"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one." –Marcus Aurelius
I haven’t seen any of the old Disney movies – the pre-2000 movies I mean – in decades. But I had heard about them. Specifically I heard that these movies used to teach girls to be helpless princesses who need to be rescued by men, and that we needed more modern stories for our girls. …
In our current society, rationality and logic are put on a pedestal as the best parts of the human mind. I think if you asked, many people would say they are the only real part of conscious thinking. Emotions and instincts are suspect. This has been true in the West since the Age of Reason…
Recently, I was talking to a friend of mine. He’s getting married soon, and is getting a little tired of the process of planning the wedding. He told me that he’s not sure that it is worth it because he doesn’t know how much more he would enjoy the ceremony than simply eloping or doing…
I spent most of this past year traveling the world with my wife as part of a time off work. We were taking a sabbatical before we start the next stage of our lives – having children. We spent almost 9 months in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. In total, I’ve spent about 18 months…
I’d like to share some thoughts on the relationship a man has with rules throughout his life. How do we first encounter rules? What is the difference between a rule and a principal? What is the mark of a mature man in this context? Children start out without any rules or sense of boundaries, possibly…
When I was a kid self-esteem began to be promoted in schools. A lot of adults seemed to have a problem with it, but almost nothing is more conformist to the next idea than education. It’s a part of teachers’ identity to always be doing the next thing. So it stuck. At the time, I…
If you’re a mature man, you have some sense of your values and your vision in your life. Boys and young men often don’t know what they want – or they may know many things they want, but have not actually decided what’s most important to them. But a man has made some basic decisions…
I have no children, and my wife isn’t even pregnant yet. But we will start trying in 2020. And it’s interesting how this theoretical fatherhood is already having a big effect on my life. I don’t mean in terms of shopping for baby clothes. I mean in terms of my own identity and concerns. It’s…
Apologizing is an important life skill. Done properly it can repair and strengthen your relationships by building trust. But it’s hard to get right. Most people can smell an insincere apology a mile off. At best an insincere apology will look like you are going through the motions but don’t really understand why what you…
Men are struggling in today’s world, with falling employment and education rates, and rising addiction and suicide rates. At the same time we’re being outspokenly cast as dangerous, predatory, and ‘oppressive’, which doesn’t help men find their place or confidence in their identity as men. So I fully support men’s groups that aim to help…