Gents Journey
Helping Men become the Gentleman they deserve to be. This Podcast is part inspiration part motivation. We discuss what it takes to be a Gentleman in the 21st Century. We also talk about how to deal with the internal and external battles that life throws at us. So come be apart of the Gents Journey!
Gents Journey
Grandeur: The Belief
The sidewalk glistens after rain as a man wanders through a city that feels increasingly distant from him. Something isn't right—the world seems to be bending around him, familiar yet foreign. When he sees what appears to be his own death on a convenience store TV, a chill runs down his spine.
"The Belief," the third episode in the Grandeur series, takes us on a haunting journey through what Anthony calls "the hollow hour"—that liminal space where a person exists after losing everything. Not just rock bottom, but the rarely discussed territory where identity itself begins to dissolve.
We witness a man's gradual disappearance from the world and from himself. Once successful with a career and relationship, he now navigates homeless shelters where violence and death become background noise. He carries two significant objects: an engagement ring for the girlfriend who died before he could propose, and a mysterious "night" that once hummed with meaning but has gone silent.
What makes this narrative so powerful is its unflinching portrayal of the part most transformation stories skip over. Before the breakthrough, before the rise, there is often a period of complete emptiness—becoming "a shadow in the margin of your own life." The protagonist stops speaking, stops being seen, and begins to question if he exists at all.
Yet within this decay lies something sacred. As Anthony explains, "No man ever truly climbs until he's knelt before his own ruin and has refused to call it permanent." The complete stripping away of identity creates space for something new to emerge. "The only thing more dangerous than a man who has it all is a man who's lost it all and didn't die."
Are you carrying something that's stopped humming with meaning? Where in your life are you pretending to be fine? When was the last time you felt truly invisible? These reflections invite you into your own journey through the hollow hour—and perhaps toward whatever waits on the other side.
Connect with Anthony through the chat function in the podcast description, email at anthonyatgentsjourney.com, or on Instagram @mygentsjourney. Remember: you create your reality.
"True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."
Hello and welcome to the Gentleman's Journey podcast. My name is Anthony, your host, and today we are in episode 3 of Grandeur. It's called the Belief, so let's go ahead and let's get into the cold opening. It isn't raining anymore, but the sidewalk still glistens like it remembers, as if the city doesn't know how to dry off, or maybe it doesn't want to. He walks slower now, not because he's tired, but because the world feels hesitant, like it's waiting for him to catch up, like it knows something he doesn't. The early morning haze clings to the buildings, making everything look like an echo. Signs flicker too softly, cars roll by too quietly, even the pigeons seem unsure if they should scatter or stare. A cyclist whips past him too fast, too close. He doesn't look back. Just a gust of wind and the sound of tires against wet concrete. A couple on the corner laughs too loud for the hour, like they're trying to prove that they still feel something.
Speaker 1:A little girl drops her stuffed rabbit on the crosswalk. He bends to grab it and outstretched to return it, but her mother yanks her forward without a glance. He stays there for a moment just holding it, soft, worn, one ear matted, the other flopped sideways. It smells faintly like cinnamon and sidewalk dust. He kneels besides the bench, places the rabbit down gently, next to a newspaper that's three days old and a cup of coffee that's never been claimed. The page flutters just once and then stillness. He pulls out his phone to check the time no service still. The clock blinks normally though 707. That number again. He stares at it, the kind of stare that tries to break something open. It's broken, he mutters, but it feels like a lie. He's just not talking about the phone. Something else isn't syncing. The seconds tick, but they don't move anything.
Speaker 1:He pushes through the quiet and finds a convenience store, half lit, humming with that awful buzz. Only old fluorescent lights make the kind of place that sells dusty batteries and lottery tickets for people who have already lost. He steps inside, grabs a bottle of water, brings it to the counter. The man behind the glass isn't really there, not mentally. He's watching something on a tiny mounted TV static-edged news coverage A crash downtown, wreckage twisted like torn paper. The anchor's voice fills in, muffled but clear enough to carve still no identification, victim pronounced dead at the scene, name with help, root pending next of kin. And then it cuts sharp like the tape ran out. He stares at the screen. A chill falls down his spine for just a second. He swears. He saw himself A chill falls down his spine For just a second. He swears. He saw himself the hoodie, the jeans, the bruise underneath the left eye, a stretcher being lifted, then gone. Excuse me, he said softly no answer. The man doesn't move, doesn't blink. He sets a crumpled bills on the counter and walks out Outside.
