The first rule of manliness is that we don’t talk about manliness.
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I read Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club about 23 years ago, right before the movie was announced for release. I was at my most nihilistic and certain the movie would be a terrible bastardization. After watching with my sons for the first time, it holds up as one of the best book-to-screen adaptations I have seen before the advent of long-form streaming shows. Although wildly different, the endings of each are disappointing.
The questions asked by the story are intractable. They have been forefront in my mind since I became a single male in sole charge of two boys.
The men in Fight Club are desperate for meaning. They would sacrifice their lives for a taste of it. Yet, none of them can achieve that meaning on their own. The central character, the avatar of (perhaps “toxic”) manliness, Tyler Durden, is a schizophrenic split within his figuratively castrated host. In fact, castration features heavily in the film with regular returns to the theme of separating males from their genitalia.
We are disconnected from our bodies, our sexuality, our strength, and our search for meaning. I have met women who cannot name one impressive man in their history. Impotent in every sense of the word, there is a famine of positive masculinity in the world.
Nihilism and schizophrenia are not the answer. Individual responsibility and work are a start, but we need more than these to inspire men to greatness. I don’t know what. I think and try everyday to model compassion and strength to my sons. It can seem like a futile effort when faced with the madness of the world.
I’m trying to be vulnerable and explore these questions out loud, to seek the answers in my sons and others. I lean heavily on scripture to teach me the lessons that society has deemed unimportant.
It’s a process I hope to share and grow through these posts. I will keep asking questions and hope to be humble enough to receive the answers.