10 Apr The Lion
-By Caleb Jones
The core of this story belongs to Tony Robbins, though I have Blackdragonized it.
For many of you, this is your story.
Once upon a time, a lion cub lived with his mother and father in the pride on the plains of Africa. One day, a group of hunters attacked the pride. The lion cub watched as his father was gunned down and killed. Still a small cub and not comprehending what was happening, he ran this way and that, trying to understand.
His mother snatched him up and hurled him into some nearby bushes to save him. Then, she too was shot.
The cub still did not understand, but he was scared. He ran and ran. He survived. He was the only lion in his pride to do so.
Hours later, he stood alone on the plains, and a flock of sheep strode by. One of the sheep brushed up against him, and said “Baaaah.”
He cocked his head to one side. Again, the sheep said “Baaaah.” She indicated with her head that he should follow them. Not knowing what else to do, the lion cub did so.
The lion cub was raised by his new family, the sheep. The sheep were timid and kind. They were loving and gentle. Often the lion, now fully grown and no longer a cub, would join the sheep, grazing peacefully on the plains or drinking water out of the lake. He would say “Baaaah,” just like the sheep. He acted like a sheep and lived like a sheep.
The lion loved the sheep, but in the back of his mind, he sometimes sensed something was wrong. He could never quite put his finger on it, so he tried not to think of it much.
He wasn’t happy. He wasn’t miserable. There was always that nagging sense of wrongness, but he was… comfortable.
One day, a pride of lions attacked the sheep. The young lion watched in horror as these fearsome beasts ripped his friends to shreds and feasted on their carcasses.
A large, older lion went over to the young lion, and roared in a happy greeting. The younger lion cowered away, like a sheep, and said, “Baaaah.”
The older lion smacked the younger lion across the face. “What the FUCK is wrong with you?” he cried. “You’re a lion! Not a sheep!”
“Baaaah,” the lion replied.
“Jesus,” groaned the older lion. With that, he grabbed the younger lion by the scruff of his hair, and dragged him, kicking and struggling, over to the lake. Why was this older lion being so mean to him? Why did he kill the sheep? This older lion was clearly a total asshole!
Finally, the older lion pushed the younger lion’s head down toward the water, almost touching it but not quite.
“Witness! See your reflection in the water!” said the older lion. “You are a great and powerful LION! You are not a sheep! We rule this kingdom! You are one of us. Remember who you are! BE who you are!”
The young lion saw his reflection in the water, and was confused. Even after the older lion released his grip on him, the lion continued to gaze at himself in the placid lake. Indeed, it was him. Indeed, he looked just like a lion.
But no. That cannot be. I was raised by sheep. I am a sheep, not a lion. Lions are assholes. Sheep are sweet and kind. I’m not an asshole. I am a sheep.
Aren’t I?
Conflict raged within him. He shook his head in pain and said “Baaaah.”
The older lion was wise, and could see the inner conflict within the younger lion. “Here,” said the older lion. “I will make you remember.”
Once again, the older lion grabbed the younger lion and pulled him over to the rest of the pride, who were feasting on their sheep dinner. The lion then ripped a piece of fresh flesh from one of the carcasses, and shoved it into the younger lion’s mouth.
The younger lion was horrified. He tried to spit it out, but the older lion grabbed his muzzle, forcing him to chew and swallow it. “Remember!” he cried. “Remember who you REALLY ARE!”
The young lion thrashed about, trying to spit it out, trying to throw up, trying to break free of the older lion’s grip, but years with the sheep had made him weak as compared to the greater lion before him. Eventually, the younger lion succumbed and swallowed the meat, full of disgust.
But then, a strange thing happened. The disgust suddenly… went away. The meat tasted… wonderful. WONDERFUL! The young lion suddenly felt a power deep within him he had never felt before. Fire arose in his eyes, strength came to his muscles, and clarity came to his mind.
Seeing the change, the older lion released his grip, nodding slowly. The younger lion rose up, and roared. It was the first time he had ever roared in his life, and the roar echoed throughout the plains and was heard by all. The other lions in the pride turned and regarded him, roared their approval, recognizing their equal, a great lion; the newest member of the pride.
A great fog lifted from the young lion, and for the first time in his life, all felt right. Finally, after living his entire life as a sheep, he realized what it meant to be who he truly was. This was power. This was happiness. This was fulfillment. This is who he was always meant to be.
