On masculinity~
More and more, it’s increasingly difficult to be masculine in the world today. Back in primordial days when men hunted and shit and women were more or less gatherers, it wasn’t hard to be a man. you hunted. protected your territory. provided for your tribe. worked. As civilization progressed, the nature of man evolved. The nature of masculinity itself evolved. Alot of our identity crises come from the fact that we are a race of men who don’t understand what it is to be men.
I am of the belief that the essence of man is testosterone. Anyone who is in the grip of testosterone will tell you that they are aggressive, confrontational, assertive, predatory. While we no longer hunt or even work for our livelyhood, we still need to understand how to be masculine, how to be male in a consumer-driven world.
Part One:
First off, in order to be masculine, you must take control. This is a tough concept for most people. When you take control, you deny control from someone else. To take control of your life is to assume that you hold the keys to your manifest destiny. Most people who have not yet taken control of their lives exist in a sort of waiting idle, like sitting in neutral. The engine is running, but you’re not going anywhere. you can go somewhere if someone pushes you around, however. When you take control, you refuse to be pushed. you refuse to be pulled. you choose your direction. you determine your course of action. you determine your level of involvement. You direct conversations, you control the ebb and tide of information, things fall into place because you cause them to. You control your day from the time you wake up to the kind of food you eat, the quality of work you put forth, the people you socialize with, the women you take to bed at night, to the time you decide it’s time to sleep.
Part 2
First off, you must let go. You have to let go of the unnecessary things that hold you down and hold you back. Let go of insecurities, fears, doubts, and most importantly, you must let go of any useless and painful emotional baggage. This also means shedding negative habits and avoiding people that encourage the worst. Letting go of the things that cause you harm is a lot more difficult than taking control, but it’s just the other side of the same coin: in order to take control you must let go; in order to let go you must take control and make the conscious choice to be an active participant in your life.