Let Your Masculine Self Go

As men, we build our lives around the idea of normalcy.   Essential masculine normalcy. 
  We strive for it..  contort our emotion and our essence to fit inside its suffocating constraints..  we starve ourselves relationally and physically, so that through our average-ness, we may join the ranks of mediocre male photocopies..  abridged, expected, and socially tolerable.        We file down our teeth so that the bridle of contemporary, media-saturated masculinity can be worn without much struggle.  The method of this masculine equivocation... is our agreement..   our agreement to obey, assert and adhere to the rules of masculinity that we were born into.  And because we were born into these rules... we seldom question if the experience of masculine normalcy might actually be a fraud!   I say it is. 

    From most of what I've seen, the capacity of the average man for living: for love.. for greatness..  for goodness..  for thought.. for intuition.. for creativity... for communication..  for eloquence... for strength..  is dictated by the capacity which we have been led to believe is socially adequate.    This tolerance of a lesser male-self, for the sake of normalcy, is an abandonment of our birthright as godly (god-like), unequivocally masculine entities - capable of absolute [enchantment] and absolute [illumination].       Living beneath our capacity as men, we not only lessen our effect on our universe..  but we negatively affect our female counterparts as well.  If we are not accepting and pursuing our own greatness..  then we are abandoning our challenge to women to evolve right along with us.  

There are essential qualities, from my father and my grandfather which I admire greatly, and which I aspire to embody.   And yet...  deep inside of me..  I know that true masculinity is still evolving.   I do not believe for a moment that our capacity as males..  NOW, TODAY,  IN THIS MOMENT..  exists as a static element, or has achieved a state of refined mediocrity!     I am certain that the "normal masculine persona" driven by our culture, which we impose upon ourselves..  socially, sexually, ethically.. is one that castrates our capacity within greatness.

LET YOUR MASCULINE SELF GO.
Open the gate.. let it run, let it escape itself... let it rush away and become unrecognizable - so that when it returns to you, you must re-introduce yourself. 
Unleash your capacity for eloquence, ferocity, and goodness.  

I mean this..   for myself..  my ambition is this:  to dissolve the rituals of masculine normalcy in my mind.   I do not wish to see capacity in terms of my "expectations" as a man -   I want to reinvent masculine expectation.   I want to stretch and press into my capacity as a masculine being...  and unblinkingly, unapologetically, redefine my purpose(s) inside this presence on earth.   

I feel that we DO have a capacity beyond what we have come to expect from ourselves.   Letting our masculine selves go..  is the freedom to walk straight into our essence as men... and begin to vanish.   Not abandoning our masculinity..  but unleashing its metamorphosis.      

Long live the pursuit of goodness..




Andrew Tipton

I'm in Love with Your Honor

I love the way
 you speak
eloquently
of
life.  and then
the way you live
eloquently.
vividly.  movingly. expressive. revealing. 
as if
there were never a space
 between
the speaking of it,
and
the man.      




Andrew Tipton

Folds the Page Under

I'm sprawled along the length of a kayak..  jeans rolled up, my legs dangling to either side,  ankles drifting in the lake.  The June air is wet and there are drops of perspiration on my chest.   The juice of a sweet red plum is staining my mouth.   I'm holding a copy of On the Road,  its pinned between my first and third finger,  spread open and shading my face as I squint up at the text.  I keep losing my place and re-reading sentences..  Sal and Dean Moriarty are heading back to San Francisco.    I love reading old paperbacks.   I love the way the book feels in your hands, the way the pages turn brown and smell like travel.  I love that  I can toss one into a backpack right along with a couple of beers.   I love the way the covers get tattered and stained.    A paperback lacks pretentiousness; I like its simplicity and effortless honest square edges.    When you pick up a copy of Whitman's Leaves of Grass..  you know it is what it is... its not trying to be anything else.   I like that.  

  As I read ,  I have the habit of turning my pages under.   A page clipped at the top means this is the last page I read;  On bottom means there is something in that I find intriguing or inspiring.     A double fold -  these are pages I revisit often.  
 Sometimes I get stuck in a book..  when I keep coming back to a "folded page", ,and not reading ahead.   I'll literally re-read the same chapter again and again,   simply because its one I like.     But I have to keep telling myself at times, that there is more to the book.  

People say that life is like a book..  we're always writing our story.   I believe we fold pages under in our "life story" too.   Keeping track of our most beloved plot lines and returning to our favorite chapters.   There is a balance though, I think, between re-telling the lines we have enjoyed...  and remembering to continue reading.    For life to maintain its purpose and flow and direction,  although we might revisit old "marks", we must make an agreement to continue folding new pages under.  



Andrew Tipton