Men are authentic

In the characteristics of a full developed man, authentic is near the top of the list.  A man who is comfortable with himself communicates from his heart with his own personal truth.

To communicate authentically, a man must be ego-less.  He is not posturing. He is not worried about how he will be perceived.  He does not look to others for approval.  He does not belittle others.  He does not convey superiority. 

An authentic man has the courage of his convictions and stands behind his words.  He has done the work to understand his own pain and has come to peace with it.  He is willing to hear the painful truth and deal with life's repercussions. 

An authentic man is an emotional being.  His feelings are on display for others to see.  His feelings are displays of his strength.  He doesn't buy into the old stereotype of the emotionless man.  Strong emotions and the principles behind those emotions are a part of authentic, heart-felt speech. 

Authentic men are complete men and they make the world a better place.  Their ability to stand up for their own opinions and ideas keep them away from groupthink and harmful behavior patterns by standing up for what is right.  These men are essential to creating a new standard for what manhood looks like.

How a boy becomes a man (and why today's boys are slower to become men)

With missing male rites of passage, today's boys do not have a clear delineation point of when they become men.  But what is it that makes a man?  Steve Harvey has said that responsibility makes a man.  It's the responsibility in bearing a load.  The load can be anything, but the ultimate load is ownership over a man's life and the people/family he is responsible for protecting.  But what does it take in order for a man to be able to take on the responsibility of that load?

The short answer is courage.  In the face of pain, failure, challenge, it takes courage to persevere.  When presented with difficulty, a man must look inside himself and find the inner gumption to push through adversity.  But what is adversity really?  Adversity is conflict.  Conflict is a situation where a man wants X, but there's something standing in his way from getting X.  If there was no conflict (whether the conflict be a person, an internal attitude, an external cultural norm, a physical barrier, or something else) - the man could obtain what he wanted.

The courage to fight in the face conflict is a crucial component of a man.  This courage is partially nature, and it's partially nurture.  This courage is built into men, and the courage is honed through grounded masculine role models.  The fuel for a man's courage is his aggression. It's aggression that gives a man his "get after it" attitude that lets him relentlessly pursue his goals.  The aggression on a subtle level that men often do not talk about is a knowledge that he will do whatever it takes to complete a task.  Lower level of aggression correlate to a lower likelihood of facing the metaphorical demons that a man might face.  When a man has to do something out of his comfort zone - whether it be approach a woman, confront a neighbor about a problem, or speak up at work - he calls on the aggression in his core to push through the pain.

Today's boys are raised in comfort with muted aggression.  In progressive circles, a boy's aggression is often trained out of him as aggression is considered an ugly part of being male.   This is not to say that boys should be fighting on playgrounds to resolve conflict, but boys should learn how to selectively use their aggression to resolve conflict in masculine, grounded ways.  When boys do not learn how to use their aggression to resolve conflict (via setting strong, immovable boundaries - that are potentially enforced via violence), boys do not develop aggression.

Without aggression, boys do not develop full courage.  Without courage, boys do not develop the ability to take full ownership of their lives.  Without the ability to take full ownership of their lives, they do not ever take 100% responsibility for their actions, and they are slow to become men - or never become men at all.  It is crucial for aggression to be honed during boyhood.  For men who grew up with muted aggression, it takes a lot of time and pain to undo years of bad habits and mindsets.

Aggression is built into males.  It is part of the male gift.  Aggression is a huge part of what turns a boy into a man.

Men know it’s all their fault

Men are responsible for their behavior.  If a man is complete, the buck stops with him.  A man is true to his word.  A man follows through with his commitments.  But more than anything, a man completely owns his share of a problem.  In this way, a man is a leader.

If a situation does not come out correctly, a man does not point fingers at others.  He does not look for excuses.  He does not play what-if scenarios.  He looks at himself.  He looks at his behavior, his plan, his execution.  He finds fault where he could have done better.  Even if the fault is not directly his, a man owns his part in not helping others. 

