I don't think any of the strong men in my life... and I was raised by a father who adopted me... and a whole host of uncles, big strong Christian Southern men, none of them every "told" me what it was to be a man.
I had a Grandfather who would set me down in my confusion and he would tell me a story about his experience... an allegory, so to speak. And, it was up to me to connect the dots.
I would watch his brother, my uncle, walk up to a group of men harassing a minority, and I watched him de-escalate a situation. He knew...
I've seen acts of stregnth, charity, compassion, love.
This is how I learned to be a man.
No one told me you gotta... you needta... you shoulda...
And, I never got reprimanded directly, I was made to look at my actions, and sometimes in my realization, I gotta spanking, sometimes I didn't need to, because of shame, humiliation... They knew...
If you don't put humility, compassion above valor and stregnth, and if love isn't above all of that... what the hell is valor and stregnth about? Valor without love can easily become evil.
It's really hard to talk about these sorts of things. And, to make another man feel less is the epitome of what a man should not... but damned my own eyes for saying it. I don't know... sometimes.
This is really hard... I wish my Uncles still walked among us. They knew... Christ knew... Plato knew... I just wish I knew better how to convey these things.
