Breathe deep and inhale the stench of decay.
The Dork Age heralds the coming of Nietzsche’s last man. He who coasts through a mediocre existence seeking safety, convenience and complacency over the struggle for self-actualisation.
You know people like this. They wallow in escapism; drowning in alcohol or doing drugs to take the edge off… anything to numb the agony of a hollow life. All the while shaking a feeble fist at the wind—or worse, just content with how they are.
The greatest tragedy of our times is that society has spawned an entire population of last men. Soft, docile and miserable, the fire of self-discovery extinguished by the illusion of happiness through indulgence.
Is the last man even aware of his suffering? Does he comprehend the depths of his misery? Or has modern life merely enabled him to drown his gnawing existential angst in substances or deter it through ceaseless distraction?
The last man has no need to try for anything. He can rely on authorities, experts, and the media to tell him what to do, how to live… what to believe.
The last man has outsourced his self-fulfilment to agents who have no interest in it.
Alas! Nietzsche’s worst nightmare has come true.
But a new dawn approaches.
You have realised that comfort is not conducive to a fulfilling life. You have no desire to be another last man. You know that the benefits afforded by modern society are illusory at best, because no degree of ease can stifle this single immutable law of nature: that war is the father of all things.
This statement, paraphrased from ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, reveals a stark yet potent truth. All things are in a constant state of flux. The only constant is change. Life itself is an intricate web of conflict between all things. Struggle is the only reality.
The paradox of human existence is that for all our progress, we are still subject to this law.
Regardless of how “civilised” we have become and how we have insulated ourselves from the wild chaos of nature, we still struggle internally.
Struggle is inseparable from nature herself—and given the current state of things—suffering is inevitable.
Not even the technological-industrial-information age has reduced human suffering or struggle to zero. In reality, it has probably created many more problems than those it has solved.
But it has offered you the opportunity to choose how you will suffer. You can choose a noble struggle.
You can live your life beyond the spiritual squalor of the Dork Age, the age of the last man.
The pursuit of strength and the discovery of the virtues that emerge from this principle is a noble struggle.
To be weak is to be soft, malleable, moulded by circumstance. Becoming strong means taking your life into your own hands, taking charge of your own transformation and self-realisation.
It means a dedication to achieving the best possible version of yourself: physically, mentally, intellectually, spiritually. A vision which requires rigorous discipline and courage to achieve.
It requires overcoming yourself, day in, day out.
The last man has sacrificed his self-fulfilment for self-indulgence but he will still suffer from misery, isolation, emptiness.
You embrace your suffering because it propels you upwards instead of dragging you downwards. And you will excel at living as a result.
The last man sees your virtues as barbaric, archaic, anachronistic of these times. Perhaps he’s right.
But there are others like you. More who have taken their lives into their own hands and laid out a map for their own existence; beholden to no one but their vision of themselves, to the goals they have set themselves, and to the values they have entrenched within their life strategy.
We are a legion embracing strength as our noble struggle. Each one of the whole waging their own personal inner war reaching ever-upwards towards their ideal self.
A new dawn rises and the fires of transformation burn bright to warm our hearts.
What is your noble struggle? Get in touch with us and let us know.
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