The Alpha Male

A Young Man’s Guide to the Big,

Wild World We Live In, and

A Young Wom­an’s Guide to Find­ing

The Real Al­pha Male

John H. In­gle

SpringSource Pub­lish­ing

2019

Cop­y­right 2019 – John H. In­gle

All rights re­served. This book is pro­tected by the cop­y­right laws of the United States of Amer­i­ca. This book may not be cop­ied or re­printed for com­mer­cial gain or prof­it. The use of short quo­ta­tions or oc­ca­sion­al page cop­y­ing for per­son­al or group study is permitted and en­cour­aged. Per­mis­sion will be granted upon re­quest. Un­less oth­er­wise not­ed, Scrip­ture quo­ta­tions are from the NIV Study Bi­ble Cop­y­right 2011 by the Zondervan Cor­po­ra­tion. Used by per­mis­sion. Scrip­tures marked NRSV are tak­en from the New Re­vised Stand­ard Ver­sion Bi­ble, Cop­y­right 1989 Na­tion­al Coun­cil of the Churches of Christ in the United States of Amer­i­ca. Used by per­mis­sion. All rights re­served world­wide. Scrip­tures marked VOICE are tak­en from The Voice™. Cop­y­right 2012 by Ec­cle­sia Bi­ble So­ci­e­ty. Used by per­mis­sion. All rights re­served. Scrip­tures marked NKJV are tak­en from the New King James Ver­sion. Cop­y­right 1982 by Thom­as Nel­son. Used by per­mis­sion. All rights re­served. Any em­pha­sis with­in Scrip­ture quo­ta­tions is the au­thor’s own. Pro­nouns used in ref­er­ence to the Fa­ther, Son and Holy Spir­it are cap­i­tal­ized through­out this book.

Cov­er art “Pure Pas­sion” Cop­y­right 2012 by Esta In­gle, used with per­mis­sion.

SpringSource Pub­lish­ing, SpringSource Pro­duc­tions, LLC

A Tex­as-based Lim­it­ed Li­a­bil­i­ty Com­pa­ny, Bur­net, Tex­as

Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca

ISBN-13: 978-1-7340348-2-0

Introduction

I wrote this book in the style of a per­son­al con­ver­sa­tion be­tween me and oth­er men. I want to talk to you in the same way I would if we were sit­ting in a cof­fee shop with a light rain fall­ing, star­ing out the win­dow, watch­ing peo­ple and traf­fic, talk­ing about things that don’t get talked about when you’re shop­ping, surf­ing the internet, or text­ing.

Sev­er­al years back I was sweep­ing the ga­rage on a spring af­ter­noon. My youngest son, James, came by to talk. He was not quite twen­ty years old. I knew he had been go­ing through a rough patch in life with ca­reer de­ci­sions and love lost. He needed some ad­vice, and he was ready to hear it. I started talk­ing and when I stopped a cou­ple of hours lat­er I had spilled out the es­sen­tial prin­ci­ples of this book. I spoke as though I had re­hearsed it all but I’d nev­er had those spe­cif­ic thoughts or ide­as come to­geth­er be­fore. It just poured out. I felt like I had just been giv­en some­thing. We had a few more con­ver­sa­tions over the next week or so in which I elab­o­rat­ed on a few of the prin­ci­ples. Not long af­ter­wards, he came back by the house and told me that what I had told him changed his life. He said, “Dad, you should write a book.” I had to agree. This is that book. The pur­pose of it is not to give you a pile of rules to add to the pile of rules you al­ready have. Life will put moun­tains of cir­cum­stances and choices be­fore you. If you’ve re­ceived some good coun­sel about some of those choices al­ready, then you might stand a bet­ter chance of mak­ing a good choice. Choices have a way of com­ing at you fast, with lit­tle or no warn­ing. I want to stim­u­late your mind with a new way of look­ing at the world and your time in it. My de­sire for this book is that it will be good coun­sel. We’ve got a lot to cov­er. Let’s talk.

Chapter 1 – The Alpha Male

Think of the Al­pha Male in bi­ol­o­gy and the an­i­mal king­dom – you’ve prob­a­bly seen online na­ture vid­e­os and tel­e­vi­sion spe­cials of the fast, ag­gres­sive male pred­a­tor at­tack­ing a help­less food item, like a ga­zelle, sheep, or some oth­er tasty crea­ture. He co­mes in fast, with au­thor­i­ty and strength, and shows no fear. The se­lected food item be­comes din­ner, as planned. The Al­pha Male owns his ter­ri­to­ry. The lion lives in its pride. The fe­males go out in a group to kill for the pride, but the Al­pha Male lion is still the lead­er of the pride. Fish live in schools, and hip­pos and whales live in pods. Wolves live in packs. Man­kind was de­signed to live in families. The Al­pha Male, along with the ac­com­pa­ny­ing fe­male and the off­spring of their un­ion are the in­gre­di­ents of the fam­i­ly. These units of or­gan­i­za­tion are ge­net­i­cal­ly built into God’s de­sign for each of them. Each of the mem­bers of the hu­man fam­i­ly lives un­der the cov­er­ing and lead­er­ship of the Al­pha Male of that fam­i­ly unit.

