Unsolicited Advice

Self-mythology.

I give a lot of unsolicited advice.

I give unsolicited advice:

1. To be helpful.

2. To feel powerful, smart, or superior.

3. To work out one’s own problems, using someone else’s problems as a proxy.

Being Helpful

Some unsolicited advice is genuinely helpful. One of the best pieces of unsolicited advice I ever received was “don’t be an anti-hero.” In other words, do not develop a victim complex where I think the whole world revolves around my personal tragedies. Do not think that my suffering is worse than anyone else’s. Don’t be melodramatic. I didn’t ask for that piece of advice, but I received it anyway, and I think back on it often.

What made this advice truly unsolicited is that it did not come as a response to a problem. I wasn’t having a bad day, complaining, commiserating, or looking for sympathy. It came out of no where. It wasn’t directed toward anything I did or said. And yet, nonetheless, it was powerful, and stuck with me.

Unfortunately, the times when I need advice the most are the times when I am least capable of listening. Listening to advice requires that I change my perspective. Advice isn’t useful if it is just a repetition of already-held beliefs — that is encouragement, which is important too, but different from advice. Advice is like a cheat code or answer sheet. It gives me previously unknown information. Encouragement is just reinforcing mutually agreed upon truths.

To receive advice effectively, I have to be willing to change my mind about something, or accept something new which may contradict my beliefs. My mind has to be in a bendy, flexible, relaxed, or even hypnotic state. If I’m in the middle of a break down or some kind of bad day, my mind will tense up, brace for impact, batten down the hatches, hunker in my bunker, and try to survive. Fight or flight. This is not the mental state that is required to receive good advice.

Accordingly, the best time to give advice is the worst time to give advice. Or, when advice is most needed, it is least heard.

Feeling Superior

Giving unsolicited advice is a great way to feel superior to the poor loser who needs it. The need to feel superior doesn’t need to be negative or pathological. Most parents, children, and authority figures have an inherent need to feel superior to their children. If the authority was equal to he child, they would not be an effective leader. The need to be superior is often a requirement for leadership.

Most popular writers on leadership, including Jocko Willink and others, will attempt to deny this aspect of leadership. In this modern view, the leader is Christ-like, a servant, below the lowest employee, there to support, there to encourage, to bring out the best in the team. This is generally good advice for people who are already leaders. People who are natural born leaders may be too narcissistic, too full of themselves, too cruel, and too harsh. The ideal of the “servant leader” is a good counter-balance for individuals whose natural tendency or bias is toward sociopathy, as is found commonly among political, financial, and military leaders.

However, despite the goodness of the ideal of the “servant leader,” the need to feel superior is ultimately the foundation of leadership. Without this desire, leadership is impossible. For all of its critics, narcissism and a superiority complex exists within the human population not because it is some disease like AIDS or syphilis, but because it is an adaptive trait which promotes group survival, especially in the modern world.

This is not to say that it is always good. I have, like many others, given hours of unsolicited advice as a way to feel good about myself — I am so smart! So brilliant! Everyone should listen to ME! This is a form of advice-giving which is ultimately an attempt to shore up the the self-esteem of the advice-giver. That doesn’t mean that the advice in question is necessarily bad, but that the motivations of the advice-giver might not be pure. When the receiver is intelligent enough to perceive this motivation, they may become annoyed or feel patronized, or used as a prop or foil for selfish purposes. Even those who are not intelligent may intuitively feel a sense of being used.

My critique of political and self-help e-celebs, whether they be Jordan Peterson or someone more ideologically focused, is that these people are emotionally parasites on their audience. They love the feeling of being the prophet, the genius, the superior man who speaks the word of God. They love having fans. Their desire is ritual affirmation: “You saved my life! I was nothing before I heard you speak!” This codependent response might even be sometimes true. Perhaps Jordan Peterson is in fact saving millions of young men from the brink of suicide. But maybe if it wasn’t him, it would be someone else. And maybe the quality of his advice doesn’t matter at all — maybe codependent people are just looking for a savior, and he was a convenient stand-in for their dads.

Generally, when I heard people gush over Tucker Carlson or Jordan Peterson, I view their effusive love for a man they’ve never met as a sign of deep psychological insecurity. This isn’t a criticism. It is natural that men are insecure — what, in our modern world, is safe or security? What institution is dependable, reliable, or authentic? Marriage, the church, and the news media all seem decrepit, sclerotic, or openly hostile to young, Christian white men. It’s no surprise that insecurity is on the rise, and men are desperate for a surrogate narcissist to prove them with an idol to worship.

