(2/2) Man the Mule: Passivity, the New Masculinity

This is the second part of two posts. To read part one, the narrative, click here.

(2/2) Man the Mule: Passivity, the New Masculinity ~ Deep Sanity

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TLDR

Modern men have learned quite well how to shed their responsibility onto others. In fact, this seems to be the hallmark of the modern man. The more he is able to burden others with his responisbilities, the more "manly" he becomes in the eyes of the public. But such an individual quite frankly does not know how to do anything for himself. He needs others to feel like something, like someone before himsself.

In traditional societies such an individual would be seen as a prebuescent child who still needs weaning. Eastern traditions posit, quite antithetically, that what makes a man a man in the first place is in fact his responsibility to properly handle his responsibilities, usually done through the medium of active and aggressive service.

When he is able to execute selflessness and service to others, it was at this point that he would be considered a leader to his family, kin, neighbors, people, and community at large. The seed for leadership is identifiable as Mercy, the universal language, understood by all of creation, not just human beings.

The modern man must face himself to become himself.

COMMENTARY

Luke and Ethan both exhibit a shared sense of detachment from their situations — perhaps for different reasons — that ultimately informs the construct of their dispositions, and colors the underlying perceptions of themselves, their partners, and the world at large.

Let’s take it one by one.

As it pertains to Luke, it is evident that he has come to embody the permission-seeking man. The man who long ago lost the ability to independently act with discernment, dignity and conviction. Instead, he is haunted by a sense of incompetence and intellectual claustrophobia whenever faced with a task or responsibility.

As a result, this kind of man is met with repulsion, both inwardly and outwardly. 

Inwardly

as it pertains to his perception of himself — perhaps the most imperative part being his identity as a “husband” or a “man”. Since this is the summative purpose for most men, any influence that conveys regression here can ultimately have a debilitating effect on the rest of man’s faculties [like his confidence, empathy, generosity, capacity, optimism, etc].

When this happens, each of man’s faculties flees from him as he finds himself left with nothing but a passive dependence upon anyone who even fakes a sense of competence and authority.

This is the “I’ll follow you if you seem like you know what you’re doing because I certainly do not” disposition — for better or for worse. It is void of any kind of ability to independently and rationally discern right from wrong, responsible from immature, prioritize tasks, enforce limitations; pertaining to spending or time management or rewards vs punishment, etc.

Man may find himself either being subservient to his counterpart in every affair, which burdens her, OR turns to some toxic authority who does nothing but validate his strange feelings of lowliness and informs him of how to dispel it through serving, caring, and acknowledging no one but the self.

Outwardly

as it pertains to others, who can smell his lack of development from afar and are repelled by his apparent uselessness. In an effort to save themselves from having to carry this passive man’s weight, they run the other way. Even his own wife/girlfriend may have thoughts of regret and disappointment when repeatedly faced with his lack of ability to do anything for himself and/or others.

People don’t want to be around an adult man who constantly needs help. 

The permission-seeking man

eventually becomes another one of his wife’s children; constantly needing to be redirected and corrected. The moment he is left unsupervised, or given the autonomy to act on his own accord, he messes something up, and thus is always in needs of supervision and/or is always in search of guidance and direction no matter how small a task may be.

He wants — almost to the point of need — a definitively dependable figure (which is inherently problematic in the first place) to tell him what to do so that he could do it with ease.

• If he does a task with ease, he will be seen as competent in that area, and
• if he is seen as competent, he will feel competent, and when he does, he will be convinced that he has reached the definition of manhood — a title to be revered and obeyed.
• At this point, man perhaps perceives of himself as now being the definitive figure he was seeking initially.
• When man has an active role to play, especially if it is executed independently and well, his confidence blossoms, leading to a strengthened ability to do other things the like.

This may sound normal, and to an extent, it may be. But what it reveals about the permission-seeking man in particular is that he places the entirety of his self-worth in his own ability to do something useful; both thoroughly and correctly.

This may, again, sound like a good thing, but there are three problems that arise as a result of such a cyclically polarizing paradigm:

1. When man does not complete a task correctly, as is inevitable for any human being, his self esteem is likely to tank, further affecting his drive to remain persistent. This is when it is easy to subside as a passive follower — which is one of two extremes. Conversely, when he does complete a task correctly, he considers himself to be inherently in the right, and in the know — unchallengeable in a way almost divine-like. This is when it is easy to assume the hyperactive and even infallible leader role — which is the second extreme.

2. Man’s intention in this regard is shallow. The placing of his self-worth in his ability to perform a task well denotes a type of showmanship to be the very foundation of his intentions. Here, man’s esteem lies in how others perceive him. When he performs a task well, others perceive him to be competent, the image of which is absorbed, upheld, and protected by man himself. Thus he feels inclined to attach to, and identify with, this falsity of an image — not only for the sake of his own self-esteem, but also for the sake of his social standing with others. “When I am perceived as knowing, then I am indeed knowing.” This problem area also likely leads to needing to “prove others wrong”. However, when there is no other to “show” his pompous grandioseness to, then man may find that he loses the will and ability to further do — leading him to eventual feelings of purposelessness and meaninglessness, especially when he is alone. 