Accepting all fault is the responsibility of ownership.  Men take full ownership of their lives - their successes, their failures, their efforts.  Men want to a load to bear.  It is rooted deep within a man's core that he is responsible for his actions.

While men want and crave this responsibility, and it's coded deep in their DNA, they must still be taught how embody the behavior.  No animal in nature is left by its parents right after birth.  All creatures need guidance on how best to hunt, survive, interact, and many other kinds of behavior.  These behaviors are learned through the guidance of adults who benefit from millennia of experience of their ancestors, passing down successful methods from generation to generation.  The methods are successful because the ancestors 1) survived and 2) bred.

Men pass this behavior down to other men.  Increasingly, this message is lost in today's boys and men.  Complete and total ownership of failure and responsibility is emotionally and physically arduous.  In a world of increasing comfort where pain is something to be avoided, the idea of intentionally embracing the pain of failure and fault is no longer taught in the same way, if at all.  Accepting the short term discomfort of full ownership of a problem leads to the long term soul-enhancing meaning that men desperately crave as a part of who they are. 

Men know the world isn't inherently good

Today's children are raised in comfort.  Their parents protect them from hard decisions and the pain of failure.  It's a logical strategy.  How can we make our kids happier?  Let's remove all forms of pain and sorrow.  This is a new way of raising children has not been tried before in history.  Some call it the self-esteem movement, where children only hear compliments with minimal negative feedback.  Children receive less discipline from their parents than prior generations.  Children see the glass as half full and a world full of endless possibilities, a world that is their oyster.  This raising technique is short term beneficial and long term detrimental, especially for boys.

The world is not inherently good.  People fight for resources every day - physically, emotionally, and economically.  There is pain everywhere - the pain of failure and loss.  There is darkness everywhere - the darkness of malevolent people and dangerous ideas.  The world is not the happy place that today's children are being raised to believe it is.  Understanding the world's evil is important for all people, but particularly boys and men.

Men are protectors.  From the simple tasks of killing the cockroach in the house to locking the doors at night to fighting our wars - men are the protectors of society.  Women can do these things also, but men are built by nature to be boundary setters - to protect their family and community from harm.  Women expect this from men, and men want to serve this function.  It's the load that nature designed men to bear.  When boys are raised in an environment where they are not forced to develop the discipline of battling hardship or the hard heart that comes with persevering through failure, they do not develop the skills to battle a world that is inherently not good.  This discipline and hard heart are part of the iron backbone that fully developed men have.

Boys must be taught to navigate a world that is not inherently good.  The world didn't defeat the Nazis with nice words and an optimistic attitude.  The burglar holding a family at knife point won't back off when he's told that he's being rude.  Men know the world is not inherently good and develop a darkness and an emotional resilience for battling the world's darkness with their own darkness.  A man's darkness doesn't define him, but he needs to be able to call on it.  It's an essential part of his maleness, and then world wants and needs men to have it.

Men embrace discomfort

The masculine drive is to accomplish things.  Men are compelled to achieve by their DNA.  It goes back to the alpha male concept - by achieving status and constantly looking to improve, men are increasing their chances of survival because ascending the dominance hierarchy is a survival strategy.

So if men have an inner drive to achieve things, two things need to happen:
1) Men need to taught how this works and what this feels like
2) Men need to embrace discomfort

When I say men need to be taught what this feels like, I'm really referencing masculine role models.  Masculine role models provide a template for navigating a world of challenges and steeling one's self against the challenges that will come.  I'm referencing the iron backbone that is a unique part of being male.  The iron backbone is part iron in that it's tough, but it's also part backbone in that it's courage.  When a man has learned from male role models how to navigate the world, he has the tools to persevere through pain.  To re-tool and re-engage in the face of failure.  In short, he learns that he has power in relentless pursuit of his goals.