When I was in Asia, one of the taxi drivers had a medallion hanging from his rear view mirror. Inside the locket was a picture of chairman Mao. I asked him what it was, and he replied that it was a good luck charm. Chairman Mao, hanging from his rear view mirror, gave him a sense of security and confidence. Men have been bred for thousands of years to seek out the superior man, their ancestor, their own household God, and to worship him. We should expect that the breakdown of traditional religion results in fashionable cults popping up around drug addicts and CIA agents, Chairman Mao, Hitler, Pewdiepie, OnlyFans models, and TikTok girls.

I could go on about Andrew Tate and the Manosphere generally as an extension of this phenomenon. It seems superficial, because it is. It is a bandage on the gaping wound of tradition. Nature abhors the religious vacuum left by the church, and it fills it with whatever trash is nearest. Like a bird in a concrete jungle building its nest out of plastic junk, young men are filling their minds with fake male role models who aren’t very impressive, interesting, or important.

Plato had this critique in his own day, that the Gods as imagined by the Greeks were not all that great. There seems to be a need among the Greeks to generate melodrama. I see this in our own time — if Tucker Carlson gets in a fight with Ben Shapiro, this is big news. If Tucker Carlson writes a treatise on philosophy (if it is possible to imagine), not so much. People love melodrama, as did the Greeks. The only way to generate drama is through flaws, tragedies, and mistakes. If the Gods were perfect, there would be nothing to talk about.¹

The feeling of superiority that one gets from giving unsolicited advice is a bit like Keynesian economics. Problems become opportunities to create value. Without that one friend who is always in trouble, there would be no one to compare yourself to and feel better. In this way, giving unsolicited advice is a bit like bullying — but unlike bullying, it can sometimes be received positively.

Proxy Problem Solving

One of the most frequent motives for giving unsolicited advice is proxy problem solving. For example, let’s say a man is going through a divorce, and his friend is going through a breakup. The magnitude of the problems are different, but they are similar enough that a friend can use the man’s marriage problems as a proxy for his own problems, and talk through them in the form of “giving advice.”

Why would the friend (let’s all him Jeff) use the man as a proxy (let’s call him Tom)? Jeff might feel embarrassed about his problems, and unconsciously avoids them. Thinking about them makes him angry and sad — he feels like a failure, a disappointment, not good enough, and worthless. However, he still has a burning desire to solve them. When Tom comes along and explains his situation, Jeff sees this as an opportunity to externalize his problems (a breakup) and brainstorm solutions. “Have you tried therapy? You should try to win her back. Here’s my advice on how you can fix this.”

Proxy problem solving is more common than most people imagine. Often times the signs are obvious. Jeff might admit it: “I’m actually going through a breakup myself — here’s what I would do if I were in your situation.” Depending on how honest Jeff is, he could present himself as superior, but he could also present himself as Tom’s equal. One of the ironies of proxy problem solving is this: how can I pretend to know how to solve your problems when I can’t solve my own problems?

A fat man can tell a fatter man, “the key to weight loss is diet and exercise.” The fatter man replies, “then why don’t you give it a try?” Both men are correct. Diet and exercise, indeed, is the key to weight loss. However, the objection of the fatter man is equally valid: “why don’t you give it a try?” Why can’t people apply their own advice to their own lives? The answer lies in emotions. It is easier to talk the talk rather than walk the walk.

Some advice is helpful, some comes from a need to feel superior, and some comes from a desire for “proxy problem solving.” Often, advice is a mix of all three. For example, two men who struggle with depression. One of them is having an OK day (Jeff), and the other is having a horrible day (Tom). Jeff might try to cheer up Tom, and give him advice on how to persevere, to never give up, and to always push through the tough times. Jeff’s advice may have some value (depending on your perspective), but based on Jeff’s life habits, he’s likely to fall into his own depression in a few weeks. Then, the shoe will be on the other foot. Jeff knows this, and as he gives advice, he is also trying to hype himself up and to help himself. Unconsciously, he may begin to believe that his ability to give advice proves that he can overcome his own depression. After all, if I can teach a skill to someone else, I must be a master at it myself!

