Making the Case for Being a Man

Welcome to the HFC, have a seat.  A very few words of introduction.  My favorite biography is that of the great man David Hume, Scottish philosopher who pretty much invented the idea of experience as the best teacher---the dullest emotion is more articulate than the finest rational argument he once said.  Hume's biography was half a printed page long in a world in which sentences alone could consume volumes, and he write, "A man cannot speak long of himself without vanity.  I shall be short."

Go here for the whole bit, this started as an essay and turned into a podcast.  Look here:https://thehardflexcafe.substack.com/

I'm going to take Hume's advice so suffice it to say that I've been writing and dare I say teaching about life for a long time now.  Sometimes you know things just 'cause you were there.  More important are the things you've taken the time to learn, and if you've had experience too then to reflect.  No one might care what you think but that shouldn't stop you.  You're here to have your say, that's a life that values the liberty is like and it's while it's always best not to make a nuisance of yourself, what I know is that everything I've learned of real value is because I had a good conversation and was lucky enough to meet and ask some very cool people.  I'm presently teaching college students not yet born to see even the planes brought down the towers, much less the now far distant fingerposts that form my personal historical references---The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, this being my religious experience of personal conversion, or was it that bastard Nixon waving goodbye and me cheering at the television screaming good riddance to the criminal.   Meanings need references.   Everyone has their fingerposts.  I'm going to plant a few of those here and in future conversations and we can talk about what we're going to do with this life.

Sometimes you know things just 'cause you were there.  I'm presently teaching college students not yet born to see even the planes brought down the towers, much less the now far distant  fingerposts that form my historical references---The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, this being my religious experience of personal conversion, or Nixon waving goodbye and me cheering at the television screaming good riddance to that criminal.   Meanings need references.  

 

Thomas Hobbes said ““Words are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools.” “The world is governed by opinion.” He also argued in his book Leviathan that, without government, life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”  I think what he meant by government wasn’t just politics but how we govern ourselves, how we take responsibility for being human. 

Malingering here at Le Café Hardflex, reading the news and a sharing a demitasse with the pup is a privilege I get to have only now and then.  Like you I work for a living, not doing this, and spend far too much time doing that work and worrying about stuff that would otherwise not make tomorrow less miserable.  But when we've got the lucky, we have time to think and love things that sometimes we share and sometimes we don't.   We must abet efforts at self-exculpation if we choose a life of solecism and truancy.  I've been reading lately about Japanese artist philosophers who spent their days alone, on purpose.  This may not be your jam all the time and Dare I speak for all, I suggest most of us need some form of temporary asylum?  'Tis true that life's a walking shadow but if we live long and are lucky enough, we might also know this world is a mingled yarn, good and ill together.

This isn't the first podcast or even the first writing from the Hard Flex Cafe, there's also a blogspot and a few reviews of things that might interest fellas interested.  I'm not averse to writing about anything, and that includes even the occasional foray into politics.  

It's not my intention to write often about politics here.  Politics are divisive but I would say, as they should be.  What is life but partisan?  Don't you take sides on issues that matter to you?  Do you not have what you believe to be hard won opinions?  Are you not willing to take a stand, then why not give expression?  Why not make a case so that your partisan view wins hearts and minds?

Of course media saturates us with misinformation, disinformation aimed at selling pillows or gold bars and duping people by flooding the zone with fear, anger, and endless grievance.  But it is a task of free people to apply themselves, use their heads, learn to think.  Everyone's got thoughts, not so many take the time, make the effort to learn how to think.  I will care what you think and won't hesitate to offer a reasoned opinion.  A reasoned opinion.  That is the very definition of the word "argument."

Arguments are not quarrels or fights.  An argument might cause controversy, which literally means "turns against" and those sorts of things can cause riffs and feuds and ill-feelings, for sure.  But if we can't learn to deliberate, disagree, and exchange views then all we got is a donnybrook, a brannigan, and we'll find ourselves boned by contention.  You might protest (this being a good thing) and say, "Do we really have to have arguments about stuff like our boots and jeans?

But I say that when you have real feelings and ideas, you likely have assessments and attitudes to go along with them.  The next judgment you have to make, and we're all making judgments all the time, so don't fool yourself with that nonsense about being non-judgmental, is that you're not going to resort to rock'em'sock'em robots, threats, menacing looks, and other stupit [sic, that's sic erat scriptum, meaning I did that on purpose so take the mistake to be not a mistake] shaite.  You can be a Sid instead.   Urban Dictionary told me this means you're an alright guy, maybe better than that.

