*sigh* 🤦🙄🤦

Question: if spending time amongst men amplifies and feeds the braggadocio, etc. tendencies that got us here, how is spending even more time amongst equally lost men magically supposed to give you men back that sense of self you lost? How exactly is another morally and spiritually void man supposed to help you find the ‘divine’ within? Kind of the blind leading the blind, don’t you think? That’s more a recipe for Lord of the Flies or maybe Thunderdome than anything.

If you truly want to break bad habits and grow there is a road to that. What you’re suggesting is actually an avenue to Nowhere New because it’s too focused on an ideal of masculinity separated and superior (at least in your own minds) to everyone else.

If you really want to do and be better the roadmap includes a full break from all societal influence where you have to provide for yourself long enough to deprogram (Jesus spent 40 days in the desert) and spend some time with your own ego in the same way we have to, some sort of rite of passage (Native Americans had the sun dance or vision quests centered around deprivation, isolation, and meditation), a symbolic death of the old self and birth of the new self (baptisms, name changes, personal style overhauls), make amends to anyone you need to, establish a new moral code (study and understand yourself and why you’re adopting this new code), initiation (dedication ceremony of some sort like joining a church), and follow through (means of accountability and tracking progress).

Many women have followed a similar path setting aside social constraints that have been bad for us on a soul level and left us with the lost feeling men are going through now by a return to aspects of nature worship — Paganism, Wicca, Witchcraft, etc. Or even just leaving Abrahamic faiths.

In other words, focus on being a human being for a while before trying on another tired and ill fitting mantle of manhood. Don’t put your cart before your horse. It’s a huge thing to just be human for a while.

You do you I guess, it’s your decision and your journey. Just don’t expect women (and minorities) to give you unconditional love, support, and ‘praise’ (WTF) for more of the same behavior and deep beliefs that diminish our lives, our hopes, our space, our agency, and crush our souls. Again.

Are you kidding me? We’re not doing a re-do. You’ll be on your own for that.