Every moment of our lives has led to this one. Me writing these words. You reading them. Both of us deciding to spend our limited and waning time in these bodies trying to make sense of an issue we deem to be of importance: the state of boys and men and the meaning of masculinity. I appreciate this moment together.
Over a decade ago, I was participating in a training session with the senior staff at my summer camp, and we were setting off in canoes to a nearby island for a group discussion, the topic of which, I confess, I do not remember. I was already in my canoe, looking back at shore as one of my friends began to push his boat into the lake, his fellow canoeist sitting in the front seat, paddle in hand. My friend said, “Seamless,” and then he jumped into the back of the boat and capsized it, dumping him and his equally fully clothed and dry companion into the chilly, June, New Hampshire water. Naturally, we all erupted into laughter, including our now soaking friends (with the slight exception of the victim who was initially, and justifiably, incredulous).
The Blue Cliff Record is a collection of 100 famous Zen koans (a short anecdote or riddle that provokes awakening), and one of them is a dialogue between Emperor Su Tsung and National Teacher Hui Chung. Here is a translation from the Pacific Zen Institute:
Emperor: “After you die, what will you need?”
Teacher: “Build a seamless monument for me.”
Emperor: “Please tell me, Master, what the monument would look like?”
The teacher was silent for a long time; then he asked, “Do you understand?”
Emperor: “I don’t understand.”
There’s more to the koan, and if, like Emperor Su Tsung, you don’t understand, that’s fair. However, when I stumbled upon it recently, I remembered the “seamless” canoe story, and I think I experienced something like an awakening. At least, the idea of seamlessness was heartwarming. It gave me a feeling of liberation—from attachment, isolation, the pull of this and that. A seam connects or separates two distinct pieces. With seamlessness, there is no perceivable connection nor separation. There just is what is. Everything interconnected, free flowing, unfolding like a flower.
What on Earth does this have to do with masculinity?
Masculinity has often been portrayed as the opposite of femininity. This is problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that masculinity seems to be associated with “bad.” Masculinity is not the opposite of femininity. If anything, it exists because of it. They are interdependent. And they are not two extreme ends of a spectrum, mutually exclusive of the other. To say that a man cannot be feminine has no basis in reality. It is a preference.
When we teach boys to “be a man,” rather than helping boys to be themselves, we do not help them. Telling a boy to be a certain way is not the same as helping them to find their way. We run into trouble when we start trying to be something. Once we think we are on another level, or built different, or alpha or sigma or him, we are destined to be anything but who we are, and we will never be free. When we teach a boy to be something, he may become a man, but not one he will ever be comfortable or confident with, because that man is a stranger to his true nature.
There is nothing wrong with boys and men, only misperceptions about what kind of person they should be, and self-fulfilling prophecies based on those perceptions. There is no such thing as the “manosphere,” unless we choose to believe in it. There is no such thing as a “real man,” unless we ignore the plain truth that every man is indeed real. There is no such thing as “boys will be boys,” unless we think boys exist on an island of their own (perhaps resembling Lord of the Flies). We have spent far more time and energy stigmatizing boys and men than we have reintegrating them. That is a real shame.
I’ve been guilty of these misperceptions. I’ve insisted that boys are suffering from toxic masculinity, that we need to redefine what it means to be a man, that we need to build a new model of masculinity. Within each of these thoughts, there are seams, a patchwork of ideals sewn together by imaginary thread. The truth is, I think, that boys and men don’t need hard lines. I’m not saying they don’t need self-discipline, responsibility, expectations, values, or consequences. I am saying if we keep telling them who they ought to be, they will never be enough, and they will always be discontent.
Men are 4 times more likely to die by suicide than women (and are 10% less likely to access mental health care). 71% of US opioid deaths occur among men. There has been an 8% increase in the suicide rate among young men aged 15 to 24 from 2020 to 2021, and 15% of young men today–5 times as many as 1990–say they don’t have a close friend (American Institute for Boys and Men, 2024). Boys and men are struggling to find their worth. For lack of a better phrase, many of them are bursting at the seams, and the consequences affect all of us.
As Dōgen said, “Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your life.” With each passing day, we have one fewer day here and now. Boys and men, we are not who we see on our screens. Those are not mirrors. We are neither the center of the universe, nor its garbage. Who we think we ought to be is likely not who we will become. And who we are now is everything. We are everything, no matter how hard we resist it. We are dust, and to dust we shall return, no different than any other thing. Our masculinity has no definition because it is seamless, so there is nothing to redefine, only a way to find.
If you want to continue the conversation, please feel free to visit Goodmenders.com and reach out.
Thanks for reading!
Nick
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