The Frozen North

... and it is well frozen - about -7°C outside, last time I looked. Flights went with no hitches, our single suitcase was about the fifth item out on the baggage belt, and we got a bus as soon as we walked out the door. Shower and sauna last night, after a huge dinner, and I got to doing some thinking.

The thinking is that I need this little bit of wind-down at the end of the year, and that it's much more meaningful here, where I can be assured of almost perfect quiet when I want it, and when the list of things I'll have to do in a given day consists of making the bed and eating and drinking what's put in front of me. Mars and Venus has in it the idea of the male habit of taking what it calls "cave time", a period of time in which a bloke will take refuge somewhere quiet and do something irrelevant until he feels better about problems that are bothering him. This is in some ways a week of that, and it really does set me up for the year.

Therefore, I'm immensely grateful for it, and for inannajones for putting up with me while I'm fuzzy-headed and stupid from relaxation. :)

Men Behaving Well

And then there are the thoughts that arise out of having time to think. Something I have been intending to do for about a year now is to set up a community for men. Not men-only, in the sense of theladiesloos being women-only, but a community intended to discuss masculinity.

I was talking about this in the pub with a few folk before Christmas, and the word "language" came up. There is an established, even an academic language in which to discuss femininity. Concepts like "empowerment", "validation", and the like have definitions and meaning, and are the building blocks of larger concepts. There isn't really any such thing for masculinity - all anyone can draw on is the language coming from thinking about relationship, like the "cave time" I mentioned earlier. But there should be ways of discussing masculinity outside of relationships.

Some - although I don't expect anyone reading this to be among them, really - might question why this would be necessary. The answer to that is that there is something observably wrong with men in the modern era. Last Christmas, I saw a guy kick a crying girl. He evidently thought that this wasn't anything unusual, and was rather taken aback that anyone would actually challenge him on it. I've seen other behaviour before and since, and heard of some quite recently, that makes me think there is something wrong.

That something wrong seems to be that there are no longer any role models for men. The "strong male figures" of our time are footballers, politicans, and actors - none of whose behaviour is exactly exemplary. And the more badly they behave, the more media coverage they get. It's no wonder that there are guys out there of my age who are assholes, because they've never seen men behave in any other way.

So I want to create a community in which this can be discussed, in which the idea of role models, of codes of behavior, of just not being an asshole, can be discussed, and hopefully in which terminology can be developed to talk about these things in a more meaningful way. I'm sure some of this has been done already - I can't be the only one to have noticed this - and putting that material where people can see it will also be good.

So, if these topics interest you, head along to decentblokes.