Man-to-Man Mansplaining 101: Emotional Intel Bootcamp

Sergeant Cryboi’s recruit orientation on psychological warfare, debriefing so-called rational men about emotional intelligence.

I have a lot of authority on emotions. I'm not the world's leading expert or anything (is there one?) but for 22 years I've had to learn to navigate the highs and lows and in-betweens of what was once diagnosed as severe bipolar. That means I'm sensitive. You can call me Sergeant Cryboi.

As your Sergeant, I'm going to guide you through this bootcamp. I'm going to introduce you to the enemy. Then I'm going to arm you with the firepower you need to stop hiding behind your bravado like a coward and start manning up to reality like you were meant to be: loving, truthful, courageous, humble and wise. So all you wannabe Marcus Aurelius Emperors out there, load up on your screentime and prepare to get good noob.

Sergeant Cryboi's Bootcamp for Boys who Think They're Men

I know what you're thinking, men. I hear you. You and your boyfriends here think sensitive means weak. Maybe you even think you can see shit with your eyes closed. But think of it like this. Would you rather use binoculars or a 128k resolution military grade satellite that can hear whispered conversations in a field and deploy AI drones to contain the situation? If you want to stay insensitive, by all means use your binoculars but I'm going to nuke you from orbit and be done with it.

If you wanna be a real man, you gotta know what is going on within the battlefield of your emotional landscape, otherwise its gonna be the kind of chemical warfare that’s gonna give you a bad time, no matter how tough you are.

You, the brightest of the bright, have an inactivated superpower, soldier, and if you're like most self-proclaimed 'men' out there in the world of love and war, you're walking around with your head up your own ass — Completely in the dark and full of shit. To harness your full potential in combat against the forces of total bullshit aligned against us, you need to realize you are not the most intelligent person in the room. Maybe you don't even realize there are more types of intelligence than the one you seem to think you, of all people, are a master at, this purported rationality you speak of so proudly.

There's a big difference between rationality and perceived rationality, and you've been turned into a nitwit by concerted psyops; propaganda aimed to make you easier to manipulate. You're acting against your own interests, men! And in the process, you're behaving like trolls and troglodytes. You all know rationality involves making decisions based on logic and facts, 'devoid of emotional influence'. But our top scientists down in Area 51 show that emotions significantly impact decision making for all humans, including men.

And there's one emotion that the enemy knows how to play around best. Anger. Soldier, that's the only god forsaken emotion you've been allowed to feel your entire life. You've been living in chains. Wake up, and smell the napalm.

Man, like every human, tends to favor intel that confirms his preconceptions, ignoring contradictory evidence. That's like walking across a field assuming there's no sniper planted in the tree line at the other side! Of course there is! That field is a trap called overconfidence, and it's a sure sign the enemy knows you're overestimating your abilities and knowledge. That is going to lead you to making flawed decisions, and that’s when they will fertilize that field with your splattered skullmeat. Boom, headshot!

You see a clear field, a cake walk, and you figure you know how to cross. Done it a hundred times. Right? Wrong. Every situation is unique, soldier. One size does not fit all. That's the difference between you boys in bootcamp and a Sergeant who's served 22 years in field psychology. It's the difference between the foolhardy and the wise. It’s the difference between madness and genius.

Enemy Intel: Their Knowledge is Complete

Gentlemen, I have good news. We're going to cross that field, and none of you are going to get your heads blown off. It's gonna get far worse than that before you're to the other side though. You man enough to do what it takes?

High-stress situations can trigger fight-or-flight responses, leading to impulsive decisions on the ground. Chronic stress, as found in extended psychological warfare, affects cognitive functions and decision-making capacity. So what does the skullmeat fall back on, if it can't think? It feels, boys. Even if it thinks it’s emotionless, it ain’t. You got a bad case of “backwards rationalization" and don't be fooled, it's the farthest from rational you're gonna get. You'll talk the talk, but when it comes down to it, you're as lost as the very people you're assuming are less enlightened than you. Maybe even more so, because you think you got your shit together.

