Discourse 31: Pick up your Crown by bending the knee

An open letter to Men

What does it mean anymore to be a man? To be a woman for that matter?

Isn’t the question in itself the problem? Consider this: We speak of what defines a thing so we can emulate it. Masters of mimicry we have become.

At one time, organic social reinforcement was a net positive. The improper or absurd would be shamed by the sacred clowns, as they did to anything beyond what was perceived as the natural order. We no longer have such mechanisms as outlined in Discourse 11.2.

But little in our present reality is natural.

In this modern world, we often forget that words are tools with purpose. It is through our actions and the context in which we deploy language that our words should develop meaning. To describe what it means to be this or that is based off of the observed. In the context of this essay, I am referring to the natural behavioral psychology witnessed, the natural patters that emerge based off of biological identity which transcends social constructs. Up until recently, the social constructs of male and female were largely based off of these natural inclinations and dispositions.

When we invert that, allowing a word and its meaning (which can be transvaluated) to affect our actions, we become performative. These tools with purpose have been hijacked by social architects to nudge us towards external validation to establish our meaning and purpose- and what defines such a thing as manliness. Or what it means to be a woman.

Consequently, we ask such a world to explain what it means and then we seek to match ourselves to that definition. The external discussion shapes the role. Men look to each other, every increasingly parasocially in our atomized world, in order to establish themselves. It quickly becomes a haunted house of mirrors. Marriage has suffered the same alteration of its signs and images, where the ringmasters, our cultural engineers, have sought to redefine what image we are made of. The main instrument of their grimore has been our language. Consequently, our entire epistemology.

Asking what it means anymore to be a man leads to definitions. Definitions can be changed. We do not need to ask what it means to be a man. You already know. The word - λόγος – speaks to us from within.

Christ was also a man.

I am not speaking of training sentiments and developing a proper moral sense, those are indeed valuable and important, but of something deeper to the nature of man himself. Something immutable and good, something universal and powerful. Sure, we can talk and create checklists that match these universals. Some aren’t too bad. (Saw this random one the other day in notes). Others are merely a performative grift. The good ones can be helpful like a step on Wittgenstein’s ladder, used and transcended. But at the end of the day, there is only one way out of this house of mirrors.

Individualization through Christ.

Like women, men have a very powerful and unique orientation of spirit which in itself serves a purpose. One can think of this orientation as our Logos (λόγος), but the variances between the sexes are not entirely differentiated as it comes from the same source, they act more like isomers where there is the same molecular formula present but with a different configuration of atoms. It is this natural orientation that allows us to define what it means to be a man through our deliberate external actions. These actions directed by λόγος reveal to us our collective, but individualized nature. This discipline is the path to individualization, where we become capable of proper worldly discernment by activating our God given ability of epistemic autonomy. It is through this autonomy and our orientation to God that we discover our real identity. It is from there that our externally directed will becomes defined by those who observe using the tools of words. Meaning, what it naturally means to be a man, or woman, has not changed just because we have altered how to measure these things- by shifting to the external.

This shift has caused these once well-defined self-generated roles to become performative, seeking instead to fit inside of an established consensus definition instead of experiencing our being authentically.

Through this natural orientation there will be commonalities, or universals, unique to our bodily pneuma. But it is through this self-defining awareness where we establish ourselves as we are, and in doing so we discover the Christ within.

I did not discover this until I surrendered the part of my ego that gave a shit what other men thought of me. (men I did not know or respect that is- even then there is a measure of divergence) In the silence away from the externalities, there lies a passion within that dares to press outward. This passion is truth, and it is our task to become aligned with it. This is where I met Christ, and he is within me. He is also in you.

At that day, ye shall know I am in my father, and you in me, and I in you.

-John 14:20

From this inflection point your life will change. You will speak and think differently. You will act boldly as commanded, grounded in the steadfast confidence that truth grants. You will be absent from fear and need of external validation. You will walk like a lion upon this world defining for yourself, with a dose of grace, what it means to be a man. Be magnanimous in this task!

Recognize your enemy. Men are being neutered by engineering. Women are being disrespected and abused. Brothers, stop letting them define you.

Bend that knee to Christ and pick up your crown.

This is the hero’s journey. We are all Kings who serve the one King. Re-frame the questions as Christ once did, this starts by defining yourself. Be fearless. Be courageous. Be a man.