Tag: self-reliance

Being an Author with ADD

D. Michl LoweLeave a comment

As a writer, I am often split in my attention. While I might be talking to someone or doing a task, my brain is always going over some aspect of my book. Maybe I am considering some part of the world of the book, here recently that’s been the magic system and religions of the people there. How do those things work? Why are they the way they are? Who are the major characters which will interact with those aspects of the world? How will the plot play into these things I am thinking up? All these types of questions are constantly running back and forth in my brain. I even dream about these things. The other night, I woke up and had to grab my phone to write down parts of my dream that would play into the story.

I have been told since I was a kid that I have my head in the clouds. Every single report card I ever got in grade school said that, “Michl is a great student, very smart, but he has his head in the clouds”. I get that I was ADD as a kid (it was undiagnosed), but I think that might continue today, but with very different distractions. Sometimes my wife will talk about how I don’t listen to her sometimes when she is talking. That might be true, but sometimes I think some of those times might be me being in my own head, running through characters, plots, world building, magic, and other things. Now to be clear, this isn’t a huge problem in our marriage, Alicia and I are actually doing pretty well.

However, I wonder if other authors have the same process in their minds. I keep notes on my phone and in my computer, but these things are never ending. There are always more notes, ideas, and characters to dream up and think about. I get inspired by a lot of things and new ideas constantly come into my brain.

I was rewriting a section where one of my characters is teaching a class. I decided to have the character open up to his class about a different part of his personality that I thought would be neat to explore. The issue was, I hadn’t written out that aspect of the character yet, so for the last couple of days my brain has been running through that part of his nature. I finished writing that new section yesterday and feel good about it, but it just makes me realize how much more I need to unpack the characters beliefs.

Am I alone in being borderline obsessed with the book worlds I am creating? I feel like it’s hard to talk to people about my ideas though. Partly because I don’t want to always be talking about my books, but also because there’s a part of me that doesn’t believe my writing is good. I think every author feels that way sometimes, but it’s still something I am acutely aware of. Does anyone else have feelings like this? Let me know in the comments below.

D. Michl Lowe

The Need for Honorable Men

D. Michl LoweLeave a comment

This is the introduction to the book Men of Valor, by D. Michl Lowe.

I have sat back and waited. Waited on the church. Waited on my friends. Waited on society. Waited for them to start moving, to wake up and see that our world is dying. The earth itself seems to be groaning. There is a palpable tension in the air. Evil is no longer allowed to be called evil and even those who prey upon children are starting to no longer be vilified. Not to mention the devastation of abortion. There is a great need in our culture to begin unraveling the problems that most of society no longer calls sin. It must start with Christian men. It must start with them standing up to be counted.

Creating a new way of living. Showing the love and truth of Christ to the dying world, but also working to show that men are culturally here to stay. That masculinity is not something shameful, but a prideful way of expressing gender that sets us apart from our wonderful ladies. We are strong, resolute in our faith, and gentle in our demeanor. We are silken iron.

The sad truth of today’s culture is that it has become normal to understand that men are stupid, clumsy, fat, lazy, and just useless. We see characters like Chandler and Joey from the sitcom Friends who are bumbling idiots only really interested in sex. The women of the show manipulate them constantly using sexual innuendo to get what they want. In one episode, the boys have rightly won the right to live in an apartment from the girls, only to have the two girls kiss each other in front of the boys in payment for the apartment. The boys leave the apartment saying, “Totally worth it! Then go into their separate rooms giving the impression they are going to go masturbate with the memory of what they have seen. These types of scenarios play out constantly in this show.

Or we see the characters Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin from The Simpsons and Family Guy, who are always doing stupid things. Countless times in shows like these, men are nearly always seen as the idiots and women seen as the voice of reason. I understand that this is done for comedic purposes, but men are the butt of jokes nearly all the time. It is rare to see a woman portrayed in this manner. Sitcom comedies do this so often, that the idea of masculinity is now seen as negative or even wrong. This is sad because masculinity is needed. Yes, that is a bold statement to make, but one that needs to be made. Masculinity is seen as unintelligent and even crass and uncouth. To some degree, men have not helped this stereotype with our sometimes-stupid antics, but this does nothing to degrade the need for masculine men.

