#thisbeat

Declarative openers, half (roughly) the human race, the uglier sex, the protruding genitalia - there’s a lot to be said about men, and man in general, but, man, as a man, I have to admit, it’s a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in.

manbeats from mancaves:

There’s a lot in that vocal sample, it’s got that Mad Men art deco Jazz vibe to it, and honestly that’s the kind of man where maybe we saw the last shade of the man I refer to. Before this gets all confrontational as another installment in the battle of the sexes and what have you, I’ll state for the record that I’m all for the feminist movement. It’s frankly a disgrace that woman’s rights are still an issue, but that’s another topic, another day.

What I’m referring to is specifically the pursuit of happiness, the right and privilege to further oneself, to better oneself. This isn’t exactly what you’d say being a gentleman - being a gentleman was being a misogynist, a slacker, a facconable image of higher society. That’s why the phrase goes - “you’re a gentleman and a scholar!” Meaning, the two are not necessarily inclusive identities.

That’s the main problem for me - some people learn with their body, some people learn cognitively, some people just don’t learn at all. But in the end, what happened to improving ourselves?

It’s all turned into improving everything around us, as if we’ve reached some kind of pinnacle existence. We’re not gods, we’re not deities, and this attitude that we’ve come where we need to be, that life is good enough, that it’s the things around us that need to change that is man’s current and greatest hubris. We’re frogs in the well, there’s so much more to learn, whether it’s about each other, ourselves, the world and the universe around us. When did we lose ourselves? Well, maybe it’s just always been that way - history and its rose-tinted spectacles.

But I digress - what I’ve really been experiencing is more in the lines that there’s just too much goddamn difficulty in sorting out the noise in our lives. It was once my dream to own a man cave - blindingly giant technology, excess power coursing through black boxes, delivering to me to the greatest digital soma of the New World.

More recently, I used to dream of owning a study in my home - bookshelves, a piano, nice furniture, dim lamps, maybe a small humidor, whiskey cabinet. What’s the difference between that and a man cave - in the end it’s all about self-indulgence, about creating a box where your body atrophies and your mind sinks. “Study” they say - but the action really lies on you, not your things.