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 Gate of Hunger
Silence has a weight, a texture—a presence that grows more powerful when we learn to wield it deliberately. In episode 11 of Grandeur, we journey through the mind of a man who chooses isolation not as punishment, but as resistance against the endless hunger for distraction that defines our modern existence.
Through a mesmerizing narrative that blurs the line between reality and metaphor, we witness his confrontation with a mysterious pawn placed in his room—an object that seems to grow heavier with meaning as time passes. As strange phenomena unfold around him—walls that breathe, voices that mimic his own thoughts, and shadows that move with unsettling purpose—we discover that his true battle isn't against physical hunger but against the pressure to engage on terms that aren't his own.
"Hunger is a language," Anthony reflects, "and in this chamber it spoke with more than one voice." This powerful metaphor illuminates how we navigate a world constantly demanding our participation. Social media, relationships, work cultures—all continually invite us to react, respond, and engage without pause. Yet sometimes, our greatest power lies in the space between wanting to act and choosing to wait.
The episode culminates in five profound reflections that challenge us to examine our relationship with silence and restraint: When did you last choose to wait instead of act? How do you distinguish between offers meant to help versus those designed to bind? What "pawns" in your life carry disproportionate weight? Where have you been measured without realizing it? And perhaps most importantly, what part of yourself grows strongest when you choose silence over engagement?
In a culture where "engagement is currency," learning when to withhold that currency becomes a radical act of self-preservation. Connect with Anthony to continue this conversation through the "Let's Chat" link, via anthony@gentsjourney.com, or on Instagram @mygentsjourney.
"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 11 of Grandeur. Wow, it's crazy, we're getting there. We are getting there, so let's go ahead and let's get into the cold opening. It starts with the sound of nothing, not silence. Silence has a weight, a texture, a pressure that settles into your ears. This is thinner, it's colder, a void stretched tight over skin. The room is bare, four walls, each cracked in a different way, holding their own quiet history of neglect. The paint has chipped like an abandoned building. It's chipped in the way of places still used but never cared for. He sits in the corner, knees drawn up, hands loose, spine pressed into the seam where the two walls meet. A tin cup waits in front of him, half full of water. Hasn't touched it in hours.
Speaker 1:It is day two, not just without food, without all of it. No conversation, no reading, no glances traded in the hall. He has refused every small offering the folded note passing by hand, the gesture toward the seat at the table, the subtle invitation to listen in on a story. This is not about starving the body. This is about starving the parts of him that have been eating lies. The air doesn't bounce sound back, it swallows it. He can almost feel the walls drinking in the small movements he makes. His own breathing is the loudest thing left.
Speaker 1:He tracks time by the shadow through the high barred window, a slow moving stripe that takes hours to crawl from one side of the floor to the other, and when it finally disappears, he closes his eyes. The absence of light feels cleaner than the gray that replaces it. His body shifts without permission, rubbing a knee, flexing his toes against the cold floor. No one ever told him to fight discomfort. They only told him to stay. Thirst speaks before hunger, not in words but in suggestions, a pull towards the cup, a growing insistence that one sip would solve everything. He doesn't drink, not because he's proving something, but because he wants to see how far the voice will go before it stops pretending to care.
Speaker 1:Above him, somewhere in the halls, he hasn't walked for days. Movement stirs, quiet steps, a chair scraping the muffled clink of ceramic, life continuing without him. And then a different shadow passes over the window. And then a different shadow passes over the window. It is thicker than the others, sliding rather than stepping. The air tightens.
Speaker 1:Something is here, not in the room, not fully, but close enough that the floor hums faintly under him. The feeling is not unfamiliar. It has brushed past him before, like the moment before light touching ground. His stomach twists, not from hunger, from memory. Her face, not the day she left, but the day she said yes. The rain catching light, her laugh pulling him into the street, rain falling against her hair. When he opens his eyes, the image changes. Her mouth moving in silence, the world behind her, darker. Now the light on the ring gone red. He blinks.
Speaker 1:The room returns. The cup is still there, the water looks thicker by the time. The shadow moves again. He's lost track. How many times his mind has tried to bargain with him. Just a sip, just glance at the note, just a word to the next man who passes, but he stays.
Speaker 1:The door opens. It's not anyone he knows. A hooded figure steps in silent. They kneel, set a black pawn on the floor, just one Between them, and leave without a word. The door closes. The pawn is worn heavier than it looks. He doesn't touch it, not yet, because this, this is the thirst.
