In my recent outings and a few stories that have reached me from my friends, I have realized there is a huge lack of understanding of certain mindsets. Particularly predatory mindsets in regards to ourselves and the world around us.
There are problems when certain individuals get sheltered from the ways of the world. Especially from the concepts of interacting with others who may not have our best interests at heart.
Today we’re going to be looking at a number of examples, ranging from real life to virtual life.
The first example comes from my group of associates. One of my older business associates is traveling abroad. And I have heard that he’s now in a bit of trouble with various places he’s traveling in because his wallet with his ID, cash, etc. was stolen from where he was staying.
Now he was not staying in a hotel room but in a small hut he had built himself. He had left his wallet on a small end table within his sleeping quarters… in a hut. Someone walked and just took it.
He’s a very talented artist, but he’s not used to security concepts, especially with the mindset of people using you as a means to an end. There are individuals we’ll encounter throughout life, in all layers of society, who will prey on us if they can. To them we’re a source of resources, whether it’s effort, money, food, or just someone to place blame on.
These individuals are predators of people. They prey on the naive and those who don’t pay attention. In order to prevent this we need to develop our own predatory side. This will allow us to identify potential threats to ourselves and others.
How do we do this? Through familiarizing ourselves with predatory/criminal tactics we can see the holes in our defenses and take action to prevent those holes from being used. We fill them and strengthen them so they are no longer open to abuse.
This brings us to an example of virtual life. Minecraft is an odd game. Its survival mode offers us a perfect example of living in a hostile environment when all you want to do is be peaceful.
In one of the servers I play in, I spend most of my time mining, farming, and taking care of my animals. All the while, creepers, skeletons and zombies prowl the night and other dark areas. For the most part they leave me alone, but have caused me to build a very secure fortress in order to be sure my resources are not destroyed.
However there are roving bands of raiders that will eventually attack your settlement the longer you’re in the game. They will hang around, attacking you whenever you draw near to them. Which some times can’t be avoided, especially when they are around your home, farm, or the path you take to go to your resource areas.
The raiders are like predatory people in life. They go out of their way to try to control you, take your things, and take away your control of an area. If you just avoid the conflict with them all the time, you will slowly be pushed back into a state where you don’t even control yourself.
To prevent this in real life you can secure your belongings (especially in a foreign country, unlike my associate), learn about signs of potential abuse or attack, and sometimes just say “No” to an individual who’s being pushy. A lot of the time some people will try to take advantage of your good will. Lulling you to sleep so that you’ll let down your guard and open an opportunity for them.
Kindness and charity are ineffective if you have no strength to resist someone taking advantage of it. In fact doing that will often lead to you being repeatedly taken advantage of. There is something to be said for having a no-nonsense policy about things that helps warn potential predators away. The warning is “I’m better at this than you” or “I’m watching you,” either way the predator needs to know that they have a much greater risk when dealing with than with others.
Now we can’t hang the symbols of our defeated enemies from our walls like I do in Minecraft, but we can, through our actions, show that we are more capable than the average prey. In fact we may be able to begin preying on the predators if we hone our skills enough.
Think about it.
Sincerely,
The Irreverent Gentleman
gentlemansuniversityofmanliness 