One aspect of the men’s issues community that seems to be fairly common is that men seem often to go through a progression of sorts as they enter our communities and progress through them. A progression that extends from the time they first become aware of these issues and which changes as they move, sometimes haltingly, towards various personal and other solutions regarding the individual lives both of themselves and of the other men who are a part of these communities.
A common progression I have noticed is that the men who first find their way into our communities often have a great deal of anger towards the system, their own situation, perhaps women, and so on. Often this anger is justified. The men in question may be living through the charade of anti-male abuse that passes for “family law” in most of the Anglosphere. Or they may be long-term “involuntary celibates” who feel that the current social set-up leaves them with the short-end of the stick, Game or no Game. In many cases, this anger and resentment is quite visceral, real, and honest. It makes no sense to shove these kinds of raw reactions to the situation we find ourselves in under the rug. That can only lead to dysfunction for us as individuals, and the loss of good men who could otherwise grow and develop in our communities. No, the visceral anger is actually a good thing in that it brings the issues to the surface, forces us to confront the human dimensions of the on-going social catastrophe in the West, and, most importantly, motivates men to come to our communities and learn — which is precisely what we need.
However, regardless of how useful the energy associated with such anger may be for getting men to wake up and become aware of the kind of issues we face, at some stage that underlying energy needs to find both a new basis and a new channel so that men can move from being somewhat angry at the system as a whole towards making changes in their own lives, and those of others, to benefit them in light of the current environment.
What this means, in brass tacks, is simple enough, I think. Our task as men who are engaged in a community that cares about issues pertaining to men is both to provide a refuge for the hot anger of the newcomers as well as the encouragement and direction, at the proper time, to channel that energy into something that is ultimately more productive for their lives and, in the longer term, for our growing men’s awareness communities.
The ultimate form this takes will probably be different for individual men. In that sense, I see our role as a community to provide learning, guidance and options for men who are looking for these tools in their lives, for men who need options, who crave them. These options may involve personal life changes that are difficult, challenging and potentially unfamiliar. The work of true personal change is never easy, but is nevertheless often more rewarding than expected. And ultimately it’s up to the men in our communities to decide for themselves how they wish to change their lives — if at all — to adapt to the current environment we face as men.
As a part of this, I think it’s important to remember that one of life’s hardest lessons is coming to accept that there are things in life one can change, and things one cannot change. The path of making changes to ones personal life and surroundings can be daunting; often the work is difficult mentally, and the path can seem questionable when compared with the comforts of the status quo. But choosing, if we wish, to make such personal changes is a recognition that we have power over certain things in our lives, but not others. We can, if we wish, exercise quite a bit of power over the aspects of our lives which are subject to our control, to some degree, if we choose to do so. But we also must realize that there are some things that we simply cannot change, because they lie outside our ability to change them.
To take a familiar example, there is often talk in our communities about how the breakdown in morality and sexual mores and so on has been so damaging. etc. — but the reality is that this particular genie is out of the bottle and is pole dancing for tips. She isn’t going back into the bottle any time soon, and there isn’t much any of us can do about that. The same holds true for women. Women are galloping roughshod over the entire culture right now, that is true. But there isn’t much individual men can do about that. No, we need to realize that there are things we have no power to change. Let the women go and do what they wish — we can’t stop them. But we can, and we must, exercise power over those aspects of our own lives which we can control, and channel that energy we have as men, that natural masculine drive, towards molding lives for ourselves that make sense in the current environment, and take full advantage of the choices and options open to us as men at this particular moment in history.
As men, we can do this. But to do so we need to keep moving forward, past our anger and, in some cases, our grief, and onward towards more productive uses for our energy and focus.
