Enter The Valley

Gentlemen,

They don’t want you to go to the mountains with your boys.

They don’t want you to convene in awe-inspiring and breath taking environments with your friends.

They don’t want you to work on projects and ideate with your buddies.

They don’t want you make memories and deepen camaraderie.

They don’t want you to adventure, explore, converse, laugh, train, work, and grow with ambitious young men you’re aligned with.

They don’t want you to discuss politics, the state of your nation, God, life, and the pursuit of happiness.

They seriously don’t want you to do this.

They do want you to play video games.

They do want you to watch p0rn.

They do want you to watch Netflix, YouTube, and other grown men play sports on TV every chance you get.

They do want you to drudge away at a remote job that you could care less about.

They do want you to compulsively swipe on dating apps.

They do want you to scroll incessantly on social media looking at cars, mansions, attractive women, and memes.

They do want you to isolate.

They do want you to live vicariously through screens because a man who does so is no threat to them at all.

They want you to get by. Nothing more, nothing less. They want you to live enough life to feed the machine, but not enough to be able to create your own.

Why?

Because doing the things they don’t want you to do is how change occurs.

It’s how power is cultivated and directed.

It’s how revolutions are started.

It’s how 13 colonies of misfits and farmers defeated the largest empire the world has ever seen.

It’s how a group of knights found the holy grail.

It’s how a man from Nazareth changed eternity.

It’s how businesses are built.

It’s how the edges of the earth were found.

It’s how wilderness is traversed.

It’s how fights are won.

It’s how stories are written and momentum is gained.

It’s how families are fed and protected.

It’s how ground is taken.

What “they” don’t want is a unified and competent group of young men bent on protecting and providing for their families to get together in hopes of becoming more unified and competent.

Who?

“They” is the proverbial powers that be, the devil, the darkness, the lower parts of humanity.

“They” is whoever or whatever you believe is holding you, your family, your tribe, and society back from reaching their glorious potential.

Seriously, think about it. An organization with power will rarely — if ever, reluctantly surrender its power. That organization will do what it can to maintain and increase its domain of control and as history has shown, there may be nothing more dangerous to that organization than a group of competent, strong-willed, and aligned men.

I aim not to blackpill you into thinking that we are doomed or that you are a failure if you partake in the things mentioned above. I’ve watched my share of Netflix and sports, I’ve doom scrolled on social media and done my share of living vicariously through a screen.

I aim to convince you of the exact opposite.

We are exactly where we are intended to be.

God’s provident hand has placed you precisely where you are needed.

Esther 4:14 says, “…And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

I believe we have.

I believe you and I are here, right now, at the exact right time. There has never been and never will be another you on this earth. There has never been and will never again be a gift such as you have to give.

While that precise gift and purpose may remain hidden from us yet, I have no doubt that it exists. Just as a cloudy night does not disprove the existence of stars, the ambiguity of your gift and purpose in the present, does not mean it’s absent, but rather that the fog has yet to clear.

How does this tie into going to the mountains with your boys?

Firstly, I beileve it’s in the honest pursuit of your gift that you find your purpose.

Secondly, to find your gift you must venture into far off places. Places unfamiliar, riddled with darkness and enemies.

What do many of histories heroic men do when they are faced with such things?

They raise an army.

They enter into the valley with other men.

Warriors across time, the knights of the round table, Jesus and His disciples, the founding fathers of the United States, Allied soldiers on D-Day… They all did this.

They all rode valiantly toward those unfamiliar and dark places in search of their gift and the purpose of their lives, alongside other men in search of the same.

What “they” don’t want is for you to enter that unfamiliar valley of the adventurous and meaningful life shoulder-to-shoulder with your tribesmen. With back-up. With men you have bled with, laughed with, and triumphed with already, who are prepared to do so again.

What “they” do want is 1 of 2 things:

1. For you to watch other men enter the valley from a distance

2. For you to enter the valley alone

In the former, you have a 0% chance of success.

In the latter, while the chance of success is not zero, it’s slim. We are communal beings for a reason. This is not to say we are incapable of greatness on our own, but we are much less likely to reach the fullest extent of our capabilities alone as opposed to with our tribe.

This is why they don’t want you to go to the mountains with your boys.

When you explore new places with your friends, if you’re intentional, you cultivate and enhance the skills, traits, and relationships that they disdain.

They don’t want you to have back-up. They don’t want you to even try.

They want you sedated, lethargic, and alone.

They want you on your phone, on the TV, on drugs, in air conditioning, on your couch, at home, by yourself.

They don’t want you to adventure, explore, converse, laugh, train, work, and grow with ambitious young men you’re aligned with.

And so, if you aim as I do, to live an adventurous life in which you find your gift and live your purpose, you must do such things.

Onward & Upward,

Nolan

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