“We are the freaking problem. We are the agent of chaos.”

~ Tim Whitaker ~

Masculinity In Review

Tim Whitaker walked into today’s Intelligent Masculinity discussion with years of experiences - through a faith community that raised him, a church that eventually removed him, and public-facing projects — Tim Whitaker Speaks and The New Evangelicals — built explicitly to help Christians find a path forward that doesn’t end in nationalism. This is the first half of a two-part Intelligent Masculinity sit-down, and Nick frames it accordingly: today is the wider cultural conversation; part two will be the masculinity questions proper. What ends up happening in the meantime is that Tim and Nick map out, in real time, the entire infrastructure that the second half will sit on top of. The episode is a rare thing in this series — a guest who has done his deconstruction work in public, talking with a host who has done his thinking about masculinity in public, and the two frames keep finding each other.

Tim’s exit story has a structure he calls the unholy trinity of movements, and he is unusually clear about why each one mattered. Trump was the dam break — not because of policy, but because the same Sunday school teachers who had spent his childhood teaching the importance of sexual purity and saving yourself for marriage suddenly demanded he vote for the man on the cover of Playboy who bragged about assaulting women. He puts the contradiction in its honest form: I’m just doing what you taught me to do — why am I now suddenly the bad guy? Black Lives Matter was the second wake-up call, the moment when friends started sending him videos engineered to turn Ahmaud Arbery into the bad guy and he realized the tradition of truth he thought he’d been standing on was actively lying to him. COVID closed the loop. He watched pastors he respected reframe public health as tyranny, and he kept asking the same theological question: why wouldn’t I wear a mask during a global pandemic, as a Christian, if loving my neighbor as myself is the actual instruction? None of this was political to him at the time. It was a slow recognition that the people teaching him integrity were not, themselves, applying it.

The Christian nationalism mapping is where the conversation becomes a useful piece of reporting on who is actually running the federal government. Tim names them without hedging. Pete Hegseth runs the Department of Defense with Crusader iconography tattooed on his body — Tim’s question is how much more obvious you need an example to be. Russell Vought, the architect behind Project 2025, is the quieter version of the same project. Stephen Miller, despite being Jewish, is described as enhancing and leading the Christian nationalist project from inside the administration — a useful reminder that Christian nationalism is a political coalition, not a coherent theology. Paula White, one of the biggest names in the New Apostolic Reformation, has the direct ear of the president on how to think about things. Tim acknowledges the squabbles between the factions — Catholic nationalists, charismatic Christian nationalists, the more reformed Doug Wilson and Hegseth wing — but the political alignment, he says, is functional. They will fight each other over theology and still vote together on policy. That’s the load-bearing observation. The ecumenical disagreements don’t slow down the takeover.

Midway through, the episode is interrupted by a YouTube troll — and what would normally be a derail becomes one of the strongest segments of the hour. Nick takes the live shot, and Tim doesn’t flinch. The argument is not about the troll. It’s about the framework the troll is using. America, Tim says, is killing kids, kidnapping five-year-olds, and executing people in the streets — the radical problem in the world is not Islam, it’s the radical Christian nationalism that is taking healthcare from millions of people. Nick extends the thread. The reason most so-called shit-hole countries are considered shit-hole countries is that we spent twenty years bombing them, and the nations that came before us spent decades doing the same. We invented the Global South as a category to bucket nations away from everybody and then blame them for being lesser. He pivots, exactly where you’d want him to, to what’s happening at home — his state shutting down its entire child health food network because there’s no funding, while the same government bombs schools elsewhere. The closing line lands where the title of the second clip in this episode lives: we are the agent of chaos. The 42% of all weapons exported globally is not a minor metric. It is the country’s posture in the world, expressed in dollars and ordnance, and Tim refuses to let the conversation shrink it.

The toxic empathy segment is the philosophical core of the discussion - and worth slowing down for and listening to again. Tim names Allie Stuckey as the person who coined the term in its current form — anything that embraces a lie — and then dismantles it with a precision that the analytical-literary frame rewards. He grants the surface case: yes, empathy can be misapplied. The judge who handed a rapist a light sentence because he felt bad for the man’s career was practicing a kind of toxic empathy that hurt the victim and the wider system. But Tim refuses to let the rebuttal stop at definitions. The way the term is actually used today, he says, is to make cruelty defensible — toward queer people, toward women seeking abortion access, toward populations being bombed, toward anyone who suggests the president might not be a great guy. Toxic empathy as a phrase is doing the work of laundering cruelty into virtue, because cruelty is the point. Nick reads the diagnosis back through his masculinity frame and gets to one of the better formulations of the night: men were taught three primary emotions — happy, mad, sad — and we are now down to two, because happy leads to joy, and joy leads to questions, and questions are dangerous to the project. Toxic empathy, in his reading, is the operation that takes happy off the table so that the only languages left for men are mad and sad — the two most explosive, least articulate, most easily weaponized. Tim agrees and extends it. The whole alpha-male performance — the cars, the six-packs, the curated aesthetic — is gay in the structural sense. It is built for the male gaze, addressed to other men, and married to a homosocial economy where women are an afterthought.

Nick and Tim spend the closing stretch arguing for a model of masculinity that doesn’t have to perform for any of it, and the contrast lands because they keep grounding it in their actual lives. Tim is almost ten years into a marriage he describes — without any false modesty — as the best freaking marriage ever. He is not walking around ruling his roost with an iron fist. He is empathetic, his wife is a good listener, and they have learned how to do conflict resolution in a way that promotes the flourishing of the marriage rather than scoring points inside it. He notices, with some delight, that the alpha bros are usually divorced or married to someone who isn’t happy. Nick celebrated his eleventh anniversary the week before recording, and the math becomes its own argument: maybe the men who don’t look like alphas, but stay happily married for over a decade, have figured out something the men selling the alpha brand have not. Both men keep returning to the same point — the actual courage in this culture is to be vulnerable on camera, to hug your kids, to cry with them, to admit that the masculinity you’re being sold by Myron Gaines or Andrew Tate or Donald Trump is a sheep imitation of strength masquerading as the wolf.

The episode closes on Samwise Gamgee, which is more on-theme than it sounds. A YouTube comment from Queen Home Slice points out that women, by an overwhelming margin, simp for Samwise — the gardener who carries his friend up a mountain — not for the alpha bros. Nick frames it as the male model the second half of this series is going to keep coming back to: caring, kind, gentle, helpful, a good friend. Be a Samwise and not an Andrew Tate. It is a goofy line, said in good humor, and it is also the closest the episode gets to a thesis statement. Tim’s whole project — The New Evangelicals, the Substack, the YouTube, the Instagram, the open DMs, the no-paywall content — is a Samwise project: someone walking alongside other people inside the same world he came from, helping them carry the weight far enough out of it that they can stand up on their own.

What makes Tim a useful guest for this series, in the end, is not just his story. It is that he has done the deconstruction work and is still doing it in public, with no paywall and no brand to protect, and he is doing it as a Christian and as a man — the two specific axes that the series cares about. Part two will get into intelligent masculinity directly, with Nick’s working definition — the refusal to offboard accountability, the willingness to live with the consequences of your own actions and values — held up against the cultural machinery this episode just spent an hour mapping. By the time Tim comes back, the listener will have the whole structure in front of them: who runs the government, what they mean by Christian, what cruelty is doing in the language of empathy, and why the alpha brand is the weakest version of masculinity on offer. Tim Whitaker, today, is the guest who makes that map readable.

~ Nick Paro

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Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

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~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 | Kimmy Win ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“When people don’t know you’re coming, they don’t know how to stop you. And so I feel like they don’t know I’m coming. And so I’m just tiptoeing in.”

~ Ellie Leonard ~

Masculinity In Review

Nick Paro sits down with Ellie Leonard — Substack writer, mother of four, and one of the independent journalists pulling Epstein survivor stories out of the place legacy media stopped looking — for a conversation that begins as a check-in and turns, by degrees, into an argument about who gets to tell which stories, what it costs to tell them, and what kind of men are produced by the homes that raise them. Ellie has been on the show before, back when she was still introducing herself as “the unpaid writer.” She rebranded to the Panicked Writer; Nick floats “the less panicked writer” as the next iteration, since her rent is paid now and the panic in her face has visibly loosened. The joke holds the whole episode in miniature. Ellie has always done serious work. Now the work is finally feeding her, and the rest of us are catching up to what she’s been doing all along.

The path here was not short and it was not glamorous. Ellie reached out to over 200 literary agents and was rejected by 153 of them; the rest ghosted. She wrote two books that nobody would publish. She came up through transcript correction work — the kind of behind-the-scenes labor that, as Nick points out, can make or break a case in court — and through years of fly-on-the-wall proximity to the Weinstein, Woody Allen, and Kanye stories. When she pitched her own writing on those subjects, the publishing industry told her, in so many words, that they were tired of women reclaiming their narratives. They were bored. That sentence, casually delivered by a literary gatekeeper, is the thing the rest of the episode keeps circling. The bored editor is the Maxwell-letter problem in microcosm. When the institutions that exist to surface these stories decide they are bored of them, the stories don’t stop being true. They just stop reaching the public — until someone like Ellie picks up a Substack and starts writing them anyway.

She came to Substack at the urging of her close friend Tiffany Torres Williams of The Modern Jezebel, who told her to come write because she loved it. The plan was cathartic. Memoir-esque. A little fiction for her kids. And then the election happened, the Epstein stories started moving, and her writing turned. She doesn’t claim it was strategic. She calls it curiosity. Curiosity, in Ellie’s case, turned out to be a discipline — the kind that produces investigative reporting at the rate she now produces it, with a network of sources and survivors and other writers she could not have imagined before this year. Her word for the year, borrowed from Tiffany’s habit, is “plot twist.” She means it.

What she has stumbled into is something the rest of journalism has nearly forgotten how to do. She talks about Maritza Giorgio of the Grounded Podcast scooping her up — the calls at 11 p.m., the texts at 2 a.m., the constant low-grade communal triage of writers and journalists who have decided that the work matters more than the byline. Katie Phang and Jim Acosta call her up to ask what she’s working on, what’s stressing her out, how they can help. People share information instead of hoarding it for the scoop. That, Ellie says, is what true journalism looks like when you actually find it — and it does not look like the news as we have been trained to understand it. It looks like dishes being washed and dinners being eaten while people break down what they know on the phone with each other. The legacy version of the business — the one obsessed with breaking news and exclusivity and access — has been so thoroughly captured by celebrity and money that the actual work of telling the public what it needs to know has migrated to Substacks and podcasts and group threads. Ellie is one of the people the work migrated to.

The Michael Wolff line lands like a thrown punch and lingers like a bruise. Wolff called Ellie and several other women who have been writing about the Epstein files and called them opportunists. He told them they were caught up in hysteria. Ellie’s read of that is precise: when men of his stature in the industry use words like “hysteria” against women who are reporting on the abuse of children, they are not describing the women’s behavior. They are describing their own discomfort at being reacted to. “I didn’t ask you to do that,” she says of the men whose work she now critiques, “but you did it, and now I’m reacting to it.” That sentence is half the thesis of this whole episode in one breath. Powerful is the word she keeps using for women who do not perform smallness on cue. Hysterical is the word the people who built the structure use back at her. The gap between those two words is where the work lives.

The conversation about the language we use lands hard, and it lands without becoming a lecture. Ellie is unsentimental about which words have to go and which we are still pretending are fine. “B*tch” still gets a free pass in music, in casual conversation, in books — Nick names the Dungeon Crawler Carl series specifically and agrees with affection and frustration in equal measure. “Karen” has no male equivalent that lands the same way. “C*nt” is normalized in MAGA discourse against women in the administration whom Ellie and Nick both consider monstrous. Both of them refuse to use it anyway. Ellie’s argument is the unfussy one: we have moved on from words about other groups when we decided to. We can move on from these too. It is not, she says, a burden to learn something new. She mentions a trans person in her life and the work of relearning pronouns and a name; it was not intuitive, and it was not impossible, and it got easier quickly because she stayed consistent and did not make the relearning somebody else’s job. That is the whole argument she’s making about language, scaled up.

Nick offers his own corollary, half joke and half operating principle: if you have to insult someone in the regime, use male anatomy, because men’s anatomy is the weak one. Kick a man in the balls and he falls down. Kick a woman in the same spot and she does not. He’s making a point with a grin, but the point is real. The slurs we have been handed are almost all built from the assumption that female bodies are the soft target. They are not. The bodies the slurs were supposedly built around belong to people who carry, deliver, and feed children — the most physiologically demanding work the human animal does — while the actual fragile equipment hangs off the men insisting otherwise. The joke, in Ellie’s hands and Nick’s, becomes a small piece of evidence in the larger case the episode is making. The story we have been told about who is strong was a marketing campaign, and the campaign has been losing for a while.

The hour’s most generative thread is the one about raising boys. Ellie has three sons and a daughter, and she talks about her household with the matter-of-factness of someone who long ago decided that the home is not a small project. Her boys come home from school saying things — “that’s a boy job,” “boys can be soccer players, Charlotte can’t” — and they do not get condemned for it. They get a conversation. Their pockets are deeper than her pockets and they notice it; she tells them yes, that is a great question, here’s why. She breastfed all four kids tandem-style well past the cultural cutoff, which means the woman’s body in their household was first a thing that fed them and only later, somewhere out in the world, a thing the magazines sexualized. Her boys grew up associating breasts with hunger and care. The grocery-store checkout aisle was the place that tried to teach them otherwise. Some grocery stores, she notes, have figured this out and gone to family-friendly checkouts. The fact that the rest haven’t is one of the small structural ways boys are quietly trained, before any of them have language for it, to read women as decoration.

She is similarly clear about why she will not let her boys’ rights be eroded by the work of teaching them about her daughter’s. Equality, in Ellie’s house, is not subtraction. The boys are not made smaller so the girl can be made bigger. They are taught that all four of them are full people and that the things they will hear at school and on screens are stories, not facts. She watches them grow up gentle and she does not mistake gentleness for weakness; she names it as the result of hearing real conversations at home about real things. This is where Ellie quietly answers the show’s central question without being asked. The home, she says, is 80% of how a small child develops. You do not get to control everything that comes at them out in the world. You get to control what they hear from you. That is what she’s done.

Nick brings the definition into the room — intelligent masculinity as the refusal to outsource accountability and the discipline to live with the consequences of your values and actions — and Ellie immediately folds it into something she’s been working on independently. Even the worst men in public life, she says, would tell you they think they are trying to be better every day. The ones doing the most damage are very often the ones with the strongest internal narrative that they are the heroes of their own story. The work, then, is not just the disposition; it is the willingness to actually look at whether the disposition is producing anything. She tells the Antioch, Tennessee story to make the point. She and her husband worked at a car dealership outside Nashville right after they got married. The casual racism was not casual. She set a single boundary on her first day — if I hear it around me, I leave — and the people around her recalibrated immediately. She did not change their hearts. She did not need to. She made it expensive to perform the worst version of themselves around her, and they stopped doing it. That is what living your values looks like in a room where most people aren’t. It is small. It is repeated. It works.

The discussion of confronting friends arrives through a chat question and lands on the same point. Both Ellie and Nick agree: you have to do it, and you can do it without humiliating anyone. You pull them aside. You tell them quietly that the word bothers you. You do not deliver a sermon. The friends who care about you will adjust. The ones who don’t will reveal themselves, and the revelation is information you needed. Ellie tells the story of being a kid in a Montana family that used words she didn’t understand were wrong, and a more progressive family that loved her enough to tell her. She was not crushed by the correction. She was grateful. That is the model. Not policing. Loving people enough to give them the chance to grow.

The episode’s quietest and most devastating moment comes near the end. Last fall, in Ellie’s network, a 12-year-old boy fell off a parade float during a homecoming parade and was killed in front of his entire community. Everyone is still grieving. Ellie uses the moment not as a digression but as evidence. The boys who saw it happen have been told their whole lives that boys don’t cry, that they have to be strong for the women, that emotion is a thing to be managed and not a thing to be felt. She asks the obvious question: how heart-wrenching is it that we have built a culture where a child cannot break down and weep over a thing that demands weeping? The answer is the whole reason this show exists. We do not teach boys not to feel because feeling is dangerous. We teach them not to feel because the system that profits from masculine performance needs them numb. Ellie’s house teaches the opposite. There is good crying and there is manipulative crying — her kids know the difference — and the good crying, the legitimate kind, is welcome. You can come hug her. You can sit alone. You can do whatever your body needs. That is a working definition of a healthy household, and it is also a political position, whether anyone in the household calls it one.

The Mulan lightning round closes the episode with Ellie at her sharpest. Swift as a coursing river: trust your gut and your first response when something happens. Force of a great typhoon: she is not afraid to speak her mind, even when she has been told her whole life she is too loud. Strong as a raging fire: she is a mom, and anyone who steps in front of her kids will see her burn down the world. Mysterious as the dark side of the moon — and this is the line that contains the whole thesis — the bad dudes in the Epstein files have never heard of her, do not take her seriously, and do not know she’s coming. “When people don’t know you’re coming, they don’t know how to stop you.” She is, by her own account, just tiptoeing in. The men whose names the publishers got bored of hearing are about to learn that the boredom of the institutions did not protect them. It just delayed her arrival.

What Ellie expands in the series is something few other guest have quite done: she takes the question of intelligent masculinity and locates it inside the homes where boys are made before the world gets to them, and inside the journalism that tells the public what those boys’ future targets actually did. She is doing both jobs at once — raising three sons against the script and writing toward a public that the legacy press decided was tired of survivor stories — and she is doing them with the same disposition. Pay attention. Tell the truth. Don’t hoard what you know. Burn down the world for your kids if you have to, and write the article either way.

~ Nick Paro

Thank you Beth Cruz, Soso's World, Jai C. Porter🇨🇦, Miss Myra, Farmers AGAINST trump., and many others for tuning into my live video with Ellie Leonard! Join me for my next live video in the app.

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* B. Cognition Labs

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 | Kimmy Win ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

~ Angry Male Vet ~

Masculinity In Review

Nick Paro sits back down with Angry Male Vet — retired Air Force intelligence officer, 23-year combat veteran, and one of the sharpest voices connecting military reality to civilian political life — for the follow-up conversation they couldn’t finish at E26. What begins as a news-desk reckoning with the Strait of Hormuz, the firing of the Secretary of the Navy, and the structural gutting of Pentagon leadership becomes, slowly and deliberately, a conversation about something quieter and more durable: the work of knowing yourself, the courage it takes to sit still long enough to do it, and what it means that the forces trying to prevent it are doing so on purpose.

The episode opens in the middle of things. An indefinite ceasefire with Iran, vessels being seized back and forth in the Indian Ocean, John Phelan removed as Secretary of the Navy, General Randy George fired from the Army Chief of Staff position — all of it mid-war. Angry Male Vet’s read on the chaos is precise without being clinical: Hegseth is a soft individual who cannot tolerate disagreement, and the military is now being stripped of the experienced, opinionated senior leaders who would have said so to his face. He names the Apache pilot investigation that Hegseth shut down within hours — pilots using taxpayer money to perform for Kid Rock — as a crystallizing example of what that softness looks like in practice. Any leader worth his salt would have let the chain of command handle it. Hegseth reached. That’s the tell. The pattern since then has been consistent: fire whoever says something uncomfortable, and call it strength.

Nick brings Kristofer Goldsmith’s observation about gas prices — that they’re one of the few things Americans see every day, and therefore one of the few metrics that converts abstract policy into visceral personal experience. Angry Male Vet extends it. In a moment when billionaires are already under a spotlight — making money on insider trading while services dry up and people stop going to the doctor — the pump price becomes the aperture through which the whole structure becomes visible. It’s not the most important cost. But it’s the one that makes you ask the question out loud. He runs the numbers on Arkansas: $2.50 to $4.00 for regular, diesel nearly at $6.00. That’s real math in the South. And it’s moving the conversation in a direction the war’s architects did not anticipate.