The second thing men need is to embrace discomfort.  This is where I think 21st century America hurts men.  There's comfort everywhere - food, TV, porn, video games, phones.  Things are handed to us.  We're removing discomfort from life.  But is it good?  Comfort leads to complacency.  Complacency leads to mediocrity.  Discomfort is a good thing for men. Pushing one's comfort zone is scary.  It induces a fear response - fear of the unknown.  Fear is something that men need to handle - not avoid.  Men put an artificial ceiling on what they can be if they shrink away from fear and discomfort.

The best things in life are hard to get.  This has always been true.  In order for a man to pursue his wants, he must be willing to do hard things.  Not only does he need to do hard things, but he wants to do hard things.  He wants to achieve things and face dragons in the process.  It's in his DNA.  But with 21st century comforts and fewer masculine role models, men are increasingly wary of discomfort.  This hurts men and it hurts the world.  Even without proper role models, men should go forward into pain and discomfort.  As hard as it is in the short term, it makes men better men.

Men have an open heart and an iron backbone

A healthy man has an open heart and a iron backbone.  These two are not mutually exclusive at all, and they really have very little to do with each other. 

The open heart is generally the more feminine essence.  It's openness, kindness, understanding.  It's empathy, joy, laughter.  The open heart is our higher essence - the more evolved part of us that wants to share love with the world. 

The iron backbone is generally the more masculine essence.  It's confrontation, powerful, raw.  It's directness, determination, responsibility.  The iron backbone is our lower essence - the part of us that takes a stand and goes after what we want. 

Men need both an open heart and an iron backbone.  The iron backbone as I described it sounds dark, but it has to be.  I see the iron backbone as serving two primary, essential functions.  These functions come from millions of years of evolution, and they form a symbiotic relationship with an iron backbone.  The functions require an iron backbone and an iron backbone requires these two functions. The functions are boundaries and perseverance.

Men set boundaries.  It's an essential part of what men do.  "You can go up to this point, but no farther."  Boundaries order the world.  There must be a differentiation of where one thing stops and another begins.  This is my family's food, do not touch it.  This is my land, do not take/use it.  This is an agreed upon set of behaviors, do not violate them.  Boundaries are sometimes enforced with violence.  This is unavoidable.  If two people are in a conflict, and one of them is willing to be violent, and one of them is not - the violent person will be victorious.  The iron backbone serves here by being the physical, violent backstop that a man knows he must have in enforcing boundaries if the situation requires it.  Not every situation requires violence, in fact most don't - but the potential needs to be there.  If a man is not willing to enforce a boundary, then it's not a boundary.

Men persevere through hard situations.  Men push through discomfort.  Men fight through hardship.  In doing so, men use their iron backbone.  Life is full of difficulty, and it requires strength of character to press through the pain.  This is the front lines of a war.  This is climbing a mountain.  This is working 70 hours because you have to feed your family.  It is pouring blood, sweat, and tears into your work, your passion, your pain.  It's the drive to let nothing stand in the way of the goal.  It's standing in the arena and facing whatever comes at you and standing their bravely.

I concentrated this post on the iron backbone.  The iron backbone is what today's boys are missing.  The iron backbone comes from a lot of different sources, but it's a primarily masculine aspect of men and boys.  It's something that we need boys and men to have to become well rounded men.

The rise of the nice guy

The Nice Guy is a phenomenon that started in the late 20th century.  It was well intentioned -
women desired softer men.  This man would be more caring. He would let women have their due and not be an overbearing macho meathead.  He would be an ally to feminism.  He wouldn't be angry.  He'd be emotional.  He wouldn't be violent.  He'd be a man with a very strong connection to his feminine side. 

Women said they wanted this. And society shifted (particularly in progressive circles) to make this kind of man.  Note: I'm careful to designate that this is generally more a progressive issue than conservative because anecdotally, I see less of this Nice Guy issue in conservative areas.  Some of the changes to raising boys were conscious.  Some were not.  Some changes were the natural result of the rise of the male factory worker and women taking a much larger role for the rearing of men.  Prior to World War II, many boys worked along side their fathers and learned how to be men from their fathers.  In the latter half of the 20th century, many boys learned how to become men from their mothers.