Matt Walsh a popular online blogger and conservative commentator said it well;

“Disrespect for men is a joke to us now. A little while ago I stopped on the way home from work to buy my wife some flowers. As she rang me up, the cashier quipped: ‘Uh-oh, what’d you do?’ I wasn’t particularly amused, but I chuckled. She continued. ‘I don’t know if that’ll be enough to get you off the couch tonight!’ Ah, yes, the old “husband is punished by his wife and sent to the couch” meme. I’m not sure if this actually happens in real life, or if it’s an invention of 90’s ‘all men are fat, witless, oafs’ sitcoms, but the popularity of the stereotype is telling. Is this how we see husbands now? A man gets ‘in trouble’ with his wife, she scolds him and puts him in time-out on the couch. Now he must placate his alpha-bride by showering her with flowers and jewelry. Men are painted like children or dogs. They can be shooed off their own beds by their wives and sent to cower in the living room until she permits him to return. This is only slightly less offensive than the cliché of the sadistic wife who punitively withholds sex from her husband. ‘You didn’t clean the garage like I told you. No sex for you, mister! Next time, follow my instructions!’”

In our schools, typical male childish behavior is seen as deviant and a problem. Psychologist Michael Thompson has famously said that girl behavior is the gold standard in schools and boys are treated like defective girls. It is sad that boy behavior is so misunderstood and hated. Our young boys are treated with disdain and are misunderstood, recently in the news, I saw where a young boy in grade school bit a pop tart into a gun shape and started playing with it. He was promptly expelled from school. This type of intolerance isn’t right.  Our teachers are hamstrung in being able to implement discipline for actual negative behaviors and mandated paperwork for oversight has made it difficult to even teach what needs to be taught, so time afforded for simple physical play (an important need for young boys to exert energy) has become a secondary thought even though it’s also a mandated requirement.

This is not to say that women are less than men in any respect, but the idea that the sexes are both the same is not just silly, it’s dangerous. We are different right down to our chromosomes. Men have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome while women have two X chromosomes. Chromosomes are basically the fundamental building blocks of humanity. They contain DNA, which is the pattern by which humans are created and built. Within every human DNA is what makes a person an individual. The combining of their mother and father’s DNA has created each person; those patterns are used to create a completely new human being. Men and women are not the same and to pretend otherwise is honestly just silly.

I feel as though men are lost in our culture today. There isn’t a place for men to truly be men and embrace our masculinity. They search for meaning and purpose. One of the biggest forms of entertainment in the modern age is video games. It is estimated that by 2019 videogame yearly sales revenue would be around 41 billion dollars, not a small industry to be sure. It is a well-known fact that men tend to be consumers of the higher-end video game industry. While many women have broken into casual gaming, which accounts for many of the skewed statistics stating that women make up more than 50% of gamers, they continue to be underrepresented in the mainstream gaming market.

We would refer to most male gamers as “core” gamers in this respect, not players of Candy Crush or Angry Birds, as fun as those are. Some of this trend is changing with games that are marketed directly to women, but now it’s just the way things are. Why do so many men flock to video games? Besides the sports genre (which I believe is popular for different reasons), many of the games we see men playing involve stories and situations in which the player may assume the “role” of a hero of some kind.

Within the role of the male hero is the question, “What does it mean to be masculine?”. This idea of masculinity is idealized in the role of the male hero. Most men have a desire to be the hero of their own existence. In many PC games, one takes on the role of a hero that starts off as mostly a normal person, but through adventures and fulfilling quests begins to gain great power and becomes a leader in the vast world in which the game takes place.

In first-person shooter games on consoles and PCs alike, players often take on the role of a super soldier in a world of the future where aliens are trying to basically end all life in the universe. Through these super-soldiers, players can become the hero of the entire universe, saving humanity. It is often as if the player can save their game, sealing themselves away for a time when humanity might even need them again in the future. Self-sacrifice is a very pure form that often rises in these storylines.

While not a videogame, pen and paper role-playing games like the classic Dungeons and Dragons present a very solid argument that men are gravitating towards the realm of role-playing for a reason. In these games, you choose a “role” to play and through a form of guided storytelling, you can become the hero of your own story. Now there are a lot of reasons why all genders play these games, but for men, it often has to do with this innate desire to gain significance. God gave men this desire for significance and heroic inspiration. In Psalms 57:2 David says, “I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills His purpose in me.” God calls all his people into glorious purpose. For men, this is often a desire to achieve significance and meaning. This isn’t a bad thing. In the realm of working towards achieving Christ’s purpose and meaning for our lives, men can find a true significance, but when we look past God to the world for significance, something is lost.

