Man - Monkey

Masculine Monkey

“If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. The world will be yours and everything in it. What's more, you'll be a man, my son.”

Rudyard Kipling

In a world of woke and political correctness. Of toxic masculinity and patriarchal aggression. What is a man?

What is the true essence of masculinity, if most of what we see is considered toxic?

Why are we producing generation after generation of weak and/or confused men who either overly embrace their feminine side in an act of total surrender or become tyrants and monsters as a desperate way of assuming control?

What makes a real man?

I would suggest this is a very big question with a very complicated explanation but a relatively simple answer.

The simple answer is the father. The father should be what makes the man. As the father himself learnt from his own father and on and back through the generations it goes. It is the father who passes on the wisdom, the strength and abilities a young man needs to learn, in order to blossom into manhood. 

In tribal groups an initiation from boyhood into manhood was essential to complete this process. Initiations in our society are a thing of the past. So too, it seems, are strong men and thus strong fathers. Weak men produce more weak men.

The last two and half thousand years have been that of the age of Pisces, the age of patriarchy. The age of the king, the guru, the dictator and the male Godhead. 

Jesus

Mohamed

The Buddha

Caesar

Napoleon

Gandhi

Hitler

JFK

Osho

Trump

Putin and on it goes.

An never ending list of men who are worshiped as an individual somehow more powerful or respected than we mere mortals.

Someone to venerate and someone we can only dream of emulating. Considered good or evil. It makes no difference. The paradigm is the same. Walk around most capital cities in the world and you will be bombarded by statues of men. Quite often they are carrying a gun, a sword or a flag.

Whilst the men can see they can never attain such “greatness”, the women have rebelled. Calling it toxic and demanding equality. Yes, equality in a toxic landscape. Where brutality and ruthlessness are deemed the shortcut to power and success. Like a Turkey demanding a seat at the Christmas dinner table to feast on the remains of an ironic and self defeating pseudo victory.

We are on the cusp of the move into Aquarius and the age of the patriarchy is nearly dead. So what next?

One hundred years or so ago there was a structure. Two millennia of a man powered world had left no doubt about the order of things. Putting class and wealth to one side: The man was the breadwinner who governed and disciplined and the woman was the child rearer and homemaker. The man was the protector and the woman, the nurturer. Everyone knew where they stood and woe betide anyone who said or acted differently.

There are different theories as to how and why this changed but since the 1920’s we have seen a marked difference in this set up and most would have you believe it’s called progress. I, myself would call it a big, fat mess that seems inevitable as we enjoy the cusp of a change in ages.

The most extreme and obscene aspect of this is the gender affirmation we are currently witnessing in younger people. If ever there were a sign that something was amiss it is surely this. I am not going to discuss this at length for it goes way beyond any critical thinking.

How you think you feel does not change biological fact.

This is a piece for men who know they are men but are confused about what that actually means and what is expected from them. It is not a blog for men who are so confused and easily led that they think the answer is that they must, therefore, be a woman.

I send love and best wishes to those souls but not a great deal more that would be of any use.

These gender roles in the family were skewered en masse by two world wars. Some believe this was the sole purpose. To destroy the family unit and emasculate men world wide.

There is no doubt that the roles of Father and Mother were to become most confused. Two generations of children either left with a dead father, an absent father or father so traumatized by his experience that there was no room left in his soul to bring up children in a healthy way.

The role of the mother garnered a need to have to cover all bases, becoming the provider, the disciplinarian and the father figure too. Women had no choice but to summon their masculine energy in the need for survival. Their daughters learned that this was the way it went and the sons too, were left with the impression that the feminine was where the power lay in the family.

My Grandmother was a good example of this:

Left for four years with three young children as my grandfather was away fighting in North Africa and Italy. She became the head of the household. Providing food, lodging and everything that was needed all on her own. She kept chickens, skinned rabbits and was still in all out survival mode for the rest of her life right up until 1997. It was as if the war never ended. In her house, rationing was still a thing.

When my father spoke of his childhood, the residing memory was of a long cane, kept on the mantle. If a childhood played up, one hard whack from that was enough to remind them to toe the line. This from a young woman in her mid twenties. This was about absolute survival at the most basic level.

My Father didn’t meet his own father until he was four years old and from what I can ascertain, the man who finally reappeared in 1945 was a shell of his former self. Dying a few, short years afterward and never being spoken of again by his Wife at all. Survival at all costs. Logistical and emotional.

When I came along fifteen years or so later, I don’t think my grandmother's attitudes had changed much at all, though I have fond memories of her. Others found her impossible, a battle-axe. Right up until she died when I was in my late twenties, I always had a strong respect for her. She seemed the only person I had ever known who was so strong. She wouldn’t take any shit from anyone and would say what she thought in front of people and gave, not two hoots what anybody thought of her. She was like an emotional superhero to an emotionally sensitive “new man” like myself. Unlike anyone else in my life except for, yes, you guessed it - my own mother. Though, I don’t think they really got on, they were very similar. Aggressively independent and refusing to let emotion stand in their way. And my mother? What was her father like? Pretty absent too as far as I can make out. A conscientious objector who chose academia and social standing above his young family and alcoholic wife.

