Q: What’s Even More Impressive Than an Alpha Male?
A: A man who’s good with his whole AlphaBet.
The Discovery Channel uses it over and over in its promos. The footage is that compelling. Imagery of two big male rams, elks or males of countless other species literally banging heads in deadly battles to determine which creature will be the one having sex with the available females.
Humans used to do that too. Mother Nature’s orders. When we were a small band of hominids trekking across the grasslands of Africa, we were in constant jeopardy. Our drill sergeant mother banged into our heads and coded into our genes the idea that procreation was absolutely the most important thing. And not just any procreation. Nature wasn’t about to let any average males tie up fertile females in procreating offspring that weren’t genetically optimized to get through puberty and into procreation of their own.
I knew even as a kid that this had just about everything to do with what was expected of me as a male of the species. It was all pretty discomfiting. I was average in the muscle department. I had no idea how to process what I was seeing. And I never talked with anyone about it.
Fortunately, back on the Serengeti, eventually we humans got more numerous, we got smarter about how to stay alive, and we invented this thing called Civilization. It recognized the value of getting more from its males than just big muscles. One of Civilization’s main advances was that women’s parents and then women themselves got some say in who they were going to have children with. More and more they found that there was much more to men than physical prowess in the raising of children optimized to advance Civilization.
But our genetic evolution hasn’t kept up with what Civilization now needs most, nor what Civilization makes possible. We, especially we males, still hear the echoes of the Big Bangs of heads against heads, the heads of our triumphant forefathers whose genes have trickled down to us. Now we bang heads in business; for fun and letting off steam from our hot genes we do it in sports. We have the civilized luxury of viewing competition as an opportunity to develop and display competence.
The flip side, of course, is to be disposable — which even today is the fate of many males who are insufficient in making money. Humans are innately social creatures; perhaps our big brains led us inexorably in that civilized direction. Being social, after all, is a brilliant strategy for survival. I help you. You help me. We develop a community. Being judged insufficient or unqualified for membership in Civilization’s mutual-aid-and-appreciation society produces its own kind of death, a starvation of social connection and respect.
Those Alpha Male head-bangs whisper their ancient warnings to us still in videos promising the thrill of watching one person dominate, “own,” or humiliate another, and in combat between our modern-day Ultimate Fighting gladiators. It makes sense that many of us once-average kids grow up obsessed with being Alpha.
Alpha Males need to be on top because they see life as a binary proposition. Up or down, top or bottom, win or lose, life or death. Neither you nor I want to be at the bottom, but that doesn’t mean we have to be always or ever at the top… unless our psychological keyboards have only that one “A” key to pound on. A full AlphaBet allows you to embrace sigma, beta and alpha too, along with every other character and characteristic, giving you ready access to whatever concept or capability works best for you in whatever is happening now.
Let’s picture ourselves in a group of equal citizens, each claiming his own space, each with a complete set of twenty-six alphabetical keys that allow us to write our life plans — our goals, our values — exactly the way we want them to be. We can decide on our own ideas of which way is up for us, where our “top” is. This trueness to ourselves is the very essence of Integrity. Accompanied by acceptance of other people’s notions of “up,” it can be the essence of Community.
We all want to be part of a team. We all want to be included, to get playing time, to be appreciated and accepted for having value to contribute to the group. We want our skills and talents to be recognized and put to good use. That’s why we all cheer stories about the outcast geeky kid who saves the day and solves the case because he knows some wacky piece of information or has some special skill from his nerdy hobby.
Alpha Males can never relax. Even if they’ve vanquished all the bulls in their vicinity they are haunted by the knowledge that somewhere there is a man “better” than they — a capital “A” in a larger point size or a bolder face. How wearisome is a life story expressed primarily with just that single character.
How much more rich and fulfilling is a life story that can embrace every word — every noun, verb, adverb, adjective and irreverent interjection — in the language and endow you with the ability to create new ones for the novel concepts you conjure with your infinite, unconstrained cognitive, emotive and communicative flexibility.
When you can bring that many capabilities, that much value, to your social group and combine it with the equal boundlessness of your fellows, your chances of survival — and not just survival, but “thrival” — are far, far greater than the roughly fifty percent shot you would have going up alone against another who sees the world as a place where men either win or lose according to the rules of a game that — truth be told — isn’t always all that much fun or really worth playing.
Where our interest in women is concerned (especially if you’re sick of dating apps), the sooner you make it clear that you do not seek to impress women with alphatude, the more likely you are to establish a balanced and healthy relationship from the get-go. And for their part, the best women already know there is much more to men than muscles and, thanks to incomplete but unfolding advances in gender equality, also much more to men than money.
And there is a bonus for you here. People often don’t remember what you say as much as how you make them feel. The more adept you are with your AlphaBet, the more you will be able to listen, hear, intuit, relate to, empathize with and understand what is going on with others. People like feeling understood and they will appreciate you all the more for helping them feel that way. Men, especially, enjoy talking with other men who aren’t trying to one-up them.
A man’s greatest contribution and happiness are in his ability to be an AlphaBet Male. When you see your son watching the Discovery Channel, make sure he discovers that.
