What a Man Should Be and How a Woman Should Be Perceived; or How I'm Learning To Be A Man IV

Disclaimer
Many different speculations attempt to explicate the roles of men and women, and there have been a lot of differing opinions that clash with one another as different beliefs of standards attempt to coexist. The following is my opinion and merely the way I view it, and so I'll take full responsibility of it, but you should also realize that I accept that this may not be the only way to perceive it, either.

Introduction
I look around and see so many people struggle with their identity—particularly at my age, when we're supposed to be making the change from boys to men. It's heartbreaking to the point of rage when I see that so many of my people are stripped of their happiness and put in front of a series of obstacles all because fathers decided it was too hard for them. What did my friends do to deserve it? Nothing. Seriously, nothing at all. It moved me to tears when I realized that almost all of my closest friends had to grow up without stable fathers.

But there's a resonating inference that comes from this. Roles are real and expected, and they are invaluable to life. Otherwise, we spend our lives bumping around in the dark, hoping to find the way in a chance encounter with the light. From experience, it seems that we're most happiest and free of anxiety when we've found our particular roles and find that we're able to play them.

However, that leads us to the question, why are we the way we are? Or, better yet, what are the implications that arise from the way we are, in accordance to that salient trait that seemingly precedes all of our other traits, our sex?

Marriage as the Paradigm
I'm now twenty-five, and I'm surrounded by weddings and marriage. Lucky for us, I believe that this is a good model to explicate our curiosities because marriage is ubiquitous and sacred in almost every culture on earth. The rituals may be different, but in every culture that I know of, the entire ceremony, as well as the focus of the people who attend it, revolves around the bride and groom. And thus, I believe that we may extract our inferences from them as well. What better paradigm to explicate our roles as men and women than an occasion that joins them together, one practiced indiscriminately by almost every culture and nationality?

Our roles in relation to the world can be uncannily compared to how we perceive a bride and groom at a wedding. Let me explain.

Men should identify with the groom.

The groom represents at that moment all the things a man should be. He is secure, knowing that he gets to be with his beloved. He is the very definition of a steadfast promise as he makes his vows to his bride.  He represents strength and security—because, otherwise, why would the bride have chosen him?—and the marriage indicates that he willingly and joyfully made these covenants. That is why we must identify with the groom.

If we don't, then our focus is with the bride. That's just how our minds work: we need an object to receive our attention, so if it's not with one, then it's with the other. So if we're not looking at the groom, considering what he's thinking and how he's feeling at this momentous occasion, then we must consequently be looking at the bride and wondering about her instead. And, undoubtedly, we will wonder about her desires. We'll look at her and wonder if she'd look at us the way she's looking at her groom.

Honestly, how else could we men look at the bride, especially when she affords absolutely no attention to give us, but looks upon another man with all the intensity of her desire? We would wonder if we could have had her, if there could have been a path of circumstances that could have led her to desire us, even sometimes going as far as to wonder if we could still get her to look at us and find a satiating victory over the groom who thinks he's gotten her... But then, how dare we insult the groom at his own honoring by lusting after his bride? It has to be lust, it can't be love. Love simply cannot be if we're not happy that she's happily joining with the object of her love; then it's jealousy. It'd be quite different if the bride is unhappy and sees us as the true object of her love instead; but alas, we're in the audience, and it can be inferred that's where we are because we were invited for the reason that the two central figures of the occasion are in love.

Furthermore, women should identify with the bride.

The bride indicates what I believe all women should be. She'll be loved and protected. She'll be fulfilled and cherished. She will forever hold the gaze of a lover. Women should look upon the bride and relish in the love that she'll receive and the promise she holds.

But if women don't identify with the bride, then their attention shifts away from the rightful perspective, and then I'd imagine that the women in the audience will begin to desire the groom and the things that he promises her. Because he'd be the reason why they envy the bride, for the promise of protection and constant love he makes to her. But then, how dare they covet what is promised to the bride and to her only on this occasion, while they were invited to share in her joy during her ceremony?

An Answer to Our Insecurities and Anxiety
Now, this is what the bible says about the church in Ephesians 5:31-32:

     31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will
     become one flesh." ³²This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

If Christ is the groom and the church is the bride, then things all begin to make sense about our insecurities and shortcomings. I believe that this may also shed light on homosexuality, at least in a biblical sense.