The Palantir segment lands somewhere between geopolitical analysis and alarm. Nick has looked at the $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget proposal and describes it flatly as a Palantir wet dream: drones, AI automation, and full integration into every piece of domestic infrastructure. Angry Male Vet agrees without hedging. It’s the acceleration of something that’s been going on since trickle-down economics — the selling of the country to companies — but now they’re not hiding it. They’re openly using FISA renewals, surveillance infrastructure, and the language of national security to build the monitoring architecture of an oligarchy. The defense against it, he argues, is not primarily legislative. It’s building the kind of community and awareness they’re trying to prevent. Protests, primaries, voter registration, conversation — all of it. He mentions the “No Kings” protests growing to historic proportions. He names Keira Havens and the Citizens Impeachment Coalition as one of the networks doing structural work in the space. Nick connects her to Walter Rhein and Will Fullwood, to candidate interviews he never expected to be doing, to a level of movement infrastructure he’s watching materialize in real time.

The formal Intelligent Masculinity segment opens with Nick restating his definition — the refusal to outsource accountability onto others and the discipline to live with the consequences of your values and actions — and contrasting it with what Hegseth, Trump, Vance, and Miller actually are: men who perform masculinity for an audience to get likes and clicks and views, and who hold none of the consequences of any of it. He asks Angry Male Vet how he models this in his own life. The answer is one of the more interesting moments in any episode of this show. Angry Male Vet declines the frame. He doesn’t even define it as masculinity or femininity, he says. It’s intelligent humanity. The question he returns to constantly is: am I being honest with myself, and am I being honest with others about how I actually feel? That’s the whole thing. Everything else — the accountability, the self-reflection, the courage to look at your own fractures — is downstream from that one honest question asked without a mask on.

He is not particularly gentle about what the mask-wearers are actually afraid of. Hegseth and Miller and those guys — there are deep fractures inside of them that they’re covering with an alpha-male performance because some small group of people will like them and they won’t have to be afraid. But in doing so, they are treating other human beings in inhumane ways to protect a construct that isn’t even real. They call themselves followers of Christ while praying every bullet hits its mark. They are not happy people. They’re shells. And they’re making money selling a dream that is only going to make the lives of the people who buy it worse.

Joe Plenzler’s article on Hegseth’s war on woke — specifically on the declaration of empathy as the enemy — becomes the through-line for the middle portion of the episode. Angry Male Vet’s military experience gives him standing here that no think-piece writer has. He was in Afghanistan working the hearts-and-minds approach, sitting across from tribal chieftains and infrastructure discussions and the plain reality that the civilian population either sides with you or you never leave. That is not a woke policy. That is the actual doctrine of winning. If you don’t understand who the people around you are, if you can’t see their values and what they want for their lives, you are creating more warfighters from the people you’re supposed to be helping. Empathy isn’t kindness. It’s intelligence in application. And when Hegseth strips it from the doctrine because it doesn’t fit the brand — he loses before the first engagement.

The self-reflection tools discussion is practical rather than therapeutic. Angry Male Vet is not selling a framework. He’s describing a discipline. Unplug. Sit with yourself, which a lot of people are afraid to do. Ask: how am I feeling right now, and why? Not seven seconds after the feeling hits — proactively, before the limbic treadmill takes over. He names a specific habit: noticing when he’s agitated by something that seems objectively minor and pulling it apart. Where is this actually coming from? Is it the thing in front of me, or something underneath it? He locates self-reflection as monumentally important to magnifying your life — not because it’s virtuous, but because it’s how you know whether what you’re thinking and feeling is actually yours, or whether it was put there by two sources hitting you with the same message over and over until you stopped questioning it. That’s the MAGA voter, he says. Not stupid. Victimized by the systematic removal of their own thinking.

Nick brings up Nieta Greene and the conversation about the disabling effects of war — specifically what happens to service members coming back from this conflict if the support infrastructure isn’t there ahead of time. Angry Male Vet’s answer is direct: you get red-pilling, black-pilling, accelerationism, addiction, suicide. He’s seen all of them. The antidote is not complicated. Talk about it. Make it okay to say you’ve been traumatized. Create communities — veteran support groups, any support groups — where people can hear that they are not alone. Because the alternative is sitting in it alone until the only escape route that offers relief, even temporarily, is the one that makes everything worse. He describes VA group therapy as one of the most important things he has ever done in his life: a community of people he could talk to without judgment and listen to without judgment and know that not even close was he the only one going through this.

The Hegseth anti-woke movement, in his telling, is specifically going to cost lives here. Service members who have bought into the messaging that mental health is weakness, that asking for help is unmasculine, will come back traumatized and will not get better. They will live sadder lives. And they will not understand that they don’t have to — that it can be different — because the possibility was deliberately obscured from them. Depression feels like normal, he says, until you’ve been out of it long enough to realize what you were living in. Those people will never know.

The larger thesis lands in the isolation discussion, and it’s where the episode finds its sharpest edge. Nick names it first — this anti-woke bullshit, this personal and national isolationism, is so damaging and destructive to your well-being, and it leads to suicide, and I know because I’ve been there. And then Angry Male Vet frames it structurally. It is a strategic objective. If you’re isolated, you’re not talking to people. You’re not more aware of things. You don’t have empathy for folks who are a different color or love different people — people who are in every meaningful way the same as you, just trying to get through the day and take care of their family. Isolated, you look at those people as objects, as things to hate. That’s the design. This administration can have all the answers. Only listen to me. And it never gets better. There’s no more money in your pocket. You’re not feeling better toward your neighbors. Nothing they promised ever arrives. Fascism is domestic abuse at scale, says Nick. Fascism is cult at scale, says Angry Male Vet. Both are true, and both describe the same mechanism: isolation, dependency, abuse. The counter to it is democracy at scale — which is just the word we use for community when it’s working.

Nick offers the neighborhood version of this. You don’t have to be a national media figure. You can be the trusted house on your block — the one where kids know they can come, where they know they’re safe, where they know they’ll get food and water and not be treated badly. That builds community. That is what the other thing is trying to prevent. And Angry Male Vet confirms it: his home is run exactly this way. Kids know they’re safe there. They know the rules. They know they’re not going to be abused. That’s it. That’s the whole countermove.

The Mulan lightning round closes the episode in its characteristic way, and Angry Male Vet’s answers are honest to the point of being disarming. Swift as a coursing river: “Respond to the current situation around you — you have to be present enough to do that.” Force of a great typhoon: “That strength is internal. Knowing who I am and where I stand on my morals and values. I’m not going to push that typhoon on other people — it’s not an external typhoon, it’s just the strength inside to be confident of who I am.” Strong as a raging fire: “I spent 23 years as a combat veteran putting my life on the line. That oath never expires. And I still have that raging fire to help the people of this country get a better life.” Mysterious as the dark side of the moon: “There was probably a period of my life where I didn’t know who I truly was, or was unwilling to see that. I’m pretty much — I wear what I think on my sleeve and put it out there. I’m in a closet in a basement in Ohio, so that’s about as mysterious as it gets.”

That last answer is the most honest thing in the episode and maybe the most on-theme. Angry Male Vet, who spends an hour describing the work of becoming visible and legible to yourself, admits that he doesn’t find himself very mysterious anymore. He’s figured out enough of who he is that it shows. He goes by an alias, lives in a basement, and still wears everything he thinks on his sleeve. That’s what actually doing the work looks like from the outside. Not dramatic. Not mysterious. Just a guy who decided to stop hiding from himself, and who shows up because the oath never expired and neither did the fire.

~ Nick Paro

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Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

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For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“Admitting that I did something wrong was the first step, and it was incredibly difficult. It took me years to actually fully believe — not just say so that my probation officer didn’t ride my ass — but actually believe: I, Kenyon Byers, have done something wrong. And I have to change.”

~ K.R. Byers ~

Masculinity In Review

Nick Paro sits down with K.R. Byers — writer, creative satirist, and self-described “just a dude” — for a conversation that moves from video games and Oregon Trail nostalgia into something considerably weightier: creative resistance under authoritarianism, the cost of absent fathers, and the difference between performing accountability and actually living it. K.R. came up in a small mountain town in Idaho, born in 1987, raised by a mother who once threatened to kill him if he turned out gay and a grandmother who told him to just be himself. He writes under his initials by choice, builds Legos, plays Civilization 7 until he wakes up in the nuclear age, and has recently started gold mining on weekends. That contrast — the whimsical life of a curious creative and the very serious journey he’s had to get here — runs through everything he says.

The conversation opens on creative resistance, and K.R. is direct about why he shifted his approach. Early on, he wrote whatever he felt — notes about how horrible the president was, the occasional “fuck Trump” when the mood struck. He’s moved away from that, and not because his convictions changed. He doesn’t want to say the name. He doesn’t want to feed the algorithm for someone who, in his read, does ridiculous things specifically to dominate the news cycle and get people talking about him no matter the valence. Instead, K.R. writes allegorically: a recent article on the similarities between cult leaders and serial killers was not labeled as such, but it wasn’t subtle either. He wants to create stories that poke fun at the administration without naming it — to be useful without being another amplifier. He likens the old approach to changing in front of an open window for a stalker. He’d rather close the window and call the cops. The creative shift has mostly helped his mental health. He feels less on edge, less obligated to grind out news content just to stay relevant. He misses, a little, the feeling that he was doing enough for his country. Both things are true.

The discussion of influential masculine figures lands on two people who couldn’t be more different in context but point in the same direction. K.R.’s father worked on IBM mainframes when computers filled entire rooms, drove long-haul trucks, split logs, and never once leveraged his intelligence or capability for intimidation. He treated people with empathy and courtesy, lived a strong life without performing it, and modeled what it looks like to face the enemy within rather than projecting it outward. The second figure is Tupac — not the image, but the lyrics. K.R. describes a kind of emotional complexity and systemic awareness in Tupac’s work that he didn’t find in the men around him growing up: a voice from a masculine space that was willing to name grief, name poverty, name the humanity of people the world was throwing away. Both the father and the rapper, in K.R.’s telling, understood that strength doesn’t require an audience and doesn’t require contempt for the vulnerable. That’s his model.

The most striking section of the episode concerns K.R.’s biological father — a man who was 38 years old when he impregnated K.R.’s mother at 15. He avoided K.R. for most of his life to escape the consequences of what, legally, was statutory rape. K.R. eventually went to see him, once, because he didn’t want the guilt of being in the area when the man died and having never said hello. The visit lasted long enough for a handshake. His father wouldn’t get out of the chair. Nick’s response is careful and clear: you don’t owe guilt to people who deserve no pity. A man who spent decades running from the consequences of what he did to a child — consequences that were never external, only self-imposed — is not owed a visit, a call, or a feeling. That frailty, Nick says, is exactly what they’re here to name. The refusal to face consequences is the core failure. K.R. listens. He already knows it.

Nick shares his working definition of intelligent masculinity: the refusal to outsource accountability onto others and the discipline to live with the consequences of our actions and values — consequences good and bad. K.R. has had direct experience with this. About fifteen years ago, in Idaho, he was caught with three and a half ounces of marijuana — a felony under Idaho law. He stood at a fork: become a statistic, keep breaking the law, keep performing the version of himself that the trauma of his upbringing had built, or take accountability and change direction. He chose the latter, but he’s honest that it took years to actually believe he’d done something wrong rather than just saying so. That gap — between saying “I did something wrong” and believing it enough to reorganize your life around it — is the real work. He did the work. The felony was dismissed the year before last. He hasn’t been back. He names self-evaluation as his ongoing practice: he caught himself using dismissive gendered slurs on another show recently, corrected himself on air immediately, and didn’t make it a production. The hardest ongoing work, he says, is fighting the voice that tells him if he’s not making a billion dollars an hour, he’s a failure as a man. That one, he still fights every day.

The episode closes with the Mulan-derived lightning round that ends every Intelligent Masculinity conversation. K.R.’s answers land exactly where his arc has been pointing all hour. Swift as a coursing river: “Make decisions more decisively than I just did.” Force of a great typhoon: “When I come in a room, you know I’ve been there because everything is wrecked.” Strong as a raging fire: “I dance to pop music in the living room by myself, and I’m not ashamed of it.” Mysterious as the dark side of the moon: “I seem like an open book, but there is a lot more to my story and past than I have ever once discussed online.” That last one lands with weight. K.R. has shared a lot today — a mother who called him sissy, a grandmother who told him to be himself, a father who shook his hand and sat back down, a felony, a girlfriend he calls his wife. And underneath all of it, there’s more. That’s not evasion. That’s a man who has learned the difference between being open and being exposed, between sharing what’s useful and giving away what’s yours.

~ Nick Paro

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Thank you ShālahBPookie - TheRebelCrone, Eric Lullove, Ms.Yuse, Lynn, Ashleigh Alauren, and many others for tuning into my live video with K.R. Byers! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

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A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“Your responsibility as a human being should be to care for people in your community, care for people and whatever your community is, whether it’s your preschool, whether it’s your family, these are all little community spaces for you.”

~ Rachel Maron ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 27th interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro brings Rachel Maron on as the series’ first female guest, and she arrives with hard-earned credentials: seven adult children, six of them boys. The episode stakes are immediate and concrete—Rachel spent 26 years raising large families across two marriages, negotiated household dynamics with real male partners, and emerged with boys who check in with each other in group chats, call home for mediation when relationships get rocky, and openly admit when they’ve read feminist theory that changed their thinking. The episode is a masterclass in how parental modeling shapes the next generation’s relationship to emotions, labor, gender performance, and power.

Rachel’s core conviction runs through every story she tells: kids learn behavior through modeling, not through lessons. When her ex-husband was perfectly willing to ride as a passenger on his Harley to a biker bar—and defended it to other riders by saying “she rides better than I do”—he was teaching their sons (and other men) something about male security that no lecture could match. When he took laundry as his domain without turning it into a performance of emasculation, he modeled that adult competence doesn’t require gender posturing. When he called his friends to tell them he loved them in the pre-woke 1990s, he created permission for her sons to have emotional intimacy with their peers. None of this required him to identify as feminist. It required him to be present, direct, and unbothered by the performative demands of masculinity.

Rachel is unsparing about what breaks boys, and the mechanism is disarmingly simple: when adults tell a child “don’t throw like a girl” or “don’t cry like a girl,” they are teaching the child that “female” and “feminine” are categories of lesser-than. She watches this play out in real time on TikTok—dads visibly resentful when their sons lose jiu-jitsu matches to girls with actual training and skill—and names what’s happening: the beginning of red-pill ideology. Start with contempt for girls, spiral into contempt for women, end in hatred. The antidote is coaches, fathers, and male role models who celebrate a girl’s dominance because it’s achieved through practice and skill, not because she’s performing vulnerability. It’s a father who paints his nails sparkly with his son because there’s nothing shameful about wanting sparkle in your life.

The conversation pivots, crucially, to what women actually find attractive—and Rachel is withering about what the manosphere thinks the answer is. A bigger car, a bigger gym body, an unsolicited photo. None of it. What moves her toward another human being is being seen—someone who knows her coffee order, who cares enough to order her water without ice while she’s in the bathroom, who shares her library and reads her books because her thoughts matter. She was married to a man who could not tell you how she took her coffee. She now partners with someone who reads her library. The difference is a meaningful form of intimacy and it’s observable. Rachel says it clearly: “women want to feel like you see them. That’s it.” It’s an observation about human longing that so many are trained to miss.

She recommends two books—both by Bell Hooks—as essential reads for any man serious about not being exhausting: Feminism is for Everybody (thin, loving, accessible) and The Will to Change (about how patriarchy damages men by denying them emotional experience from infancy). Her own son read Feminism is for Everybody at 29 and called her hurt that she’d never shown him “that kind of feminism”—the broad, inclusive, loving kind. Her response was sharp: he’d only ever seen embattled feminism because that’s the only kind women get to have. Women fight for everything, so feminist spaces become rigid and rigorous. It’s not that the loving version doesn’t exist. It’s that it can’t flourish in conditions of scarcity and constant opposition. That reframe—holding tenderness and fierceness in the same hand—lands harder than any both-sides appeal.

As we close our discussion, we see Rachel Maron. She’s a mom of six boys and a daughter who are now adults who call each other, support each other, gather to cook for one another, and reach out when they’re stuck. She did not achieve this through permissiveness or helicopter parenting. She ran a tight household with clear rules: if you say “I hate you,” you stand in the kitchen hugging your brother until you can look him in the eye and say “I love you, I just hate what you’re doing.” She built non-hierarchical spaces that were still structured. She modeled ambition and boundary-setting alongside her ex-husband’s emotional presence and reliability. She refused to perform gender or demand her children perform it. And she refused to accept the terms of either toxic masculinity or the version of feminism that requires women to be embattled all the time. Her sons turned into the kind of men who read feminist theory and call their mother asking why she didn’t insist earlier. That’s good parenting and great humaning.

~ Nick Paro

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Thank you NeuroDivergent Hodgepodge, sandy bassett, Lisa, Jack (he/him), Acejonesz, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me and Rachel @ This Woman Votes for our next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

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A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“The most productive investment anyone can make is to look within and figure out what you haven’t come to grips with. Are there things from your past that you’re still dealing with but don’t want to face? Having the courage to turn inward and face yourself — that allows you to navigate life in a better way.”

~ Angry Male Vet ~

Masculinity In Review

For this 26th interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro sits down with AngryMaleVet — a retired combat veteran, Air Force intelligence officer, and outspoken political commentator — for a conversation that moves between war, leadership, accountability, and the kind of strength that doesn’t ask for applause. The two met at the Abolish ICE live event in Minneapolis, a tribute to Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Goode, and the connection carried forward into this episode. What emerges is a grounded, direct examination of what it means to lead with professionalism and empathy — on the Pakistani border, in the halls of military command, and inside your own head.

Angry Male Vet spent nine months on the Pakistani border working with villages and tribes on infrastructure and security — a mission that demanded more than tactical competence. He describes the work as requiring two things above all else: professionalism and empathy. He recounts sitting with a tribal chieftain through an interpreter, discussing road and school construction, while the chieftain explained plainly that the Taliban or the Haqqani Network would return as soon as American forces left. That kind of clarity — understanding the impossible position of a community caught between armed factions — is what shaped his leadership. Professionalism means you follow your oath and execute your mission. Empathy means you don’t lose sight of the human beings on the other side of it.

The conversation shifts to the present moment, and Angry Male Vet does not soften the picture. With U.S. forces striking Iran, conscientious objector filings spiking service-wide, and commanders raising reservations up the chain, the military is under pressure from multiple directions. His message to active service members is straightforward: remember your oath, follow lawful orders, refuse unlawful ones, and take notes — because accountability will come. He points to specific moments of pushback already happening: the AH-64 Apache investigation that Hegseth shut down within two hours, the U.S. SOUTHCOM commander who resigned over the Venezuela strikes, and the behind-the-scenes resistance that likely prevented any move on Greenland. The institution is not monolithic. There are people inside it paying attention.

The conscientious objector filings, he argues, are not a sign of weakness — they are one of the clearest expressions of masculine strength in this moment. It takes more courage to stop, name your objection, and put it on record than to go along with the current. He draws a direct line between this kind of moral independence and the masculinity the show is built around: not bravado, not performance, but the willingness to stand for something at personal cost. The U.S. strike on a school in Manab that killed 175 elementary schoolgirls — brushed aside by Hegseth and Trump — is exactly the kind of action he says military members have a legal and ethical obligation to refuse if the target sets expand further. That refusal is not insubordination. Per the UCMJ and the oath every service member takes, it is the requirement.

When Nick asks who shaped his model of masculinity, Angry Male Vet names his father and Barry Sanders. His father worked on IBM mainframes and drove long-haul trucks, split logs and raised a family — and never once leveraged his intelligence or capability for intimidation. He treated people with courtesy, practiced empathy, and believed the real battle was the one inside yourself. Barry Sanders gets named for a different reason: he would make a run that left the entire stadium stunned and then hand the ball to the referee and walk back to the sideline. No dance, no speech. He did his job and got ready to do it again. Both examples point to the same thing — strength that doesn’t require an audience.

