Why men are innately fragile (and why this is a good thing)

Over the past few years, I have observed a new discourse surrounding masculinity, specifically on ‘male fragility’. With a microscope on the behaviour of men, there has been a lot written attempting to explain our behaviour. Many are written by women.

The idea itself is hardly new; Ben Greenstein published a book called The Fragile Male back in 1994. Its re-emergence in the 21 century was intensified by the scope of social media. I feel ambivalent about this. On one hand I an open to being transparent about one’s mistakes and shortcomings, but on the other hand, it specifically targets where men are most vulnerable.

That’s what fragility is: vulnerability. But it’s unusual to use the word “vulnerable” as much as it’s unusual to use the word “fragile”. In this instance, the words are too impersonal, they sound too made-up. Internally, the sensation is too close, too intimate, that a separate word feel redundant.

You could say, that the masculine is innately fragile. You can feel that it is entwined with fear. You can observe that the masculine is poised for one movement: collapse.

Men are meant to collapse
We are built to collapse.
We are designed to collapse.
Men live with this sensation hanging above our heads. It is so close to us, having a hold on us, so intimate that we can rarely find the words to it.

Until you remember that his body speaks. If you look out for it, prepare for it, feel for it and listen with your hands. If you seek for the center of fear and pain, you may sense that his body collapse.

There is very little need for men to talk about it. It is as apparent as breathing, as waking up in the morning, brushing our teeth and taking a shit. There’s no reason to speak to it, and nobody will listen to it anyway.

Who would listen to our fear, on the edge of terror. On our weakness, on the edge of collapse. Our pain, on the edge of despair.

Who would listen to us, when simply listening to ourselves is too much to bear?

When men grow up in this modern world, surrounded by technology, disconnected from nature, we lose sight of ourselves internally. We lose track of ourselves, distracted by the external. A whirlwind of study, work, family and travel. All the meanwhile, there is an intuition of a great chasm inside.

The solutions offered to us are always external. They remind us that we are nothing. And we should buy products to make us something. And this will make us fulfilled. All the while, our insides grow more and more vacuous.

If you listen to our bodies in this moment, it will give you silence. There is no energy, no spark to listen to. Our bodies do not respond to the material. The masculine does not respond to material growth.

Only when you remove him from this world will his body speak. Away from stuff and things. Away from the chase of the fulfillment. Away from illusions of status. Offer him emptiness, nothingness, a reminder of mortality. Offer him collapse, and his senses will awaken.

In the moments leading before death, Zen monks and warriors would construct their final poem. A death poem. Verse of pure spirit.

Only on the verge of collapse will men’s true colours shine. His character and his strength will be tested, and the masculine will respond. At the sharp end of the ordeal, the spirit will rise.

This is the key moment, when the efforts of willpower are exhausted, the posture of self-image is depleted, when men succumb to their internal pain. This is the moment of transformation, and in this moment his body speaks. Unwritten verse akin to a death poem. A reckoning in truth.

What does touching the fragility provide to men?
Clarity. That life is simple.
Resolve. That the moment is now.
Understanding. That life is fleeting and fragile.

The fear of fragility is the fear of death. Life is fleeting and fragile. We avoid the issue because we fear it makes our lives meaningless. We try to find answers in the external. By running away from it, we return towards it.

Turn into I say. Turn and face the mortality.

The initial fear is within. He fears his own fragility. His efforts will serve himself, and his scope will be finite.
Once he overcomes this, his awareness will expand. His focus will turn outside of himself. The subsequent fear will be the innate fear he feels for those he loves. His people, his home, his environment. His fear will be familiar, his understanding of the fragile.

This is the birth of masculine strength. It is a reflex to fragility.
Leading with strength leaves him hollow.
Embracing his collapse, he will rise.

To protect his world, his loves, that which posseses the fragility he knows too well. He’d rather die than let them suffer.