The Balance of Power

Men have to get in touch with their femininity. That’s not to say that they need to start "behaving like women” or that they in some way sacrifice their masculinity. What it means is that they discover that what they seek from the love of a woman, they actually embody within themselves. Again, this is an aspect of The Poet (The male version). He is drawn to the feminine, because a woman’s beauty articulates something that he feels within himself – a tenderness and power that is impossible to put into words; in just the same way that any woman’s beauty is impossible to put into words. A male poet will always strive to do so, however, because the experience of trying allows him to express this femininity within himself, albeit rather inadequately. But that also adds to the pathos of his masculinity.
Some rock stars and actors have managed to articulate what I am saying here. I think the very notion of androgyny illustrates what I mean. Male rock stars will try to express their feminine power. Female rock stars will do the same with their masculinity. These are the only people who are allowed to do so in our society.
Glam Rock is not a bunch of guys expressing their transgender tendencies. On the contrary, it is the expression of a sublimated femininity, a natural power within every man, but one which has been driven into the subconscious, by a society that requires men to be functional and nothing more. We are soldiers. We are lawyers. We are workers, farmers and leaders. But we must never deign to be beautiful.
On top of this, putting the sole burden of beauty on women in our society is a dreadful form of slavery. Yes it can give them a sense of power, but it degrades a human being to become nothing more than an object of physical and emotional admiration. In the same way that it degrades a human being to be forced into a purely functional role.
Only in the sphere of art do we find men and women attempting to express a balance of these powers. The balance of power that I am talking about then, is not so much between the sexes, it is actually within each of us, men or women.
So, what is this power I speak of? What can a man do to reclaim this power which was robbed from him before he was even born? The answer is ephemeral, and simple. You simply choose to be beautiful. That is not some dumb-ass hippy talk. I mean that you choose to see yourself as more than functional, as more than a cog in society’s wheel. You see yourself as an expression of life. Your existence becomes a perfect articulation of the complexity and power of living.
This WILL come across as nonsense talk and I am aware of that. But the only reason that this is the case is the deep-rooted ideology of patriarchy. Everything is functional. We live in a militaristic, feudal and industry-driven society, and we have done so for as long as our records of history have existed. It is time we faced up to it, actually, because we are too quick to pat ourselves on the back for living in an enlightened age. What we think is an age of science can perhaps better be described as an age of commerce. The Egyptians had more claim to living in an age of science than we do. As did the Persians. We live in an age where value is determined by the extent to which it amasses more value. We have lost the awe for life. We have lost the connection to the mysterious. And we therefore objectify ourselves, because we only ever actually see ourselves as functional towards a another goal, rather than simply appreciate ourselves for ourselves.
Kant said that what is beautiful is what is “disinterested.” That is, beauty is not functional. It is not something that goes towards serving another purpose other than the experience of beauty itself. Now, is it possible that what ancient peoples called God, was actually this very truth? That the bottom line fact of existence is that there is no meaning, no purpose? That in this existential truth lies the glory of human life?
There is no author of the universe, other than the universe itself. There is no meaning other than simply the experience of existing. As men, we have lost every sense of this, in a society that is determined that you place yourself in a functional role in order to be valued. What do I say to that? Fuck that.