Whether you’re a christian or an atheist, believe in evolution or creation, there’s one thing we can most likely agree on. Men have historically been the backbone of civilized society. I’m not just talking about military service or even police officers, but even on a broader scale than that, by and large men do the hard work to keep societies running. If you grew up watching Mike Rowe’s “Dirty Jobs” you know what I’m talking about.

Men build houses. Men maintain sewers. Men work oil rigs.

Now don’t hear what I’m not saying, I know women work in those fields too, but the vast majority of those workers even to this day are men.

The problem is, we are seeing less and less of these types of men. Manliness is a dying trend.

Men have a particular role to play in society. They protect. Society seems to be disagreeing with that concept as of late. We’ve started raising fewer boys into men. Manliness seems to be rejected more and more, and so is cultivated less and less. We call it toxic to make it more palatable to reject, but the outcome is more men who aren’t manly. They can’t change a tire, let alone replace their brakes or change their oil. They don’t know how to catch a fish, let alone filet one or clean a deer. They don’t know how to be men. How to protect. How to provide.

I’m reminded of the old saying,

• “Hard times create strong men.
• Strong men create good times.
• Good times create weak men.
• Weak men create hard times.”

It seems clear to me we’re in the latter half of that sequence, and we’re due for some strong men.

I believe manliness can be summed up in one sentence: being capable of providing a safe, comfortable life for those you love.

Let’s break that down, starting with the word safe.

Safe from what, exactly? The elements, for starters, so being able to put a roof over their head. But also safe from harm.

That doesn’t just mean being able to fight, but also knowing how to avoid unnecessary fights. And when fights are necessary, being able to win them. A blog post from Warrior Poet Society said this, and while it wasn’t specifically about manliness, I think it fits well: “Violence restrained by love and aimed at protection.”

Men should be capable of extreme violence, to be able to protect those they love. You don’t need to be an elite operator at the highest level, but know how to fight. Carry a gun and know how to use it. Be capable of protecting those you love.

Now what about comfortable?

Well, there’s physical comfort. This starts again with a roof over their head, but also the ability to put food on the table. You don't have to know how to hunt or fish, although that helps. It can be having a stable income to afford the ever rising cost of groceries.

There’s also mental comfort. Knowing you have a reliable car and don’t have to worry about affording to fix it if it does break. Having enough savings that you can survive a few months without income. Being able to put the kids through college if they want it. (I don’t think they should go to college anymore unless it’s for specialized professions, but that’s a topic for another day). Essentially, being able to mitigate stress for those you love.

There’s another piece to this that ties into all of it, and that’s purpose.

A lot of men today don’t really have one. Not a real one, at least. Not something that actually demands anything from them. And when you don’t have that, you end up drifting. You go to work, you come home, you distract yourself, and you do it again the next day. There’s no direction behind it, no reason that pushes you forward.

And when there’s no purpose, that drive doesn’t just go away. It goes somewhere else. Usually into things that don’t build anything. It’s not that those things are the root problem, it’s that they’re filling a space that shouldn’t be empty in the first place.

Purpose comes from responsibility. It comes from having people rely on you, or having something that actually matters depending on you. Providing, protecting, building something. The more responsibility you take on, the more purpose you end up with. And the less you take on, the easier it is to just stay comfortable.

And comfort is part of the problem. We’ve built a world where you can avoid doing anything hard and still get by. But if nothing is required of you, you don’t really grow into anything. You just stay where you are. Men aren’t built for that. We’re built to push against things, to handle weight, to deal with responsibility. Without that, something feels off, even if you can’t explain it.

That’s where I think a lot of the confusion around masculinity comes in.

We hear the phrase “toxic masculinity” all the time now, and at this point it gets applied to just about anything. There are real things it should apply to, sure. Lack of control, ego, reckless behavior. That stuff is real, and it’s a problem. But that’s not masculinity itself, that’s what happens when it isn’t controlled.

Somewhere along the way, strength itself started getting treated like the issue. Being assertive, being capable, even just wanting to take responsibility can get framed as something negative. And that doesn’t make sense, because those are the same traits that allow men to protect and provide in the first place.

The goal shouldn’t be to get rid of those traits. It should be to have control over them. A man should be capable of doing harm if it’s ever necessary, but have the discipline to never use that unless it actually matters. That’s not toxic, that’s the whole point.

When you take away purpose, and then tell men to suppress the traits that would let them step into it anyway, you end up with something worse than “toxic.” You end up with men who don’t know what they’re supposed to be, and don’t have the ability to become it even if they wanted to.

Masculinity isn’t the problem. A lack of purpose and a lack of discipline is. And if you don’t have those, it either turns into something destructive, or it disappears entirely.

Don't fall victim to laziness.

Do hard things.

Be a man.