Welcome to the Wild Gentleman
The Wild Gentleman is a platform (or media company) exploring thoughtful masculinity through literature, philosophy, and community. Everything I plan to explore with The Wild Gentleman rests on four key values that, to me, are the foundation of what it means to be a solid man in our modern world.
Love, Adventure, Wisdom, Community.
There is a lot of discussion out there in the world these days about what it means to be a “good” man.
Beyond a lot of the noise, the truth is that there is a need to shine a light and promote the positive aspects of manhood; we need to hold up examples of those doing it right or those who have lived with integrity in the past (including, if at times, they are less than “perfect” men). We need to build and stoke the fire of connection, sharing our thoughts, ideas, and experiences on being a man.
I created The Wild Gentleman as a counterforce to push through what I am experiencing, hearing, reading, and seeing concerning men in culture, media, and the philosophy and betterment industries. Personally, I worry about the next generation of men, as I am raising a young man myself. Connecting with, talking to, and mentoring other men on similar journeys also scratches a few itches for me.
There is considerable complexity to this project. There’s also the potential for communication missteps and just bad opinions on my part. So is life.
Below, I’ll try to make clear some of the motivations and goals of The Wild Gentleman as well as the direction I want to steer this bus.
I’d love it if you’d come along for the ride and support The Wild Gentleman.
Wild at Heart. Refined in Mind.
The Foundations of The Wild Gentleman
First, to explain what it is, The Wild Gentleman is a platform (or media company or book club, depending on how you look at it) exploring thoughtful masculinity through literature, philosophy, and community.
Everything I plan to explore with The Wild Gentleman rests on the following core values that, to me, are the foundation of what it means to be a solid man in our modern world.
Love
I’m going to dive into the one you might not have been expecting first. Love. It is understood and revered by the greatest men in history. And it guided many a good man to some incredible achievements. It is absent and/or misunderstood by the men who have been responsible for the greatest horrors of humanity (Love is not power), leaving behind terrible scars that the good men have always come in and cleaned up.
Love is more than romantic (but having a healthy relationship with romantic love is important!). To a good man, love means to care deeply for family, friends, ideas, and the work that matters to us. It also means having the courage to be vulnerable enough to connect with others meaningfully (not easy!).
One of my dearest friends—a true son of the American West and a thoughtful warrior—loved to share his emotions through the written word. Knowing me better than most men I spent time with in my early 20s, he impressed on me—over and over through the years—a simple life mission. Simply: “Spread love. Spread it! Why should this be a secret? Spread love ol’ boy.”
So here I go.
Adventure and Bravery
Alex Hutchinson, the author of the recently published The Explorer’s Gene, put it this way in a recent Rich Roll Podcast: “Exploration is about accepting uncertainty and risk. By doing that on a regular basis, we end up doing difficult things and feeling like our pursuits have meaning.”
“Listen to that inner voice telling you to try something and be willing to take risks in pursuit of something, because you never know what you might find,” Hutchinson tells Roll.
I love two key elements of his breakdown of exploration: undertaking challenging tasks and engaging in meaningful pursuits. To me, that is a vital part of being a man. In the modern world, opportunities for taking risks and demonstrating bravery are becoming increasingly rare. (There is nothing of strength in hate posting or engaging in argument on social media.)
Part of being a good man requires venturing into the realm of Roosevelt’s “the man in the arena.” (This is also a universal value, not strictly tied to a single group. See Brené Brown’s entire oeuvre.)
From boyhood through most of our lives, whether on the playground, at a road race, on a hike, swimming, surfing, riding, climbing, finishing that black diamond, hitting that jump, after that last game of high school sports, the nights on the adult men’s league softball diamond, time on the pickleball court, the local hoops court, or just walking the dog, we tend to seek dopamine hits through action, principally outdoors.
We are also attracted to tales of bravery and adventure, especially those stories that are journeys of risk, challenge, and growth. Huckleberry Finn. Star Wars. On the Road. Braveheart. Siddhartha. Saving Private Ryan. Lonesome Dove. This list goes on.
Adventure matters. This is one of those journeys for me.
Wisdom
The more I’ve lived life, the more I realize that I really love to learn. I am awed by intelligence, especially the wise who use their smarts for the betterment of others. Seeking wisdom is a cherished core value of mine.
To my mind, being a good man means upholding wisdom. What does that mean? In the simplest sense, I’m going to defer to Mark Manson, the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. He recently launched an extensive podcast and self-improvement called Momentum. In the first month and first podcast, he and his co-host delve into Values. Again and again, they turn to Aristotle and are continually amazed by how his views, first shared more than 2,300 years ago, are not only still relevant but, generally, just as true for humans today as they were in Ancient Greece.