A while back, I sat in a very questionable chair in the back of a dirty and rundown shop in a very bad part of town. My wife was worried that I was going to this place; a day before, someone had been shot only one block from this store. There were about eight of us and the unkempt appearance of the other men around me might have off-put many (along with the smell), but I was comfortable in this place. Dungeons and Dragons had a way of bringing people together. However, on this day, the man on my left was not very happy. He had failed in several rolls of the dice and his character was on the verge of death. He angrily shouted at the Dungeon Master (the leader of the game) that it wasn’t fair, letting multiple expletives leave his person.

After the game was over, he was packing up all his books and little plastic figurines he angrily threw his pack on and stormed from the table, leaving the shop. His manhood, his meaning for life was so wrapped up in the fictional character he had created, that losing it was like losing part of who he was. It was sad to see. Shouldn’t there be more for men in this life? Shouldn’t there be more for them to strive for than just a fictional monument of meaning?

The men of this generation are lost, children. Society has taken away the villains and often even denies that such a thing exists. It is no longer good or evil, there are only differing opinions and cultures. No one is wrong, and everyone is right. There isn’t an outlet for masculinity in American society that is not in some way shunned. Men are now the aborted children of society and it is time for them to take a stand and become something more than just a joke. It’s time for true purpose to come back into the darkened hearts of men.

The truth of the issue is, there is evil in the world. Some issues are not questions, but facts. There is a great need for men to be willing to stand up and be accountable to the society they live in. It is time for us to step onto the dais of history once again and take a stand for what is right. There are certain truths in this world that should be observed and should be written in stone. There are ways of viewing the world that is right. The way men treat their fellow human beings matters. One of the greatest tragedies in this life is that evil prevails because Christian men choose to do nothing. The children of God have set on the sidelines for too long and allowed the truth to be kidnaped.

The truth has a nasty way of being unpopular. No one wants to hear the truth; people want you to agree with them and validate that what they have already decided is okay in their minds. There are no real attempts to understand the other side; there is only the manipulation and deceit of tolerance. It is this idea of tolerance that’s only there to convince you that this other person is on a higher moral level. Do not be deceived into the idea that tolerance and understanding are right because “everyone is okay”; that every idea is right and moral. Acceptance is only possible if you don’t disagree and don’t speak out. According to society, the status quo of tolerance and acceptance must be maintained above all other ideals. Understand the spiritual and intellectual warfare that is going on and continue to speak the truth regardless. This is a verbal war that will not stay in that realm for long, violence and death are already in the streets.  

The stance of moral and Christian truth will only be allowed for so long. Freedom as an idea is slowly moving towards being parallel with the status quo. This isn’t a call to rebellion in the sense of militaristic action, but it is a call to a rebellion of conscience and behavior. Within a framework of honor and Christian faith, men can begin to unravel the current culture of compliance and tolerance. Standing for Christian truth is not hard, but it will cost you. In fact, at some point in the future, it could cost you everything. Still, what is your soul worth?

“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” Mark 8:36.

Men are becoming what society has wanted them to become, pitiful creatures that are ashamed of their own masculinity. The men make a case to dismiss God so that they can ignore his law and live their lives in selfish admission. Distractions and sin have led to a willingness to live a blinded life; a life ignorant to their own destruction. Hedonism is the new vogue and it is the greatest lie that men believe to be true. Brief moments of pleasure and fun are constantly sought out and chased after. Downtime is filled with small screens, meaningless memes, and videos of cats with bread on their heads. What are men doing with their lives? What purpose is there? What meaningful significance is there to this existence if we pass into history without changing anything for God’s better plan?

As Paul Bois said in his Oct. 17th, 2017 Daily Wire article,

“…when knights surrender their swords, beasts shall devour maidens.” In a country and culture ruled over by Harvey Weinsteins, one can only raise the question; as Paul asks, “Are there any knights left”?