Angry Male Vet brings 23 years of service, deployments across three theaters, and a practitioner’s understanding of what it actually costs to lead well under pressure. This conversation threads military ethics, political accountability, and the internal discipline required to be the kind of man — and the kind of soldier — who does the right thing when no one is watching. Nick closes by naming what the series is building toward: more voices, more perspectives, and a clearer picture of what intelligent masculinity looks like when it’s lived rather than performed. In Angry Male Vet, that picture is sharp — a man who measures strength by the courage to face yourself first, and the world second.

~ Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

* Check out the new: Sick of this Shop!

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Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter:

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Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement and de-flock the States:

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* Orders Project

* Reach out on Signal: @TheOrdersProject.76

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Amy Gabrielle, Mack Devlin, LeftieProf, Susan Gaustad, sandy bassett, and many others for tuning into my live video with AngryMaleVet! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“It was a very unique spot. You could tell that they’ve been through something, some kind of trauma. There’s almost a look to trauma that I deal with a lot in my day job that you can usually see. But at the same time it was conflict-free. An event with thousands upon thousands of people in a small parking lot, shoved together in front of this space, and I just don’t recall conflict. I don’t recall yelling, anger, anyone having any sort of exchange that wasn’t positive.”

~ Forrest Page ~

Masculinity In Review

Forrest Page walked into the George Floyd Memorial in Minneapolis carrying a camera and left carrying something he wasn’t expecting: clarity about what community actually looks like when it’s built to last. For 18 years, he’s been a teacher in Michigan - and is currently a physical education teacher at a Juvenial Detention Center. For decades, he’s been a father, a photographer, and a quiet radical. In this discussion, Nick and Forrest dig into what that means — through the work of raising kids, showing up to events, and building institutions that don’t replicate the failures of the men who came before.

The spine of this conversation is privilege and responsibility. Forrest grew up in a home where his father chose teaching over money, where his mother held the household together while carrying an impossible load, where being “good” wasn’t optional. He internalized early that being a man meant sacrifice for others and willingness to grow when challenged. Those lessons shape everything: his work with Valor Media, his approach to parenting four children through a time of political violence, his quiet presence at events where the community is still processing collective trauma. Forrest doesn’t perform activism. He lives it — and he’s teaching his kids - both at home and as a teacher - to do the same without pretense or moral grandstanding.

The Abolish ICE event forced Forrest to reckon with something deeper: the power of a community that has learned to hold space for trauma while refusing to reproduce violence. The thousands of people gathered in that parking lot had come through George Floyd’s murder, the uprisings, the backlash, and the ongoing occupation of their city by federal agents. Instead of fracturing, they held. Instead of cycling violence, they created something rare — a space where anger and joy existed at the same time, where people who had been traumatized by the state could still laugh, still sing, still recognize each other as human. That’s what Forrest photographed. That’s what changed him.

But this conversation isn’t sentimental. Forrest is frank about what he can and can’t control as a white parent, about the limits of being nice, about the weight of carrying four kids through a moment when democracy itself is contested. He talks about traveling with his family knowing that ICE agents are at airports, knowing he has options that immigrant families don’t have, and committing anyway to being present — to using his privilege as a tool rather than a shield. That’s the work of intelligent masculinity: not the fantasy of standing apart from power, but the harder practice of standing in it and redirecting it toward what the community actually needs.

Forrest’s father modeled this for him — a man who stepped off the ladder in his late twenties, took a pay cut, worked nights at a pizza place while going to school during the day, and chose to spend decades teaching kids in public schools. His mother modeled something equally important: the work of caring for a household, making good people happen, doing the invisible labor that allows other people’s dreams to matter. Forrest inherited a practice, not a checklist. And he’s spending his life teaching it — in a classroom, at an event, to his kids, to whoever is paying attention.

The question at the heart of intelligent masculinity is simple but relentless: What are you willing to sacrifice for something larger than yourself? Forrest’s answer isn’t heroic. It’s domestic. It’s the disciplined work of choosing people over status, growth over ego, and community over the comfort of being right. Forrest Page — teacher, father, photographer, and activist — shows up to this conversation without performance and without pretense, and expands the series’ argument that the most durable form of masculinity is the kind built quietly, across decades, in service of people who are counting on you.

~ Nick Paro

Support Our Guests Other Work

Take a moment to follow and scubscribe to Forrest’s other platforms:

* Valor Media Network

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* Orders Project

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Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you LC - Silence is Complicity, Skutt Hope, Laurel Fairchild, Education is a lamp, Beffy, and many others for tuning into my live video with Forrest J Page! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

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For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“What's masculine is to be tough enough to sit down and not debate and not fight — but to have an honest, uncomfortable conversation. That's what, in my mind, a real man should learn how to do."

~ Joe Walsh ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 24th interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro sat down with pro-democracy advocate, former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh, for a conversation that refused to stay comfortable — and was better for it. Joe, who once occupied a seat inside the Tea Party machine and voted for Trump in 2016, has spent the better part of eight years publicly dismantling the version of masculinity that got him there: loud, reactive, and allergic to accountability. This episode tracks that dismantling — not as a political story, but as a human one. Joe walks through how the inability to lie, a stoic Irish Catholic father who softened before he died, and the discipline of listening to understand rather than to respond all reshaped the man he is today. Nick and Joe don't agree on everything — they say so plainly and often — and that tension is exactly the point. What we take away from this conversation is a concrete, unpolished model of what it looks like to actually do the work of becoming a better man.

Joe’s change didn’t begin with an ideology shift — it began with the refusal to lie. When the right-wing media apparatus told him his job was to tell listeners what they wanted to hear, he couldn’t do it. He describes colleagues sitting him down and spelling it out: say what the audience wants, or lose the platform. Joe chose truth over the gravy train. That choice cost him professionally, but it’s also what made the path forward possible. The lesson for men is direct: integrity under pressure isn’t a personality trait — it’s a decision, made repeatedly, often when the cost is high.

Accountability showed up not as a concept but as a practice. Joe has publicly apologized, by his own count, thousands of times in eight years. He describes the early years as standing naked in front of a camera — fully exposed, fully accountable — and finding that process genuinely healing. He draws the sharpest contrast to Trump’s response after accidentally killing school children in a military strike: no ownership, no apology, no acknowledgment. Joe’s framing is simple and surgical — a real man apologizes when he fucks up. He doesn’t caveat it. He doesn’t negotiate around it. He owns it and moves.

The conversation between Joe and Nick about listening splits the act in two. Joe names the old version: listening to respond, to pounce, to demolish a point before it finishes. He describes sitting on TV panels in full attack mode, barely hearing the person across from him. The shift to listening to understand changed how he processed everything — from Black Lives Matter to transgender identity to his own father’s late-life evolution. He didn’t agree with everything he heard. He learned from it anyway. Nick and Joe demonstrate this live throughout the episode: on the SAVE Act, on Israel, on voter access, they hold their positions and keep the conversation open. That’s the practice, not just the theory.

Joe’s most pointed critique isn’t aimed at the right — it’s aimed at Democratic men. He argues directly that the manosphere filled a vacuum the left created by refusing to engage on culture. Too many Democratic men, in his view, won’t roll up their sleeves and be guys — won’t fight, won’t speak plainly, won’t hold the floor on culture war terrain. He came to the Democratic Party not because of policy alignment but to help defeat what he calls an existential threat. He believes Democrats already hold positions most Americans support. He just needs them to say so out loud and stop flinching. That’s not a partisan observation — it’s a masculinity one.

In the end, we see Joe Walsh — a former Republican Congressman, Tea Party architect, and Trump voter who has spent the last eight years doing the opposite of what the culture rewarded him for: apologizing publicly, listening deliberately, and building bridges to people he once dismissed. This episode isn't a redemption story — Joe resisted that framing — it's a working document of what masculine accountability looks like when it's actually practiced instead of performed. He brings the insider knowledge of someone who helped build the machine and the credibility of someone who walked away from it at personal cost. In a series built around the refusal to outsource accountability, Joe models what it means to own your consequences — not once, but as a sustained, daily choice — and expands Intelligent Masculinity's argument that the work of being a better man never stops.

~ Nick Paro

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Thank you NeuroDivergent Hodgepodge, Sean Talbeaux, Ms.Yuse, Donna Dupont, Sharon Rousseau, and many others for tuning into my live video with Joe Walsh! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

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* Forever at 50% off

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A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“If an infantry fucking Marine can understand this shit, anybody can understand this shit. You just gotta be willing to open your fucking mind and accept the goddamn truth.”

~ Matt Gordon ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 23rd interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro sits down with Matt Gordon — Marine Corps veteran, nine-year infantry guy, and the man behind the USMC Angry Veteran platform — for a conversation that covers war profiteering, rape culture, white male accountability, and what therapy actually looks like when you go in honest. Matt came off a live event in Minneapolis, where the two met at an Abolish ICE gathering honoring Alex Pretty and Renee Nicole Good, and the energy from that meeting carries straight through this episode. What unfolds is less of a formal interview and more of two white men refusing to let other white men off the hook — for the wars they sell, the violence they excuse, and the accountability they dodge. Listeners come away with a clear framework: the problem isn’t masculinity itself, it’s what men do with power when no one’s watching and nothing’s forcing them to grow.

The playbook hasn’t changed — and veterans know it. Matt names the pattern without flinching. The U.S. runs one play — build a justification, bomb a country, follow the money — and he walked through what that looks like from inside the institution that executes it. His read on the current conflict in the Middle East: the same lie structure as Iraq, the same billionaire beneficiaries, and a Secretary of Defense who belongs on a movie set rather than running a military. His critique of Pete Hegseth isn’t partisan commentary — it’s a veteran drawing a direct line between grandstanding leadership and Americans getting killed for ego and profit. When Matt says the Department of Defense has become the Department of Wannabes, he’s not being funny. He’s giving a structural diagnosis.

Rape culture doesn’t fix itself — fathers have to fix it. The conversation moves into one of its most direct stretches when Matt breaks down judicial outcomes for white men who sexually assault women and the message those outcomes send to everyone watching. The cases aren’t abstractions — they’re documented, named, and placed next to the consequences a Black man would face for the same crime. Matt’s argument is clean: the problem is not that women need better strategies for avoiding assault. The problem is that men are not being taught, held, or expected to not assault. His standard in his own house — anything but yes means no — isn’t a policy position, it’s a parenting commitment. And he says plainly that fathers who aren’t making that commitment are setting their children up to become predators. He said what he said.

White men have to be the ones who say something — out loud, in the room. Matt and Nick spend time on a tactic that doesn’t require a platform or a policy position: make it uncomfortable. When someone says something sexist, racist, or homophobic in your presence, you don’t have to argue. You just stop laughing. You let the silence sit. Matt describes this as one of his favorite things to do — staring down a man who said something shitty until the discomfort forces a reckoning — and he’s not joking about its effectiveness. The deeper point is that 70 percent of white men voted for Trump in 2024, and that number isn’t a coincidence. It reflects a group that has never been expected to do otherwise. Matt’s argument is that white men are the ones who created the void that Tate and Rogan and Fuentes filled, and white men are the only group with the specific social leverage to reclaim it.

Therapy isn’t a destination — it’s an ongoing practice, and it takes honesty. Matt has been in therapy for eight years with the same therapist. He’s 42 and still unpacking things. His point isn’t that therapy solves you — it’s that therapy is the practice of not letting new damage pile up unexamined. He went through five or six therapists before finding one he could actually talk to, and he’s direct that not connecting with a therapist isn’t failure — it’s information. The instruction is simple: keep going until you find someone who has no skin in the game of your life and can help you see yourself clearly. And when you get there, be honest. Not for anyone else. For you. The version of yourself that comes out the other side isn’t a different person — it’s the same person who decided to stop running.

By the end we see Matt Gordon — a nine-year Marine Corps veteran and the creator behind USMC Angry Veteran — a platform built on taking ideas forged in difficult spaces and translating them into language that anyone willing to listen can use. This episode is an hour of two white men refusing to perform the kind of masculinity that keeps other people small, and instead doing the harder thing: naming exactly where men, white men specifically, have dropped the ball and what picking it back up actually requires. Matt describes himself as an angry, empathetic asshole shaped by Mattis’s discipline, Mr. Rogers’ patience, and the strong women he deliberately surrounds himself with — and that combination produces something rare on this series: a veteran who came out of one of the hardest institutions in the country and decided accountability, not armor, was the more powerful thing to carry forward.

~ Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

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Thank you Christina Gurchinoff, Lynn, GW B, LC - Silence is Complicity, RuleofLawRules, and many others for tuning into my live video with Matt Gordon! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

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A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“At its core, toxic masculinity — the opposite of intelligent masculinity or positive masculinity — is about cowardice. And you can push insecurity and overcompensating and all of that into it, but I think if you frame it in terms of cowardice, it not only skewers the performative cosplay of the Pete Hegseths and the Markwayne Mullin, it allows viewers and fans and others to begin to see it when it crops up. And I’m thinking just in one instance of that picture of Markwayne Mullin — like the epitome of performative masculinity — standing up in a Senate hearing, challenging the head of the Teamsters to a fight, talking about being downrange on a mission so classified that he can’t talk to senators about it. And yet there’s that photo of him on January 6th, cowering behind the real men defending him and his colleagues. He is not at the tip of the spear. He is literally cowering. And that to me is a great picture of that fundamental truth about toxic masculinity, which is that it’s about cowardice.”

~ The Ken Harbaugh Show ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 22nd interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro sits down with Ken Harbaugh — former Navy pilot, veteran service organization leader, and host of the Ken Harbaugh Show on the Midas Touch Network — to pull apart what happens when performative masculinity stops being embarrassing and starts being dangerous. The two met in Minneapolis at the Abolish ICE Live event honoring Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good – and that shared context shapes the entire conversation. Ken frames the current political moment — from Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon to Markwayne Mullin’s Senate hearings to become the next Director of Homeland Security — as a case study in the specific rot that results when deeply flawed, insecure men gain institutional power and disguise bluster as leadership. This discussion traces the roots of that rot through Christian nationalism, warrior cosplay, and a cultural definition of success so narrow it destroys the people chasing it. Everyone can come away with a working vocabulary for identifying performative masculinity in real time and a model for what the alternative actually looks like.

Performative masculinity is, at its core, cowardice. Ken argues that the clearest through-line in every example of toxic masculine behavior — from Josh Hawley sprinting down a Senate hallway on January 6th to Markwayne Mullin hiding behind real officers while claiming combat credentials he never earned — is cowardice wearing borrowed armor. The bluster is not incidental to cowardice – it is produced by it. Ken makes the point that this framing is more useful than words like insecure or fragile precisely because cowardice is legible. It names what is happening. It lets people recognize the pattern the moment they see it rather than needing to diagnose the psychology underneath.

Warrior cosplay and Christian nationalism are fused — and the fusion is dangerous. Pete Hegseth is the clearest example Ken raises: a man with a makeup room adjacent to his Pentagon office, whose idea of leadership is chest-thumping on camera while calling for an end to rules of engagement. Ken describes this version of Christianity — fire, brimstone, no quarter for the enemy — as idolatrous, and fundamentally inconsistent with the faith Hegseth claims. The danger is not just theological incoherence; it is that a man running the Department of Defense is treating the military as a vehicle for a crusade. Veterans, Ken says, have a specific responsibility to name this. They know the guy at the bar who talks like this. They know exactly what it is.

Real heroism does not wear itself on its sleeve. The counterweight Ken brings is his grandfather — a B-17 pilot in the Pacific who flew home with a 20-millimeter cannon round through his thigh, was awarded a Silver Star, and never once bragged about it. That silent dignity was the point – not a form of emotional suppression. The clips and articles were around the house. You had to pry the stories out of him. Ken draws the contrast explicitly: the heroism that is real does not need an audience. The contrast with Markwayne Mullin — a man who has never served but describes classified missions to Senate colleagues — is sharp enough to be its own definition.

Bravery is not a military credential — it is a human one. One of the most direct corrections Ken makes is severing the automatic equation between service and bravery, or between bravery and masculinity. He names nurses as among the bravest people he knows — and given that Alex Pretti, an VA ICU nurse who spent his career in veterans’ final moments, was the reason both men were in Minneapolis, the point carries weight. Teachers are in the same category. The standard Ken holds up is not uniform or service branch; it is whether you show up for the most vulnerable people in the room. That is the measure.

Success has been defined so narrowly that it is destroying the people who achieve it. Ken ran for Congress in a district Trump won by over 30 points. He did not win the race. With time, he came to see the campaign differently — as something that built real infrastructure, launched significant careers, and proved resistance was possible in places people had written off. The reframe is not consolation; it is structural. He extends it directly to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Peter Thiel: men who, by capitalism’s narrowest metric, are successful, and who Harbaugh describes as complete failures in life — no friends, children who despise them, legacies built primarily on harm. The counterproposal is simple and direct: the ultimate measure of a successful life is having people who love you around you when it ends.

In the end, we see Ken Harbaugh for more than what we saw before – he is a Navy pilot, a two-time veteran service organization leader, a former congressional candidate, and the host of a show built specifically to counter the kind of political moment this episode dissects. What he brings to Intelligent Masculinity is a veteran’s precision — the ability to identify, from lived experience, exactly what a man is compensating for when he performs strength rather than exercising it. This conversation ties together threads the series has been building since its first episode: accountability cannot be outsourced, bravery is not a credential, and success defined by accumulation alone produces lonely, destructive people. For Ken, masculinity looks like his grandfather in the deer blind — not many words, no performance, just steady presence and the expectation that you carry what you shoot.

~ Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

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Thank you LeftieProf, Mike Harkreader, Ann Kramer, Maureen Drews, Nanalin, and many others for tuning into my live video with The Ken Harbaugh Show! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

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A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“I would add another aspect of intelligent masculinity — spending time knowing yourself. There's a great saying in Islam, and it's in most traditional traditions: know yourself and you'll know your creator. And this includes knowing the bad parts of yourself, the weak parts of yourself, the messy parts of yourself. That requires radical honesty with yourself. Where am I good? What am I bad at? What do I take pride in? Where can I get better? Maybe it's not the women's fault. Maybe it's not the immigrants' fault. Maybe there's something inside me — something broken, or maybe I'm projecting something, maybe there's an insecurity. That's an intelligent aspect of masculinity — which is why it's so frightening that Marc Andreessen, one of the broligarchs, is literally saying he's not into self-reflection.”

~ THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 21st interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro brought THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali — writer, commentator, and host of The Left Hook — into the conversation. This conversation aired during Ramadan, with Waj fasting and still showing up fully present — which both acknowledged as a framing for the conversation. They covered what a prophetic model of masculinity actually looks like in practice, how men learn to externalize blame instead of looking inward, and what changes when men stop running from self-reflection and start treating it as a discipline. This is one of the most spiritually grounded conversations — at time mirroring the discussion with Qasim Rashid, Esq. — and one of the most honest about the gap between the masculinity men inherit and the one they actually choose.

Waj opened by naming what’s visible across the current political and media landscape: men who perform strength because they lack it. He called them cosplay crusaders — broken men LARPing dominance. Pete Hegseth banned photographers over an unflattering photo. Marc Andreessen publicly announced he does not self-reflect. Kash Patel proposed having UFC fighters train federal “officers”. These aren’t displays of power; they’re displays of damage. Waj’s argument is that the through-line for most of these men is the same — unprocessed father wounds that never got named — and that understanding the source is the first step toward building something different.

The alternative Waj offered came directly from his faith. As a practicing Muslim, he drew on the prophetic model of masculinity — the example of the Prophet Muhammad, who never struck his children, never raised his voice at his wife, and treated restraint and gentleness as expressions of strength rather than departures from it. There’s a narration of the Prophet cutting away the section of his shawl rather than disturb a sleeping cat. That image — a man powerful enough to let small things be — cuts directly against the domination model that currently passes for strength in American culture. Waj’s point is not religious in the narrow sense — it’s practical. Warmth, presence, and self-governance are what actually earn trust and love from the people closest to you.

