In Life terms, we reckon there’s no better measure than Self Respect.
And most guys seem to have very little of it.
This lack stems from a basic unwillingness to cut themselves off from being one of the crowd; in other words, to see themselves as a man who thinks and acts for
himself.
Or, as it explains in the WMD Guide, a man who is genuinely ‘Cool’.
And on a point of clarification, are the passing showbiz icons who enjoy popular adulation for a time ‘Cool’?
Is Justin Bieber Cool? Well,
what do you think?
Rather, passing idols like Bieber personify a kind of wish-fulfilment of Jack and Jill Average. Without knowing Justin, our suspicion is that as a man, he probably lacks integrity; what we see as an image is merely an appearance, one which, in WMD terms, lacks Balls.
Another issue working against Self Respect is that is isn’t dependant on what most guys require to know that they exist – an audience.
I had an experience in Halifax a few days ago which provided me with a ‘flash’ image of the sort of picture that’s all too easy to envisage. As I approached the town from the West I suddenly became aware that I was alone. No traffic, no pedestrians (other than myself), no noise. It was a moment of sudden strangeness, a rare instant that never happens other than in the very early hours.
It was the kind of scene that, to a sensitive soul, could trigger a bout of Depression, and the Fear of his Aloneness.
There’s a growing opinion amongst both scientist and philosophers that, right now technology is ahead of our human power to handle it wisely – as our servants – rather than to hand over our personal responsibility to it, all in the name of ‘having an easier Life’.
But an ‘easier Life’ is an oxymoron; there’s no such thing. Yes, you can have an ‘easy existence’, but there’s nothing ‘easy’ about Life, or if there is, well, it’s for the briefest of time.
Life is mainly about Struggle, essentially to grow, and to set an example. You can’t do more than that – set an ‘example’. That’s what ‘Cool’ guys do.
The American philosopher, Thoreau, wrote, ‘the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation’.
In short, no Balls; no Self Respect.