As Manson explains in Solved:Values: “Practical wisdom is so important that Aristotle went as far as to imply that you could consider it the only virtue, as no other virtue was possible without it.”
What is practical wisdom? To summarize the podcast, when trying to be better people, we often compare our values against other values. According to Manson, channeling Aristotle, wisdom is necessary to evaluate what is worth caring about and what is not.
The challenge with seeking wisdom is that the more you learn, the more you realize how much more there is to know. Numerous thinkers have vocalized this conundrum since antiquity. I like how the classic Western author Louis L'Amour explored it in his Education of a Wandering Man:
"Only one who has learned much can fully appreciate his ignorance."
And so let’s do this work together.
Community
In his book, The 5 Types of Wealth, Sahil Bloom examines the history and impact of community on human well-being.
Of the many takeaways, one that jumped out to me about our modern life and lack of connection is a nugget about people spending less time with friends than they did 10 years ago: “This trend appears particularly dire for men, with 15 percent of men reporting that they have zero close friendships (a fivefold increase from 1990); the number of men who say they have at least six close friendships was cut in half over the same period.”
Bloom cites the study, “Men’s Social Circles AreI’ve had a lot of conversations over the past few years with people from all walks of life, but also a lot of men who have expressed some yearning to get together. Shrinking,” by Daniel A. Cox.
I’ve had numerous conversations over the past few years with people from all walks of life, as well as many men who have expressed a desire to get together. Like that’s it. “Let’s get together.”
For several reasons (work, life, family, technology, and video meetings), it has become increasingly challenging to find space to bring groups of like-minded people together to build connections. This is especially true if there is no clear benefit to finding time to participate in a community.
A vital goal of The Wild Gentleman will be to break the current lack of fulfilling connections and opportunities for a positive male-centered community to grow, chat, and meet organically.
Why Books?
Back in my teaching days, one of my favorite things to share with my all-boys middle school charges was a list compiled from an Esquire article, “The 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read.” I created my own list (adding some essential “boy” books from some other similar lists and removing some of the tomes that might not be ideal for a thirteen-year-old kid to be diving into - see Portnoy’s Complaint.)
The boys loved trying to read as many of these titles as they could. I also used the list to fill in gaps in my literary knowledge (and still do!).
You can see the original lists here.
This exercise was enriching for several reasons, none more than that it made clear to me that there was a straightforward way to gain wisdom and help someone evolve into being a better man: through reading great literature.
That belief is part of why I launched this project and why I’ll be using books as a framing mechanism to share wisdom and some opinions.
The Wild Gentleman Book Club
Combining the literary bent of The Wild Gentleman with the foundational yearning I’m feeling to bring men together to talk books, meet, build relationships, converse, argue, enjoy a coffee, or hoist a beer, I’m launching a companion to this media project with "The Wild Gentlemen Book Club."
There’s a lot more to share with this component of The Wild Gentleman that is still in development. I will be starting small with a close group of men who have an array of different life experiences. The plan is to expand month by month.
We’ll be reading one book per month and then meeting in person in Greater Boston (for now) to discuss this shared experience. If you have any interest in learning more about this side of The Wild Gentleman, reach out to me.
What Can You Do to Support The Wild Gentleman
If you like what I’m putting together here. I’d love your support.
You can subscribe to The Wild Gentleman and get a weekly newsletter.
You can also underwrite this project in a few different ways. I will be forever grateful to anyone who wants to support The Wild Gentleman as a patron.
Thank you.
A Note About Me
As Walt Whitman wrote in Leaves of Grass, “I contain multitudes.”
To me, this is the most American idea ever presented and one that we seem to have lost our way on a bit.
What do I mean? Well, there is a lot of posturing towards perfection these days. Being wrong is bad. Making mistakes isn’t tolerated. Being flexible and changing one’s mind is seen as a weakness. Flaws are hidden. Introspection and striving for growth are dismissed. This seems like madness to me.
I contain multitudes. I am a man in his mid-forties who has had some successes, AND I have had many failures. I have strived to do good and be a positive force. But I know I have faltered and erred against my values. I experience all emotions: joy, anger, contentment, anxiety, and shame. And sometimes I give in to the negative emotions; but, sometimes I let the positive ones wash over me too. I have changed my mind on beliefs I held dear, and I continue to learn things about myself and others that, honestly, can be a bit shocking.
I am a dad. I am a husband. I am a writer. I have aspirations. I have regrets.
I have been a teacher, a journalist, a marketer, an editor, a coach, a manager, a consultant, a laborer, and more. I still fulfill many of those roles.
I created The Wild Gentleman because it is necessary and rewarding. It also scares the shit out of me.
And away we go.
Next week: More on the book club selection and continued explorations into why literature might hold some guidance for our journey to being a good man.