3. Man’s intention of showmanship is indicative of his lack of sincerity towards others as well as himself. His intention elucidates a kind of selfishness and panicking egocentricity in that his sole objective is to perceive himself as competent and functional. The easiest way he decides to pursue this is through fooling others into thinking he is so, and then seeing himself though their eyes. The result is a rendering of a man, not actually a man himself. Rather, it is a psycho-holographic version of himself that if man were to actually confront, he would find it to be a facade, thereby destroying the former perceptions of himself that he held onto for decades of his life, and necessarily coming to the conclusion that he was wrong all along. Man would rather not do this. He would rather live through a fallacy and maintain his preconceived foundation — be it a delusional perception of being inherently right and infallible — instead of tearing down said falsehood to rebuild a healthier, more authentic, and real version of himself from the ground up. One that is holistic of strengths and weaknesses, rights and wrongs, knowledge and ignorance, competence and incompetence.

What we can derive from these three problem areas is that as a result of man’s selfishness in only wanting to do a task well so that he is perceived by others to be competent, which then permits him to internalize this insincerely disingenuous image, man may inevitably find himself to be functionally impotent in both his capacity and ability beyond this self service of his ego.

He narrowly acts for himself to fulfill his own needs, as well as to maintain the image of himself to himself. 

The fear of being perceived as passively aloof, and as a functionally impotent loser looms over his psyche indefinitely.

This sometimes incredibly strong drive transforms all of man’s thoughts, actions, and behaviors towards only that which would contribute to his perception as being capable, adequate, and independent both to others and himself. Such a hyper fixation on himself, however, naturally causes man to be inattentive to the needs of others, which unfortunately and juxtaposingly manifests that which he was desperately fleeing from all along — incompetence. 

Competence

can be defined as doing a task well, and doing a task well more than likely implies that it is for another person — who is the recipient of said task.

When man is not attentive to the needs of others for whom he is doing the task, he will continue to perform in ways that are by essence, incompetent, dysfunctional and quite frankly, awkwardly wrong. Without keen awareness and selfless regard for others, man lacks the ability to not only understand their needs, and develop a level of social intelligence so that he can perform a task holistically and well, but as a result, he also lacks the ability, capacity, and sagacity to take initiative since he does not know where to begin.

This is the inevitable end of narrowingly “focusing on himself” — with his only goal being the fulfillment of his own needs.

For this very reason, the only task a guy like Luke could ever do is limited to a type of absent-minded unsophistication that may very well soon be replaced by the likes of A.I.

True passivity.

For example;

• [man] pushing a shopping cart
  • as opposed to his woman having the shrewdness to initiate what needs to be bought — in order to fulfill the needs of those who will be eating.
• Another example is man driving to a location
  • as opposed to his counterpart planning where to go, what activities to do, and how long to stay at any given site.
• Yet another example is [man] exclusively purchasing a gift
  • as opposed to being involved in the process of picking out the right one based on knowing the preferences of the recipient.

True Passivity indeed.

This last example is one of many that conveys the fact that money indeed does not make a man, instead it may very well contribute to the making of its opposite; a passive man, due to his overreliance on his own wealth which promotes a sense of under-engagement and under-attentiveness toward his folk.

Unfortunately, it comes to little or no surprise that most women are used to filling the roles of the latter examples, while men are limited to the former.

Man’s lack of presence and engagement with — and service towards — others inhibits him from ever coming close to initiating, and hence denies him entry into the doors of competence, healthy masculinity, and true manhood. 

The Passive man is one who is “in it only for himself”. That is, someone who is unwilling and unable to step outside of his comfort zone, the confines of which are ultimately delineated by his own exclusive self-service; which also explains his sloth-like nature when doing anything for anyone other than himself.

He is not used to caring but only being cared for — and may even believe this to be the purpose of his existence.

It is why he is here. It has become the grounding of his reality; upon which he stands, operates, thinks, and behaves. He lives through the lens of his own self-service to the extent that if imposed upon or challenged in any way by anyone, then they are going against what has become his fanatical adherence to his own egotistical religion.

Here, man is stubborn, thoughtlessly, and meekly compliant toward his own self-prescribed dogma. He prostrates to the intrinsically infallible king he thinks himself to be, who preoccupies his faculties day and night with fantasies of attention and fame. He melodramatically believes, perhaps more than anything, that his goal is to be his own missionary soldier, and to forcefully proselytize the world into prostrating before the false idol of himself who he thinks is a man.

Any and all critique of his obvious selfishness is a direct threat to the idol-worshiping of himself. No matter how small the suggestion or innocent the remark, if there is a hint that alludes to the possibility of him being wrong, then his fragile existence, foundation of reality, and pseudo-god-like nature becomes “threatened”. His bestial instinct is to then defend his fallacious reality through anger, control, or socially acceptable stereotypes to not only ward off the “threat”, but to squander any possibility of thought-provoking and critical remarks that instill logical reassessment of what he undoubtedly believes to be absolutely and unshakably right.