Speaker 1:The air feels heavier, not colder, just more dense, like fog inside the lung. He leans against the side of the building, unscrews the bottle and takes a drink. He doesn't taste. The night tucked deep into his coat, pocket buzzes faintly, not like a vibration, more like the way a song from your childhood echoes in your head, familiar, unprovoked. He reaches in and touches the wrapped shape. It's warm, it always is.
Speaker 1:When things start to shift, he looks up. A single crow sits on the wire above the store, lossy, motionless, watching their eyes lock and for the first time since he woke up, on that bench it caws, sharp and cutting. Then it takes off wings slicing the air gone. He watches the wire sway, then turns and walks, doesn't rush, doesn't look back, and just for a moment, and for a moment. A security camera would hold on him. If this were a film, if this were something that could be witnessed, it would linger longer like it didn't want to follow, like it knew something he didn't something was coming, or maybe finally something was waking.
Speaker 1:He walks four blocks without purpose, or maybe finally something was waking. He walks four blocks without purpose, just letting the sidewalk decide. The buildings begin to change older cracked brick, rusted signage, graffiti. That's more story than spray. He passes a mural of a face with no eyes. Beneath it someone's written in fading paint you are here. He stops, he stares, reads it again and suddenly he's not so sure. He touches his chest. The heartbeat is steady. Something inside it isn't A small girl runs past chasing a balloon.
Speaker 1:The balloon pops, she doesn't scream, just stops, stares at the rubber pieces in her hand, then smiles and runs off again. He watches her go, everything. It feels off-center, like the world is bending just slightly around him, not enough to break, just enough to lean Back at the shelter. He tries to sleep, but the cot feels unfamiliar, the walls too narrow. He turns over. Then again he thinks of the crow, the girl, the news footage, the night. He thinks of the number on the clock 707, mirror time forward and backward. He doesn't know why that matters, but it does. He closes his eyes and in that moment, just before sleep, just before the hum of the world fades, he hears something that isn't a sound, it's a shift like a footstep, taken behind the curtain of the world and in the dark. He says half out loud, half to no one. I think I'm starting to believe.
Speaker 1:Part 1. The Beginning of the Fall. He doesn't remember the last time he felt clean. There's a sourness that clings to him now, not just the grime of sleeping on benches or the rotted yesterday's sweat soaked into a collar of his coat. It's deeper under the skin and the breath like something inside is turning. He hasn't showered in five days.
Speaker 1:The shelter has one bathroom. It's always locked, always full, always a trade. You don't get in without knowing someone giving something or being dangerous enough that they let you in and let you cut. He's none of those, not anymore. He waits until night. When the guards are distracted, he slips in with his coat still on. He washes paper towels in cold sink water. No soap, just desperation, the kind that makes you check the lock three times and still flinch at every sound.
Speaker 1:There are men in the shelter who don't blink, men who talk to themselves in four different voices, men who will shank you for the wrong kind of cough? He learned this the second night. Who will shank you for the wrong kind of cough? He learned this the second night. Now he doesn't speak. He lays on the top bunk in the far corner, arms wrapped around his pack like it's holy. No one touches him there. No one climbed that high the night. Presses cold against his ribs in his coat pocket he doesn't take it out anymore, not because he's afraid of what it is, but because he's afraid it's nothing at all.
Speaker 1:He begs during the day, now, not always, not loudly, but enough to keep from starving enough not to fade again like he did outside the gas station two days ago. Not always, not loudly, but enough to keep from starving. Enough not to fade again like he did outside the gas station two days ago. People don't look at him, they look past him, through him, like he's a problem someone else should solve. He used to wear a suit. He used to run to meetings. He had an assistant named Trish who brought him his coffee and knew the way he liked his notes stacked. I was eating a half-eaten banana he found on the top of a trash bin. That was lunch.
Speaker 1:The night doesn't hum anymore. It just sits there, metal and mute, a symbol of something he hasn't earned yet. Maybe he never will. The dreams come rarely. When they do, they're not visions, they're just memories Her laugh in the hallway, the way she kicked her feet when she got excited, her eyes before she knew what was coming. He still has the ring Still in his coat, still in the box, still unopened. He thinks about selling it every day. He could eat for weeks, get a room for a few nights, buy socks, clean water, real soap, but he never does. He doesn't know why. Maybe it's because the only thing he still owns that isn't covered in regret, or maybe it's because it's the only piece of her he has left. Either way, it stays, and so does he In this world between worlds, half buried, half alive, waiting for something to change, not because he believes it will, but because the only other option is disappearing completely. And he's not ready to do that Yet. Not yet, part 2.
