The 5 Switches of Manliness - Legacy

8/10/2019 The 5 Switches of Manliness - Legacy

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The 5 Switches of Manliness: Legacy

by Brett on June 13, 2011

inA Man's Life,On Manhood

We started the last post inthis serieswith a surprising factthat only about 33% of our ancestorswere male. Well begin this post the same way:

When the Titanic sunk, the survival rate for the rich, first class men (34%), was lower than

that for the poor, third-class women (46%).

Most people know that the Titanic had less lifeboats than were needed for the number of

passengers, and that the richest passengers were given first dibs on those limited seats. And yet,

the numbers tell an interesting tale. What happened? Many of the wealthy men decided to let the

women, regardless of class, get on the lifeboats first, choosing instead to go down with the ship

themselves.

Women and children first.Youve probably heard this expression all your life, so much so thatyou may not have paused to ask yourself the reasoning behind itwhy have the lives of

women historically been worth more than the lives of men?

The Expendability of Men
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The answer goes back to what we discussed last time in theSwitch of Challenge and can be

traced to the biological differences between men and women. A woman can only get pregnant byone man (at a time) while one man can impregnate multiple women. A group with five men and

one woman is not going to be able to have as many babies as a group of five woman and one

man. This is why a womans eggs, and her womb, have always been much more valuable than amans seed. And why, coupled with our greater physical strength and propensity for risk, men

have always been slotted for societys dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. Like hunting and war.

This is true from primitive times down until the present day. Societies had to protect their

women if they wanted to survive and thrive.

In World War I, there were 9.7 million, almost exclusively male, military deaths. The number

boggles the mind: 10 million men went off to war and never came home.Enormously tragic, buton a certain level we accept it; it is inconceivable to imagine 10 million women being sent to the

slaughter instead.

6,026 American service membershave died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Only 2% of the

fallen were women.

Men made up 93% of the 6,000 on-the-job deaths last year.

We cheer and are touched when we hear stories of men laying down their lives for women,such

as this man,who covered his wifes body with his to save her from the Joplin tornado and lost

his life in doing so. It would be much more surprising to hear a story that happened in the

opposite waywhere the wife sacrificed her life to save her husband.

It is also still common to hear newscasters and journalists report on an accident or disaster by

saying that the death toll included evenwomen and children. Even. Because the death of men isone thing, but the passing of women makes the tragedy seem all the more terrible.
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So we know what the practical result of the greater expendability of men ismen have

historically been called upon to do societysmost dangerous jobs and have often lost their lives

in doing so. But have you ever stopped to think about the effect of this system on the malepsyche?

The Chance for Immortality

When Kate and I began to talk about having kids, she asked me why I wanted to have children. I

said something like, I really like the idea of having a part of myself still go on in the world after

Im gone.

She looked at me blankly.

What? I asked. Havent you thought about that?

She hadnt. She wanted to have kids because it would be an expression of our love and

something to love, and other things revolving around love.

Men have always been particularly interested in the idea of legacy. And who can blame us? In

the back of our mind we know were expendable, we know that if duty calls, we may have to

sacrifice our lives, likely when we are still in our prime, to protect those of the tribe and those welove. At the same time, our primal brains tell us we may never have a chance to be a dad. So a

biologicallegacy is not guaranteed.

And so we turn to creating non-living things, things that will bring value to the world. Time is

short,and we want to make our mark and leave behind a part of ourselves. We want just a bit of

immortality, and the act of creation, in which a man brings into existence something that did not

exist before, is the most godlike thing a man can do. We may blow on and off the earth quickly,but we hope that when we depart, something, however small, is a little different because we were

here.

Create More, Consume Less

Of course, even if youre not buying my personal, more philosophical theory for the origin of amans drive for legacy, there are still very practical reasons for the development of this desire.

In the days before settled agriculture, tribes were likely very egalitarian. Women gathered nuts

and seeds, and men hunted big game. Anthropologists think that their contributions to the tribe

were about equal.

But women contributed something extra: children! So what were men going to do for their extra

contribution? Well, if women were handling the reproductive tasks, the men needed to step up

and create something extra in theproductiverealm.

This goes back to what we talked about last time, in that womanhood has always been a status

sort of automatically conferred, while manhood had to be continually proven. When a woman
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had a baby, that in most cases forced her to grow up. But a man needed an external push to

propel him into maturity, to keep him from wanting to slide back into infantile dependency. And

this is why the mark of a manhood, according tosociologist Steven L. Nock,became whether ornot heproduced more than he consumeddid he do his part to add value, power, and wealth to

society? When he passed from the earth, would he leave the tribe stronger than he came into it?