He joined the pride, and lived a life as a lion, a life of greatness and happiness.
Never again would he be a sheep.
Now, he would roar.
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Justin
Posted at 05:15 am, 10th April 2017Thank you for that this morning… Good stuff.
Gil Galad
Posted at 06:22 am, 10th April 2017Haha, good one. The way I understand how S jay Ws (yeah, I think these 3 letters are why WordPress censors me sometimes) and gender benders think, lions are supposed to have no innate need for meat and they would have us believe that a lion properly raised like a sheep would *not* find the meat delicious once forced to swallow it. They genuinely think that the best thing to do to lions is to make them sheep.
Kurt
Posted at 07:35 am, 10th April 2017I applaud your creative writing and enjoy reading it, but,
Criticism (don’t hate me bro):
I see the point you’re trying to make, and I agree with it, but this parable as written also is giving a message here that you should turn on those innocents who have helped you when you were at your most vulnerable. You know, in order to reach Self-Actualization.
Kinda fucked up if you ask me.
Question: was that part of the story necessary in your opinion, that the cub must eat the flesh of his adoptive tribe in order to reach his potential? If so I am missing part of your point. If not it is failing as a parable.
This is also almost a retelling [but from the other perspective] of the ancient scorpion and frog parable (also told as the old woman and the snake): you shouldn’t expect someone to change their nature just because you helped them or showed them love. The difference here of course is that the sheep weren’t undone by the cub himself, but of course the cub was meant to eat sheep and the whole point of the story is that he doesn’t become his true self until he starts doing so.
Zan
Posted at 07:37 am, 10th April 2017Great analogy for real life… luckily he had someone to force feed him the truth. In today’s world, you can’t do such a thing. The State/System will take away your kid. The System creates, enforces and reinforces mental slavery through SP. Thus, most people will become and remain Sheeple.
The saddest part is they value their slavery over freedom. They will argue and fight to protect it, defend it, deny it and make all kind of excuses to justify it and then go and do some form of drug(s) to pacify it.
As some wise person once stated, “There are NO solutions.” It’s too late my friend, the poison has taken affect and the damage has been done. The vast majority are now a lost cause.
The only thing left to do is…. GTFO!!!!!
Caleb Jones
Posted at 07:47 am, 10th April 2017No. Re-read the story. At no point did the younger lion turn on any innocents or betray anyone. Forces outside of his control did that, and without his permission.
No part of any story is “necessary.” That’s the great thing about fiction.
Now you’ve got it.
Northern 2.0
Posted at 08:06 am, 10th April 2017Can someone please spell out for me what this story means in terms of the topics discussed at the Blackdragon blog (Alpha Male 2.0)?
Kurt
Posted at 09:33 am, 10th April 2017Of course, but the point is that he needed to be like the lions who slaughtered his adopted family, not his adopted family. Also, he benefits from it. So, no he didn’t actually do it himself but the story is saying that is the direction he needed to go.
In the context of making a point and effectively communicating the ideas you want to communicate, many things are necessary. Among them unambiguous communication of your main ideas so that the message isn’t lost. That is the challenging thing about fiction.
Gil Galad
Posted at 09:58 am, 10th April 2017@Kurt: I think it breaks down as follows.
“Eating meat” and “killing sheep” is a metaphore for the way Alphas in general treat people: they actually don’t kill anyone, but in our society of sheep, any non-spineless pattern of behavior such as refusing monogamy, having libertarian leanings, rejecting SP, etc, is seen as a very bad thing and what’s more, you’re accused of harming society (“killing the sheep”, “eating other animal’s meat”) with your behavior, and the general belief is that doing so will make you unhappy anyway (ie, meat isn’t tasty). The belief that Alpha2.0 behavior is immoral and harmful is so deep and widespread that it seems as obvious as the fact that killing people who raised you is bad. But the moral of the story is that 1° having strong desires and going after them is in fact natural (“lions aren’t supposed to eat grass, they need meat”), 2° it doesn’t make you unhappy (“meat is actually tasty, swallow that mouthful and you’ll see”), 3° it is no more immoral than it is for a lion to engage in predatory behavior.
