What does it mean to be a man?

Here's what I learned from my father:

Your job as a man is to see that your people are taken care of.

Not to self-actualize, not to seek illumination, but to see that your people are taken care of: that's what it means to be a man.

If that means that you have to work two jobs, then you work two jobs; if that means that you have to pick up a gun and shoot somebody, then you pick up a gun and shoot somebody: not because you want to shoot anyone, not because you want to work two jobs, but because you're a man, and that's what you're here to do.

What does this buy you? Privilege, status, praise? No, none of the above.

But here's the corollary: in taking care of your people you will, in fact, achieve both self-actualization and even, in the end, illumination.

Call it the Way of the Tribe.

This is how my father lived his life; this is how I've tried to live mine. (My mother's attitude toward life was much the same, but more tightly focused. It was for her to see that her immediate family was taken care of and, to her last day, she always did her best to do just that.) Being single and without children of my own, my focus, admittedly, has been somewhat different from that of either of my parents.

But—speaking as one closer now to death than to birth—I can say that, in all, it's mostly been a good, and fulfilling, way to live.

I'm fortunate in that my extended family has always tended to operate in much the same way. Growing up, there was pretty much always a kid living in someone's house who hadn't been born to the house, but who needed a stable place to live: such-and-so's school friend whose parents couldn't take care of her at home, say. To my recollection, these were informal arrangements, rarely amounting to anything so official as adoption, but my guess would be that this is pretty much how things have always worked, down the millennia. No one saw this inherited pattern as in any way remarkable; it was just what you did.

No wonder I've always been a tribalist.

Even after my sister and I both left home, my parents didn't stop. For as long as they could, my parents—old people themselves, by that time—had nearly always adopted someone older than themselves that didn't have anyone to care for them properly, who they saw got to the store, and invited over for holidays.

It's what we're here to do.

Now, there are some truly heroic folks out there who operate by much the same principle, but who manage to view the whole world as their people. I admire such saintliness, but it's not for me. Like my mother, I need a stricter focus.

The world is a big place, and I'm only one aging guy with a limited amount of time, energy, and resources. I have to be selective. Likewise, there's much that I can't do anything about, especially the big stuff.

On a macrocosmic level, I can't do much about the war in the Middle East. I can't do much of anything about Tr*mp, or the creeping authoritarianism that he represents.

But I can see that so-and-so gets her lawn mowed every week, and has somewhere to be for Samhain.

So that's what I do.

Folks, it's what we're here for.