Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#211

Post by DoofusOfDeath » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:37 AM UTC

tomp wrote: post #199

apatters wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people believe that vulnerability is a weakness and a disadvantage but this is demonstrably untrue. Showing vulnerability is a way to develop rapport and connection with other people. Here is a great example using Jennifer Lawrence who is particularly good at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btud-zsdmk4 There are definitely caveats to this. It has to be done a certain way. It works better when you already h…

Isn’t this just faux vulnerability, or vulnerability from the position of power? In other words, it’s not the ”oh my god, my life is crashing, I don’t know what to do, please help me” kind of vulnerability (that one isn’t seen as very attractive or welcomed by the society), it’s the “my life is awesome, except this tiny part, but it’s cool, I’ll manage” kind of vulnerability.

That seems analogous to the humble-brag.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#212

Post by neltnerb » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:37 AM UTC

jimkleiber wrote: post #179

cwbrandsma wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure this is only western society. Is there an indigenous culture that values male emotions without stigma? As I think about Asia and Africa, I’m drawing a blank on this. But I’d be happy to be shown wrong.

When you say "male emotions," I feel a bit unsure which emotions you mean. Sadness? Anger? Confusion? Pride? I'm not sure if there is a culture, indigenous or not, that values the expression of all emotions, and if it does, not sure if the people in the culture walk the talk, so to say. I take it back, I think many religions seem to value the expression of most emotions, especially Buddhism, at least in theory, and y…

I mean, Tantra, or at least some takes on it, is training yourself to be receptive and open to your own emotions. To various extents in Taoist groups historically, presumably at least partially continuing. Being in touch with your own emotions is a pretty big aspect of a lot of martial arts, although I suppose not expressing them.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#213

Post by anon9001 » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:44 AM UTC

kaitai wrote: post #206

anon9001 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mainstream idea now that masculinity is toxic, so it's not surprising that people are projecting that onto this. Calling it "New Warrior Training Adventure" comes across as super patronizing. "ManKind" isn't great either. The names alone are surely responsible for much of the pushback that you're seeing. I did a bit of digging though, trying to keep an open mind, and I was surprised to find that MKP is indeed…

Point of logic: it's a mainstream idea that there exists a type of masculinity that is toxic (strict subset) not that all masculinity is toxic.

Yeah, "toxic masculinity", but I can't name another type of masculinity that's in mainstream awareness. Can you?

If you google for "masculinity", "toxic masculinity" is the first thing that comes up. I'd never heard of "victorian masculinity" before, but that and "harmful masculinity" were the only other types I could easily find. Google also helpfully suggested "The culture of masculinity and its negative impacts on men" as a recent PBS Newshour segment that might interest me.

If you put the words next to each other for long enough, and you never see anything about "positive masculinity" or "altruistic masculinity" (which I just made up because I couldn't find any real examples), then you're going to create a culture that associates masculinity with toxicity. From my point of view, that's been happening for a few years.

The idea that brought masculinity into mainstream discussion was "there exists a type of masculinity that is toxic", but the way the public seems to have internalized it is "masculinity is toxic".

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#214

Post by will_pseudonym » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:55 AM UTC

jalgos_eminator wrote: post #73

monksy wrote: post #23

I think we're starting to hit a critical moment with this. As men we have an unbelievable amount of expectation on our reactions, communication, behavior, past behavior, and others behavior. (Their friends and their partners) On top of all of this: Men spaces have been mostly eliminated.

What were the men's spaces before? Legitimate question as I may be too young to have known them.

"Male", not "men", but Boy Scouts.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#215

Post by friendlybus » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 5:00 AM UTC

jimkleiber wrote: post #170

I love HN...I've been waiting for this topic :-D I'm a man who has focused on and has been building tools to get better at expressing my emotions since 2012, including an app called iFeelio, in which I answered the question "how do I feel" over 4,000 times across 4 years and a class called Emotional Self-Defense, which I've run in the US, Europe, and Africa. I have realized and re-realized many things along the way.…

You'll have to keep running it over the next 4-8 years to filter out the short term cultural changes. The expression of sadness will likely ramp up from it's locked up baseline now to 2024.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#216

Post by seph-reed » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 5:04 AM UTC

adamsea wrote: post #77

sabarn01 wrote: post #19

Whats wrong with stoicism. Feelings are fleeting in general didn't lead me to positive places. I think we should put a high value on people that can handle their own problems.

