What is a Man?

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DGA
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What is a Man?

Post by DGA »

The Cicada wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 2:38 pm
DGA wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 1:59 pm You Southern boys do take your sweet tea seriously.

:vomit:
Honestly, I prefer properly prepared Kool-Aid. "Oh Yeah!"
Getting way off topic now, but presented for your amusement:

I once had a conversation with a friend from South Carolina about what a man's man looked like to them when they were grown up. How does a "real man" carry himself? He showed me a picture of some puffy white guy who played for a team called the GameCocks. He looked soft, not a hair on his chin, with hair that had been both washed and conditioned. Mostly, he looked spoiled and chubby, like he lived on sugary kid food (co-cola, swee tea, all that crap) and likely chewed with his mouth open. In other words: the picture of masculinity for my friend in his childhood screamed childish, effeminate, and closet-case to me. GameCocks?

The "real men" I grew up around were hairy, lean and strong from doing actual work, and mean, not play-mean, but tough enough to be kind of scary, and tough enough to be genuinely kind. My grandfather could have been a convincing Lemmy from Motorhead on Halloween if he had time for what he would call childish crap. The only time he chewed with his mouth open was when he got Copenhagen stuck under his dentures. He didn't exchange hair care tips on Pinterest with the other GameCocks.

Anyway, an informal study in regional masculinities in the US.

This is what I was reminded of when you posted that video of a NOT CLOSETED REALLY STRAIGHT DON'T SUE ME XENU John Travolta shoving some throbbing uncut slimy thing down another dude's throat by force. It looked like what I suppose could be a hazing ritual for a GameCock.

And that's why I don't eat kid food or drink kid drinks. I get enough carbs from beer and booze. I'll never be the man my grandfather was, but I do my best.

With that said, the language I'm using and the description I'm giving is inherently sexist and homophobic, and gets even more complicated once you introduce race (my friend's Southern example was white only...). That's how masculinity is constructed: in opposition to what "real men" are not (effeminate, queer, childish, or whatever). It's up to us who identify as menfolk not to be suckered into that kind of bullshit, true, and while I'm happy to play with my daughter and care for her and respect her intelligence and autonomy, I still don't like to drink sugary kid drinks or eat boring kid food. If anyone wants we can take that discussion to another thread and hammer at it for a while.
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Queequeg
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Queequeg »

Its natural that we look to our father or father figure, right?

For me... the appearance is Don Draper - character from Mad Men. Probably because that's what my Dad looked like when I was a little boy; that actor looks like my Dad when he was younger... and my dad used to wear suits to work everyday... with big fat 70's ties. My Dad, though was not morally compromised like Don Draper. My Dad had/has the rectitude infused by a pre-Vatican II culture Catholic schooling and then the marines.

How he ended up with a hippie-punk with anti-establishment instincts for a son, I'm sure he wonders that.

He taught me to be handy with tools, to do things right, just because, and no matter how much I screwed up, he always had my back. I'm fortunate that he still has my back, and that my son gets to know him, too.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Yavana
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Yavana »

A man is not an animal. He masters nature. Unpack that.
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by GDPR_Anonymized001 »

As I've aged I've had to move from sweet tea to unsweetened ice tea...that said.

One of my favorite poems:

If—
BY RUDYARD KIPLING

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
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dzogchungpa
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by dzogchungpa »

I think this is covered in "The Big Lebowski".
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Thomas Amundsen
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Thomas Amundsen »

jake wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 12:49 am As I've aged I've had to move from sweet tea to unsweetened ice tea...that said.

One of my favorite poems:

If—
BY RUDYARD KIPLING

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Sure. That and a pair of testicles.
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Yavana
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Yavana »

jake wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 12:49 am As I've aged I've had to move from sweet tea to unsweetened ice tea...that said.

One of my favorite poems:
Ah, yes. Kipling.

"And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard—
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah slowly) to the light:
'Why brought ye us from bondage,
'Our loved Egyptian night?'"


Quite a thankless task, really. Let's all just get some beer and watch the GameCocks. Google claims they have a women's team.

Image

So we can all pat ourselves on the back about that.
Motova
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Motova »

To become a rain man one must master the ten virtues and sciences.
Motova
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Motova »

To become a rain man one must master the ten virtues and sciences.
Motova
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Motova »

To become a rain man one must master the ten virtues and sciences.
Motova
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Motova »

To become a rain man one must master the ten virtues and sciences.
Ricky
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Ricky »

My grandfather was quite a tough manly man from what I recall, same would probably be true for most men from that era (GI generation). The sharp decline in manliness must of started around the time baby boomers came along who then went on to produce an even weaker generation of men (millenials).
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DNS
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by DNS »

What a piece of work is man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals. And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither; though by your smiling you seem to say so.

William Shakespeare
from Hamlet
A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha »

I never had a father (or brothers)....all i knew about my father was that he was a drug addict, pool shark, cheated on my mother & beat her up...oh and he was a good dancer...he even competed in dance contests...
So all my life i looked for love in all the wrong places...and never found it....
But i would think a real man is kind and generous, creative and intelligent, moral and spiritually evolved.
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Wayfarer
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Wayfarer »

An old favourite comes to mind
'Only practice with no gaining idea' ~ Suzuki Roshi
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justsit
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by justsit »

Simon E.
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Simon E. »

Ricky wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:36 am My grandfather was quite a tough manly man from what I recall, same would probably be true for most men from that era (GI generation). The sharp decline in manliness must of started around the time baby boomers came along who then went on to produce an even weaker generation of men (millenials).
By that criterion, I am a weak man. And believe me, I am no millenial.
I try to be a good dad and husband, but I never aspired to be John Wayne or Sean Connery..in fact I think that such models of masculinity are faintly ridiculous.
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to me.
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Grigoris
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Grigoris »

The Spartans used perfumed oil on their body and would carefully comb their long hair before going into battle. The main soldiers (male) lover would be placed next to him in the phalanx in order to ensure that they would not break rank and would do their utmost to protect the man next to them in the formation. Those manly brutes!
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
MiphamFan
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by MiphamFan »

My father is gullible, timid, and never reflects on his mistakes, making them over and over again for decades. He harbours dark thoughts and grudges which come to the surface occasionally, which usually evokes revulsion jn me. He's frugal on the little things but all too willing to give up money for half-baked get rich quick schemes. I have little respect for him and don't think much of the idea that "strong father figures" are important, maybe due to that. He's a lecturer in engineering and for years I had a bad impression of engineering because of him, but I realise now that he probably wouldn't do well in the actual industry.

I don't really care in particular about what's "masculine". I go to the gym and lift weights, not to "look good naked", but to prepare for the possibility of an upcoming societal collapse. More than physical fitness though, I respect the ability to reflect, be flexible, and take action.
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Grigoris
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Re: What is a Man?

Post by Grigoris »

MiphamFan wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 11:26 amI don't really care in particular about what's "masculine". I go to the gym and lift weights, not to "look good naked", but to prepare for the possibility of an upcoming societal collapse.
Bad idea. Body builders are larger and slower targets. You are just making shooting you that much easier. :tongue:
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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