Empowerment

The Weight of Unsaid Words
Arthur found it tucked beneath a stack of old blueprints, the paper yellowed, brittle at the edges. Not a treasure, not a forgotten deed, just a letter. His own scratchy handwriting, barely legible now, dated May 12th, 1978. Thirty-seven years ago. He hadn't meant to find it, just clearing out the desk in the den, a task his wife, Mary, had been hounding him about for weeks. He picked it up, careful not to crack the creases. The paper felt like a ghost in his hand, thin and impossibly fragile.
By HAADI22 days ago in Men
A Certain Shade of Bitter
Arthur always knew the exact moment the color blue would hit him. It wasn't the kind you saw in the sky or on a painted wall. This blue, it was a taste, something that settled on his tongue like dust, then seeped into his molars, down his throat, and straight into the pit of his stomach. It wasn't bitter, not like coffee left too long on the burner. More like… metallic. The tang of old pennies. The flat, dull ache of a winter morning when the light was grey, not even proper white, just endless grey-blue stretching out to nowhere.
By HAADI23 days ago in Men
A Chromatic Palate
The taste of the color blue. It wasn't a sweet taste, never that. Nor sour, not exactly. It was more like the cold, hard tang of old steel, left out in the rain too long, then brought inside to slowly rust. Frank knew it well, a persistent whisper on the back of his tongue, especially when the highway stretched out before him, a black ribbon swallowed by a night so deep it felt like an ocean. The truck, his old Freightliner, rumbled beneath him, a familiar beast, its cabin smelling of stale coffee, diesel, and thirty years of his own sweat.
By HAADI27 days ago in Men
The Gutter's Glare
Frank pulled the collar of his worn jacket tighter, the fabric rasping against his stubbled chin. Rain had been coming down for hours, a relentless, cold sheet that slicked the cracked asphalt and made the city shimmer with a greasy sheen. He wasn't going anywhere in particular, just away. Away from the stale air of his efficiency apartment, away from the silence that felt louder than any argument. The streetlights, the garish neon signs of the pawn shop, the greasy spoon diner, and the adult bookstore, all bled into the overflowing gutters, their colors warping into liquid smears of red, blue, green, and a sickly yellow.
By HAADI28 days ago in Men
The Weight of Quiet
Frank stepped onto the porch. Cold hit him like a fist, but it was a familiar one. The streetlights bled blurry halos through the falling snow. Fat flakes, big as dimes, drifted down, piling up fast. Already a good foot on the driveway, pristine, unbroken. Midnight. He pulled the old wool cap lower, exhaled a cloud, and walked to the garage. The plastic shovel was leaning in its usual corner, a silent sentinel. He gripped the handle, the cold plastic biting his palm, and pushed open the garage door, the groan of the rollers the loudest sound in the entire sleeping world.
By HAADIabout a month ago in Men
The Weight of White
Frank leaned against the kitchen counter, the ceramic mug cold against his palm. Two-fifteen AM. The old house breathed around him, every creak and groan amplified by the unnatural stillness. He'd been awake since eleven. Eleanor used to call him her human alarm clock, always up before dawn, but these days, dawn felt like a betrayal, a reminder of the empty side of the bed. He’d tried reading, tried the TV, but the words blurred, the images felt flat. His own thoughts, sharp and relentless, were the only things that held any weight.
By HAADIabout a month ago in Men
Picky Playerz
Before I get started with this message, let me emphasize one thing I firmly believe: Solid men don't fret for support. With that being said, try your best not to misconstrue the tone of what I'm about to write. I just happen to be a man that goes where inspiration leads him and I'm at an era of my life in which the selective nature of people keeps being made prominently obvious. Make no mistake, such a nuisance of habits is not new to me at all—just shockingly more apparent right now. To prove it, I dove deep into my timeworn journals for any text that shines light on the common person's deliberate manner of applauding or acknowledging others; Self-interested selectiveness. As I said, I'm no stranger to low vibrational games, so I'll kick off this topic with a journal I penned 7 years ago.
By JeRon Baker2 months ago in Men
Why I Kept Attracting the Wrong People (And the One Shift That Finally Broke the Pattern)
For years, I kept attracting the wrong people — emotionally unavailable partners, draining friendships, people who took more than they gave, and relationships that left me confused or hurt.
By Aman Saxena2 months ago in Men
Rebuilding Reciprocity
Truth alone can heal what pride has broken. The war between men and women is not natural. It is manufactured by a culture that rewards resentment and mocks responsibility. Men are not the enemy of women, and women are not the enemy of men. The true enemy is the spirit of division that turned cooperation into competition. To rebuild what was lost, both must return to the principle that made civilization possible: reciprocity.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast2 months ago in Men
The Weight of Invisible Armor. AI-Generated.
The armor went on every morning, as routine as brushing his teeth. For Ben, it was a crisp button-down shirt and a steady demeanor. For his father, it had been calloused hands and silence. The material was different, but the function was the same: to protect, to project, to persevere.
By The 9x Fawdi2 months ago in Men
The Asymmetry of Consequence
A society cannot survive when truth applies to one group but not another. Every civilization that endures is built on shared accountability, equal justice, and balanced consequence. When one group is shielded from correction while another carries the full weight of judgment, corruption takes root. Today, that imbalance has become deeply gendered. Men are punished for failure, while women are protected from it. Men are held to the standard of results, while women are measured by intentions. The scales of consequence are no longer even, and the results are visible everywhere.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast2 months ago in Men
Men Are Not Utilities
Society praises men for what they produce but rarely for who they are. From childhood, men are taught that their value comes from their performance. They are measured by their paycheck, their strength, their endurance, and their ability to provide. They are expected to sacrifice without complaint, to solve problems without emotion, and to keep standing no matter how much weight they carry. What society calls manhood is often servitude disguised as virtue.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast2 months ago in Men