Here, the critic becomes an enemy who can not be tolerated. On the contrary, anyone who affirms his egotistical framework is a friend and confidant. Their bond of allyship is forged on the basis of confirmation bias. “As long as you agree with me and don’t expose me to reality, even though I may very well be wrong, then we are buddies.” More will be said about this when examining Ethan and Raisa’s scenario. 

When man is functionally inept as a result of his reluctance to serve anyone other than himself, someone else has to step in, and step up.

Enter: “The Dragon Lady” or the likes of Melissa. The “nagging” woman, or the “emotional” woman, or the one who is “so controlling” or “so annoying and won’t shut up and give me a break”. These labels for certain types of women appear to be given by certain types of men who either consciously or subconsciously choose to keep them strategically vague. 

Why? 

One answer may be due to man not wanting to change his current ways of passivity and immobility.

He would rather “chill” and “not do anything”. When the dragon lady of a woman “nags” or “is being emotional and not logical”, it appears that she is looking for something to happen that has not yet been initiated by the utmost logician of a man.

Thus it calls for their constant reminder — to take out the trash because the house smells rancid, to communicate more efficiently because there is no consideration for her in the making of plans or conveyance of change, to inquire why a situation was not handled with a good balance of assertiveness and calm, to question if there is still love and care in the relationship because she literally has not been spoken to or acknowledged for a day and a half.

However reasonable a woman may be in bringing up concerns like these, man scapegoats into labeling her as emotional in order to retain the crown of being “the logical one” which is more socially positively connotated.

What his shallow logic is not able to grasp, however, is that his woman is perhaps teaching him the language of masculinity through the fulfillment of femininity. 

Bookmark this.

The kind of man who complains of his woman being “so annoying” to this extent may not want to hear the reminders that he is doing something wrong. Because deep down, he believes himself to be right and her to be wrong. Because deep down, something in the midst of his bestial chambers, echoes “I’m better than she is”. This may be the reality he attempts to uphold through name-calling and labeling; which appear to be covers for belittling and subjecting.

Man gives himself an overtly intellectual but covertly retarted reason to not have to change.

He does not want the framework of his own inherent superiority, that was perhaps breastfed to him since his conception, to be challenged again and again. So that he can remain the king of his small little castle. So that he does not have to initiate anything. So that everything can be on autopilot and he can just sit back and not do anything — eventually corroding. So that he can be served while he watches others, and the world at large, serve him. 

That was deep.
But we can go deeper.
By assessing "where does all this come from:"

PARENTAL MISGUIDANCE

The first dynamic a child is exposed to is more often than not from its parents. Because of this, the child is likely to perceive the world through the behavior, actions, expressions, and handelings of its parents. Whatever the parents do or say almost literally becomes the foundation of reality through which the child shapes and interprets the world, as well as their roles/expectations within it. For most boys who grow up to be like either Luke or Ethan, or someone worse, it may be safe to assume that one thing they all have in common is that they were raised to be served, not to do the serving. This can be true whether the conveyance is done directly or indirectly by the parents.

For example, a parent will be more inclined to consistently ask the daughter for help with translating government documents, filing car insurance procedures, setting up doctor appointments, cleaning the house, washing the laundry, cooking, sending emails, planning events, or tech support — all the while being unconcerned with the son’s participation on the same, or equivalent tasks.

• The expectation is thus established that the daughter is the helper, and the son enjoys the luxury of not having to do anything.

Notice this wording, because as often as the delicacy of passivity is pursued, it serves to the demise of the pursuer. When it comes to consequences, a parent is more likely to enforce stricter curfew times for the daughter, meanwhile the son is vaping with his friends until two in the morning.

• The expectation is thus established that the daughter needs to adhere, while the son can roam free as he likes without much serious repercussions.

When it comes to respecting a parent’s word, like in the case of getting a task done or accepting a consequence, the daughter's defiance is intolerable, while the son’s recalcitrance becomes the rule of law, even as it relates to being grounded or having something taken away.

• The expectation is thus established that the daughter needs to listen and the son needs to be heard. 
  

The treatment of the daughter and son in each of these scenarios is not likely being explicitly communicated, yet they are certainly observed and internalized. The ubiquitous passivity and overly permitted leniency in the son’s upbringing is a disservice to him — contrary to popular beliefs of happening out of love.

He learns that his role is to receive, while the role of others is to give [to him].

His role is to do what he wants when he wants without question, and even if consequences were to be communicated, they are not serious enough for him to adhere. When he grows up, the result is that the boy has a repulsive disdain and intolerance towards being told what to do. His whole life, he has been perceiving people as either inferior or superior. And he can’t take being the “inferior” one who has to listen and follow rules and do the right thing and own up to mistakes and take responsibility.

It goes against his upbringing, his foundation of reality, his nature, and perception of himself, others, and the world at large. He grows up knowing no restraint, control, skills, or emotive well-being for others.

The daughter on the other hand, learns how to do everything, and is a solely self-sustaining individual who has discipline and a developed sense of respect, morality, and genuine concern for others.

Man would rather not admit that he got off on the wrong foot in life, which would necessitate having to tear down the little castle built for him (perhaps directly assisted by the mother and indirectly by the passively permissive father).