Speaker 1:The pond sits where it was placed, no more than a hand's reach from his knee. Its presence is the weight in the room, small but undeniable. He has not touched it yet. He feels as though it's already in his grip. It yet he feels as though it's already in his grip. Time here doesn't move forward, it folds on to itself. He tries to measure it by the return of the shadow through the high window, but sometimes it comes faster, sometimes slower, or maybe he just blinks too long, it doesn't matter. Each time the shadow passes, the room feels smaller. The walls lean in Not literally, at least he thinks not but the cracks in them seem deeper, the paint curling away like something recoiling from his existence. The air has grown thick, like the room hasn't been aired in weeks, though it's only been days. He tells himself it's just the hunger. But the voice that says so doesn't sound like his. It's lower, it's smoother, it's amused.
Speaker 1:He takes a slow breath, ignoring the cup in front of him. The water has started to take on a strange surface tension, the reflection warping like a bad mirror. For a moment he swears. He sees her face there, half-smile, eyes full of warmth. Then the smile flattens, the eyes harden and the mouth moves in silence. His heart hits once hard. Before the image breaks into meaningless ripples. He presses his palms into the floor until he can feel the grit under his skin.
Speaker 1:There's no sound in the room, only the echo of sounds that should be there Scrape of a chair, the murmur of voices above a door opening. None of it actually happens. Yet his mind insists on playing them, like an old recording in another room. He focuses on the pawn instead. It hasn't moved, but the longer he stares at it the more it seems to tilt toward him like it's waiting or leaning in to hear. The thought brings a rush of heat up his neck. He stands abruptly, nearly kicking the cup over. The room sways and for an instant the walls are not walls, they're red curtains rippling in the wind. He cannot feel, but beyond them a shape awaits Watching. The air hums, faint with electricity. He blinks and it's gone. The pond remains.
Speaker 1:He crouches back down, holding himself still. His thoughts scatter like birds, impossible to catch. One moment he's remembering the smell of her hair in the rain. The next he's hearing a whisper that says you don't have to do it this way. You don't have to do it their way. The voice doesn't say who it belongs to, it doesn't need to. He closes his eyes, but it only makes the voice clear. You think this is strength, starving in the dark. They broke you. They told you to thank them for it. His stomach cramps hard enough to fold him forward. He breathes through it, slow and deliberate, until the pain ebbs. When he opens his eyes, the pond is closer, not by much, maybe an inch, maybe a little less. He swallows air, scanning the floor. There are no marks, no signs of it being moved. But it's closer, he's sure of it. The shadow from the window begins to return, stretching toward him like a black tongue. When it touches the pond, the piece gleams not gold, not silver, but something darker. Silver, but something darker, like metal scorched in fire. He should look away, but he doesn't. The hum on the floor deepens, rising into his bones. The voice slides in again, warmer, now, more intimate. They'll keep you here until you forget you had a name. I can give it back to you. He shakes his head hard. The pond blurs, the walls breathe in and out, and now a drop of water breaks the surface in the cup, though no one has touched it. He stares at it, the ripples until they fade. The pond is. It's still there, watching, waiting, and in the hollow between heartbeats he wonders, not for the first time if this is hunger or if the room itself has decided to feed on him.
Speaker 1:Part 2. The Pawn in the Cup. He doesn't remember falling asleep. One moment the pawn was there in the shadow's edge and the next he's walking to darkness so deep it feels like another layer of skin. The air is heavier now, as if the room itself had been holding its breath until he opened his eyes. The cup is gone.
Speaker 1:He pushes himself upright too quickly and the dizziness comes fast, like a door slamming shut inside his head. When it clears, he finds the cup again. Only now it sits against the pond's base, perfectly centered, as though placed there by deliberate hands. He didn't move it. He knows he didn't move it. The water inside is no longer still, it quivers, as though something far beyond is shaking the floor in slow, deep pulses. Each ripple bends, the reflection of the pond stretching into strange inhuman shapes. Some of them look like faces. He tells himself it's just the hunger, just the thirst.
Speaker 1:But the thought doesn't stick. The image of the hooded figure from before returned, sharp and undeniable. Not their face, not their voice, just the way they occupied space, like the air had been built to carry them. He feels watched. It's not a normal kind of watching, not the gaze of someone deciding if you're worth talking to. This is the kind of watching that measures, weighs and files you away for later.
Speaker 1:His fingers twitch toward the cup. His fingers twitch toward the cup, then stop an inch short. The smell hits him first. Not the water, not the metal, but rain on hot stone familiar, in a way that makes his teeth ache. The whisper returns close enough to feel the words against his ear, though the air in the room remains unmoved. You know what's not theirs to give to you. His eyes, close without meaning to. The voice isn't like the others he's heard here. It doesn't carry the kind of tone of command or judgment. It feels like an offer, a choice, wrapped in the kind of patience that only predators have.