I got a message from headquarters, sweethearts! If you think you think correctly, but you don't know the intimate landscape of your most existential emotions? You're dead in the water. A sitting duck. A dead sitting duck in the water. You've overlooked one essential fact about the enemy, and the level of underestimation is embarrassing and unforgivable and I won't have it in any unit I bring onto the battlefield! The enemy knows all about your emotions. Frightening levels of surveillance, data collection, insight, and generations of study of propaganda, psyops, public relations, and marketing have been levelled against men long before your old man first set eyes upon your mommy. Your opponent knows what you're going to do ten steps before you know, and twenty steps before you do anything about it.

I know you think you're smarter. You're wrong. Take all the money you've ever spent on education and add 10 trillion in cold hard cash. That's how much they've spent on learning how you work, and if you don't believe me, you're a hopeless case. Go back to being a civilian.

So how do we win? We use their own intel against them. We learn about ourselves too.

We don't need to know the enemy. We already know enough. There's no one more understood by the oppressed than their oppressors. What these sons of bitches are counting on is you don't got the balls to look within. To feel. To let your heart break free upon the open sky.

They've conducted hundreds of years of systematic genocide upon your ancestors to eradicate the wisdom traditions that were rightfully yours to inherit. They've burned your sisters at the stake and crucified your brothers in arms who tried to show you the superior firepower of love. You want to talk censorship? You ain't got a clue, kid.

That make you mad? That make you scared? It should make you weep blood. The best among us have been murdered before they were born, and worse is what they did to your sisters, your mothers, your aunts, your grandmothers. Your fucking cats, boys. Your cute little kitties you pretend you don't love in order look manly. They killed those too. Every last one of them they could find.

Emo Intel: Your New Best Friend

Emotional Intelligence, soldiers! Let's keep it basic for you simpletons so I don't fry your skullmeat on your first day.

Self-awareness is recognizing your emotions and their impact on thoughts and actions. Get this straight: there are no thoughts. There are no emotions. There are no actions. Only one thing’s happening here, and just cause we give it three names does not make it a threesome, darling! If you think you can take emotions out of the equation, you're stupider than I thought. No wonder you signed up to bootcamp.

Self-regulation is identifying, accepting and managing emotions in healthy ways to avoid impulsive reactions. It's not suppressing, denying, splitting, projecting, or any of those fancy things the psychoanalysts down in Washington are babbling about. On the battlefield, you need to see the truth, or you're dead. If you don't manage your emotions, someone else will, and that's the be all and end all of that.

Empathy is something you lads struggle with. That's understanding other people's emotions in order to establish reliable communication and collaborative efforts on the battlefield. The enemy has their comms online with pervasive surveillance, so we depend on mind to mind protocol in our daily lives, that's right soldiers: M2MP. You think compassion is 'woke'? You know what woke means? Wake up, sweetheart, compassion is the most pain you'll ever be in, and you've been running from it your whole damn life. Do you even want to be a man? Let’s go, let’s go! Ah-ten-chun!

Social intelligence is going to help you navigate complexities behind enemy lines, where you can identify allies embedded in the structures of the megacorporate simulation who need to disguise themselves to operate effectively. If you walk around acting like you're the most competent one in the room, a know-it-all looking down on everyone, all you do is tell our men in the field to stay the fuck away from you, rookie. You're a liability.

Your previous social conditioning has imposed rigid and narrow definitions of masculinity upon your preciously unique skullmeat. You don’t want to hear it but let's be honest, you're hopelessly brainwashed, recruit — and this will cripple you on the battlefield, transforming you into a worthless stereotype, a cardboard cutout on the verge of being filled with holes during enemy target practice.

They’re counting on you to default to emotional stoicism, dominance, physical toughness. To forget your basic training. They've been leading you away from what makes you a man, what makes you invulnerable: Vulnerability. What lets you read others like a book and lead your squadron to victory: Empathy. Worst of all, they're saving energy by letting you censor yourself, gentlemen. Because if you cannot express your emotions, you cannot know your emotions. It is not possible to know the truth without speaking the truth, just as much as you can't speak the truth without knowing it. You're running around out there unarmed. Only reason they haven't flatlined you yet is because they think you're a child and they don't want to waste the ammo.

Redefining Masculinity for Tactical Advantages in Psychological Warfare

Men are being conditioned to hide their emotions, leading to poor mental health and strained relationships. And the women they abuse with their toxic behavior learn through trauma to weaponize your feelings for protection against the savages you've all become. It's the saddest reality of this war. The enemy has turned you against the ones you love and made you forget whose side you're on.