Man would rather not do this even though it corresponds with his true nature of masculinity that seems to require aggressively active and selfless service for others.

But no. He would rather be with someone who is like his mother; who would allow him to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Any woman that shows otherwise is a threat to his competence, ultimately exposing his fragile self-perception of needing to be pampered and recognized as superior to feel stable. A competent woman's well-trained childhood very likely has the ability to remove the veil that covers his passivity and carelessness. 

Freud’s impalpable Oedipus complex may serve to be the groundings upon which we can understand the reality of the modern man. Instead of boys wanting to marry their mothers, we can perhaps understand this complex as men — who have been raised in such a childlike way — wishing to actually be with someone like their mothers so that they can remain receiving her services, and not have to actively initiate or change anything about himself.

The boy wants a woman who can serve him the same way his mother did. The boy wants to be unchallenged, let loose, and to be accepted regardless of what line he crosses. The boy wants to be defiant, selfish, entitled, and to pretend that he is “in charge” while still remaining unconditionally loved and given all the attention, and kisses in the world.

He wants to be seen as a man but not have to actually be the man.

But. As a boy, man was never instilled with the qualities of responsibility or dependability. His masculine muscle was never really exercised, hence he has been accustomed to, quite frankly, being a lazy baby. This kind of man can never really become a husband or a father, but will always require a caretaker to nurture his obese ego that doesn't know how to do anything for anyone other than itself.

Such a phenomenon may also explain the rise of ascedia in the modern age, especially among men. Even the ones who are “doing things” they do it for themselves, and lack the ability to be magnanimously selfless, to sacrifice for their loved ones; whether that be time, effort, or emotional attention. 

"TRADITIONAL" GENDER ROLES

Traditional gender roles are often associated with the husband going to work and the wife tending to the house, chores, and children. While this may be part of some traditions in some parts of the world throughout some of history, jumping to the conclusion that “this was always how things worked” brushes over a lot of nuance, diversity, and truth. What may be worse is seeing the world through historically Western failed attempts toward what is horrendously mislabeled as “traditional” lifestyles. A white man driving a Bentley home from work to angrily beat his wife who is struggling to do the laundry, bathe the children, and fix her husband’s favorite ham sandwich is certainly not traditional. Instead, it appears to be more modern than anything.

What also appears to be modern is the over-compartmentalization of men being in the workforce as superior while women being “stuck at home” as inferior.

This somewhat extremist dichotomy segregates parental and gender roles, and facilitates man’s detachment from the whereabouts of his home.

Such modern ideological fallacies excommunicates man from his own household by creating distance between himself and the affairs of his own home on the basis of deeming it “a woman’s job” to take care of the household.

For the woman, this more often than not results in her knowing each of the children at an intrinsic level — something man could never achieve so long as he abides by such narrowly self-serving and historically inaccurate beliefs. The fruits of a woman’s dedicated labor, service, attention, and presence within her own household produce the knowledge of her children’s likes and dislikes, what makes them happy and what causes their distress, what encouragement they need and what kind of child-rearing is suitable for their natural temperaments. She knows what they like to eat, what they're allergic to, their friend groups, their dreams, ambitions, and hopes. She knows them. And through that knowledge, she has the potential to connect with them, and they to her. She is able to love them, experience life with them, and inevitably exercise a high level of with her family that can also be applied to other areas of her life — like with study, work, entrepreneurship, building relationships, and more.

She began with fulfilling the most proximate and salient of responsibilities with diligence, and thus is able to properly grow beyond that domain. 

But man’s “logical” self is not able to see this.

He is perhaps emotionally invested in “being the man” so much so that he becomes a mule.

A father who deems all of this to be exclusively the job of the mother becomes unsurprisingly othered in his own home — by his own hands and supposedly superior rationale. He has typecasted himself as the provider, but lacks in providing any real provision beyond that which is strictly material. He thinks that taking care of children is a woman's job. Perhaps there is even an implication that what she is doing is "lowly" and beneath him, and that he is doing the actual important work. But in reality, he is miserably absent from the lives of his family and children such that they do not know him and he does not know them.

He dreads the day when he may have to take care of the kids, or the day his wife may become sick, solely because he would not know what to do. Because he was never involved, because he deemed these things insignificant, and maybe even perceived them as not contributing to his “goals”. Now and forever, this kind of man is left an anxiously quivering stranger in his own home. Instead of confronting his mistakes and exerting more effort, he evades and avoids these uncomfortable situations — and may even resort to blaming others as opposed to “manning up” and taking responsibility himself, something he was never actually raised to do in the first place. 

Traditional societies and traditional gender roles is a vague and blanket term that must be specified. It would be inaccurate to claim that every single tradition posits the man as the exclusive provider and the woman as the exclusive caretaker of the home.

In fact, many traditional societies held and continue to regard all of the household chores; including cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry, child upbringing, financially providing, and spending dedicated to adequate time with the woman, as exclusively the man’s role. 

Shocking right? 
Not to people who read. 

And not to people who study an accurate depiction of history and hold to real traditional values. In traditional Eastern societies, men carried the burden of both the household and working duties even as children. They cooked, they cleaned, they traded, knew the terrain of the earth and its seasons, were empathetic with their siblings, served their parents with respect and dignity, learned and studied virtues and vice, and grew physically stronger from intensely knowing the weight they would someday carry with families of their own.