When a young man which has been raised in that fam­i­ly has reached the age at which he is ready to take a mate, he will “leave his fa­ther and moth­er and be joined to his wife, and they shall be­come one flesh” (Gen­e­sis 2:24 NKJV). The fam­i­ly be­gins anew, with a new­ly minted Al­pha Male (we hope) to lead that fam­i­ly unit. The Al­pha Male is a lead­er in thought and in ac­tion. There is no Beta Male. The Beta Male is a myth and is not found with­in the spe­cies Homo sapiens. The myth­i­cal Beta Male is sup­pos­ed­ly not ever able to act as an Al­pha – a lead­er – and they must find an Al­pha Male to which they at­ta­ch them­selves as fol­low­ers. The truth is that there are Al­pha Ma­les, and not-yet-Al­pha Ma­les. God cre­at­ed men to be­come Al­pha Ma­les – eve­ry sin­gle one of them.

An un­for­tu­nate fact in our mod­ern cul­ture is that the term Al­pha Male is mis­tak­en­ly un­der­stood to re­fer to a pa­tri­ar­chal wife beat­er who spends the fam­i­ly gro­cery mon­ey on beer. In tan­dem with that no­tion we have cre­at­ed a syn­thet­ic Al­pha Male re­place­ment that is a to­tal im­post­er and looks noth­ing like what was cre­at­ed back at the be­gin­ning of man­kind.

Trendy mag­a­zines and websites try to sell the Al­pha Male as the life of the par­ty, drink­ing a par­tic­u­lar brand of beer, hand­some and smil­ing large­ly, with the girl (or girls) of his choice on his arm. He is not the Al­pha Male. The Al­pha Male is also not the gold chain-wear­ing, vi­o­lence-driv­en drug deal­er who sells lies and takes life. The real Al­pha Male is not the air­head met­ro-sex­u­al boy star­ing at you from the pages of a men’s fash­ion mag­a­zine. The real Al­pha Male is none of that. The real Al­pha Male is a spir­it­u­al be­ing that is the lead­er, pro­tec­tor of, and the pro­vid­er for his fam­i­ly unit. He is dom­i­nant in the ter­ri­to­ry of that fam­i­ly unit. The Al­pha Male is the man who knows who he is, who he was cre­at­ed to be, and is com­fort­a­ble in his own skin. He knows what he

wants, and why he wants it. He has a firm plan to get what he wants and needs, for him­self and his fam­i­ly. He is guid­ed by a sure knowl­edge of God and a re­la­tion­ship with God that pre­pares him for eve­ry­thing that’s com­ing his way. He has gifts and tal­ents from God that he uses to ac­com­plish what he needs to do, for him­self and his fam­i­ly. He fears only God. He knows that God is there and wants, very much, to con­tin­u­al­ly find and see God operating in his life. He wants to hear from God.

There is a se­vere short­age of Al­pha Ma­les in our world:

The world is dwindling away, for lack of men; the na­tions are per­ish­ing for scar­ci­ty of men, for the rare­ness of men...Do what you will: only from God you will get men. – French Cath­o­lic Car­di­nal Lou­is Pie from his 1871 Christ­mas hom­i­ly).

I think the Car­di­nal was a pret­ty sharp fel­low, and what he said rings true, across the boundaries and shack­les of time – “only from God will you get men.” Real men – not ac­tors, pos­ers, and wan­na-be’s. The bad news is the short­age prob­lem in our mod­ern cul­ture is de­cid­ed­ly worse than it was in the Car­di­nal’s day.

If you meas­ure your­self against oth­er men you may of­ten ei­ther feel lack­ing some­thing it seems eve­ry­one else has, or bad­ly in­formed. If you feel lack­ing, it may be be­cause some­one has put up a bet­ter dis­guise than you. Men are very tal­ent­ed at put­ting up dis­guises – out­ward ap­pear­ances. It’s prac­ti­cal­ly a na­tion­al pas­time. They get to­geth­er in groups to test out their dis­guises and show them off; es­pe­cial­ly if they hap­pen to think their cur­rent one is re­al­ly ef­fec­tive. Some peo­ple call that male bond­ing, but it’s usu­al­ly just a chance to pa­rade one’s lat­est dis­guise – men, be­ing pea­cocks.