The thing about parables is that you’ve got to be careful what stand for what, and what part of the story is irrelevant to the metaphor or symbolically tricky. In this case the trick is that “killing” is the metaphor, not the real-life behavior supposedly condoned by the metaphor. Alphas don’t need to kill and eat other people, but in the modern PC framing, wanting nonmonogamous sex from women, or free speech, or a $75000 income, is perceived as “unhealthy”, “greedy”, “unnatural”, “predatory”, “rapey”, etc. I’m guessing that the “death of the family” in the parable stands for the boy’s parents being screwed over by their blue pill beliefs: maybe the father gets divorce raped (“killed”), and the mother somehow loses the money and becomes financially strapped for the rest of her life (“killed sometime after the dad”); the boy grows up as a beta single mother’s kid and lives as a blue pill sheep until he encounters the 2.0 community, which initially repulses him but eventually helps him build a better life.
DanielR
Posted at 11:42 am, 10th April 2017Not your best work, Caleb.
LionKing
Posted at 12:19 pm, 10th April 2017This.
Almost got tears in my eyes reading the story 🙂
Shayme
Posted at 12:51 pm, 10th April 2017The lion would have turned on the sheep family long ago out of natural instinct/hunger, proving to be a lion biologically without being ‘forced to eat the meat.’
Likewise, I’d bet most of us found our way here because we truly are Alpha primarily and moving away from some beta tendencies that occur naturally (example in my case, family raising lowers T and increases oxytocin), not by someone shoving it down our throats as the alpha lion did. Those guys that you relate the orphan lion to would be the solid biological betas and lesser that aren’t ready, maybe never will be, to become a lion. It’s just a natural progression or expression of the person and their biology. If anything I’ve learned so far in all this manosphere interaction, it is no amount of forcing anything down a blue pillers throat will convert them. You’re mostly preaching to the choir regarding your users here.
Im not a fan of these stories as I view them as filler and I don’t come here to be entertained. I appreciate your blog over the years even though lately the content hasn’t given me any new insights, but I chalk that up to abosorbing most of your advice already.
Alejando
Posted at 05:47 pm, 10th April 2017What a coincidence that guy said “the lion doesnt concern himself with the opinion of the sheep” in that other post.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 06:48 pm, 10th April 2017A little insight into the strategy involved in being a professional blogger;
When you have a decently large audience (over a million men read this blog per year), some readers are going to love certain types of blog posts, and other readers are going to hate those same types. As long as both types of readers are within your target audience, you need to appeal to both.
So occasionally, you’ll write the type of blog post some readers love and other readers think sucks or is a waste of time. When you do this, the readers who love it will say so, and like it on social media, forward it to others, and you gain more readers. The readers who hate it will grumble and complain. It all normal, predictable, and part of the blogging process.
So next time any of you read a blog post here you think sucks, just remember the business reasons why I’m doing it. Every post I make here is part of a greater plan. Every one.
Remember, unlike the vast majority of bloggers, I’m not here to be liked or validated. I’m here to make money. (Though sometimes those two things coincide by accident, which is okay too.)
joelsuf
Posted at 07:52 pm, 10th April 2017I like the Lion analogy, but I’d rather be a grizzly bear. I am chill and very much harmless, but if you mess with my food or anything else I own, its over.
As someone who is getting into blogging, I gotta remember this…
JudoJohn
Posted at 07:08 am, 11th April 2017These were the great blond beasts Nietzsche was talking about.
Joanna
Posted at 01:47 pm, 11th April 2017Well I am one of the readers who likes this type of story. It reminds me of the time a good mate sent me a random message telling me to ‘stop trying to be like everyone else, you not fooling anyone’ urgh I wasted many years trying to fit in to the mold I thought everyone expected of me. Its like that analogy about the elephant chained to a chair, typical self limiting beliefs and it taught me that you never gonna make everyone happy all the time, so you might as well redirect that energy towards making yourself happy because denying your true nature is soul destroying. To die would be more noble.
The Power Elite
Posted at 09:14 am, 14th April 2017If sheep stay asleep,
then sheeple get slaughtered.
Walter B
Posted at 09:54 pm, 26th April 2017I made a drawing about this:
https://www.facebook.com/406093076429038/photos/a.414799978891681.1073741831.406093076429038/414799982225014/?type=3&theater
juancito420
Posted at 02:05 pm, 7th January 2019The lion king written by an alpha male. The point of the story is beta males have an identity crisis and need an alpha male to motivate them to become the alpha males they were meant to be?