How now my sweet creatures of bombast?
Shortimer said,
Don't tell me to 'be a man' because those words are truly meaningless. I can no more not be male than I cannot be a white guy.
Ah but you mean, "act masculine" and that's were this idea of yours falls apart. If looked at from a historical perspective the 'ideal man' has changed over recorded history.
You are like an ill roasted egg, a little bit too burnt on one side. But come, I will tickle your catastrophe.
Anyone can be ‘male’. Half of all children are males. But they are not
men. There is a profound difference between a male and a man. Ask any woman.
Are you not satisfied with my definition of a Man? I will define manhood in one word…
Overcome!
Pook hops on the soapbox.
I love it when guys like you talk about multiple definitions of ‘a man’. Every time I see one of you guys (and you guys exist in crowds, there is nothing unique about the guy trying to be ‘the smartest guy in the room’) rattling about theories… I get inspired! Guys like you, Shortimer, are my own personal success coach.
You know what men do? We overcome. We lack the resources to properly clothe, shelter, and feed the family, but we overcome. We know it is inconvienant to state the obvious, especially with the threat of violence or slander, but we overcome. We know we are genetically skinny and weak, but we overcome. We know we are shy, withdrawn, and scared, but guess what? We’ve overcome.
And do you know what other males think when they see us? It depends on where their ego is at. If their ego is wrapped up in how ‘nice’ they are, they call us jerks. If their ego is wrapped up in how ‘secure’ and ‘safe’ their lives are, they call us maniacs and a risk to all society. And so if the ego is infatuated with the idea that they are
smart, as
they are intellectuals, they label us ‘mystics’ and think we are stupid. If I say, “Look like a Man rather than a sexless drone,” I will be declared of stereotyping. If I say, “Action, passion, strength- this is Man,” I will be called a traditionalist. If I say, “Overcome these gross elements of Earth and control your own Nature rather than be controlled by it,” I will be smeared as an electronic Buddha.
History is our Chorus but Poetry is our bugle, always summoning the males to rise up and not let their potential fust unused.
Blow bugles, blow! Nowhere will you find literature, poetry, or plays enshrining the Nice Guy, the ‘teary eyed’ philosopher, or any wallflower. This is true within all cultures, from all ages past, from the present, and will continue in the future. The tales that we love to watch and imitate from James Bond, Illiad, children’s bedtime stories of the ‘hero’ knight, to the Norse Mythologies and tales from Africa, from Native American Indians in their worship of the warrior spirit to Abraham, Mohammed, and Christ’s vision for people controlling themselves rather than be controlled by ‘caricatures’, on up to the spirit of harnessing the secrets of Nature to blossom the civilization that makes your theories possible (in any other age, you would have starved by now), all these share the same spirit to overcome.
Oh blow bugles blow! For Man is not a figment alone, women are critical to the creation of
men. The mother with a weak husband will attempt to raise her children to be strong. The male who marries and thinks he will sit on his @ss all day will come to a rude awakening when the woman says, “Get your butt off the couch and go get a job,
now”. Or take the woman who, with her husband dead and left with 5 children, must slave to get her children to become something of themselves (this example occurring within my family a couple generations ago, with the five males becoming two lawyers, two doctors, and an executive).
Blow bugles, blow loud and far! Women did the things they did, as men did the things they did in daily life, not because of some vast male conspiracy but solely to
survive, in other words, to
overcome. Blow bugles! For we are called
Mankind for the reason, because Humans
overcome. Blow bugles blow! Poor intellectuals, who are word based and cannot transcend even a dictionary! They are deaf to the bugles, they see the poetry and legends of all as fairy tales, as meaningless to them as vapor in the morning dawn.
To the contrary, it is your theories that are Adult Fairytales, badly prosed books where people read strange matters. There is no Pook philosophy because sexuality rides on a plane higher than our theories, no matter how lovely and ‘revolutionary’ we think we are.
All is vanity, and there is nothing new under the sun.
You know the typical modern 'man' drinks lots of beer, reads at an 8th grade level and watch sports all the time. Is that what I should be?
