Masculinity

Being a man is all about not being a boy once you are the age of a man.

Men shouldn't be boys.

A boy doesn't know what men deal with.

A boy can't solve a crisis on his own.

A boy doesn't clean up after himself. To the contrary, a boy makes the mess bigger.

Men who have grown up deal with crises in a way that fixes the root problem, either little by little or all at once.

Full grown men clean their messes and keep them small if nonexistent.

Does it seem like a man is the opposite of a boy? That's because mentally, developmentally, they are opposites. On one end of the spectrum you have pure boyhood, with all it's adventures and discoveries. On the other end you have pure manhood, with all it's aquired skill and wisdom.

So when you ask a man what he has to show for himself, first he'll look toward his accomplishments, but what he should really be responding with are things he can teach the young. If he can help anyone, really, to do something for themselves... if he can show them how to do something, that man surely has something to show for himself.

Does a boy have that? Very young can it develop, but how much he can teach you is usually very little, for he only knows very little himself.

Somewhere in the development of males is the desire to discover things so he can teach others the knowledge he has found. That is what it means to be not just a man, not just masculine, that's what it means to be male. Full grown men, real men, are guides, teachers, servants of the wisdom required of them regardless of the role they perform to make a living.