The Ares Instinct of masculinity is the instinctual/reflex system of the male reptilian brain that just loves a challenge, competition with other men, and the pleasure of winning for winning’s sake. With every ambition to overcome a challenge - at battle in the worlds of career and love, which to men are literally Darwin’s survival, and reproduction - men feel a jolt of life-affirming energy called masculinity. As with the rest of the Masculine Instincts, men are impassioned with vitality when they win at the areas of life, and are filled with the thrill of being alive.
It’s not just a matter of being “naturally competitive,” but rather that men cannot possibly know their place in the world without being in a hierarchy of men – which was first introduced when we learned about the Zeus Instinct.
For, when men don’t know their rank among other men, they also don’t know what to be making passionate effort toward. There is no reward, and there is no point. Without a hierarchy of other men and winning as the method by which one progresses in that hierarchy - call it the generic, “success,” if you like - men fall into confusion, depression, and paralysis in their lives. There is no point to making effort at anything.
If there isn't a challenge in a goal - one that is not far beyond one's skill, nor too beneath it, but just beyond one's reach - then there isn't a measure of the masculine self. The man feels in chaos, without reference to where he was or where he is going. The Ares Instinct is disdained by much of pop culture today as if it were the mere surface level of a "war instinct," bent on destructiveness. Not so. Like any instinct, whether masculine or feminine, it is designed for the benefit of the species, the individual, and those he loves. It can be used for good or for bad, and neglecting its power by either men or women is simply, disempowering to both.