Notice the arrogance in this statement.
The smart are not those who read lots and lots of books. The smart are those who can read their own heart and mind. I would rather be dumb but with integrity than pointy headed and absurd.
Saul Bellow summoned up intellectuals best, calling them literary mandarins, culture-bureaucrats, Philistines, pampered children, small Daedaluses, custodians of culture, ideological package-makers, truffle makers, French-chocolate makers, epigones, pseudo-learned swamp makers, crisis chatters, mind defectives, high-culture surgeons who perform lobotomies, technological achievers, the enemies of the past, oblivion makers, pedants digging in the stacks of libraries, mole-wise, pythons, ivy league sodomites, and figurines of hand carved suet.
You see, Shortimer, people like me look at intellectuals, those teary eyed, inflated with divine ambition puffed, make utterances at the invisible events, walking on a airy cushion of theory even for an eggshell. To the intellectual, rightly to be great is not to stir with strength and passion but merely to find quarrel in a straw. We smile and nod sympathetically like we care what your gums are flapping, but actually we’re thinking you’re an academic vine that wraps itself around some dogma who is unable to grow a spine and say something, anything, that is politically incorrect, unique, or interesting. You beat your chest and think that those who do not spend their free time pouring over books or throwing themselves at the Ivory Tower are somehow ‘stupid’. But the Don Juan knows they are smart, for they did not put an abyss between their heart and mind. It is because of people like you that I will never spend my life trying to write academic books no one will read or think I deserve ‘respect’ solely because of a ‘Dr.’ before my name.
You say that by calling women ‘nature’s emissaries’ I am dehumanizing them. But when discussion turns to sexuality, language cannot keep up. This is why you get a metaphor instead of a mathematical equation. This is also why all the ‘techniques’ in the world are but coinage of the ego.
Anyone can come on here, look at their successes with women, and turn it into a manifesto. “I did this, here,” or “I did this, then”. To say that I have a philosophy is like saying the discovery of gravity is a philosophy. No, it is a law of nature. Just as there are certain laws that govern celestial bodies, so are there laws that govern earth based bodies. Alas, we lack the language.
Picture yourself talking to a ten year younger version of yourself. What would you say? How do you transmit the knowledge of what you've learned to the younger you?
This is a supreme dilemma that older people face. The things they know, the things they've experienced, the way they view the world.... it cannot be transmitted to the younger generations. People try but language lacks the appropriate channel. They just won't make sense in the end.
You say, "Pook! You are not being concrete!" But there are some things in Nature that are extremely difficult to translate and channel. This is why a metaphor will get the idea further across from a 'factuality'. This is how a fable will process an idea better than a direct statement. Those who scoff at this know very little about language and its limits.
How do you tell someone you love them? What arrangement of words do you use? Do you quote a poet? What do you say? Chances are, if the love really exists, you would be completely silent. Shakespeare noticed this. In Much Ado About Nothing, we hear Claudio, when he is presented as Hero as his love, gets accused for not saying anything! Beautrice says, "Speak, count, it tis your cue!" And Claudio manages to get out, "Silence is the perfect herald of joy" Hero is unable to speak either so she kisses him.
This limit of language is the conflict of King Lear. Lear demands declarations of love from his three daughters. Two (who do not love him) give rosy elaborate and wonderful responses. Cordelia (who does love him) is unable to give any response so Lear foolishly thinks she doesn't love him and takes away her inheritance.
So there is a reason why when Mr. Nice Guy says "I love you" all day, every day, the women will not believe him whereas the Don Juan, who rarely if ever says "I love you", will be believed.
What is the intellectual to do? Read his books and find out the ‘correct’ or ‘pragmatical’ way to tell the woman he loves her? It will not do, for women are not mathematical creations.
I am not warring against psychology or philosophies. But when it comes to women, the only sure path to success is to let yourself be human, with all the mistakes, risks, and joys that entails. Man up!
For there are more wonders found in Nature, Shortimer, than could ever be dreamed of by your psychology.
