Don't just be a better punching bag

The difference between frame and being stoic

This was an early piece focused on correcting a gap in MRP’s understanding. Being stoic and unresponsive was all the rage at the time, which was an improvement from being reactive, but did nothing to help men actually develop their expectation from their environment. For men (and women), the ability to have your own unique, and ideally, strong worldview is needed to operate with congruence.

Credit for the phrase “Don’t just be a better punching bag” with regard to stoicism goes to Rian Stone.

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A lot of people misunderstand what "Frame" is. That's leading to some confusion.

What frame is, is how we perceive reality.

From ReturnOfKings.com

So frame control is your world-view. It is your own set of rose-tinted spectacles with which you view the world. Yours. Uniquely yours.

The uniquely yours part is what's important. I see a lot of people saying "maintain frame" as if some sort of onslaught bitchfest is going to shatter your world view. It won't, so saying "maintain frame" is really a misnomer. What's being suggested is to "remain stoic" - which equates to, "don't let the oncoming onslaught of bitchiness affect your emotional temperament".

So, for example, if your wife is about to go batshit off the deep end, your frame might be "my wife is batshit crazy and about to go off the deep end" and if you had that frame as it happened, you response should be to laugh at the absurdity of your wife going off the deep end. You'd be watching her confirm the fact that she is indeed going on off the deep end. And it might be funny to you that she's so predictable.

Her frame might be that you're being a terrible husband, father, whatever. And she's going to try to push that reality.

To which, ROK says this

[Most people] lack a comprehensive philosophy, a unifying worldview, that helps them maintain their masculine center. Without the assistance of this rudder, a man can easily be knocked off his frame. He will become subject to the influences of wicked or wretched people; he will be dragged down by the tempting evils of society; or, more commonly, he will fall victim to the self-doubts and insecurities that haunt every man.

If your frame is weak, you may find yourself believing that your wife's argument has some merit, or that her bitchiness has some grounds to it. You might feel like you should give her attitude the merit it really ought to deserve. Well, that's her frame (you're terrible) beating out yours. You've lost certainty in your own reality (that's she's being crazy).

Being stoic in this situation can help you counter some of those ill effects -- you'll try to not show that her words are impacting you even as your sense of reality is being shattered - with your sense of reality so goes your self confidence. So in a sense, being stoic deals with how you process emotions and not so much what your worldview is. In the example, it might be "she's a total bitch and I'm not going to react", which is fine, but her worldview is taking precedence over your worldview since you've acknowledged that she's being a total bitch instead of your original worldview of she's batshit crazy.

Frame has a bit more subtlety. Again, from ROK

I see frame control as a blend of three elements:

1. the ability to define and maintain the terms of the social interaction;

2. the ability to project your masculine essence outward; and

3. your view of physical reality.

In most cases, if you had a very strong frame, anyone that brought in anything that challenged your worldview would be laughed at and ridiculed for being either 1) naïve, 2) stupid, or 3) both.

Frame in Practice - a trite, but stupid, example

So what does this mean in practice? That brings us to this wonderful post on the TRP main subreddit by Lupe- with this example.

Thing is, our brains aren't selected to perceive reality accurately. Our brains were selected to help us climb social hierarchies and charm those around us. So when it comes to perceiving reality, we hamster. Everyone lives in their own reality, because the human mind is not capable of perfectly perceiving reality in an objective sense, it must deduce reality through reason. This reality is then stacked up to the reality of those around us.

When I was a teenager I was homeless for a stretch and I did some weird things to get by. I noticed if I walked into a store, picked food up and started eating it as I walked out casual as fuck I never got stopped. The one time I got caught I raised my eyebrow, gave the person a look like they were completely insane, and in a tone dripping with accusation said: "Um, this is mine?", then backed off and walked out. Dude looked like he was tripping balls. Because my frame was stronger than his. This is not holding frame, this is narcissistic manipulation. But the example stands to prove a point.

While he says that this is narcissistic manipulation, this is also a completely accurate demonstration of what it is to dominate with your frame. The outward manifestation of his belief that the grocery store worker was absurd resulting in OP's reality being the one to take place, i.e. the food was his. This goes along the lines of "if you act like you know where you're going, no one's going to stop you".

Notice how frame doesn't deal with how you process and react to emotions. Frame is purely about your worldview. It takes a long time to develop the certainty and self-confidence to know that you are right. It requires a lot of reference experiences.

There's a subtle difference between frame and stubbornness too that Lupe- also hits on.

To me, stubbornness is about being ego invested into your opinions. Frame is about being confident in your perceptions of reality.

To use my argument with my friend as an example: when he called me a psychopath, had I been being stubborn I would have argued with him. I'm not a psychopath and that's a kinda offensive insinuation, undermining my character like that just because I didn't fall into his idea of behaving however I should have been.

Frame, instead, is like a pure integrity throughout your reality, complete congruence with your perceptions. My emotions said I wasn't a psychopath. My mind said I wasn't a psychopath. There was no space in my reality where I was a psychopath, so I just shrugged, and was like "okay bro". I stayed in my reality. I wasn't defending an opinion. It wasn't an argument.

So, to summarize -

Holding frame is the way you view the world reality.

Remaining stoic is how you react emotionally. When you get emotionally riled up because your woman is accusing you of all sorts of bullshit, you're not remaining stoic.

With a strong frame, you'd be able to completely shrug off her bullshit. With a strong frame, you'd be able to dominate reality by pushing your reality onto her and convince her she's being ridiculous.

I'll leave you by encouraging you to read both of the links in full. Hopefully that'll provide additional insight.