By the age of 14, most boys became men and some even married.

In these Eastern traditional gender roles, boys were raised with responsibility for responsibility, which cultivated truly healthy masculinity that protected, listened, taught, advised, cried, and stood firm on the grounds of reality and hope. They were raised to be capable of bearing these responsibilities through aggressively active and selfless service, which cultivated the expansion of what developed into innately vast levels of capacity. This is how they achieved more. By prioritizing their most proximate of responsibilities; family. Home. Children. 

In most modern societies, almost all of the aforementioned duties would be seen as the woman’s role and dismissed by man, especially as a child still living with his parents. Nowadays, these responsibilities are almost entirely reversed. How many young boys do you see willingly doing house chores without their parents having to pay them or buy them something or resort to attempting to punish them?

Enough said.

Both the modern boy and the modern man are not looking for responsibilities, or opportunities to serve. Rather, they look for others who can be responsible for them and serve them, which they themselves blasphemously mislabel as “traditional gender roles”.

In fact, only when the modern man is served by others is when he typically feels like a “real man”denoting manhood to rest upon the ability to “rule over” others, whereas in traditional gender roles, such a person would be seen as a boy who still needs weaning.

One who is unable to do for others is undeveloped and premature, which also denotes a failure in such a person’s upbringing. He was seen as not knowing how to do anything for himself, which is the condition of so many boys who think they are men today. The feeling of manhood arises when they see others cleaning and cooking and taking care of things on their behalf. Thus, the modern man’s manhood rests rather decrepitly and pitifully on his own wealth, such that if he did not have money to pay others to do his responsibilities for him, his incompetence and immaturity would be revealed to himself and the world; creating a reaction of frantically wanting to avoid and cover up his reality by burying it with wealth.

Maybe that’s why people anxiously pursue wealth and forget about everything else that actually really matters.

And maybe that’s why both young boys get angry at their mothers, and married men at their wives when they don’t “do their role” which is actually his role. The withdrawal of support from others actually peels back the layers of dirt man has placed upon the reality of his uselessness and worthlessness which would ultimately lead him to addressing his responsibilities.

But he doesn’t want that, you see.

He would rather choose the path to pseudo-manhood by anxiously chasing wealth to force others to complete his responsibilities for him so that he feels like a man as opposed to confronting his responsibilities head-on and growing towards manhood through the path of selfless service that results in his knowing and holistic competence. 

Prayers to such people who will only open their eyes to reality after their caskets are closed.  

The modern man assumes that they are innately worthy of being called a man without having to change anything about himself or work towards anything or anyone other than himself. He considers himself to have always been a man, and always will be one, despite literally not knowing how to feed his children or make soup for his wife when she falls ill. Ideologies that encourage these kinds of gender segregation roles are quite frankly regressive from those traditional. Such modern devices appear to be masked in the translucent cloak of “traditionalism” and uncritically consumed by hypermasculine fanatics who actually have no principles to stand on other than their own validation and self enjoyment — to the bestial level. 

The comparison between falsely traditional and truly traditional gender roles indicates a clear conclusion. It would appear that what ultimately dictates man (and any human being)’s competence, and full embodiment is in fact his ability to properly know and serve his constituents; whether they be his family, wife, children, parents, friends, community, colleagues, nation, employees, or neighbors. Additionally, a hallmark of complete maturity is the capacity to bear responsibility, and the ability to willingly initiate it. 

Leadership appears to be traditionally (actually this time) predicated upon service, which necessitates sacrifice, which is built upon knowing, which requires awareness, which entails presence, which demands selfless generosity, which relies on the genuine well-wishing and concern for others, which, ultimately, rests upon the core of masculinity, what is at the universal heart of competence, and what leads to the summative completeness for any human being.

Mercy.

Yes, to be in traditional gender roles, especially as a man, means acknowledging that Mercy is the seed for leadership to be able to blossom into full force and full health. It is the integral component, the axiomatic foundation, the primordial disposition lodged deep within all of creation. It is what gives life, what builds, what provides, what determines, what guides, and what grows. 

Leadership - Service - Sacrifice - Knowing - Awareness - Presence - Selflessness Generosity - Well-wishing / Concern - 

• Mercy -
• Absence of Mercy - 

Disregard - withholding (time, energy emotional space) - selfishness - mindlessness - negligence and innatentiveness - ignorance - anxious hoarding - demanding - Tyranny. 

A relationship, marriage, family, or man without Mercy inevitably manifests the opposite of the aforementioned qualities. When man overlooks Mercy and does not tap into his Merciful potential, he becomes void of it, which naturally affects the rest of his trajectory, as he finds himself missing the mark throughout his devolutionary stages.

What effortlessly follows a voidance of Mercy is a veering towards disregard when it comes to the affairs of others. Man doesn’t really care. The concern for others is not at the forefront of his mind, in fact, it may be totally absent. Such a person finds himself unable to give to others. Instead, he withholds his time, energy, and emotional attentiveness for only the likes of himself. Being there, and being emotionally available for someone feels like pulling teeth; as it goes against both his current and childhood norms; which is to provide these niceties only for himself.