The idea of the Nice Guy is perpetuated in society today.  Some of the big contributors are:

• The "everyone gets a trophy" mentality - winning and competition are de-emphasized and frowned upon
• The over-protection of children's physical well being - they don't get to solve their own problems
• The demonization of the male sex drive - men are pigs, all boys care about is sex
• Movies and media that tell us putting women on a pedestal is proper courting
• The idea that women are more relationship capable than men and men should defer to women's more refined relationship sense
• Women's own words - "I may not like you, but some day - you'll find the right girl."

What ends up happening is that we get a boy or a man with no power.  Someone else (often women) have the power, and the boy/man sees his role to success as being nice.  But what is nice?  For many men, this means people pleasing.  It means being deferential.  It means trying to not make mistakes. 

And the irony of all of it is that women have never been unhappier with the selection of men available.  Women *say* they want softer, more feminine men.  But they don't.  Women want stronger, more masculine men.  And it's not close.  In some cases, nice guys are men - but often they're adult boys.  They are missing male backbone that says "this is who I am, take it or leave it." Instead, the Nice Guy says "I'll be whatever you want me to be."  I view Nice Guys as missing their aggression.  Aggression is what men leverage for their masculine behavior.

Nice Guys have two paths as they grow.  Option 1 - they live as Nice Guys forever.  They never understand that they are living someone else's truth - always trying to please other people and fit into someone else's mold for behavior.  Option 2 - they learn how they've been robbed of their power and they work to become a fully integrated man.  The road is long and hard and involves unlearning a lifetime of bad programming. 

Unfortunately, society at large is still creating more Nice Guys.  While men and masculinity continue to be demonized, society will persist in altering the definition of men to create softer and "nicer" men. 

Men want a load to bear

David Deida, in Way of the Superior Man, says the priority of the masculine is its mission and the priority of the feminine is the flow of love.  In this case, I'm going to specifically say that I'm referencing the approximately 80% of men that have a masculine essence (estimate from the aforementioned book in chapter 23).  I don't have any idea how scientific that number is - I take the number as much more true than not true in that most men have a masculine core.  For the purpose of this post, I'm going to use the "men" to reference the 80% of men with masculine cores. 

For these men, they find meaning in their work.  They find meaning in what they do.  Family is not what drives them.  And the difficult thing in progressive society is that we are taught that being a kind, gentle father (or member of society) is what will bring us joy.  This is not true.  Men strive.  Men hunt.

Men want a load to bear.  The load comes in the form of responsibilities.  Striving towards a goal means that a man must take on the characteristics of his inner-hero that will bear the weight of the world on his shoulders.  To bear this load, a man learns keep his ego in check, determine his own self worth, focus, and lead.  There's a power that comes from the inner character that is built when men develop their inner-hero.  The inner-hero is a fighter; he is a warrior.  Men find their meaning in the struggle.

When men are taught feminine goal setting of comfort, love, and family - they don't develop their character and priorities in ways that align with their core.  There's nothing wrong with being a softer man if the man his truly happy.  But men aren't happy.  Boys are unmotivated.  Men are unsure of their place in the world.  Women increasingly see men as boys who navigate life in an insecure way.

The answer is a return to the roots of masculinity taught from man to man.  In a way that I can't explain, the exact same concepts taught by a woman will not land the same way on a man.  I don't know if that's misogyny, but it's a fact.  The concepts are about ownership over one's self, drive, determination, stoicism, self-reliance, and many other masculine traits.  Men are built to bear a load.  If we teach boys and men how to bear a load, they become the men that nature wanted us to be.  It's the ability to shoulder that burden with pride, humility, and strength that makes a man.