid—I’ve jokingly said that the USA Network was my third parent, but there is truth to that. That sort of crude, barbaric sense of justice and vengeance is what I learned through a prior decade of media consumption

It greatly upset me that I *was*, in fact, so upset about it, and I wanted nothing more than to succumb to the animal within, to leave my time period, to be a leather pants wearing, blood drinking savage that would smile and laugh at destruction, enjoying nothing more than hurting people. I wanted nothing more than to wake up every morning and say IT IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE.

But I never could. Years of questioning myself ultimately led me to this conclusion,. As much as I may not like it, I am a man of modern civilization with all the homilies of mercy and rights and what have you. I would never be fully able to shake the empathy off myself.

You can certainly argue whether or not empathy (or more accurately, empathy for those not in the “in-group”) is something that comes naturally—I will point out there’s probably a very good reason why every military at war goes to great lengths to dehumanize and nickname the enemy, making them okay to kill; because otherwise you might feel bad about what you’re doing.

Perhaps if I had been raised from birth in some warrior society to enjoy pain and destruction, to wage my battles ruthlessly and without mercy…

 “…The thought was forced upon me: “The rascals—they have served other people so in their day; it being their own turn, now, they were not expecting any better treatment than this; so their philosophical bearing is not an outcome of mental training, intellectual fortitude, reasoning; it is mere animal training; they are white Indians.” —Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

…I would have perhaps more easily become that walking fount of Manowar lyrics: But as it is, I’ve learned the hard way you can’t overcome decades of cultural programming with just a few punch-ups unless you’re some sort of clinical psychopath, and I am not.

Was this article a bit of a black pill? I apologize—to an extent I still wish I could totally divorce myself from modern society (because it sucks). But I’ve learned the hard way that it’s extremely difficult if not impossible.

I am *not* saying embrace all that sucks about society. Obviously I am not saying to embrace the skirt wearing, butt stuffing, noodle armed effeminacy of our modern age. It isn’t difficult, since those were not imposed upon me or you from birth. In contrast, I shudder to think of what kids now will go through, because at least in the 90s(when I grew up), there was some semblance of masculinity in the culture.

All we can do is resist the most overt modern crappiness, and slowly and inexorably change the tide of culture our way, preserving the good and virtuous from the past and applying it to our lives as best we can, and teaching our sons to do the same. I can’t see anything else that can be immediately done.