| > The regrets were about relationships. Not staying in touch with friends. Not expressing what they felt. Working too hard. Not living true to themselves. The people who were dying weren't grieving their lost productivity. > The people who love you don't love you because you're good at your job. They love you because of something else entirely. Maybe it's your humor. Maybe it's that you actually listen. Maybe it's that you remember things about their lives and ask about them. Maybe it's simply that you show up. You're present. This feminization of society is concerning. Sure you don't want to be corporate slave. But a man's native instinct is to achieve great things, push the boundaries, achieve fame. "Be loved for what you are" is not how it works in the real world. Well not for men at least. People on this site will sing praises of bellards and torvalds and knuths and bernsteins of the world, long after they're gone. For a man's deeds and heroism are his identity. That's probably why every ancient Indo-European society fixated on heroism, renown of one's self and progeny. We might today think of them as violent primitive pastoralists who didn't have the talk therapy like the tiktok teens from US of A. But they understood something we don't. You're not your job, surely. But you're your deeds. You're the children you raise. You're the society you create. |
I don't care to spend my time worrying about the manliness of the things I value or strengthening the strictures that narrow the possibilities in my life. Ends that arise out of ego, like fame, are fleeting and not worth pursuing in my book.