Speaker 1:When he opens his eyes, the pond is no longer black. For a second it holds a dim red glow, like an ember breathing under the surface. The light fades before he can blink, but the image burns into the back of his skull. He moves the cup aside, not drinking, not dumping it, just removing it from the pond's reach, or maybe from his own. He presses his back against the wall and waits for the shadow to return across the floor. When it does, it's wrong. It's too thin at the top, too wide at the base, like a figure kneeling just out of sight. He doesn't look up. Whatever is there, whatever has been there, he isn't ready to see it in full. The room breathes with him until the light dies again.
Speaker 1:Part three. The voice that wears my shape breathes with him until the light dies again. Part 3 the Voice that Wears my Shape. It starts as a faint echo, too close in tone to be anything but his own voice. At first it repeats things he already has said in his head A thought about the cracks in the wall, a memory of the taste of bread, the sound of her laugh, caught at the edge of forgetting. Then it changes. The phrasing is wrong, the rhythm is off, the words feel heavier, as if they were dragged here from somewhere else. You have been here longer than you think. He freezes. It's his voice, but not from his mouth. You've forgotten the first day already, the first deal, the first loss.
Speaker 1:He looks towards the pond. It hasn't moved since he pushed the cup away. Still it sits with the kind of stillness that's too deliberate to be natural. His head thuds once against the wall, a grounding habit he carried since the shelter days. The sound is duller than it should be swallowed by the room before it can bounce back. The voice speaks again. They want you empty, I want you whole.
Speaker 1:The hunger claws threw him in waves. It's not just his stomach now, it's in his jaw, his chest, even in his hands. The ache has spread so far. It feels like a part of a skeleton. He tries to ignore it, to count breaths until the wave passes, but the voice keeps pace with him. It matches his inhale, his exhale, until the timing is perfect, until it's impossible to tell where he ends and it begins. What would it take? It asks softly, softly, for you to stop doing it their way. He doesn't answer, he can't. The act of speaking would be a kind of agreement. Instead, he curls his knees tighter and shuts his eyes behind them. The darkness moves. He sees himself not as he is now, but as he was before. The version he thinks only in rare moments, the one with sharper eyes and a cleaner gait, the one who knew exactly what he wanted, that version of him smiling, and in the reflection of the pond, the smile widens until it doesn't look like his at all.
Speaker 1:Part Four the Door that Wanted Me Gone. The first knock is so soft he almost misses it. It doesn't sound like a hand against wood, it's too deep for that. It's closer to the thud of a distant drum carried through the floor. He glances at the door. It hasn't moved. The faint strip of light at its base remains unbroken. The second knock comes harder, not loud, not hurried, but with weight, the way a boot heel might sound if someone stood on the other side, shifting their stance. His throat tightens. He doesn't know if he wants the door open or to stay shut forever.
Speaker 1:The third comes without pause. Then then a fourth, then a long, slow scrape, as if something is dragging across the wood grain. The pawn is between him and the door. Now. Its position unchanged, but its presence sharper, more intrusive. His gaze keeps returning to it as if it might move again. The knock stops, stops the scrape stops Silence.
Speaker 1:He waits for the next sound, but instead the strip of light beneath the door begins to thin. Not that the source is dimming, but because the floor itself seems to be rising toward it. The gap narrows, the air tightens. The room feels as though it's drawing in a breath. A sudden sharp pressure blooms in his ears. His instincts scream at him to get away from the door. Without thinking, he slides along the wall until his shoulder blades press into the corner farthest from it. He slides along the wall until his shoulder blades press into the corner farthest from it. That's when the smell hits. It's acidic, metallic, almost electrical. It's the scent of something that's been burned but not consumed. The voice that sounds like him comes again Closer now. They don't want you here. The words aren't angry, they're a matter of fact, like a diagnosis. The strip of light vanishes entirely. He stares in the dark outline of the door, half expecting it to vanish too. Instead it pulses, not with light but with a faint, rhythmic bulge, like it's breathing. The pressure in his ears break with a pop. The air rushes back. It's cold and thin. The strip of light returns, faint but present. The door is still shut, perfectly still. The pond hasn't moved. But he knows. He knows that whatever was on the other side didn't leave. It just decided to wait.
Speaker 1:Part 5. The Patience of Predators. Hours pass, or maybe minutes. The room makes no promises about time anymore. He can still feel the memory of the door breathing, though it looks the same as before, the strip of light under it. Steady, thin and harmless. A trick, he tells himself. The pond hasn't moved yet it feels closer.
