I don’t know you, but if I did, I would wish you a lot of rumble and chrome.
I don’t know you, but if I did, I would wish you a muscle car and the bravado of classic rock.
I don’t know you, but if I did, I would wish you a long road with no radars for ages — no authority other than you, nature, and the big guy.
You’ve got male energy and you’ve got female energy. Every human has both. The lockdowns, in their insular, protective way, have come, to some extent, out of a plethora of caring female energy. Cradle-to-grave government tends to be that. More time at home lowers the testosterone. More time on Netflix. More time on the couch. More time eating carbs.
It reduces some of nature’s way of putting a little more swagger in your step. And while that’s not why corona turned into a thing, there are plenty of folks on this planet, mostly within the United States who are happy to see a certain type of American male with a little less swagger in his step.
I don’t know you, but in a moment like this, if you were a man who I knew and cared for, I’d probably suggest something that helps the testosterone surge, like a pickup game of 3-on-3 basketball, or a game of tackle football in the lawn of the park that no one is using.
Maybe if I knew you and wanted to help you feel more like yourself, I might gather people who respect you and I might ask you to lead, follow, or help in an activity. That sense of camaraderie, of accomplishment, of leadership can all help to build the participant and to surge in him his understanding of himself as a producer on this planet, a provider, a man who gives the world more than he takes from it.
I know. That’s sort of like work, in its best moments, a human activity of cooperation that builds far more together than anyone is capable of doing alone. Work is not always like that sadly, but when it is done right, that is exactly what it is.
Perhaps if I knew you, and I wanted to help you feel more like yourself, I might choose something you are good at. If you are a man who knows theology, I’d say let’s get some friends together and hear you preach the most daring sermon you can. That frightening experience is sure to put hair on your chest. If you aren’t a little scared, you aren’t doing it right. Every time a good preacher speaks, greenhorn or veteran, I want to know he’s delivering the kind of sermon that makes him a little nervous as he pushes beyond his boundaries.
When I was a child, a classmate delivered a solo performance of “The Living Years” by Mike and the Mechanics at the talent show. He wasn’t amazing, but he forever earned the admiration of those who understood how gutsy it was to do what he did. Perhaps if I knew you, I might gather a large group of people together packed into a grade school gymnasium, to watch you perform something daring. Afterwards we would go out for a celebratory pizza for the man of the hour.
Perhaps if I knew you, and wanted to help you feel more like yourself, we wouldn’t even need to put you onstage. That might not be your thing. We might go to an ice hockey game, sit along the boards, and feel the surge of brute strength every time the puck came near us.
I know. It’s all been banned. Pickup games, church, human gatherings, sports, offices, large swaths of economic activity.
This period is corona communism, because it is the artificial stunting of human activity in the name of the greater good. It is the artificial stunting of human achievement and human cooperation. It is the most awful, misery-inducing behavior that the world has seen in a long time, and it doesn’t matter what the rationale for it is. What is happening is inexcusable.
If I knew you, I’d probably get you a blue Mustang convertible. Or some similar car.
It’s not as hard as you might think. There’s an app for that. I use Turo (turo.com). My last rental was a $69 a day blue Mustang convertible. Driving it hard on the empty roads was a welcome antidote on my 71st day of lockdown.
If I knew you, I might even make you a mix tape for your adventure.
There wouldn’t be anything too catchy on the mix tape. Catchy bubble gum pop is for a different kind of mood: pedicures.
Nor would it be overly sentimental. It would be music intended to evoke the beast in you, the warrior. And ultimately the king too. But it would be mainly intended to evoke that fighting spirit.
And there wouldn’t be any rap. Because while rap can echo the warrior spirit and contains wisdom, it just doesn’t evoke authenticity in me. The key to this moment is to fit as much authenticity into your day as possible, to be as much of yourself as possible, to feel the joy of pure bliss surging through your veins as you feel yourself in your body and live life. Confident.
Drums and electric delivered without apology. If I knew you, that’s what I might do for you:
Steppenwolf — Born To Be Wild,
AC/DC — Thunderstruck,
Bruce Springsteen — Born To Run,
Whitesnake — Here I Go Again,
George Thorogood & The Destroyers — Bad To The Bone,
Led Zeppelin — Immigrant Song,
Norman Greenbaum — Spirit In The Sky, and I would add one song that you might not understand the words to, but I would mention that this was a Czechoslovak rock band prior to and during the fall of the Iron Curtain, that reminded people how “truth prevails,” in Pravda Vitazi by Tublatanka.
Warning the cowed reader “It’s important to be able to say the word masculine without imagining that we are saying a sexist word,”
Robert Bly in Iron John writes “The activity men were once loved for is not required,” before unapologetically spending the rest of his book elegantly addressing such concerns through the words of sages of the past.
Feminist Camile Paglia, who is quick to praise what she describes as male obsessiveness, in Sexual Personae writes “If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.” One of the theses of her carrier is how our era preferences the feminine and deceives itself into pretending the masculine has little to offer, when in reality men need women and women need men. Problematically, there is hardly room in this stifling era for men to be men. More so now.
Moore and Gillette in King Warrior Magician Lover describe the noble energy of the warrior as “might for right.”
Each of us are called on to lean into that energy, to develop that might for right. To be the obsessive builder of the proverbial skyscrapers of our lives, families, and societies.
There’s a passion inside each of us that has been dampened by this corona communism. And for many men it’s been dampened the worst. Their most natural instinct to risk and to live has been suppressed.
On cue, the anti-male has entered the fray claiming suspiciously that testosterone increases Covid deaths.
Testosterone also makes you more prone to live a life that’s worth a damn. It pushes a person to take risks and do things that others wouldn’t dare. We each have masculine and feminine in us. That masculine could use a little nurturing.
This weekend is called Pentecost in the western church, 50 days after Easter. The disciples had 50 days to say “What the heck just happened?” and to process that before they did some bold stuff.
No one is expected to be able to know everything in the moment. Even the finest soldiers can need years to make sense of what took place in the heat of battle.
Perhaps one day soon, you can purposefully stoke some of that passion in you. This Saturday is a natural day for that.
And with that passion, perhaps you could commit to go back to being your usual bold self, only at the 110% level, to make up for all the chicken littles out there who need some of that courage.
Don’t be dismayed if the chicken littles attack that courage in you. That’s merely a way for them to assure themselves that the courage is real. In time even the most chicken little of the group will be ready to follow the strongest leader that they can find.
Persevere.
The Ides of March are behind us, Easter Sunday is behind us.
You’re needed this weekend.
In your full glory and a little more.