Being a man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e6DmT2AzQc

I’m old so this is much clearer to me than it is to younger men.

There is a confusion, particularly in a society and era where everything is about appearance, about the idea of masculinity. Media sells it to us all the time but try not to blame them because they aren’t trying to warp people’s minds. They just want to put food on their table like the rest of us.

To women, they sell smallness and thinness as femininity. And to men they sell the idea of heroism.

They say that to be masculine is not just to have a Y chromosome. It is to be remarkable and visibly so. You have to be able to demonstrate power. The power to remake the world as you see fit. The power to save people: from others and from themselves — whether they want you to or not. The idea of looking good doing it. Masculinity lies simply in the expression or potential expression of power to dominate, to conquer.

That is the lie.

Quite frankly, it’s a lie so pervasive that even in works that are overtly trying to challenge the deconstruction and demonization of masculinity, like Fincher’s Fight Club for example, it isn’t enough for the Narrator/Tyler to be at peace with his own internal rebellion. It isn’t enough for him to remake himself in his preferred image. It isn’t enough for him to redefine himself on his own terms. His rebellion has to change the entire world. He has to be a man of destiny. He has to have an army who worships him.

He has to be the hero.

My counter argument to this and the one I hope any young man reading this might take a moment to think about is: don’t let the world sell you on heroism while dismissing courage. Because courage is what makes a man a man and a woman a woman. Courage is what makes a human being something better than an animal. Courage is what is at the heart of any virtue that we ascribe heroism. Heroism is often awesome to behold. Lowly courage more often than not will create an opportunity for embarrassment. Heroism is what has your jaw hanging low in the movie theater, and has you dreaming of adventure in the future. Courage can go really well, really badly and sometimes totally in-between. Heroism gets you likes and views and notoriety. Courage can be met with total indifference.

But one is essential and the other is merely the spectacle. Substance vs semblance.

Trying to be the hero of your own story or someone else’s story without the simple courage to fall on your face, dust yourself off, ignore what others are saying, protect those you love or protect those in need of protecting is futile. Trying to be the hero without mastering the art of persevering and trying even when you can’t detect even the smallest quantum of progress is just a recipe for frustration.

We think of the heroic masculine figure as this lone wolf, independent thinker, unburdened by the needs or fears of others. But the ultimate courageous figure in the world is a father: someone who sacrifices for others, protects others, provides for others, cooperates with others to create strength in numbers even though that man could take his shot at beating the whole world into submission and yelling the whole world into silence.

He could probably survive on his own. He could probably hit someone over the head and stand on top of the heap until someone bigger and meaner came and hit him over the head. But instead of a simple, brutish appeal to might, he can win the whole world over by trying to be right. By trying to be fair and by having the courage and strength to admit when he’s wrong so that he can stand on the side of justice again. The type of person practiced in being strong — so practiced in being strong that they become practiced in being courageous and taking the necessary risks that others would fail to take. The type of person that is so strong that they can afford to share their strength with others.

Someone who tries even when they are afraid, daring to be better both for themselves and for the sake of others. For a victory greater and longer lasting than standing on the top of the heap today.

At a certain point, we all might meet someone who is like this. They will do something remarkable and meaningful for us, even when we know they should have been afraid to do it. Some of these people will be our fathers or our mothers. We might call them our hero.

But long before they were a ‘hero’, it all just started from the risky, dirty, unglamourous practice of being brave when they didn’t have to be. Of thickening their skin, believing that what they were doing mattered and pushing forward to the future.

That is what it means to be a man to me. Someone strong enough that they can afford to be generous with their strength, and take risks that other people can’t for the benefit of the entire world. Every single person in the world that I have ever called a man had one thing in common: they showed up and tried to be this way more than they failed at it.

And if everyone understood masculinity that way, I honestly think the world would be a better place.