Chapter 2 – What Do Women Want?

The great ques­tion that has nev­er been an­swered, and which I have not yet been able to an­swer, de­spite my thir­ty years of re­search into the fem­i­nine soul, is “What does a wom­an want?" – Sig­mund Freud

Mr. Freud would have done well to study more about the in­born make­up of wom­en and not so much about their out­ward man­ner­isms. With­out be­ing over­ly sim­plis­tic, some­where near the top, or at the top of that list is that real wom­en want an Al­pha Male for their mate. They are ge­net­i­cal­ly wired to seek him out and join with him. When they find him, they will usu­al­ly stick with him. If they thought they found him and were fooled by his dis­guise, they usu­al­ly won’t stick around be­yond that mo­ment, be­cause they have im­por­tant life-busi­ness to tend to. If they de­cide to stick around an­y­way, it may be be­cause they have ul­te­ri­or mo­tives that keep them there un­til that mo­tive is sat­is­fied or no long­er ex­ists. If she feels too fi­nan­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble or has too many oth­er dis­trac­tions or threats in her life, she may put off leav­ing. A wise wom­an may also choose a man based on what she sees his po­ten­tial to be, con­fi­dent in his abil­i­ty to grow into an Al­pha Male. But, ul­ti­mate­ly, if she’s not with you as her Al­pha Male, or soon-to-be Al­pha Male, she is al­ready gone – you’re just wait­ing for the news. If she’s forced to stay, there is a se­ri­ous pen­al­ty to be paid for hold­ing her there.

Wom­en feel se­cure with an Al­pha Male. When big, bad things hit the fan, and life seems sud­den­ly very cheap, and very tem­po­rary, a wom­an im­me­di­ate­ly turns to look for her Al­pha Male. Her deep-seated ge­net­i­cal­ly-wired de­sire is that she al­ready knows where to find him, and that he’s al­ready com­ing to find her. She is look­ing for cov­er be­cause her DNA has wired her to sur­vive and look af­ter the sur­viv­al of their off­spring, wheth­er born yet, or en­sconced with­in the eggs she has car­ried since be­fore she was born. She has bi­o­log­i­cal im­per­a­tives that are so se­ri­ous­ly stamped into her DNA that you mess with those im­per­a­tives at your own per­il. When Sa­rah Palin talked about not mess­ing with mama grizzlies, she wasn’t try­ing to be cute – she was try­ing to in­tro­duce you to a pow­er­ful con­cept through a met­a­phor – a word pic­ture. I don’t know of an­y­thing more dan­ger­ous than a ful­ly formed moth­er pro­tect­ing her young. Just so you know, the ca­pac­i­ty is in there, you just may not have wit­nessed it yet. If you’re very for­tu­nate, you’ll nev­er see it. God made them that way, so don’t try to put some blame-thing on them for it. She is wired to seek out se­cu­ri­ty and sur­viv­al for her fam­i­ly. She is bless­ed with in­nate tal­ents to do that and do it well.

But, wom­en are more in­clined to val­ue safe­ty than men. Wom­en are not so well known for hav­ing said:

“Hey, let’s:

‘…set sail, an­y­way, that storm doesn’t look too bad;’

‘…ride that bull – it looks like fun;’

‘…jump out of that air­plane into the en­e­my’s back­yard;’

‘…catch that snake, and see if it’s poi­son­ous,’” and so on.

Giv­en that a lot men have died do­ing things like these, it seems rea­son­a­ble to con­sid­er that wom­en may even be more in­tel­li­gent in that re­gard. Their DNA isn’t quite so wired for that sort of view of life. Wom­en gen­er­al­ly don’t vol­un­teer for fac­ing death by knife fight in war­time, be­cause it’s not the way they’re wired. Dy­ing in a door-to-door gun bat­tle means that the po­ten­tial life with­in her also dies. Even in high­ly un­u­su­al na­tion­al cir­cum­stances, such as in the Is­rae­li De­fense Forc­es, only a few per­cent of the wom­en serv­ing op­er­ate in some ca­pac­i­ty that puts them near the front lines. But, they are not de­ployed in a man­ner that would de­lib­er­ate­ly ex­pose them to com­bat.

