gentlemen: what does it mean or what does it take, in your opinion, to reach manhood?
#masculinity #asknostr
Discussion
That's the neat part. You don't.
If you think you've achieved manhood you stop growing and trying. That's not a man, that's a dead man.
interesting perspective.
do you view manhood as something complete and fully formed?
if so, how come??
Nope. If you want to define manliness as something more than age and genitals I think that thing requires constant effort and growth.
Because the definition includes requires continual growth of the individual, it is something you can never arrive at by definition.
Frame of reference, I think about all morality in the sense of striving towards virtues like the stoics, not avoiding mistakes like many modern schools of thinking and religions.
I'll never be cursed with perfection, so I'll always have something I can strive towards improving.
so, to you, it means continued growth?
like a bit of a paradox—you never truly reach manhood because you are continually growing toward it..?
It means more than that.
If you wrap your head around the stoic idea of virtues, I think it would make sense.
Rules can be followed by inaction. I can sit on my couch and not break any rules. Virtues require taking action. I cannot show courage by sitting on my couch doing nothing as a general rule. Maybe in a weird contrived edge case, but usually courage requires action.
Now there is the issue of which action. Well that depends on the situation. In each situation as life unfolds where courage is relevant you can be courageous or chicken. You can say as each scenario passes that an action was or wasn't courageous. It isn't until I'm dead that the story is over and you can say I was courageous as a person because at any time still living I can simply stop living up to that virtue and the balance of my actions starts tipping towards chicken.
So you can say I chose the manly path in a specific scenario. My manliness as a man remains in the balance until I've died and you can measure every time I was faced with a decision where manliness was in question and I chose manliness against the times where I made the unmanly choice.
so it's not a fixed state but a continuous journey..?
Not exactly, at least not how I think of the word journey.
Think of manliness or other virtues kind of like juggling. Even if you master juggling such that you could juggle indefinitely, if you stop for a moment you drop the ball.
I may or may not need more growth to be able to do the manly thing every time there is a manly or unmanly path choice for me to face the rest of my life. Even if I do have sufficient mastery, every one of those choice forks is a chance to drop the ball by not choosing the correct path.
You must always prepare so you know which path is right and have the skills required to take it. You must also always choose it. I think of those as separate things. Most people focus on the first part or define it in a way that only requires the first part. That is the distinction I'm trying to get across.
hmmm...
how about manhood consists of continuous growth, making virtuous decisions, and constant engagement with values..?
Definitely tough to define, but in my defense that is a different question than you initially asked.
Kind of like the old "I know it when I see it" (or at least I hope I do because I need to know it to do it)
I will say that if you are starting from a rules model instead of a virtues model, you aren't there. That means if you think you can ever be done while alive, you are wrong.
From experience I think there are a lot of dichotomies in the actual virtues required. One example... I think you need the will and social control to bend the world to your own will because you know you are right and you won't compromise your values. You also need the ability to let go of self completely and do other peoples plans with full dedication. Because those things are opposed concepts you need discernment to know which to apply in the situation you face right now and the character to do it.
We all know a man who we think less of because he is just a stubborn prick. We all know a man we think less of because he is a complete pushover.
You have to thread needles constantly like that. Each one you face may be within your existing skills or may require personal growth. Each time growth is required you may "git gud" or fail.
One I'm sure of is actions matter more than words. A man who is always talking about how manly he is probably isn't that manly.
I'll add I don't think that the virtues that matter to manhood are exclusive to men. Virtues are universal. Those same virtues are required for womanhood. The difference shows up in the application. Sexual dimorphism and social constructs put women in different situations with different constraints to how they can and should apply each virtue.
*meow*
not really much that i'd disagree with. i'm just trying to define the gist of what you're expressing here.
if you could sum up what manhood means to you in a single sentence, how would you describe it?
since it's not a destination (you never reach manhood), and it's not a journey, and it's not state (permanent or in flux)—then what is it to you? :3
it means to reach adulthood along the knowledge of possessing a male body
so, for you, it's mostly a time and age thing?
yes but mostly a thing of self-and-world. an adult shores his self's individuality without the loosening of his social individuality; during childhood, social's individuality is loose in the sense of openness, or 'to be knowing the world', during adulthood that openness of the world is rather tied as means of inhabiting it, and in doing so, not only the body corporeality is affirmed but also the "place in the world". it's the same for both male and females, distinction being for each, the kind of "touch" they can give to the world and its effects on it.
To me, there is no magic line that you cross and poof you're a man. I think it's a lifetime of joy, trials, experiences, etc that "mature" a man. When I was in my 20s I thought I was a man, probably better than most others because I was a military man. Looking back at that young fool, I made a lot of mistakes maybe I shouldn't have. So now I'm a man because I can see that? Was I a man then? Was I a man at a certain point (marriage, children, graduation, bootcamp)? I don't think so, I think it's a lifetime of doing the best I can and taking responsibility when I don't get it right, always learning from the events good or bad.
i think this is *similar* to how nostr:npub1qyxlpj2gl6dt2nfvkl4yyrl6pr2hjkycrdh2dr5r42n7ktwn7pdqrdmu7u answered.
i tend to lean in the same direction. it's not really an external thing, but something internal.
thanks for sharing your thoughts~! ^^