Being a Man
“Voluntary adventure. That’s another encapsulation of the masculine role. The establishment of a vision, the commitment to its pursuit, resilience in the face of failure, faith in the future, service to your family, your community, protection from the catastrophes of life, and care of the most vulnerable. That’s masculinity in a nutshell. That’s why the shepherd, for example, in old religious stories is a model of masculinity. Ancient shepherds, they kept the wolves and the lions at bay and took care of the most vulnerable. And that’s what men who are worthy of the name strive for.”
-JBP Parental Roles Podcast
We have learned from Freud and others about those distortions in character and errors in thought which result from a man’s early conflicts with his father. Far the most important thing we can know about George MacDonald is that his whole life illustrates the opposite process. An almost perfect relationship with his father was the earthly root of all his wisdom. From his own father, he said, he first learned that Fatherhood must be at the core of the universe. He was thus prepared in an unusual way to teach that religion in which the relation of Father and Son is of all relations the most central.
I suppose that even if “fatherhood [is[] at the core of the universe”, that a man can be a man without being a father.
“A boy’s question of the world is ‘What do you got for me?’ A man’s question of the world is ‘What’s needed here?’” — Terry Real
“When the moment calls for fierceness, a good [man] will kill you… when the moment calls for tenderness, a good [man] will lay down his sword and shield and be sweet like a baby. A great [man] is one who knows which moment is which” - Terry Real re: Morani in Masaai
I think to fully understand being a man we must go via negativa, and determine how a man is NOT a boy, and also how a man is NOT a woman.
It seems to me that the yin yang applies to masculine/feminine dichotomies in that masculine is separate from feminine while containing an aspect of the feminine as well.
How is a man not a woman?
we just said man contains an aspect of woman, so the answer to this may not be straightforward.
As I think of it, I don’t know that this question rerally matters. Certainly not as much as How is a man not a boy? The latter matters more since a boy must become a man. Whereas man need not BECOME a woman (man has an aspect of woman already)
EVERYONE should be an adult. (man or woman I don’t think matters that much)
Adult vs child »> man vs woman
Some people should be parents but ultimately that is just being a better adult. (not that parents are better adults, just that being a better adult is sufficient to being a better parent)
becoming a man == becoming a woman in that both “involve developing emotional maturity, independence, self-awareness, and the ability to make autonomous decisions. It’s about forming one’s own identity separate from childhood dependencies.”
so really, if a boy asked himself how do I become a man, the question is NOT different from how would I become a woman if I were a girl? It does NOT matter whether the child sees themselves as a girl or boy. What matters is they want to be an adult.
Gilder, George. Men & Marriage He makes the point that women are becopming too masculine because of “feminism”. They shouldn’t play male games, since we need them to remain the superior sex in terms of sexual selection and guidance (women look ahead and make cohesive goals, men shoot their wad everywhere, p;laying pointless games)