There is a business in Oklahoma City called the Cock-O-The Walk Bar & Grill. The word Cock-of-the-walk has an interesting definition. Idiom Definitions for 'Cock of the walk' is:
A man who is excessively confident and thinks he's better than other people is the cock of the walk.
Today, in my reading, I came across another work that caused me to stop and think: cocksureness. The word cocksureness contains the word cock which is a euphemism for the penis. I do not think this connection is accidental. I have noticed, throughout my life, that most cocky humans almost always have a cock. It is almost as if being a man comes with a predisposition to be cocky, cocksure, sure, certain, self-confident, decisive, in control of one’s self, of one’s family, and of the world around you, that a true man has will power, a stoic manner, a high threshold for pain, and self-confidence.
Even among males the nerds, the geeks, the wimps and the losers, such as myself, we still know how a real man is suppose to act. We may actually disapprove of the macho man stereotype, and yet we find ourselves attempting to display those traits, especially if the circumstances call for them. I may not be a he-man, but I still sense that this is what a man is supposed to be like. I may believe firmly that the expectations of males is unrealistic, that no single man portrays all of these traits, I may think striving to be A REAL MAN is stupid yet I will still, from time to time, make a run at being A REAL MAN.
Why do so many of us testosterone poisoned human beings strive to be some sort of prototype man? Are these male traits etched into our DNA, or might this be conditioning? Perhaps my image of a man grows out of a historical, cultural inculcation of values. Are we raised up to have this image of being a male, or is it hardwired into us via our genetic makeup?
Could my near instinctual view of maleness, come from the way I was raised? Little girls are given dolls, and little boys (at least back in the 1950s) were given cap pistols. If I were to speak out against this male pigeonholing, I am certain I’d be accused of protesting too much, opposing these manly traits because I lack manliness myself, and there might also be some comment about me being light in the loafers, or a girlyman.
Obviously all men do not share the same values, or have the same image of maleness, just as all women do not share the same image of femaleness. I think of women as being dependent, physically weaker than men, they allow their emotions to flow freely. I expect a woman to say “Ooooooh, it’s a puppy,” and a guy to say, “nice dog.” Women are nurturing, nesting creatures and men are providers, ridged, and usually incapable of talking about their feelings. Women want a commitment and marriage, and men want sex and to avoid commitments whenever possible. My image of what women are like is as meaningless as my image of what men are like. We are not run through a machine and pressed into a particular shape with set behavioral or emotional traits.
Sometimes we explain away the behaviors of men that don’t fit the stereotype, by saying, “He has a strong feminine side.” A man who can use the phrase “my feminine side” is most certainly an open minded progressive man. Or gay.
There is hardly anything more manly than going on a quest. Knights went on a quest to find the Holy Grail and in that effort they did battle with dragons, other warriors, and with themselves. But ultimately, all quests are about asking questions. The one on a quest is a questioner.
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers.
From Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke:
The questioner man does not really fit with the qualities of manhood so popular with the Southerners all around me now.
My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate -- that's my philosophy.
The Skin of Our Teeth,
1942 by Thornton Wilder
My parents could never be the parents I thought I needed.
My wife turned out not to be the kind of wife I thought I was getting.
And I fell far short of my own expectations as a father, husband, son, and provider. The selfish thing that is most important to me is my art work, and even there I am not filling my own needs.
I am going on a quest. I will be asking a lot of questions. I will ask questions that, as far as I can tell, have no answers. It is interesting to notice that it is very common for a question to have ONE answer. But every answer can fit with an infinite number of questions.Where am I? Who am I?
How did I come to be here?
What is this thing called the world?
How did I come into the world?
Why was I not consulted?
And If I am compelled to take part in it,
Where is the director?
I want to see him.
~Soren Kierkegaard
For example: If I say, "what does 2 plus 2 equal? The Answer is 4. The question has one answer. But the answer 4 can answer millions of questions. 4 -- How many people were in the car? How old is your daughter? How many years will you be in college? How many years have you been married? How many eggs do you want in your omelet?
You know, I read that there is a lot of worry about the loss of privacy because of facial recognition technology. The fear is that there will someday be more cameras on the street, and Big Brother will be scanning the faces of everyone on the street. The aim would be track down and capture criminals, but what if that technology is used to track down and detain people who have the wrong partial parties, or the wrong religion, or the wrong writers, or the wrong artists. If the Chinese had facial recognition during the Cultural Revolution Chairman Mao Zedong could have totally annihilated the intelligentsia of China . But the problem is not going to be the ability to gather the data. The problem is going to be that facial recognition is going to gather too much data. Facial Recognition will scan every face and soon the number of faces will be so vast that only the highest priority targets will be found, because it will be just too complicated to analyze every single face. Too much information can be just as bad as too little.
Answers are everywhere. The right question brings order to the mass of answers. Here is my plan: to go on a quest for questions. I will not be cocksure of anything. I will, however, have powerfully potent doubts. Doubts give birth to questions.
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