If he has any time, any energy, any means, and even an ounce of capacity or ability, it is only acceptable and tolerable and congruent with his beliefs when selfishly employed towards his own motives. This state of hyper fixation on the self renders man mindless to the affairs and realities of others. He becomes negligent, and unsurprisingly inattentive, as his own needs take the eternally luminous spotlight while the needs of others wane into the shadows of the dark side of the moon — always unseen, secondary, and deemed too strenuous, and too difficult for man to approach.

By this point, he is nearly fully disengaged. As a result of the aforementioned manifestations, the unavoidable outcome is for man to be ignorant of his people. He does not know them by essence, he does not know what they want, what they like; he does not know how to read the room and be emotionally attentive and socially intelligent. He does not know what he should do when confronted with a tearful child, he knows no comforting skills other than “man up” or providing distance, which conceals the reality of his actions; avoiding the problem. Upon being drenched in a total state of ignorance, man frantically acts in the only way he knows how;

self-servingly.

He is unable to sacrifice anything for anyone, and thus anxiously hoards and overly attaches to the things and abilities he has in an almost polytheistic way. He no longer asks, questions, or critically reads anyone or anything, especially not himself. He assumes by this point that he is worthy of being adhered to and listened to, because otherwise, the mountain of egocentricity he has built for himself will be debased, and the fallacious foundations of his reality, shattered.

He must maintain it.
He must go all the way.

At this point, he demands that others obey and recognize him as a “man” that should be respected, whether from his wife, children, nation, or even parents. The end result of such an individual, the manifestation of a lack of harnessing Mercy, results in the exact antithesis of a man, of a leader, of a human being. 

Man becomes a tyrant. 

Inside and out, man becomes rotten. Everything he does becomes ugly, distastefully unjust, and intolerable of anyone or anything that goes against his self-made values — the only thing he actually believes in.

He has no principles other than what pleases his self, he follows no rule or tradition, though he emotionally and illogically jumps to the conclusion that his methodology has always been “traditional” when in fact it is historically inaccurate and by essence, modern.

Man never thought to check, he never thought to second guess himself and read beyond his own ignorance. He needed to believe that he himself and no one else was right. “I’m right, I’m right, I’m right” is the theme song of his life. It is his daily litany, drug, and operative framework that renders everything and everyone else to nothing more than the background music of his one-man musical. He has been earwormed by his own self-talk to the extent that he can’t hear any other opinion that may differ.

He has no purpose other than what pumps up his reputation and self-image. He sits and wallows in his own perception of how others should perceive of him until he hates them for not mindlessly complying to his ever-corrodingly, emotionally filled pseudo-reality.

If it’s not already clear that we have transitioned to assessing Ethan’s disposition and dynamics, this is your cue. 

ETHAN

Man seldom accepts his traditional responsibilities. Instead, he defers to either his mother or in Ethan’s case, his “partner”, to carry such burdens. One of the many problems with this is that such responsibilities — traditionally speaking — are what make a man, a man in the first place. When he refuses to handle them out of sheer laziness and childishness, then whoever ends up bearing them is more likely to imbibe nonexclusive masculine qualities — like initiative, competence, independence, being on top of things, taking care of others, being decisive, and being honest and upfront.

For this reason, women in modern societies are more likely to “wear the pants”, simply because man has transferred his responsibilities and obligations to her, perhaps while deeming it superfluous.

However, a woman's dominance begins to reveal itself as a natural result of thoroughly handling man’s responsibilities, which causes man to juxtaposingly feel threatened by her new strides and gained competence — arousing his envy and hints of disdain. At this point, he may express, either internally or externally, a notion like “she is not making me feel like a man”.

If this expression were to be translated without filter, the reality might be something like:

“She is not taking care of all of the responsibilities that are traditionally mine while pampering me by making me feel like I am a king who is always in the right.”

Man, steeped in his emotions, desperately needs for his female counterpart to meet his unrealistically high needs of validation, unconditional positive regard, and full throttle acceptance without requiring any exertion on his end — all while she is pressured into taking on his traditional responsibilities, and all while he convinces himself that these are “traditional” gender norms. Any inability to comply with such intangible demands results in man complaining to the world that “there are no good women anymore”.

When his unrealistic childish expectations are not met, man — as in Ethan’s case — exercises a kind of emotionally coercing manipulation to regain a sense of control.

His objective is to return his female counterpart to a dynamically inferior position so that he may return to the comfortability of not having to be challenged, made to feel like he is inferior, or pull any weight and still be “respected as a man”. Here, man is cunning. As he knows that his woman, and women in general perhaps, are more likely to doubt themselves when someone seems “hurt”. She is naturally inclined to think that she may be doing something wrong and more likely to reassess the situation, which can result in giving others the benefit of the doubt — conveyed by an apology or an effort to reconcile the situation by soothing the other person and giving them more of what they want.

This is what man is banking on.

