What does it mean to be a man? This can be a hot topic in today's society and I completely understand why. What comes to mind when you hear "be a man!" The images that come into our head probably would make us all cringe and in the name of "manhood" a lot of abuse, hurt, and pain has been caused. That is not at all what we are talking about here. Instead of droning on for hours trying to explain something and never quite get the true meaning across, occasionally it can be easier to explain what you are not talking about to emphasize what you are talking about. I think this tactic suits this discussion well. When we talk about what it means to be a man I am not talking about how much you can bench press. I am not talking about how much money you make, nor am I talking about how well you can fight, how tough you can be, or how macho you can be. Manhood obviously can present itself in many different forms and variations but there is some universal commonality in manhood. Stephen Mansfield address this topic in his book Mansfield Book of Manley Men. Mansfield identifies a set of characteristics that help define manhood. He does this by looking back though history and selecting great men who exemplified these characteristics. What he ends up with is a compilation of characteristics that men can aspire too. Now not all men will have every characteristic and we may posses some of these characteristic in varying degrees. Each chapter discuses a characteristic that defines manhood and gives a tangible humanistic example of that trait. All of the chapters and characteristics are worth discussing, but a few characteristics stood out to me a bit more than others and warrant highlighting.

Friendship: Great men posses the skill of friendship. Initially I started to gloss over this as of course men have friends. But when you dig a bit deeper there is more too it than that. I am not talking about aquatences or people we know. A lot of guys know people and could get a group of guys together to play fantasy football or go to a baseball game. But do you have a tribe? A band of brothers? A group of guys that you can go to when the going gets tough? Do you have people that will call you out when needed or just tell you what you want to hear? There is skill in friendship. Time, effort, cost. Men know how to be and have friends.

Quest: Do we still posses the sense of adventure? Is there a fire burning in you for something bigger? Mansfield says it best in this chapter. "I've had the risk and the daring, and the need for adventure squeezed out of me by duty and the ease of modern life". Is the fire of a life's quest quenched by the ease and comfort of modern life? Why do you think movies like Lord if the Rings and Star Wars was so successful? The call of the quest spoke to men. Men need a quest and purpose.

Restoration: Have you failed at something? If you haven't yet, prepare yourself. You will. It's just part of life. No one is going to make it through life with a clean score card. But men are able to restore themselves after their failures. They are able to learn and move forward. History is literally filled with men who have failed miserably only to become giants among men. This theme is so often recounted that according to Mansfield "It makes us believe that greatness is not really possible without some early failure to overcome". Men restore themselves after failure.

Self Education: How much of our time is spent entertaining ourselves in our current culture. Now I have no gripe with entertainment. I enjoy sports, movies, music, and Netflix binge watching as much of the next guy. But I do think that the modern man is getting lost in the sea of entertainment. What we don't see is the man who pursues knowledge instead of being distracted by all this entertainment. Mansfield again says it best when he states "passive men wait for knowledge to come to them. Weak men assume that what they need to know will seek them out, Men of great character and drive seek out the knowledge they need". Men seek knowledge.

Suffering: "great men suffer greatly in order to be great. Heroic men must first endure heroic struggles.......The question we all face is not whether or not we have deficits. We do. Everyone of us. The question is whether we are capable of envisioning a life defined by forces greater then the weight of our flaws". This goes hand-in-hand with restoration. We will all experience suffering, trials, and hardships. Great men are not defined by by their struggles nor do they let them limit their ability. In fact it fuels them. Sure it's a part of shaping them, apart of their life experiences, but it doesn't define them. Men will suffer, then overcome.

Presence: this might be my favorite characteristic, but maybe the hardest to put into words. We have all had the experience of someone walking into a room, they do not even speak a word, and yet you can feel their presence. There physical size and stature has nothing to do with it, but there is something that radiates from them. As Mansfield puts it. "if your vision of manhood is principled and and turned towards the good of others it will simply radiate as it should". Men have presence

Manhood can be a tricky topic with traps all around. Mansfield does a good job of addressing it in a gentle yet straightforward way. I believe his goal was to point us back to men of substance, men of character by observing the Men of old. Mansfield Book Of Manly Men is an easy read for the non-reader and a great gift paired with a craft brew!

I do want to add a brief aside to this discussion. While the book is for men and about men it is not against women nor is it saying women can't posses these qualities as well. But it's emphasizing how these qualities speak to men differently Than they may speak to women in order to complement each other fully.