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Raising Men is a podcast about parenting, masculinity, and the lifelong journey of raising sons—and ourselves—to be men of courage, character, and purpose. Hosted by Shaun Dawson, each episode features real conversations with parents, leaders, and thinkers redefining what it means to raising men in today’s world.
Shaun Dawson (00:00.206)
Today we're gonna do something a little different in one of these many episodes. Now if you've been hanging around the show for a while, you know that I love finding character building lessons in weird places. And today, I wanna introduce you to something that I just absolutely fell in love with. And it's something that it turns out, I I just kinda happened to across it, didn't know it even existed. It's a book series.
And it turns out it is a worldwide phenomenon. And I I I discovered it. probably not by accident, but it it is absolutely amazing. And it turns out that it's also kind of a a good tactical manual for modern male agency disguised as a ridiculous sci-fi book series. This book series is called Dungeon.
Crawler Carl. Now, by by an author named Matt Didden. Now, if you haven't read it, it that's okay. I I you don't need to know all of the lore in the book in order to in order to get what I'm pulling out of this. But here's the sell-off. It's two o'clock in the morning in Seattle.
It's freezing cold, and Carl steps outside on his balcony in his boxers and a in a leather jacket to catch his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut. Now while he's out there, every gets out and he's chasing Donut around trying to get her out of the tree. And while he's out there, every roofed structure, anything with a roof on top of it on Earth flattens in an instant.
Billions of people die. Anybody who's not outside ends up dying. And an alien corporation has turned the planet into an 18-level subterranean reality TV dungeon cross. And so Carl looks at the ruins of his life holding this traumatized cat.
Shaun Dawson (02:27.926)
And he's given a choice. He can either stay on the frozen surface of the earth with in his boxers and light leather jacket, or he can and he'll die. Or he can walk into this glowing stairwell that leads straight down into what is essentially a death trap designed to turn his suffering into a reality TV show or the entertainment.
trillions of alien things. So he lost downstairs. And that's floor one. Right there, in the first five minutes of this story, we kinda hit a really good tension that I think a lot of men are dealing with today. And that is that, you know, Carl didn't ask for the world to collapse. He didn't ask to be stripped down to his underwear.
and thrown into a game with arbitrary and impossible rules. I think that's you know, that's probably a lot what it feels like to be a boy right now. or what it feels like to race a boy.
You know, I talk a lot about how the world, our sons, are are gonna evolve into the graduate into it's fundamentally changed in the last decade or so. The old structures, the clear pathways to economic independence, the straightforward social rules, the extinction of boredom replaced by constant, hyper stimulating just content.
all over the place from the algorithms and whatnot. It's like the it's like the roof flattening overnight. it feels disruptive. And as the data just continuously reminds us is that young men today face economic and social headlines that we just didn't have at their age. They're caught in a system that often that I imagine to them feels rigged, that they're constantly nudged
Shaun Dawson (04:44.366)
Towards passive consumption, towards anger, towards outrage, towards despair. So when Carl enters that first level, the system immediately kind of tries to goad him into panic. It the system's kind of designed to get rid of the humans. And he gets hit with horror and grotesque monsters and absurdly unfair game mechanics.
And in our framework on our on our show, Carl is being kind of pulled into the Conan brain. Right? I mean, literally, he has to fight for his life physically. And you know, we talk a lot about how the Conan brain is the amygdala. It's the fast, reactive, emotional, impulsive side. And it's the brain that wants to scream, throw hands, curl up at a ball because the unfairness of the situation is overwhelming.
If Carl stays in Conan room, he's gonna get eaten by a goblin in my thirty seconds. Instead, Carl basically forces himself into Sherlock Brain. And, you know, like we've discussed, Sherlock is the prefrontal cortex. It's slow, deliberate, strategic, and regulated. And Carl kind of takes a breath, he looks at his ridiculous outfit, he looks at the cat.
He starts calculating, he doesn't waste energy complaining, he doesn't, you know, just rail about how the system is so unfair. He accepts the reality.
The ridiculous reality of the floor he's on. And he asks the only question that matters. He takes the time to ask the question. What is my next move? Now you know, if you remember when we had David Rossi on the show, he talked about the difference between the animal side in this and the spiritual self-mastering side. Again, it's the corning brand versus versus the Sherlock Brown. And Dave pointed out.
Shaun Dawson (06:56.119)
fear and panic and anger. Anger are biological feedback mechanisms. They're like they're like the the the lactic acid that you could use when you're running. They're data. And you can process that data. And it it the data isn't the meaning. The data can give you access to the meaning. The animal brain says doesn't
know the difference. The data the animal brain doesn't know the difference between the data and the meaning. It just thinks, here it is. And it wants you to stop and give up or get mad or you know scream and yell or it's flounder. But self-mastery is the ability to acknowledge that that that data and that signal and choose logic and purpose over pure reactivity. And of course, Paul
is in a dungeon and there are monsters in there. And he's you know, he has to get into Sherlock or Okonan brain also. And he has to he has to decide when to be in what side of his brain. And and and he does it in a way he essentially decides what his values are early on. And then he proceeds to live those values.
And so, you know, that's the way he is on on on 401. He's his feet are bleeding because he doesn't even have shoots. And there's some funny dynamics that that that turns into, especially, man, listening to the audiobook is a real treat and a real experience that I've I've I've read the actual novels and now I'm going through the audiobooks and it's just an an absolute treat. So well done.
so Carl's terrified, but he overrides that physical panic because he decides that he has something bigger than himself to protect. He's protecting the cat. And he's protecting his humanity. He's not gonna let the bad guys burn him. He's not gonna let them break him. He'll let, you know, they can kill him, but he's not gonna let them break him.
