In Shaivist Hinduism, the concept of Shiva-Shakti describes the compound of Shiva, one of the Supreme Gods of the Trinity, and Shakti, one of Shiva’s consorts. Shiva sits atop Mount Kailash, meditating for a thousand years at a time. No storm would move him and no quake would shake him. He would not rest nor eat before he opened his eyes again. Shakti, on the other hand, is the all-mother, the cosmic energy that drives all change and growth in the universe. Femininity is change, and masculinity is stillness. Femininity is chaos, and masculinity is order. So equal and opposite these energies are, that they cannot exist without each other. Shiva and Shakti are equal halves of one another, forever fallen into each other to have created one divine whole.

My exploration of myself and the world around me yields observations that consistently suggest that a man’s frame is cardinal for commanding respect from both others and himself. Men need love, like all beings, but I posit that it is respect that they need more, and those without a strong frame do not receive it. Admittedly, I am quite right-wing about this topic as well, in that I believe those who work hard and push for the positions that they want are higher-value than their counterparts who don’t, and thus deserve more, and that nobody should get a handout, or even sympathy for having a worse natural starting point than average.

I define one’s frame as the congruence of their thoughts and words with their elementary day. Not adhering to said thoughts and words through action and belief is called breaking one’s frame. As a simple example, if a man says, to both others and to himself, that he goes running every day at 8am, then every day that he does not do that, he breaks his frame. The two salient elements of adhering to your frame are one, discipline, and two, honesty. Within the usual setup, your frame would demand a routine of some kind. Routines by definition do not respect feelings, emotions, and impulses. When you do not feel like doing something that is on your routine, not doing it anyway is breaking your frame. If you do it no matter how you feel, even when tired, sad, or mentally spent, that is discipline. The honesty comes in with the aforementioned congruence itself. For instance, a man who both says and believes that he eats in a daily deficit of a hundred calories, but refuses to count in the bottles of cola and packets of chips that he also keeps getting, is lying to himself in a way that breaks his frame. Another man who says and believes that he is completely over the abusive relationship which he was in and that it does not affect his work and life anymore, and yet in reality keeps looking at pictures of and thinking about his former partner, too, is breaking his frame. Someone who says that he does not scroll on Instagram, but scrolls quite a bit on Instagram, indeed, is breaking his frame.

Let us discuss why such thinking is important. In my own life, I have found that not being able to trust myself is an extremely painful position to be in. If have no frame, then I know before I have even started anything, that I would likely fail. Why? If I am not disciplined enough to ever stick to my frame, and if I am constantly lying to myself about where I am in my life to avoid feeling bad, how can I trust myself to now do this particular new thing? The mind works on evidence. All it does is learn—this is what powers you and everything that you do—and it learns about everything. This everything includes you and your behaviour as well. If your mind learns that you are someone who consistently breaks their frame, this knowledge will dictate how you think and act after. You can build evidence for a lot of things— showing up to work five minutes early every day without fail for months on end will build the evidence for your mind that you are punctual, walking past your favourite sweets-shop daily and always resisting the urge to go in and buy a box will build the evidence that you have high willpower, and so on. Once your mind has the evidence, you can successfully push it to internalise it, and your confidence around the particular traits or beliefs that you have built evidence around will skyrocket. You will find it exponentially easier than before to do things on time or to resist bad things, even if you always failed at those things when you started.

However, I believe that the most important thing to build evidence for is adhering to your frame. Having a mind that trusts that you actually do what you think and say is an incredibly wonderful thing, because that leads to one of the greatest beliefs that you can ever have, that you can do anything you set your mind to. I believe that a lot of sadness in the world comes from a lack of self-trust. If you do not believe in yourself, if you do not trust yourself, if you do not have your own back, you curse yourself with the pain that comes from a lack of options, plans, and a future, because what your mind thinks you can do itself is limited. Thus, you must resolve this. The feelings of pain and inadequacy and rejection can fuel your first few days, you must force yourself to stick to your frame for all the days that come after, until sufficient evidence has been built for your mind to internalise it. The things that you do themselves do not become easier (in fact, I am a proponent of progressive overload in everything, which means to keep making everything more and more challenging as you go), but starting and sticking to them, as well as seeing them through, definitely will. The evidence that you have of yourself will encourage you to shoot higher and higher, achieve what you set out for, and keep going. Also, if you can trust yourself, then others can trust you too. You will better the lives of the ones around you because they can look to you for support, help, and safety. Know that you cannot live a good life if you do not feel safe and secure in your own company.

A man’s set of beliefs, on both the self and the world around him, is also a very important aspect of his frame. I have some points to discuss here that I think are very interesting. I have seen again and again, especially with TV and internet personalities, that men who repeatedly change their beliefs after having had great conviction for what they previously subscribed to, have little respect. I do believe that strong beliefs are important for a man’s character, yet false conviction cannot become a substitute for that. In my opinion, the ideal man explores his beliefs thoroughly, is open and respectful to opposing views, and lets dialogue and debate inform and develop his thinking. A frame, in the traditional usage of the word, suggests a solid identity that a man must live by and never break. However, he must also always be in the pursuit of growth, more knowledge, and more wisdom. A man grows and changes, and thus his frame changes too, but that is a slow process. He would know when and where to make these changes as he grows, and he would also know the difference between growth and excuses.

Adhering to your frame does not mean building yourself a prison. It does not mean to say no to every spontaneous idea that clashes with your routine. It is not synonymous with a time-table either, and you don’t have to stick to your regimen every single day for years on end without fail to be called a man of frame. It is only a method of developing the general self-belief that you do what you think and say, that you are firm in your beliefs, and that you are a man of order, and thus can do anything that you want, through discipline and honesty. A man who breaks his frame cannot respect himself, and others cannot respect him.

I have waited a long time to write this blog post, as I did not previously consider myself qualified to discuss this. My life has greatly improved as I have tried more and more to live as a man of frame, and yet there is so much more to learn and implement. In any case, I hope this discussion was valuable to you, and if so, do get to believing, doing, and building your evidence.