[Cog]

After 57 years of making mistakes, learning from others, and basically stumbling through life without a guide, I have come up with some things that generally apply. I would appreciate it if you offer your own suggestions on what makes up a man. I do not apologize for the sexist nature of this thread. Deal with it beta-male.

1) When you give your word, you honor it even if doing so harms you financially or otherwise.
2) When you work for someone, you give them your best effort. If you can't or won't, quit.
3) You treat your wife or GF with respect even when you don't feel like it.
4) With your children, you teach them the moral values of honesty, respect, and perseverance.
5)You evaluate and interact with everyone you meet based on the criteria of their actions and not any other superficial criteria.
6) You learn to grill a proper steak and make no excuses for your failure to do so.
7) You apologize when you screw up and don't apologize when you know you are right.
8. You take care of your family no matter what it costs you.
9)Find the humor in ridiculous situations.
10)Live a moral code, whatever it is for you, and do not bend to temptations to break it.

[dinopello]

What does a man do, Walter?

[yeahbut]

1) Crush your enemies
2) See them driven before you
3) Hear the lamentation of the women

Simpler times.

[C8]

[Pops]

I think there are no static moral standards, I think appropriate actions are completely situational and societal.

In my big fat rich life, aside from a couple of very temporary situations, it has been completely fine for me to be nice, empathetic, humble, honest (mostly). I've gotten way more than most people ever have without directly hurting anyone or breaking many rules. In some other life where just getting by is a struggle those things would be luxuries beyond belief. Maybe they are in this one and I'm just too spoiled or stupid to know.

A few things more I aspire too, with varying success:

Be Prepared
Be Skilled
Be Aware

Suck it up
Don't Bitch
Keep Your Temper


Most importantly, find some method to remind yourself of birthdays and especially anniversaries. If you still forget: Be Brave;
They can kill you, but the legalities of eating you are quite a bit dicier.

Oh yeah, one more, Give Credit: ^^David Foster Wallace; Infinite Jest

[Sixstrings]

After 57 years of making mistakes, learning from others, and basically stumbling through life without a guide, I have come up with some things that generally apply.

That's a good list, I concur.

Some things I found on the web, about manhood:



I think that's a good list too, "taking responsibility" is definitely a big thing.

Suck it up
Don't Bitch
Keep Your Temper

Those are good ones. And that's a big one there, a man does not complain, for sure.

And, controls temper. That's a gentleman. A good man is strong, but kind, and wise. (which comes more with age)

Can't think of any personal tips I could add -- maybe, "don't be petty."

[SeaGypsy]

Cool thread starter Cog, a first here to my recollection on what Aussies call 'blokiness'.
Your OP is awesome I reckon. Pops isn't allowed to agree with you directly as that would break his moral code (lol) but his additions are very cool too. I'm not going to Google poetry ffs or horny bloke pix (lol C8)

A real bloke:

Has a second home in his garage/ shed as we call it. Therein is the gateway to his soul. Unsullied by cantankerous woman energy, an unfettered creative orgy of greasy metal, woodchips, beer, beat box, old bikes, cars, tractors, posters of hot babes smiling at the camera, at least one stolen street sign, a copy of that summons you love showing your mates but the missus don't know about, a fridge, a recliner.
(I can tell how much a man is under his wife's control by spending 3 seconds in his shed)

He will walk calmly away from screaming psychotic women. If his bloke mates carried on like that he would split their lip.

He can engage with law enforcement without evoking the demon.

He can find a way to live with dignity, even in hell.

[careinke]

1. Integrity.
2. Assume responsibility for yourself and your children.
3. Learn to calm a colicky baby. I just learned how to do this with my granddaughter. I wish I had known the technique when my kids were infants. (You Tube "Happiest baby on the block") People will start calling you a baby whisperer.
4. Always strive to regenerate not degenerate the earth.

I like the others too, including T's quote of Heinlen.

[WildRose]

After 57 years of making mistakes, learning from others, and basically stumbling through life without a guide, I have come up with some things that generally apply. I would appreciate it if you offer your own suggestions on what makes up a man. I do not apologize for the sexist nature of this thread. Deal with it beta-male.

1) When you give your word, you honor it even if doing so harms you financially or otherwise.
2) When you work for someone, you give them your best effort. If you can't or won't, quit.
3) You treat your wife or GF with respect even when you don't feel like it.
4) With your children, you teach them the moral values of honesty, respect, and perseverance.
5)You evaluate and interact with everyone you meet based on the criteria of their actions and not any other superficial criteria.
6) You learn to grill a proper steak and make no excuses for your failure to do so.
7) You apologize when you screw up and don't apologize when you know you are right.
8. You take care of your family no matter what it costs you.
9)Find the humor in ridiculous situations.
10)Live a moral code, whatever it is for you, and do not bend to temptations to break it.

