I just started a new blog ‘Male By Birth, Man By Choice’ over at http://mbbmbc.blogspot.com/. I have reproduced the introduction of the blog below.
The name of this blog comes from a longer phrase that I learned while I was serving my National Service - Male By Birth, Man By Choice. Until that time, I didn’t really make a distinction between being a male and a man but I have come to learn that being a male is an accidental matter of biology but being a man is a conscious choice to live life by certain principles.
As males, we are more than just what magazines like FHM, Maxim, GQ or Playboy would like us to believe - more than just the sum of our interests in women, nice threads, cars, games, sports and gadgets. We are more than sex-crazed animals interested in just getting more action which is what the magazines see us as when they publish those regular articles like ‘20 Steps To Land That Hot Babe’.There are many other things we are interested in and many more that we should be. We are not just males, but sons, husbands and fathers. We can do so much more when we move beyond the stereotypes culture has given us, move beyond the altars we have placed the idealized individualistic alpha male upon.
So, this blog was then started for me to talk about such stuff. But more than that, I hope for people to write in to share the stories about their life as a man with all the struggles, triumphs, joy, responsibilities and challenges it entails. It is my hope that through the sharing, we encourage each other, teach each other, are forced to reflect and learn more about ourselves.
Of course, to live life with what is probably an idealized core set of values isn’t easy. It isn’t always easy to accept and fulfill one’s responsibilities. That is why we aren’t just male, but we are man by choice. For if it was easy to be a man, what worth would it be?
The new blog isn’t supposed to be a place for me to write but a place for me to curate stories, opinions and thoughts shared by others. I do hope that males of all ages will share their stories and be part of the project. The reason why I started this project because there is a dearth of sites, content and blogs online which do not portray man as anything beyond sex-crazed and sex-starved beings. If everything online is a snapshot of our times, what does it say about us as males?
There is only one blog from Singapore that I know of which I enjoy reading that I know which focuses on family and a man’s love for his family - Mr Brown. He doesn’t talk about being a man - he shows how he lives his life like one.
By now, you might have a vague notion of what I mean when I say ‘man’. I can’t describe exactly what I mean when I say he is a ‘man’ versus ‘a male’ (and its arguably worse subset ‘the alpha male’) - it is something I’ll know when I see it and I hope to be about to share the experiences of more such man like Mr Brown, especially those who do not have their own blogs.
So, please do share by emailing share[.]manbychoice[@]gmail[.]com.
Oh, another blogger who shows what it is to be a man - kottke.org.
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