His father supplied the lived model. Waj described a man who immigrated from Pakistan, raised a family with his mother for 48 years, and never once asked where she was going, penny-pinched her independence, or treated her freedom as a threat to his identity. His father was secure — genuinely, quietly secure — and that security transmitted. Waj connected it directly to his own marriage: his wife Sarah has told him that his confidence, his refusal to perform jealousy, is part of why she chose him. Masculine insecurity compounds downward through relationships. Masculine security does the opposite.

When Nick walked Waj through the series’ working definition — intelligent masculinity as the refusal to outsource accountability and the discipline to live with the consequences of your values and actions — Waj affirmed it and pushed it forward. He added a layer: radical honesty about who you actually are. The good parts, the weak parts, the messy parts. There’s a saying across Islamic and broader traditional traditions — know yourself and you’ll know your creator — and Waj named that self-knowledge as the root of everything else the series has been building toward. You cannot own what you will not look at. Accountability without self-knowledge is performance.

Waj was candid about his own relationship with introspection: he has OCD inherited from his father, he ruminates more than is healthy, and he spent years confusing self-punishment with self-improvement. He named the distinction plainly — auditing yourself to grow is productive masculine practice; beating yourself down until you can’t get up is not. Over the last decade he’s shifted toward what he called “humble swagger”: taking honest stock of where he’s fallen short while also giving himself credit for what he’s actually built. Nick echoed it with the series’ own framing — self-reflection is not a license for self-destruction — now you know, so you can grow. That balance between clear-eyed assessment and genuine self-regard is what productive reflection actually looks like, and it’s a model worth passing down.

In the end we see that THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali is a writer, public commentator, and practicing Muslim who has spent years speaking plainly about the failures of toxic masculinity while modeling something different. This conversation brought spiritual depth, biographical honesty, and real humor to the Intelligent Masculinity series — and his addition of self-knowledge as the foundation beneath accountability pushes the series’ central thesis meaningfully forward. Waj doesn’t just describe a better masculinity; he’s built one inside a working marriage and a public career, and he’s willing to show the construction.

~ Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

* Check out the new: Sick of this Shop!

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Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter:

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Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement and de-flock the States:

* deflock.me

Service members can get un-biased information on legal vs illegal orders:

* Orders Project

* Reach out on Signal: @TheOrdersProject.76

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Evan Fields, Margaret Williams, MS, ACC, Nick G, A Dude On The Couch, Barniclebetty, Maureen Drews, and many others for tuning into my live video with THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

"She got really upset with me. She was like, you're talking down to me in front of my boyfriend. And she was absolutely right. And I just gave her a full-throated apology — to her face, then again later in a text message. I made sure not to defend myself in any way. None of that. Apologize fully without defending yourself. Do it in such a way that it is definitely sincere and you will build every relationship. I think people view that as strength because it's being decent. And that is so much stronger in my mind than someone who doesn't do that or someone that doesn't have that as a guiding principle and practice in their life. To be conciliatory, to apologize, and to mean it is a hard thing to do. But if you do it, you're a better person, certainly a stronger man."

~ STAND UP! With Pete Dominick ~

Masculinity In Review

For the 20th interview in the Intelligent Masculinity series, Nick Paro sits down with comedian, talk show host, and girl dad STAND UP! With Pete Dominick — and lands on one of the most direct definitions of a principled life the series has encountered. Pete comes to the conversation having navigated a career shift from road comedian to activist-journalist, a separation after a long marriage, the death of a family dog, and a father's transition into an empty nest — all while running a daily podcast and showing up as a present parent. What anchors the whole conversation is something Pete returns to again and again: the refusal to abandon his principles, even when that costs him professionally, relationally, or financially. This discussion gives all of us a clear, practical framework — developed through Stoicism, Buddhism, therapy, and a well-placed older brother — for what it looks like to live with integrity rather than just talk about it.

Your principles have to be named before they can be lived. This is where Pete traces his moral formation back to his older brother, who introduced him to punk rock, Noam Chomsky, anti-racism, and anti-sexism during Pete's adolescence — at the exact moment when those lessons would stick. The brother, a nonconformist who got bullied for it, modeled something Pete absorbed: that your worst fear should not be failure, but becoming unoriginal, or worse, abandoning what you actually believe. Pete's clearest fear throughout this conversation is not losing money or relationships — it's losing his principles. He draws a direct line from naming that fear to the choices he's made, including walking away from a 15-year run at Sirius XM after refusing to stay silent when the company rehired Steve Bannon.

An unqualified apology is a structural practice, not a personality trait. Pete didn’t grow up as someone who lacked words — he had too many, and the problem was knowing exactly how to win an argument while the relationship lost. Marriage counseling gave him three anchors he still works with: don’t take things personally, don’t make assumptions, and don’t get defensive. He describes a recent moment with his 21-year-old daughter on a ski trip where he criticized her skiing in front of her boyfriend. She called it out directly. He issued a full apology — in person and again in a follow-up text — without attaching a single qualifier or explanation. He doesn’t frame this as noble. He frames it as structurally necessary: apologize fully, without defending yourself, and the relationship gets stronger. This echoes what Walter Rhein said on the series before him (listen here) — the most important thing a man can do is an unqualified apology.

Modeling a healthy breakup is an act of fatherhood. When Pete’s wife told him she wanted to separate, his first instinct was anger, rejection, and the desire to keep fighting. His older brother stepped in with a frame that redirected everything: your daughters are watching, and they will be broken up with someday, and what they see you do now is what they’ll know how to do then. Pete stayed in the house until his younger daughter got her license, drove her to school every day because he wanted those car moments, and then moved 10 minutes away. Three years later, he and his ex-wife still talk, share dinners, and co-parent with clarity. He’s not holding that up as universal advice. He’s pointing to the specific practice: ego is the enemy of a healthy separation, and setting your ego aside to protect your kids is not a sacrifice — it’s the job.

Straight men, especially white ones, have to show up for people who aren’t. Pete puts it plainly: straight white men have been the architects of most systemic harm, which means they carry both responsibility and unique leverage to confront it. He distinguishes personal suffering — which he says is real and not to be dismissed, pointing to his brother-in-law who died by suicide — from systemic suffering, which operates at a different scale and requires different work. He describes jumping in on group texts to confront a friend talking nonsense, confronting Jesse Watters on-camera by asking him to name the soldiers he claimed to honor, and advocating for a family in his community with a trans child rather than making the parents carry the full public weight of it. His frame: the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.

A daily practice that is the self-evaluation period for everything else. Pete's self-reflection tools are really concrete: 20 minutes each of meditation, journaling, exercise, and reading. The meditation does one specific thing — it trains you to notice when you're inside a thought spiral, name it, and set it down. He's not claiming enlightenment. He's describing a maintenance practice for a person who covers the news every day, has navigated real loss, and carries the anxiety that comes with self-employment and a principled life. The reading is Stoic and Buddhist: Marcus Aurelius, Pema Chodron, Ryan Holiday. The point isn't originality — the four cardinal Stoic virtues are 2,000 years old. The point is finally using what's already been handed to us. And as our friend NeuroDivergent Hodgepodge added in the Live chat — “it’s better to be genuine than be ‘original’”.

As we bring it all together — we saw STAND UP! With Pete Dominick as a comedian who stopped going on the road to be home with his daughters; a talk show host who got pushed out of corporate media spaces for refusing to make peace with the people running it; and a man who has moved through separation, loss, and the edge of an empty nest while staying committed to a personal code he can actually name. What this interview adds to the Intelligent Masculinity series is a specific and earned articulations of principled living — as the practical daily stance that costs something and pays dividends that can't be measured in money or status. For Pete, intelligent masculinity looks like showing up as water over rocks: not ignoring the obstacles, not pretending they aren't there, but refusing to get stuck.

~ Nick Paro

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Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

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For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“It really goes back to watching men perform badly throughout my life — men who have been my father figures more or less, who in various ways succeeded, but in various ways failed to step up to the moments and been absent when they shouldn’t have been. And I just never wanted my stepson or my biological son to ever feel like they were alone and didn’t have somebody there to support them and to be there for them along the way. So I made a conscious promise to myself that I was going to be a better dad than the men I’ve had as father figures in my life.”

~ Steven Acheson ~

Masculinity In Review

On this 19th interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro has an incredibly raw and honest conversation with Steven Acheson — someone who grew up on a fifth-generation Wisconsin dairy farm, enlisted in the Army almost by accident at 19 after a civil engineering apprenticeship fell through, and deployed to Sadr City in 2005 as part of a brigade commander's personal security detail — running over 400 missions through the worst IED corridors in the country, attending more than 60 funerals in 11 months, and sustaining a back injury that ended his forward observer career. He came home, answered his post-deployment health assessment honestly when his NCOs told him to say no to everything, and became the only soldier in his platoon to actively seek mental health treatment — a pattern of choosing clarity over comfort that defines how he operates today. Now 40, living in rural Wisconsin at 100% VA disability rating, he is a stay-at-home dad to a first-grader named Aldo and a freshman in college, a partner to high school science teacher Steph, and an organizer for High Ground Veterans Advocacy alongside his long-time battle-buddy Kristofer Goldsmith. This conversation moves through combat trauma, the power of true friendships, the decision to be present for his kids instead of career-chasing, and what it means to break a family pattern of absent and harmful men — and Steven brings the receipts: a list his oldest sister built for him capturing how she sees him practicing intelligent masculinity in real life.

Steven is the person who found Kristofer Goldsmith after a suicide attempt (listen here). The two met on day one of basic training, maintained a running friendly competition through AIT, were assigned to the same duty station, deployed together, and lived together post-deployment when Kris was at his lowest. Steven's presence in that moment was intentional — it was the product of a relationship built and maintained deliberately over years. This powerful moment reinforces an early discussion with Sharad Swaney in a prior Intelligent Masculinity conversation (listen here): men need at least one person they can cry in front of without explanation, and that person has to be built before the crisis arrives.

As the conversation moves forward, Steven recounted an important moment in a story familiar to too many veterans — answering his post-deployment health questionnaire truthfully at a time when everyone around him was coached to deny everything. He flagged PTSD symptoms that were already showing up physically — chewed-off knuckles, sleep disruption — and went on to seek mental health treatment on his own initiative. The consequence of that honesty was what it always should be — the intentional first steps on a slow path toward processing what happened. The takeaway here is concrete: when a system hands you a form and pressures you to lie on it, answering accurately is not weakness — it is the prerequisite for getting anything useful out of that system.

Moving into the discussion on accountability, Steven names his partner Steph as his single greatest influence, and he is specific about why: she identified language he was using — patterns that came from growing up in a military and rural conservative environment — and named them clearly, without softening the message. He received that feedback, worked on it, and still slips. The model he describes is not one of wholesale transformation but of ongoing, imperfect recalibration. The instruction for men in the audience is not to wait until your language is perfect, but to stop treating correction as an attack and start treating it as information.

While discussing generational trauma, Steven spoke on what he told his younger half-brother directly: it's up to us to end this. He didn't leave it abstract. He said the words. His family history includes men who were absent, harmful, or both — and rather than carry that silently forward, he made an explicit promise to himself that his stepson and his biological son would never feel alone or unsupported the way he sometimes did. That promise is now visible in his daily choices: declining career opportunities, staying home, coaching sports he didn't particularly enjoy, and consistently showing up. Naming the pattern is not sufficient on its own, but it is where the decision starts.

The conversation built as Steven recalled the years spent after leaving the military doing informal counter-recruiting presentations at high schools — writing the full war debt on the board and asking students who they thought was going to pay for it. He describes this as work he eventually stepped back from for his own mental health, but Nick presses the point: progressive and pro-democracy veterans need to be louder right now, because the political right has claimed veteran identity through sheer volume. Using the veteran tag deliberately — not as the whole of your identity, but strategically — is a way of filling a void that gets filled with something else if you leave it empty.

Towards the end, Steven discusses the years spent in the background of Kristofer Goldsmith’s advocacy work — advising and believing in him when others didn't — without needing to be the face of it. The framing Nick introduces, and which Steven affirms, is that not being the main character in someone else's story is a valid and sometimes more important role. The ego-driven version of masculinity requires constant centrality; whereas, the growth-driven version recognizes that your moment to step forward will come, and that building someone else's capacity in the meantime is not a demotion — it’s the plot.

Steven arrives at a particular point in the series arc — after Sharad Swaney’s civic organizing, Kristofer Goldsmith’s institutional advocacy, Jack’s reclamation of identity, and Qasim Rashid, Esq.’s intersection of faith and public service — and brings something these conversations have been approaching but hadn't yet centered on: what it looks like to carry acute trauma and a clear commitment to not pass it forward, at the same time, over decades. His story doesn't begin with a platform or a cause. It begins on a dairy farm, runs through Sadr City, and lands in a living room where he is the one who shows up — for his kids, for his partner, for Kris at his lowest, for civilians who never heard a veteran speak plainly about what war actually costs. What connects him to every guest before him is the through-line which has been building since the first interview with Shane Yirak: intelligent masculinity is not a fixed identity, it's a practice — and the form it takes changes from person to person while the commitment underneath it doesn't. Steven Acheson’s is the version that looks like presence, honesty, and a promise kept.

~ Nick Paro

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Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

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A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

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For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“In order to be good, you have to do good, and [this] definition of evil is more like Edmund Burke. It’s the ability to do good and [then] not doing it. So evil doesn’t have to be a specific act. It just has to be the ability to make a better decision and choosing not to.”

~ Joe Plenzler ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 18th interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Joe Plenzler — Marine Corp combat veteran, communications leader, and fierce advocate for those who served — shares his experiences about service, loyalty, institutional failures, moral injury, media narratives, and the burden veterans carry long after the uniform comes off. This is a discussion about accountability.

Joe makes something clear early in our discussion: the Marine Corps gives young men something many of them have never had before — structure, expectation, standards, and camaraderie. It gives meaning, direction, and a meaningful purpose larger than just the self. But the camaraderie that binds warriors in combat doesn’t automatically translate to life at home — a country which loves the symbolism of service, yet constantly struggles with the responsibility of reintegration. Joe pushes against the lazy cultural script that says:

“They signed up for it.”

Yes — they signed up to serve, to protect — yet, none signed up to be discarded.

Joe speaks plainly about the Iraq generation — young men sent into chaotic, politically murky conflict environments with incomplete strategy and shifting narratives. The cost was more than just physical — it was psychological, it was moral, and it was existential. War accelerates maturity in some areas and freezes development in others. You return with hyper-competence in chaos…and no real roadmap for an ordinary life. That gap creates dislocation, alienation, anger, and silence—and that silence often compounds the damage. Joe argues that masculine culture often amplifies that silence — especially among combat veterans. Strength becomes suppression, loyalty becomes isolation, and stoicism becomes a trap to hide everything behind a mask — but suppression isn’t discipline, it’s a deferred collapse.

One of the most powerful threads in this conversation is Joe’s articulation of moral injury. PTSD is a clinical framework whereas moral injury is spiritual. It’s what happens when your internal moral code collides with the realities of war, bureaucracy, or political decision-making. You can do everything right tactically — and still wrestle with what you were part of. That wrestling is conscience — and that’s true strength. Joe pushes back against reducing veterans to trauma stereotypes because the story isn’t one of fragility — this is the story is unresolved weight which has become corrosive — personally and nationally.

As someone deeply embedded in communications and public messaging, Joe understands narrative warfare. He calls out two distortions:

* The romanticization of service.

* The weaponization of veterans in political messaging.

Both strip all of the nuance out of the conversation. Veterans are either saints or victims — rarely are they full human beings navigating complex transitions. Joe argues for something harder: accountability in leadership, truth in storytelling, and responsibility in how we deploy young men. Intelligent masculinity requires honest language — not propaganda.

Joe’s post-service career reflects something important: discipline and mission don’t evaporate — they redirect into service after service. He channels Marine Corp precision into advocacy, communications, and institutional critique — and that’s a model worth studying. He shows us that masculinity isn’t defined by the battlefield — it’s defined by what you build after it. Joe Plenzler represents a version of masculinity that is loyal without the blindness, strong because of reflection, patriotic while critical, and disciplined but adaptive. Joe shows that those blends matter.

~ Nick Paro

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Thank you Noble Blend, LeftieProf, Jami, Education is a lamp, Liv C, and many others for tuning into my live video with Joe Plenzler, Banner & Backbone Media, and Sick of this Shit Publications! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

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A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“Ego wants to win arguments. Discipline wants to build something that lasts. The problem with ego-driven masculinity is that it’s loud but fragile. Discipline is quiet, but it compounds. It shows up every day. It doesn’t need applause. And it doesn’t collapse when someone disagrees with you.”

~ Nick Paro ~

Masculinity In Review

I have had the distinct pleasure of working with them for the majority of my time here on Substack. From our first conversation, I knew that this was someone whom I admired, who cared, and who wanted to make the world a better place. Nick is someone who has sacrificed, suffered, and grown. He is someone who pursues a life in which his growth can propel others’ growth.

I went into this interview with the goal of better understanding my friend, and I left knowing a man who has fought and clawed his way back from the darkest of places to become a beacon of hope for thousands, and a shoulder to lean on for his friends.

Nick focuses on becoming a better human, and his series on intelligent masculinity is the purest distillation of a great challenge he took on. Not because he was asked, but because he saw a need. Men are the problem, ego has become the core of Western masculine identity. Creating a society of dangerous, entitled, and hateful men who are taught that they are entitled to whatever they want.

It is men who have to confront this ugly reality and set the record straight. Nick is leading the charge on this, and because of him, this discussion is spreading beyond a small community and providing an opportunity for men to reflect and change.

It is my distinct pleasure to present this interview with Nick Paro, my good friend, an inspiration, and a warrior. On and off the battlefield, whichever one he finds himself on.

Thank you, Nick.

Shane Yirak — Not Your Son.

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Thank you Evan Fields, NeuroDivergent Hodgepodge, Natasha K., Sue Ploeger’s script to novel, LeftieProf, and many others for tuning into my live video with Shane Yirak and Nick Paro, presented on Sick of this Shit Publications and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

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* Forever at 50% off

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A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“A lot of people think masculinity is about these big moments — but it’s really about the small ones. It’s whether you keep your word. Whether you stay consistent. Whether you choose discipline when no one would notice if you didn’t. That’s what builds trust. That’s what builds character.”

~ Will Fullwood ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 16th interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro sits down with Will Fullwood to explore masculinity through the lens of integrity, discipline, and quiet accountability. Will reflects on growing up without perfect role models, learning responsibility through adversity, and defining humaning not as masculinity through dominance — but as consistency. At the core of the conversation is a powerful through-line:

Being a man isn’t about control. It’s about showing up — especially when it’s uncomfortable.

This discussion deepens the series’ central thesis: intelligent masculinity is practiced in everyday decisions, not declared in slogans.

Will speaks candidly about growing up without flawless examples of masculinity. Instead of inheriting a blueprint built on gendered lines, he had to construct his own understanding of what being a man meant. That process required him to observe what not to replicate, identify the traits worth keeping, and then choosing discipline over impulse. This mirrors a recurring theme in the series that masculinity is not always inherited intact—sometimes it is assembled piece by piece, and that assembly requires self-awareness.

One of the most important threads in the interview is emotional responsibility. Will pushes back against the idea that masculinity requires emotional suppression. Instead, he emphasizes emotional management—not exploding, not deflecting, and not blaming others for internal discomfort . These distinctions are important when describing the guardrails which offer guideposts for intelligent masculinity to learn from—the understanding that suppression leads to resentment, expression without discipline leads to chaos, practiced management leads to lasting growth, and active participation is required or you don’t really have values, just slogans.

