“To Say Anything Positive”
Masculinity, Affirmation, and Reading bell hooks
“Wounded men are not often able to say anything positive” — bell hooks
Possibly one of the most important books I’ve read is bell hooks’s Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. For those of you who know it, it might make sense when I say it is hard to pinpoint why. That is because the layers of epiphany that this book evoked were frequent and many.
But I do want to bring something I found there to the surface:
“The work of affirmation is what brings us together. When men learn to affirm themselves and others, giving this soul care, then they are on the path to wholeness. When men are able to do little acts of mercy, they can be in communion with others without the need to dominate.”
What I’ve gained from this passage-as-summary, is a new way of being. In my own journey of becoming and restarting, I have come to see that I have a robust capacity to appreciate. Likewise, I wither in environments that are competitive to the point that they are centered on domination.
What this passage unlocked for me was a new way of being in that I understood in a clearer sense that I don’t need to play by the rules that men should be dominate and “in charge,” which often leaves my ability to appreciate unused and useless, and work towards bringing the world together a little by stating my appreciation, by affirming what I see. Men can trade dominating for affirming, and that is the type of man I want to be.
As I’ve come to practice living in this way, I feel more centered on my core strength.
More soon,
Trevor