Speaker 1:The Cracks Appear, it happens just after midnight. There's a scream, short, guttural, followed by the unmistakable thud of flesh hitting concrete. He doesn't get up, he doesn't need to. The moment you start showing interest in someone else's fight in this place, it becomes your fight too. The guy in the cot across from him rolls over and pulls his blanket tighter. No one's going to intervene not the guards, not the other men, not him. It's a shelter, but it feels more like a holding pen and tonight it stinks of blood and wet socks and the kind of sweat that doesn't come from effort, it comes from withdrawal. He keeps his back to the wall, eyes half-lidded, pretending to sleep. Pretending has become a kind of survival. Eventually the scuffle dies down, footsteps recede, someone coughs, then silence again, a silence more terrifying than noise because it means no one's coming. He shifts the cot, squeaks the night, presses against his ribs like a whisper, but offers nothing else. He sleeps for maybe two, three hours, waking to the sound of a man vomiting in a trash bag. No one reacts.
Speaker 1:By morning he's back on the street, same coat, same breath, held in tight, same ache behind his eyes. The thought hits him like a dart Maybe I'm not supposed to survive this. It's the first time he's admitted that, not out loud, but inside somewhere private and honest. He tries to find a quiet corner near an underpass to eat the stale granola bar he saved from yesterday. But even that moment is stolen when a man with cracked knuckles and swollen eyes asks him for it. He doesn't say no, he doesn't say anything, he just hands it over. And the man doesn't say anything. He just hands it over and the man doesn't thank him, just walks away and starts chewing.
Speaker 1:By noon it's raining, cold, pinpoint rain that stings on contact. He doesn't have gloves. His knuckles are starting to split open. He wraps them in strips of an old shirt and keeps walking. A woman passes by holding an umbrella and glances at him just once, long enough to see his face. He almost smiles. She crosses the street. The city doesn't want him, not anymore. Maybe it never did. He stops in front of a convenience store window and sees his reflection. It's gone Pale. His eyes are like two black moons, his jawline gone under stubble and hunger. He used to be handsome, used to care. Now he looks like a warning sign. Inside the store a teenage cashier watches him too long. He steps back from the window, ashamed of nothing and everything all at once.
Speaker 1:Later that afternoon, back at the shelter, someone overdoses in the hallway Blue lips, rattling breath. A crowd gathers, but no one helps. One of the guard walks by and just mutters Narcan's empty, that's it, that's all. The man dies 20 minutes later, slumped against a radiator that never worked. He doesn't even know the guy's name, and that's what gets him, not the death, the normalcy of it, it should matter more.
Speaker 1:He walks five miles that night, no destination, just away From what he's not sure From himself. Maybe there's a bus depot near the edge of town. He stands outside of it for an hour, reads every schedule, studies the map, wonders what would happen if he just got on. One Left Disappeared. But he doesn't have fare. Even if he did, he doesn't have a destination, just the doesn't have fair. Even if he did, he doesn't have a destination, just the vague ache of escape and nowhere for it to land. So he walks back Somewhere along the track. He pulls out the ring, just holds it. Then the night, neither speaks. They don't have to. He's not a man anymore, not in the way the world understands. He's something else, something less, something that exists between two moments, between stairs, Between sidewalk cracks. He's what people try not to see, and that's the hardest part. He understands why.
Speaker 1:Part 3. The Disappearing. It starts with silence, not the quiet kind, the kind that wraps around a man's ribs and squeezes until the only sound left is the one inside his head. He hasn't said a word in two days, not because he can't, but because he doesn't want to. Words require belief that someone's listening, that something will change, but no one is and nothing does.
Speaker 1:He walks the city like a ghost, retracing the steps that no longer mean anything, past the coffee shop where he met her, the one with the crooked green awning. It's gone now, burned down six months ago. He never noticed. He stands there anyway. The sky is the color of concrete and the cold has teeth. His fingers are too numb to hold the pen, so the notebook stays closed For now.