See, if the church is the bride, then men must identify with the bride as well, for we are invariably part of the church. But because of the fact that we are inherently men, we can only perceive the bride as the groom perceives the bride. We then ultimately identify with the groom in that we must emulate his feelings and promises for the church to become real men. We must protect and provide. We must be strong and steadfast. That is why we gaze upon the groom, and all else becomes mere reactions to insecurities. And if we see the bride as being our own while seeing the groom as being our exemplification of our duties, then this biblical paradox makes perfect sense (Ephesians 5:33):

     However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her
    husband.

If we don't believe we're up there, getting married, then we must consequently perceive ourselves as mere audience members—for, whatever the case may be, we're still present at the wedding. And then, we don't see the church as a beautiful bride, but our eyes become hoodwinked, and we see a desirable woman of the world instead. Then, insecurities begin to flare. Why aren't we respected? How do we receive that attention and affection that the bride shows? How do I shift attention from him to us? In short, how can we manipulate the situation so that we can undermine the groom and attain the bride's gaze? We feel envious of the groom and lustful for the bride. But how dare we desire the bride in God's own ceremony?

We shouldn't kid ourselves. A lot of everything we men do is based on how we can best receive female attention. We constantly compare ourselves to other men, competing with them. It starts at an early age when we do downright stupidly silly things so that pretty girls will notice us. We never stop to think how it is that Christ views the bride. But the best way to love a woman is by paying close attention to the Rightful Groom.

Women should identify with the bride because the bride is cared for and protected by Christ, as all women should be. They are loved for who they are and are secure for the fact that they are already accepted, as the wedding indicates.

However, if they don't, then they must invariably see themselves as part of the audience watching the event unfold, and they are jealous. Once they convince themselves that they're merely a part of the crowd, their eyes become veiled, and they don't see Christ, but rather a desirable man who offers what they want but doesn't notice them. They can't know it's Christ, because if they did, then they'd recognize that they're the bride, and it would negate their perception of themselves as mere members of the audience. And if they don't, they find themselves as simply witnesses, and they jealously see that the bride is fully appreciated and loved, while they wonder why they themselves are unappreciated for their beauty or unloved for their character, and they become insecure. All of this pain and anxiety!--when, in actuality, they are appreciated and loved, and it should be, it is them up there, being married to the True Gentleman.

Brief Thoughts on Homosexuality
As for homosexuality, well, it becomes a little clearer for me in this paradigm.

Men who don't believe that they're up there being married believe that they can't identify with the groom. Some opinion of ourselves causes a block that hinders us from identifying ourselves as the church and the groom who loves it. However, they look upon the bride and identify with her, unable to make that bridge to the groom who cherishes her. And they want to be loved and appreciated as she deserves to be loved and appreciated--for all people want to be, whether men or women--and they see and respect that other men can deliver this for them. I honestly don't see what's wrong with this except that it means we as men must forsake our role as proactive lovers and leave our bride to spend our lives seeking other men as the beloveds.


For women, they identify with the bride, but they then look at themselves and regretfully believe that they're not her--they don't see themselves as the rightful beloved. And then they find this same sentiment in other women as well, and so these women mutually fulfill this role for one another, and they find happiness in this way. I honestly don't see what's wrong with this, either, except that they must turn away from the True Groom in order to lift one another up.

Honestly, I struggled with the notion of homosexuality briefly in my past, and this paradigm fits adamantly for my ambivalence. I was emotionally very unstable growing up.  It took a moment of profound thought to overcome this struggle in identity, and now I have a relatively very low level of insecurity as opposed to my former self, whatever it may be that people may think or say about me, because ultimately, I'm secure because I know I'm not.  But that brief struggle gave me insight into the insecurities that lead us to believe we're counter to the expected roles, even rebellious to it, and how it can consume our souls to make us turn away from what we're called to be.

How To Rebel Against Society; or How I'm Learning To Be A Man III

Disclaimer

Before I say anything, I should make it clear that I'm not referring to you underdeveloped, whining, self-nominated "rebels" who like to become angry and smash things, throwing tantrums all over society's floor, only to later receive a bottle, get burped, and gently be rocked to sleep while being told that everything's going to be alright.

This is about true rebels, the ones who know that this world is seriously messed up and that the only way to exist is in defiance of it—and for the ones who have truly graduated from even this level of thinking to realize that true defiance is love.

Why We Feel the Need to Defy

It seems to me that many of us in society own a rebel's heart and soul.

