Today, I would like to talk about men. Being one, I feel like I have some background information in this area.
Ladies, or people who don’t like those labels, sorry about this week. Its not directly about you, BUT it can be in-directly about you. By proxy about you. About someone you know maybe. About you in a vague, gesture across a crowded room at that party Awkward Ben from Work (you know who I mean) invited you to, but you really can’t bring yourself to enjoy it because they put out beetroot humus… THAT kind of party. You’re there, in the room, but not exactly present.
The reason this has come up, is because I learned this week that I’m not being one. At least, not the truest version I want to be.
I used to have a very clear idea of who I wanted to be, as a younger version of me. I would ask myself constantly “What would the person I want to be do in this scenario?” and it rarely steered me wrong. I should note, the decisions I made with that question were still based on a lot of conditioning and learned behaviours (because bloody parents, right!?!?), but it was good practice to carefully consider what actions and behaviours would have me be my best version of self in that moment.
But somewhere along the line, I stopped asking that question of myself.
I started asking other questions, like “what would cause the least amount of trouble for myself right now?” or “what does this person want me to say right now to leave me alone/give me money/be nice (read: have sex) with me?” Basically, what did I need to do to have people think I’m valuable right now? I did mention conditioning, didn’t I?
How many of us do this? Do it, without even knowing we do it?
I keep asking annoying questions in my posts like “what do you want?” and “why do you want/do/think/feel that?”
Well, right now we’re talking about behaviours that completely cement over those questions, make sure they’re sleeping with the “fishes” or “spare-ribs, down by the rockery.” (if you actually get that last reference, we are now extra friends. We are already friends by dint of the fact that you are reading right now. Pleasure to know you)
But basically, we as people are really REALLY good at giving away self-worth and power (sorry, Leslie, yet another blog post for another time) to people we think are shinier than we are.
What happens if this is all you do?
What happens if all our lives are made up of playing a role that has nothing to do with who we are as a person? Ladies, I am fairly sure you know the sting of this.
Guys, we have this too. But we are so busy trying to play that role, or rebelling against it Kyle, that we don’t even ask those questions. Women do, and good for them. But they’re still fighting for control over their own lives, as opposed to being oblivious to it like us…
Conditioning is a major part of who we are and how we view the world. It’s a series of filters and lenses we look at the world through, at ourselves through. And we adopt those filters, usually from other people, because we don’t recognise that they project their sense of self onto us and try to have us validate them.
We don’t have any initiation ritual into manhood these days, so we don’t get taught what that looks like, beyond working hard so no-one else has to worry. I can tell you here and now, from more than enough personal experience, that shit is fucking heavy. Especially when you’ve got no sense of self in there to carry it with. Nothing beyond things (yes, even really important things like other small humans that can’t sort their own lives out for decades…) that we struggle to connect with because we have no idea of what the hell that is. Literally none. Like, “What does connection even mean?” none…
If we don’t ever get shown how to validate themselves, or miraculously figure it out on their own, how on earth would they even know what standing up for your own damned sense of rightness looks like? Let alone something petty like what shade of pink the shirt your missus just bought you really is. Mike says its pink, Quinn says its “salmon”…
If we can’t figure out what’s right or wrong for us, then we try and get other people to figure out it for us. Partners, bosses, parents, lawn bowls team-mates, Aldo from down the pub who bought you a mint tulip that one weird time.
Where are WE in that?
The word you’re looking for, Tim, is lost…
What does feeling lost feel like?
At a guess, frustrating. I can assure you, that’s waaay better than a guess…
How do we deal with that?
Blame, booze, tinder, crack and hookers, video games, punching walls, punching people, punching women. You know, reallyproductive ways to deal with your directionless rage and crushing weight of failure for having not enough/too much responsibility for… everything and nothing.
And that frustration and rage? That crushing directionless-ness? Why does it happen? Why does it hurt so much?
Because we are hollow. We don’t know who we are. We don’t have any value beyond what we can do for others, and if we can’t do that (or worse, fail in the opinion that matters more to us than ours) we crumble from the inside out. Can’t validate ourselves…
What do you think that teaches this kind of person? Yes Reg, exactly that. Try harder to be something for someone else…
No wonder so many men actually, really, genuinely, NEED to talk. We, and I mean everyone, think we are alone with our own struggles. Because no one wants to look weak. We don’t get taught what being a man looks like anymore, so we just assume its something like “get on with acting tough, maybe one day someone will believe it. maybe even me…” because that’s what being a man is… Man rules…
Sound familiar to anyone?
That very necessary conversation about men needing to talk too, is vital in terms of helping to crystalise what we need to change about ourselves. Yes, some venting is necessary, but if it's JUST whinging? That further weakens us rather than strengthens us.
Life is tough, so if we don't forge ourselves into something capable of meeting that challenge, we inevitably crumble like an old and stale muffin we didn't really want in the first place but we feel obliged to eat because we bought it and wasting food is less tolerable than crappy baked goods...
I think that being a man is tough on a few different levels. We do actually need to toughen up and get on with shit, because that is what the masculine energy is for. But not in the way most people think...Ignoring things, isn't toughening up. Its being dumb. Toughen up by being vulnerable enough to admit things ARE tough and that it wont change without something deeper. Talking IS toughening up, at the very least its how we start toughening up...
If we have no idea of self, or how to hold ourselves up in the face of the responsibility and struggle the world has for us, we crumble. We have no Why…. And we end up having the very necessary conversation about mental health and "it's okay to talk" because we were never taught how to self-validate ourselves or maintain and grow our own sense of self in the mess we can sometimes find ourselves in. Just follow the Man rules and keep chugging away.
Pressure and opinion and obligations and responsibility and commitment all end up just being weight on shoulders that find it unbearable if we are hollow at our core. And that's really what is key here, isn’t it?
Both scenarios are true. Get on with it, it's okay to talk. Which one are you? Are you both? Lot of us are. Probably both.
This was absolutely my story, completely outsourcing myself for the positive disposition of others. Lost count of the relationships that ended because either they or I got fed up with it.
I guess the point of this though is that I'm still finding echoes of those old behaviours. Mostly based on convenience, ease of passage. And those are the behaviours that keep me from being my truest self. The parts the require work and intention and effort to be who I really am.
How authentic can I be, ultimately, if I'm still pushing aside my own sense of purpose rightness and self for complying with someone else’s. How happy could I ever truly be? Or fulfilled?
No wonder everyone feels hollow. We're filled with nothing but someone else's words and our sense of self in constant pain. How was that ever going to work out well?
You can't get on with it if you've got nothing inside to do it with.
You can't find something to get on with if you don't talk your out of the woods and on your way to it.
No connection with where you are going means you feel lost.
No connection with others means you feel alone.
No connection with self means you have no starting point...
How else do we get connection with any of those things without talking with the intention of toughening up, making ourselves and things around us better?
This felt like a bit of a rambling post today, but it always comes back to those annoying core questions.
Who are you?...
Who do you want to be?
No, seriously.... Who do you want to be?
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
“How can love echo, before it speaks?” Marko Heitala
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