This has been the Introduction to Men of Valor, by D. Michl Lowe. Available now in full from this website. or at the link here:

https://amzn.to/3PiWUoz

D. Michl Lowe

The Gray Man

D. Michl LoweLeave a comment

In 1993, I went to a little school in Sissonville, West Virginia called Flinn Elementary. Just like kids in school today, we had a book fair that would come to our school each year. At this fair, they would haul in large metal containers that would open up to reveal shelves and shelves of books. There were of course books of all genres on the shelves, but I remember specifically one year when I saw a book on “how to be a ninja”.

I’ve since looked all over for this book, both at my parent’s house and my own, but like many childhood things, it seems to have been lost to the boxes in the attic. I’ve even looked on Amazon and other book stores, but have been unsuccessful in my search for this small little black book. But back then, I picked up the book and began flipping through it. Page after page of this book had illustrations about the history of ninjas; how they fought, how they lived, how they remained hidden, and even how they performed seemingly mystical feats.

For a 5th grader, the book was expensive, but I remember thinking that I would pay nearly any price to reveal the ancient secrets of the ninja. I read the book cover to cover several times (it wasn’t that long). The secrets it revealed were not so profound once I had read it, but even still, I remember returning to the book again and again in the years following. Always intrigued and always searching for what made these people so special and how I could emulate their mysteries in my own life. When I entered Middle School for the first time, I was confronted with situations and people that challenged my understanding of human decency. I remember sitting on the steps outside of the shop class during lunch and a boy decided it was time to attempt to beat me up.

We rolled around on the ground for several minutes until a teacher happened by and broke up the fight. After that, a girl decided that it was her job to attempt to beat me with a broom handle in the hall when I was attempting to get to the restroom. Clearly, there were some children in this school with issues, who had no trouble dealing with their own issues by beating on their fellow students. I remember sitting in my room, attempting to think of a solution to the issue that I was not the largest person in school and certainly not the most skilled fighter. How was I to defend myself from people intent on doing me harm? Some of whom would access makeshift weapons. I thought about the school rules; I couldn’t bring a real weapon with me, so while I had access to knives, bats, and other weapons, I clearly could never have those on me at the school.

I remembered my book. Taking out my book I remember flipping over to the page that spoke about how the ninja dressed. While many of the movies I had seen showed ninjas in the classic black outfit with the hood and veil over their face, the book was suggesting that most of the time, the ninja merely looked like everyone else. That while they might have had weapons and tools hidden on their person, as they walked down the street, they appeared as though they were a simple merchant, tradesman, or even a beggar. I had always thought that aspect of a ninja was stupid; I would usually just skim through that part of the book, but now I was starting to see the wisdom. Look like everyone else, but be prepared for nearly anything. I remember believing that training was easily hidden. My parents at the time didn’t have a lot of money, however, so I was unable to be trained in a school for martial arts. What they could afford though, was a book. I asked for and got, Bruce Lee’s book Tao of Jeet Kune Do. Again, I poured over the book time and time again. Some of the illustrations were in Japanese and I remember being frustrated that some of the ideas were lost on me because of language.

Going to the backyard at my house and placing the book on the ground as I went through the different stances and attempted to immolate the strikes I was seeing in the still images. By no means was I even slightly competent, but I studied nonetheless. Compared to the random bully, however, I was a master. I couldn’t take a weapon to school, but I was allowed a belt to hold up my pants. I remember strapping a belt outside of my belt loops and practicing the unstrapping of it quickly. I figured that while a belt was not nunchucks or a whip, it would work in a pinch.

While I never had to use my belt, that summer I was confronted (of all places) at church camp by an entire group of older kids who decided it was time to fight. Looking back, I believe I was quite lucky. These young lads weren’t smart enough to attack me all at once but instead decided to rush in at me one at a time. Using their momentum against them and attempting to channel my inner Bruce Lee, I flung them off to the side as they came in. When they were down, I used my most valuable resource (my legs) and got myself out of there. Whatever meager skills I had learned stumbling around in my backyard had been enough. While I am sure I would have survived the beatings of a couple of ten-year-olds, these instances left a mark in my mind that remains even today. I can’t say that my life has been highlighted by making myself into a honed weapon of hidden skill.

