'Masculine Principle'? - Part 1

These are the things I think about in the rain while packing air filters into a golf-cart. Various conversations inform the thoughts, and my heart seeks to differentiate and structure the thoughts in such a way to make sense of them. While I'm so much more comfortable making general statements, for skepticism's sake I start with myself.

I'm one of the first of a sort of refined cultural prototype, the product as has been in demand: a somewhat masculine man, masculine by nature and in spirit, but also prematurely domesticated and generally emasculated. The resulting years have been a late- or second-adolescence, something that was never informed by my sub-culture and so never pursued but intrinsically felt to a boiling point. This has been an ongoing reality, not 'climaxing' in any sense; it is suppressed and then climaxes from time to time. This is not a new insight or revelation for me; there are very real, underlying reasons for my gravitation toward apocalyptic poetry, British spelling, pastoral ministry / theology over a corporate career, and so forth.

Some have referred to 'it' as the 'masculine principle.' I'm not sure I like the terminology because of its empirical and extrinsic undertones; the 'masculine principle' is actually something of a mystical, embodied, natural nature that I can only take something of a stab toward - of course, part of my inability to describe is most likely intimately wrapped up in my immaturity and emasculation in relation to the reality. The so-called 'masculine principle' - at least as I feel it in my particular bones - is something of a need for clear differentiation, a need to draw distinguishing lines in the world, to operate within a hierarchy, to clearly know one's and others' particular roles in the world; it is a desperate need to be needed, for one thing, but also to contribute uniquely and/or meaningfully to the family and society, to know that one's forceful testosterone-driven urges can be channelled into activity that can be appreciated or - ideally - desired.

Obviously, this is not a 'principle' unto itself. The need to be needed, the need to have one's testosterone-driven urges affirmed in positive action, implies that there are other parties that fulfill and affirm this need. It is also just as true that some of these 'other parties' - particularly and most importantly a woman - have needs and desires of their own that are complemented by masculinity. But as to the 'other parties' in a societal and sub-societal construct: what happens to role-seekers in a confused hierarchy that offers two unsatifactory roles - androgeny or brutality?

-r