What stands out in this conversation is Will’s emphasis on the small, daily decisions. Decisions which aren’t heroic acts or grand speeches; rather, they are actively following through, admitting when you’re wrong, being present in the moment, and making the harder choices, quietly. In Will’s case—as with the case of so many of the other men—masculinity is cumulative, never static and always working to grow—because cumulative behavior is what truly defines your character.

Will also acknowledges that a person’s growth is rarely linear. There are always missteps, ego flares, and failures—what separates mature masculinity from fragile masculinity is the response. Do you double down—or do you adjust? Intelligent masculinity is always correctable—willing to say “now you know, so you can grow.”

In the end, this discussion with Will reinforces and sharpens key pillars of our overall series. He highlights that integrity is consistency over time; accountability is internal before it can become external; masculinity is measured in actions and behavior, not volume; that meaningful growth most often requires some level of discomfort, and emotional management is true strength. If our earlier guests emphasized service, faith, trauma interruption, or platform responsibility—Will Fullwood emphasizes the everyday—and sometimes the everyday is the hardest arena to enter and stay in.

~Nick Paro

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Thank you Cheech Previti, Brandon Ellrich, Cris Northern, PJ Schuster, Daniel D Woodard, and many others for tuning into my live video with Will Fullwood, presented on Sick of this Shit Publications and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

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A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“Growing up with an abusive father gave me a very clear example of what masculinity can become when it’s rooted in control and fear. I watched how anger was used as power. And I made a conscious decision that if I was going to live as a man, I was not going to live like that. I wasn’t going to repeat it. I had to build something different — something steadier, something safer.”~ Jack ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 15th interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro sits down with Jack for a deeply personal conversation about trauma, transition, and the uneven terrain of support. Raised by an abusive father and a mother struggling with her own unresolved trauma, Jack found refuge in a grandmother who offered space and stability.

As a trans man who has lived both female-presenting and male-presenting lives, Jack offers rare insight into masculinity from both sides of the social divide. His journey reframes intelligent masculinity not as inheritance or dominance — but as something consciously built through reflection, healing, and self-discipline.

Jack’s story is one of unsteady mentorship and no clear male modeling—his story is one shaped by contrast: an abusive father whose masculinity was rooted in control and volatility; a mother living within her own trauma, often emotionally unavailable; and a grandmother who created space — quiet, nonjudgmental, stabilizing space. These disparities matter because intelligent masculinity is often easier to define when you have healthy examples. Whereas Jack did not—he had to build it himself.

Jack’s relationship with his father forms the psychological backdrop of the conversation. He opened up about the distorted lessons of masculinity he learned at the hands of abuse: that power equals fear, authority equals unpredictability, and strength equals domination. When those are your earliest exposures to “manhood,” masculinity becomes something to either fear or reject. For Jack, that early model did not become destiny—it became a warning on what not to do or be. The absence of safe masculinity forced him to reflect on what real strength looks like, without the cruelty. It also left scars—and a lingering self-doubt.

On the other side of that abuse, Jack sees what his mother was going through and uses that as context. When a parent is fighting their own internal battles, emotional availability becomes scarce and support becomes inconsistent at best—that combination creates a unique form of isolation. In that environment, Jack’s concepts of masculinity had to emerge through observation and trial. His growth into accepting his adult masculinity required separating compassion for his mother’s trauma from accepting the consequences it had on him. That separation is emotional maturity—and is at the heart of Jack’s journey.

In contrast to volatility and instability, Jack’s grandmother offered him the space he desperately needed—no yelling, manipulation, or conditional love—just room to exist as himself. That space became foundational, because masculinity is a thing that can be constructed—and to construct something, it needs the space to feel safe enough to emerge. In providing this space, his grandmother did not define him—she allowed him to discover himself without fear. And that kind of support can be life-saving.

Perhaps the most unique dimension of this discussion is Jack’s lived experience as both female-presenting and male-presenting. He has lived and understands many of the things men do not: what it feels like to be dismissed, what it feels like to be talked over, what it feels like to move through the world without physical safety assumptions, and what changes when those assumptions shift. He describes the jarring experience of being treated with increased deference once male-presenting—conversations changing tone and authority is assumed rather than questioned. That contrast exposed an uncomfortable truth that masculinity carries unearned social power. And the difference between intelligent and not, is whether you use it recklessly or responsibly.

In the end, there is something profoundly important underlying all of Jack’s emotional discipline. To Jack, restraint is a concrete need—it is the power to be corrective. Where his father used anger, unpredictability, and fear as power—Jack practices regulation as responsibility, he models consistency, and shapes masculinity to mean safety.

~ Nick Paro

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Thank you NeuroDivergent Hodgepodge, Soso's World, Ms.Yuse, Cheryl Beck-Ruff, Heather Olivier, and many others for tuning into my live video with Jack, presented on Sick of this Shit Publications and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“There’s no such thing as serving God without first serving humanity… If your religiosity doesn’t translate into dignity and care for your neighbor, then it’s just ego. There are no asterisks on humanity."

~ Qasim Rashid, Esq. ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 14th interview of Intelligent Masculinity, I sit down with Qasim Rashid, Esq. for something completely different, yet entirely on theme. Where all of the other interviews have focused on masculinity directly through the lenses of fatherhood, discipline, and self-correction—Qasim takes us in a wonderful new direction: faith, built around a life of service where acts towards humanity always precedes professed faith to a God. And in doing so, Qasim reinforced and sharpened the series thesis that:

Intelligent Masculinity is the refusal to outsource accountability onto others—and the discipline to live with the consequences of your actions and values.

Throughout this conversation, we see Qasim return to a powerful idea: masculinity begins when we separate the ego and embrace active self-reflection.

This self-reflection fuels one of the most important through-lines of the conversation where Qasim insists that reaction is a choice—road rage, spousal conflict, public disagreement, online provocation—and that choice is the difference between intelligent masculinity and not. He frames this choice as the pause between the stimulus and the response—that moment when you bite your tongue, take that breath, and think. That is discipline. That is intelligence. That is power. And this moment of control is what separates those willing to accept accountability for their actions, and those who aren’t.

Perhaps the clearest practical moment of the entire interview came when discussing boundaries. Qasim described deliberately keeping his hands visible in group photos to remove ambiguity and ensure no boundary is ever crossed. He also stated plainly:

“Keeping your hands and your eyes to yourself is not something you should struggle with.”

This is intelligent masculinity in its simplest form. It is: respecting consent, accepting “no” as a complete sentence, and taking responsibility for male behavior instead of blaming women. He reinforced this again with certainty when it comes to consent:

“No is a complete sentence.”

This clarity matters in a culture where men often look for loopholes—and intelligent masculinity closes loopholes.

Qasim brings us to a place we haven’t gone before with his discussion on an important theological distinction: there is no such thing as serving God without first serving humanity. He referenced a teaching where a person deeply devout in prayer but cruel to their neighbor is condemned, while someone less outwardly religious but kind to their neighbor is elevated. That principle cuts against authoritarian religious nationalism—and it asserts:

* Humanity has no asterisks.

* Rights are not conditional.

* Faith that harms neighbors is ego, not devotion.

And this aligns profoundly with the evolving series arc where masculinity that claims divine justification for domination is not intelligent—it is insecure.

Qasim also offered a powerful reflection on male privilege — not as superiority, but as unexamined safety. His story about realizing, as a teenager, that he could run at night without fear while his female friend could not, was a defining moment of awareness. Acknowledging privilege without weaponizing it and recognizing safety disparities without defensiveness—that is intelligent masculinity. It doesn’t deny reality—it accepts it—and then works to correct it.

Another key contribution to the series: structured self-reflection. Through daily prayer and meditation, Qasim described carving out intentional time to detach from noise and re-evaluate his responsibility to others. He framed this as a constant internal struggle—not against others, but against ego—and telling us:

“The greatest struggle is the struggle against the self that incites you to do wrong.”

This echoes earlier guests in different language: the discipline described by Marlon Weems, the cultural history of Arturo Dominguez, the personal accountability of Bobby Jones, and the intentional reflection of Kristofer Goldsmith. Qasim’s articulation gives spiritual vocabulary to a theme that has been building organically through the series.

As we bring this discussion together, Qasim adds new depth to three critical elements within the overall series:

* He spiritualizes accountability without weaponizing religion.

* He frames boundaries and consent as a male responsibility, not female safeguards.

* He reinforces that ego is the real threat—not emotion, not vulnerability, not connection.

And perhaps most importantly of all, Qasim Rashid, Esq. recenters masculinity around service—not leadership for control, not strength for dominance, and not faith for exclusion—rather service towards all of humanity.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

* Check out the new Sick of this Shop!

* Check out Banner & Backbone Media’s new BroadBanner network and affiliate calendar — including all Sick of this Shit Publications branded shows!

Sign the Petitions:

* Demand Congress Subpoena Key Figures on the Epstein Case

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Elizabeth Raven, Under the Golden Boot, Jack, Donna Everett, Sandy W, and many others for tuning into my live video with Qasim Rashid, Esq., Nick Paro, and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“If I got pissed off every time something like that happened, I’d just run my own blood pressure up. Writing about it lets me examine it. Sometimes I realize I was wrong. Sometimes I realize I reacted better than I would have years ago. But I try to be honest with myself — because if you’re not honest with yourself, you’re not growing.”

~ Marlon Weems ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 13th interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro sits down with Marlon Weems for one of the most layered conversations in the series so far. What unfolds is not a rigid definition of masculinity, but a lived evolution — from corporal punishment to restraint, from reaction to regulation, and from ego to reflection. Marlon’s story moves through Arkansas, Wall Street, fatherhood, race, humiliation, discipline, and writing as therapy. At the center of it all is a quiet but powerful truth:

“Growth does not happen by accident. It happens when you are willing to examine yourself honestly.”

Marlon begins by describing the men who shaped him—a stepfather who raised him as his own (until he didn’t), an uncle who prepared him for racial hostility in professional spaces, and a mother who filled in the gaps. Two lessons stand out from this:

* Ambition through expectation — being pushed intellectually, even when it felt harsh.

* Survival through restraint — knowing when not to react.

One of the most striking stories involves his uncle warning him before entering a predominantly white investment firm:

“The first time someone calls you a slur, you can’t hit them — because you’ll be the one who loses everything.”

That lesson becomes foundational. Here we see masculinity is about long-term survival and strategic control, not about dominance or retaliation. This is Intelligent Masculinity in practice: you don’t outsource your reaction to someone else’s provocation.

Perhaps the most vulnerable portion of the discussion centers on Marlon’s two phases of fatherhood. With his older sons, he describes a harsher approach—belt, switch, intimidation—not out of cruelty, but because that was the model he inherited. Later, raising his younger children—particularly his daughter—something shifted. He describes a moment when he struck his daughter lightly in discipline and saw hurt, fear, and disbelief in her eyes:

“I couldn’t live with that look.”

That was the pivot. He did not double down and he did not justify it—he evolved. Discipline became regulation instead of force. Authority became presence instead of threat—and that is intelligent masculinity.

It’s correction, not perfection.

One of the most powerful stories in the interview is a childhood memory where Marlon was caught stealing a bar of soap. Instead of being beaten, Marlon was marched back into the store and made to confess publicly to the manager. There was no physical punishment—just accountability and embarrassment. He never stole again because the lesson wasn’t fear—it was natural consequence. For Marlon, masculinity is modeled as ownership, public accountability, and long memory.

When asked how he self-reflects, Marlon gives one of the most important answers in the entire series—writing. He describes revisiting a memory of judging someone’s appearance at a formal dinner and realizing, decades later, that the bias revealed more about him than them. Writing forced him to confront that truth—through the written reflections he did not frame himself as a victim or excuse himself—he examined himself and became disciplined. He teaches us that intelligent masculinity requires actively reviewing your own behaviors, identifying our own biases, and correcting internal narratives.

One of the more subtle threads in the interview is the theme of projection. After moving to North Carolina, Marlon recounts neighbors openly admitting they Googled him to verify who he was—unable to reconcile his appearance with his résumé. Instead of exploding in anger, he reframes it and refused to allow every micro-aggression to destabilize him, knowing that anger would consume his peace. This isn’t dismissal of racism—it’s disciplined energy management. He chooses when to engage, when to document, and when to move on. That is power under control.

The playful Mulan-inspired closing questions (“swift as a coursing river,” “force of a great typhoon,” etc.) reveal something deeper. When asked about being swift, Marlon tells a story about nearly losing $250,000 in a trading error — and how composure saved him. When asked about being a raging fire, he speaks about persistence and refusing to accept defeat. When asked about mystery, he tells stories of being scrutinized, Googled, and underestimated — and choosing humor over bitterness.

As Marlon Weems tells us and shows us—strength here is not loud, it is steady.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

* Check out the new Sick of this Shop!

* Check out Banner & Backbone Media’s new BroadBanner network and affiliate calendar — including all Sick of this Shit Publications branded shows!

Sign the Petitions:

* Demand Congress Subpoena Key Figures on the Epstein Case

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Eleanor Anstruther, Rachel @ This Woman Votes, Cris Northern, Sue Ploeger’s script to novel, Eric Lullove, and many others for tuning into my live video with Marlon Weems. Hosted on Sick of this Shit Publications and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“When you die, there’s a birth year, a death year, and the dash in between. How did you define the dash? Did you maximize your time to help other people? Because you can slap your name on a building, but buildings fall. What lasts is how you conducted yourself and who you lifted while you were here.”

~ Bobby Jones ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 12th interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro sits down with retired Navy Commander, Lincoln Square contributor, and founder of Veterans for Responsible Leadership Bobby Jones for one of the most grounded and powerful discussions in the series to date. What begins as a sharp political critique evolves into a deeply personal exploration of fatherhood, emotional regulation, service-based leadership, and legacy. Bobby frames masculinity as reliability, partnership, self-discipline, and generational impact. At the core of his philosophy:

“It’s not about you.”

Early in the discussion, the conversation confronts the political spectacle dominating the news cycle. But rather than getting stuck in outrage, Jones pivots toward something deeper: the collapse of responsibility at the highest levels of power.

From there, we sharpen the series’ thesis: Masculinity without accountability becomes a spectacle, hidden behind a mask—while masculinity with discipline becomes intentional service. And that word—service—defines this entire interview.

When asked about the most influential masculine figure in his life, Bobby does not hesitate: his father. Born into Jim Crow poverty in northern Florida, his father fought his way into college football, played in the NFL during an era without massive contracts, and worked night shifts so he could attend his children’s games.

What stood out the most was the refusal to boast—a humble, yet unapologetic expression of power. Bobby recalls that his father just did the work and never sought any accolades for it—the importance of the actions, not the perceived need for praise that might (or might not) follow. This boiled down into an important contrast for our discussion: lasting masculinity comes when you accomplish first, speak intentionally while performative masculinity is one where you speak constantly and accomplish very little. Bobby names this difference plainly:

“The legacy of a man is not how much he obtains, but who he affects and how.”

That line alone could define the rest of the series.

When pressed for a concrete definition, Bobby offers us a three-part framework:

* Mental fortitude to push forward in difficulty,

* Emotional awareness of your own shortcomings, and

* Commitment to partnership rather than domination.

He calls out a serious, ongoing cultural regression: instead of stepping up as equals to strong women and marginalized communities, too many men attempt to tear others down to protect their own mediocrity—and his message is blunt:

“Step your game up.”

In a society obsessed with ranking, comparison, and grievance—Bobby re-centers masculinity around self and community improvement—not personal entitlement.

A powerful moment emerges when Bobby discusses the so-called “emotional” critique often aimed at women in politics . He uses this to fuel a philosophy we can all adopt:

“Emotion powers courage.”

He takes this a step further and issues a simple challenge: if you cannot understand your own emotions, you cannot lead effectively. He invokes Abraham Lincoln writing condolence letters and Eisenhower facing D-Day—leaders who absolutely felt fear and grief—but processed it in service of others. Emotional regulation and intelligence, not suppression, becomes the dividing line.

Perhaps the most resonant concept of the episode is one Jones returns to with gravity:

The dash.

On every gravestone there is a birth year, a death year, and a dash in between. That dash is the legacy. Bobby left us with a question:

“How did you define the dash?”

It’s simple—and devastating in its clarity. Did you maximize your time to help others? Were you reliable when things fell apart Did you collaborate, or compete destructively? In a culture obsessed with accumulation, Bobby reminds us that wealth fades—while meaningful impact echoes.

Bobby outlines his self-evaluation process in practical terms: writing goals down physically in a notebook, rejection of vague dreaming in favor of defined execution, and the conscious effort to ask himself daily if he get better or did he get worse? Bobby highlights this with a quote from Jimmy Johnson:

“You’re either getting better or you’re getting worse. There is no in-between.”

Growth requires discomfort—discomfort requires humility—humility requires partnership. And without those, masculinity collapses into grievance.

Our discussion closes with levity—sports jokes, Falcon heartbreak, playful reflections—where even those moments reinforce the underlying theme that masculinity requires control, emotional intelligence, and emotional literacy over flatness. Bobby jokes about being underestimated throughout his career and sometimes “sandbagging” intelligence for strategic advantage—and even that story underscores a recurring theme of perception vs. substance. In the end, we find that real strength doesn’t need to announce itself—it shows up consistently, often quietly, and leaves an impact that will resonate through generations. Bobby Jones showcases that unyielding, unapologetic strength as he defines what ends up between the dash.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

* Check out the new Sick of this Shop!

* Check out Banner & Backbone Media’s new BroadBanner network and affiliate calendar — including all Sick of this Shit Publications branded shows!

Sign the Petitions:

* Demand Congress Subpoena Key Figures on the Epstein Case

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you NeuroDivergent Hodgepodge, Noble Blend, Samantha Paige (she/they), Under the Golden Boot, Christina Gurchinoff, and many others for tuning into my live video with Nick Paro and Bobby Jones, presented on Sick of this Shit Publications and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“Intelligent masculinity is really nothing more than common sense. You want respect? You have to give it. You can’t say toxic masculinity means all masculinity is toxic—that’s not what it means. It means stripping away the parts that harm people. You can be strong, protective, rational, and compassionate at the same time.”~ Arturo Dominguez ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 11th interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro sits down with journalist and Decolonized Journalism publisher Arturo Dominguez to examine masculinity through the lenses of culture, community, immigration, race, and family. The conversation reframes intelligent masculinity as communal responsibility rather than rugged individualism, cultural respect rather than strict purity politics, and unbridled joy as resistance in the face of unrelenting chaos.

Our discussion opens with a cultural celebration—Bad Bunny’s halftime performance at the 2026 Super Bowl—before we pivoted into the needed, deeper conversation: the political power of representation.

For Arturo, culture is living memory—its resistance and survival—and survival, especially in marginalized communities, has always required collective strength. He highlights an under-discussed topic in Stater masculinity discourse:

“Latin American and Caribbean cultures, despite machismo elements, often maintain stronger communal frameworks than white Protestant American individualism.”

This becomes the central contrast in our discussion:

* White Christian nationalist masculinity → domination, purity, superiority

* Communal masculinity → protection, responsibility, uplift

Arturo explicitly names how toxic masculinity merges with white nationalism, imperialism, and foreign policy aggression. In our framing, masculinity is more than just a personal stance—it shapes geopolitics.

One of the most important themes throughout our discussion is Arturo’s critique of “bootstrap masculinity.” This old, Protestant ethic of self-reliance—“I don’t need help”—is a cultural distortion that intentionally isolates men from community support systems. He contrasts this with his learned, communal traditions from Cuba; the differences between community-first “Latin American” vs the self-first “Euro American” social structures; and the use of parallel systems supporting interdependence within immigrant neighborhood.

Where rugged individualism says:

“I built this alone.”

Communal masculinity says:

“We survive together.”

Arturo’s reframing fits perfectly with the underlying political thesis that: democracy is community at scale—and fascism is abuse at scale.

Arturo’s reflections on his mother and grandmother provide us the needed emotional anchor. These women shaped his understanding of masculinity through respect and protection. His grandmother’s pride in Afro-Cuban heritage, her insistence on honoring African lineage, and her refusal to erase culture in favor of assimilation illustrate a key point:

“Intelligent masculinity does not erase identity to feel safe. It protects it.”