Or that I was always prepared with all tools I would need, but in recent years, I have been brought back to this idea. The hidden warrior. John Lovell; a popular firearms, tactics, and NRA trainer has a video entitled, The Most Dangerous Man in the Room. In the video, he talks about a man he knew who looked like a normal fella in every way possible, but that this man knew how to kill. He had been trained as a warrior and understood that in nearly any room he might enter, he was most likely the most dangerous person in that room.

Upon becoming an adult and finishing my bachelor’s in Psychology, I worked for several years at a psychiatric hospital as one of the men in white coats. I’m sure you have seen them in movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; the men who come running when someone gets out of control. A realization began to form in my mind, that the death threats I was getting every other week from some of the people I was encountering, could possibly be credible. I stood in the front day room and looked out at the parking lot where my car was normally parked and watched one of the nurses as she walked casually to her own vehicle.

At that moment, one of the many patients came up beside me with a cup of coffee and made a remark about how kind this particular nurse had been that day. We stood there and watched her pull away. How easy would it have been for that patient to write down her license number? How easy would it have been for them to see the make and model of the car, then when they got out, just wait for that car to leave and follow the nurse home? It would have been all too easy. I began parking down the street, out of view of the hospital’s windows… and I began to research what it meant to have and carry a gun. I couldn’t carry it inside the hospital (that would have been very foolish), but I could keep it in the glove compartment of my car and on my body when had to leave for home.

After several weeks of research into both the laws of concealed carry in my state, and several nights of talking over the issue with my wife, I finally went and took the required class, bought my first gun (a Smith and Wesson 614 snub-nose revolver), and got a small pocket holster. I went to the range several times and began to get used to this deadly little device that I not-so-casually tucked into my pants. I didn’t feel safer. Much to the contrary. I was scared to death I was going to shoot myself in the foot or shoot someone else when I sat down in a chair. The bulge of the object was a constant reminder of the possible death I was carrying around with me. I understood the need for the thing, but I didn’t like it. The gun scared me, as it should; into having a great deal of respect for it.

It is this understanding of hidden preparedness that lead me to a discussion I had with my father several years ago. We had recently gone to my aunt’s house for a Halloween party and I had decided to wear my gun in a shoulder holster. This was fine, but after walking around the neighborhood with the kids and then coming back into my aunt’s house with the heat blowing, I was warm… very warm. I shed my sweater which left my t-shirt and the holster on top of that t-shirt laid bare for my family to see. No one really commented about it much, but my father noticed. It was a couple of weeks later and he had brought my kids back from a visit he sat out in my driveway and said he wanted to talk to me about something.

“I don’t think you should be showing people that you are carrying a gun like that, even in our family.” He said. “Not that I think there’s anything wrong with carrying a gun, but I just think the fewer people who know about that the better.” I nodded my head in understanding and told him he was most likely right about that. However, later on, that night I really began to ponder what my father had said to me. I had heard about The Gray Man Theory before. Had even watched a few YouTube videos talking about it, but it always came as a novelty and not a necessity in my mind. I’m not a CIA guy or a Spy, why should I care if someone knows I am carrying a gun? What does it ultimately matter? Lots of people open carry every day. Why shouldn’t people be able to see my gun and even comment about it?

I can be an ambassador for the second amendment and have meaningful conversations about firearms rights and how a gun can be a very useful thing in a person’s life. My father’s words ate at me though. He was concerned that people within my own family would know I carried a gun. My family is a fairly calm family for the most part. In the past, there have been some major issues, but in current history, we are a very normal and boring group of folks. There wasn’t anyone at the Halloween party that I would ever need to worry about taking advantage of the fact that I was carrying a firearm. However, I think my father was pointing more to the habit and less to the specific situation we were in.

I thought again about The Gray Man Theory and couldn’t get it out of my head. I thought back to the ninja book. I thought about my childhood and how I had worn my normal belt on the outside of the belt loops of my pants so it could be easily removed as a makeshift weapon. There was value in this idea of being prepared, but hidden. I began to consider what it meant to blend in. What it meant to be normal. What it meant to not stand out in a crowd. What it meant… to be a Gray Man.

NOTE: I find it odd looking back on this article that I wrote some years ago now and thinking about this again. It’s breaking with the very idea of the Gray Man by writing the article itself, but I still find value in it’s being read. I hope you find value in it as well. Thanks for reading.

D. Michl Lowe