So, as a child, who were the two strong figures in my life? My Grandmother on my father’s side and my own mother. Both, of course - women.

My Grandmother had become hardened by the most basic necessity and my mother by emotional unavailability. Both products of the lack of a man in their life when they needed one the most.

And what of my father? A man who went from a domineering mother to a domineering wife. The pattern so many of us follow unconsciously. Emotionally weak, he bounced between pleaser/appeaser to fits of violent rage. What did this teach me, a total pacifist? To please and appease myself as I ping ponged from one emotionally unavailable/narcissistic woman to the next. You see, unless we choose the exact opposite, we tend to invisibly seek out a carbon copy of our mothers as partners. When we are young our mother is perfect and that example of perfection stays with us. Unconsciously, in our psyche, in our hidden belief systems.

For me my mother was perfect until I fairly recently, realized she was actually a total narcissist who would give and then withhold affection as it pleased her. This left me with an abandonment wound that I looked to heal in all the wrong places. Seeking out more narcissistic women to try and create some kind of happy ending. Of course, this was a fruitless and painful task. Reliving the abandonment wound again and again and again.

I don’t often write about myself much but I feel this is a good example of what this blog is about.

You will see that there is no strong male figure in the story. Strong women in their skewered masculine energy but not a strong male character in sight. No grandfather available and two brothers more traumatized than me. All my male role models were extremely weak. I don’t blame them for that. It’s just a fact. I ended up probably the weakest of all of us.

It is the father’s role to stop this from happening. To steer the boy through his emotions and help find a way to manage and finally break free of them in a mature and gentle way. But as we see, if the father wasn’t shown how and still responds from the little boy, emotional set then how is he ever going to pass on what his son truly needs most? How could my father pass on something he didn’t possess?

An adult man has emotions. Of course he does. These are valid and important. But how do these express themselves? How are they regulated?

This is what a father must teach his son.

This was never and never could be the role of the mother. 

With so many man boy, absent or traumatised fathers out there, how do we fix this escalating problem?

How do we stop these untutored boys going on to become politicians and influencers?

Threatening mankind with warped emotional responses of aggression, war and inhumanity?

How do we express ourselves as men when we have been trampled by media, wokeness and women for decades. Where our only course for victory is the use of violence and abuse both mental and physical. The most basic emotional reactions?

We see it in the UFC. Most participants may have highly tuned combat skills but their behaviour outside the octagon is that of children. To call it mixed martial arts makes a mockery of the humility, respect, honour and discipline which is at the heart of true martial arts. True martial arts are about more than just fighting. Women of course have joined in too and if the thought of watching two young women beating the shit out of one another doesn’t fill you with glee then you are just a bigot or a pussy.

Grown professional athletes compensating for their stunted childlike emotions with taunts and threats like children in the playground. 

The other end of the spectrum is liberalism and wokeness. Some might conclude the stark rise in homosexuality is not a coincidence after countless generations of weak, aggressive or absent fathers.

A sort of warped oedipus complex? Not for me to comment on that as it is simply a theory at the moment.

So, what do we do as sensible grown men? Real men? Adult, responsible men?

Well, Daddy isn’t going to help us and however many times we keep running back, Mummy won’t cut it either.

We must work on ourselves.

It is our only choice.

Witness out emotional needs and reactions and find the adult version which resides deep inside.

No-one is going to save us. We must save ourselves.

I was 49 years old when I finally worked this out. It’s never too late.

There really isn’t that much to the divine masculine. It’s much simpler than being a woman.

Sorry ladies but it is.

We simply find our independence. Our power. 

We discover our traumas, our weaknesses and we work through them.

We parent ourselves. We, ourselves become the Father we truly needed.

We create boundaries that no one dare cross. In a calm but solid manner.

We learn discernment about who and how others may have a role in our lives.

We hold the space, we protect, we provide for.

We organize and we support.

We make decisions.

We lead.

We don’t need violence because we realize that violence is the reaction of the little boy who didn’t get what he wanted.

The little boy who has run out of ideas.

The little boy who can’t be creative so becomes destructive.

The little boy who doesn’t know how to regulate his feelings and emotions.

The little boy with no boundaries.

Violence is the response of the man child who can’t express his emotions any other way.

Submissiveness is the reaction of the boy dominated by others.

The “21st century new man” is a subjugated man. A man shorn of his dignity and rightful place in society. A creation of the patriarchy to keep themselves in power.

Ever wondered why so many women love a cad, a bounder, a gangster? Because that’s the closet they believe they can get to a true man.

It’s time to start proving them wrong.