Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what exactly makes a man a man. On instinct, the comedian in me would probably tell you something like, “A pair of balls and a cock,” in the past. But as I get older (I know: I’m not special, everyone is aging), sometimes I think about this concept more on a deeper level. The funny answer of my 20s doesn’t always cut it anymore, and now I’m 30 and thinking about what it actually means a bit more. What does it really mean to be a dude? And I don’t mean any dude, I mean a dude someone would want to be. The type of guy someone could confidently point to and tell their kid, “That’s a good example of a man.” When I ask this question, I don’t mean physically. Sure, it is probably important as well if you want to go that route. But I mean internally, intellectually, morally, ethically, shit like that. In terms of legacy, especially; what makes a man a good man?
A big thing for me lately is the idea of restraint. It seems to be a recurring thing this year. The most obvious examples I could give you would have to be Will Smith slapping a man, and currently the big thing in the news cycle is Kanye West and his antisemitism. A lot of times when we think of a man, we think of a guy who stands his ground, someone who isn’t afraid of a confrontation, not backing down, defending one’s honour. General shit like that. Or another easy example would of course have to be a man’s sexual prowess, the amount of women a man gets, and his reputation in the field of pussy arts. I’m not making this up: this is all shit we’ve learned and internalized over the years. A guy who can beat the shit out of someone is seen as manlier than a nerdy dude of an average build, and a guy who puts pomade in his hair and goes out to a bar and leaves with two girls on both his arms is considered cool. These are accepted truths in the world we live in. I am not saying this is good or bad, my purpose in writing this is just to talk about restraint as another important factor of being a man no one ever talks about.
Let’s consider for a moment another classic example you’ve probably already heard. What is better, to get into a relationship with someone that isn’t even that fun to be around? Or to remain single and have more time and freedom to do stuff you actually want to do, and the chance to meet more cool people before committing to one. Chris Rock once gave the famous ultimatum: married and bored or single and lonely. I would say that being single and lonely is much preferable to marrying the wrong person. It takes just as much bravery to be with someone as it does to be alone. At this point in my life now, I have been to a couple of weddings that didn’t end up lasting. What this means is that the two people in question not only wasted each other’s time, but more importantly, they wasted mine. All because they ended up making a big mistake and didn’t want to admit it until many years had passed.
Now this is where my feelings on restraint come into play: what if one person were to put their feet down and stop the nonsense ahead of time? They would’ve saved both parties all the hassle, and again most importantly, me and my day off work wouldn’t have gotten ruined by having to attend these stupid ass weddings that are becoming more obsolescent than an Apple product every year. To give you an even more personal example of this restraint I speak of: I myself have gotten into minor things with women over the years (I use the word “things” there, because I hesitate to say “relationships,” which doesn’t seem accurate lol) that could have gone on longer, and looking back now, I can definitely say I made the right decision to not pursue. I mean, now that I think about it: I could be married right this second to some girl that bothers me and ruins all my reading time and talks too much in the background, but I chose to exercise my restraint instead (there’s a Robert Frost two roads joke in there somewhere — two hoes diverged in a yellow wood🤣🤣). Can you imagine if I had gotten married to someone I don’t even like that much? I wouldn’t have gotten around to reading In Search of Lost Time or War and Peace, I wouldn’t have written Absolute Anhedonia or Street Players. I would’ve just been miserable and sacrificing my time going to the grocery store to pick up almond milk for some ungrateful broad or watching Bachelorette or some such shit with some annoying woman who ruined my creative life and spark. Or it doesn’t even have to be a relationship, it could just be choosing to back down from potential pussy: is getting laid always the best move? Everyone loves pussy, we all think it’s cool, but then what? You’re just alone again in a room with an empty ballsack and you’ve learned absolutely nothing other than a reminder of what a vagina feels like in case you’ve forgotten. I know that was all very crass, but what I’m trying to say here is that life for a man comes down to restraint more often than not. We think it’s all about being assertive and aggressive and a big man and so forth, but it might not always mean that.