I remember when I was much younger, my friends and I encouraged one another to break the rules, and then we heartily praised each other when we did so.  It was like we innately saw the irony of setting rules when, on a much more profound plane, there existed the crooked values of humanity, and so we broke them satisfyingly knowing that we were against such skewed notions of justice.  And then we laughed about it; for, really, how else can we react to such despairingly ubiquitous and heavy lawlessness?

But here's the real question: why do we possess such a rebellious heart and soul?

I believe it's because it's only natural to oppose the world.  It's as if we're all inclined to recognize the world for being the unjust, inconsiderate, and discriminating place that it is, and we become angry about it at a ripe young age when we are just young enough to behold the world with untainted eyes while we're just old enough to understand its intrusion.  Alas, that was the basis for much of the anger that my friends and I felt against the rest of society.  We are all designed to know what is fair and real.

Now, it's all a matter of whether or not we succumb and acquiesce to this unmoving world.  Or--do we continue to fight, continue to struggle, until we're rewarded for our defiance?

Because this is what I see—many of us have a period of rebellion early in their youths, but rather than compromising our anger, we compromise our defiance.

Goodness gracious, our dissatisfaction is JUSTIFIED; why in the world do we close our eyes, breathe deep, and SWALLOW IT??  It's time to man up.

We let go of our loftier ideals because it's easier to accept the tipped standards of the world and learn to function by them.  But really, the "world" is just a bunch of people who themselves are confused about what justice truly is.  And shouldn't it be up to us, the rebelling souls, to show them what is compassionate and just?  The souls of the very people who "make the rules" desperately need us to persevere in our defiance, to rage on the battle against them—which, ironically, becomes for them in the end—and convey a deeper truth through our struggle, for the very people who are most sure of their lives are, by our definition anyway, the most lost.

Views to Carefully Consider Before Rebelling

Now, in my opinion, there are just two ways to view the world.  When regarding the world, one may either want to control it or to save it.  There may be a third, but it involves being either ignorant or indifferent to the general population, and so there's no consequence in skipping it at this point.

There are those who simply just want to control the world.  This is a simple exercise of power.  Either they want to outright flex their will and have their desires become done or, when this isn't a viable option because of a lack of resource or credibility, manipulation becomes the satiating choice.  Napoleon Bonaparte fits this description well.  He was obsessed with gaining supremacy, but, as we all know, his hubris was his downfall in his attempt to overtake Russia and its geography.

And then there are those who wish to save the world but ended up trying to control it instead.  The English Church, The Holy Wars, and the "White Man's Struggle" all come to mind.  So does Adolf Hitler.  While people gathered behind Napoleon for his power, people supported Hitler for his ideals, namely that the world could only become a better place by eradicating all impurities.  Unfortunately, however, he had a severely simple and crippling notion of what an impurity was.

So how do we truly save the world from its moral plunders?  We can try and save it by our own ideals, but then we must coerce our ideals to those who oppose it, thus committing the terrible transgression of desiring power to control.  It seems to me that the process must rather be an inductive approach, starting from specific cases to a generalized idea of how to save ourselves.  We must start with the people; only then can we truly progress.  But even then, many people lack the capacity, or even the desire, to begin change.  And we've learned that we can't force it, or else we begin oppression, a thing to be avoided for the very fact that we'd like to save people from it.

Democracy was a great example of this.  The American government was by the people for the people.  But this inductive approach to politics gave way to a deductive perspective and a desire for control of a centralized generalization of how to govern the people—a formidable and respectable beginning gone awry.

How To Rebel Against Society

And thus comes the realization.  We can neither force a revolution from the head, for there is always the danger of seeking power to further our own progression in the world, nor can our rebelling hearts watch from the side.  Well, isn't it obvious?  We must use ourselves as the very pawns.  We cannot tell people how to act, we must become the act.  We're not forcing an idea, but we are exemplifying one, and thus, if they desire to emulate it, then we've done our part.  And if we perish, we perish.

Think of love; when you unexpectedly act lovingly to an absolute stranger who looks to have met with hard times so very often and recently, there's always this confused silence and frown as he sits and considers the rarity of such an act of love; but I think what confuses him the most is how it makes perfect sense, a direct contradiction to how he's learned to live until now.

After a group of people rejected a homeless man I met, I walked the ten minutes with him to the nearest MARTA station to buy him a ticket.  I respectfully declined his request for money to go buy the tickets himself, but I told him I'd go to buy it for him myself, and he looked at me with a confused but glad face and said, "Now that's real."  For the next forty-five minutes, he told me about his life, and there was more than one time that he hugged me and laughed.  He even went out of his way to keep two other men we met on the street from coercing me for money.  His name was Adrien.

