🪵 Compounding effect of male emotion (or lack thereof)

Hey everyone,

In a hurried craze to submit my post on time last week, I missed writing the introductory paragraph - whoops!

I must admit that sometimes it’s hard to know what to say outside of the week’s topic - even to a small community like the Log - when there is so much happening in the world.

However I don't think that should deter from the goal of this blog which is to promote critical thought and learn a ton. I learn the most by listening and I find that that is a decent place to start when it feels like the whole world is unfolding right before our eyes.

In any event, “I hope this email finds you well."

Roots 🌱 

Something from me

That meme is actually as good of a segue into the ponderings for this week as we’ll get: the default form of male confrontation. In a moment of stereotypical doom scrolling before bed last night, I saw the news of a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. Rather than present the facts of a story we’ve all heard many times, it’s a time to reflect on the correlation between masculinity and mass shootings.

As mentioned before, for such charged topics, I find myself first thinking about my own experience with the situation. As it relates to my identity as a guy and my environment as a wee lad, I think about even from a point of privilege how violence is saturated in our culture and enabled in our homes.

As young dudes, we idolize the James Bonds, the Tom Cruises, and the macho characters that exist within blockbusting films. We fear the Darth Vaders and the Lord Voldemorts of fantastical worlds and all the while we become exposed to violence as a norm of conflict resolution. It’s not explicitly encouraged, and I love Star Wars and Harry Potter, but the socialization of these behaviors exists in a vacuum where there is no clear alternative. Combined with prolonged exposure to Call of Duty, Halo, and other games of power exchange, we’re wired to see violence as assumed. Almost expected!

As discussed previously on the Log, models of masculinity that we look up to early on play a role in how we grow into society. While culture sets one standard of violence, the household presents another malleable standard. For my generation’s fathers and their fathers before them, there remains a thread of war torn emotions that have gone untreated and unacknowledged in the US. Obviously not every family is a victim to the traumas of war, but it represents a generation of male identity that endured the worst of humanity and was provided no outlet for their emotional digestion. And beholden to standards set before their time, they couldn’t help themselves.

That suppression of male emotion persists and is implicitly passed down. I’ve been told that my dad’s dad, a former naval officer who I never met, was a total hard ass. And negatively so. But the remnants of my grandfather can be seen in my own dad, who while not a conventional hard ass, has until recently lived a life of emotional unawareness. And that, just like the absence of male emotional regulation in culture, presents negative outcomes for those around him. Were it not for my mother being my primary model of masculinity, I too may have continued the trend of my male ancestors.

The macro environments of culture and the micro environments of the household dictate the environment of our inner self. In a world where violence is glorified in culture and historically persistent in the male identity, it becomes all the more necessary to acknowledge these inputs as a guy and create space to discuss the alternative of conflict resolution and power dynamics.

Trunk 🪵 

How we grow

On shifting how the topic of masculinity is presented to men:

Toxic masculinity assumes an awareness of the spectrum of masculinity. For many dudes, an awareness is required before unpacking the definitions or where certain behaviors fall on that spectrum.

Within that awareness, an important step is required to reconcile with views of self as well as how we present to our environments. As this counselor pointed out, helping fix our inner worlds can so often be the place to start before shifting the ways in which we interact with society.

How to shift that mentality is a larger question and one that is constantly in flux. I have so much hope (!) for what comes next in that these conversations are beginning to take place.

Branches 🌲 

Something from you

Thanks to Berk in Oakland, CA for the recommended listen in follow up to last week’s Log:

And another from last week - thanks to Myles in Bend, OR for sharing these two Substack resources related to mental wellbeing in young people and society more broadly:

Leaves 🍃 

Something to leave you with

Linkedin - Toxic Masculinity and Mass Shootings

• “Dark but related.... toxic masculinity ---> mass shooter pipeline.” Thanks to Annelise in New York, NY for sharing the original nudge for today's Roots a couple months ago.

NBC News - Masculinity overdue for reckoning

• Another overview of the state of things before last night. Outlines great on-the-ground efforts from groups across the country reframing masculinity for young men.

Vox - Why is so much going wrong at the same time

• Not trying to compound on the woes here! There is a positive upshot at the end. A way to make it through so to speak. I haven’t researched this enough to take a stance but if nothing else, this article gets you THINKing. And that’s what the Log is for after all :)

The goal of this blog is to learn a ton and to help others do the same.

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I’m stoked to have you here and talk soon!

Greg

Wind 🌬️ 

What I’m listening to

Sometimes it’s nice to hear something that feels bigger than yourself.

Movie scores can be wonderfully grounding.

Recommended loud with headphones 🙂 

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