How Modern Life Transforms Men into Wussies
This same experience is repeated in a myriad of different ways in modern life.
To many men, examples of “manly” activities might include shooting a bow, repairing a car, skinning a fish, climbing a mountain, surviving alone in the woods, building a cabin from scratch, or hunting, killing, and skinning an animal. However, most men didn’t take up these activities to be “manly”; they did them because they were necessities and those who were good at them thrived and were admired by other men. What are those same “manly” activities today? In large part, they’ve never been replaced.
So what do most men do today to express those manly impulses? Sure, there are a few firemen, police officers, soldiers, UFC fighters, etc. who still live that throwback masculine lifestyle, but they’re little more than a tiny sliver of the population today. But what about the rest of the male population? Some of us take martial arts classes or go to the firing range, which is fine as far as it goes, but it’s often like practicing for a game you’ll never play. Chances are, you’ll probably go your whole life without shooting anyone or having to defend yourself from a thug trying to beat you to death on the street. Lifting weights may make you bigger and stronger, but again, will we ever use it in a sport? No. So what’s left? Hitting home runs in sports we’ll never play and killing enemies we’ll never fight in video games? For many men, that’s it. They watch movies, they play video games, but they’ll never fulfill the impulses that made those things attractive in the first place.
This is what we are today.
This article utterly misses what it means to be a man. Males have a choice: Be a boy or be a man. I was a boy when I was young, now I am a man. This does not mean that I'm good at fighting or that I'm a good athlete or any other vision of manhood you would like to conjure up.
The difference is simple:
1) Boys use their circumstances as excuses and rely on pity and the compassion of others to ease their suffering. Men work to overcome their circumstances and embrace their suffering as a test of character and virtue.
2) Boys refuse to accept their responsibilities, making careless, easy, decisions, and taking rash actions hoping to avoid being held accountable and prepared to blame others if necessary. Men embrace their responsibilities and make thoughtful, tough, decisions and take deliberate actions expecting to be held accountable for them.
3) Boys demean women and treat them as sexual objects. Men respect women and treat them as human beings.
Those 3 things separate the men from the boys. The old time images of men invoked by the author are merely maifestations of those 3 things. Choose to be a man, or don't, but don't expect me to feel sorry for you because I have suffered and overcome my circumstances. When you do the same, we can have a drink and share our stories of how our struggle against our suffering served to make us stronger. If you choose to remain a boy, then don't expect us men to invite you to our table to drink with us. A seat at that table is reserved for those who earn it. Those who choose to remain boys aren't welcome.
My husband and I both game, and our circle of friends game, and not a one of us makes less than 95k a year. We're college educated professors, counselors, programmers, network engineers, nuclear engineers, and doctors. We're politically conservative, married, home-owning upper middle-class Americans. We're also gamers.
Haven't we brought this on ourselves?
Why be a wuss?
Now is the time to drive a really hard bargain: now we have trophy dudes.