ROLE
MODELS AND MATURE MEN…
I am
aware of no universal law which dictates that role models for mature men are
limited to their contemporaries or to that hallowed class of lightly nimbused yet remarkably agile
gentlemen many years their senior.
Driven by my intuition I’ve opined that no such law exists nor, should exist. For the more mature I become the more aware I
am of natures’ fateful thinning-out process and by this I reference not only
the gradual denuding and silvering of my hoary beard but more poignantly the
untimely physical transition of those esteemed mortals whom I have ever so
faithfully held in high esteem; my idols.
The bitter trial of growing older and maturing is held against the sharp
edge of loss. A man must develop
effective strategies to manage the death or circumstantial loss through
relocation or other factors of those whom he has always looked to for
inspiration and support. A man matures
when he is forced to replace the loss of mentorship and in many ways for many
reasons a maturing man eventually becomes his own mentor. By the time we reach our fifties our
essential pool of external wisdom may have decreased by 50 percent or more. This is not to say that older men should fear
they will become passengers in a driverless car but they should be aware that
they will be increasingly compelled to draw from their own strength and wisdom as
time moves along.
Where do
older gentlemen look to establish new mentorships and role models and can it be
assumed that after a fashion, a man who has successfully matured no longer
needs this kind of external support? If
the process of maturity is a continual evolution then a 55 or 65 or even 95
year old man can still benefit from some form of male mentorship, perhaps not
as much or the same kind as an 18 or 25 year old man but relative to their
worldliness. Many automatically assume
that an older man no longer needs social and emotional guidance as if he has
reached the pinnacle of wisdom through the crucible of his life but we should reexamine
this phenomenon quite closely. Mature
men can and should be encouraged to remain open to mentorship after the first
half-century of their lives, they should not retreat from the world simply
because it is no longer familiar to them.
An older
gentleman of 85 shared a very personal story with me. He noted that nearly all of his childhood
buddies had died and the star-studded cache of men that would have been the icons
of his heyday had deceased long before his friends and family began to pass away. Remarkably
this gentleman was deeply inspired by many icons of twenty-first century
popular culture including President Obama.
His mentors and role models had completely shifted to a contingent of
more youthful men whose gallantry spanned the last and first quarters of the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries.
To this
gentleman, Obama personified something close to a messianic reality but rooted
in a more practical context arrayed in normal trappings. For a black man of 85 Obama’s rise to the oval
office was an unexpected and redeeming surprise. This old gentleman was born on the eve of the
great depression, at the tail of the First World War and at the head of the
second, existing as a black man shrouded by the overlay of racism some 40 years
before The Civil Rights Era. Witnessing the election of America’s first Black
American president was an experience of unimaginable power and significance because
his contemporaries and he contemporaries were born only 60 years after the
Emancipation of slaves, one generation removed from that tragic birthmark that
will forever be emblazoned on Americas forehead and conscience written in a
sanguine hue like billions of scarlet letters proclaiming every injustice dealt
to millions of innocent lives. He
certainly had heard the stories of slaves that would have been his own
relatives and elders of his community and wondered that with the oppression of
black men what had been oathed as freedom on paper was of little worth at face
value. Like so many gracious and
princely black men who had rinsed the muck of Jim Crow from their boots
forgiving the white man for the evils he had set upon him this lordly gentleman
took the election of Obama as a sign that black and white men were healed and
willing to put race behind them for the good of all. For this man the mere image of Obama
proclaimed as a leader and champion of freedom, an intellectual and father meant
ever so much more than the sting of the past; the past was closed and forgiven
and a glorious future of peace and tolerance would ensue!
Using this
example we mature men can certainly identify many younger men who represent
role models and even mentors in our lives.
It is like being a teacher and yet remaining open to learn life’s
lessons by watching the young. An older
man who can temper his need for growth through mentorship to accept guidance
from the examples of remarkable younger men as well as those his age and older
can draw from a wealth of wisdom that might otherwise go untapped. I do not believe that we grow older to become
islands of wisdom. In order to grow and remain
wise even an island must remain connected to the mainland and to other islands
or suffer the fate of becoming culturally obsolete. For a maturing man an hermetic withdrawal
from a changing, dwindling world is tantamount to a self-induced cultural obsolescence
and should be avoided at all costs. We
must continue to seek positive inspiration in that which is new, vibrant, accessible
and alive! We must continue to challenge
ourselves to balance the ever shrinking landscape populated by role models and
mature men…
FIN
