I’m still not sure if I feel like a man.
I always imagined that it’s a mindset you suddenly develop (or a way people view you) once you have kids, or pass 30, whichever one comes first. There’s this idea stuck in my head that adults are these people who don’t have fun. They don’t watch (and enjoy) stupid movies, or play Warcraft, or talk on the phone for hours. It’s probably from growing up with my parents, who never did anything that made them laugh or smile. Or maybe I’m having too much fun and freedom to really feel like I’m grown-up.
There was definitely some point between getting my first job and house, and now, that I started to feel like an adult. It was never a distinct line though.
For now, the only thing I do that makes me feel like I’m a man is when I’m paying and filing my bills.
Modern society cursed us with that label adolescence.
I definitely don’t feel like an adolescent, but maybe that’s because the word in my mind strikes up an image of someone with no worries, aside from ones of the opposite sex.
You could always get a flannel shirt and an axe and go chop a tree. I hear that’s manly.
This reminds me of the lumberjack song. The funny thing is that he turns out to be a cross dresser.
Next November I’ll take you up to the farm and you can go deer hunting with my family. Field dressing a buck will make you feel manly…and probably a little nauseated.
That sounds scary and exciting at the same time. Never been hunting before, but I’d love to. I probably won’t enjoy field dressing myself, but I really want to observe and film it.
I don’t know on the manly thing but I suspect for the adult thing, it’s having a child. My dearest friend, a perpetual bachelor and creative kid-brain, has finally had a son, and I think it’s sobered him immensely. I’m not sure it’s all so good. But necessary, no doubt…
I still feel twelve. (no kids.)
I suspect this is true. Even “kids” nowadays who have babies turn into adults. It’s like they rise to the age of their responsibilities.
I’m 32 with 3 kids. To be honest I still feel like a kid :) I’m still into the same things I always did. I play WoW(stopped recently) and gundam models etc. It’s just a matter of finding balance I suppose.
I also think there’s this painted image of how a grown-man with kids should be. At the end, it’s just matter taking on the responsibility, but not at the expensive of destroying your own little world.
Paying bills = [Manly]
I imagine that many people wish they could feel the same way at your age, and have three kids at the same time.
I don’t know how you find time to be a father and still play WoW though!
Strange, as I remember your parents always cracked jokes before they got married.
Well, I think maturity is not something technical like paying bills, not enjoying stupid movies, or having children. I think maturity is an attitude—being emotional stable, empathetic, forgiving. These may be traits acquired as we grow.
I think the marriage was long dead even before the time I was old enough to realize it. The only time they would talk to each other was during dinner. And it was only petty work gossip.
Empathy is a good one. I never thought about that. Whereas other traits (like being emotionally stable) are more subject to debate, I think empathy is more universally accepted as a sign of maturity. The interesting thing is that a child who is empathetic (which is a trait they’ve recently confirmed that we’re born with) doesn’t make them an adult.
Every now and then people would come up with conclusions on whether man is born good or evil, or empathetic or otherwise. Confuscianism believes man is born good. So far methinks man is born either evil or neutral.
If a child is found empathetic, then it may be said that the child is mentally mature, it doesn’t make the child an adult though. That’s my 2 cents :)
“Being a man” often still seems to be in the vein of Conan the Cimmerians suggestion that you “crush your enemies, take their treasure. Enjoy the lamentation of their women.” On the other hand, the author of those fantasy books, Robert E. Howard, ended up shooting himself fatally in a hospital parking lot when he found out his elderly mother [with whom he still lived] was not going to leave the facility alive. So maybe being manly remains a complex issue, especially for men who buy either into the macho nonsense or instead try to hard to be metrosexual.
Perhaps we would be better to heed the words of a dead Roman Stoic philosopher and emperor from almost 2000 years ago rather than a fictional Cimmerian from our own era. Marcus Aurelius wrote: “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” Seems like good advice to me.
I’m sure that experience in martial arts (MMA especially, nowadays) gives one much more exposure to that machismo. I’ve always laughed at that kind of attitude, like someone thinking he’s more manly and superior because he has a big penis, or trying to compensate for lack of one. A “complex” issue indeed (pardon the pun).
Can’t speak to the man aspect but s’pose sooner or later one would get smacked often enough to unlearn “girl” and say lady. ;)
That’s interesting…I would have imagined that girl was more of a compliment to one’s youth. Although lady does bring a certain amount of sophistication to it.