Self-Mythology

Most emotional problems, however, are not solved by knowledge-based strategies. Emotional pain, which can be debilitating in work, relationships, and in basic physical health, is not a product of having “the wrong strategies.” Most people who are in emotional pain have already heard many trite truisms on how to heal: “try smiling! Get outside. Get a pet. Have you tried exercising? Maybe it’s your diet.” Most intelligent people who are suffering emotional pain are not surprised by any of these suggestions. The problem is not that they don’t know these strategies, but that they lack the will, desire, or motivation to employ them.

The problem of will, desire, and motivation operates on a a more fundamental level than “conscious knowledge of strategies and techniques.” This is the level of the identity: who am I? What do I deserve? Am I worthy of success? Changing someone’s identity cannot be accomplished by giving advice. Instead, someone’s deep, subconscious view of their own identity is much more likely to change as a result of encouragement. “You’re enough. I believe in you. You deserve to succeed. You were born for this.” Conversely, telling someone a laundry list of techniques, strategies, and improvements they could made is an implicit message of defeatism. If the only way to succeed is to employ a technique, and I already know that technique, and I have failed to employ it, or don’t have the desire to try it, maybe I deserve to fail. Maybe I am not good enough. If it works or others, but not me, I must be abnormally dysfunction. I’m broken. The laundry list reinforces a negative identity by proving to the person that since “this works every time,” if it doesn’t work for them, the problem must be their inner nature or essence.

In this case, the person suffering emotional pain is correct — the problem does not lie in the techniques being advised (which may be effective if applied), but in something deeper. Fortunately, that deeper thing is identifiable and mutable. It is our self-mythology, or the story we tell about our own nature.

Obviously, having a confident self-mythology is not a replacement for proper techniques. You can scream, “I am a surgeon!” all you want, but please don’t try to operate on anyone without proper training. Self-mythology is not sufficient to replace technique or strategy. Rather, self-mythology is the basis for the desire to pursue techniques and strategies.

There are, of course, innate abilities. Some people are better at math, some have higher verbal intelligence, others are gifted in athletics, and some people were born extroverts. It is also possible that individuals who sustain traumatic brain injury or suffer from the long term side effects of drug use can be permanently emotionally damaged as a result. The mutability of self-mythology is not infinite, and has certain biological limits.

That being said, most people are not, at any given moment, operating on a foundation of “peak self-mythology.” Self-mythology can be improved in almost everyone, and once it is perfected, it must be maintained, reinforced, and continuously exercised. Athletes who stop training lose their muscles, and self-mythology which is not trained on a daily basis also will degrade.

Conclusion

Generally, when I give unsolicited advice, it doesn’t work. I might feel like I’m being helpful; I might feel a sense of superiority; or I might feel like I’m solving my own problems by proxy. However, the person who I’m giving advice to will likely not benefit because they are not in an receptive emotional state. Advice can only be received if the mind is flexible, relaxed, and welcoming. A negative emotion state is either aggressive or defensive, and thus, is not likely to accept new ideas.

Furthermore, many people’s problems are not logistical, strategic, or tactical. They already know to diet, exercise, get outside, join a social club, etc etc. Instead, their internal self-mythology is contradictory, at war with itself, draining itself of motivation, will, and desire. The mind is filled with knowledge, but the heart is empty of passion. I call this state “anxiety induced apathy,” where a sufficient level of stress results in a total shutdown of emotions, leading to numbness.

Changing the self-mythology is not only complicated, but extremely difficult, because it requires the openness of a person’s subconscious. Such states of subconscious openness can be obtained by the use of drugs or hypnosis, but most drug use is inspired by boredom or pain avoidance, and hypnosis is yet another “technique” which most people are unwilling to try. In all likelihood, if someone is having a bad day, they are not going to be open to a change in their self-mythology.

That said, understanding the problems associated with unsolicited advice is useful. By recognizing my own flawed urges to give it, I can resist those urges and annoy others less. On the flip side, if someone decides to give me unsolicited advice, I don’t need to respond aggressively, defensively, or feel attacked or patronized. Instead, I can recognize the advice-giver as a human, like me, who is vulnerable to all the same urges and tendencies.

1. In the monotheist tradition, this need for melodrama becomes paradoxical. Yahweh is responsible for good and evil. He makes a bet with Satan on whether or not Job can be corrupted; he sends an angel of death to kill babies; he even punishes the Jewish nation and subjects it to genocide. For Christians, this paradox is made even more abstraction: God is allowed by God to be killed in order to assuage the wrath of God — God sacrifices himself to himself.