Being a Man is difficult. I want to differentiate between being a Man and acting like one. Acting is easy... you have to pretend to love sports more than creativity, technology more than actual people, women more than anything else. You hide from your feelings and suppress your emotions and act as homophobic as you can while simultaneously being "totally fine with gay men". Men are afraid of looking weak, and surprisingly what is culturally defined as weak is also closely related to the commonly held ideals of femininity... what does that tell us about the intrinsic relationship that men have with women? Vulnerability is frowned upon, even chastised, there is no place for sensitivity, only steely hard determination is acceptable. An actor believes in the role a man has to portray in order to be accepted in society... the violence, the oppression and the machismo....
Acting like a man doesn't work for all of us, probably because the "standard" definition of a man doesn't work for all of us. Coming to terms with my manhood has been a quest throughout my adult life. I am not aware of the specifics that brought on this quest but I imagine several events in my life at different times have forced me to think about being or becoming a man, whether they resulted in good or bad judgement. I imagine the death of my father was probably a big one, losing your male role model at a very sensitive age (16) and being totally unprepared for life has a way of forcing a false idea of manhood upon you. Becoming sexually active, and finding acceptance among my peers through that act, my dominance over women, somehow upholding the ages old idea of a caveman bonking his prey on the head with a club and dragging her off by the hair somehow invigorating my manhood further. The acceptance of social norms... forced programming of a sports driven male centred culture, the love of violence, the separation of emotions from within our actions, the love of power and money etc. The coming of my children (lately thoughts of my son and his life ahead have me asking the question of whether I am a right role model for him). My role and responsibility towards my elders as they age has me questioning deeply. Nonetheless these situations have all conspired to bring me to this point.
I believe a number of recent events in our world are causing many of us to question our beliefs and our lives and our roles as not only humans, but as a society, a civilization... what is our responsibility? I sense a growing dissatisfaction among people in their lives, their situations, I know this to be true because I feel it myself too. Clearly things are awry and we must work together to change and evolve upwards and outwards if we as a species are to survive. What does this mean as far as being a Man? And what are the roles that women hold in this new life towards conscious awareness? I sometimes wonder if all we are are nothing more than machines to make money, to strive for success and recognition, to claw our way upwards, while simultaneously ignoring the simple gift of being human. We are the only species on the planet that can prevent it's own extinction and we seem to be squandering this gift. Again I ask (mostly myself) what is the relevance of all this to becoming a man...? Men are in control. They are the gatekeepers in our world, like it or not there is no such thing as equality. They work very hard to suppress and control each other, women, animals, technology, nature. I am not sure how this all came about but I am sure that the overwhelming majority of people on this planet abide by this equation. I find it interesting that even those that are being oppressed are oftentimes the enablers and indeed champion towards that very oppression. In that statement lies what I think is the answer for affecting lasting change in the world. If we all follow an ideal which is clearly destructive, follow along blindly without thought or reaction, then certainly a solution must exist in activating an acute level of attention towards our individual, singular role in all this. From altering this inward perspective we can change outwardly too. This is where the role of being a man is so important. Not because we will come and save the day with our new found conscious manhood, but so that we can learn that it is okay to empower ourselves without the need to possess, dominate, hurt others and in this action we can create space for the flowering of the feminine, inside of us and outside too... in effect moving aside, making room for another possibility. I can't imagine that after thousands of years of human life that our only advancement as far as humanity is concerned is technological... how about us? Our ability to think, act... We seem to be utterly violent, depressed, hateful... are we as humans not bigger than all of this?
I intend to continue on this path towards real manhood, brotherhood, fatherhood, partnership. I would like to discover my potential not just as a curtainmaker, but more importantly as a human, a man in our society. I hope that being able to share this with you all you can see me in the same light as you see yourselves and through that realization that we are not separate, not apart from one another that we have the potential to understand, love and care for one another. We have the potential to change our actions, to abolish war, to live for peace and create a world that thrives on the partnership of men and women and nature simultaneously and harmoniously. Somewhere deep within all of us every man, woman, child, we all want love and peace, we all want safety and joy, we all want to live free... how can we achieve this outwardly without realizing how we prevent it from happening inwardly within our own lives?
Ravi!