When asked to define intelligent masculinity, Arturo strips it down to a list of deceptively simple traits: be respectful, be rational, be compassionate, add protection without dominating, and be reflective before reacting. He repeatedly emphasizes that toxic masculinity is not “all masculinity”—it is masculinity stripped of respect—and his framing is refreshingly direct:

“You get what you give in this world. If you want respect, you must give it.”

That golden rule framing—do unto others as you want done unto you—is behavioral discipline.

One of the strongest moments in the interview is Arturo’s discussion of self-reflection. He discusses this through a history of fighting Nazis, defending his family physically, and the responsibility around owning firearms. While also drawing an important line:

Self-reflection is how you ensure you are defending—not becoming the aggressor.

This is critical—as intelligent masculinity requires discipline in force—while shedding the false model of passivity. Arturo’s “three steps ahead” mindset—thinking through consequences before acting—embodies this principle. He offers a powerful insight:

Most of life is outside your control. Your reaction is not.

That distinction may be one of the clearest definitions of intelligent masculinity in the entire series.

Another powerful theme emerges near the end: joy. Even amid all of the political chaos, constructed fears on immigration, targeted threats to Cuba, and rising community instability—Arturo emphasizes finding small moments of happiness. Moments separated from escapism or denial—rather, intentionally using joy as a survival strategy.

In our understanding of intelligent masculinity, joy becomes an integral, intentional discipline—not a vain indulgence—and Arturo Dominguez shows us the power of using it.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

* Check out the new Sick of this Shop!

* Check out Banner & Backbone Media’s new BroadBanner network and affiliate calendar — including all Sick of this Shit Publications branded shows!

Sign the Petitions:

* Demand Congress Subpoena Key Figures on the Epstein Case

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Melissa Corrigan, she/her, Will Fullwood, Yanni Hamburger, Lori Modafferi, Whatzgoinon, and many others for tuning into my live video with Arturo Dominguez and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“I’m a big guy. I take up space whether I want to or not. Intelligent masculinity means understanding what that looks like to other people and moving through the world with that in mind. I don’t get to pretend I’m not threatening just because I don’t mean to be. With the power I have comes the responsibility not to abuse it—especially in a world already designed to cater to my ego.”

~ The Opinionated Ogre ~

Take a dive into The Opinionated Ogre’s backstory — be forewarned this article contains instances of child abuse, both physical and emotional — “I’m Not Your Biological Father” - My Life As A Jerry Springer Episode.

Masculinity In Review

In this 10th interview of Intelligent Masculinity, Nick Paro speaks with The Opinionated Ogre about what it means to live responsibly inside power—physical, social, and structural. Through Ogre’s reflections on childhood trauma, fatherhood, restraint, and self-discipline, we reframe masculinity not as dominance or intimidation, but as constant awareness of impact. Intelligent masculinity, he argues, is knowing what you are capable of—and choosing not to become what harmed you.

One of the most important contributions Ogre makes is his insistence that intent does not erase impact. Because of his size, voice, and presence, Ogre understands that he is perceived as threatening regardless of his internal state. Intelligent masculinity, for him, begins with accepting that reality—not resenting it, denying it, or demanding reassurance. This awareness shapes how he moves through public spaces, speaks to strangers, engages women, and navigates conflict. Masculinity here is not a form of self-expression—it is situational awareness and responsibility.

Ogre repeatedly rejects the idea that strength requires projection.

Instead of volume, he uses restraint.

Instead of intimidation, he uses clarity.

Instead of rage, he uses timing.

A masculinity that understands a critical truth: being capable of harm makes restraint an obligation, not a virtue. The “manager voice,” the deliberate pause, the refusal to escalate—these are not signs of weakness. They are signs of discipline.

One of the most powerful points in the interview is very reminiscent of the interview with Sharad Swaney—here Ogre’s description of fatherhood as a lived experience in counter-programming. Having grown up in abuse and neglect, he made a conscious decision to parent in reverse:

Asking “what would my father do?”

Then doing the opposite.

What begins as effort becomes habit. What begins as discipline becomes instinct. This is intelligent masculinity as training, not identity. It is learned behavior, practiced daily, then reinforced over years.

Ogre is explicit about the danger he poses if he loses control—physically and verbally. This self-awareness and honesty matters here. Rather than denying violent capacity, he accepts the responsibility—confronting it head-on and building systems to contain it: therapy, constant self-reflection, avoidance of substances, and rules for himself that do not bend under stress. This type of masculinity does not confuse restraint with passivity—it understands that it requires active containment.

A deceptively simple but profound theme emerges near the end of the conversation: never act without knowing why. Whether parenting, setting boundaries, or making decisions, Ogre insists that “no” without reason is just inherited authority masquerading as judgment. This insistence on explanation—first to oneself, then to others—is the opposite of authoritarian masculinity. It is reflective, accountable, and corrigible.

The Opinionated Ogre models a masculinity that understands danger—and chooses care instead.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

* Check out the new Sick of this Shit Publications Merch Shop!

* Check out Banner & Backbone Media’s new BroadBanner network and affiliate calendar — including all Sick of this Shit Publications branded shows!

Sign the Petitions:

* Demand Congress Subpoena Key Figures on the Epstein Case

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Beth Cruz, Eric Lullove, Elizabeth Raven, Robert Sawers, Sandra, and many others for tuning into my live video with The Opinionated Ogre and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

We started this series with a thesis:

“Intelligent masculinity is the refusal to outsource accountability onto others—and the discipline to live with the consequences of your actions and values.”

Through the first 3 articles—Masculinity and the Lie of Outsourced Accountability, Who Shapes A Man, and Defining Intelligent Masculinity—we have clarified this definition. Now, we do the heavy lifting: we treat masculinity as an active practice instead of a passive identity. Frederic Poag’s framing provides us with the perfect entry point into this practice—he rejects the modern temptation to treat masculinity as a self-expression. Instead, he describes it as something more—stewardship—and stewardship is always a disciplined practice. It’s the obligation to remain reliable when you’re tired, frustrated, unseen, and un-praised. Frederic says:

“Masculinity that lasts isn’t built in moments of intensity—it’s built in repetition, consistency, and the willingness to be accountable even when no one is applauding.”

That’s the philosophical pivot point: discipline isn’t intensity, it’s continuity. It’s the willingness to be the same person on the boring days too.

Discipline is often purposely misconstrued because fragile masculinity worships the appearance of control while avoiding the internal work required to actually achieve that control. We are living through an age where men are trained to confuse dominance with strength—while ‘discipline’ becomes just another way to control others, rather than regulating one’s self.

So what do we do about it? First, we collapse this confusion into a simple, clear idea outlined by Dr. Eric Lullove:

“Power without restraint is destruction.”

His statement is more than a piece of moral advice—it’s a reality check about what power does when it’s ungoverned and unaccountable. In intelligent masculinity, discipline is what turns power into protection while replacing the harm.

Restraint and self-control aren’t weaknesses—they’re the foundations of the ethical container that keeps strength from becoming a weapon. Restraint and self-control aren’t abstractions either—they’re behavioral. They manifest as living mindfully—finding the balance on the scales between our intelligent mind and our emotion mind—the wise mind—while knowing that that balance is a sliding scale. That scale appears as the pause before the text, the breath before the reply, the ability to slow down in conflict so you don’t punish someone else with your nervous system.

If Dr. Eric gives us the core principle—restraint—Walter Rhein gives us the method—repair. A disciplined man doesn’t just avoid harm. He knows what to do when harm happens anyway. Naming the simplest practice that ego-based masculinity tries to outlaw, Walter says:

“An unqualified ‘I’m sorry’ is one of the strongest things a man can say.”

What makes that “strong” isn’t the phrase itself—it’s the refusal to slip out of consequence with qualifiers, excuses, or counterattacks. An unqualified apology is discipline because it demands you stand in reality without reaching for a mask. And this is where the series’ thesis becomes physical: refusing to outsource accountability means you don’t dump your guilt onto someone else through defensiveness. You carry it. You own it. You repair what you can. You change what you must.

Sharad Swaney’s story adds something that many men often forget: discipline is not just a skill—it’s also a survival response to instability. When you inherit disorder, you either reproduce it or you become intentional. Sharad said it plainly:

“I had to figure out how to be my own father.”

That isn’t motivational. It’s costly. But it produces a particular kind of masculine clarity: the recognition and acceptance that nobody is coming to do the inner work for you. Discipline becomes the bridge between who you were shaped to be and who you choose to become. Sharad’s arc reinforces the core theme of intelligent masculinity: responsibility without shame. You don’t punish yourself into growth—you train yourself into it.

Lawrence Winnerman gives us the daily nuances of that training. He refuses the idea that intelligent masculinity can be reduced to a tidy definition—it has to be lived, chosen, and practiced. This texture is best said in Lawrence’s words:

“I think the word intelligent masculinity is more of a theme than it is a definition… it’s more about how you live your life… It’s about the choices you make each day…”

Then he brings it down into a concrete behavioral contrast: the difference between domination and coaching; between humiliation and repair. Offering us this contrast, Lawrence says:

“It’s taking a different approach that’s more calm, more collected… instead of… coaches grabbing my hockey mask and getting in my face… [you] put your hand on the kid’s shoulder and say… ‘Okay, so you made a mistake… So how can we fix this?’”

That is discipline as relational ethics. It’s not about being “nice” or “soft.” It’s about rejecting the idea that power must be expressed through fear. The disciplined man doesn’t reach for dominance when someone fails—he reaches for instruction, calibration, and stability. Lawrence’s other practice is deceptively hard: listening. Putting this into words, Lawrence says:

“Even if you don’t agree, listen… Listen twice as often as you speak.”

Listening is discipline because it blocks the ego’s favorite move: turning every conversation into a performance.

Evan Fields forces the next step: discipline can’t remain a private practice. If masculinity is only an internal self-concept, it can stay untested forever. Refusing that escape, Evan says:

“Values create obligations, not identities.”

Obligations mean friction. They mean cost. They mean showing up when it would be easier to posture online or retreat into cynicism. Evan names that temptation directly when he says:

“Cynicism is avoidance dressed as intelligence.”

Discipline is what keeps moral seriousness from dissolving into baseless commentary. It makes participation possible without spectacle—because disciplined masculinity doesn’t need to be seen to be real.

Tim Fullerton layers in an essential civic dimension: discipline isn’t just personal. It’s cultural. It’s narrative. It’s what we normalize and what we refuse to normalize—especially for men. Tim describes his mission using clear behavioral terms: reach men, move them, and build something that changes outcomes. Backing this up, Tim says:

“We are building content to appeal to men, which we hopefully think will move more of them to our side on the left.”

That’s not just strategy. That’s accountability at scale: refusing to outsource the work of persuasion, refusing to abandon men to grievance ecosystems, refusing to treat masculinity as someone else’s problem. This is one of the heaviest philosophical points in the whole project: a man’s discipline is not only what he does when tempted—it’s also what he refuses to let become normal around him.

With that in mind, what is the ‘philosophical heavy lifting’ of discipline?

Simply put: discipline is the mechanism by which values become consequences you can live with. Without discipline, our values become mere decorations. With discipline, values become structure—reliable, repeatable, and real.

Frederic Poag’s calm becomes the emotional container.

Dr. Eric Lullove’s restraint becomes the power container.

Walter Rhein’s apology becomes the repair container.

Sharad Swaney’s self-fathering becomes the agency container.

Lawrence Winnerman’s daily choices become the practice container.

Evan Fields’ obligations become the civic container.

Tim Fullerton’s narrative work becomes the cultural container.

In other words: discipline is not just one thing—it is the full architecture of accountable masculinity.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

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* B. Cognition Labs

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“For a long time, I thought putting myself first was selfish. Becoming a father taught me that taking care of yourself is not selfish when other people depend on you. I can do more good now, with less risk to myself and my family, because I finally accepted that survival is part of responsibility.”

~ Kristofer Goldsmith ~

Masculinity In Review

In this 9th interview of the Intelligent Masculinity series, Nick Paro sits down with friend, Army combat Veteran, and anti-fascist organizer Kristofer Goldsmith to examine masculinity under real pressure. Through Kris’ reflections—on trauma, mentorship, power, justice, fatherhood, and recovery—we begin reframing the masculinity conversation as disciplined action rather than raw aggression. Intelligent mascuilinity, as Kris argues, is the ability to channel his emotions—especially rage and anger—into constructive forces. Then, taking responsibility not just being on offense for justice, but also surviving that fight.

One of the most important reframes in our discussion is Kris’ definition of power. He draws a sharp line between:

* Physical dominance (violence, intimidation, and impulsive aggression)

* Structural power (law, policy, organizing, and leverage).

Kris winds up being very explicit: the ability to intimidate or hurt someone is not impressive. The ability to organize people, change laws, and impose consequences without violence is real power. This directly dismantles the Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, Theo Von style masculinity myth that strength equals the willingness to fight. In Kris’ world, discipline—not brutality—is what moves history.

Kris’ description of his mentor, Chuck Cutolo, is one of the clearest illustrations of intelligent masculinity in the entire series. Chuck is described as not physically imposing, not performatively masculine, comfortable with himself, and effective beyond measure. By professionalizing Kris’ advocacy, Chuck transformed rage into results—helping turn his lived trauma into meaningful and effective legislation that change the lives of millions of Veterans. Masculinity here is competence, confidence, and comfort without armor. Kris’ experience reinforces a recurring truth within this series: men grow best under guidance, not dominance.

One of the most powerful aspects of this discussion is Kris’ refusal to sanitize anger—he owns it—openly acknowledging his hatred, rage, violent impulses, and growing from the moral failures of his younger self. Instead of glorifying the anger, he explains how it had to be contained and redirected. The most powerful metaphor of the episode is his distinction between wildfire and hearth: unchecked rage destroys indiscriminately—while channeled rage forges tools. Kris channelled this rage and turned it into the framing for his non-profits, Veterans Fighting Fascism and Task Force Butler, and the creation of the Antifascist Book Club—it is rage disciplined into education, organizing, and protection. This ends up being one of the clearest articulations of intelligent masculinity to date: emotion is the fuel and discipline decides what it burns.

A turning point in our conversation comes when Kris describes hitting total collapse—financially, physically, and emotionally—after years of relentless activism. This adds a crucial addition to the overall series thesis:

Accountability does not mean martyrdom.

Kris’ recovery—intensive outpatient care, stepping back from nonprofits, diversifying income, and prioritizing personal safety—represents a maturation of masculinity. Fighting for justice while refusing to protect yourself is not noble—it is unsustainable. Step into fatherhood crystalized this lesson—becoming responsible for another life forced Kris to confront a truth many men resist:

Taking care of yourself is not selfish when others depend on you.

Goldsmith’s reflections on becoming a girl dad add emotional gravity to the episode. To him, fatherhood becomes the forcing function that causes us to reshape and recalculate risk tolerance, work boundaries, self-preservation, and long-term thinking. In this, masculinity shifts from an endurance race to a journey of continuity. The goal is no longer to absorb infinite damage for a cause—but to remain present, alive, and effective over time.

Kris’ closing reflections on his experiences with PTSD and entering the public sphere’s are among the most powerful moments of the series. He compares recovery to a motorcycle wreck and road-rash: repeated, painful cleaning that hurts worse than the original injury—but prevents infections while allowing healing. This is masculinity stripped of the mythology: not a cosplay of stoicism, not trauma commodification, and no false hero narrative. Just brutal honesty about what it costs to survive—and why survival still matters.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

* Check out the new Sick of this Shit Publications Merch Shop!

* Check out Banner & Backbone Media’s new BroadBanner network and affiliate calendar — including all Sick of this Shit Publications branded shows!

Sign the Petitions:

* Demand Congress Subpoena Key Figures on the Epstein Case

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

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Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Debbie Hupp, Cris Northern, TEOTWAWKI, Jack, Patrick Kenny, and many others for tuning into my live video with Kristofer Goldsmith and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

~Nick Paro

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“There is a massive void in how men are being spoken to, and it’s being filled by people who are feeding young men a lie—that being a man means being rich, jacked, dominant, and cruel. If you have a platform and you don’t try to counter that, you’re letting it happen. We don’t need one group to succeed—we need hundreds, thousands of men showing a different version of masculinity, one rooted in kindness, accountability, and actually giving a damn about other people.”

~ Tim Fullerton ~

Masculinity In Review

This conversation with Tim Fullerton sits at a critical junction in the Intelligent Masculinity series. Where previous episodes explored ego, discipline, authenticity, accountability, patience, stewardship, and civic responsibility, this discussion is all about influence — what it means to intentionally and publicly model masculinity, especially when you have a large reach, power, and platforms. Tim approaches masculinity as a set of daily choices: how you treat people, what you normalize, and what you refuse to excuse. His perspective is shaped by family legacy, grief, parenthood, and his recent work building Find Out Podcast into Find Out Media as a purposeful way to replace the destructive narratives targeting young men online.

Tim’s understanding of masculinity begins at home. His father and grandfather modeled kindness, restraint, and curiosity about the world — values that shaped him as much through their strengths as through their failures. Importantly, Tim does not romanticize his upbringing while speaking candidly about watching his father struggle with alcoholism later in life — and how that experience taught him the cost of unprocessed grief and avoidance. Rather than turning this into bitterness, Tim reframes it as a responsibility: to recognize patterns early and refuse to pass them on. Here we can easily see, Intelligent masculinity is not perfection — it is awareness paired with deliberate interruption.

A recurring theme throughout our interview is Tim’s rejection of cruelty masquerading as toughness. He draws a sharp contrast between masculinity that relies on fear, slurs, and hierarchy — and masculinity grounded in empathy, curiosity, and respect for difference. Tim’s definition of intelligent, or positive, masculinity is strikingly simple: be kind, be supportive, and don’t punch down. In an online environment flooded with grievance-based masculinity, Tim positions kindness not as weakness, but as discipline — the ongoing effort to lead with humanity even when anger would be easier.

As a father, Tim is acutely aware that masculinity is absorbed long before it is explained — our kids learn and pick-up on way more than we ever give them credit for. He emphasizes the importance of purposeful exposure — travel, diversity, conversation — as needed and essential lived experiences. Showing his son that difference is normal, safe, and interesting is the foundations of moral understanding. This lesson reinforces a core theme of our series: men do not raise children through lectures, but through presence and example.

As we continue, Tim and I discuss the importance of his work with Find Out Media as more than just content creation — instead, as counter-programming. He is explicit about the vacuum in masculine models being filled by figures like Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes — and equally explicit that this vacuum exists because too many men on the left have avoided masculinity conversations altogether. Intelligent masculinity, in Tim’s view, demands active participation — if you have reach, you have responsibility — and neutrality is not an option when young men are being actively radicalized by false promises of dominance, wealth, and entitlement.

One of the most human moments in our conversation comes when Tim admits he is not especially good at structured self-reflection. His mind moves constantly — a constantly moving river where stillness is hard. Yet rather than turning that into self-criticism, he articulates a forward-looking ethic: live your values while minimizing regret and allow yourself grace as a human being who will make mistakes. This aligns cleanly with the series thesis: accountability is not self-punishment — it is ownership for the consequences of our actions and values.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

Sign the Petitions:

* Demand Congress Subpoena Key Figures on the Epstein Case

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Submit questions and artwork for Nick and Walter to respond to and showcase on Notes of the Week:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Caro Henry, Natasha K., Noble Blend, Cris Northern, P. J. Schuster, and many others for tuning into my live video with Tim Fullerton and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

Check out Banner & Backbone Media’s new BroadBanner network and affiliate calendar — including all shows scheduled on Sick of this Shit Publications!

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

~Nick Paro

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“The strongest men I know aren’t loud, reactive, or constantly proving something. They’re calm. And that calm creates safety. People watch what you tolerate, how you handle pressure, how you respond when you’re tired or frustrated. That’s the real mentorship. Masculinity that lasts isn’t built in moments of intensity—it’s built in repetition, consistency, and the willingness to be accountable even when no one is applauding.”