Speaker 1:He smells like rot. Showers are once a week, if he's real enough to get a token. Last time a man held a blade to his throat for cutting a line he hadn't, but urin costs more than bleeding, so he didn't explain, just stepped back and waited another day. That day never came. There's a church two blocks with a broken bell tower. He sits behind it in the alley eating stale crackers from a food box. Rats move between the dumpsters like they belong here, and maybe they do. He watches one of them drag a half-eaten apple into a drain. Even they have shelter. He laughs or tries to. It comes out like a cough. His chest hurts lately, a sharpness when he breathes deep. Could be the cold, could be something worse. He doesn't ask, it doesn't matter. The shelter's full again. Fights are up. The air inside feels thinner, like the building itself is tired of holding broken men.
Speaker 1:He sleeps with one arm across his chest and the night's still tucked inside the lining of his coat. Doesn't take it out, doesn't speak to it, not anymore. Hasn't made a sound in days. Maybe it's dead, maybe he is On the third night. He panels outside a pharmacy Just enough for a sandwich. Maybe socks. People avoid eye contact like it's contagious.
Speaker 1:A young man drops a dollar without stopping. It, hits the sidewalk and flutters under a trash bin. He watches it go, doesn't move. He doesn't chase money anymore. That version of him is gone. A woman gives him a half muffin. He takes a bite out of it. Still warm, he says thank you. It's the first word he's said in two days. She doesn't hear him. She's already on the bus. He sits on the curb and eats it slowly like communion.
Speaker 1:Later a man named Curtis tries to sell him fentanyl behind the laundromat. It'll help you forget, brother Curtis says. He says I'm just trying to remember. Curtis laughs like he doesn't understand because he doesn't. And that's the thing. No one here knows what he lost. Not really. They've all lost something, sure, but not her, not everything, not themselves. He was someone, he had a future, he had a ring in his pocket and a bar full of light and a plan. Now, now he has the ring and the coat, and the night that won't speak and a smell that clings to his skin like guilt. He turns Curtis down, but he thinks about it and that terrifies him more than anything else.
Speaker 1:That night a man dies in his sleep, three cots down. No one screams, no one cries. They cover him with a thin blanket and wait for the city van. The body stays there until sunrise. He doesn't sleep, he doesn't blink, just watches, because the only difference between that man and him is timing, maybe not even that.
Speaker 1:He writes again, not much, just a sentence I don't know who I am, without suffering Then below it. I'm not sure if I ever knew. He stares at those words for hours, then adds one more Is this really who I am now? Doesn't feel like a question, feels like an answer. Doesn't feel like a question, feels like an answer. The next morning he skips breakfast. The line was too long and the new guy handing out bowls doesn't like the way he looks, said he's seen him before, called him a double dipper. He isn't. But again, doesn't argue, walks five miles without thinking, ends up under a bridge. He doesn't argue, walks five miles without thinking, ends up under a bridge. He doesn't recognize Graffiti tags on every column Symbols, eyes, numbers, messages. No one wrote for him.
Speaker 1:He pulls out the night again. It's cold, it's heavy, still silent, still nothing. He stares at it, eyes hollow, and puts it to his chest and closes his eyes. For a moment he hopes, just for a moment. But it doesn't hum and he doesn't cry. He just puts it back and keeps walking. By nightfall his feet bled through the soles of his shoes. One lace is gone and the other is tied, a knot he can't undo with frozen fingers.
Speaker 1:He lies down behind a dumpster behind the gas station on 17th. The concrete is wet, the smell of oil and piss and hopelessness rises like steam. He watches the stars between the cracks and the metal above him. For the first time in days he thinks about the way she used to say his name Like it meant something, like he meant something. He mouths it now, but it doesn't sound the same. It sounds like a stranger, and that's what he is a stranger to himself, a memory that hasn't been erased but hasn't stopped being spoken. He closes his eyes and whispers Just one more day, then falls asleep and the night doesn't hum, but it stays with him Even now, even here, even at the disappearing Part 4.
Speaker 1:The Longest Night he hasn't spoken for seven days now. Not a word. Not to the shelter staff, not to the man who offered him half a sandwich, not to the teenager yelled at him for loitering outside the gas station. His throat still worked. He knows this. He's just empty. Silence is easier. It keeps the dam from breaking.
Speaker 1:Tonight the shelter is over capacity again. We're stacking bodies in every corner. Some men are curled in fetal positions on the tile floor. One man keeps muttering in another language, rocking back and forth against a column with blood on his shirt. No one intervenes, no one asks questions. He gets a cop by the boiler. This time it's not warm, just hisses and shudders. It makes everything smell like rust.
