To be a man today is a pretty complicated assignment. What exactly is a man after all? Who is the role model we seek to pattern ourselves after? Is it the Rambo, shoot ’em-up guy? Is it the John Wayne character, a little rough around the edges but with a firm moral compass? Perhaps we want to be like the metro-sexuals who appear at all the finest gatherings.
Mixed signals.
Who males choose to pattern themselves after is almost always one-dimensional. I mean, where does Rambo seek comfort? After putting things right, John Wayne rides into the sunset. Doesn’t he need a home life of some type? And the character of a metro-sexual, where are the boundaries? The person our mothers wanted us to be is a far cry from the person we, ourselves, would choose to picture.
None of this is to say that being a woman in our modern world is an easy task either. The most important difference between being a man today, and being a woman today comes down to when does a male become a man? Biologically, a female has a very clear turning-point from being a girl to being a woman. Men have no such indicators. This is why the term “Peter Pan Syndrome” is so well known. A male body matures, but this does not make him a man. Fatherhood may suddenly be upon a male, but that does not mean he instantly becomes a man. Taking responsibility for another person (or themselves) is a conscious decision, and some males never make that decision.
The cone of silence.
Men simply do not share their problems with each other. They do not learn early in their lives the power of supporting each other, except maybe in sports. There is a cone of silence that has somehow been lowered over men in general. This is why I am intrigued by the organization Man Talks. Man Talks seeks to bring males together to learn how to be men in our world. Women have known the power of such gatherings since the beginning of time. I hope to be part of lifting the “Cone of Silence” from being a man in the near future. Until that time, my offering is my book Bear and Butterfly. Both genders can learn so much power from the other. Click the cover below to read a sample then order your own copy to begin the discussion.
