by Calvin Harris, H.W., M
Heads Up The role of male on man is changing in “Prep” for the 22nd Century.
Something I hear more and more of from my clients in my Coaching practice, is “The Path of Manhood isn’t as clear as I had expected it to be, nor is it laid out as I was told it was.” I, too, know that feeling well. When I grew up I was surrounded by men, some uncles and a dad who were into the local barbershop culture, the man’s domain, a place a woman was seldom seen other than for the picture of the half nude pin-up girl on the wall. The music from the loud jukebox played blues or jazz, and the conversations in the room (usually two or three going in unison), were louder still, and clearly conveyed a sense of unbelievable bravado and fearlessness within the laughter of this man’s realm.
From my early years, back in the 1950’s, I felt the weight of the Macho image expectation, but even then I could tell that behind all that posturing, for many men, the apparent gangster or Rambo image was not quite the masculine image that many were interested in portraying, or representing, given the proximity and cost of that image in the aftermath of two World Wars. Yet, in my child’s mind, there were three simple principals that all good men seemed to live by:
Protector, Provider, Disciplinarian (1) You provided for the women and children in your life; (2) You pushed through the fear and held tears back to protect values and principals you believed in without talking about your pain; And (3) you disciplined / managed your emotions / pain by self-medication, such as whisky, beer, weed, drugs, or the Doc’s pills. If they stop being effective still show no reaction unless alone with a good buddy. Whatever was said or done with that buddy was internalized and was never spoken of in the light of day in the new morning.
Oh, I am sure there are relatable additions or various subscripts to these scenarios, but these were the bedrock of what I saw while growing up.
Fast forward to the 1970's and we found ourselves at the beginning of transition and change, an undetected assault on the male paradigm. But those signposts of what “male is,” and the grasp you thought you had on the role - its expectations in daily life - was beginning to slip. The erosion started with the male youth of the hippie culture protesting War and aggression, offering instead to drop-out, and to join love-ins as solutions. Also, brewing were their ladies, suggesting that their wants and needs had changed, and may not include serving men in the predisposing role of “servants” aka the stay-at-home good wife.
It seems the Male paradigm of the king of the house, he who rules over all in his home, which he calls his castle, has died, and the man clinging to that role has been in a state similar to the man who's just been kicked in the balls and the air rush out of him replaced by pain and bewilderment.
As the decades move forward things that had seemed almost unnatural earlier on were now acceptable. Women not only in the workplace but in some businesses were the boss. Kids no longer thinking of their Dad’s as the smartest nor the toughest, or even the most dependable man they could think about. It marked the change in men's and women's relationships and roles. Suddenly, STRENGTH didn’t mean being silent and not showing you felt emotions. Now, men seemed to be developing an awareness of their variety of emotions, emotions beyond just anger which usually led to fighting. Some men became shameless in the act of not being afraid to express their full range of emotions.
In Life, we observed and perhaps began to understand that nothing is constant save Change. The small voices of transition whispered to us constantly of the obvious, that we must embrace conscious adaptability to oncoming events, or be lost in the upcoming storms of change, like a mind blinded in the falling rains of confusion.
A new paradigm for mankind has been evolving through societal forces creating changes within the species, perhaps an opportunity to break through old stereotypes, perhaps even to gain a higher sense of Consciousness, Soul, Self (you choose your choice of words). It is in one’s thinking that this new archetypal man will be realized. Perhaps a model that encompasses dimensions beyond the blueprint of our five senses. Something more substantial, more in line with what science, physics, and philosophy say is “the real” about you, instead of blindly reacting from prehistoric sensory testimony, that may be faulty in this day and age, and led us to demonize emotions.
As an example instead of seeing Fear as the emotions of blind rage, as a howling animal, in a false sense of powerlessness that rages through the mind and body, we can now by using the new paradigm stop, reflect, recognize, and Consciously be aware that FEAR is a tool in our human toolbox, tools that are combinable and interchangeable, to all human beings.
The fear factor, once in time, if unchecked, could easily turn to anger, for the fear emotion is an attempt to protect the body and mind from harm and thus could erupt as anger when situations appear confined, limiting, or hopeless. It is only by engaging our thought processes in releasing the emotion into the pursuit of Change, coupling thought and emotions, to bring understanding through harnessing the emotions can we move towards utilization of optimal results in action and solutions. The new paradigm of male on man hones the understanding of emotions, such as anger, to give access to their proper purpose as a temporal energy indicator that spikes and alerts us. We then have coupled its use for choices or possibilities in a larger array of action to take or decisions to be made in any given situation for a variety of Outcomes on our journey through life.
Anger for example coupled with conscious intuition can become a tool of change, that prepares us to commit to change. These connective and interchangeable tools in our emotional toolbox means going well beyond the misunderstood activation of only a single emotion. Fear alone, left to its own devices, could lead to misunderstood beliefs of being unable to move, or blind flight, or being worthless, and even finally being enslaved to rage in a journey of unresolved helpless battles.
As we become consciously aware of our increased options, we see there is always more to the journey, so we get up and suit up to take full advantage of the options along life’s journey. Fear then can be seen as the sound chimed from the alarm clock, the emotional jump starter.
The New Male on Man is a retooling of our brain, of our conscious awake state, to be effective, empowering the conscious use of our senses and emotions, to adapt to evolving change for our long-term benefits.
I am a believer in having a shameless array of emotions considered in the conversations when the goal is to lead to a compassionate solution. We need to trust in the resilience and the integrity of Mankind to evolve in a joint contract with the natural order of Life, thus not to wait for the world to change but consciously participating as a focused agent of change. Our focus then is trusting in the process of human beings becoming their own source of renewal by gaining and understanding the methods of change and responding with constructive actions.
Thus, to answer the question “What is expected of me?” - means listening to the answer that is echoed back to us from the new paradigm, of the new Male on man, to understand first we are Consciousness and that we live by conscious action. As ‘Action,’ I mean “To Move,” therefore we - move, steer, navigate in an ocean of Conscious Change. That implies a bond, even a Loving bond with Change. We then are change makers, the co-creator in the evolutionary process of Life, and the discoverer of awakened Truth unfolding.
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Calvin