Shaun Dawson (09:22.465)
And w you know, s and we saw that exact same principle when Aaron Blaine, the the Green Beret came on the plot cast. And Aaron you know, Aaron grew up fatherless. He was full of directionless anger. And he weren't appreciable with special operations. And he talked about how in the military w when you go into chaos, you don't you don't get to choose the environment. You evaluate
You evaluate what's on the ground, you accept it, and you execute. And more importantly, Aaron shared his core principle for Wisdom, which is that you you last.
Shaun Dawson (10:06.635)
Real strength isn't posturing. It's not puffing out your chest. when the world collapses. It's not acting like a like a big guy. and in fact the book depicts people would be there. Yeah, and they don't they don't have good lives. Yeah, they don't
Shaun Dawson (10:29.501)
it it is important to establish and and maintain your values. And it's standing between harm and the people you're responsible for and holding the line with calm discipline. That's that's what it means to be strong.
Shaun Dawson (10:49.451)
And Carl, you know, he doesn't survive 4-1 because he's the strongest guy in the room. He he's not. and in fact, the way that they set up the game, obviously you have to fight the boss, and and the boss is by definition going to be stronger than that. And he manages to survive because he accepts responsibility and he chooses to act, and he chooses to adopt.
a posture of agency of saying, No, I can I can do something about this and here's the part I can control and I'm gonna control the crap out of it. And I think part of the trap that we fall into as dads when our sons are struggling on their own version of whatever one has been whether that's trouble at school or getting overwhelmed or or, you know
Just my son came to me the other day and he was in in tears. So, so sad because he was lying in his bed going to sleep and he realized that that his mom and I were gonna die. And he didn't want that to happen. And he came down and
So that you know. So that I didn't want to die. That he didn't didn't want us to die. And it was a beautiful moment.
And but it's easy to drop an icon and brain when our kids are in distress or when they panic. Or if they get angry enough, they especially if they start being snotty with us or something like that or disrespectful. We get angry at their anger. We get frustrated at their unwillingness to listen or their withdrawal or we we pretend that the dungeon isn't there.
Shaun Dawson (12:54.808)
And we over protect them, we shield them from the reality of situations, and we strip away their chance to build muscle.
Shaun Dawson (13:07.596)
You know, Dan Dan Singley re reminded us in on his episode early on when boys act out, panic, they're usually afraid. Afraid of failure, afraid of shame. and if we respond with kind of a rigid traditional man up aggression, then we're we're gonna loft them in a box. And if we show up
I think we should regulate. If we stay in our Sherlock brain, they will learn by our example how to regulate themselves. And you know, Carl's agency isn't about being an unstoppable badass. it's not about being a tough guy. It's not about proving to anybody how tough he is.
It is one hundred percent about
Shaun Dawson (14:12.264)
About rejecting victimhood, about retaining your agency. The dungeon wants Carl to feel like a victim. Because victims are what the TV show is about. Victims make great reality TV. And
Shaun Dawson (14:39.168)
Victims panic. Victims make dumb mistakes. victims thought in entertaining.
Shaun Dawson (14:56.118)
So when your son comes home and he feels like the world is unfair, maybe we got cut from the team, or maybe we got picked out of school, maybe he's spiraling just because school feels like a grind or porn, wants to do other things. The easiest thing in the world.
for him to adopt is the identity of the victim.
And our job as fathers is not to lie to him and tell him that the world is fair, or to shield him from the unfortunate reality. The world's not fair. The the dungeon exists, right? It's not as bad as it is in the book. That's partly what makes it irony or satire, is how extreme it is.
Our job is to stand next to him, to look at the stairs, and to help him shift out of Conanbring and get into Sherlock.
Shaun Dawson (16:03.222)
So check out the bucket. It's the link is in the show notes. And I I'll tell you I picked up the book and and I read it and I was captivated right away. And I I I I I read the description and I thought there's no way I'm gonna like this book. And I do like sci fi books in general, but I didn't think and it kinda like fantasy detail.
man, there's no way I'm gonna like this one. And I voraciously got through all of the books in the series. but I didn't even know. I I I picked it up and I didn't understand that it was a series. And I got I read it on my Kindle. And so I was like, I've been reading a long time and we're only on floor two of the dungeon. Like, how are we gonna get to floor eighteen?
By the end of this book. And I looked and I realized, no, there are at least seven more books. And and so I've I I I read all of those books and I'm now awaiting the ninth one. And and I I can't wait till it comes out. Dinnerman has done us an absolute favor and it is I
I got on the train today or or this weekend, this past weekend with my kids. And it was San Diego Comic Con this weekend and so they had the trains all had ads on and the ads the the the train saw what we ended up getting on was a dungeon brawler file from and I just got such a kick out of what an absolute
What an absolute craze this thing has become. It is it's amazing. It gives me so much joy to see so many people getting so much joy out of this thing that I love and I didn't even know that people loved it. And so to all of you crawlers out there already, I love it. And come see me because we are we are peas in the pile. And for those of you who are not yet crawlers, give it a try.
Shaun Dawson (18:25.908)
You might not like it. You might not like it. That's fine. But you might freaking well.
This is Raising Man. My name is Sean Dawson. And remember, you are a great parent.