A wom­an serv­ing on the front lines in hand-to-hand com­bat is a raw con­tra­dic­tion in DNA wir­ing and phys­i­cal de­sign that is an aw­ful er­ror, meant only to gain po­lit­i­cal points for its phil­o­soph­i­cal fol­low­ers in a fall­en world. Im­ag­ine your­self for a mo­ment: you’re in a run­ning gun bat­tle try­ing to reach the hel­i­cop­ter ex­trac­tion zone, hun­dreds of yards away. You’re be­ing pur­sued by an­gry war­ri­ors of sim­i­lar skill, armed with se­ri­ous au­to­mat­ic weap­ons. Your team­mate is a fe­male and you’re both in Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions. You are sud­den­ly wound­ed and un­a­ble to run or walk. You weigh 185 pounds and she weighs 140. The only way you’ll both sur­vive is if she car­ries you that last two hun­dred yards, while fir­ing her weap­on ef­fec­tive­ly. Your weight is in ad­di­tion to the sev­en­ty pounds of gear al­ready strapped to her body. You’re prob­a­bly both go­ing to die. It’s just phys­ics, not pol­i­tics.

Wom­en are tuned for sur­viv­al and se­cu­ri­ty but with a to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent ap­proach than men. How­ev­er, the goal of their kind of se­cu­ri­ty is not the most val­u­a­ble trait for keep­ing the fam­i­ly free from dom­i­na­tion, de­struc­tion, or slav­ery by out­side forces. The in­born traits of the Al­pha Male are much bet­ter suit­ed for pro­vid­ing and main­tain­ing that free­dom in a some­times vi­o­lent world. It isn’t a val­ue judg­ment. It doesn’t mean he is a su­pe­ri­or cre­a­tion for hav­ing that re­sponse built into his DNA. It just means he’s not a girl. They re­al­ly are dif­fer­ent

and eve­ry day I’m glad for that.

What a wom­an is ge­net­i­cal­ly wired to seek from a man – just like a mag­net to steel – is re­la­tion­ship, pro­vi­sion, and pro­tec­tion. Love com­bined with re­spect is the glue that holds that re­la­tion­ship to­geth­er. Wom­en – much more of­ten than men – may use a “love” re­la­tion­ship or ac­cel­er­at­ed mar­riage as a means to es­cape a bad home sit­u­a­tion. Es­cape from an un­de­sir­a­ble liv­ing sit­u­a­tion is all too of­ten the mech­a­nism that pro­motes a re­la­tion­ship be­tween a male and fe­male. Both men and wom­en are all too ca­pa­ble of us­ing that im­ag­i­nary way out. But, it is a bad choice. If he’s NOT the Al­pha Male and the as­sur­ance of pro­vi­sion and pro­tec­tion are not there, de­fended by re­spect and love, then the fe­male is made to feel that no one has her back and she’s still look­ing for the real Al­pha Male. She is al­most cold­ly prac­ti­cal about the role of the Al­pha Male – usu­al­ly more so than the Al­pha Male, him­self. But, she is far more like­ly to tol­er­ate an Al­pha Male in a re­la­tion­ship with­out love than she will a “love” re­la­tion­ship with some­one who is not re­al­ly a true Al­pha Male.

In speak­ing of Abra­ham’s wife, Sa­rah, we’re told that:

You are her daugh­ters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear (1 Pe­ter 3:6).

Fear of what? Fear of the loss of pro­vi­sion and pro­tec­tion. That threat of loss may not be hap­pen­ing now, when it’s a sun­ny day, and the winds and sea are calm. But, it can hap­pen on that bad day that seems bound to come around more than once in life.

Self-Worth – or – Who’s Your Daddy?

The Al­pha Male lives in free­dom and se­cu­ri­ty – he is se­cure in who he is, in who God is, and what his re­la­tion­ship is to God. The Al­pha Male is se­cure be­cause God is se­cure. The Al­pha Male’s Dad­dy is se­cure.

In the Bi­ble we see:

Hus­bands love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave him­self up for her… (Ephe­sians 5:25).

Why was Christ giv­ing him­self up for the Church? He was do­ing that for its pro­vi­sion and its pro­tec­tion – he was will­ing to – and did – die for it. His pro­vi­sion was sal­va­tion and heal­ing through His eter­nal sac­ri­fice that brings for­give­ness through re­pent­ance. Christ’s pro­tec­tion was in send­ing the Holy Spir­it as our com­pan­ion – that still, small voice that we need to be hear­ing so of­ten – the awe­some voice of God. Eve­ry time we cel­e­brate the Lord’s Sup­per we openly ac­knowl­edge that pro­vi­sion and pro­tec­tion. The wife needs to know that the

hus­band’s com­mit­ment to her is so strong that he would die to in­sure that her pro­vi­sion and pro­tec­tion would en­dure – just as Je­sus did.

Je­sus is the ul­ti­mate Al­pha Male.