I learned an important lesson from Andy Stanley in Atlanta's 2011 Catalyst Conference, a movement for young leaders and aspiring world changers, when he said, "Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone."

Thus, we must become strong and steady rebels.  If the world is diseased, then we must remain the cure.  Never through coercion or manipulation.  We must keep ourselves credible so that our ideals may be considered, mulled over, and then finally either accepted or rejected, but it should never be rejected because they see that we can't meet our own standards.

And so, the only true answer to this lies in the notion of free will.  It must be exercised for there to be any real salvation.  One must choose to be saved, or else it becomes an exercise of control by the savior, thus rendering him not a savior at all, but an oppressor.  This is the kind of God we have, a true savior for the fact that he doesn't force his hand but rather sent his son—who else could he trust with such a profound role?—to defy the world freely as an exemplification of the rebellious life we must lead.

Because if we sympathize with the world's plight; if we are tired of the power hunger and manipulation; if we are angry, then why would you add to the world's list of maladies by being stoic, rioting, or becoming bitter?

Man up.

Become counter-cultural; become a cure; become a rebel.

How I Found And Kept The Perfect Girl; or How I'm Learning To Be A Man II

Before I go into anything, I'd like to say one thing: many, many, many girls are too clingy or too insecure because of issues they have with their fathers.

This becomes a basis for a lot of arguments, blaming her for her insecurities, and ultimately deciding that she just isn't worth the trouble.  You know what?  Man the eff up; become the man she needs.  It's all too easy to say it's too hard, to blame her for her father's faults; but when we love a God who is also the perfect father, then we realize that we as men are his vessels and tools to fill their lives with the love they long for.  We must be everything they need us to be because we know that we are all lacking, especially, and sadly, fathers.

So man the eff up and give her the affection that God her father wishes her to have.

Now, there are two—yes, just two—qualities that you need to find in the perfect girl.  These are personal experiences of mine, but maybe you can walk away with some universal generalizations that could help.

Find a girl who smiles constantly, determinedly, almost excessively.  And I don't mean the smile that manifests because it's a defense mechanism against uncomfortable situations, or a smile laced with seduction or other ulterior motives, but a smile simply because.  Look hard; it's easy to discern the discrepancies.  You need to find a girl who smiles because of the simple fact that there's a reason she smiles.  It means she loves life; it means she finds good in the world; it means she advocates kindness; it means she is optimistic.  I could tell you to find a girl with all of these individual qualities, but it's just easier to tell you to find a girl who just loves to smile.

Or, better yet, find a girl who constantly and joyfully laughs.

I was in my little makeshift office in my home, writing at my desk.  I was stressed—my writing wasn't going as quickly as I'd thought it would.  I'd been off and on at a novel for a couple years, but now I was fully devoted to it as my time freed up; but the progress was just too slow for my taste.  At the time, my girlfriend was off in some other part of the house with my dog, a pit bull and boxer mix called Rain.  I was in the office with my own little rain cloud hovering above me when, suddenly, the house was filled with laughter.  I need to describe this laugh to you—it's just a really great laugh.  I don't want to say it was childish, but it definitely resembles a child's laugh.  It's one of those laughs that comes from deep within the soul—you know what I'm talking about, right?—and there was no doubt that she was fully engaged in it with her whole being.  I went to go see the reason.  You know what it was?  It was because my dog was rolling around on its back in the yard.  That was it.  And she'd seen it do that so many times before, but it still made her laugh, like, fully laugh.  Soon after, my own mood lifted—and so I'll do all I can to keep that laughter in my life.

Secondly, find a girl who loves to become consumed with creating.  I know what you might be thinking—that this can't be a good thing, that when she becomes consumed by other things, she won't find time for you or your needs.  Well, you know what?  If she didn't spend time to create, then you'll probably be complaining about how needy or clingy she is.  It turns out, in the end, you're the insecure one, and you'll find fault with anything.  Support her fully in her endeavors, and she will thank you.

Yes, you need to find a girl who becomes consumed with creating things.  It's one of her loveliest figures when my girlfriend gives her whole soul to styling her photoshoots, cooking a meal, or just sitting there with her shoulders and head bent over to focus on her lap as she laces up a friendship bracelet.  It, of course, has its implications: she owns the faculty to manifest what she feels progressively; she perceives that she is not helpless; she is full of hope and will give all her time and energy to progressing it; she is creative (duh..); and, above all and when appropriate, she will devote everything to and with you to creating love.