Speaker 1:He sits on the edge and unlists his shoes slowly, like a ritual. There's a hole in a right one now. Wet socks. He can't remember the last time he felt dry or warm or wanted. The night is still with him inside the coat, always near. He hasn't taken it out all day, Not because he forgot, because he's afraid it won't respond anymore. It hasn't made a sound since the bridge Outside it started to snow, the kind that doesn't stick, just dissolves.
Speaker 1:On contact, like everything else in his life lately. He stands in the shadows of an alleyway and watches the street light, halo and white, each flake, a silent declaration you're not supposed to be here anymore. He checks his phone no new messages. The screen is cracked. Has been for months but it still works enough to remind him he's not alone. He scrolls through his contacts just to see names, not to call, just to remember what names look like. Her name is still there. He taps it doesn't work. There's no reception.
Speaker 1:He walks for hours, no destination, just an ache that won't settle like his soul is pacing inside his skin. He ends up behind the train yard where the gravel cuts through abandoned warehouses. There's no wind there, no people, just the sound of metal cooling and old tracks resting beneath time. He sits, pulls the box out with the ring in it, not the night. The ring Still in its box, still pristine, won't open it.
Speaker 1:He was going to propose that night at their favorite dive bar cheap beer, neon lights, the jukebox she always played Snatch on and it all planned Speech, music, the look in her eyes when he opened the box. But she never showed, she never made it. Car accident she never showed. She never made it. Car accident, driver never stopped. She died with his name in her phone and him in her future and he hasn't known what to do with that. Since he holds the box. He could sell it easily. He would buy him weeks of food, maybe a motel, maybe a bus fare out of this whole damn city. But he doesn't, never does. He puts the box back in his coat, leans his head against the wall behind him and closes his eyes. He doesn't cry. That stopped long ago. Now he's just empty.
Speaker 1:Back at the shelter a fight breaks out again. Two men over a blanket. One has a sharpened toothbrush, the other one grabs a chair. The staff doesn't come, everyone just watches. Chair the staff doesn't come, everyone just watches. He doesn't move, doesn't blink, rips the night through his coat and waits for the sound to pass Like thunder, like grief.
Speaker 1:The next morning a man named Jack, from Two Cots Down, doesn't wake up Overdose Same story, different name, no ceremony, just a sheet pulled over the head, silent nod. Someone takes his shoes. He doesn't know Jack, they never spoke, but the sight makes something shift in his stomach, not fear, not sadness, jealousy. Jack says done, the fight is over for him. He still has to get up, still has to walk, still has to beg, still has to pretend tomorrow is a real thing. He finds a new corner to sit in, not to beg. He can't anymore. Just to exist, to take up space, to feel like he's a part of something, even if that something is just a cracked sidewalk under a billboard for a luxury condo.
Speaker 1:He watches people pass, all types, clean, fed, brushed. One woman in a business quote makes eye contact real, eye contact, not just a glance. She smiles and he feels it like a blade because it's the first kindness he's received in weeks and it breaks him more than the cruelty ever did. He looks away ashamed to receive something human, ashamed to remember what being human even felt like. Later he writes again, sits on the curb behind a liquor store and scribbles in the notebook, with fingers too stiff to hold the pen, right New lines. The city is a god and I'm its unwanted prayer. This isn't living, it's waiting. I miss the man I used to pretend to be. He tears the page out, he folds it, puts it in the pocket, same pocket as the ring. Everything valuable grows there now the night, the ring, the words, the parts of him. He refuses to give up, even if no one's asking for them.
Speaker 1:That night he showers for the first time in twelve days. The water is cold, the skull reeks of mildew and mold and soap that's been left to rot, but it runs. For a moment he feels almost human. He doesn't have a towel. He dries with his coat, watches a reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink. He doesn't recognize the towel. He dries with his coat, watches a reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink. He doesn't recognize the man staring back. But there's something in his eyes, not hope, not strength, just presence and a small flicker of still there. And that. That's enough for now.
Speaker 1:Part 5. The Drift, the cold, doesn't bother Mike at used to. It's not that he's numb to it, it's just that everything feels the same now Cold, damp, distant. He walks with his hands in his coat pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind. That's not even that strong, but it feels strong Because everything he does now he hasn't eaten since yesterday. Maybe it was the day before he stopped counting. Food's just another thing to forget about, like sleep, like dates Like himself. Food's just another thing to forget about, like sleep, like dates, like himself.