I rec­om­mend that you meas­ure your­self against Je­sus, the earth­ly im­age of the Fa­ther in Heav­en, “in whom there is no shad­ow of turn­ing.” He loves you so much. He wants you to know who your Dad­dy is. Re­call, if you can, lyr­ics from an old Bob Dyl­an tune, “you’re gon­na serve some­body.” In life, there are two choices; serve God, or re­ject Him and serve the dark forces of evil, even if you don’t know you’re do­ing that. You will ul­ti­mate­ly do one or the oth­er, wheth­er you like it or not. All the athe­ists I’ve ever met wor­ship and serve them­selves, think­ing that there re­al­ly couldn’t be an­y­one smarter or more so­phis­ti­cat­ed than they are. Un­wit­ting­ly, they have joined Sa­tan in his dec­la­ra­tion that:

I will as­cend into heav­en, I will ex­alt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the con­gre­ga­tion, in the sides of the north: I will as­cend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High (Isa­iah 14:12).

Per­haps with­out ful­ly re­al­iz­ing it, those poor mis­guid­ed souls who have re­jected God have joined their hope with that of Sa­tan – that if they wish, plot and plan thor­ough­ly enough, they will re­place God with them­selves. This is a very bad choice. You won’t make a very good god on your own. So, that should set­tle one mat­ter – who you’re go­ing to serve in life. The oth­er is wheth­er or not you’ll en­joy it, both now and lat­er.

Tru­ly de­cid­ing to serve God leads to un­cork­ing that deep-seated need to get to know Him, bet­ter. That deep-seated need is al­ready there, you just might not have fig­ured out what it’s about. Along the way, man dis­cov­ers wom­an, also. That be­comes an­oth­er deep-seated need that needs a lot of un­der­stand­ing. Let’s start find­ing out more about both.

Chapter 3 – Modern Woman

The Destruction of Modern Woman

“Choice.” It’s a big word. When Cain slew Abel it was “choice.” It was an aw­ful and per­ma­nent­ly de­struc­tive choice. That choice was so bad that Cain told God that, “My guilt is too great to bear.” In many trans­la­tions it says, “My pun­ish­ment…” but the orig­i­nal He­brew – avon – is bet­ter translated as “guilt.” His sin of purposefully tak­ing his broth­er’s life in his mo­ment of an­ger was so in­tol­er­a­ble and un­ac­cep­ta­ble to the rest of God’s Cre­a­tion that he feared for his life. God placed on him a “mark” so that an­y­one who thought to take venge­ance on him for his aw­ful crime would know that Cain was not to be touched.

The “Mod­ern World” would like for you to ap­proach the mur­der of your un­born child as a very whole­some lifestyle choice. This im­ag­i­nary world ap­proves of abort­ing one’s child, if for no oth­er rea­son than to cel­e­brate one’s “mas­tery” of them­selves – a show of in­de­pend­ence. But, what an aw­ful place to be, for a wom­an who has com­mit­ted such a griev­ous sin – a sin so great that it is specifically called out in the Ten Commandments – “Thou shall not mur­der.” Yet, here she is, mur­der­ing her own off­spring in the name of con­ven­i­ence and a pseu­do-spir­it­u­al state­ment of her pow­er and au­thor­i­ty; the same off­spring that is so strongly em­bed­ded in her DNA to pro­tect at any cost. With her child dead, she finds her­self great­ly wound­ed, with her guilt “too great to bear.” She will now urgently pur­sue an emo­tion­al de­fense for com­mit­ting this griev­ous act and is re­warded with mod­ern cul­ture’s warm, pro­tec­tive em­brace that she’s just ex­er­cis­ing her “rights” as a real wom­an. She should be proud. What a stag­ger­ing con­trast and shift of val­ues – from mur­der­er to cul­tur­al role mod­el.

Count­less wom­en have found them­selves in years of coun­sel­ing, seek­ing re­lief from the aw­ful guilt of hav­ing had an abor­tion. Some of them bury the guilt so deep­ly that their crumbling lives don’t even re­mem­ber the rea­son for their self-ha­tred. It’s both startling and be­wil­der­ing to con­sid­er that wom­en can be con­vinced and be ac­ti­vat­ed to em­pa­thize with all sorts of bi­zarre “so­cial jus­tice” causes, but then not have enough em­pa­thy for their un­born child to spare its life. Mean­while, wom­en who have not had an abor­tion and prob­a­bly nev­er would are drawn in em­pa­thy to the side of their suf­fer­ing sis­ter. Their em­pa­thy for the suf­fer­ing sis­ter they can see over­rides the em­pa­thy for the dead child, whom they can­not see. [End of Sam‍ple]