Relevance and Impact; it's what men seek.
I want to be found relevant.
I want my ideas to be heard and recognized as valuable. I want to have something of substance to contribute. I want to make a contribution of measurable value.
Thus… if my present audience dismisses me as irrelevant, having offered my earnest best, I will seek another audience. I will not complain; I will simply bid them my leave, and seek another audience. I will go somewhere where there is some receptiveness to what I have to offer. And I shall continue my search until I find them—those of like mind to my own; those with whom I can identify; birds of my particular feather, if you will.
I want to make an impact.
I want my ideas and my efforts to make an impression on others, on my social circles, on the world at large. I want to be significant, not insignificant, not inconsequential. I don't need to change the world, but I hope that some small segment of the world will acknowledge my contribution.
Thus, if I discover along the way that my efforts have made no difference, I will turn inward. I will at least find solace in the fact that my efforts have made a difference to myself. I will at least have made my own life easier or better, though I would have liked to have helped others along the way.
This, I believe, is likely the narrative that you will hear—should you pause to listen—from any man, from the greatest to the least; from the rich and famous to the homeless vagrant. Men of all walks of life will tell you this narrative.
Why?
Because this is the call of manhood, which every man has heard. Some may have snubbed the calling (even at a young age), preferring easy living or a hedonistic lifestyle instead. Many simply gave up the pursuit, acquiescing to a life of mediocrity, due to a combination of societal forces and a lack of internal fortitude. But I would assert that every man, at some point in his life, has heard this call: the call to Relevance and Impact.
Now, my question to the women of the world is this: Do you care? Do you give a rip about what is on your man's heart? Do you care what he thinks, or how he thinks? Do you suppose you might change your approach toward him, were you to learn something about how he processes information, or how his motivations are formed? Are you at all interested? Does the subject touch your consciousness at any level?
The reason I ask is this: My observation, since childhood, is that women pretty much don't care. They just don't. They're too caught up in all the trappings of our modern feminist movement to be bothered with the consideration of how a man thinks. Girls are not taught that the thought life of the male is anything worth investigating.
Boys, on the other hand, are trained to consider the plight of women, and to strive to right the wrongs that have been perpetrated against them.
Now, I'm not saying that this is wrong. Men need to be aware of these things. I'm just wondering if it goes both ways. Because I don't think it does.
Ladies, please chime in. Do you care?
"My husband spends all his time either at work or in his man-cave drinking beer and working on his motorcycle," she said. "It's like he's just not interested in me or our children's lives."
I would say to this wife, "Please refer to the first four paragraphs above, and tell me: 1. In what ways have you encouraged your husband in his call to manhood? and 2. Have you ever shown indifference toward his efforts in relevance and impact?"
If the answer to number 2 is yes, then you are experiencing the natural consequence to your indifference, as described above. And all your positive efforts at number 1 have been nullified by number 2.
Sorry, but it's really that simple. Yes. It's that simple.
I know you don't like this, but it's just the way it is. Sorry.
But perhaps this analogy can help bring things into perspective… Is it reasonable for a man to strike his wife, and then remain incredulous as to her unwillingness to be intimate with him? Only a brutish idiot would claim that this man is not a brutish idiot. We know this because the man has crossed a line, and he obviously doesn't care for his wife as he should.
Women today are not taught to care for their husbands as they should. That's all I'm saying.
So ladies: Do you care?