Such qualities can be extremely healthy. In fact, their opposites usually denote maladaptive behavior which may stem from the vices of arrogance and pride. A woman may very well know that she is doing more of the work, yet man in his threatening and subjecting silence proceeds to relay messages like:

• “You’re being emotional”,
• “You’re not recognizing me”,
• “You’re not taking care of me”,

and worse of all:

“You’re not fulfilling your responsibilities as a woman since you made me feel bad as a man because you took the responsibilities that I never would have done and now you seem threateningly competent and need to be put back in your place”.

Such intentions may not be proven empirically, but for someone who is emotionally literate and harbors no bias, it is as clear as day how insecure the likes of Ethan can become through such tactfully deceitful hush-hush methods.

This kind of man is still passive, and even more so a mule than the former assessment of Luke. It is, however, covert since these dynamics are societally misperceived as traditional gender norms and within supposedly reasonable expectations of both men and women.

Despite what society posits — and what Ethan may expect — one thing can be made for certain; he quite literally doesn’t know how to do anything for himself. If it wasn’t for Raisa, who was experiencing a mental breakdown from having to carry his physical, nutritional, financial, dietary and household responsibilities, Ethan would more than likely be functionally impotent. No matter how low Raisa decides to humble herself in order to serve her child who thinks he’s a man, if she ever chooses to remove herself from having to babysit Ethan, then she will still have the skills to cook, clean, grocery shop, call the plumber, and budget, while also being able to tend to her own needs.

Meanwhile, the likes of Ethan remains self absorbed in the telenovela of his own reflections while he bitterly waits for others to take care of him and fulfill his responsibilities.

He doesn't know how to do anything, and maybe even worse, he feels okay with that. He feels as though this is how things should be. That someone else should take care of him and he should not have to bear responsibilities — the exact antithesis, in fact, of traditional men. He may even go on forums and complain about his ex-girlfriend not “respecting” him and that she is the reason why he is single. He may think in his warped perception of others, himself, and the world, that they have pushed him into becoming an involuntarily celebate individual, when clearly this was done by his own hands and emotionally charged attitude.

He blames others, but fails and fears to look into the mirror in order to accurately and truthfully assess his own fallacies and shortcomings.

Man would rather drown in the agony of his arrogance than to admit that “hey, maybe I did something wrong”. The thought never crosses his mind, because he was raised and habituated to such incredible social heights due to the inculcated ideology of his gender being superior. So much so that to come down from that level of prestige for even just a second is painful — let alone to destroy his fallacious paradigms entirely in order to axiomatically rebuild himself properly.

So he keeps climbing.
In the wrong direction.

Man craves the validation he gets from others admitting their mistakes and humbling themselves before him because it endorses, and is congruent with, his perception of himself as being innately superior, and “right”.

This is what he thinks being a man is about after all — being above others.

Hence the more he receives absurdly and unsustainably high levels of affirmation from others, the more he feels like a man, and conversely, the less he receives it from others, the less he feels like a man and the more dissatisfied he is in that particular relationship.

While the need for validation and recognition are natural human desires, satisfying them exclusively through the denigration of others and the overattentiveness of the self — for example by holding onto a grudge or dedicating one's life solely for the pursuit of money so that one feels better than others — is indicative of a deeply seeded vice.

It is fundamentally problematic to place masculinity in the ability to feel in control such that others must come crawling to soothe man and repent to him for him to “feel like a man”. Rather, such a person noticeably embodies more tyranny than masculinity.

A man, conditioned to unresolved levels of validation, needs everything from others to feel like something before himself.

He can not be wrong. He simply can not be less than anyone else. He demands subservience and total attention from others, especially his woman so that everything can fit his uncanny expectations. 

What purpose does a man like Ethan serve?
He does not serve. Period.

His level of use is perhaps as good as an Arnold Schwarzenegger poster hung in some college kid’s dorm room. People walk by and are impressed by the outward physique, and perception of manliness — perhaps in the way he carries himself, how big his arms are, what he wears, how he speaks (which are all outward features) etc., — but once they get close enough, they realize he is two-dimensional and without depth. Without substance, or use, or discipline or care, or attentiveness, or well-being, or competence.

It is soon realized that this kind of man has traded his inner world of healthy and active masculinity for a flimsical outward appearance of a man — quite pitifully reducing himself to substandard levels of purpose, meaning, and True virtue.

He stands on a pedestal; shirtless, smirking, looking cool and tough. But when he is finally able to attract someone, he employs bait-and-switch tactics. It's a trap; one that lures others into an ostensibly attractive deal only for man to unload all of his responsibilities on whoever is kind enough to “give him a chance”.

Throughout his social and romantic relationships, man impressively embodies and exudes the sum total of notoriously corrupt business methodologies, from cable and cell phone companies, to auto mechanic shops and sketchy car dealers. Or is it perhaps that these sleazy and shady industries are a manifestation of man himself when he reaches such subhuman forms?

It appears to be the latter.

When he operates from selfish paradigms, void of any axiomatic virtue or Mercy-imbibing tradition, he not only lives life by going on a rampage to please his self by any means necessary, but everything he touches becomes an extension of his lowly schemes.