Or was he a lazy leech? Ancient societies around the world were in agreement on this point: thelatter was nota man.

The Modern Obstacles to the Drive for Legacy

You dont hear much about legacy these days. There are a few reasons for that.

First, we live in an incredibly present-minded society. There is very little sense of history andunderstanding of what has come before. There is a sense that our society is the only one that has

ever existed and the only one that matters. We dont have abroad, expansive view of history and

time. Because we do not acknowledge the legacy we have inherited, we dont see the value in

leaving a legacy ourselves.

Were also a culture that wants to believe we can live forever. We venerate youth culture, try tostay looking young as long as possible, hide away our old folks, and shield our eyes from death.

The more we deny the inevitability and reality of death, the less motivated we feel to work to

create a legacy. After all, who needs to leave something behind if youve convinced yourself thatyoull always be around?

Third, we live in an extremely disposablesociety. Everything is designed to be used a few timesand then thrown away. And every advancement is soon replaced by an even better update. And

so we lose faith in the idea that anything can truly be lasting. We feel likewhy bother?

whatever I can possibly add to the world will soon be obsolete anyway.

Fourth, we live in a very impatient society. We want things to happen immediately. Waiting for

our computer to boot up makes us want to punch someone. But building a legacy is a slow

process, and more importantly, the results of our effort may take a very long time to manifestthemselvesthey may not even come to fruition until after we are gone. Talk about an instant-

gratification buzz-kill.

Turning the Switch of Legacy in Your Life

Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his monument,

remains. His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he breathed still stirs the pine-tops on the mountains, the sound of the words he spoke yet echoes on through

space; the thoughts his brain gave birth to we have inherited to-day; his passions

are our cause of life; the joys and sorrows that he knew are our familiar friendsthe end from which he fled aghast will surely overtake us also!

Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres, but theinextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once been, can never
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die, though they blend and change, and change again for ever. -H. Rider

Haggard,King Solomons Mines

What does it mean to leave a legacy? My definition comes from what I learned from Boy Scouts:

leave your campsite better than you found it. So it is with life. To leave a legacy means to leave

the places you go and the people you meet a little better than you found them.

Many men will likely say that their children are their greatest legacy. And thats fantastic. But as

discussed, I believe men have an innate desire to leave a legacy that touches the broader worldaround them as well.

Actually, the comparison between children and creating value in the world is quite apt. They

both involve a mansseed. With the former, a mansreproductiveseed, thousands of sperm fight

to reach the egg, but only one will find purchase. With the latter, a mans productive seed,

thousands of attempts to create value in the world may end up on barren soil, but a few will hitthe mark and sprout new life.

Thus, every man should be a Johnny Appleseed of sorts, scattering their seeds of

creation wherever they go, and being content to know that the seeds may not bear fruit until long

after they have moved on. It requires patience, and a sort of faith, a faith in the idea that we havenot lived in vain, that the world is a little different from our being here.

I was surprised at how popular last weeks Manvotional,Facing the Mistakes of Life,turned outto be; it was shared over 1,000 times on Facebook. The passage came from a book written in

1909 by William George Jordan. Perhaps Jordans books were popular in his lifetime, which is anice reward, but how extraordinary is it that 100 years after penning those words, they would beread by thousands of people on a medium of technology he could not have even conceived of?

Sitting at your desk on a rainy day, as you type words into the computer, can you imagine people

a century later finding inspiration in your writing? Thats legacy.
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And legacy comes not just from the creation of physical and literary objects. A legacy can come

from an idea, a business, a tradition, a thoughtanything that changes a person, the world, just a

little and gets passed on, anything that lasts.

There are lots of little ways to create your legacy. A man never knows when an encouraging

word given to another may change the course of that persons life, and in turn, alter the course ofhistory and add value to the world. Here are a few ways to create your legacy every day:

Keep a journal

Start a manliness club at your college or high school

Begin a new tradition at your fraternity

Take steps to start your own business

Start a blog

Be a mentorbecome a Big Brother, coach Little League, take someone new at work

under your wing, etc.

Share your ideas in aMaster Mind Group

Start a Bible Study or small group at church Figure out new and better ways of doing things at work

Make a piece of furniture or another item that you can pass on to your children, and theycan pass on to their children

Start a new program in your communitya rec league, a recycling program, etc.

Tinker with an invention

What are some other ways a man can create a legacy? What are you doing to create your

own legacy?
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The 5 Switches of Manliness - Legacy