There’s this macho all-for-me type of energy I manifested in my youth, and in moments of my highest confidence, in which I felt unstoppable and that all probabilities were open but for my choosing. And I think sometimes that the self-ascribed “alpha males” of our current culture are high on that feeling, crave that feeling, and sense it’s been stolen from them somehow. They sense they can no longer run over people they see as resources to validate themselves without consequence.
The earlier confidence, and the mature recognition of the self-absorption from which it emerged, has resulted in a kind of self-loathing I struggle with from time to time. At my most vulnerable I’ve felt selfish, worthless, and almost vampiric. Crawling, reaching, scrabbling for purchase in a world I find quintessentially and necessarily uncertain.
I have come to accept that uncertainty, and so find a kind of confidence in a search for authenticity of self within this chaotic maelstrom. The search for authenticity becomes itself a vehicle for confidence because I am trying to find my own resources, a sense of self-reliance, all while recognizing the human struggle in everyone.
I think the toxic masculinity that overruns the consciousness of so many young men, and their supporters in this culture, grows in part from an unwillingness to accept the responsibility of seeking an authentic self, avoiding accountability, and the ease of seeing people as things to exploit.
But human beings aren’t resources, and thinking men are not automatons.
So I hope we can all pull our heads out of our collective asses, and regardless of sex and gender identities, just try harder to be sympathetic to our fellow humans, and be good to each other.
