"Dependency is slavery."

Lengthy, but well worth reading in full at the link.  How to Be a Man | The Art of Manliness: "Fast forward to today. The amount and availability of luxuries has increased many times over. But despite the passing of 2,000 years, modern men are essentially faced with the very same decision as their ancient brethren: How much should you indulge in the ease and comfort around you, and how much should you keep yourself apart and maintain your independence, mental sharpness, and physical toughness? Should you take the path of least resistance, or the hard way? 

...It will require you to be proactive. Instead of expending your energy complaining that today’s culture doesn’t value or encourage manliness, you will need to channel it into swimming against the tide, building yourself into a Nietzschean Superman, creating a familial tribe, and surrounding yourself with fellow men of honor. Though the task is not easy, I’d argue that because a man who lives the code now does so of his own freewill and accord, rather than because he is compelled by an outside force, this path has never been more satisfying and fulfilling...

I want to be able to look my wife and kids in the eye and say: “I’ll protect you and take care of you,” and mean it. I’d also want to surround myself with other good men, who were also good at being men — brothers with whom I could, as Cormac McCarthy puts it, “carry the fire” as we set out to re-build the world together. But isn’t it silly though to spend one’s life preparing for a contingency that may never come to pass? It would be if this way of life wasn’t simultaneously the most fulfilling. Even if society never unravels or blows up, the man who spends a lifetime cultivating the traits inherent to the code will have the confidence, resourcefulness, and mental fortitude to be ready for whatever comes. If his life never intersects with a great crisis, he’ll have the capacity to handle the smaller emergencies in his day-to-day life – from an unexpected death in the family to a tornado razing his house. He’ll also experience the satisfaction of keeping his body in peak condition and learning the kinds of skills that will allow him to handle any situation. There’s no need to over-analyze it: knowing survival and tactical skills is just plain cool and few things feel as good as being fit and strong...

When men do terrible things in our modern society – wreck the economy, thwart political compromise, commit violent crime – their masculinity is to blame. Yet when men do great things – make technological and scientific breakthroughs, jump from space, kill terrorists — their masculinity is seen as irrelevant to the accomplishment. In truth, both of these are sides of the very same coin: masculinity is simply raw energy. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed and can be used for either good or ill. Societies around the world for thousands of years understood this truth, and wisely constructed outlets to exercise and channel masculine energy towards the collective good. Today, such built-in outlets have largely vanished from the landscape. Competition, recess, and physical education have been stripped from schools; military service is not compulsory; strength-requiring labor, both in the workforce and at home, is no longer necessary; fighting over honor, outside a gym or ring, will get you hauled into court. Just as with all aspects of the traditional code of manhood, if you want to exercise your innate masculine energy, you’re going to have to purposefully and proactively find ways to do it yourself...

Mentally tough men are able to stay calm, cool, and collected when things in their life – big and small — go awry...  They follow the wise way of the Stoics. This aspect of the code of manhood has long been a target for feminists and cultural critics, who argue that suppressing the open expression of feelings stunts men’s emotional life and leads to psychological and social problems. I think this proposition comes from a well-intentioned place, but is ultimately misguided. What these social critics and talking heads fail to understand is that it’s not “manhood” that’s the problem, but an incomplete, utterly impoverished modern idea of manhood that’s at issue. The only thing young men today know about the injunction to “Be a man!” is that it represents some kind of hazy standard of tough guy machismo. We have not taught them the rich nuances that were part of the code for thousands of years. Our manly ancient forbearers understood that it’s quite possible to be stoic and cultivate a rich emotional life; the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Even Victorian men, famous for their advocacy of the “stiff upper lip,” weren’t shy about crying over sad poetry, writing highly sentimental letters to friends and lovers, and showing their male buddies a level of physical affection that would make us moderns uncomfortable. True manly Stoicism is not about suppressing one’s feelings entirely; it’s rather a matter of knowing when to turn on the toughness and when to turn it off. You don’t live like a rock every day, you just have access to that firm, steady energy, should you need it...

The highly sensitive man is something people like the idea of in the abstract, but recoil from when encountered in the flesh. People, whether they can admit it or not, want to know they can depend on men when things get hard; even in our “enlightened” culture, they still inwardly cringe at a man who falls to pieces in the face of frustration or adversity. In the midst of a familial crisis, women want their fathers and husbands to stand strong and be able to take action. While we don’t face many physical dangers today, when they do happen, it’s almost invariably left to the men to handle. While social commentators posit that deep down, men are crying out to, well, cry, I simply haven’t found that the majority of men fervently desire the freedom to disgorge their feelings at the drop of a hat. On the contrary, I think most men very much like to feel a little emotionally tough – it gives them a sense of pride and confidence...

Fighting and violence are at the very core of masculinity. Researchers theorize that nearly every part of uniquely male physiology — from our shoulders, to our height, to our faces and hands — evolved expressly for the purpose of man-to-man combat. Yet few male propensities have been as maligned. “We don’t want people to get hurt,” we say. “Male violence oppresses others.” “Violence is only for the weak.” Just like masculinity as a whole, violence itself is thought to be the problem, rather than how violence is used. When we think about male violence, we think about rape and domestic battery. We don’t think about all the violence that’s done on our behalf so we can live our safe, comfortable existence where we never have to see two men grapple for their lives. 

The outsourcing and distancing of ourselves from violence has led to the naive belief that it is possible and desirable to try to breed this trait out of men altogether. Instead of teaching young men: “You’ve got an amazing power and energy inside of you – a force that drove the Vikings and the Spartans and the Minutemen and the GIs,” we teach them: “You have something wrong with you, a dark, bad drive that hurts people. Deny it. Smother it. Exclaim that you’re not like other men and reject it altogether!” 

Nobody likes violence until they’re sitting on a plane that’s been hijacked by terrorists and it’s the men who hatch a plan to take it back and kill them. Nobody likes violence until someone breaks into their house, and a man gets up to confront the intruder. Nobody likes violence until their freedom is at stake and they need men to storm the beaches of Normandy and run a knife through the enemy’s kidneys. As a society we have this willfully self-deluded hope that we can smother men’s violent tendencies altogether because in our current society we don’t need men who can physically fight; and if we ever do, we’ll just cross our fingers that they’ll be able to instantly turn it back on again. Far better would it be if we acknowledged the innate energy of violence in men, and both reverenced its potential and cautioned against its misuse — encouraging its principled cultivation and teaching that it should be channeled towards good, moral ends – to protect the weaker, uphold our principles, and guard our way of life.

...those who have actual experience with violence – even simply within the controlled confines of a boxing ring – are most likely to say it should only be employed when absolutely necessary. They intimately understand the unromanticized reality of violence. They have been humbled by it. It is men who have only experienced violence vicariously through stylized video games and movies that are prone to unleash it in a destructive, narcissistic manner. You need not wait for society to see the wisdom in this (I wouldn’t hold your breath). The individual man has plenty of reason to cultivate his fighting spirit on his own...

Independence and autonomy have always been key parts of the ancient, universal code of manhood. Dependency is slavery. A man is able to stand on his own two feet and make his own choices. He is captain of the ship of his life and master of his agency..."