Fare Thee Well, Novaseeker

Apparently the highly respected, long-time denizen of the man-o-sphere, Brendan, aka Novaseeker, has decided to move on and focus on other thing's in his life, rather than the raging debates in this corner teh interwebz.

He writes his farewell over at Dalrock's:

I’m posting this on a couple of websites, so that people can be aware. Nothing dramatic, but more in the way of an explanation, as departures in this neck of the woods without explanation seem to create consternation.

I am departing from this corner of the internet. There are many reasons for this, and this is not a sudden decision by any means. Most of this was written a few weeks ago when I took my old blogs down, but I have been tinkering with it for a while, and, thankfully, it’s much shorter than my average comment length.

The main reason is that I disagree too much with too much of what others seem to agree upon, and it creates too much dissonance for me to be interested in participating actively. I have said what I have to say, and I think others know where I stand, and have benefited (or not) from this, and for me personally it is time to move on. This may sound harsh, but so much that now happens in this corner of the internet is quite irrelevant to real life, in many ways, and so many of the commentators are just shockingly removed from reality. At least the reality that I know and have always known.

I am not a traditionalist. I have found, through spending time with them, that I disagree with both their extreme form (Laura Woods), their intermediate form (Mark Richardson) and their mild form (Alte and her commenters). I don’t agree with the ideas, with the separation from reality, with much of the substance. It was intriguing at first, but ultimately it is a walk away from shared reality into a personal reality which I do not respect, which I think is unrealistic, and which is also deeply unmotivating.

I am also not a men’s rights activist. I don’t think this is sensible. Other than marginal improvements, like Glenn Sacks and his group are achieving (and are more than worthy of support), this is never going to be anything approaching a movement. Men don’t work that way, and it’s a wrong-headed way of approaching things.

As I have said many times, I am agnostic on marriage, really. If a man wants to get married, knowing the risks, that’s his decision. I think enough men have spoken about that by now that it’s already out there as a popular enough meme as far as I can tell on mainstream websites. If not, then that’s also their decision. The endless discussions ad nauseam about marriage and finding mates are tiresome, repetitive and frankly not terribly interesting or influential after a time. It’s great that others are willing to pursue this, but marriage as an end in itself is not something I am willing to devote much energy towards in this culture, to be honest.

I have participated for few years in this space of the internet, but all good things come to an end. I think this is an insight that many of us who have participated for a bit longer have had. There is a time for everything under the sun, and at this time, it is time for me to retreat from this space and devote my time to other things that are more productive for me at this time. I wish you all well, wherever your endgame may be.

I always enjoyed and respected your commentary.

A hui hou, Brendan.