Men are a curious thing to me.
I’ve had an obsession and endless curiosity of women, yes. But it’s always been in my own desire for them; my endless need to find the one(or the ones) that will make me feel loved and will share life’s best experiences with me. My obsession with the female sex is more of a selfish one.
But men…they bring something different to the table for me. I want to help them. I want to share with them, bond with them, find out how to empower them, create more security for them.
I want to do good things for the sex in which I was born.
The real truth that most people — resentful and pained people — don’t want to admit, is that men are actually complex. It’s easy to blame something simple.
Yes, their actions say a lot. Their words are usually straightforward and they make their intentions known…but that doesn’t mean they are simple. And that doesn’t mean they are completely understood.
Why would that be?
My theory is that men understand the simplicity of existence and progress. Taking action, asking questions, assessing risk, moving through fear, logistics and transactions. Men seem to just inherently understand and embrace the foundation of modern reality.
Evolution? Maybe…
But I don’t think that makes them simple…I think that makes them deeply misunderstood and hastily labeled. I think that makes the world assume that all men are shallow and selfish and manipulative.
But then why would men suffer at all? If men were that simple and couldn’t understand the complexity of life, empathy, self loathing and self love, intimacy, presence…wouldn’t that also make them impenetrable? Wouldn’t that make them impossible to persuade? Wouldn’t that make men predictable? Wouldn’t that make them easy to live with? Wouldn’t that make men the sex that most easily survives?
The struggle of men leads me to think that something lies beyond the stereotype. But we most often take the path of most resistance…so why wouldn’t we blame men for so many of the worlds problems?
Yet…how does this negatively filled bias fix the irrefutable wall of men that seems to stand in the way of all our social progress?
Honestly, I’ve become sickened by the hate toward men. Hate being defined as: pointing out the issues with no intention to compassionately give understanding or solution to what stands. Hate is that thing that is seen as this overpowering emotion. Hate is easily recognizable, right?
Yet, I see such smaller levels of it. On a small scale, it’s contributing to the overall insufferable tension that ‘men are the problem’.
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But let’s come back…
From the male perspective, I agree that women are hard to read. I agree that their brains work in ways that I can’t understand. I agree that women see far more angles and perspectives than I can, and have a sixth sense of energy and emotion. It’s like they’re telepathic emotional Buddhas at times…
But that doesn’t make men the simple sex. Men that live and thrive in a physical world doesn’t also mean that’s all they are. I’ve asked multiple women about how they see men, and they all say that they don’t understand men, in the same way that most men struggle to understand women.
We’re just different. And more and more people are becoming increasingly NOT OKAY with that.
If men are simple, then why is there constant male suicide? Incarceration? Murder?
Why do most men risk their lives or livelihoods when most women won’t? Why is it that men do daily work that destroys their bodies, and sacrifice their dreams to meet the societal definition of ‘provider and protector’? Why do men act emotionally when they supposedly don’t have emotions? Why do men hurt and become more volatile when love breaks them?
To me, I think there are some compounding affects:
Men are evolutionarily meant to take on the burden of the physical world. To act quickly, be responsive, take risk, make things happen. Men move the world (and women keep it together). Men have literally built the physical world. Very few women are willing(and in the past were not allowed) to do the same jobs as men. It’s not sexist. It’s an ode to the capability of men and the preference of lifestyle and work desires.
And we’ve lost our appreciation for that. We’ve lost our appreciation for men. It has been overshadowed by the power we’re finding in women; the truth that they have been suppressed and have so much more to give. But, as we lift women, do we truly have to forget about men and their ability and contribution?
Just because women could have been a larger part of building the empire state building, doesn’t mean that they wanted to be. And today as we build equality, the laborious trades and work is still dominated by men.
Second, the extreme expectations (not that I condone them) of either sex almost always leaves out the importance of practice and experience of the opposite to create more balance, understanding and wisdom, i.e. men are scolded for emotion rather than taught to embrace it. Men are challenged and promoted to live in hierarchy and are taught to extinguish and destroy any threat. Men are expected to always move and be valuable, rather than know presence and enjoy just existing.
Maybe I’m wrong…
Maybe it has less to do with what’s taught or not taught, and it’s more just instinct, primal response and evolution…Maybe it’s unchangeable. But I doubt this is the case. The intelligence of human kind and the multiple layers and distinctions between the parts of the brain tell me otherwise. It’s not as if men were only born with the prefrontal cortex…isn’t that enough to prove complexity?
Men are not simple. Men would be easily controlled and easily survive if we were. Men wouldn’t be stopped by emotion. Which…wouldn’t that then mean that we would have more murder and violence? Isn’t that one of the biggest traits of a psychopath?
All labels need to stop. The lack of context and the one dimensional views of them leave us to only objectify. Yes…even men are being objectified. But men are not simple animals. We haven’t been for awhile now. To label them so is an internal resentment and loathing for men. Or bad teachings.
We all have our role. But it’s not black and white. We all lie within a gray area.
Maybe to create more trust for men…to stop suicides, violence, volatility and murder…maybe we need to know the depths of men, not act as if they don’t exist. Maybe we need to help them dig; help them find suppressed desires and needs, and free them. Maybe we need to promote trust before we promote defense. Maybe we’re just scratching the surface on the depths of all human diversity, including the dichotomy of the two sexes.
If the world is love, then we need to show more of it. If healing is empathy and compassion and support, then we have to act it out more.
Evil exists…but it is not men.
Remain rebel minded my friends.
Trust and love.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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