I apologize for the long title, and I'm hoping that this is a proper subreddit for this. If you just want to skip down to the spiel of the topic, then please look down to the bolded statement.

I am a 23 year old man, who's lived in the areas of Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana for all of my life. I've been an avid consumer of media surrounding Men's Rights and true inequality for about a year now, and I know that there's going to be something big coming; there has to be. That said, for all of my life, I've felt like a child; I've always been out of control of my own willpower and drive, and I couldn't give half of a damn about myself on the most moderate of days. Now, this isn't to say that I'm depressed, and I'm certainly not suicidal, but I am nowhere near what people would describe as the 'typical' man's experience in life. I'm not a go-getter, I have no one who relies on me, Unless I'm being very proactive, I'm nearly negligent with myself, mentally and health wise, and the only passion I take is with my art. Looking back on my thoughts in my youth, I imagined I'd have it together, I'd have something to grab a hold on, something to inspire me, to drive me forward, as if my own well being isn't enough. Well, for the past ten years, it really hasn't been.

I'd like to reiterate that I'm not suicidal. I'm not happy with where I am in life, but I have not been abused to the point that I am seeking to end it. To say that I am introverted isn't completely correct, but my circle of friends is small and dwindling by the year, but this is another topic altogether.

Many men, like myself, have grown up without a father in the crucial years where their own thought processes, their sense of values, are being set into the stone foundation that will build their behaviors later in life. I haven't spoken to any others about this, others like myself, so the only experience that I have on this subject is purely empirical. But without a father, replaced with a caring, hard working, but bipolar mother to raise me on her own until the age of 12 where she met my stepfather, I have found myself drowning in waves of ineptitude, willful ignorance, sheer laziness, bouts of apathy and some amounts of depression, and, in general, a lack of drive to do -ANYTHING- to improve my situation.

Perhaps this is something that needs a doctor to diagnose, perhaps there's some ACTUAL doctors out there who will help me, who won't just try to push a pill of poison on me to make me feel better and shut up. This is not the man I wanted to be when I was still young. I'm still romantically lonely, I'm still apathetic about my well-being, and while my friends are like brothers to me, they are so few. If this is more than personal, if this is something that other men experience, then I call to the men and women of /r/MensRights to put our brains together, and see if we can help these men, to see if there is anything that we can say, something that we can get across, to give them a purpose and drive in life.

I understand that such things need to come from within, but for the lonely, for those who, like myself, grew up without a positive role model in their lives, a positive male role model that we could emulate and aspire to be, I feel that we could use a little help. I, personally, am not pleading for help; I know where my problems lie, and I know that with time, persistence, and patience, I can fix them.

But, a thought struck me today, as I worked my shitty, fast food job, listening to Meatloaf, and reflecting upon what it was, back then, to be a man. I realized, far too late, that I idolize men with passion, men with artistic talent. I understand that, in person, Meatloaf might have been far different than what my mind's eye might be imagining him, but listening to his songs (among others'), I feel a primal drive within me, poking my lack of drive with a stick and telling it to wake the fuck up.

I imagine that the persona he portrays in his songs, the 'I' in the lyrics, is a man who is tall, a fair amount of musculature, is popular with women, and who is passionate about life and love. I realized that I came to idolize this persona, in a point, that the man depicted in the song (to a point) is the kind of man I want, now, to aspire to be. Is Meatloaf, or rather, the persona he inserted into his songs, a good role model? Is he, the persona, the definition of manhood, and could be held up as a "good man?"

To these questions, I'm not sure if there are any short answers. Ultimately, I believe I have drifted from my main point, which is quite likely after the workday.

In the end, what I am trying to convey is that there are men out there who have no drive, who have had no real role model in the important parts of their development. Men who need help, men who need help finding that spark that gets things going. That isn't to say that we should push men into their traditional, expected roles. Masculinity, manhood, are aspects that, personally, are self-defined. In this day and age, they have to be, otherwise, labeling yourself as society's definition of a man is slipping on a collar of submission, and willfully accepting the brand of an inhuman criminal.

It's about time to wrap this up, I feel. Past time, really.

To summarize, there are men in the world, young men, who are still able to change their mental processes, who are still able to find the drive to improve themselves and drive themselves forward to become the best men that they can be. Men like this have grown up without a target to emulate, without a guiding hand, without a fatherly figure, and have developed identities that are completely self-made, and in the process, some can be made that do not benefit themselves, or their societies in any healthy or functional way. I believe that it is up to us, the collection of men (and women) who resist societal labels of 'Man' as the wool cloth over the eyes of men and boys for what it is, to try to do what we can to help out these men, to teach them that they can be so much more than they are now.

I'm not asking you to go out of your way to find someone to take under your wing, and I'm not asking you to change anything about your life. When you are out and about, however, and when you're in the public space, realize that you're in a position, however brief, to influence someone's life, someone who's stuck in the proverbial mud. Be the best that you can be, so that you can inspire the next man to do just that.

Thank you for your time, and I apologize once more for the length of this article.

And to the mods, if this post is too long, or not fit for this subreddit, please let me know!