As mentioned prior, the most deplorable version of man is tyranny; which is perhaps most apparent when seen through socio-political contexts as this is where man is most effective — either in a good way or a very bad way — due to the amount of power, tools, resources, and influence he temporarily holds. When he is selfishly passive in this context, man goes to considerable heights to get what he wants. He expresses, which then brings into existence the qualities of oppression towards people, systems, lands, cultures, relationships, trade routes, religions, and the reality of mercy in general. 

At the end of the day, it seems safe to say that through permissive and overindulgent upbringing methods that are void of consistent consequences, responsibilities, and constructive criticism that instills critical thought and self reflection, man is not raised per se, but when he “grows up” he is debased — without foundation — and slips into his most subhuman domains; manifesting tyranny inwardly and outwardly, in whatever occupation he finds himself, and in whatever relationship he manages to be a part of.

This phenomenon is likely due to the proliferation of modern gender ideologies, especially the ones that encourage passive masculinity and burdening femininity. This phenomenon signifies a stray from traditional gender norms if anything rather than an over-adherence to its principles and values. This phenomenon appears to mold the very tyrants that are amongst our midst — whether that be at home, with a partner, family, friends, coworkers, community members, organizations, or nations.

The tyranny within small scale dynamics is telling of what man can and will do when he has access to more. 

Through the aforementioned analysis, it can be concluded that the modern man's objective is to be perceived as “better” than everyone else — in a superficial, materialistic, and reductionist manner — including to his partner, to win over his imaginary throne of superiority.

However, in certain traditional societies, particularly in the East, it can be said that man’s goal is to serve as the dominant hand does to not only the non-dominant hand but also to the rest of the body. What makes a hand dominant after all is its ability to serve with more ease. It is used to carrying, pouring, chopping, lifting, writing, shaking, aiming, blocking, and serving in general. In fact, it is more naturally done by the dominant hand. It has a knack for service, it is part of its inherent nature. This ability to practice service fluidly and to carry more of the load is depended upon by not only the non-dominant hand, but the rest of the body in general in order to successfully complete the given task at hand. Its ability to carry more of the responsibility is relied upon.

Despite all this, one wouldn’t say that their dominant hand is better than their non-dominant hand. It is simply doing its function. Man is such to his partner, family, and people. He is to serve and to carry and to lighten the load for others.

This is when a person was traditionally recognized as a real man.

But what is to be done about the man who has already spent decades of his life pursuing his manhood in the wrong direction? What is to be said about a man who serves mammon? A man who finds no willpower towards the road of active masculinity? A man who has built his paradigms, behaviors, rationale, and expectations upon a foundation of selfishness, complacency, and childishness?

He must face himself, and look into the mirror.

He must see with unbiased eyes, and without the shattered lenses of his upbringing, selfish motives, or modern ideologies that encourage anything less than his complete potential. He must gaze within himself, onto himself, with an unfiltered reality, and stand upon the foothills of virtue. Slowly, with striking vigilance, he must permit and initiate the declaration of his errs. The anger he once felt towards others for not pampering him, he must channel towards himself in an effort to ignite the torches that allow for deeper and more truthful discovery.

He needs to know how far he has fallen, what ideological fallacies have corrupted and mutated his faculties meant to serve himself for the greater purpose of serving others, and the world at large. He must voyage towards their rescue, towards subjugating them in the service of a higher purpose than his mere whimsical desires of ephemeral power and people-pleasing.

Something Greater, man and his faculties are meant for. 

He must trace the genealogy of his self-assumed infantility of wanting others to serve him. He must go to the beginning, to begin again. This time in the right direction. He must tear down his ivory tower brick by brick, blow down his house of cards with a gust of wind that fans the flames of his desire towards something greater than satiating his gluttony.

All of his monuments are principally incorrect.

He must see that, and must destroy the idols he built for himself to begin laying the foundation of reality carved from the mountain of mercy. It is to be his anchor. Through aggressively active service in the name of masculinity, he is to build an edifice that can house his people, and withstand the attacks from his adversary, who is, none other than his bestial self.

Tear down your falsehood and commit to the pains of reality. When others confront you with your shortcomings, become fluent in adopting what benefits you there. For it is an opportunity to become even more humble, such that you lower yourself closer and closer towards the deepest and realest you.

Become versed in the language of leadership through withstanding, and eventually pleasantly welcoming all that agonizes your ego — especially as it relates to the part that refuses to acknowledge the worth of others over itself.

Die. Die a thousand times.

And then die a thousand times more to rise higher and higher. Voyage into the darkness of your depths to attain the highest of your heights. 

There is a modern phenomenon of insisting that the world is “cold” for not having religiously chanted the names of passive men in praise. Such ideologies encourage the celebration of the lowest part of the self, validating man’s most bestial desires while permitting his recalcitrance. Men are encouraged to limit the purpose of their existence to only that which would serve them. Blindly following this pampering, infantile behavior stunts their full potential and capacity to serve others and the world at large.

And so, amidst the fallacies that encourage you to be the worst version of yourself, amidst the unfairness you feel for not having everything and everyone as you expect, amidst the tugs of your own selfishness and complicit nature, amidst a dog-eat-dog world; become a man:

"A Man of Mercy. "