This piece is dedicated to four of my closest friends, who I consider to be brothers, and who have all taken on the spectacular obligation of loving me fully even and especially through my bleakest moments: David, Paddy, Ryan, and Scott
I
What are the types of people that you want in your life? Whenever I ask this question to myself or others, the highest quality answers tend to come in the form of tightly honed heuristics backed up by colorful examples.
One person might explain to me how he filters on kindness, which to him is something that must practiced consistently to be considered, and which his friend Jack exemplifies by driving him to work every morning.
Another person might explain how she selects for persistent curiosity and openness, which can’t be measured quantitatively, but is always present in the way her sister Emily coaches her on the phone when she’s having a tough time encouraging her kids to behave.
This question has a specifically gendered component to it. I’m on the side of the debate that argues that men and women can, in fact, be friends. However, it’s more common to have friends of a the same sex, and for good reason. This gives grounds to consider the question: as a man, what are the types of men that I want in my life?
One such heuristic that has animated me for the last half-decade, in particular, from a particularly competent mentor of mine was stated as follows: “Your job is to find the men who you would be comfortable raising your children if you disappeared from Earth tomorrow, ingratiate yourself to them, and love them as dearly as possible.”
The above heuristic has coalesced into a number of essential threads that are currently the driving force behind the männerbund that I seek to design and behold. It shall include:
The men who strive to cultivate and integrate those specifically masculine aspects that are essential to thriving (e.g., anger, aggression, willpower, violence), but have been thoroughly disowned or fragmented by modernity allowing for weakness to leak into and corrode the spirit.
The men who remember how to ignite and carry the flame of faith within them, and use it to provide light and warmth to those under their purview. They know that faith is not merely a set of beliefs or doctrines, but something that is alive – a spark that dances – that must be practiced in the arena of relationships over and over again.
The men who endeavor to express the deepest parts of who they are through their artistry, craftsmanship, and genius. They understand that by showing up in the world fully, passionately, poetically – without shame or reservation – that they give permission other men to sing with their own voice.
The men who are unapologetic about their ambition to make fat stacks of cash so that they can be a river of generosity to those who reside in their kingdom. They hunger for success and status, and they hunger for their friends to achieve the same, such that abundance flows forth freely.
II
There are a lot of painful situations in life that might be easily resolved, if only I were aware of the right move to make. Instead, because I don’t know the move, I spend a lot of time in a pit of suffering making the wrong moves, too stubborn to admit that I’m suffocating, and too proud to admit that maybe I should learn to breathe.
I’ve spent most of my adult life drowning in an ocean of disconnection. The problem is that I thought the only way to make it back to dry land was to keep swallowing water until I completely drained the water pulling me under. That might sound stupid, but if you’re all alone in the middle of the sea, and the waves keep pummeling into you, you think that maybe if you can endure the sensation of the salt burning your throat for long enough, swallowing all of it might actually work.
It had not occurred to me that you get out of water by swimming, and further that if I start swimming, I may find someone able to give me their hand and take me onto their ship. And until not too long ago, even if they had offered, I wouldn’t have had the humility to accept it.
Contrary to what most people may believe, despite how comfortable and convenient the modern world is, attempting to become man is still a grueling process dependent on accumulating hordes of subtle wisdom. Moreover, this wisdom cannot be earned without first swallowing gallons of salt water eating gallons of shit. Yeah, I’m going to stop beating around the bush.
If you find someone who tells you that they can make you a man without first eating a lot of shit, because they possess a totalizing solution, run as fast as you can in the other direction. There is no paying for, working out, praying, seducing, or shooting one’s way to a position of responsible masculine leadership.
Eating shit is only the way.
Please internalize that.
And it’s only first step, of course. The second step is finding the other guys who are doing the hard work of eating the shit in their lives. The third step is leaning on each other to transform the shit into the fertilizer that is used to incubate the soul. I’ve just now barely made it to step three coming up on 30-years-old. I’ll let you know what step four is when I figure out what it is.
III
One blessing that came out of the coronavirus pandemic, and collective response to it, was removing many fantasies that I may have had about the society that I live in. Before 2020, I might have believed that there were still vestigial elements of public institutions that were interested in encouraging healthy male friendship. Depressing as it is to admit, mainstream Western culture as it exists now is neither interested nor capable of elevating the mature, devoted relationships that adult men must have with each other to create a deep sense of belonging; both within themselves and for their people.
The hopeful thing about hitting a concrete wall at 60mph is realizing that there is no going further on the same course. Battered and bloodied though you may be, you have one choice, and that is to get back on the motorcycle and turn in a different direction. There is no further negotiation to be had with the wall, and it’s liberating to find the others who realize this too, and start charting a new ride-along course together.
Re-negotiating the parameters for spiritually disemboweled men to find each other in fellowship once again is probably the work of a lifetime, if not many lifetimes, but to me it’s probably one of the only worthwhile things to work on in the long-term. It’s certainly not something I’m willing to leave up to anyone else at this point.
There are whole lot of copes that people engage in when they finally find themselves confronting this concrete wall, to avoid making the choice to take on this project and be responsible for its outcomes.
You cannot outsource this project to your girlfriend or wife. There are certain modes of sociality that, as a man, it make sense to defer to women to organize and operationalize. The nourishment that comes from tender male homosociality and its attendant glory is not one of them. If you try to delegate it, you will damage both yourself and the women you care about.
Your father is not going to be able to help you out much. If he could, he would already be considered a venerated and wise elder in the world, and not a tax farm whose 401K is used to fund the American Empire of Castration. You should probably still listen to your dad, of course, but he cannot take this task on for you.
You cannot assume that your “work friends” or “church friends” or “business partners” are automatically green-lit to be part of your inner circle. Guys relate to each other shoulder-to-shoulder more often the face-to-face, but what I’m talking about here is something much deeper than that. Subjecting intimate friendship to the whims of utility or shared activities is a desecration of the sacred.
IV
If you can’t tell by now, I’m the type of person who has a compulsion to bleed my feelings onto the page, almost to the point of solipsism. One good thing that’s happened to me in the past two years is finding guys who keep that compulsion in check by gently reminding me not to be so precious about my own emotions and, failing that, who are unafraid to tell me that I’m acting like a whiny bastard.
That might not seem like a huge deal, but it is. I spent all of my adolescence and most of my 20s at level zero. Through a lot of experimentation and not-always-great-experiences, I’m now fortunate to be at level five. It is tragic to notice how many of my fellow Y-chromosomers are still stuck at level zero.
In my case, something that has complicated (quite significantly!) my ability to fulfill my männerbund heuristic is that on the one hand I’m practicing how to be a solid friend to a certain set of men, and on the other hand I’m trying to learn how to date a different set of men. Sometimes these two sets overlap, a lot of times they don’t, and still other times there is active hostility between the both of them.
I never asked to be a trapeze artist, but God made me the way I am and clearly expects me to be one, though I’ve barely any training in the circus. The least I can do is be grateful is that He also gave me a set of circus freaks to train with, and who are willing catch me after I lose my balance and fall of the wire, plummeting to the ground. I can say for the first time in my life, with the support of these particular individuals, I feel safe walking this tightrope. That’s a start. My instinct is that I will level up more efficiently moving forward.