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Before you blink, the window of opportunity for getting the apology right will be closed. At some point, there will be a script, and we’re still learning it Kevin Spacey improved upon Harvey Weinstein and appeared to be getting it right until he started to improvise. Louis CK refined the script quite well but got slammed for a few things, so now we have more information about what makes a target-proof apology. Somebody will get it right. The next one will certainly be better until eventually, we’ll have no way of knowing who the person is behind the words. Maybe that’s the point: it’s not about the apology. It’s about the amends.
That’s how you really find out who the person is behind the words.
The time is soon where the measure of a man won’t be about whether or not he’s ever harassed or molested a woman. The measure of a man will be in his willingness to accept accountability for whatever he’s done with grace and sincerity. Our entire system for evaluating masculinity has been thrown upside down, with emphasis on the upside. The things that had been the standard for “success” for a man in our society will no longer move us. Instead of striving for fame & riches, common men like me will simply strive for a morsel of grace while our transgressions are exposed to the world. The most powerful man will be the man who has owned his mistakes gracefully and then turned his apologies into a living, breathing, singing amends.
There’s an awful lot of apology making that will be going on over the next few years, and each will reflect the level of insight in the offender. I’d rather make room for a clumsy, sincere apology than a scripted one that acts like curtains. Apologies open the door to amends, which is where they find hands & feet. People are angry at Louis CK and men like him no matter what he says in his apology. Even if he said all the right things it doesn’t make it better. It’s not supposed to make it better. Nothing makes it better. The ugly howl that comes from trauma reverberates for years, sometimes generations. For men who are outed, the public shaming, loss of reputation, loss of income, loss of career, all this feedback is the face of karma. None of it makes it better for the victims. But a sincere apology, even if flawed, is the start of something better. It gives us a chance to become better men. If this is what it took to turn the old patriarchy on its head, let’s do this. Let this happen.
The primary competency for being a mature man in the #meetoo era is the capacity to surrender. The capacity to let go of clinging to hiding places. The capacity to face the music from the strings I’ve pulled in my life. The capacity to let go of illusions of reputation, power, and control. The capacity to allow my consequences to instruct and improve me, rather than shrink me into a lonely, bitter old man. The capacity to create sanctuary and make space for the feminine as a guiding force in my life. To not only talk about it but give life to it in the way I relate to all things that require acknowledgment in this world.
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