What does it mean to be fully human? What does it mean to be a man?
I think the question is important because there is something in each man that drives him. There is a desire to discover who we really are. We long to be tested and to discover what it means to authentically be in our own skin.
Fully human, fully a man
What is it that drives you to reach within yourself, your relationships, your culture and search for what it means for you to be manly?
For me, it’s easy to identify what being a man is NOT:
- Out drinking the next guy
- Defining myself by my possessions: a fast car or big home
- Having to out-lift the next person at the gym
- Having the loudest voice or most-valued opinion in a conversation, an argument or a meeting
- Carrying a weapon or being able to do violence against another person… especially women
- Being able to fix things
- My gender or my genitals
There is much more to manliness than guns and girls
The examples of other men can be helpful guideposts, but they are only that: guides. You have to find a way to enter through the narrow the gates of your own consciousness, your soul.
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Most of us look outside of ourselves for our first definition of what it means to be a man. For my father, manliness meant drinking all of the time. It meant having a lot of secrets and being overcome by your own darkness. It meant being angry and depressed and uncertain of how to talk about anything that is important. I grew up hating alcohol and I felt that it was like a demon that will possess you. In a sense I was right, but I have learned that alcohol can used to bring joy rather than to be used as a weapon.
I had uncles who defined manliness through pornography. What pornography teaches you is that women are objects of your pleasure. Once you see a woman as an object, it changes you. It can be very difficult to erase the impacts from violent and degrading porn.
Other uncles taught me that being a man was being a person of faith. What you believe can change you.
Still other men in my life taught me that being a man is being willing to venture out of the city and learn how to live in the wilderness. I became a Boy Scout and spent many of my adolescent weekends living out of a backpack. But even there, older boys defined manliness as sneaking alcohol and porn into the midst of our group. What the experience left me with was confusion.
Being a man does not come naturally. It is something extra…
To become fully human is something extra, a conscious choice that not everyone makes. Barbara Brown Taylor
The search for what it means to be a man is not a requirement. It is optional. Many men forgo a deeply personal search and instead accept easy definitions of manliness that involve: hard drinking, being angry, misogyny, porn, and having power-over others.
But for some of us, we are willing to push beyond these shallows into the depths within ourselves.
Along the way, I learned to search within myself and soon discovered that being a man has more to do with knowing yourself. The examples of other men can be helpful guideposts, but they are only that: guides. You have to find a way to enter through the narrow the gates of your own consciousness, your soul.
As you search within, you will find caverns of shadows and caves of light. One of my shadows has been to learn to live with clinical depression and anxiety. These illnesses are not restricted to men, but they can have a particular impact on our confidence. Men are supposed to be self-assured and strong. But what depression will do is erode your confidence and your belief in your ability to navigate your future. At least, that is what depression has done to me. I am still in recovery from depression and it will be something that I will battle with for the rest of my life.
But there are also caves of light, surprises. You soon learn that being a man is knowing yourself and your strengths. Being a man first of all is the willingness to be honest with yourself.
I learned to search within myself and soon discovered that being a man has more to do with knowing yourself. As you search within, you will find caverns of shadows and caves of light.
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I don’t know whether it is a product of growing up in a home with an alcoholic, being introspective or because I earn my living as a therapist (or more likely, all of the above), but I always believe that there is something more. Manliness is knowing yourself, being honest with yourself, but it is more. It is the choice to be fully human.
And being fully human is not easy. For me, taking risks and pushing back against my anxiety and refusing to allow my depression to define my future are one way that I am being fully human. Accepting the discipline of a career and the responsibilities of being a father have also awakened something within me. Creativity and art push me to explore areas of my being that make me uncomfortable. Having the courage to slow down, to breathe and close my eyes is also helping me to become more alive.
I hope that this piece has given you pause. Asking yourself who you are should slow you down. A hand in the face is offensive, but it also asks a question: Are you willing to stop and listen? Today, I invite you to consider “What is it that makes you fully human?” I hope that the answer will surprise you.
If you enjoyed this article, you will want to check out some of my other writing:
Why is Emotional Healing so Much More Difficult for Men?
Depression is Like a Monkey in Your Mind
How Superman Saved Me from Giving Up on God
I write articles about wellness, leadership, parenting and personal growth. My hope is to deliver the best content I can to inspire, to inform and to entertain. Sign up for my blog if you want to receive the latest and best of my writing. If you like what I have to say, please share my work with your friends.
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Keep it Real
Photo by David Goehring
Awesome article! I have enjoyed reading this kind of article. Nice job to the author.
What it means to be a man is to have a penis, to live your life the way you feel comfortable without people telling you what you owe them in order to qualify as a man. Being a man means to not give a damn if other people judge you for not doing what they demand of you. That is a man, What you call a real man, I call a SIMP, a very sad SIMP. Men need to learn that people need to accept them for who that are and you do not inherently owe society or anyone anything… Read more »
Marius,
Thank you for reading my article… and for pretty much misreading my entire article.
Depression is a choice, it isn’t a life long battle, the past is the past, leave it at that, why not choose to be happy about life, read the Bible, the book of 1st John
Tega,
thank you for commenting on my article.
Thanks for the article Sean. This is a question that keeps (re) surfacing for me lately. I have spent the vast majority of my past in male dominated institutions. I attended a boys only school from Grade 5 until Grade 13. I attended a boys only summer camp for all of high school. I belong to a male only athletic club and until recently I worked in Finance, a male-dominated industry. Several years ago I divorced from my wife and I found myself woefully under equipped to handle the ensuing emotional trauma. Every notion of who I thought I was,… Read more »
I’m a woman, with the same partner for nearly 50 years, first looking like a traditional married couple, and now with her as a trans woman. I always appreciate the articles in the Good Men Project. This one made me ponder: why does one see articles about what it means to be a man, but I don’t see articles about what it means to be a woman – other than sometimes by and about trans women? Cis women somehow don’t think in these terms. Why do men think in these terms? Why don’t women?