If you just find a girl with these two qualities, everything else about her becomes a bonus.

I used to think I was good at relationships because I've been in many.  However, it dawned on me that this wasn't the case, since I've failed so many times.  But I have found three simple rules that's sort of floated around in my past relationships and solidified as invaluable guidelines for the girl I love:

Be strong for her;
be gentle to her;
and, above all, treat her with respect (for cryin' out loud...).

-----

Oh, if you want to see a perfect girl, here's my girlfriend's website (you get to see her smile and her creativity): EnamoredWith

I Love Writing; or How I'm Learning To Be A Man

I'm now twenty-five years old.  To put it simply, I've been wondering about what it took to be a man.  I'm writing to make sense of my life by narrating portions of it, and also because I hope to share universal implications that may come from my specific example.  You see, I've been writing my whole life, and I'm now going to try and use it in a way I've never used it before.

I started out writing mostly because I started out reading.  Coming to America at the age of six, I was bound to books by parents and teachers alike so that I could learn the language.  What they didn't anticipate was that I would hold on to them dearly.  I was the only Asian-American boy in my class, so I sought refuge frequently in books.  My mother indulged me; she took me to the library often, and I'd come home with a stack of books that I had to steady with my chin.

And every little boy wants to imitate what they know.  During times I wasn't imitating Power Rangers, I was writing.  I wrote a whole series of stories chronicling the adventures of a computerized King Kong while in elementary school.  My teachers took notice and tried to help me flourish.  In fourth grade, I was sent to a state-wide writers' conference for elementary students.  There, we got to exchange stories and do readings out loud for one another.  The following year, against policy, I was sent a second time.  This just goes to show that, though we may view the education process as an impassive system, teachers are human beings who dedicate their lives to teaching children, and they find excitement and value when it becomes obvious how to help, as long as you proactively show promise.  They jumped at the chance to help me.

My high school years were great.  I never had so much fun, but I never achieved as much, either.  For my graduation outfit, I got to enjoy the adornments for the Key club, the French club, the honor roll, and a few others; but my favorite award went something like this:

The school announced a school-wide poetry contest.  Everyone was to submit one poem to their literature teachers.  About a week later, my teacher excitedly told me to attend the award ceremony for the contest after school the next day.  I went with some of my friends, and I ended up winning the award for third place in the Family category.  I took it graciously and left early with my friends.  The next day, my teacher came up to me once again and asked why I hadn't been at the award ceremony.  I assured her I went and told her I had received the award.  She shook her head.  She said I had missed the final award they had given out.  She said it was the award for the one the entire school chose as their favorite, the Principal's Award.  She said I should've stayed.  She reached out and handed me the award.  It was one of the greatest unexpected things I've gotten.

After high school, I went to college and pursued what I knew and enjoyed, writing.  I graduated as an English major, and I spent most of my four total years in college writing essays; and I daresay I got good at them.  It was very formulaic, really, thinking up arguments for my theses.  Sad to say, I got so used to writing essays, in fact, I forgot how to take tests, and I didn't do as well as I pleased in my electives towards the end of my college career.  Also, I graduated a semester late because I took off a semester to work full-time at a sushi restaurant and sent myself to England to study abroad for the summer.  After college, I found work teaching English, once for an entire year in South Korea.

And through a series of very peculiar events, I am about to enter Seminary school.  And from what I've heard, what do you think the majority of the grades depends on?  Writing.  It's almost poetic how I heard this only after I made the choice.

I feel now that I'm able to write a little more freely ever since I received a white envelope on Thursday containing a letter that announced my acceptance into Columbia Theological Seminary.  As shallow as credibility may seem, I realized that as long as I glorified God, he would put me on a humble pedestal so that I may say what I will about him.  I've even just finished a novel, though upon rereading it, it can tend to be a little mild and slow at times, but I was mostly trying at my stylistic inventions.  However, now that I've worked on it, I'll see it through and attempt to publish it.

I think that all men want to make an impression of their lives while they live.  Some men do it through fear and intimidation in the people around them, counting on these momentary opinions to construct their identity.  Some do it by trying to leave some type of legacy to memory.  Others do it by instilling their lives' values in others, while still others try to leave behind a brand that commemorates their part in it.

But I think that some of the greatest in history chose to write.