That's actually C-i-d, so more like a Castilian knight and warlord of medieval Spain, the veritable honorific well earned as in as-Sayyid ("the Lord" or "the Master"), which evolves into El Cid (Spanish: [elˈθið], Old Spanish: [el ˈts̻id]), and the Spanish honorific El Campeador ("the Champion").  

Here's some Wiki on El Cid.

Rodrigo Díaz was recognized with the honorary title of "Campeador" during his lifetime, as is evidenced by a document that he signed in 1098, which he signed in the Latinized expression, ego Rudericus Campidoctor. The title "Campeador" thus comes from the Latin Campidoctor, literally meaning "Teacher of the Field", but translatable as "Master of the Battlefield". Arabic sources from the late 11th century and early 12th century call him الكنبيطور (al-Kanbīṭūr), القنبيطور (al-Qanbīṭūr), also preceded by Rudrīq or Ludrīq, which are Arabized forms of his name and title.^[4]

The epithet of "El Cid" meant "the Lord", probably from the original Arabic (Arabic: السَّيِّد, romanized: as-Sayyid), and was a title given to other Christian leaders. It has been conjectured that Rodrigo Díaz received the honorific title and respectful treatment of contemporaries in Zaragoza because of his victories in the service of the King of the Taifa of Zaragoza between 1081 and 1086; however, he more likely received the epithet after his conquest of Valencia in 1094. This title appears for the first time, as Meo Çidi, in the Poema de Almería, composed between 1147 and 1149.^[5][6]

You get the idea, right?  Stand honorably in your opinions, don't make yourself a problem to anyone who disagrees with amicable diffident, never resort to violence or get too mad about stuff unless and until you really really have to.  

This should all be obvious and that it's not is a problem men in particular have.  Next thing you now their thwarted sexuality, unprocessed envy, and ill-equipped emotional reboubt is out buying guns or saying stupit about a Super Bowl champion tight end who happens to have the most famous girlfriend in the world.  You don't, and I'm not asking you to get over the jealous or envy you feel, I'm asking you to think about what you want to do with all that stuff you got locked up in side because you never learned how to express more worthwhile opinions.  I'd like to argue you out of lots of ideas that turn too fast into unnecessary, dare I say rather unmanly, disgraceful annoyance and worse.  Rage never serves even when you feel outrage.   It's hard to stay Zen master calm when something says that your Redwings are not only just average boots but overpriced.  Serenity is the best form of retaliation when it is coupled with the actual masculine intention to bring matters to clarity and benefit, even to advantage without desecrating your reputation, identity, your Self.  You see Self is not just who you are, it's who you want to be, it's what you could be, and so the idea is to make that aspiration something real right now.   That may not be immediately possible  but that's why it's worth trying, if not in every moment than in the ones you can possibly spare 'cause as Aubrey says to Maturin time and again, there's not a moment to lose.  To be a Self worth having, there really isn't a moment to lose.  Trust me on this one, I've lost, wasted, discarded, and neglected at least as much as the worst of us if only because it took so long to realize that an "argument" is the case you make for yourself, not just for the honor of your Redwings to that guy who wonders why you're still loving them when you've got some Role Clubs and Clinch in yer closet too.  The world is big enough for differences, for more than one pair of boots, and for more than one opinion, but for f's sake make that opinion worth having and to do that it's a good idea to get better at having them.  That's gonna take at least as much work as breaking in a pair of those really hardcore PNW boots that were made for fighting forest fires.

Okay, that's what I got today.

We're going to venture into opinions, and whether or not the stakes are low, like they must be when the world is burning and we're talking about boots or leathers or if Steely Dan is genius or just more old man Yacht rock,  we're going to make the case.   

It's going to be more pedantic than it should be.  That means, donnish, pompous, pretentious, and self-important and we all would like to avoid those kinds of accusations and monikers, but this being Everyman masculine where we either declare our opinions as incontrovertible do or dies followed by I don't care what other people think, well that just will not do.  The idea here is that we have to earn our opinions by working out the argument---this may involved considering assumptions and matters we can call facts, and other stuff that matters---and we have stop this nonsense that just because you have had experiences, maybe even bled for the cause, that you are entitled to an opinion that further claims you don't give any fracks about what other people might think.  Real men care about other people and that needs to include what they think.  Disagree without being too disagreeable, that's where it's at but even more than that, let's not go silent or become boorish clods.  WE men have to do better.  

More ideas about doing better next time.  In the meantime, deal with it, I say, another poem. This is Kipling's If and if you don't know it, it's time to man up, this is required.  Flexing is hard, if we want to live with the hard flex of being a man in a world that needs better.  So Kipling.   Listen to this part again, even if you didn't like the rest.

We'll talk more about the poem next time.  And yes, real men read poets, including stuff way harder than this one.

If— 

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!