Stoicism is different from denial. I think denial is more what the article is about, since it talks about the higher suicide rate of men, etc.

IMO, not being suicidal is far more being in denial than the other way around. Or, in the very least, thinking that life is some gift. It totally could be, but not like this.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#217

Post by friendlybus » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 5:07 AM UTC

munificent wrote: post #104

bmarquez wrote: post #3

I participated in men's work, not specifically the ManKind Project but a closely related organization. I personally found it helpful doing weekly check-ins and having people holding me accountable to my goals. Unfortunately, the stigma regarding men sharing feelings is prevalent in western society, and it's not only the men causing it. When I told several female friends about the work they did, their response was: "A…

> it's not only the men causing it. One thing I find fascinating about humans is that we are so compulsively cultural that we will actively propagate cultural practices that are harmful even to ourselves. When you are young, you absorb whatever culture is around you completely uncritically, and then you immediately turn around and start broadcasting to the next generation. Cultural changes and evolves, of course, but…

Culture has a political element. Creating a new culture or building an authority over one would be as difficult as any political movement. Subcultures are usually built around selling a product where there's plenty of incentive to put the effort in to make it happen.

I think the young execute on a unique position to see the culture of their elders and actively choose to fill spots where it could be improved for their own benefit and drop customs that are no longer worth it.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#218

Post by jimkleiber » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 5:11 AM UTC

themodelplumber wrote: post #194

jimkleiber wrote: post #170

I love HN...I've been waiting for this topic :-D I'm a man who has focused on and has been building tools to get better at expressing my emotions since 2012, including an app called iFeelio, in which I answered the question "how do I feel" over 4,000 times across 4 years and a class called Emotional Self-Defense, which I've run in the US, Europe, and Africa. I have realized and re-realized many things along the way.…

Thanks for your comment, it's cool of you to share your journey with us. Unfortunately iFeelio on Android doesn't seem to work well anymore, if at all... :-( Edit: Moodflow seems like it could be good so I'll try that. Just in case this helps others.

Yeah, ironically using the app, I realized that coding made me quite frustrated and then my hard drive failed in 2015 or something and I lost the most current version of the apps on both Android and iOS :-/

That being said, I have been thinking about how to get it fixed and even develop v2.0, possibly through open-sourcing it. Do you think you or someone else you know might be interested in that?

In the meantime, the magic sauce is really nothing too complicated...I used a note app on Android before developing iFeelio and it worked pretty good.

I would open up the note pad, type down the date, time, 1-3 comma-separated words for emotion, and then 1-2 short sentences about how I was feeling. Similar to an I-statement from NVC.

An example would be:

2019-09-28...01:09...grateful, tired...just checked HN and saw that a few people replied to my comments, and it's also 1am so maybe I should go to bed soon.

I made the app mostly because I wanted to enter the date/time automatically, password protect it, and create some ways for me to sort/filter/search previous entries.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#219

Post by jimkleiber » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 5:12 AM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #215

jimkleiber wrote: post #170

I love HN...I've been waiting for this topic :-D I'm a man who has focused on and has been building tools to get better at expressing my emotions since 2012, including an app called iFeelio, in which I answered the question "how do I feel" over 4,000 times across 4 years and a class called Emotional Self-Defense, which I've run in the US, Europe, and Africa. I have realized and re-realized many things along the way.…

You'll have to keep running it over the next 4-8 years to filter out the short term cultural changes. The expression of sadness will likely ramp up from it's locked up baseline now to 2024.

I'm a little confused...what do you mean that the expression of sadness will ramp up?

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#220

Post by seph-reed » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 5:13 AM UTC

sabarn01 wrote: post #19

Whats wrong with stoicism. Feelings are fleeting in general didn't lead me to positive places. I think we should put a high value on people that can handle their own problems.

> people that can handle their own problems

I grew up west coast, spent a lot of time with people who I could "share my problems" with. It taught me to be pathetic when I'm down, to really reach for it. I don't like who I was when that was an effective means of attention.

I really wish the response would have been "You're having a hard time coping with the harshness of reality and acting immature, do your best to get it together soon."