Speaker 1:He passes a man handing out warm soup in front of a church. He doesn't stop, doesn't ask, just nods. The man doesn't nod back, he just down alleys. He's never walked before, but that still feels familiar. Same smell of grease and ash. Same graffiti tags on rusted dumpsters. Same huddled figures pretending to be asleep. One of them stirs eyes, meet, then nothing. Two ghosts passing in opposite directions.
Speaker 1:He finds a bench in a park that no one uses. The swing set creaks in the wind. A beer can rolls across the grass. He sits down slowly, like he's afraid the metal might reject him, but it doesn't. Nothing does that would require it to notice him In his coat pocket. The night is silent, heavy, the hum is gone. A man with a limp walks by nods, asks if he needs anything. You good, he says. He lies. He says yes. The man keeps walking Across the street a woman's walking her dog Laughing into her phone.
Speaker 1:She wears the same brand of coat. His girlfriend used to love that brand. That felt expensive but wasn't Class and disguise she used to call it. He watches until she rounds the corner. Then he looks away, quick, sharp, like her memory just slapped him. He doesn't want to cry, he doesn't let himself, but something folds in his chest. He opens his notebook, blank page, writes a word drifting and underlines it hard. The knight doesn't respond. He leans back, closes his eyes, tries to remember the last time someone said his name Can't, not once, not since. For the first time he wonders if it matters.
Speaker 1:Part 6. The Hollow Hour. There's a new smell in the shelter tonight, not the usual cocktail of mildew and bleach. This one's darker, metallic, like rusted coins and something faintly sour underneath. He doesn't ask, no one does. He learns fast that questions cost too much in places like this.
Speaker 1:He lies in his bunk, bottom row, second from the door. The mattress sags in the center. It smells like piss, no matter how many times he flips it. He used to cover it with his coat. Now he wears the coat and just accepts the stink. That's the evolution. He hasn't spoken to anyone all day no greetings, no eye contact, no nods of recognition. The world doesn't speak to him and now, finally, he stopped trying to speak to it.
Speaker 1:He gets up around midnight and uses the bathroom. It's a fluorescent hell, fuzzing lights and rust-stained sinks. A man with blood on his knuckles washes silently next to him. Neither says a word. That's the language now Silence, through glassy stairs and careful distance. He wipes his face, looks into the mirror, doesn't recognize what's staring back. He's thinner, taller, jaw tighter. There's a scratch under his eyes he doesn't remember Getting. When did that happen? How many nights has he slept here? Now Four Ten.
Speaker 1:He looks down. The night's still in his pocket, still cold, still silent. He holds it in the palm of his hand as he walks back to his bunk. Looks like nothing in this light. It looks just like a piece of metal, like a thing. He lies back down and places it on his chest, closes his eyes and breathes. It doesn't hum For a long time.
Speaker 1:He just listens to the shifting bunks, to the murmured nightmares of the man next to him, to the click of a lighter. A few beds down, someone's smoking something. They shouldn't. No one cares. He pulls the blanket tighter At some point someone screams, a real scream, blood thick and animal-like.
Speaker 1:He doesn't flinch. The scream cuts out fast. No footstep, no fight. No footstep, no fight. Just one sudden moment and then gone. Few men stir. One curses One, says a prayer. He turns over, closes his eyes.
Speaker 1:Again the night is gone. He bolts upright, hand scrambling across the mattress, checks the pocket empty. His heart lurches, panic, swells like a flood. He tears off the blanket, drops to the floor there near the bunk leg, just out of reach. He grabs it, holds it tight, breath shaking, chest heaving. Why did that feel like dying? He lies back down, pressing the night to his chest like it might melt through him. He can't lose it. He doesn't know why, but he just can't. The thought hits him like a whisper in his skull. What if this is all you have left? He doesn't sleep, stares at the ceiling. Over and over again, the same three words spin in his head I am nothing In the morning.
Speaker 1:He walks, doesn't eat, doesn't speak, just walks. A woman offers him change outside a gas station. He nods. He thanks her. She pulls her kid a little closer. Here's the kid whisper. Why does he look like that? The woman shushes him.
