I’m feeling much more certain lately, confident, true as a pitch-pipe, onto people, including myself; and for all its difficulties, clearer and happier with life than I can remember.
This is brilliant and so needed to be said. There is a crisis, and I'm glad to hear men speaking up about it (and, frankly, countering the false narrative that their masculinity is somehow "toxic".) You very rightly point out that there are quite a few lost young men with no productive channel for their energies, which in the past would have been offered direction through rites of passage and a sense of duty to family or community. Modern society provides little focus for young men, who often end up drifting along in a perpetual childhood--or inventing their own dark rites of passage. I also don't have kids, and I don't have the answers either, but I'm guessing shouting at, shaming, and blaming boys will not make them better men--if that's even truly the intention. Boys--and men--deserve better.
Thanks, J.M. It's so odd how in such a short time it has become fashionable to lump everyone into groups and assail them. Abandoning the Christian ethic that every individual is unique and valuable and in their essence equal has been the single most destructive element of our move away from religion.
It's both sad and disturbing. The embrace of collective identity and losing oneself body and mind in the ethos of a group is another of those things that goes completely against the grain of Western civilization. Joseph Campbell made an impression on me early in my life. He talks a lot about the defining characteristic of the West, going back at least to the Greeks, being its elevation and development of the individual as a unique being living his own potential, vs being an anonymous vessel in a collective destined to act out a predetermined social role or duty. That, he said, was our genius, and it's sad to see people abandon it.
I just tousled my grandson's hair...
Wonderful!
That was e4xcellent.... nothing to add!
Thank you, Jeannine.
Love the story!! I think a lot of it , is really true, and needed to be said!!
Thanks, Ruby. ;)
This is brilliant and so needed to be said. There is a crisis, and I'm glad to hear men speaking up about it (and, frankly, countering the false narrative that their masculinity is somehow "toxic".) You very rightly point out that there are quite a few lost young men with no productive channel for their energies, which in the past would have been offered direction through rites of passage and a sense of duty to family or community. Modern society provides little focus for young men, who often end up drifting along in a perpetual childhood--or inventing their own dark rites of passage. I also don't have kids, and I don't have the answers either, but I'm guessing shouting at, shaming, and blaming boys will not make them better men--if that's even truly the intention. Boys--and men--deserve better.
Thanks, J.M. It's so odd how in such a short time it has become fashionable to lump everyone into groups and assail them. Abandoning the Christian ethic that every individual is unique and valuable and in their essence equal has been the single most destructive element of our move away from religion.
It's both sad and disturbing. The embrace of collective identity and losing oneself body and mind in the ethos of a group is another of those things that goes completely against the grain of Western civilization. Joseph Campbell made an impression on me early in my life. He talks a lot about the defining characteristic of the West, going back at least to the Greeks, being its elevation and development of the individual as a unique being living his own potential, vs being an anonymous vessel in a collective destined to act out a predetermined social role or duty. That, he said, was our genius, and it's sad to see people abandon it.
Ryan, you are valuable.
That's very sweet, DeVonna. Thank you.