Speaker 1:The hunger gnaws at him and pulses, now sharp and sudden, then fading to a dull ache. His body wants to shake to burn its last reserves for heat, but he forces himself still. He's learned the hard way that movement only makes the weakness louder. A sound breaks the stillness, not from the door this time, but from somewhere above A faint scoff, followed by the tapping of something small and deliberate. Then nothing. Then the sound, again closer. The ceiling seems to bow ever so slightly, as if taking on weight it shouldn't have.
Speaker 1:He doesn't look up. Instead he fixes his gaze on the pawn, daring it to move. Where he can see it, the voice, his voice, returns. They're patient, hungrier than you think, but they'll never eat the body first. Hunger than you think, but they'll never eat the body first. The words leave a residue in his mind, suggesting he can't quite shake.
Speaker 1:Predators, he knows test before they strike, they circle, they watch, they'll see if you'll run, and here running isn't possible. The air shifts against his skin, warmer now, but not comforting like the inside of a mouth he swallows against a dry throat and forces his back straighter. If something is watching, something is waiting for the break, it won't get it. Now Minutes stretch thin. The sound above stops entirely. Silence folds over him again, but this silence is different. It's the kind that follows the moment a predator decides it knows everything it needs to know about you. The pond catches the light in a way that makes it look slick, wet. His stomach turns the shadow from the light in a way that makes it look slick, wet. His stomach turns. The shadow from the window returns. It crawls across the floor until it touches the pond. For a moment the room tilts and he swears. The pond leans back, as if content to wait. And predators, predators can wait forever.
Speaker 1:Part 6. When the walls lean closer, he doesn't notice it at first. The shift is gradual, like the slow tightening of a band across his chest. The walls have always felt close, but now, now they're in motion, at least they seem to be. The hairline cracks stretch longer, their jagged edges catching the dim light. The corners that once stood at clean right angles now seem to bow inward. He runs a hand across the floor to prove. It's just an illusion, but the grit has changed. It's sharper, more like powdered glass than dust. The pond sits in the exact center of the narrowing space. His breathing quickens before he can stop it. The air smells faintly of copper now, and every inhale the scent deepens, thick enough to taste. He presses his back against the wall, then stops because the wall presses back, not hard, not shoving him forward, but with the steady, patient insistence of something that means to close the distance.
Speaker 1:The voice that sounds like his doesn't speak this time. It hums, a low, resonant note that vibrates in the meat of his jaw. He grits his teeth, but the hum moves lower into his chest, sinking with his heartbeat. For a moment he feels certain the broom can hear it. He closes his eyes Behind them. The pond is closer. He doesn't see it. He knows it when he opens his eyes again. The walls have stopped moving. The cracks are the same length they were before. The air still smells of copper, but the pressure has eased. Only the pond is different. It leans not much, just enough to suggest it's no longer resting squirrelly on its base Like it's listening. The hum fades, the silence returns. He waits for whatever comes next, but nothing moves. The pawn stays where it is, and that's worse than if it ever crossed the floor to meet him.
Speaker 1:So let's go ahead and let's get into the monologue. You know the room was meant to take something from him, not the kind of taking you notice in the moment. This was slower, stranger-like, watching a shadow lengthen right and realizing too late that it isn't tied to the sun anymore. And realizing too late that it isn't tied to the sun anymore, he begins in stillness, voluntarily, a choice to starve. Not just the body, but the endless hunger for distraction. Maybe he thought he knew what that would cost. Maybe he believed the worst would be just an ache in his stomach or a dry throat. Right, but hunger, it's not just a sensation. Hunger is a language, and in this chamber it spoke more than one voice.
Speaker 1:The pawn came without a word, delivered by hands he didn't see clearly enough to trust. You know, it should have been nothing, just like a token, a test, a simple piece of. You know the strange order he's been trying to survive, right, but here in the quiet, you know, every object grows heavier, every silence grows louder. Object grows heavier, every silence grows louder. The pond begins to, you know, it begins to mean more than it should. And then the voice arrived. And it's not that voice that, you know you hear from across the room. Right, it's not that kind of voice kind of voice it's. It's the kind that shapes itself from your own breath. Right, a voice that wore his tone, borrowed his memories and shifted them until it didn't quite fit anymore. Right, it didn't order, didn't threaten, it offered it, and that was worse. Right, because, let's say, when someone offers you a way out, you have to decide whether the cost is worth the escape.
