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Stop the presses! Pull down the shades and put the children to bed. Call the elders and spiritual leaders. Then, secure a comfortable seat—this may take a while!
A dictionary’s definition of a man is “an adult human male”. Would you agree this is a simplistic way of describing someone who remains in a continual state of progression, regression, and aggression, while seemingly living his life in intervals of total digression?
When pressed to give a concrete definition of what it is to be a man, we often digress as we desperately search for a plausible definition to satisfy those who are inquiring. Linguistically, we know that a digression is a temporary movement away from the main topic being discussed. If you were to ask 100 men for their definition of being a man, you would undoubtedly get 100 different answers, each laden with their reasoning. In our descriptive and vernacular tongues, we may spew caustic assertions about those with whom we may share ideas. These assertions will ultimately differ with our renditions of who we are as a holistic group of individuals. Individuals within a specific group of homo sapiens described as a specific gender, men.
Where is the proverbial line so many men are afraid to cross in defining who they are? Does it exist in our real world or is it a mentally manufactured statue sitting on the sands of our oceans slowly eroding with each tide coming to the shore? Could it possibly be this eroding statue is warning many of us of our impending, eroding, hairlines? Some may see themselves as that rugged, rough-and-tumble hombre who has little or no need for intellectual stimulation, nor for those who engage in such a “waste” of time. Then there are men who have defined themselves and do not hold themselves up to the stereotypical masculine oppressor mentality. How about those men who are a juxtaposition of both?
How would we describe the man who does not particularly care for any of our aforementioned friends? Is he “strange,” is he “lily-livered,” is he a stuffed shirt, does he have no backbone, is he a pushover, or is he just plain confused about his manhood?
The observations, opinions, and definitions of being a man continue to produce more questions than answers. The search for one indisputable, holistically, acceptable definition of what is required to be a man as a “label” firmly entrenched in the annals of our psyches is impossible: The definition of a man is as varied as the number of men.
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Melvin “Casey” Lars ©
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This post is republished on Medium.
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