How To Be C.U.N.T.
I would like to bring a new meaning to the word “cunt”.
On one hand, it is possibly the most offensive word in the English language. On the other, it’s a word with a lot of power and an extremely rich etymology. To be C.U.N.T. is, to me, to have achieved a certain level of mastery when it comes to balancing your inner feminine and masculine energies, and to have extended that to your business, your work, or whatever creative effort is important to you.
I chose the word “cunt” because of its unapologetic, primal - even though accursed - energy. Cunt vibrates power and solidity with a twinge of dark energy. You do not say “cunt” lightly. Even if you mean to, it comes out heavy. It doesn’t slip off the tongue but drops out of your mouth heavy like a little rock, a dark seed now planted in your neighbour’s garden at night, not easy to retrieve. Collectively, we’ve chosen this word to encompass our distrust of the feminine essence and potency over many centuries. It’s time to create a different narrative.
In the beginning, there was Word. In the context of reclaiming leadership from the feminine aspect, this word could well be “cunt”. I choose to reclaim it in my own language as an expression of appreciation for my feminine essence. Not only in its gentle form but particularly in its dark, potent, vast and unexplored quality. Tantric masters refer to cunt (or yoni) as the only temple in this universe that conceives, and delivers, life. I hope it can become a temple of life for the movement of the empowered feminine rising, in partnership with, and supported by, the empowered masculine.
I’m usually careful about simplifying things but simplifications are sometimes useful in getting a message across and also making it easier to grasp and implement. And so, I allowed for my masculine to make a decision here and create a simplification which some of you may find helpful to take away something tangible from this book (and my masculine part I like to refer to as Bob loves tangible shit).
CUNTs are Curious, Unapologetic, Notorious and Trustful.
Being curious and trustful are quintessentially feminine attributes which surround - or hold space for - the notoriety and unapologetic nature of the essence of the masculine.
What is curiosity? For me, it’s a quality of fundamental openness to life. Where does the energy want to flow, in this situation, or in the context of this particular relationship?
In my perception this has everything to do with how connected I am, first to myself, my own needs, desires, boundaries and beliefs; then with other people in a given situation; then with the bigger picture of a relationship, outside of the immediacy of what’s happening right now.
Curiosity means staying in openness and flow between these three levels. This means you easily move from one to another and back. It doesn’t mean, however, I’m always open to everything that comes, contractions and boundaries are natural. But I can stay in connection with my own contraction while remaining in curiosity or openness to a situation. Being curious is to be free, unbounded, unrestricted. Without sufficient curiosity we inevitably get stuck - in our perspective, in our story, in the way we choose to interpret the world.
We try to squash the truth of a situation, which is infinitely complex and fascinating, into the box of our perception. And, if we manage to do that, we inevitably feel disappointed, sooner or later, that’s all there is to reality.
Being unapologetic also feels like being utterly free to me, on a level of my expression in the world. I am not bound by convention or external norms. I can choose to abide by them, of course, but it’s a free and conscious choice. I am not bound by my own shame and sense of not being enough or not belonging in the world. Those feelings may come but they don’t have any power over me. I also don’t have to prove that I am worthy or strive to look good in front of anyone. I know that I deeply deserve life in its fullest expression, including my unique imprint. And from the place of this knowing, I act.
A truly unapologetic person isn’t a show-off but innocent, pure and joyful like a child. In other words, she or he isn’t tainted by cynicism, disbelief, resentment or fear. Everything an unapologetic person does, they do in the light, in full view, for there is nothing to hide.
Notoriety, not in the ill-fame sense of the word but more a badass relentlessness, is a domain of entrepreneurs with a strong masculine leadership. It reminds me of what Paul Graham, infamous entrepreneur, computer scientist and venture capitalist refers to as “being an animal”; he chooses entrepreneurs with this quality (amongst others) to join Y Combinator, possibly the most famous incubator he created. He works with those who impose their dream on the world with relentlessness that knows no hesitation, until the world has no choice but to accommodate your dream and shape itself around it..
Yes, some people will get rubbed up the wrong way. But, as my friend puts it, ‘there’s no way to be a real entrepreneur and not to piss someone off along the way’. And preferably an entire industry which is stuck in its ways and thoroughly ready for disruption.
To me notorious also implies being unforgiving of one’s own weakness and the power of habit that no longer serves. It means constantly reinventing oneself, shedding skins, to find an iteration of an idea, belief or behaviour that works in the business context. To be notorious is to be perpetual and unstoppable even when things don’t look pretty or promising, like the wheel of fortune. It’s to be truly committed. I don’t see a lot of unwavering commitment in the world - and also in myself - these days. We move from one thing to another in the hope of feeling more comfortable, more recognised, more special. And yet we come across a set of largely similar issues everywhere we go. Obviously, we take them there ourselves.
Being trustful is a beautiful quality of the feminine aspect which rounds up the feminine-masculine balance of an entrepreneur of the future. Trust is possibly the most complex quality to define though, and has so many dimensions. When I ask an intelligent candidate I’m interviewing what trust means to them, I often get a reply I haven’t even considered. I remember how I felt when I first heard, in personal development circles, the phrase “trust the process”. I was really frustrated. What the hell does this even mean? Which process, mine, someone else’s, the process of the world at large? And what if those are at odds with one another?
These days I don’t even try to answer these questions. I can, in most cases, drop into “trusting the process” without the need to know exactly where the boundaries of this process are, where it might be going, or what it all has to do with me.
It’s possible that the idea of being trustful in you the creeps. It’s possible that you feel you’ve worked hard to carve out a little corner of the world where you feel safe and you don’t intend to trust anyone or anything outside of that corner. I appreciate what you feel since I keep on discovering how, where it comes to my view of life, I have “made” some things safe, and other things risky or even untouchable.
The truth is, though, that we’ll both have to find ways to abandon the safety we’ve created in order to meet ourselves fully in a place where nothing is controllable. In a place where life flows.
To sum up, a CUNT is someone who has mastered the whole spectrum of feminine (curious, trustful) and masculine (unapologetic, notorious) qualities. And well rounded leaders are those who are both effective and compassionate, profit oriented as well as mindful of the bigger picture, well beyond their own bottom line. This new paradigm of integrated leadership, adopted by enough conscious individuals, is exactly what the world needs in order to come back into balance. In other words, more CUNTs equals a better world. So next time someone gives you the title, thank them sincerely and respond that if they work at it, they may become worthy of being branded as CUNT too.