If you’re like me, you were attracted to the Good Men Project because you wanted to be a better man.
I have news for you: you were born a good man. The key to seeing that is in the identification of the aspects of yourself that make you question that; the aspects that need your attention and healing.
Let me explain.
Every boy born into this world is innocent. If you’ve ever held an infant, particularly your own, you’ve probably had a sense of the perfection and purity of that young one. Just as we can view the corpse of a recently departed friend or brother and sense that they’re “not there,” we can look at a little one and sense that they’re more than what we see. We can sense an “oldness” about them or an intelligence. This has nothing to do with what they’ve accomplished; they haven’t accomplished anything we can ascertain at a few days or months old. But they seem to be far more than a miniature “blank slate”.
Have you ever had that experience? If not, the next time you get to hold a baby, feel into the experience. I think you’ll understand what I’m saying.
It’s important to note that you, too, were once an infant; an infant that was more than the sum of your parts. I believe that the “you” that inhabited that little body was a good man. You were free of judgment. You trusted, implicitly. You were creative and freely emotional. You were curious to the point of being obnoxious about it. You loved what you loved and there was no one who was going to talk you out of it without a protest, exhibiting a type of loyalty. These are all traits that, if you think about it, we admire in proper doses among our adult heroes.
Of course, you were also selfish and could behave terribly at the drop of a hat if triggered by a sibling—or peas on your plate—but let’s leave those for a moment. Those kinds of traits have more to do with learning our way in the world than the inherent qualities of soul.
You were a beautiful man, the minute you were born. So, what happened?
Nothing happened, except life.
Life, with a million concerns that are thrust upon us. Life, with crossroads that come to us – ready or not – that force us into decisions that we may not be ready to make. Life, with advisors that give bad advice, social and monetary systems that urge (or require) us to put our soulful gifts on the back burner and bodies that are programmed to become obsolete in alarming ways from young adulthood on.
As a man in his early 50’s, I can tell you that I’ve felt pulled, pushed, stomped on and distracted from what I really always wanted to do since I was about 22 years old. Only now am I following the passions I had as a boy, when I wanted to be a minister (there were no such things in the religion of my family) and be intimately involved with nature, music and writing. It took me the last ten years of my life to start unraveling the things that kept me away from the man I was born to be.
So, what is a good man?
I mentioned the key word in the preceding paragraph: distraction. A good man is a man that’s not distracted from his soulful self, the soul that he was when he was an infant. You came here, like I did, with a purpose, a mission to accomplish. If you’re like me, and most of you are, you were allured away from your true loves by what was seductive at the time: a high-paying job, ideas of security, a bigger house, the prettiest wife, a better situation. The price of these things was your passionate interests. The problem with this is that they’re often what point you to your purpose in life.
I’m going to reverse now and tell you that this may not be the case for you. But I submit that, for most men, we know the direction we want to go. This direction is found in the answer to the question, “what would you do if money were not an object? If you could do anything, all day long, what would it be?”
The seminal poet Alan Ginsburg came to such a crossroads. He was in the throes of a writers’ block that he appears to blame on his feeling that he had to act “normal” (heterosexual), when he didn’t honestly feel that way. This stifling of his being was preventing inspiration. He was at a loss as to what to do and was at a counseling appointment with a Dr. Hicks. He was asked the same question: “What do you want to do? What is your heart’s desire?”
His answer was that he wanted to quit his office job, get a small place, devote himself to contemplation and his partner, smoke pot, write poetry and make love.
“Well,” Dr. Hicks answered, “why don’t you do it then?”
As most of us do when confronted like this, he responded with his fears.
“Well, what if I get old and can’t take care of myself and nobody loves me and…” You get the picture. You have friends that would say something like this, right?
The counselor told him, “Don’t you worry about that. You are very charming and lovable, and people will always love you…” In short, Dr. Hicks gave Alan permission to be Alan – the man he was meant to be.
Of course, Alan Ginsburg went on to become one of the most important American poets of the 20th century. He smoked bales of weed, wrote incredible poetry and made love with his partner until he passed away at 70. And he was beloved. And he still is. Alan Ginsburg, by that standard, was a good man.
I’m not saying he was particularly moral, but he didn’t define his “goodness” by morality alone, and neither do I. He obviously used drugs. I am also not going to judge that either, particularly with 29 states (and counting) that have legalized marijuana. He was homosexual. If you have an issue with that, I’m sorry. I understand that sentiment because I was once religious, but I only care that he made the opportunity to love and be loved. This he did. Part of Alan’s own healing – a main reason, I submit, that he came to earth – was to write poetry. The rest of these things fed into that end for him. He died peacefully and, reportedly, at peace.
In the end, a good man is mainly this: one who walks according to the path of soul. Alan did that. Good job, Alan.
If you’re a mean man, or a dishonest man, know that you didn’t come here that way. Those traits are learned. My advice is to go inside and see what taught you to be that way. There are tools to do this. Meditation is a good one, but by no means the only one. Maybe you need to write poetry, like Alan. Or go on a vision quest, or sit in a hundred sweat lodges. Whatever your situation, this is part of your work, your own healing. It’s also what you came here to do. Anything you attempt to accomplish without addressing the core wounds that taught you this behavior will be colored by them.
So, get to work.
After all, if you want to be basically a good man, there are broad standards of behavior. Be as honest as you can. Cultivate a love for everyone, and the earth as well (did you ever see a child that didn’t love to be outside on a beautiful day? Build on that!) Be creative, and express your emotions without reservation. Trust others until they themselves prove they aren’t worthy of it.
Wait… these are the same traits that children have. I rest my case.
You are a good man, inside. The time has come to carefully and respectfully peel back the layers of insulation that stifle your true being. This requires self-compassion, and compassion for others that love the mask you’ve been presenting, respectively. Those layers felt like protection, at first. But they’re now suffocating you, the real you, the you that you came here to be. You have to shed them like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. You have to become childlike.
You may think there’s more to it, and there may be. But I stand firm that there would be more good men out there if fewer of us were experiencing the lifetime equivalent of writer’s block, if we got on with the business of shedding the things that stifle us and start embracing what we love. Often enough, if we’re honest, our first loves are still alive within us. It’s time to pick a handful of wildflowers, and gently re-approach them.
Peel those layers away, my good man.
And once you do, come help us heal the world.
Photo: Getty Images