Manversation

What a human being should be able to do!

One of my favorite authors is Robert A. Heinlein. I fully intend to write a post or two about the absolutely sublime science fiction he wrote and the uncanny understanding he seemed to have about where society was (is) headed. While I’m writing about a different topic today, one of my favorite quotes from his work is quite relevant. It’s from “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long” in Time Enough for Love :

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects

The above quote described the typical American of a generation or two ago

The American male of up until about the 1970’s or 1980’s or so was the epitome of this idea. (Or so I’m told, I mean let’s face it, it’s not like I’m old enough to remember much before the 1980’s). But, for the men my age (early 30’s), think about your fathers (or if need be your grandfathers – maybe the modern decline began a little earlier than I hypothesized above).

Chances are your grandfather knew how to keep his car running, participate intelligently in a town hall meeting, hunt, fish, do at least a basic amount of carpentry, take care of any basic electrical wiring that needed to be done around the house, maybe do a little welding, help his wife plant and maintain a garden, along with a whole host of other things, such as house painting and balancing his checkbook, that were so elemental to him that he probably wouldn’t have even thought of them as skills.

Going even further back, think of the rugged pioneer men and women that helped shape this great nation. Alone or in small communities on the frontier, they were their own doctors, protectors, providers, sources of entertainment, and makers / builders of all objects great and small from their homesteads to their socks.

But today, we have become “insects” or specialists

Fast forward to this modern life where we sit as so many drones in the hives of our office jobs, pushing papers, crunching numbers and otherwise doing our own special little piece of the overall work. Many friends and acquaintances were surprised, if not downright shocked, that I would choose to paint the outside of my house by myself rather than just hiring it done. Just a sampling of the reactions I got “Isn’t it pretty high?” “You should just hire a crew, it will be so worth it!” and my personal favorite from a co-worker who refuses to paint anything including interior painting (is there anything easier than that?), “Homey don’t paint!”

I’m not picking on my coworker; his attitude is actually quite typical of some modern Americans in general and the upper middle class in particular. But, I think we’ve lost something as a nation by gradually adopting this attitude. It’s true that we need to specialize more than we used to, but I don’t think that the average office worker should give up changing the oil in his car, learning to shoot a gun, or how to wire a new electrical feature in his house. Similarly, someone such as a mechanic who already works in a more manual field shouldn’t shy away from learning some things about how computers work. This pioneer spirit, “can-do” attitude and willingness to take on new tasks is what made America great in the first place and were going to need to turn to it again to stay on top in these new times of globalization and economic crisis.

Some encouraging signs

I would say that the attitude of certain so called “menial” tasks being below oneself for a professional-type person peaked in the 80’s and 90’s and that we might be seeing an encouraging reversal of the trend now. More and more people are becoming interested in recovering some of the lost skills of the average homeowner and how-to networks like HGTV and DIY network are thriving. More and more men are learning how to cook.

Also, as a woodworker, I can attest to the fact that woodworking as a hobby has seen a tremendous surge in popularity in the last ten to twenty years. We are in what I would describe as a new golden age of hand tools with high quality chisels, saws, and hand planes available from modern manufacturers such as Lie-Nielsen, Veritas, Adria and Blue Spruce Toolworks, the like of which have not been seen since they began to decline in quality sometime after WWII.

So, I think after years of being confined to “professional” office-type roles, the modern man feels a craving to round out his personality by being creative, getting his hands dirty, learning how things work and being truly useful.

Are you ready to get your hands dirty?

All right, maybe you’ve been inspired to manly action by this post. How does one get started learning some of the manly skills of the past?

• Volunteer. maybe a friend or a neighbor or your church needs help with an upcoming carpentry project. Offer to help a friend change the brake pads on his car. Getting involved in someone else’s project is a great way to learn new skills without spending any cash of your own. If you really want to go all out, I’ve heard that getting involved with a habitat for humanity project is a great way to learn some new skills.

• Look for classes at a community college. We’ve got some great community colleges where I live offering classes on a whole range of interesting topics including: carpenty, electrical wiring, plumbing, welding, photography, web design, pottery, automotive repair, etc. etc. With a relatively low commitment of time and money (most of these classes meet just once a week and cost about $300 - $400 for a 15 week class), you can learn a rewarding (and potentially money-saving or even money-making) new skill.

