I recently turned 30 and this ticking of the clock has caused me to evaluate or maybe better stated; reevaluate the current condition of things. By current condition of things, I more specifically mean that which concerns my own space and time.

I have been asking myself this last year, are you the man you want to be? If not, are you making the necessary changes to be that man? I find myself often asking, what is the benchmark for this kind of man? What does it mean to be that kind of man? In fact, what kind of man are you trying to be?

If I can assume for the sake of my own thinking that there are such defined “boundaries” as gender and a specific set of components that comes along with that gender, what does it mean to be a man? Where does that identity as a man come from? Of course some of it has to come from societal influence, which whether negative or not seems to exist in volume. We have the beer drinking, football stomping, red meat crowd who judges any of their opposites with a host of negative expressions. We are now seeing the back lash to that which in most cases comes dressed in the form of the artist, musician, pseudo intellectual who for all practical purposes fears any kind of traditional physical masculinity and demonizes it. I am generalizing, but in our culture you could break up the society of men into two groups of brain vs. brawn. And those that can’t do either well always rally behind those that can.

In as much as possible, for me, the goal has always been to cross pollinate both of these polarizing personalities. Could I spend my day teaching myself how to fix something on my motorcycle and read some Dostoyevsky? Could I take Krav Maga and then practice a language? Besides just believing in a principle of cross pollination, I believe more in the idea that one should never allow any one thing to become an identity (and yet even this has its limits). In as much as possible, live a life that is truly undefinable. I see people who can’t do things well groping at definitions in hopes of becoming that thing so they can feel safe in the skin of that definition. I have also seen those that excel at something lose themselves completely in that “thing”. People who no longer hold any identity outside of their craft or their skill. They are musicians, artists, athletes, bankers, philanthropists, etc. and have allowed what they produce (and more often then naught, the praise of what people say they produce) become their identity. Both are an error in my mind. Success is more subtle then starvation and that which is subtle is always to be questioned more then that which is obvious. I make no qualms against success, in fact, in my mind it should be the goal of every man to attain success in that which they choose to lay their hand to. Yet, to do this at the expense of identity seems to me a grave evil. Everything can be taken away, and woe to the illusion of that identity on the day it is taken. In the last decade of my life, I have gone from being an accountant to a photographer to owning a software company. In another 5 years I have no idea where I’ll be. Every day I have to fight off my title (mostly from within the lies of my own mind) and try to escape the false identity of whatever hat I am currently wearing. So this brings me back to my question, what kind of man are you trying to be?

If I can escape the sub par definitions in the previous paragraphs where would I be left? As I think about the kind of man that I want to be, I am filled with other seemingly loftier definitions, all of which have the potential to be dangerous if they are not exercised in the realm of balance. Loving, honest, just, courageous, humble, strong, righteous, merciful, etc. Even in these there seems to be diametric cases. Many people low in courage use the moral cloak of meekness as their defense. Mercy and justice seem to forever be at odds. People who float the idea of love seem to think it can’t hold appropriate forms of anger, zeal or jealousy. I am under no illusion that in dealing with a certain kind of man, a strong right hook goes farther then a humble tongue. The woman who lied to the Nazis to save life was taking a higher road. So in the search for defining the kind of man I want to be, the one word that comes to mind is appropriate. I want to be an appropriate kind of man. A man that can do one thing when that time is right and then do the exact opposite if the situation then calls for that. A man who can apply decent moral principles to a variety of situations and do the correct thing. Discernment goes far in all things.

{In a place where there are no men} — This to me is very telling. It is very easy to do the thing that everyone else is doing. It always has been and it always will be. We live in world where it is pretty safe to say, whatever you see everyone else doing, the better way is probably in the opposite direction. What this means is that there is a lot of room to operate in any walk of life as a truly decent man standing against the tide. When one can see the vast corruption, pollution, manipulation, and deception that runs rampant in every walk of life from the bankers, to the power seekers, to the steeples, to the arts and enchantments all the way down to the homeless man shanking his fellow man over a pair of gloves, we are truly in a era where there are no men. In whatever walk of life you have put your hand to, in that place strive though to be a man.

{Strive though to be a man} — The word strive is a very interesting word. It is specifically interesting when one applies it to oneself. To exert yourself against yourself. To wrestle with ones self and to force ones self into areas that one typically does not want to go. This does not mean if you come across evil apply the right metric, it means to actually pursue the right thing in all things. I think that sums up my second idea of defining the kind of man I want to be; to continue to develop and force myself out of what is comfortable, perpetually.

I would also say, that the word for man in the phrase; in a place where there are no men strive though to a man, is synonymous with woman and the human soul in general and this expression is an appropriate idea to consider regardless of gender.