I read somewhere once that U.S. soldiers in Vietnam had trouble learning “the lay of the land” because they couldn’t identify the plants.
For example: In Wisconsin, in the Fall, a deer hunter will look for an Oak ridge, preferably a White Oak ridge, as the deer, especially the mature does, prefer White Oak acorns over Red Oak acorns as a food source.
And the reason you look for the food source the mature does prefer in the late fall is because the mature bucks, the Bullwinkle sort, prefer mature does once the rut hits.
So as a man from the Midwest at 18 years old and I’m hunting deer I know to look for an oak ridge to improve my chances of getting an opportunity at a big ol’ buck.
Place that same kid in the middle of a jungle on the other side of the world, in the middle of a civil war, where combatants, non-combatants and the land itself are indistinguishable… you can imagine that young man’s discombobulation!
A harsh, and maybe not exactly accurate, portrayal of today’s young men and their lack of understanding what their role in society and life needs to be… so they’ve perfected “tactical invisibility”.
The young men of today in my assessment, to me, can be replaced, can walk off the job, and can be walking down a hall right past you and be perfectly within themselves… almost making me feel invisible… as they ghost through life… avoiding everything… like those MACV-SOG operators in Vietnam who operated in Cambodia.
The young men today are just…
“Ghosts of Men Past”
We’ve all heard of “real men”.
Seen pictures of Grandad in WW2.
And we’ve seen “offerings” of men today of two sorts…
- The “Veteran dude, with all the tattoos, muscles and attitude…”
- And the “Robin Blue button down shirt” church dude…
Both could be argued as narrow caricatures… but Google it once, and you’ll find that I’m not that far off.
The only reason that I can see for the lack of evidence of a good, solid example of a good, solid man is that… we’re at work; we’re fixing the house; we’re quietly about.
When I go out into the world I look around.
And most times, lots of times, I’m literally the only man around.
I’ll leave the “good and solid” up to you.
As I move into the “man-sphere” it’s evident that I need to “get my bearings, become familiar with the flora and fauna and learn the language.”
I lacked it, and men in general lack “the words or the language” to navigate through and identify their own position in today’s “man-sphere jungle like environment.”
From a Biblical perspective it’s like identifying “the tares and the wheat”.
A little deeper dive for you…
ttps://www.gotquestions.org/parable-wheat-tares.html
As the wise old farmer knows the difference between “the wheat and the tares” and waits for some growth to correctly identify what gets saved and what gets tossed… we as men need to go through some growth so we can identify ourselves and then one another… and so the world, or the small portion of it that we inhabit… can identify us as easily as that Midwestern Deer Hunter can identify that well traveled oak ridge.
theemergingman.com 