Speaker 1:Right, the door became a part of the game. It knocked, it scraped, it breathed. It reminded him that there was always another side and that sometimes the other side doesn't want you there. The message was simple You're being measured, you're being weighed Above. Something moved around him. You know the air changed, you know the walls. They leaned closer, not enough to crush, but enough to make sure that he felt the idea of being crushed, and sometimes that's worse. Right, and through it all the pond stayed, it was waiting. It was always this, changing colors. It was a little fluid. Right, he was leaning in just slightly, like it was listening to whether he was going to do it or not, whether he was going to change or not, whether he was going to break his hunger.
Speaker 1:What you might have missed is the true trial here wasn't physical deprivation, it was agreement. Every knock, every whisper, every shift in the air was an invitation to engage on their terms, to speak when silence would hold more power to reach, when waiting would teach more patience. The room was not trying to break him, it was trying to make him participate, and the longest distance he traveled here wasn't across the floor. It was between that wanting to act and choosing not to, and that distance, that distance is everything. So let's go ahead and let's get into the five reflections here. Reflection one when was the last time you chose to wait instead of act, and what did you learn from that pause? A lot of us just act without thinking right. Excuse me. When you start to think before you act, it's amazing the clarity that you can receive.
Speaker 1:Reflection question number two how do you recognize just between an offer meant to help you and the one meant to bind you? A lot of times, when we're looking at offers, we're not looking at long termterm, we're only looking at short-term. Great examples when you buy a car, right, and you're like, oh, I want it to be 72 months or 84 months, right. Well, when you do that, yes, your payment is smaller, but you pay more on interest on the car. So that's short-term relief, but then long-term pain. So always think about that right.
Speaker 1:Number three what pawns your life you carry more? No, I'm going to rephrase it this way what pawns in your life carry more weight than they should? Pawns could be anything. Pawns could be how you see things, how you act, your habits, your rituals, those kind of things. Think about that right. Relationships would be another one too.
Speaker 1:Number four where have you been measured or tested without realizing it until recently or later? Whichever one you want to use, I think what we have to understand as humans and having relationships and working and doing these things, you're always being measured by something because there's always going to be some kind of judgment, right? So there's always going to be measurement in some way, shape or form. So when you're asking yourself that being measured or tested, are these good measurements or bad measurements? Are these good tests or bad tests? And what is it doing in your life? That'd be a really easy way to look at it. Doing in your life, that'd be a really easy way to look at it.
Speaker 1:And then, number five what part of yourself grows strongest when you choose silence over engagement. You know, we live in a life or lifestyle right now or I should say we live in a world where engagement is everything. Right, they want you to engage on social media. I want you to engage in, you know, liking following, sending this stuff to your friends and family members, right, everything is about engagement. Engagement is life, it's currency, but sometimes you have to hold your currency and choose silence over engagement, because sometimes you just don't have anything left to give. Sometimes you've got to choose silence because the engagement that you want to do is not going to be beneficial to either party.
Speaker 1:Right, and with his engagement and his silence over it, he didn't want to participate because he didn't know, if you think about it, what was real and what was not. The biggest revealer of that was the fact in the very beginning we talked about. You know, in the cold open, about his ring. You know about her being alive, or it was part one about being. You know the ring being alive, all that stuff about being. You know the ring being alive, all that stuff, right? So he's not sure where he is or what's going on or what's beyond that door, and that's his biggest fear right now.
Speaker 1:So, but anyways, guys, you know this has been quite the series, I must say, and it's something I just super enjoy, and I'm just so thankful that you guys are enjoying it too, and I can't tell you how much it means to me that you guys are liking this series. And you know the conversation I get to have with you guys now is just I know I say this all the time, but it really is truly incredible and I'm just really, really, really grateful. So, if you want to support the show, here we go talking about engagement If you want to support the show, it's very, very easy. The best way to do it is just send this to a family member or friend, right, who needs some entertainment but also, too, needs these kind of reflection questions on their life. Right, that's the best way. Another great way to is to leave a like, a comment or review on, you know, the platform that you're listening to this on. That would be absolutely incredible and I would appreciate it dearly.
Speaker 1:Now, if you want to engage with me, right, there's three ways to do it. First way is going to be through the podcast description. Here there's something that says let's chat. You click on that and you and I can have a conversation about this series, this episode, or the 270 plus episodes now that're on on a gent's journey. So feel free to reach out to me. There segment is gonna be through my email. My email is anthony at gent's journeycom and then, obviously, last but not least, you can always reach out to me on instagram. My instagram handle is my gent's journey. So again, guys, thank you so so very much for listening today and remember this you create your reality. Take care. Bye.