Self-mastery as a fulfilling path for permanent singles?

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While there are a lot of us still out looking I get the impression that there are also a lot of us who've sized up what it takes to be in a relationship, the degree of gut-level blending with one's culture that it takes to be able to navigate carrying a social contract with a spouse and or kids, and realized that we either don't have it in us or that it would take every bit of energy we have to give and then some.

One of the things that's been bothering me lately though is a sense that our culture really doesn't seem to bother at all with people who are left on the sidelines. As a guy I realize that a certain portion of males have always, for the course of our evolutionary history, been in the discard pile. What I don't quite get is why its a foregone conclusion by our culture that these guys living down their parents basements and playing video games is the ideal turnout or that it's about all their worth. What confuses me about it is it's one thing to tell a group of people that the collective will of the gene pool has determined, in it's usual instinctive and subconscious way, that they're unfit to procreate. It's an entirely different, and really stupid message, to suggest that they just opt out and disappear from public life the best they can.

I think of how much a person's time and need for meaning can be pulled into cultural enrichment and education, civic enrichment, philanthropy, spiritual/psychological work, etc.. Really to keep a culture going strong you have to keep as many people in the loop as possible and keep them doing something they can take pride in. For whatever reason we've abandoned that model in the west and I don't really get it.

In a way I look at what I described above and consider how I spend my life - most of the time reading, meditating, doing martial arts, or finding some new angle of the philosophic sphere that I can sink my teeth into in ways that can better my inner life. Really there are so many great books out there, so many great ideas, so many fascinating ways that I could cultivate my own internal resource that I could easily spend the rest of my life doing these things and stay busy enough to not even have time for a partner.

Not exactly sure why I'm bringing this up, probably a whole slew of small things I've been thinking about that I can't quite put my finger on. Still it just seems dumb as bricks that our culture doesn't encourage participation but rather seems to do its best to discard people and push them to the walls. It's one thing to say that no one has the right to delegate morality, what's the right way to live, etc.. and that everyone should have liberty but it's another thing to say that people who are looking for the best bits of advice on that front have to spend years to find it or have to work so hard to find any organizations that share that aim or goal (there are a few out there but most people only have the most remote sense of them and even there - especially with the example of Freemasonry - it seems to be in rapid decline these days).


Regardless - to try and summarize that a bit more concisely; there's no real reason to suggest that if one can't put a check in their 'biological imperative successful' box that it's all over or that all purpose is lost. Even if you consider this world and life from a strictly physicalist/materialist standpoint - if its all relative then you can just as easily enrich your life to the hilt if you want and there's no law to stop you as far as I can tell.

Getting married/finding a partner, buying a house, having children and being successful in your chosen line of work are what most people seem to value, essentially creating their own little kingdom which makes sense in a chaotic world.

If you don't fit in with the norms and commonly held values then you are a minority and wont find widespread support for your lifestyle choices, so I guess the permanent singleton would need to believe very strongly in the importance of their areas for self mastery.

I think first and foremost the people who my idea would fit need to be in a position where, when all is said and done, they know that they have something in them (either or a little or a lot) that society ignored in the way of very meaningful positive attributes - either negligently or willfully. When people all at the same time 1) feel like life gave them a raw deal, 2) generally feel too positively about themselves to turn toward self-loathing (or they've already done their dance with that and found it a complete waste), 3) and they see a world filled with problems that they'd like to provide their strengths toward solving - they should use that as a launch point for nurturing themselves along the path of exercising the kind of meaning that they want in their life as they see beneficial both to themselves and others.