That's a great list, Cog.

I'm 36 years into marriage (and the same age as you are), and I only have one snippet to add: Men often have to do the reallyhard stuff. Like when our beloved 100 lb. husky/shepherd cross died suddenly (and prematurely) on our back step, and my husband loaded him into the car and drove him to the animal hospital. He said he could hardly see the road on the drive there, but he did it. I stayed back at home with the kids, comforting them, but really too sad to do much of anything.

[WildRose]

Sorry, double post.

[WildRose]

SeaGypsy,

I wish you could see "our garage" (really not mine at all). I rarely ever venture into it!

[SeaGypsy]

The way it's meant to be! Equally a woman can be just as blokey or stage 1 role oriented, but she too needs her own space- often a 'sewing room' or the more unisex library- reading room.

The biggest bloke vs sheila war casualties though, way more common than battered spouse syndrome, but perhaps related- is dream killing, vision murder, character sacrifice. Goes both ways sure, but for a bloke to hang on & achieve his big goal in life often ends up being an either or situation, which is a tragedy.

Sent from my HUAWEI Y520-U33 using Tapatalk

[ralfy]

Applies to both sexes.

[WildRose]

Applies to both sexes.

I agree, ralfy. And it can happen without couples even realizing that's what they're doing to each other. Also, parents can sacrifice a lot to the raising of their children.

[SeaGypsy]

Yep, the more you talk about gender issues, the more you end up talking about human rights, individual rights. (Don't you dare AD)

[PrestonSturges]

As I told my friends son who was 14 at the time:

As long as you think annoying people is funny, you'll never be a man, no matter how old you are.

I'm sure that made absolutely no impression on him, because he had to get arrested a bunch of time after that, but he did seem to straighten out eventually. In his defense, he does seems to have a significant abnormality in the temporal lobe of his brain, which a surgeon offered to remove, but the parents declined. Do other douche bags have similar brain abnormalities?

[SeaGypsy]

Get a CAT scan & find out!

[Tanada]

As I told my friends son who was 14 at the time:

As long as you think annoying people is funny, you'll never be a man, no matter how old you are.

I'm sure that made absolutely no impression on him, because he had to get arrested a bunch of time after that, but he did seem to straighten out eventually. In his defense, he does seems to have a significant abnormality in the temporal lobe of his brain, which a surgeon offered to remove, but the parents declined. Do other douche bags have similar brain abnormalities?

Sadly many people have brain abnormalities or injuries that can cause personalities outside the accepted social norms. On the other side of that coin many of the people who were our greatest creative minds also have abnormal brains in one fashion or another and they are labeled all sorts of terms some of which are not very friendly. The ones society loves the most get labeled nerds and are ostracized in public because they look or act differently, but people love the things they create like Appletm and Microsofttm. The researchers who first successfully refined insulin from animal tissue were assigned the highest attic lab at their University, yet they persevered through sweltering summer heat and windy winter conditions and as a result they changed medical history in the 1920's by treating a condition that had been known as fatal since about 1,200 BC when the Greeks recorded it in their medical texts.

More modern 'nerds' are generally people who won't win any beauty contest or sporting competition. When socially normal people meet a nerd the first time they rarely find someone who can lead a political movement or blend seamlessly into the crowd. Albert Einstein had a reputation as a mathematical genius who sometimes struggled to accomplish day to day skills. Galileo Galilee was a cantankerous man who was incredibly creative but who had a way of angering everyone in authority. Leonardo DaVince did his best work isolated from everyone else in his studio creating his art.

The one things the great ones all have in common is, given the opportunity they did their best to use whatever their skills were. If your skill is to be a international day trader and you do that to the best of your ability without lying cheating or stealing, or taking excessive pleasure in out smarting your competition then do that and you are a success at being an adult. If your skill is to teach students at a University and you teach them to critically exam each idea so that they know its flaws and where it does or does not apply then you are a success, even if every student hates you for grading them harshly when they screw up. If you are a politician and you say you are going to accomplish A and B and C and you do your best to get them done, or you come up with a real explanation as to why they can not be done I will respect you like I respect Bernie Sanders, even where I dissagree with your goals I know you are a mostly honest person doing your best like an adult, not hiding behind words like a child.

[PrestonSturges]

I was just reading Jung's 1923 paper "Psychological Types" where he talks about the introverts and extroverts, and he say the weakness of the extroverts is their ability to take simple concepts, completely mangle their meaning, and then club people over the head with them. If Adam and Eve had been extroverts, they would have torn the branches off the Tree Of Knowledge and used them to club each other.