What Makes A Man?

What Makes A Man?

     “How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?”  And so goes the anthem of manhood.  Throughout history there have been many different ways that an older adolescent male could earn the right to be called "man".  But that begs the question; what is a man?  By definition, a man is someone over eighteen with a penis.  But the thing is, we all know people over eighteen with a jimmy, and some of them can hardly be considered a man.  Maybe the question isn't “What is a man?”  Just maybe, the real question is “What makes a man?”     

     According to the popular Nickelodeon show SpongeBob Squarepants, a man is someone who has acquired “a taste for smooth jazz”.  This hypothesis dies when you consider that many people we know to be men don’t care for smooth jazz.  So then what does make a man?  I do have one answer.  That answer is courage.  A man is someone with courage and a penis.  Being able to stand up to anything that threatens the well-being of the ones we love; I feel this is part of what makes a man.  It’s not about brute strength because it doesn’t matter how many notches are carved into your pistol.  It’s about what those notches stand for.

     Courage is definitely part of what a man is made of.  But just as you can’t have peanut butter without jelly.  You can’t have a man with only courage.  With only courage a person would be ignorant, and lack decent judgment.  A man also needs to possess wisdom.  A man must know right from wrong, and be able to discern between the two.  This is only acquired through learning from experiences and mistakes.  Intelligence is what separates us from this blogs mascot after all.  Intelligence is the answer for why you have anything.  Everything is obtained because of those moments when you used your brain the way it was intended to be used.

     Still, a person only possessing courage and wisdom is cold and calculating.  It takes a third, very special, ingredient to complete the trinity of a man.  That third and most important ingredient is love.  Love is the reason someone’s courage is activated.  Love is the reason we make the decisions we do.  But just as sword is only a lone metal stick without a war.  Both courage and wisdom are useless without love.  Gentle hearts and firm hands are the makings of a man.