Being A Man

This is going to be my first post in this blog and I decided to make it about manhood. I suppose that's an interesting way to start this out but I think that it's very appropriate. I started this blog to express my ideas, my stance on the issues, and my love for business. I believe that everything that makes me who I am is part of what makes me the man that I am, so I feel that before I start to talk about ideas and other wishwash, I should start out by talking about manhood and the type of man that I am. If it doesn't make sense to you, that's quite alright; however, it does make sense to me. I'd like to start out with a letter from the editor of Esquire's Big Black Book, the 2006 version.

"There's been a seismic shift in the way American men regard their success. Think back to our fathers and grandfathers. Think back to one of the defining elements of the idea of American manhood: sacrifice. When we were a middle-class-country, a man provided for everyone else first - wife, children - and then himself. He sacrificed his own desires for the good of the family.

My father had a particular dream: that one day, after all the kids had gone away to school, he'd buy himself a Porsche, a little two-seat drop top. Looking back, I doubt he ever actually expected to own such a car, but the car was beside the point. The car was the MacGuffin, the superficial marker of success, the metaphor for raising a family, supporting a family, providing the foundation for sons and daughters to succeed on their own. That was the success. The car was what you talked about instead.

The world, or at least our part of the world here in the United States, has changed. Men are different. Men are different because the world in which men live is different. We're generally not the sole breadwinners anymore. For many of us, reaching a certain level of success means making more money than we strictly need for now and the future. Maybe we have enough, maybe we're overleveraging ourselves, but we are now people who believe that we deserve to have that which we want.

Luxury is a part of our lives in a way it never was for previous generations. Luxury, of course, means different things to different men. To the guy three years into his career, it may mean a $3 cup of coffee every morning, a $75 haircut every other week, and a perfect, new $400 dress shirt every six months.

For another man, it's the $5,000 watch, the villa on Mustique, and a second or third car he doesn't strictly need.

Whatever stratum we travel in, we are a consuming class. We don't defer we see what previous generations of men would have called extravagance as our right. We're able to purchase the things we want. The only variable is how well the things we choose, the things we allow to define us, will endure - how well they will carry their meaning through the years.

Esquire's Big Black Book is about the value in things. There are reasons - truly fascinating reasons - that the best things in the world have meaning beyond their cost. There are reasons men dress as they do, in all the shades of variety in which we dress ourselves. There are ways to ease our passage through the world - ways to help success along that have stood the test of time but that are thoroughly modern.

This publication is also about instruction. It's about how one comports himself now that he is successful. It's about guidance in all the areas of life - how to dress for any occasion, how to fold a pocket square, how to gracefully leave a party early - that can be mysteries to the modern man.

The Big Black Book is not about simple lists of where to go or what to buy but what the story is behind the place or the thing that makes you proud to own or experience it. It's about value, but not value that can be assessed by looking at a price tag. It's about explaining the intangible. This is the fascination. It's about making the right choices, choices that define us and make us glad to be alive." - David Granger

I like that letter because I feel like it embodies the concept of manhood. Of course it also talks about the things that are offered in the Esquire magazine, but it reminds me of what being a man is really all about. It's about being a classy man that is willing to make sacrifices for what he believes in. It's about being a man that is willing to provide for his family. It's about being a man that pursues his dreams. It's about being a gentleman. A respectable man. That's the kind of man that I consider myself to be.