Fear is the mindkiller

Let's take questions of what we're expected to do as men by society out of the equation for the moment; let's simply talk, instead, what drives you to overcome the things that ordinarily afraid of? Is it honour? Is it love? Do you believe that concepts of honour and justice are outdated and irrelevant to a man today, or do you feel that as men, we still have an obligation whether women like or not to be seen as the stronger of the sexes and be willing to sacrifice something, whether it be a moment of pain or even life to protect?

I ask this, because it seems that by the day, the light goes out on the warmth that used to be in the world, as more young men become undisciplined and almost savage; is it too late to fix this, and is it our responsibility as older men who understand what drives us to lead the way and teach the men of the future how they should be behaving in society?

I should add that while this is a question based upon the fundamental roles of gender in society, it isn't an invite for open sexism, as I'm talking about what drives the male ego, and what it would take for us to "step up to the plate", so to speak.

I'm not quite sure of what your asking Tom.....you seem to pose many questions in this post..

Fear is certainly not gender specific nor is the ego that supports it. Humanity is aware of mortality and that is the seed of fear.

Also,,as purely a comment,,it is unfair to the vast majority of young men and women to include their sense of moral and ethical behavior within the silly stereotypes marketed to sell drama.

Most people have set their eyes to the top of the hill and though we can slip and slide from time to time,,lose our balance and sometimes our way,,our hearts are generally focused on a better place.

The media portrays the exceptions.

IMHO.

Lenny

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Lenny said:
I'm not quite sure of what your asking Tom.....you seem to pose many questions in this post..

Fear is certainly not gender specific nor is the ego that supports it. Humanity is aware of mortality and that is the seed of fear.

Also,,as purely a comment,,it is unfair to the vast majority of young men and women to include their sense of moral and ethical behavior within the silly stereotypes marketed to sell drama.

Most people have set their eyes to the top of the hill and though we can slip and slide from time to time,,lose our balance and sometimes our way,,our hearts are generally focused on a better place.

The media portrays the exceptions.

IMHO.

Lenny

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Apologies, I used "fear is the mindkiller", because I'm writing something relevant to that. I guess I'm saying in a sense that as I perceive it, society is getting more and more violent as the years progress, and while this trend isn't restricted to any specific race or gender, a good portion of it tends to be a result of lack of leadership and the teaching of a proper direction for us as men to behave. I'm not saying that the past is perfect at all, but in a sense you're right; the media is responsible.

I guess fundamentally though, what I'm asking is what drives you as a mane these days? is it a sense of honour, for example or something else?

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tomfum said:
I'm not saying that the past is perfect at all,
is it a sense of honor, for example or something else?

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No,,the past is not perfect. Actually, if you look upon it in any detail it was far more violent than today especially considering the vast increase in our numbers. We become exposed to it upon instant images and that skew our perspective considerably.

If you lived in the Sahara and were surrounded by TV screens portraying monsoons you would think the world is a rainy place....

Everything is perspective,,,and experience. That is why I find conclusions so difficult to draw. In both cases mine,,,,as yours,,,are constantly changing.

I think honor has always been with us in some sense but that too is defined by cultural exposure. What duty is to me is far different than a Hindu woman carrying water to her family....

But,,as a man,,,I simply try to keep my nose pointed North...North being up,,,and up being better...

IMHO.

Lenny

for me, it is about survival.... growing is essential... we accept the past, we accept the present, we shape the future... we set examples.. we keep hope alive.. we have to...

North American culture encourages people to be strong while allowing the weak to fail with next to no help. I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, that's just the way it is. As baby boomers get older and their children reach university age, they tend to be quite affluent and allow their children to have "too much" freedom, so to speak.

I don't really feel like I need to sacrifice anything in order to be strong. We sacrifice every day when we pay our taxes. We are not free to do 'anything' we want. Such is being human in this modern world.

I don't see the world's light going out. There are good people everywhere. Some young people are savages, but I tend not to associate with them.

There are two reasons I am driven as a man. The first is to enjoy myself and contribute to the lives of others while doing so. The second is that someday I will be a father.

ok here i go as i stand on my soap box .......

As we grow older im in the Generation X stage .... we still had morals cos our parents had the ability to discipline without a drastic recourse ... The Gen Y and the Milliniums well because our society changing from a society of thinkers to a society that based on human pleasure dont have to work as hard as we did

back in the 80's the removed religion from the class rooms this opened the way for a vast demoralixation of the US populations ... the introduction of cable tv to the internet changed the perspective of people vastly ...

I dont know how many of you remember actually using a dictionary or thesaurus to do our reports we read ... now we can download books onto our ipods


its just to easy for the younger generation these days hell they are making cars that can park themselves

what is next ..... globalization ..... we ship our manufacturing to china our crops to south american and our tech support to india

we as us citizens are gonna have some nasty issues arisn

what do these kids have to fear nothing because we will always bail them out

off the box

dave