Speaker 1:He walks faster, near an underpass he finds a cement column covered in graffiti, most of it's names. One word stands out, gone, written in huge black letters. Someone tried to cross it out in red, but it still bleeds through. He takes out his notebook, writes the word circles. It Then adds something beneath no one says your name, do you still exist? The night hums just once, soft, low, almost like a sigh. He grips it again. But it's cold, no heat, no warmth, just wait. He keeps walking until he's tired, so tired he can't think, finds a bench near the train station, sits, watches people with places to be pass by without seeing him, looks at his hands Whose are these? He mutters. He's not sure if he meant to say it out loud, but he did and no one answers.
Speaker 1:That night he sits in the shelter bathroom again, wipes the mirror clean, looks into his own eyes, looks into his own eyes. I don't know who I am anymore, he whispers. For the first time it sounds true. All right, let's get into the monologue. This is the hour no one talks about. Not rock bottom, not the awakening, not even the collapse. This is the hollow hour, the hour where a man floats between who he was and who he'll never be again the place where the world doesn't hurt because it doesn't feel like anything at all.
Speaker 1:In this episode, we watch the man go silent. He's not numb, that would imply that he felt too much. This is something way worse. He's becoming a shadow in the margin of his own life. He walks through the city like a ghost, with a pulse. The shelter isn't a refuge, it's a holding pen, and every night he lies on that rank mattress with a war raging in his head between two versions of himself One that remembers and one that just wants to forget.
Speaker 1:The night, once mysterious and humming with potential, is now cold, indifferent, a silent passenger. And that's the metaphor, isn't it? We all carry something that used to mean everything, until the silence gets louder than the signal, until we start asking if we've invented the meaning just to survive. This is the part of the journey. I should say this is the part of the journey, what most men skip when they tell their comeback story. They talk about the breakthrough, the business launch, the power, but they don't talk about the days they didn't shower, the nights they stared at the ceiling for seven hours straight, the silent panic of losing a small object you've assigned meaning to, because it's the only thing that felt like it knew your name. They don't talk about the day the world stopped seeing you.
Speaker 1:And this? He doesn't grow, he doesn't evolve, he sinks. And that is sacred, Because no man ever truly climbs until he's knelt before his own ruin and has refused to call it permanent. What you might have missed is how the world responds to his silence. The woman who pulls her child away, the graffiti word that says gone, the knight humming once and then dying again.
Speaker 1:These are not just poetic details, they're clues. This isn't the story of a man finding power. This is the story of a man realizing he has nothing, nothing left to lose. And in that realization, that haunting moment of nothing left is what begins to strip the lesser man out of him. He doesn't know it yet, but this decay is sacred.
Speaker 1:You might be in it right now. You might be the man who hasn't cried in weeks because the tears dried up before they could fall. The man who walks into his house and doesn't feel like it belongs to him. The man who keeps checking the time and doesn't know why. And if that's you, don't rush, don't force the rise, sit in the hollow. It has something to say, because the only thing more dangerous than a man who has it all is a man who's lost it all and didn't die. You're still here, that's enough and that's more than most.
Speaker 1:So let's go ahead and let's get into our reflection. Question Number one what in your life has stopped you from feeling but you still carry? Reflection two where are you pretending to be fine, just so others won't look too closely? What was the last moment you truly felt invisible? Number four is there an object in your life that holds meaning no one else knows about? That's a big question. And number five what would it look like to embrace the silence instead of fighting it? That's another really big question.
Speaker 1:So this is a heavy one, guys. This is going to be a heavy series, so I just want to let you guys know that. But I promise you his ascension is going to be amazing. So, anyways, the support we just get with this show, it just I can't tell you how much it means to me. All your guys' questions, your comments, it just really means a lot to me and your support is just amazing. So thank you so much for that.
Speaker 1:Now, if you're someone who wants to, you know, support the show. Best way to do it is share those with your friends, review it on on whatever platform you're listening on, but sharing it is. Sharing is caring, as they say right. Um, now, if you want to get a hold of me, you want to talk about this series, this episode, or maybe you're going through something like this, that's what I'm here for. I'm here to help you.
Speaker 1:So there's a couple of different ways you can do it. First way is on the description of this podcast. There's a function that says let's chat. Once you click on that, you and I can have a conversation about this series, this episode, the 14 other series that are out there and the 260 plus episodes that I have on this podcast. Second way is going to be through my email. My email is anthonyatgentsjourneycom. And then, last but not least, you can always go to my Instagram. My Instagram is mygentsjourney. Please, please, please, feel free to reach out to me there as well. So again, guys, thank you so much for your support today and, as always, remember this you create your reality. Take care Bye.