In his book "Wild at Heart," John Eldredge says, “Society at large can’t make up its mind about men… redefining masculinity into something more sensitive, safe, manageable, and, well, feminine, it now berates men for not being men. Boys will be boys, they sigh. As though if a man were truly grown up he would forsake wilderness and wanderlust and settle down.
"Where are all the real men?" is regular fare for talk shows and new books. "You asked them to be women," I want to say. It has become very obvious that there is a problem defining “manhood” and “masculinity” in our culture even though there are books about it, seminars about it, retreats about it, conferences about it, and every kind of gathering where men sit and talk about it.
I want to start by identifying what a genuine man does; what the true virtues, the habits, the disciplines, and the actions of real manhood are. Unfortunately, I feel to be able to define manhood we must erase the definition we have in our minds and start from scratch.
Earlier today, my friends and I were discussing the fact that some people get paid to model naked for art students on campus to draw them. We debated whether or not we would do this and are answers are irrelevant so friends and family don’t read into this too much. The reason for this job is to give students a model to base their depictions on. It seems for our definition of what manhood or masculinity is, we have looked at the character traits of a man, drawn them, looked at that drawing, minor flaws included, and used that as our base for depiction. We then took that second drawing including the original flaws and the new ones and made another depiction. We have done this over and over and over again until our depiction of manhood barely resembles the original.
My goal is to rediscover that original model or definition that has long since died. That being said, don’t plan to spend much time describing the many reasons for the crisis of manhood in our time. It is not what we are here to do. It is also where most books and men’s programs go wrong. They describe and analyze, mistaking, conversation for meaningful change. They substitute words for action and it hasn’t worked. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not against words, I happen to love writing, nor am I anti-intellectual, we need more serious thinking in our world, not less. We just don’t need thought as a substitute for action.
Before describing some basic character traits I believe should define manhood, I want to discuss a broader view of life that every man should have. I will start this idea with an illustration. I started a business pressure washing and sealing driveways the summer I turned 16. It is hard to believe that anyone would trust a 16-year-old to perform such a permanent task to their home and that they would pay more money than I had seen before this point for that service but people graciously continued to hire me. Why did people continue to trust me? I believe it is because I treated every driveway as if it was my own because, in a way, when someone hired me, it was if they were giving me their driveway; I was responsible for it. It became my territory and I treated it as such. This way of viewing my work helped grow my business to include decks, siding, and landscaping. I still am running this business five years later and now have hired employees who treat their work with the same attitude.
Another way to say this is, I treated each of these jobs as my own territory. I believe that every man is given a territory in his life. This territory is defined by what a man is responsible for. A true man fully owns, takes responsibility for, tends to, stands guard over, and assures the healthy condition of, the territory assigned to him. If he’s a serious man who knows something about genuine manhood, he tends to these things with zeal and devotion. His broader challenge is to learn to “man” his territory as a lifestyle. If he goes on a date, he understands he is responsible: not because his lady is weak or stupid, nor is she his property, I don’t intend to imply that, but because he has asked her out and that, in the mind of a true man, means he is responsible. He makes sure to do what he promised to do and respect her boundaries. This may sound very “old school” and it is. Get used to it. Being a real man in this generation is a great deal about recovering some old ways we should have never thrown aside. Man your territory. It’s what men do. It’s how men love. True men tend to their territory.
Beyond that way of viewing the world, there are some basic qualities that every man should contain. True masculinity is neither throwing down more alcohol than the next guy, treating women like a trophy to use up and toss them aside, knowing the most about sports, nor even holding the door open. That last one bugs me a lot, that people call themselves a “gentleman” simply because they hold the door open for a lady, this should be the norm, nothing worth extra praise, unfortunately, this seems to be close to the modern image of a “real man.” True masculinity includes humility, wildness, and always searching for a beauty to rescue.
I agree with William Mountford who said in his book Euthanasy: Or, Happy Talk Towards the End of Life, “It is from out of the depths of our humility that the height of our destiny looks grandest.” Humility changes our perspective on every situation we encounter. Masculinity involves a servant heart which comes from true humility. Humility is one of the hardest things to fake well because it truly comes from the heart. Humility changes our perspective on every situation we are in. As Daniel Goleman so beautifully says in his book, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, “Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection ― or compassionate action.” Humility is the first step for manhood.
Theodore Roosevelt was a great example of masculine wildness. This doesn’t mean that we should spend a few years living on a ranch, breaking horses, or hunting down thieves like he did, it just means we need to recover some of the adventure that calls to us. Most men now work in comfortable buildings with technology, letting their hands soften from a lack of hard work. We are becoming, “overfed, over tended, over entertained, and over preoccupied with ourselves” as Stephen Mansfield says. We now turn to TV shows or movies to watch adventure rather than to actually live it out. Yet, without getting our hands dirty every now and then, without living out noble fantasies, we lose a little bit of what defines us. Recently, my friends and I have been discussing train hopping and how cool it would be to travel somewhere via empty train car we jump onto and finding our way back. We have already completed some of our adventures, such as backpacking in the Great Smokey Mountains for our spring break in high school and spear fishing in Florida. These times are some of the moments that I feel most alive because I am answering a yearning that lives in my soul; a call for adventure. I have a masculine heart that yearns for adventure and I believe that, deep down, so does every other man. As Roosevelt said, “All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune make for a finer and nobler type of manhood” (Address to Naval War College).
It seems as though most men nowadays want all the benefits of beauty without having to fight for them. That is why evils such as porn and prostitution have become so prevalent. The sad truth is that women are being pursued and wanted superficially. It is their bodies that are being longed for, not their souls. A man must truly fight for his princess. He must sacrifice himself in humility; not because she is better than him, but because he believes she is worth the fight. A man desires to be a hero to his beauty. A true man is inspired by a beautiful woman, he will charge the castle to slay the dragon or fight an army to rescue his girl. Men don’t just want to fight; they want to fight for someone. A woman wants to be fought for, pursued, and a priority to someone. True masculinity fills this longing.
True masculinity includes humility, wildness, and always searching for a beauty to rescue. Humility in that he doesn’t think of himself as superior to others but as equal while having a servant heart. He will seek chances to give himself to the needs of others. Wildness in the sense that we do not have to hide our love for adventure and nature, we can embrace it. Men long for adventure; it is part of their heart. Lastly, masculinity includes the search of a beauty to rescue. Girls dream of prince charming and young boys sword fight in preparation of being that prince. True masculinity means never giving up the rescue of the beauty no matter if it looks like you’ve saved her or not. A true man treats a lady as if she is still a princess to be rescued every day. All these factors work together to make the characteristic of masculinity. Masculinity isn’t just surface appearances of big muscles and rough faces but requires character. True masculinity lives inside.
