When I was young, I liked to take things apart to see how they worked. Unfortunately, they didn’t work as well when I put them back together. Nowadays, I tend to suppress my urge to dismantle unless there is a problem. Which still gives me frequent opportunities to see how things work, since nothing is made to last. But for those more important contraptions, I go to YouTube to see how other guys have taken things apart. This has improved my put-back-together success rate considerably.
Trying to comprehend how various things work, and the world in general, is something men have been doing for time immemorial. It is an important aspect of what makes us men. And it’s not just mechanical contraptions. I sell more history, philosophy, and business books to men than to women. The need to master what is going on around us is a critical part of the role of being a provider. In order to provide, we must know 3 things: what is available, how to get it, and how to prepare it for family use. This need is why men must constantly strive to figure out everything about the world they live in. Success comes from capability, which comes from understanding.
In today’s post-subsistence world, grasping iPhone app functionality may have replaced tracking a deer, and navigating the I-10/1604 interchange may have replaced reading the weather, but nothing can replace a general understanding of the world. It is still a man’s duty to constantly seek to make sense of our world, regardless of how crazy it gets. In fact, today it is more important than ever for us to understand even more about the world. Not only must we decipher how more contraptions in our home work, but we need to understand the ways of the wider world in order to prepare our children for wherever they may go.
The need for men to understand the world is becoming more critical than ever. You may not have noticed but fantasy is becoming more and more common in all aspects of our society, from books and movies to games and decor. There is nothing wrong with fantasy per se, but I believe its pervasiveness in today’s society shows a developing disconnect between reality and how we interpret reality. Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” I think we are on the cusp of that now. Many people view magic and science in very similar ways. Very few people realize how their cell phone works, and fewer have any inkling of how ChatGPT functions (but we all know how to use them). I would even go so far as to say that people today understand their world less than people did 50 years ago. We may be able to recite the correct incantation to get tomatoes magically delivered to our doorstep, but we don’t even know what a tomato plant looks like, much less grow one.
Don’t take that road. Tap your innate masculine curiosity to discover how everything works.
There are many ways to seek knowledge, but being curious is how it starts. The next step is to observe and listen. When I was young, I would watch the ants and small insects to try to figure out how their world worked. Today, I watch traffic patterns and development around Boerne to try to grasp how the flow works and what community developments would be the most beneficial. As a citizen of this community, I have a duty to provide input on these issues, and as a man, I have a responsibility to lead (in my small way) our community to a continuously better future. I also engage in conversations. Not so much to tell others my opinion but to learn from them. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that the stereotype of the silent man comes from the fact that men are listening and learning rather than engaging in small talk.
I will always seek understanding, whether asking probing questions, reading a history of The Great Game, or just taking things apart to see how they work. And I will listen because everyone knows something I do not. And I will discuss because other perspectives enhance my view of the world. But most of all, I will always be in awe of this incredible world we live in. I relish the new things to come and the windows into the past. A past that amazes me in how it teaches us about our world today. I encourage you to join me in the relentless pursuit of understanding and use that understanding to make our world a place where our children can achieve any dream they choose to pursue.
More from the BetterMENt column: The same hunger to understand shows up in Why I Read, on why books still matter for men. For understanding that requires another person to find, read The Importance of Dialogue.