~ Frederic Poag ~

Masculinity In Review

In this seventh discussion of Intelligent Masculinity, Frederic Poag and I explore masculinity through the lens of stewardship rather than self-expression. Through reflections on emotional regulation, community responsibility, mentorship, and generational continuity, the conversation builds on the overall theme that masculinity is something sustained over time — not proven in singular moments. Fred argued that intelligent masculinity is calm, accountable, and oriented toward leaving people and systems better than you found them.

One of the most important contributions from today’s discussion is Fred’s rejection of masculinity as a project of self-expression — centering his view of masculinity through a lens of stoicism — while breaking down the myths of identity performance, emotional release, and public signaling. Fred frames masculinity as stewardship — the obligation to care for people, spaces, and systems that will outlast you. Quietly dismantling a modern masculine trap: the idea that being “authentic” means unfiltered expression. Frederic argues instead that maturity requires containment, not repression — knowing what to express, when, and for what purpose.

A major through-line of our discussion is Fred’s emphasis on emotional regulation. Not emotional suppression, not emotional dumping — regulation. Fred is very explicit when reminding us that unchecked emotion — especially anger — does not make men honest, it makes them unreliable. Intelligent masculinity demands that men learn to process and evaluate our emotions internally before it is externalized onto partners, coworkers, or communities. Fred’s assessment builds directly on the prior conversations — Dr. Eric Lullove teaches patience and Evan Fields offers direction — adding a sense of containment and calibration where emotion becomes information, not instruction.

Frederic repeatedly returns to the idea of calm — not as temperament, but as earned stability. In this framing, calm is not passivity or disengagement; instead, it is the ability to remain present under pressure, to de-escalate rather than dominate, and to create safety instead of spectacle. This is masculinity that does not need to announce itself — calm men do not need to prove strength because they produce stability around them.

Another defining aspect of our discussion is Fred’s focus on mentorship as the responsibility to model behavior worth copying. Men cannot demand emotional maturity, accountability, or discipline from others if they refuse to embody it themselves. This aligns perfectly with the series’ recurring emphasis on modeling over messaging. The knowledge that masculinity is contagious — for better or worse.

Fred offers direct, harsh critiques on reaction-based masculinity. When men define themselves primarily in opposition —to politics, culture, other men — they become reactive rather than principled. Fred advocates for masculinity rooted in values that do not require an enemy, a masculinity that does not feed on conflict, does not require constant validation, and does not collapse when attention fades. It is built to last because it is not built against something, it is built for something.

One of the more sobering insights of the conversation is Fred’s insistence that accountability is not seasonal and being a good man in moments of clarity is easy. Intelligent masculinity is proven in repetition, in fatigue, in boredom, and often through long stretches without recognition. This whole conversation with Fred reinforces the series’ long-view approach: masculinity is not a breakthrough — it is a maintenance discipline.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

Sign the Petitions:

* Demand Congress Subpoena Key Figures on the Epstein Case

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Submit questions and artwork for Nick and Walter to respond to and showcase on Notes of the Week:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you The Opinionated Ogre, Courtney 🇨🇦, Denise Palesch, Sylvia Rivers, Bluesin’ Bob, and many others for tuning into my live video with Frederic Poag and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

~Nick Paro

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

Across the first six Intelligent Masculinity conversations, a clear understanding has emerged — when masculinity is left undefined, it always defaults to power without responsibility. It is clear that providing definition to masculinity is not merely a semantic exercise — it is a moral obligation. As Shane Yirak put it early in the series, masculinity cannot be allowed to float above consequence:

“If masculinity can’t be tied directly to consequences, then it’s not worth talking about.”

His insistence sets the terms for a clear understanding — a masculinity that cannot be named precisely cannot be practiced intentionally — and a masculinity that cannot be practiced intentionally will always be an unprepared performance instead. This performance is where true harm hides — it is a mask accepted by these men as they allow others to assume the responsibility for consequences of their actions and values.

Sharad Swaney articulated this risk from a younger vantage point, naming how easily men adopt an identity before earning it:

“It’s easy to say the right things and still avoid the hard ones.”

That gap — between language and behavior — is where fragile masculinity thrives by allowing confidence and false bravado to replace coherent values, a false identity in the shape of a mask to replace discipline, and unwavering certainty replaces mindful reflection.

Lawrence Winnerman pushed our understanding further by rejecting the idea that masculinity needs rigid boundaries at all — without abandoning principles. His understanding is not anchored in false certainty — rather in anchored honesty:

“Authenticity isn’t about knowing exactly who you are. It’s about staying honest while you’re still figuring it out.”

This is an important distinction when discussing the truth of intelligent masculinity — it is not rigid, and it certainly is not vague. It allows for uncertainty of thought without abandoning accountability. What intelligent masculinity refuses is mythology — the idea that we must always be defended, the victims, rather than something which needs to be examined. Walter Rhein named the cost of that mythology directly:

“Masculinity collapses when it requires other people to abandon reality on your behalf.”

When masculinity depends on constant denials — denial of harm, denial of truth, denial of others’ experiences, denial of consequence — it becomes as brittle as early spring’s ice, filled with cracks just below the surface. Any simple challenge to our perceived authority becomes an attack while accountability feels like humiliation and violent escalation replaces thoughtful reflection.

This is why Walter places such emphasis on a definition grounded in repair rather than burdened by defensiveness. His model of masculinity is one of clarity, not ego.

“An unqualified ‘I’m sorry’ is one of the strongest things a man can say.”

That statement only makes sense if masculinity has been redefined away from dominance and instead aimed toward responsibility. In a vague, fragile masculine framework, an apology is made to feel like a weakness — whereas, in a defined masculinity that apology becomes an unqualified ownership for the consequences of our actions and values.

Dr. Eric Lullove further pins down our definition to its most practical concept: regulation and reflection:

“Power without restraint is destruction.”

Eric consistently resists flashy, loud, or absolute definitions of masculinity. Instead, he frames it as integration — patient intellect over reactive impulse and presence with purpose over performance.

“Strength is measured. It’s not loud.”

This reframing matters because much of modern masculinity confuses intensity for authenticity. Rage is treated as honesty — speed is treated as decisiveness — control is treated as leadership — pinning down a definition disrupts those substitutions.

This is where Evan Fields came in to complete the defining arc — forcing masculinity out of the internal and into the public. His contribution is a decisive one: masculinity is not proven by what you believe; rather, by what you participate in. Evan rejects masculinity as a private identity project altogether — instead, he sees masculinity as civic:

“Values create obligations, not identities.”

Evan’s reframing removes the final escape hatch — if masculinity is something you are, it can easily remain untested. Whereas, if masculinity is something you do, it must survive friction — community, disagreement, risk, and consequence. Evan is explicit about the danger of intellectual detachment masquerading as wisdom:

“Cynicism is avoidance dressed as intelligence.”

Definition without participation is performance — participation without accountability is chaos. Intelligent masculinity required both — and our communities are where that balance is tested. This is taken a step further to include one of the most common ‘masculine’ emotions — anger — and Evan made sure we understood the stakes around it:

“Anger can clarify injustice, but anger without direction becomes destructive.”

Contained, focused anger becomes a fuel for our moral energy. Uncontrolled, wild anger becomes an identity — and this identity becomes a mask, a flash point where accountability dissolves.

Across all six conversations, a shared definition of intelligent masculinity begins to crystallize — not as a slogan, but as a set of commitments: accountability over excuse, reflection over reflex, discipline over posture, relationship over hierarchy, and growth over myth. Or, as Shane Yirak framed it more bluntly:

“If you don’t stop and examine what you believe, you’ll just become a vessel for whatever shaped you.”

That is the danger of vagueness. Undefined masculinity does not stay neutral — it absorbs whatever incentives surround it — power, fear, ideology, and grievance rush in to fill the void.

Adding clear definition, by contrast, creates friction which forces men to ask not whether they feel strong, but how that strength is expressed and who bears the cost. This is why intelligent masculinity insists on language. Words matter because they set boundaries. They determine what is permitted, what is challenged, and what is owned.

Masculinity that cannot be clearly named will always default to domination.

Masculinity that can be clearly named must answer for itself — it is something we own.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

Submit questions and artwork for Nick and Walter to respond to and showcase:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Sign the Move-On Petitions:

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

~Nick Paro

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“Challenge yourself to do better and be more”

~ Evan Fields

Masculinity In Review

In this sixth discussion of Intelligent Masculinity, Evan Fields and I examine masculinity as more than a private identity, it is a civic obligation. Building on earlier conversations about ego, discipline, authenticity, accountability, and patience — this discussion reframes masculinity as the willingness to participate — ethically, consistently, and visibly — in community life. Intelligent masculinity, as Evan argues, is not loud virtue signaling or detached self-improvement, but moral courage expressed through sustained action.

Masculinity as Participation, Not Posture

One of Evan’s most important contributions is his rejection of masculinity as a purely internal project — he challenges the idea that being a “good man” is just something you feel or identify as. Instead, masculinity is an action word — it is something you do — especially when participation is inconvenient, uncomfortable, or risky. Evan reframes masculinity as showing up to community spaces; engaging in the local (and national) civic process; and being held accountable in public, not just in private. The type of masculinity Evan describes is a reliable presence, not a peacock performing.

Morality With the Risks

A defining strength of Evan is his insistence that courage is not a self-destructive act. He clearly distinguishes between two types of masculinity: a reckless masculinity that seeks conflict for identity and an intelligent masculinity that accepts risk without mythologizing it. In Evan’s framing, courage is about being responsible with our fears while emphasizing self-reflection as a way to reject the escape-hatch of shifting consequences from ourselves to others — he argues that masculinity refuses to outsource morality.

Anger, Direction, and Containment

The conversation does not shy away from anger — and it refuses to sanctify it. Evan provides us with a critical distinction: anger can clarify injustice, but anger without direction becomes destructive. Intelligent masculinity does not suppress anger — it contains and aims it.

Community as the Testing Ground

A recurring theme in our discussion is that masculinity is best measured in groups and relationships. Evan emphasizes that community exposes: whether your values hold under pressure, whether personal accountability is consistent, and whether men correct each other — or stay silent. Private virtue is easy — public consistency is not. This echoes and expands on earlier episodes where Shane dismantles the ego, Sharad builds our discipline, Lawrence lives through authenticity, Walter enforces and models accountability, Eric regulates power with patience, and Evan tests all of it in the open.

Reflection On Purpose

The conversation also brings out a key focus point for Evan — self-reflection and self-examination — which is becoming his superpower. It’s a key point in how he approaches daily growth. He purposely provides space for evaluating and understanding what his actions were during the day, what the consequences are of the actions — good, bad, neutral — and how he can learn from those different outcomes to be a better man.

Evan argues that masculinity matures when men stop asking:

“Am I good?”

And start asking:

“Am I useful?”

This question pulls masculinity out of self-absorption, self-pity, and self-destruction — and into service, responsibility, and continuity.

Where Evan Takes Us In Our Understanding of Intelligent Masculinity

This sixth discussion with Evan Fields shows us reflective masculinity in practice, building on the lessons we’ve learned from Shane Yirak, Sharad Swaney, Lawrence Winnerman, Walter Rhein, and Dr. Eric Lullove — adding to our discussion that:

* Masculinity is measured in participation

* Values create obligations, not identities

* Cynicism is avoidance dressed as intelligence

* Courage requires strategy, not spectacle

* Community is where masculinity is tested

Evan models a masculinity that is ethically serious, civically engaged, and unwilling to hide behind detachment.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

Submit questions and artwork for Nick and Walter to respond to and showcase on Notes of the Week:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

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Sign the Move-On Petitions:

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Rachel @ This Woman Votes, Sushipheliac 🍣🍥🍣, Cat Wilson RN, Ms.Yuse, RuleofLawRules, and many others for tuning into my live video with Evan Fields and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

~Nick Paro

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

Across the first five Intelligent Masculinity conversations, one reality has surfaced clearly again and again—masculinity does not begin with ideology, dominance, or certainty. It begins with influence—sometimes nurturing, sometimes absent, sometimes harmful, sometimes contradictory—the work of masculinity is not denying that inheritance, but refusing to outsource our accountability once we recognize it.

Shane Yirak described his father not as an idealized figure, but as a man who changed—and that distinction and understanding towards growth mattered more than a mythologized perfection. As Shane recounted,

“Our fathers weren’t perfect. They learned. They softened. They modeled accountability and partnership.”

This framing from Shane immediately disrupts the heroic, self-made mythology often attached to masculinity. In Shane and our experiences, true strength is not about being right the first time—it is about being willing to grow, through acceptance and learning from both our successes and failures.

For Sharad Swaney, this story of inheritance looks drastically different. His father’s absence—shaped by addiction and instability—did not eliminate masculine formation; instead, it intensified it. Sharad told us:

“I had to figure out how to be my own father.”

There is no romanticism in Sharad’s statement—it is a raw acknowledgment of necessity. Sharad did not inherit a stable model of masculinity—he inherited a vacuum. Yet, what matters most in Sharad’s story is not that this absence existed; rather, that he refused to let it become an excuse for avoidance or cruelty. Sharad names the cost of unexamined inheritance directly:

“Finding myself meant rejecting the idea that masculinity was about hiding emotions. That model didn’t survive reality.”

Lawrence Winnerman’s personal reflections further complicate this picture—while expanding on the lessons learned from Sharad—by rejecting certainty itself as a masculine anchor. Rather than pointing to a singular role model, Lawrence emphasized living without rigid gender roles or policing—and without pretending that clarity arrives fully formed. In Lawrence’s own words:

“Authenticity isn’t something you figure out once. It’s a daily practice.”

Fragile masculinity often clings to this false sense of certainty as a protective shield—while Lawrence’s posture rejects that notion as a failing impulse. Masculinity, in his framing, is not about knowing who you are at all times—it is about remaining accountable while you are still becoming—a masculinity focused on a reflective growth.

Walter Rhein then took these threads and tied them together into a hard boundary:

“Masculinity collapses when it requires other people to abandon [their] reality for you.”

Walter’s understanding is critical in our larger discussion because it exposes how this ego-driven masculinity maintains itself—not through strength, but through escalation and domination. When accountability threatens the self-myth, fragile masculinity responds with denial, gaslighting, and coercion. Repair and growth become impossible because truth itself is treated as an enemy. Against that, Walter offers a radically simple, daily practice of voluntary accountability:

“An apology isn’t weakness. ‘I’m sorry’ only becomes powerful when it’s honest and unqualified.”

That simple, yet powerful practice—identifying and accepting one’s own share of harm, then naming it without any escape clauses—becomes an important sorting mechanism for where we focus our emotional energy. Those capable of accountability reciprocate with empathy and understand, while those invested in domination reveal themselves as they demand you apologize only ever on their behalf.

Finally, Dr. Eric Lullove brings the longest view—speaking as a physician, father, and partner—he reframes masculinity away from urgency and towards intentional, measured presence. Eric said:

“Power without restraint is destruction.”

The masculinity Eric described is not a reactive one—it is patient and proactive. He rejects the idea that speed equals strength, arguing instead that maturity is the ability to pause, regulate, and choose deliberately. Eric tied it all together when he spoke an important truth:

“Leadership begins with self-regulation.”

What emerges across these first five conversations is not a single masculine archetype—instead, we see a shared refusal to outsource responsibility where fathers matter, absence matters, women matter, mentors matter, people matter, and failures matter—and that inheritance, no matter how formative, is not destiny. It requires constant vigilance and daily practice—accountability begins where explanation ends. Shane framed it plainly:

“If you don’t stop and reflect, you just become a vessel for whatever shaped you—and that’s not strength.”

This powerful statement is the hinge point of intelligent masculinity—you do not choose what has shaped you—but you are fully responsible for what you carry forward. Masculinity is not proven by suffering, absence, or hardship—it is proven by what a man refuses to excuse once he understands those forces—it is proven through the discipline to live with the consequences of his actions and values.

The self-made man is a myth—the self-governed man is not.

Inheritance becomes just the starting line—not the finish.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

Submit questions and artwork for Nick and Walter to respond to and showcase:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Sign the Move-On Petitions:

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

~Nick Paro

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

“Power without restraint is destruction.”

~ Dr. Eric Lullove

In this fifth interview of Intelligent Masculinity, I (Nick Paro) and Dr. Eric Lullove explore masculinity from a slightly different angle than before — as patience in action. Through reflections on Eric’s own experiences with fatherhood, medicine, loss, partnership, and self-regulation, we reframe strength as restraint, leadership as modeling, and accountability as an internal discipline rather than a performance for the public. Eric provides another dimension to intelligent masculinity — not through urgency or dominance; rather, a consistent, measured presence over time.

Masculinity as Measured Response, Not Reflex

One of Eric’s core ideas is his insistence that the best decision is sometimes no decision at all. Drawing from decades of life experience — and reinforced by his medical training — Eric reframes masculinity away from impulsivity and toward practiced patience. The ability to pause, process, and wait is not weakness — it is maturity.

Eric stands in direct opposition to fragile, reaction-based masculinity, which treats speed as strength and hesitation as failure. His masculinity is slower, calmer, and far more reliable.

From Aggressive Authority to Nurturing Leadership

Eric’s reflections on his father — and later on becoming his own role model after his father’s death — mark a significant evolution away from the old male authority structures. He names a realization many men reach too late: you do not need to be aggressive to be respected.

In his roles as physician, husband, stepfather, and father — Eric consciously chose to move away from the “aggressive male” archetype and toward the supportive, stabilizing presence. Patients don’t need domination — children don’t need fear — families don’t need volatility. This reframing positions masculinity as nourishing without being permissive — firm without being threatening.

Partnership as Emotional Grounding, Not Emotional Dumping

A recurring strength of our conversation is the clarity around partnership. Eric describes his wife not as an emotional crutch, but as an equal grounding force—someone he reflects with, not unloads onto. This is a subtle, yet important distinction which helps relationships evolve into partnerships.

It’s the difference between “you make me happy” and “you add to my happiness”.

Intelligent masculinity does not outsource emotional regulation onto others. It builds mutual containment, where both partners are responsible for their own emotional processing while supporting one another’s stability. This is masculinity that respects intimacy without dependency.

Patience as a Learned Skill

One of the most important lessons Eric demonstrates to us is that patience did not come naturally — it came late. Only after getting into his fifties has he begun to fully understand patience as: internal calm, strategic restraint, and emotional bandwidth management.

Rather than reacting to every stimulus — social media, politics, family conflict — Eric practices deliberate delay. A pause before the text. A breath before the response. A moment of wellness before judgment. This reinforces one of the critical themes for the overall series: impulse is not authenticity and regulation is not repression.

Men, Community, and Emotional Literacy

Building on some of the themes introduced by Sharad Swaney during his interview, Eric strongly emphasizes the idea of men needing other men. He reminds us of the necessity for male spaces where vulnerability is allowed — where men can cry, process, and be held accountable without ridicule. Eric argues that emotional isolation is one of the core failures of modern masculinity; whereas, intelligent masculinity is communal, not solitary.

Family, Time, and the Long View

The discussion of multigenerational family — spanning children to centenarians —adds another dimension to our discussion. Eric and my’s reflections make one thing clear: masculinity is not about optimizing youth. It is about stewarding continuity. A man’s legacy is not one of wealth or dominance — it is presence, memory, and values carried forward. Eric presents a lasting masculinity which counters the hyper-accelerated, consumption-driven masculinity pushed by our modern culture.

Intelligence as Integration, Not Suppression

When Eric defines intelligent masculinity, he resists a single sentence — and that resistance is instructive. For him, intelligent masculinity is: integration of yin and yang, use of intellect over impulse, strength without cruelty, and compassion without collapse. He rejects the false binary that empathy weakens masculinity. Instead, he argues that wholeness strengthens and completes it.

