Hi Guys! I’m Shea—living in Los Angeles, originally from the DC area. King (Balanced) Warrior (Under-Functioning) Magician (Balanced) Lover (Over-Functioning) I like how this test has gotten me thinking about myself and the questions that have arisen in me since taking it, even though I’m a bit skeptical or simply need an abundance of information/experience before I know how I feel about anything. I’ve been a swim coach and teacher for 25 years, and personally benefited from so many of the lessons I learned while grinding out laps for hours and hours over years and years (but it was racing that kept me going back—so the under-functioning warrior puzzles me)… It’s been through my students/athletes that I keep finding new depths and perspective and painfully aware of how much further I have to go. It’s refreshing to see so many dudes sharing their paths with each other. Really glad to be here!

Sorry to be THAT new guy but uhhh this post confuses me and I figured I should start here so I know whether or not I’m in the right community. I was drawn to this community after receiving the email about Digital ID being “The Tyrant’s Tool” and the in-depth delineations on ‘true kingmanship’ vs 'the shadow king' and ‘ownership' vs. ‘stewardship'. I hung on every word, agreed whole-heartedly, and jumped to set up a membership. Elon Musk is the epitome of the shadow king. We don’t even really know much about him (we don’t know THAT much about anyone really—even our closest friends and relatives… let alone someone who curates his public image and STILL has all these gaping holes in character—the incessant drug use, the abandoning of his children and mothers of his children, the insatiable hunger for money and power, the clandestine harvesting of data in every arena, the ab implants (C’mon guys—if you have all the money in the world and STILL don’t have the drive for authentic personal improvement something is supremely wrong… And whatever that is will continue to show up in the ways he exploits all of us. Obviously he’s a necessary figure to try to understand and engage about—but he’s the shadow king. 1) He seeks to control rather than serve 2) He DOES NOT preserve autonomy 3) He DOES NOT respect privacy 4) He DOES NOT share/distribute power 5) He DOES NOT honor limits And he drags us all there with him. My apologies if I’ve misinterpreted this whole thing and I’m the one with the warped view on this and/or taking things too seriously—I’ll see myself out. Just thought I’d throw it out there before I do! Would love to hear thoughts on this though!

@Robbie Maelduin Thanks for this reply, Robbie! That makes a lot of sense. Elon has also been a big lesson for me in the dynamic nature of character—none of us are static and the work never ends. It seems the work may even get more difficult the closer we get to wholeness because we let our guard down or get cocky about our growth or something. I thought Elon was an undeniable force for good in the world in 2015/16 when he was laying out the strategy for Tesla—using the higher end vehicles to finance the accessibility/affordability of the Model 3. Obviously we cannot expect someone to not change over the course of a decade, particularly someone with as great a trajectory as Elon’s… But we as a society should do a better job of inoculating ourselves from the most powerful men’s middle-life crises. I don’t really have a stance on the Twitter of it all because I think it’s always been such slop. Clipped/incomplete thoughts and rage baiting abound—all in the name of money. “Free speech” felt like an exaggeration to what it was… But also—we’ve seen historically (e.g. Arab Spring) how abbreviated social media can ignite a movement. That made some folks unnaturally blood thirsty for it; it made others unnaturally terrified of it; still others just loved the excessive troll-dom. That said, the folks who were terrified by the possibilities aren’t completely crazy when they are then met with an event like the one happening with the US military/Hegseth/Trump today… Are we to think that this all could have been avoided had annoying people on the internet hadn’t been so annoying? I don’t know the answer… but it all seems like we've gotten ourselves into serious trouble through deeply unserious means… And the folks capable of actually leading the conversation to the solutions simply are not having them. They don’t want to have them—they choose to rile us up and shake us down instead.