• Ask a friend – I’d be happy to teach any of my friends anything they wanted to know about woodworking. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of friends who’d be willing to share their expertise with you too.

• Next time you have to hire a professional, ask if you can watch or help. The last time I lived in an apartment I watched the plumber repair a leak in my shower faucet and learned a little bit about plumbing. You’re already paying them, might as well make it a learning opportunity too.

• Look it up on the internet. Well, if you’re here reading a blog on the internet, it’s not as though that’s never occurred to you, but seriously, there’s detailed instructions for everything from charging a battery to cooking Indian food available online these days. If you can’t find any other source, you don’t have an excuse any more for giving something you’re interested in a try.

Above all, I’d say just get started and don’t be afraid to fail. (Of course, make sure you know all the relevant safety procedures if you are trying something dangerous such as working with power tools), but don’t be afraid of messing up the project either. If it’s a minor home-improvement type project and you follow basic safety guidelines, the worst that will happen is you’ll just have to hire the professional you were going to in the first place, and you’ll still have learned something in the process.

The next time you have a new project to tackle, it will be even easier and before long you’ll be on your way to being one of those all-around useful guys that are admired by all around them!

Rescuing “Manversation” from the gutter

A casual Google search of the term “manversation” will reveal several definitions, interpretations and blogs based around this term, many of which are rather crude and limited in their scope. It seems that the popular view of a ‘manversation’ is that it is a conversation among men about (usually vulgar) topics that cannot be discussed when the ladies are around. However, it is our endeavor to expand and improve the definition of “manversation” with this blog. To us, a manversation is all about talking with the guys about the stuff that really matters – life and personal development, family and friends, work, leisure, health and wealth. It’s a friendly conversation among male friends to bounce stuff off one another and make sure we’re all on track to be men that will be admired as having lived a life worth living and provided for those around us. It’s a place where we turn to each other for inspiration, articles about interesting, manly activities and pursuits, and reflections on what it means to be a man in the 21st century.

The once simple role of the man as protector and provider has been expanded with new demands to be equal caregivers in our children’s upbringing, to be strong yet not emotionless, sensitive yet still manly. While many of these new demands are welcome and frankly long overdue, such as being more involved in the care of our children, some simply represent the potential minefields a modern man must negotiate in a world that has grown increasingly politically correct and hostile towards traditional manly attitudes. In short, it is a challenging time to be a man and live up to manly ideals of the past. And yet, that is what we must do if we are to continue to thrive as a society!

Four unique points of view

What makes this blog unique is that it features the writing of four men with common interests but different points of view. We’ve known each other since high school or earlier – Nate and I have been friends since 2nd grade! We’re all in our early thirties, hold relatively unexciting but stable office jobs, and we share a passion for outdoor activities such as camping, hunting and skiing / snowboarding in our beautiful native state of Colorado.

One of us, Bol, is married and has two beautiful young daughters. Brian and Nate are also both married but don’t have any children yet. Nate and his wife are trying to conceive but Brian and his wife aren’t. (Though he tells me they aren’t really being careful not to either)! Finally, there’s me, Chris, a perpetually single man currently enjoying the freedom of the bachelor lifestyle but thinking (for the first time ever) that it might be awesome to start a family too!

So, you’ve got four lifelong friends, with different talents, ambitions, and dreams. We each bring a unique point of view to the table when it comes to what it means to be a man and we hope that as we all find our voice as writers that we will help each other grow and provide some interesting and useful content for our readers too. Over the next few days we’ll each reveal a little more about ourselves in a series of introductory posts then we’ll proceed to delve into our topics of manversation!

Join in on the manversation

We hope that you’ll come along for the ride and we think there will be something for most men to enjoy. Here’s a list of some of the topics we’ll be covering soon:

• What I learned from my recent job interview
• The renaissance of the renaissance man
• A thought or two on cooking
• Dreams and goals: building a home “off the grid”

If you like what you see over the next few days, please subscribe, or join in on the manversation by posting a comment below!