Sometimes it isn’t about what you choose to do in this life, but rather what you choose not to do. To go back to an earlier example, let’s talk about Kanye West for a moment. Whether you approve or disapprove of his recent actions, you cannot deny the fact that exercising restraint might have been a good idea for Kanye. Compared to the alternative, (not talking to the public as much — which would mean keeping his various contracts and all the wealth that comes with that in this example), I would say exercising one’s free speech is not really always the better option. And to go back to the Will Smith example, that one wasn’t even speech, that was just a straight up assault. One dumb moment of faulty judgment, and a lifetime of showing up, being reliable, and the perfect image of a good guy is destroyed like *that*. There is an argument to be made about having a spine and doing what you feel is right in your heart of hearts and being a Gandhi and taking a stand and all that shit, and I do not disagree with any of that. All I’m saying is that restraint is a very important tool to have in the box, and should not be overlooked as a force of nature. Just because it’s not as in your face of an action as an action action, does not mean it isn’t still doing something. People say, “Silence is violence,” with regards to protesting and things of that nature, and I would say instead, “Restraint makes a saint.” No news really is good news sometimes. The idea of a fighter “sitting this round out,” is important. That doesn’t mean you’ve lost the whole boxing match, it could very well mean you’re winning in the long run.
Another personal example I could give you from my life would be my artistic work. There have been times where I have written things and I have made the executive decision to not post it. Or if it’s a YouTube video I might take it down after a couple days. I have written entire novels that I have made the conscious decision to not publish. I have made the decision in the past to completely abandon film projects if I thought they would not turn out perfect (due to the right casting not being available). I have made these decisions not because I am ashamed of something in the work or believe what I posted to the world was wrong in any way, but because I didn’t want to court that kind of attention for myself. In some cases, no new art from a person would be better than bad new art. This is a bittersweet fact I’ve learned about publishing any kind of art: once you post something out into the world, you don’t get to decide how another person will take it. You could literally write a poem called, “I like pussy,” and someone somewhere will interpret the exact opposite and think you’re gay. Sometimes being an artist can be so exhausting the only right move is to retreat into solitude and create only for yourself and private eyes.
As a man, you’ve really got to “pick your battles,” as they say. Especially in the business sphere or court of public opinion; it doesn’t seem to do a guy any good to be in the public eye any more than he has to. I have always admired the way guys like Jay-Z, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Donald Glover, to name a couple of examples off the top of my head, do not really fuck with social media excessively. Or dudes like Dave Chappelle and Louis CK. These are all dudes considered to be cool and talented in their art forms, and the thing they all have in common is they are not courting attention for themselves unnecessarily. Now of course, I always have to entertain the other side, and I do understand that this embracing of social media is part of what makes a guy like Kanye so appealing to the masses. He isn’t afraid of speaking recklessly (or “the joys of being wrong,” as Chappelle would put it), and this is refreshing in our climate. Another take that argues against my whole restraint bullshit can be found in 48 Laws of Power, “Court attention at all cost,” which is all about how even bad attention can be good (btw, the book contradicts itself because one of the other laws is, “Always say less than necessary.”) Again, I can’t say I disagree with a person who chooses to exercise their free speech at all times rather than practicing restraint. As an artist, I understand that mentality. And I usually believe people should be forgiven for being generically goofy and so forth.
But at the same time, as an artist I also cannot stress the importance of practicing restraint enough to you. A phone is like a stick of dynamite that can ruin your whole life if you are not in charge of your faculties or not maintaining your composure. This is a problem that not only affects majorly iconic figures like Kanye West, but even your average nobody like myself. I unfortunately do not have the luxury of disappearing from social media altogether because I am a nobody, and I have to have an online presence a bit. Which means that at any given moment, I always have the thought, “Could this post be the thing that makes people block and run away from you?” It is a very difficult line to balance, because on one hand, you do want to let people see your personality a bit, which could possibly help you to promote your art and so forth. But at the same time, the more people learn who you are as a person, you could also be ruining potential business as well.
More and more, I feel restraint is an important weapon to have in your arsenal because this whole instantaneous reputation ruining thing is a fairly recent phenomenon. I doubt that in the 70s, for example, it was as easy as it is today for an artist to completely ruin the public’s perception of them in such a short span of time. If some famous rock star wanted to do that in the 70s, they’d probably have to make way more of an effort, and then the word would eventually travel and get out that the person in question was fucking up, etc. As artists, we should all remember that with the good these devices and techno bullshit bring us, they have also brought us a world of bad. If you hate Jews, for example, you are probably less likely to channel it into your art these days. Today it feels like people are less inclined to speak through their art, and they are more willing to take the rush or hit of the social media attention instead. I’m not saying that is what Kanye West was doing, I don’t know him personally and can’t speak on that properly, I’m just saying it’s a predicament unique to our particular time as artists. In the past, if a person wanted attention it was a lot harder to get, and people had to try harder.
That’s it for this one. Remember: sometimes no move is the best move.