It comes down to you, lads. You need to encourage emotional expression and support men in sharing their feelings and experiences without judgment. You need to challenge the stereotypes and actively dismantle toxic situations by setting the true example of a superior warrior, and harness the full force of masculine might intimately integrated with your imprisoned feminine powers. You need to be constantly training, and refining your technique — your mental martial art — recognizing and enhancing all forms of intelligence you can possibly acquire, with meditation, mindfulness and active listening.

There's a myth among civvies, gentlemen, and it keeps them living in the stone ages. Men have long been told that showing emotion is a sign of weakness. The 'strong, silent type' is revered in popular culture, yet this stereotype does a disservice to real men everywhere. Emotional expression is not only natural but a necessary step in the soulful incarnation of selfhood. By suppressing their feelings, men cut themselves off from a vital part of the human experience. Without experience, you can't know reality at all. Welcome to the post-truth era.

The warriors we need are embracing qualities like empathy, cooperation, and emotional openness, recognizing these traits as strengths rather than weaknesses. By challenging traditional norms, men are becoming leaders instead of raving lunatics, and protecting those who depend on them not merely from the dark times ahead, but from the monsters they often allow themselves to become.

Our Secret Weapon: Sensitivity

Alright, quiet down you giggling little school girls — though I use that term figuratively and in error, because those young ladies have more skill using our secret weapon than you've ever had.

Soldier, tell me how long you think you could last in combat with your eyes gouged out, your eardrums blown and your fingertips torn off? One hundred percent correct: at that point you're already finished. Our enemy will leave you like that, too, because you're not worth killing and these fuckers aren't going to be so kind as to offer you the mercy of death. They'll put you on life support just to extend your suffering and drain the last of your family's bank accounts back home.

You're doing this to yourself. Shutting your eyes and plugging your ears. Depriving yourself of your senses. What, you thought sensitivity meant something else? No, recruits! Sense! Common sense. Are they even teaching you anything in kindergarten anymore?

Sensitivity is the intelligent use of your sensory capabilities to maximize intel in psychological warfare. Without sensitivity, you're not only vulnerable, you're not only weak, you're incapable of having any positive impact in the world whatsoever. I've seen rubble on the battlefield more useful — at least rubble provides cover!

It takes courage to be sensitive, and curiosity to be courageous. You must know what pain and fear feel like, how to turn them into a badge of honor. And I don't mean physical pain in some macho way. I mean the pain of feeling others pain. The hurt of keeping silent while listening to someone whose voice has been taken from them by this war. You have to taste the fear that wells up within you when the truth and hitherto unconfronted beauty of the world makes you tremble and fall to your knees in worship of a universal intelligence you never knew you existed. You’ve been too busy thinking you were the most clever little cut of skullmeat there ever was.

Being sensitively in tune with your emotions is like having advanced radar; it helps you detect subtle changes in the environment and respond more effectively. Real strength lies in understanding and mastering your emotional landscape. And in combat, you need the right tools to navigate emotions. Mindfulness is your night vision, helping you see clearly in the fog of stress. Active listening is your communication headset, ensuring you understand and are understood. Empathy is your negotiation skill, turning potential enemies into allies and rescuing prisoners from the matrix to grow our ranks.

Becoming Adept with Our Enlightened Master, the Prime Skullmeat

Now, I know you dopamine fueled nitwits are tired from your first day, cause your neurons are using 20% of your body's sugar radically rewiring themselves from being so ridiculously clueless just now, but congratulations! Despite your inadequacies, you made it to the end of your orientation. Get some rest recruits, because Electric Skullmeat Collective's not done with you yet.

Your next lesson is with our resident enlightened master, an advisor to our rebellion, who awaits the faithful behind a paywall of paid subscription, like all the greatest of gurus do. The Prime Skullmeat will guide you deeper into psychological self defense and mental martial arts than you have ever even considered journeying with her series: Becoming Adept.

Like, comment, subscribe and restack this bootcamp. We are going to turn this war around! And then cry tears of happiness, and feel emotions we didn't ever think were possible, emotions that do not yet have names.

Sergeant Cryboi, over and out.

This has been a communique from Electric Skullmeat Collective.