disclaimer: i am not as proficient as i would like to be in gender, identity, and sexuality terminology or language. while i aimed this article at those who primarily identify with masculinity, this is not specific to males. please inform me of any ways i can be more inclusive with my writing wording & terminology
these days, it’s not hard to find an example of toxic masculinity in one’s day-to-day life.
a casual search on YouTube results in incredibly reflective ways to squash what is being called colloquially as ‘the pussification of men’:
for a while now i’ve been disheartened by this uprising of alpha messages declaring themselves as the golden standard for the masculine path— and yet it’s hard to look around a grocery store and not feel saddened by what adolescent males have become; albeit- a product of the culture we’ve set before them.
at the risk of sounding too ‘where are the real gentlemen??’, below all this, what exactly has happened?
how have we ended up at such polar extremes— from macho toxic masculinity to isolated dopamine addicts? (myself included: i’ve been an example of both throughout points in my past)
at least the traditional male role used to be clear & straightforward: do well in school, learn a trade / skill, meet a partner, get married, start a family, work until you retire, collect the gold watch, and finally then: rest.
at the other extreme, now it seems like our main focus is to get home as soon as possible, beat ourselves up for not being an ideal alpha male, light a joint, play video games until a tinge of loneliness arises— to which we then squash with hyper-stimulating pornography.
in a matter of a single generation, how did we go from men who fight in wars, to men who can’t emotionally handle losing virtual wars in video games?
i’ve witnessed a number of contrasting sides of modern masculinity, and want to use my experiences (both good and bad) to help others deepen their self-knowledge.
from the turf of bone-shattering rugby games to desolate all-nighters coding, i’ve been around kings and snakes; alphas and betas; physically underdeveloped geniuses & emotionally intelligent team captains all who in one way or another exuded a wonderfully strong sense of masculinity in their own rite. so what exactly made these outliers, well, masculine?
until now, i haven’t been able to see a clear pathway forward.
we all hold more social influence than we could imagine, and as i’ve come to realize my own influence, i’ve become incredibly passionate about uprooting and clarifying what exactly we should be striving for as human males outside of the alpha, beta, religious, cultural, or traditional norms we’ve grown up under.
now granted- i don’t have all the answers, because i’ve just merely begun the journey myself. just as buddhist monks iterate: they aren’t the moon, but they can can point it out to you.
the lessons i’m learning along the way have been harsh, yet so enlightening that i can’t help but share them in hopes of saving even another consciousness an iota of suffering.
so, to return to the question, what has happened to modern masculinity?
well, i have a hunch— because i’ve watched it happen in real time. growing up as a male raised in a traditional mid-western household and subsequently riding the digital wave of the internet into whatever digital landscape this is, i’ve gotten a perspective, that while unconventional— may be exactly what we need in order to start fresh.
this is one of my main goals with writing is to offer a more well-rounded, wholesome, and grounded perspective of what reveling in our divine masculinity looks like in an unprecedented world we were not prepared for.
society has evolved so quickly that we now have to be proactive in our pursuit of ourselves, because it matters more now than ever— not only for our own health, but for the health of our families, communities, and ecosystem.
and the funny thing is, i believe it is entirely within our grasp. if anything, it’s an unlearning, a detaching from the world and a tuning into our human experience, no matter where we are in life. it’s an internal expedition within ourselves; the spiritual journey we’ve heard about for so long in the subliminal message underneath all of our favorite books, music, and art.
and all we have to do is start listening, and with this blog—let me show you how.
Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts on this topic and what true masculinity looks like!