Modeling Over Messaging

As a physician, Eric delivers one of his most practical insights: you cannot tell people how to live if you refuse to live that way yourself. This applies to medicine, fatherhood, masculinity, and leadership alike. Intelligent masculinity is demonstrated, not declared. A man knows how to: own their decisions, own their failures, remove toxic influences, and accept consequences without resentment.

His clarity is uncompromising: adulthood begins when men stop blaming the world and start governing themselves.

“It’s nobody else’s life to live but yours.”

Where Dr. Eric Takes Us In Our Understanding of Intelligent Masculinity

This fifth discussion with Dr. Eric Lullove adds his unique layer of understanding to the previous discussions with Shane Yirak, Sharad Swaney, Lawrence Winnerman, and Walter Rhein — adding that:

* Patience is a masculine discipline

* Strength is measured, not loud

* Leadership begins with self-regulation

* Partnership requires mutual grounding

* Accountability must be lived, not preached

Eric embodies a masculinity that is calm, deliberate, emotionally literate, and durable over time.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

Submit questions and artwork for Nick and Walter to respond to and showcase:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Sign the Move-On Petitions:

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Evan Fields, Stephanie G Wilson, PhD, Noble Blend, Cris, Assemblywoman Debra Mazzarelli, and many others for tuning into my live video with Eric Lullove and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

~Nick Paro

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

You can be loved even as a flawed person.

~ Walter Rhein

In this 4th interview for the Intelligent Masculinity series, I (Nick Paro) and Walter Rhein dive into a raw conversation about abuse, accountability, fatherhood, and the moral courage required to break generational trauma cycles. Through Walter’s personal storytelling and our reflective analysis, we further clarify that intelligent masculinity is not about perfection or dominance — it is about refusing to outsource accountability, setting immovable boundaries, and choosing not to pass harm forward.

This re-enforces the root concept of what we are finding intelligent masculinity to be, it is:

The refusal to outsource personal accountability onto others — and the discipline to live with the consequences of your values and actions.

Abuse, Denial, and the Cost of “Benefit of the Doubt”

Walter begins our discussion with a recounting of childhood abuse at the hands of his father — through a series of incidents framed as “accidents,” Walter highlights the failing of fragile masculinity: harm followed by denial, justification, and the demand that others collude in the lie.

The recurring excuse — “I didn’t intend to hurt you” — becomes a recurring moral failure. The excuse of intent is used as a shield against accountability; which becomes a shield for protecting a system of abuse. Walter raises an important challenge to the reflexive impulse — “give the benefit of the doubt” — even when there is no doubt or benefit to give.

He names this instinct plainly: when applied uncritically, it enables abuse, reinforces hierarchy, and protects power rather than people. Intelligent masculinity refuses that bargain.

Accountability Without Escape Clauses

A defining moment of the conversation is the shared rejection of intent-based morality.

My framing, thanks to Yoda — “Do or do not. There is no try” — is a simple ethical standard. If harm occurs, accountability follows. Period. Full stop.

I see this interview as an expansion of a foundational theme within these discussions:

You are responsible for the consequences of your actions, not just the story you tell yourself about them.

Walter’s refusal to accept a narrative based on a lie from his father is not from a place of bitterness — it is from moral clarity and self-worth. Healing cannot begin until truth is acknowledged — where apologies are the entry point to repair.

Breaking the Cycle: Fatherhood as Moral Choice

Walter’s experiences have allowed him to make the conscious decision to parent differently — to never draw blood, to never excuse recklessness, to never hide behind denial — is one of the clearest examples of intelligent masculinity in action. This is a masculinity defined not by our sufferings, but by what we refuse to pass on to ourselves or the next generation.

Walter makes a subtle, but very important point: children remember. They internalize more than just our actions — they internalize how we, as adults, respond to our own mistakes. Walter’s willingness to apologize to his children, to name wrongdoing plainly, is a conscious choice to living as the counter-example to the model he was given.

Masculinity Without Mythology

Walter then gives us a sharp analysis of ego-driven masculinity. He describes and breaks down the constructs around fragile, heroic self-myths — the demand that others deny reality to preserve our own.

When accountability threatens the myth, the response is escalation: gaslighting, emotional manipulation, and coercion.

Walter and I land on a clear conclusion: Masculinity collapses when it requires other people to abandon reality on your behalf. True strength — of character, of morals, of values — by contrast, survives exposure and consequences.

Reflection, Repair, and the Practice of Saying “I’m Sorry”

One of the most constructive sections of the conversation is Walter’s practical model for self-reflection and conflict repair.

By identifying his own share of wrongdoing — no matter how small — and apologizing without qualification, Walter discovered a powerful sorting mechanism: there are people capable of accountability reciprocate — an apology that leads to mutual growth — while the people invested in domination reveal themselves for who they are.

This practice transforms an apology from submission into opening the door to mutual clarity — “I’m sorry” becomes an act of strength, not weakness — because it is voluntary, honest, and grounded in self-respect.

Where Walter Takes Us In Our Understanding of Masculinity

This fourth discussion with Walter Rhein adds another layer to the previous discussions with Shane Yirak, Sharad Swaney, and Lawrence Winnerman — building on the powerful ideas that:

* Accountability matters more than intent

* Truth is the foundation for healing

* An apology opens the door to mutual clarity

* Breaking generation traumas is a masculine responsibility

Walter embodies an accountable masculinity based on reflection, emotional liberation, and being unafraid of truth.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

Submit questions and artwork for Nick and Walter to respond to and showcase:

* Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Sign the Move-On Petitions:

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Evan Fields, Beth Cruz, Jed, Cheryl Beck-Ruff, Kathy Smith, and many others for tuning into my live video with Walter Rhein and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

~Nick Paro

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

In this third discussion of Intelligent Masculinity, I (Nick Paro) sit down with my friend Lawrence Winnerman for a deeply reflective conversation about authenticity, fear, self-doubt, and moral courage. I build on the two previous discussions to dismantle the old, ego-based, fragile masculinity while replacing it with intentional daily discipline and integrity. Using this central thesis we reframe masculinity as:

The refusal to outsource personal accountability onto others — and the discipline to live with the consequences of your values and actions.

Masculinity Without Gender Policing

One of Lawrence Winnerman’s most important contributions is his refusal to anchor masculinity to any of the old, fragile, rigid gender norms. As a gay man who grew up learning to code-switch for safety, Lawrence exposes how much this is actually performance under threat. In the end, his definition does not reject masculinity — it liberates it. Masculinity, through Lawrence’s framing, is not stoicism for its own sake, dominance over others, and conformity to expectations. Instead, he shows us it is: self-knowledge, authentic presence, and accountability without disguise.

What many see simply as “masculine confidence,” Lawrence argues, is actually something much deeper, and more important: a person showing up fully in their own skin.

Accountability With Uncertainty

A central emotional truth from our discussion is Lawrence’s radical honesty about hist own daily struggles with self-doubt — a self-identified imposter syndrome.

He rejects the myth of the unshakeable man — the man who outwardly strides into the world thinking they know exactly what to do. Instead, Lawrence describes a masculinity filled with doubt, fear, constant self-questioning, and yet… there is a sense of action.

This is where my central thesis comes alive. Lawrence does not outsource responsibility for his choices to fate, society, or ideology.

He makes decisions, acts on them, and accepts the consequences — good or bad — which belong to him.

He owns his own accountability.

Intelligent masculinity here is not confidence without fear — it is courage with fear fully acknowledged.

Authenticity as a Daily Practice

One of the most resonant insights from the conversation is Lawrence’s comparison between coming out and living authentically:

You don’t come out once. You come out every day.

This becomes a powerful metaphor for intelligent masculinity itself. Like authenticity, it is not an identity you claim once — it is a series of small, often daily, repeated choices:

* How you treat strangers

* How you respond to criticism

* How you show up in your community

* How you handle your power over others

Masculinity is not proven during crisis alone — it is revealed in the mundane tasks of everyday life.

Leadership Without Ownership

Lawrence also reflects on leadership and fatherhood — despite not being a parent himself — which defines good leadership (and good masculinity) as the ability to: take pride in others’ success, celebrate growth that surpasses your own, and refuse to claim credit for what does not belong to you.

This stands in direct contrast to ego-driven masculinity, which seeks to dominate, possess, and extract value. Lawrence names this clearly: toxic, frail masculinity is colonial — it must take and consume everything around it.

Intelligent masculinity, by contrast, is a generative process rather than extractive one.

Fear, Fascism, and Moral Clarity

We also acknowledge the weight of masculinity in this hyper political moment. Lawrence openly acknowledges his fears— of authoritarianism, of cultural regression, of the violence ahead. What makes this conversation so powerful is that fear Lawrence describes is not used to justify cruelty or withdrawal — instead, fear becomes: a reason to build community, a reason to speak honestly, a reason to refuse silence.

Lawrence’s deconstruction of masculinity aligns perfectly with one of the core messages from the overall Intelligent Masculinity discussion:

Men do not become dangerous because they are afraid. They become dangerous when they deny fear and outsource the responsibility for those fears onto others.

Where Does Lawrence Take Us In Our Understanding of Masculinity

This third discussion with Lawrence Winnerman adds another layer of depth to the previous two with Shane Yirak and Sharad Swaney — intelligent masculinity is the product of emotional honesty, moral accountability, and self-acceptance.

* Authenticity is not comfort — it is courage.

* Doubt does not lessen one’s strength — denial does.

* Masculinity is not proven by absolute certainty — it is through accountability.

* Leadership is judged not on the success of the individual — it is through the uplifting of others.

Lawrence embodies these traits — he represents a quieter, yet more profound version of masculinity.

~Nick Paro

Thank you Rachel @ This Woman Votes, Cris, Karen Brownfield, LeftieProf, Jack, and many others for tuning into my live video with Lawrence Winnerman and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Actions You Can Take

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Sign the Move-On Petitions:

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

~Nick Paro

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | Terry mitchell | Carollynn | Julie Robuck ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

This second discussion of Intelligent Masculinity we move inward. In a grounded, reflective conversation, I (Nick Paro) and Sharad Swaney dive into intentionally intelligent masculinity as an active discipline built on self-regulation, integrity, and internal alignment. Where my first discussion — Intelligent Masculinity with Shane Yirak — focuses on external violence and authoritarian powers, this conversation drills down into what masculinity must actively practice.

Sharad Swaney, 19-years-old, does not enter the conversation as a person who just “arrived at masculinity;” rather, as someone who treats masculinity as an interactive process which includes other men within his sphere of influence — shaped by a growth mindset, feedback, friction, mentorship, and failure. This is a foundational ideal of Intelligent Masculinity, shared by Shane Yirak and Sharad Swaney: growth is communal, and strength is forged alongside others.

Sharad Swaney models a strong masculinity that is:

* Deliberate rather than reactive

* Grounded rather than performative

* Open to growth without being unmoored from truth

What Sharad Is For: Discipline as a Form of Respect

One of Sharad Swaney’s clearest positions is his reframing of discipline — not as rigidity, punishment, or control; rather, as respect made visible. Discipline, in his framing, is:

* Respect for one’s own body

* Respect for commitments made to others

* Respect for time, energy, and consequence

This is an intentionally relational masculinity. By showing up consistently, regulating impulses, managing emotions, and honoring obligations — Sharad presents discipline as a way of reducing harm — to one’s self and to others.

This represents a meaningful departure from old, fragile masculine narratives that equate discipline with emotional denial or dominance — self-reflection, self-evaluation, and discipline allow empathy, trust, and reliability to exist.

Integrity as Alignment, Not Image

Sharad Swaney consistently returns to the idea that integrity is not about appearing principled — it is about intentional, consistent alignment between values, actions, and internal reality.

What makes this contribution powerful is that Sharad Swaney openly acknowledges how easy it is for men to drift:

* To say the right things while avoiding the hard ones

* To adopt an identity before earning it

* To confuse confidence with coherence

Sharad Swaney prefers the slow, unglamorous work of closing those gaps.

This positions masculinity as a practice of reducing contradiction over time. Integrity is not purity — it is honesty paired with effort.

Masculinity Shaped Through Interaction, Not Isolation

A subtle but important through-line in Sharad Swaney’s perspective is the role of personal interactions in masculine development. Growth is not portrayed as self-generated — it is shaped by:

* Conversations that challenge his assumptions

* Relationships that require accountability

* Feedback that forces recalibration

This stands in quiet opposition to the hyper-individualistic and fragile masculinity myths. Sharad Swaney demonstrates that men do not become strong by retreating inward — they become strong by remaining engaged while being willing to change.

This is Intelligent Masculinity in practice.

Responsibility Without Shame

Another positive lesson Sharad Swaney models is responsibility without self-loathing.

He acknowledges mistakes, blind spots, and areas of ongoing work without collapsing into guilt or defensiveness. This is critical, because fragile, shame-based masculinity often leads to:

* Withdrawal

* Anger

* Projection onto others

Sharad Swaney’e posture offers an alternative: responsibility as a neutral, empowering stance. You own what’s yours — not to punish yourself, but to gain agency.

This reinforces a key series theme: Accountability is the foundation — it is an invitation to grow.

Avoidance as the Enemy — Engagement as the Solution

Sharad provides the counter-strategy to avoidance-based masculinity: engagement. He is for:

* Facing discomfort early rather than letting it calcify

* Naming internal resistance instead of rationalizing it

* Staying present even when ego wants to retreat

This is masculinity rooted not through bravado, but through staying power.

Sharad’s version of courage is quiet: it’s the willingness to remain in the work after novelty fades and validation disappears.

Advancing the Series Narrative

If my first discussion with Shane Yirak establishes the moral stakes on an ego-free discipline and integrity, this second discussion with Sharad Swaney re-enforces the ideas of:

* How men actually lean into those values

* What growth looks like at ground the level

* Why masculinity must be trained, not declared

Sharad Swaney’s contribution builds on the previous discussion where Intelligent Masculinity constructive, not critical — offering other men a path forward, focused on growth and intentionality.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Sign the Move-On Petitions:

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Evan Fields, Soso's World, Cris, Jill B., Mike Harkreader, and many others for tuning into my live video with Centered America, Sharad Swaney, and Banner & Backbone Media! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

~Nick Paro

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

Special thanks to the Sickest of Them All

Become one of the Sickest of Them All with an annual founding pledge of $200, or more!

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | C. McGuire ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com

In this first conversation of Intelligent Masculinity — I (Nick Paro) welcome on guest and friend, Shane Yirak, as we set a necessary contrast between true masculinity and performative domination. Our conversation is rooted in current violence, moral accountability, and lived experience — we define masculinity not as power over others — but as responsibility, growth, emotional literacy, and intellectual courage. We establish the scholar-warrior ethic as the path towards value-driven masculinity and as the antidote to this fear-driven masculinity and authoritarian violence.

Where We Begin

We open our conversation by directly acknowledging the extrajudicial killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent, Jonathan Ross — not as an isolated incident, but as a symptom of institutionalized, hate-centered, fear-driven masculinity — one that purposely confuses authority with virtue and violence with strength. As George Orwell says in his dystopian future novel, 1984:

War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery.

Ignorance is Strength.

This choice and distinction matters.

I like to say — “words matter.”

Rather than easing ourselves into our conversation, we immediately establish a moral baseline: If masculinity cannot be discussed honestly in the presence of state violence, then it isn’t worth discussing at all.

I explicitly name the quality of men responsible — men devoid of intentional, intelligent masculinity — arguing that fragile egos, anonymity, and unaccountable power are the breeding grounds for abuse and domination. We establish this framing as the baseline for the rest of our discussion:

* Refusing to let masculinity be abstract

* Tying masculinity directly to consequences

* Making accountability non-negotiable — accountability is the foundation

Defining the Enemy: Fragile Masculinity vs Intelligent Masculinity

A common and central idea emerges early and repeats throughout our discussion:

Masculinity is not domination.Masculinity is not fear.Masculinity is not obedience without conscience.

Shane Yirak and I argue that a purposeful, cultural push towards White Supremacist and Christian Nationalist ideologies has resulted in a fragile masculinity — one that offers men, and boys, the easy path — an illusion of power without consequences — an illusion of power that doesn’t require reflection, empathy, or moral responsibility.

Shane’s framing is particularly sharp: these systems attract men who feel powerless elsewhere, offering uniforms, weapons, and masks as substitutes for self-worth. This is a masculinity without growth — a masculinity of stagnation — a masculinity of ease.

In contrast, Intelligent Masculinity is presented as:

* Reflective rather than reactive

* Grounded rather than performative

* Rooted in accountability rather than hierarchy

We establish that fragile masculinity is rooted in self-loathing, while true strength is rooted in self-reflection and self-evaluation.

The Scholar-Warrior: Knowledge as a Moral Discipline

I introduce the idea of the scholar-warrior mentality not as some romanticized archetype, but as a practiced discipline.

This is where we really dive into Shane’s personal story — moving through his journey into learning science, philosophy, business, labor, and now media — illustrates a masculinity which deeply values:

* Intellectual curiosity over certainty

* Ethics over obedience

* Mind over posture

Shane Yirak’s intentional embrace of Socratic thinking is especially important: questioning and challenging one’s own beliefs becomes a masculine act rather than a weakness. Reframing masculinity away from rigidity and toward intellectual humility — a core idea that is fundamental to this discussion, and all of the other discussions moving forward.

Fathers, Growth, and Masculinity as a Practice

One of the most powerful through-lines of our conversation is the shared discussion of fatherhood — not as idealistic perfection, but as growth in motion.

Shane Yirak and I both identify our fathers as their most influential male figures in our lives, not because our fathers were flawless, but because they changed: they learned — they softened — they modeled accountability and partnership.

This model of accountability and growth are central pillars in both Shane and my experiences. Masculinity here is not an identity you achieve — it’s an intentional practice you commit to for a lifetime. Growth and understanding are the proof of masculinity, not dominance or emotional suppression.

Shane Yirak expands from my original question by naming the important role that influential women — particularly his grandmother and mother — have played in shaping his moral framework. This reinforces a key idea: masculinity that does not respect women cannot become intelligent.

Language, Power, and Everyday Violence

Our discussion around language — especially the rejection of misogynistic slurs — might seem casual, but it’s philosophically precise.

Shane Yirak articulates how language functions as the infrastructure, and catalyst, for dehumanization: when women’s bodies become insults, women themselves become subconsciously devalued.

This reinforces one of our conversation’s most important assertions: Intelligent masculinity requires vigilance — not just over actions, but over words. Masculinity is not only what men, like Shane Yirak and I, do in moments of crisis — it’s what we normalize (and intentionally de-normalize) as everyday speech — it’s the little things we do not allow others to get away with — it’s intentionally demanding that we personally and collectively grow.

What Does Our Discussion Mean for the Overall Discussion

My conversation with Shane Yirak sets the stage for the rest of the Intelligent Masculinity series with foundational ideas that we actively practice, and encourage others to grow with:

* We anchor masculinity in ethics, not aesthetics

* We outright reject authoritarian masculinity

* We frame masculinity as accountable, relational, and intellectual

* We establish the scholar-warrior as a modern necessity, not a metaphor

Most importantly, we make clear that this series is not about defending men — it’s about demanding better from them.

~Nick Paro

Actions You Can Take

Support Ukraine:

* Donate towards generators

Call your public servants on important issues:

* 5calls.org

Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement:

* safedc.info

Sign the Move-On Petitions:

* Investigate Presidential Use of the Autopen for Pardons and Executive Actions

* Mandate that ICE agents show their face and identification

Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals:

* B. Cognition Labs

Thank you Centered America, Mandy Ohman, Beth Cruz, Noble Blend, Courtney 🇨🇦, and many others for tuning into my live video with Shane Yirak! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Nick’s Notes

I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!

~Nick Paro

Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective

Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you

* Forever at 50% off

* Forever at 60% off

Special thanks to the Sickest of Them All

Become one of the Sickest of Them All with an annual founding pledge of $200, or more!

~ Soso | Millicent | Courtney 🇨🇦 | Eric Lullove | C. McGuire ~

For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com